1500: Surveying operation commences. Point taken by the USCGC Mackinaw, USCGC Spar, and the USCGC Biscayne Bay. Six UIU fast picket boats—piloted by the Chicago MOOT under the direction of lead SAC Law—provided additional coverage, with a MH-65 Dolphin deployed from Coast Guard Air Station Detroit for aerial surveillance.
1540: MH-65 reports visual contact with a small plane that does not have its transponder active, nor respond to hailing attempts. Pursuit is nixed in favor of the operation. Plane quickly disappears from view, heading east.
1620: One hour and twenty minutes into the operation, Mackinaw reports disturbances on the lake-bed at a depth of eighty feet, consistent with that of a shipwreck. External Consultant V.H. dives to inspect the disturbance.
1622: V.H. reports a positive confirmation of Subject V. The entity appears to be in an inactive state, with most of its interior purposefully flooded. Preparations for forced dewatering begin. Coast Guard vessels declare all hands as a precaution.
1647: UIU dive team and E.C. V.H. guide air hoses down into Subject V, evacuating its holds of water and restoring buoyancy. Subject V begins to slowly ascend, directed by the dive team and V.H..
1659: UIU picket comm team reports chatter on Foundation encrypted channels. Soon after, MH-65 reports movement across the lake near Foundation Site-43.
1700: Subject V awakens. Tendrils of Krealite lash out from the craft, lacerating Agent Bauer's thigh and V.H.'s pectoral fin. V.H. attempts to disable Subject V by bashing its rudder with her head, but is warded away by thrashing Krealite tentacles.
1701: Subject V attempts to dive, but is prevented by the dewatering process and the air hoses lodged in its hull. It then issues a series of loud mechanical percussive sounds and radio signals before propelling itself eastward thirty feet below the surface at a speed of 17 knots (~19.6 mph). The two UIU picket boats powering the air hoses were capsized by Subject V's sudden movement.
1702: UIU picket comm team reports radio response from the shoreline. MH-65 report secondary entities ("V-1s") moving to engage allied craft. UIU Agent Doyle, trapped aboard the submerged Subject V, plants a transponder on its hull before being eviscerated by the ship. MH-65 is told to pursue the entity.
1705: Eight V-1s—six civilian speed-boats, one jet ski, and one forty-foot yacht—enter within effective firing range. The Spar and the Biscayne Bay open fire on the lead craft, scuttling it.
1707: UIU pickets engage with the enemy craft, harassing them with spell- and gun-fire. two speed-boats were capsized, but a jet-ski was able to flank one of the pickets and fire a harpoon from a Krealite barrel lodged in its fuselage. The organic harpoon speared through Agent Kennedy's sternum and into the hull of the picket.
1708: SAC Law utters an incantation and summons the spirits of the drowned, sinking two more speed-boats under the weight of the damned. The jet-ski dives underneath the picket and breaches on the other side. The harpoon's line goes taut and flips the fast picket over, capsizing the craft and sending three agents into the water. Agent Carpenter attempts to rescue Agent Kennedy before he drowns, but is unable to remove the harpoon. The manido take the body.
1710: The MH-65 reports the heading of Subject V as it crosses the American-Canadian border. It is on a course for the Foundation convoy as it heads north, intercept in less than two hours. A second MH-65 is deployed from Air Station Detroit for medevac.
1712: The Spar fires upon the yacht, which receives minimal damage, regenerating quickly. The yacht responds with a salvo of bone harpoons aimed at the seamen on the deck of the Spar. Two men were injured, one critically, in the exchange. The yacht begins to reel in the harpoons, accelerating with intent to ram the Spar head-on.
1712: Picket is able to rescue the three agents in the water, before being accosted by the final motorboat. Alchemist Dent siphons fuel from the picket's tank into the water, transmuting it and portions of the picket's aluminum hull into napalm jelly, setting it alight with a match. The motorboat is unable to avoid the burning water, with the organic portions of the hull quickly set aflame. The V-1 sinks soon after.
1712: Consultant V.H. collides with the hull of the yacht, destroying its rudder and altering its trajectory, receiving minor wounds to dorsal region in return. The Spar accelerates at full power, narrowly avoiding collision.
1714: With the other V-1s neutralized, the three Coast Guard ships and UIU pickets focus fire on the yacht, which is unable to retaliate under the withering gunfire and is destroyed.
1720: The second MH-65 arrives and medevacs the injured to Station Harbor Beach.
1725: The fleet reforms and matches Subject V's speed and course. The top speed of the Coast Guard vessels are just able to match that of the entity, so interception before Subject V engages the Foundation ships is determined to be nonviable. The pickets are ordered stay with the icebreakers, as they are outmatched in firepower if they engage the tugboat alone.
1731: External Consultant V.H.'s echolocation detects manido below her. Communicating with the water panthers, they express a desire to help and remove Subject V and its influence from the lake. After conferring with SAC Law and Mackinaw Captain Wilson, V.H. accepts the manido's offer.
…
1830: Biscayne Bay reports visual confirmation of Foundation ship, which is already engaged with Subject V. SCPS Taiga Tumble appears to be listing to starboard, with heavy damage from Subject V's organic cannons. An OSAT picket is observed sinking a hundred yards to the south, with no visible survivors. Several more V-1 instances are swarming the Taiga Tumble.
1831: Captain Wilson orders the Mackinaw to engage with the secondary crafts and aid the Tumble, leaving the Spar, Biscayne Bay, and UIU pickets to Subject V.
1832: Crew-members of Spar report aircraft engine noises above them, growing in pitch. MH-65 confirms, reports visual contact on aircraft confirmed the stolen C-64 Norseman, flying at a steep angle of attack towards SCPS Taiga Tumble. MH-65 fires on the plane and punctures the canvas frame in several places, but is unable to neutralize it before it collides with and breaches the hull of the Taiga Tumble.
1832: Subject V fires upon the Spar with its cannons, causing several barnacle-like growths to impact the ship, quickly growing and consuming the hull. Attempts by Guardsmen to remove these growths resulted in assimilation, with their removal only accomplished by flamethrower.
1832: Guardsman Ellis on the Biscayne Bay aims a repurposed MK-153 SMAW at Subject V, firing after finding their footing. The rocket destroys much of the aft section of the paranormal tugboat, causing Subject V to veer off course before grabbing a nearby V-1 and assimilating it to repair the damage.
1833: Tendrils from the remains of the C-64 aircraft move through the hull breach and withdraw a struggling woman, later confirmed to be Foundation Doctor Karen Elstrom. The woman resists, drawing a pistol from an ankle holster and fires it several times into the aircraft, to no visible effect. The floatplane peels itself from the hull of the Tumble, and attempts takeoff with Elstrom within it.
1834: Subject V breaks away from the Spar to follow the C-64, but is struck by two manido, developing a list as they claw at its keel.
1835: While Subject V attacks the manido, SAC Law and her MOOT team covertly sneak aboard Subject V via jetpack. It notices them, and attempts to attack the squad, but is quickly halted by the team utilizing wooden stakes inlaid with silver, hammering them into the tugboat's wooden surfaces. Subject V becomes immobilized.
1835: MOOT prepare a ritual to exorcise Subject V.
1836: MH-65 pursues the Norseman, and fires at the flaps and floats of the craft with the precision rifle, trying to avoid injuring Doctor Elstrom. She can be seen within the cabin, restrained by flesh and sinew, though appeared to be quickly sawing through it with a small knife. The Barrett punctures one of the floats, which begins to leak a mixture of water and intestines.
1836: SAC Law quickly advances to the boiler room. Though nearly incapacitated, Subject V resists.
Captured Body Camera Footage
[Agent Law is breathing heavily, the sound nearly overpowered by the firing of naval guns and monstrous roars coming from the exterior. She is gripping her rifle as she is surveying the room. The tugboat rocks from the waves and gunfire.]
Subject V: GET. OUT.
Law: Why? Got something to hide?
[Law edges towards the boiler, and uses the barrel of her rifle to undo the boiler's latch, letting the hatch swing open. She jumps back as a gout of flame blinds the camera.]
Subject V: You will die a thousand deaths and experience a thousand pains before you part me from my Andreea, wretch.
[Law doesn't respond, instead slinging her rifle over her back and grabbing a nearby shovel. She inserts the shovel into the boiler, raking through the coals. A thin tendril of flesh shoots out from the flames, but is stopped by her Kevlar vest. She grabs it with a gloved hand and tears it away from her.]
Law: [puffing] Really don't want me down here, huh?
[Law stops digging for a moment as the shovel impacts something with a musical chime. She uncovers the object, and reveals a 1.5-foot diameter pneumanite crystal buried in the clinkers, wrapped in flesh tendrils and tubules.]
Subject V: Witch. Do not.
[Law reaches into her pocket, and withdraws the finger of Jacob Cooper. She throws it into the boiler, and it lands onto the pneumanite shard, falling into it as if the shard was water. The pneumanite begins to glow white.]
Law: Jacob Cooper, Rise.
Subject: Cease your insolence, livestock, these souls are mine and mine alone.
[The head and shoulders of Cooper peel themselves away from the pneumanite as his personality matrix reasserts itself. It stares at Agent Law.]
Subject: …Please?
Law: I have taken over control of this ship. I order you and your crew to evacuate under penalty of death.
[Cooper smiles. The smile seems to be doubled a dozen times, each mouth slightly different.]
Cooper: Yes, Captain.
[The pneumanite crystal glows brightly, blinding the camera and giving SAC Law mild burns. A wind picks up within the boiler room, growing in strength until it sounds like the wails of a hundred ghosts.]
Subject: NO.
UNKNOWN: YES.
Law: Begone.
1840: A small explosion occurs in the boiler room of Subject V, incapacitating it. The remaining V-1s seem to seize up, unable to move under their own power, causing some minor collisions. They are dispatched with relative ease by the combined forces of the UIU, Coast Guard, and Foundation. The Norseman crash-landed five-hundred yards southwest of the battle, Elstrom having taken the controls after Subject V's incapacitation and gently crashed the craft. Elstrom was discovered treading water, aggressive but generally unharmed as she was medevaced by the MH-65.
