Second Front (Kirov Series Book 24)

by John Schettler

“We’re making for Irkutsk, on orders from his highness.”

  “I’m countermanding those orders?”

  “You? Well I can’t say Karpov will take a liking to that.”

  “Nor I, but it’s imperative that I get to Ilanskiy.”

  “Karpov’s there—or at least I’m told he will be. I hope you’re prepared to deal with that when you get there. Was this his doing? To pull me about by the nose like this, and then relieve me? I never thought the bastard really trusted me. Once a Volkov man, always a Volkov man, or so I’ve heard him mutter at times. I should have known better when he gave me this ship. He’s pulled the same thing that Volkov did, just using me for his devices and then, here you come, in that nice new uniform, to take it all away.”

  “Captain,” said Fedorov. “I have no designs on making a career in the Siberian airship fleet, nor did I really come here to relieve you. I am Captain Anton Fedorov, off the battlecruiser Kirov, presently operating off Sakhalin Island. I just need your ship to get to Ilanskiy.”

  “Battlecruiser Kirov—that’s the ship we’ve heard all the rumors about. Men say it has the Japanese all riled up. I’ve had the watch over Lake Baikal for three months, and they’ve doubled down on their troop deployments there, that’s for sure. So you need my ship? Why not fly off in that contraption you came in on?”

  “It hasn’t got the range. We’ve already come all this way from the Sea of Okhotsk, and can go no further. So I need this airship, but I’ll want your cooperation in managing it, and your crew. I can navigate, but I’m no airship Captain, rest assured. I don’t want your job.”

  “Mother of God,” said Symenko, a light of understanding in his eyes now. “You’ve gone and pulled a fast one on his lordship, is that so? It’s true that he wants the lot of you rounded up and hauled off to Irkutsk, isn’t it.”

  “Is that where he wanted us? It doesn’t surprise me, but I have another mission, and it simply won’t wait. Now… I’ll need this airship turned around and headed to Ilanskiy—right now. Will you give the order on that telephone to the bridge? If not, I’ll have to send Sergeant Troyak and Mister Orlov here to see that it gets done, and that could get… uncomfortable. You get me to Ilanskiy, and this ship is yours to do whatever you please, but now please. Give that order.” He gestured to the telephone.”

  “He says please, does he? No pistol at my head, is it? I rather like your style, Captain. Why are you so hot and bothered to get to Ilanskiy, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Later. I’ll explain everything on the way there.” He waited.

  “You realize you’ll meet his Lordship there, and aboard that bloody fleet flagship of his—Tunguska.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “And if he doesn’t take a fancy to my docking on the tower?”

  “I’ll deal with that later. For now, Captain, if you please?”

  Symenko gave him a narrow eyed smile. “You starting your own private war with Karpov out here? Good luck, Captain. Alright. I’ll give the order, so long as you have one of those Marines point a rifle my way. I’ll need to say it was done under duress, you understand. Because Karpov will want to see me about what happens here, won’t he, and I can’t very well just say I ferried you out here because you asked me so nicely.”

  Symenko reached for the telephone and rang up the bridge. “Helmsman, this is the Captain. Come about and resume our original plotted course to Kansk. 3000 meters, and ahead full.”

  * * *

  Over 1800 kilometers to the west at Novosibirsk, Vladimir Karpov was clearly not happy. He had just received an emergency action message from his elder brother aboard Kirov. The planned rendezvous at Ilanskiy was cancelled. Instead he was to take Tunguska southeast to Irkutsk, but not until he could post a strong airship patrol over Ilanskiy. It had come in on the radio, and his brother had explained the problem.

  “I’m still at Novosibirsk,” he said to the Siberian. “We were going to leave for Ilanskiy at 18:00 tomorrow.”

  “Well, leave now,” his brother self insisted. “It’s Fedorov. You were right, brother. We can’t trust that bastard.”

  “Fedorov? What has he done this time?”

  “He’s up to his old tricks again.” The Siberian explained what had happened, and what he had ordered Symenko on the Irkutsk to do. “No one goes down that stairway at Ilanskiy. Understand? And we’ll need a strong airship patrol there.”

  “That business with Angara got your dander up?” said the younger self. “Did you get my report on the wreckage? There was clear evidence they were hit with large caliber rounds.”

  “Yes, yes, we can go over that later. For now, Ilanskiy must be adequately garrisoned against any similar incursion, and I want you to round up Fedorov and the others.”

  “The others?”

  “Orlov is with him, and Troyak with four Marines.”

  “I see… That won’t be easy, brother. Troyak could be a problem.”

  “Don’t worry about it, they are all already under custody on the Irkutsk. Just get over there, and bring the whole lot to our new base at Okha on Sakhalin island. We’ll talk privately there, and I’ll fill you in on all the details.”

  “Alright, but I’ll need to take on more fuel. It’s 1400 kilometers to Irkutsk from here, but I can leave in two hours.”

  “And Ilanskiy?”

  “I have Riga and Narva with me. I’ll send them both.”

  So even as Fedorov sped west towards Ilanskiy, Tunguska would be heading the opposite direction towards Irtutsk. Narva and Riga were much closer to Ilanskiy at Novosibirsk, but they were both in the process of replenishing, and planned to leave in two hours. It was going to take Fedorov just under 18 hours to reach Ilanskiy, and even with their delayed departure, those two airships would reach their defensive posting in just eight hours.

  Miles to the north, another airship drifted through the grey mist over a long winding river. Hauptmann Karl Linz was studying his charts as he peered at the river below. They had been following the Yenisei for some time, waiting for it to branch off to the east in the Angara. If they continues south, it would take them to Krasnoyarsk, and only about 120 kilometers west of Kansk. But that route was always closely watched by flights of roving aircraft from the fields near Krasnoyarsk. Taking the Angara tributary would see them moving almost due east, about 230 to 250 kilometers north of Kansk. A good compass was all he needed to navigate south, and they had scouted the route earlier.

  He was following charts that had been provided to him by Otto Kluge, the Kapitan of Fafnir, for he was commander of her sister ship, Fraenir, out on its maiden voyage.

  Kluge got an airship out here on his first sortie, he thought. Maybe I’ll get lucky too. His chart says to follow this river and look for a knob like bend at the small village of Pinchuga. That’s where I make my turn. Perhaps we’ll sneak into Ilanskiy and give them a nasty little surprise.

  What he did not know at that moment, was that a pair of good fighting battleships were already en route to Ilanskiy on Karpov’s orders, and when he got there the reception was likely to be none too cordial, particularly after the loss of the Angara. Even so, the presence of this massive new German airship was going to factor heavily in what was now to happen. Karpov’s bombing run over Germany would have repercussions he could have never imagined when he first ordered the bombs to fall.

  As for Fedorov, he realized that he would likely meet opposition at Ilanskiy, both in the air and on the ground. So he had no intention of trying to take the airship in close to the town. He would leave it to Symenko, and take to the ground east of Ilanskiy, along the same route they had once planned for their raid. There was a full Siberian Division at Ilanskiy now, and that became his next problem. He would now be trying to do what Ivan Volkov, and all his legions and airships had failed to do over a long year of struggle. But they had slipped in once before, and with Troyak, they would try once again. Everything depended on them doing so successfully, or so he believed, even though h
is nemesis, Karpov, saw things in an entirely different light.

  Yes, they would try once again, and he had a plan….

  Even as he thought that, other men were thinking too, and asking questions, serious men, and very far away. He would never hear their voices; never know what they would say, but his life would be profoundly affected by what they concluded. For they, too, had plans of their own—plans that could put an end to the long debate and mounting tension between Fedorov and Karpov, but in a way neither of them would ever expect.

  Part XII

  The Wolf

  “To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely…”

  ― O.R. Melling

  Chapter 34

  “You say you detected a British Submarine? Finding such a submarine is not remarkable, but firing at it with a Special Warhead—that is another matter. I suppose that is wartime doctrine, but given the circumstances, it was most unwise. Strange that we have had no reports on any of this, and it is certainly something the British would know about if you did this. Yet they haven’t made even the barest whisper of a protest. So this is all very confusing.”

  Gromyko shifted uncomfortably, waiting. The questions had been routine at first, but now they were getting to matters that were rather delicate. In fact, he had already said too much here. How much more should he reveal? What could he really say to these men—that he had been using a charmed control rod in his reactor and slipping about through time? …that he saw the world destroyed in a future that was even now right at the edge of events grabbing headlines all across the globe? …that he fled from that nightmare into the midst of yet another war, the Great Patriotic war, where he was bravely taking the fight to Russia’s great nemesis, Germany… until a British submarine intervened.

  This was madness. It barely made sense to him at the moment, and he had lived through it all, hour by hour. Should he start over, from the very beginning? Should he tell them how he was summoned to the Sea of Okhotsk, and how the Admiral came aboard to brief him on a very secret mission? His remarks about that British sub had given up the game. Now they will have to know all the rest, and they could simply go mad right along with him.

  Misery loves company.

  His presence there was yet another mystery—or was it? Mister Garin, his Chief Engineer, had reported that Rod-25 was showing signs of physical damage. They had to retract it into a rad-safe container for further examination and analysis before attempting to use it again. So no, it was not Rod-25 that was the culprit this time. They had blown a hole right through time with one of their own torpedoes! It had happened in the heat of that last engagement with the German fleet in the Atlantic, and he was still trying to understand what had actually occurred there.

  One minute they were feasting on the German Navy, the next minute his Sonarman Chernov was hearing a modern day British sub in the water, and Spearfish torpedoes followed soon after that report. He had reacted on pure reflex, an instinct born of long hours at sea in the heat of combat. That part was still clear in his mind:

  “Launch noisemaker sled number one. Right rudder fifteen, down bubble fifteen! Rig for emergency silent running!” His own voice had been strident but sharp and firm. Kazan maneuvered like a shadow, its engines suddenly stilled, a great dark whale rolling over and slowly diving into the depths of the sea. At the same time, a special port on the nose of the ship launched a screw-driven sled, which trundled forward on the sub’s original course, leaving a trail of sound behind it designed to imitate the sub’s normal operating acoustic signature. The Matador twirled his cape, spinning deftly away from a threat he presumed was imminent—pure reflex.

  He never had time to consider how that threat could possibly be there. That long honed instinct knew one thing: if Chernov was correct, and he was hearing a British Astute Class sub, then they most certainly heard Kazan as well. Those Spearfish torpedoes in the water had put the final word in on that argument. Nothing could be more real than a weapon intending the death of your ship—the death of every man aboard—your death.

  “How far out are they?” He had asked Chernov.

  “Quite a ways, sir. Sound Track has them at an estimated 30 klicks.”

  They would be difficult to fool with the noise sled, he thought. We might get one to take the bait, but the other? The calculus of war was running through his mind in those few brief seconds. That was all the time he had to keep death at bay. Think! React! He remembered it all so very well….

  What if I ran now? We’ve got about ten more minutes until those fish get close. They’re moving at 150kph! If I go all ahead full at 65kph now, I could run another twenty kilometers. That would put those fish right out near their maximum range, and well beyond their wire guided segment when they catch me….

  “Secure silent running!” he said suddenly. “All ahead full battle speed!”

  Kazan lurched ahead, her powerful engines straining. If Chernov’s read on the firing range was correct, things would be very close. The entire situation had now spun off in a wild twisted gyre of chaos. One minute it was WWII he was fighting, the next it was WWIII. It was the same shock that had just come to Kirov in the Pacific, though Gromyko knew nothing whatsoever of Karpov’s duel with Takami. Just the same, for him two wars were underway at the same time. He was either going to be dead in the next ten minutes, or someone else was. It came down to that single glaring choice.

  The best defense was always a good offense, he knew. Those bastards are out there now, grinning at the other end of that fiber optic wire, and as long as that silent devil of a sub is out there, my life will not be worth five rubles. That sub is just too quiet. It’s a miracle Chernov heard the damn thing. If they don’t get me today, they’ll certainly try again tomorrow. He knew what he would do if this were 2021. Time to get serious…

  “Load tube number one,” he said, his voice hard and low. “Special warhead. Mister Belanov,” he turned to his Starpom, “stand ready to initiate permissions sequencing.”

  He reached for the Hammer of God….

  He had fired his Type 65 torpedo, back along the axis of the undersea enemy attack. Soon, he thought, the sea will erupt with Neptune’s wrath.

  It sounded like a great kettle being struck when it happened. Nearly a hundred meters deep, the 20 kiloton warhead went off with a resonant boom, the immense sphere of expanding gas and vaporized seawater creating a tremendous shock wave in all directions. The enemy Spearfish careened wildly off course, its sensitive sonar pummeled with the wrenching sound, dumbstruck.

  Gromyko knew his torpedo would take too long to reach the enemy sub, but he only needed to get close. The shock of the warhead would expand out several kilometers, and all he needed was to get some of that awful explosive force close to his enemy to hurt this sub.

  He didn’t really know what happened, but they could hear it. There came a rending sound, so deep and terrible that every man on the boat covered their ears, their faces taut with pain. It was a sound from another place, the moaning agony of eternity, long and distended, the meridians of infinity being wrenched and twisted until they broke.

  The fissure opened, and Ambush plowed right into the expanding wave of shimmering phosphorescent plasma. It was as if the edge of that fire was the maw of some great wrathful sea demon, opening to consume the submarine. Ambush’s rounded nose vanished at the glimmering edge, soon followed by the long, bulbous body of the vessel, which plunged right on through a deep rupture in time, rent open by the violence of the explosion.

  Then all was silent….

  They had come to their senses, the tension slowly winding down, the boat slowly regaining its normal operations. But they were no longer there in the strange dream they had been sailing through—not with Fedorov, and Volsky, and all of WWII. In time he sent an encrypted message, hoping to make contact with Kirov again, but someone else answered, and when they did, Gromyko realized his strange ride on the sliding bo
ards of time was not yet over. It was Severomorsk! They were no longer there in the old war, but home again, in the year 2021.

  The warhead, he thought, that had to be the cause. That explosion must have opened a hole in time. It’s the only thing that can account for my presence here, for I must have sailed right on through that hole. One minute it was 1941, the next minute 80 years had passed and Kazan was adrift in the eerie quiet of an empty sea, and it was 2021.

  He thought that world was long gone. After they had first shifted out, Gromyko had reached some unseen future, where the world he had come from was utterly destroyed, burned black to char, smashed by the final war they were facing when they first slipped away with Admiral Volsky. Yet there he stood, with a message in hand from Severomorsk, and one that was very insistent. Kazan was ordered home at once, and so there he was, sitting in front of the naval review board, answering questions put to him by these three blind mice.

  He was trying to figure out how he might explain this whole incredible odyssey to these three men in drab grey suits and heavy overcoats, each one marked with the insignia of the Naval Intelligence arm of the Navy. A nice little lynching party these three would make, he thought.

  “I am trying to understand this,” said the first. “You say you fired this warhead, and then this British submarine simply disappeared?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then it was destroyed by your torpedo?”

  “Possibly. All I know was that we had no further contacts. In time I ran the boat shallow to send out a signal.” Never mind that it was meant for Fedorov and Volsky, he thought to himself. But imagine my surprise when I get orders from Severomorsk in reply!

  “Yes… We heard your signal. In fact, it was long overdue, and the navy was beginning to wonder what had happened to you, Captain Gromyko. Now you appear with this report of an incident with a British submarine, yet the British will not confirm your story, not even on the most discrete back channels where truth is sometimes told when it matters. One would think that the detonation of a 20 kiloton nuclear warhead might matter, particularly in light of the news today in the Pacific.”