“How many missiles do we have remaining?” He shouted over the growing noise of the oncoming planes.
“Sir, I read 96 SAMs still remaining and ready to fire.”
But there was a second group of aircraft off their starboard side, the planes off Ticonderoga and the remainder of Sprague’s carrier group, at least 160 or more contacts. He was now being attacked by nearly 280 enemy aircraft, three planes for every missile they had on the primary SAM system. They had 56 more missiles on the Kashtan system, and 8700 rounds on the 30mm Autocannons. If it came to that things will be very bad, he thought. Very bad indeed.
Sheer mass and brutal determination had been at the heart of war fighting in this era. In the beginning the Germans danced and maneuvered, running armored rings around their sluggish opponents. Four years later the allies were a massive juggernaut, virtually unstoppable, and relentlessly grinding down their enemies by the sheer weight of massed fire and steel. The Americans had beaten down the Japanese by simply out-producing them, building hundreds of ships and thousands of planes. And when Japan finally sent her last armored gladiators out, Yamato and Musashi, the Americans simply swarmed over them with relentless air strikes, like bees against a lion. Yamato was hit by eleven torpedoes and six bombs before her magazines exploded sending a mushroom cloud six kilometers high that was seen over 90 miles away in Japan. Musashi was even tougher, and took 19 torpedo hits and 17 bombs before she finally capsized and sank.
Any ship could be sunk, Yeltsin knew. Look what happened to Admiral Golovko when the Americans scored just one lucky hit—more a fortunate miss, as they probably never even saw the stealthy warship. They had been firing at the much larger silhouette of Kirov, and simply missed, the rounds falling short to strike Golovko by sheer chance. It will only take one or two hits to do the same to us…
Now the harsh logic of war was apparent to him. His ship was never meant to oppose this many targets. It was designed to fight as an integrated part of a surface action group, with fighters from the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov overhead and the support of four or five other ships all contributing to its survivability. Orlan was meant to fly with a flight of other proud eagles, and without them the ship was doomed. Where was Kirov?
“Radar, report surface contacts aft.”
“Sir, my scope is clear. I read no surface contacts on the aft quarter.”
“Sonar! Go to active search. Report any contacts within five kilometers of the ship.”
Sir, aye, active search….” There was a brief delay as the sonar pinged out its plaintive call, still echoed by the communications officer as he continued his hail: “Orlan to Kirov. Come in, Kirov. Requesting battle orders. Over. Orlan to Kirov. Please respond. Over. Where are you, Kirov? Please come in…”
“Sir, I have no undersea contacts within five kilometers. Continuing search.”
Where are you Kirov?
Karpov had said something that he suddenly recalled now:
“There is one thing more…Should it come down to nuclear weapons, I must tell you that our experience leads me to believe that our position in this timeframe could be affected by a detonation.”
“What do you mean?” Yeltsin still had the same question in his mind now “Affected in what manner?”
“It is impossible to say. We have already seen how a massive release of explosive energy sent us here. A nuclear detonation, close enough, could send us somewhere…else…”
Clearly it has sent you somewhere else, Karpov, but it left us behind…unless…Might another nuclear detonation blow a hole in time for Orlan to sail away to safety? His statement to Karpov had carried that hope.
“Perhaps this might also be a way for us to get back to our own time again.”
“That thought occurred to me,” said Karpov. “We might kill two bears with one shot. If we do have to teach the Americans a lesson, and it changes the history in our favor, that will be one thing. If it also sends us home, so much the better.”
“And if it puts two thousand men in an early grave?”The voice of Doctor Zolkin echoed in his mind now. “What then, Karpov?”
What then?
Should he follow Karpov’s lead and blast the oncoming American strike wave from the sky? And what about those fast battleships out there chasing him at 33 knots? He had sixteen missiles and he had seen Karpov put six Moskit IIs on the American battleship. It was still firing before the final blow ended that battle! He had three special warheads as well. He could use one to deal with the contacts to the southwest. The ship’s missiles could then be concentrated on the remainder of the Halsey air group.
Then there would be two madmen at large in the history, he thought grimly. He looked at the men of his bridge crew, tense yet alert, performing their duties by reflex, following the protocols of their training with expert skill. His ship was also answering the call of war, engines strong and running full out, weapons firing with smooth efficiency, missile after missile, each one killing a man out there in the wild sky—a brave, brave man who may have lived a long and happy life were it not for the obscenity of this moment, this awful blight on the face of time.
Karpov has done his worst and then he leaves me here in the soup, he thought. What should I do? Do I fight to preserve the lives of my ship and crew, and at any cost? The light gleamed on his high forehead, the years taking most every hair that once grew there in his youth. He was a veteran of twenty five years in the Russian Navy, in line for a promotion, ready to add another stripe to his cuff and sew in a bigger star there as Rear Admiral Yeltsin. What did any of it matter now? Was he fighting for Russia here? Would anything he or his ship do here matter under the crushing weight of the decades to come? Something told him that he could only worsen the fate of his nation if he added to the grievous harm Karpov had already done.
He decided.
Yeltsin walked slowly over to his executive officer and quietly told him to summon the ship’s chief engineer, Yeremenko. When the man arrived on the bridge the missiles were firing fast and furious from the destroyer’s forward deck, streaking out to find and kill the American planes. One missile—one kill. The math was ruthless and unerring, yet with each kill the number of missiles remaining ticked one notch lower.
“Yeremenko,” Yeltsin said quietly, his voice low so that no other members of the bridge crew could hear him. “I need you to prepare to scuttle the ship.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Yeremenko. The battle looks to be a glorious event out there now as our missiles punish the enemy at range like this, but the ammunition is limited. The range is closing fast. I calculate that even if every missile strikes and kills an enemy plane, we will still be attacked by well over a hundred aircraft in the next twenty minutes. Our autocannons may get five or ten more, but the rest will get their chance with us, and I expect we will be hit. You saw what happened to the Admiral Golovko.”
“Yes sir….But what about Kirov? The men say they cannot see the ship off the bow any longer.”
“We don’t know what happened. We have no radar contacts and there is nothing wrong with the Fregat system. The ship vanished shortly after that detonation, yet we remain. Yeremenko…The Americans must not be allowed to obtain the technology aboard this ship: the computers, weapons systems, reactors, warheads. Understood?” He finally got to the heart of the matter.
Yeremenko gave the Captain a wide eyed look, realizing what he was saying. The Captain did not believe they would survive this attack. How was it possible, a ship like Orlan taken down by the old planes like this flown by men who were grey haired great grandfathers before they were even born? Yeltsin was telling him the worst. The ship would have to be destroyed. There must be nothing left for the Americans to find, because if they were ever to salvage their wreckage they could leap ahead decades in a single bound. Yet the next obvious question came to him, and Yeltsin saw it in his eyes even before he spoke the words.
“But… But what about the men, sir?”
Yeltsin just looked at him, s
aying nothing, and Yeremenko knew that they, too, could never be taken alive by the Americans. The Captain continued.
“Is there a way we could use one of the special warheads?” Yeltsin’s eyes were searching now. “It would be quick, complete, and painless. It would be over before anyone knew it was happening—perhaps just like the fate of the Americans out there. An eye for an eye…”
Yeremenko was silent, nodding after a moment, his eyes heavy with grief. “I will do what I can, sir. I think it can be arranged. But is there no other way, Captain?”
Yeltsin had no answer, no alternative. “Carry on, Mister Yeremenko. We may have very little time.”
Lost in eternity, but with no time to spare. Now they had to hasten to arrange their own demise! The irony of the situation cut Yeltsin deeply as he turned away, the sound of the missiles firing now a strident rebuke.
Chapter 5
Tibbets was up early that morning, watching the ordnance crews in the secret hanger on North Field, Tinian. The whole squadron was flying today. The call had come in late the previous night, and they were told to be ready with all planes—including those of the 509th Composite Air Group with their special “Silverplate” bomb bay modifications.
They were stuffing something really sinister in the belly of his plane today, he knew. He wasn’t sure what to expect, really, but he knew it would be spectacular. The briefing and training he had completed had prepared him for the most difficult job any man could ever be asked to do—deliver the bomb in an act of supreme hostility to beat down a defiant enemy with overwhelming force and more violence than he could possibly imagine.
His plane had come all the way from Wendover Army Air Field in Utah, hopping to Guam and then on to Tinian where it arrived July 6. They changed the plane’s tail symbol and Victor number, and then the long training runs started dropping pumpkin bombs over Japan, big fat high explosive conventional bombs that looked almost identical to the thing they were loading that day. He had hit Kobe and Nagoya with a couple of practice runs, but they were cities. Now the word came down that he was being sent up to go after ships at sea!
“Who ever heard of a B-29 being sent out to look for a ship, Deak?” he said to Captain William S. “Deak” Parsons, who would serve as the Chief Weaponeer on the Enola Gay that day, arming the bomb in flight to avoid any mishaps on takeoff.
“Sounds as crazy to me as it does to you,” said Parsons. “But that’s our primary. They’re sending the whole group up.”
“Well, hell, I thought we were supposed to go with just three planes?”
“They want the sky full of wings,” Colonel. “Scuttlebutt says these ships are using some slick new rocket weapon for air defense. They chopped up a couple carrier air groups the other day, and so now they think if they put enough B-29’s up there it will increase the chance of our plane getting over the target safely.”
“I’m not sure whether I should be reassured by that or not. But look, Deak, we never trained to hit a fast moving target at sea. I was supposed to put this thing on a city.”
“You may end up doing exactly that,” said Parsons. “Halsey is out after these Russian ships now, and he’ll likely get the job done before we even get there.”
“Yeah? Then why all this theater?”
“Because the Russians lobbed one of these things Halsey’s way this morning, that’s why…” He thumbed at the special ordnance pit where the bomb they had come to call “Little Boy” was still sitting ominously on its trailer cradle, ready to be loaded into the plane.
Tibbets gave him a look of real surprise. “The Russians have the goddamned bomb?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“And they used it on Halsey?”
“Fired the damn thing from a rocket, but it didn’t hit anything. Word is it was a deliberate show of force to try and get us to back off. They think the Russkies want all of Hokkaido, and that they sent these new ships of theirs out to warn us off.”
“God almighty…”
“You’ll hear all this in the pre-flight briefing, Colonel. I got it through back channels. I may even be shoveling shit here for all I know. But I think you’ll have a secondary target on this mission too, in case we can’t find these Russian ships or Halsey gets to them first. Hell, we’re out here loading for bear, but they may even call the whole damn mission off. We were going to hit Japan last week, and that never went down.”
The sound of a siren blowing in the distance pulled their attention to the command barracks at the other end of the field. Tibbets looked to see something odd there. They were lowering the flag to half mast. The only other time he saw something like that was when FDR died. What was going on? A jeep was racing across the field right towards their hanger, and the two men stepped outside as it came rolling up in a billow of dust. The driver was an Army Air Corps Sergeant, who saluted crisply.
“Colonel Tibbets, sir?”
“Yes, I’m Tibbets.”
“I’m to tell you your mission is on, sir, and the pre-flight briefing has been moved up.”
“Moved up? When is it scheduled?”
“Right now, sir. I’m your wheels to the briefing bunker. Haven’t you heard, sir?”
“Soldier, I’ve been locked up in this hot house of a hanger here for the last five hours. Heard what?”
“The Iowa, sir. The Russians dropped the bomb on the Big Stick. She’s gone, sir.”
Tibbets gave him an incredulous look. “Gone?” He looked at Parsons. “Come on, Deak, we’ve got a briefing to go to. Let’s get a move on.”
The two men were up and on to the back of the jeep and it sped away, across the wide airfield for the command bunker. Tibbets folded his arms, jaw set, and looked over at Parsons.
“Secondary target? What do you figure this is all about, Deak?”
“Well I thought about that when I heard the rumor, and I could only come up with one name on the list of potential targets.”
“How do you call it?”
“Vladivostok…”
* * *
After Airman Bains pulled the firing lever he felt an sudden lift as the heavy ASM-N-2 BAT bomb fell from the fuselage of his Helldiver and ignited its rocket engine. Lord almighty, he thought as he watched the ponderous weapon surge ahead. He had lined it up right on the target, and the radar was supposed to do the rest. Kirov would have seen to it that the radar was useless—but Kirov was gone, and the technicians aboard Orlan had not had time to reprogram their jammers for the odd frequencies the Allies were using. The Bat Bomb had eyes, and it forged on beneath the flights of dark blue planes, its radar seeking the slippery target ahead.
Even lined up on the ship when fired, it was still hit and miss. The system was in its infancy, the first radar guided missiles ever deployed. The odd contours and radar scattering coating on Orlan’s hull and superstructure made it very difficult to acquire, but in a strange quirk, it locked on to a low flying Avenger coming in to make its torpedo run on Orlan, and was homing right on its tail!
As the weapon approached, the skies above and around the ship were bursting with fire, scored by missile wakes as the shorter ranged Kashtan system engaged with its combined missile/cannon close in defense. Yeltsin had been correct. The enemy planes in Halsey’s second wave had been heavily engaged by their medium range SAMs, their ranks thinned appreciably with over seventy more kills. But now the missile count ran down to just 24, and the last of Halsey’s brave wing was overhead, diving on the ship even as radar reported another 160 aircraft at twenty kilometers and coming at 400kph. In three minutes they were swarming over the ship as the Kashtans fired full out.
The missiles found two dozen planes, the cannons snarled at one after another, dropping six low flying torpedo planes off the starboard side. They saw the single Avenger hurtling in low some twenty degrees aft and the system rotated quickly, its great robot arms swinging the six barreled Gatling guns around to spin out a hail of 30mm rounds. They hit the Avenger, and it fire-balled before plummeting
into the sea. The gun shifted quickly to the next target, its barrels steaming as they lifted up to fire at a swooping Hellcat trying to deliver a 500 pound bomb. The burning Avenger briefly masked the Bat Bomb, and it came barreling in to smash Orlan on the aft quarter, blasting the thin composite and aluminum hull with a 1000 pound bomb. Bains never saw the weapon hit. He had already turned for home, but he heard the radio chatter of his fellow aviators call out the hit, and crossed his fingers, hoping it had been his bomb that scored the kill. His luck was still good that day.
* * *
Orlan shuddered with the hit, a billowing cloud of dirty brown smoke enveloping the aft quarter of the ship when the bomb went off. The ship rolled with the impact, listing to the port side and then rolling back again, and speed fell off noticeably. The bomb had blown right through the hull, immolated three compartments there, ruptured the main deck, blasted away the helicopter on deck, and now a raging fire started. The speed deficit resulted from thick shrapnel blasting downward and striking the propulsion drive shafts, many decks below. They had almost blown completely through the ship. Another ten feet and the bottom of the hull would have been breached.
It was a near mortal blow but the Sea Eagle was still alive. Chief Engineer Yeremenko felt the blast as he was working in the engineering bay. He had managed to get one of the special warheads mounted on a test bench and was performing a manual arm routine with three technicians when the ship jolted with the impact of the Bat Bomb. It was agonizing work. The technicians with him thought the Captain had ordered the warhead made ready to use in the growing fight, but Yeremenko knew the worst. It wasn’t for the Americans this time. No… This time it’s for us. All of us.
He found it difficult to look the other men in the eye, and was increasingly nervous. There was just one further step he needed to perform. He would have to hot-wire the warhead on the test bench to a live fire control system on the ship, but he did not want to do this in front of the other men, for obvious reasons.
Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) Page 4