“Yes…” the tone of Archibald’s voice left something hanging in the air between them, something odd, indefinable and caddywumpus to the world they knew. The sudden appearance of this ship was most confounding, and neither man could imagine what it might be. Yet as time passed the ship loomed ever closer, their disquiet increasing with the growing size of the vessel.
“My God, Chief. Just look at her… Look at the damn thing. It’s massive! Why… it looks to be twice our size.” At a little over 455 feet in length, the sleek Empress of China was longer than most battleships of her day. She was sixty feet longer than the Kearsarge, Illinois and Maine class battleships of the US Great White Fleet, and the equal of the newer American battleships in the Virginia and Connecticut classes.
Yet the ship they were looking at now seemed much bigger. Kirov was all of 830 feet long, easily twice the size of any ship of that day, and at 32,000 tons full load there would be no ship to match or exceed her displacement for another two decades when HMS Rodney and Nelson were commissioned between the great wars. The US Navy would not have anything that big until the North Carolina Class battleships and, though not as heavy, Kirov was still a hundred feet longer than those ships. Only the Iowa class battleships recently faced in battle would exceed the Russian battlecruiser in length, or the massive RMS Titanic soon to be laid down in March of 1909 in the UK, and that by only fifty feet.
“That has to be the largest vessel I have ever laid eyes on!”
Now they could clearly see a white flag with blue St. Andrew’s cross in a bold “X” of the Russian Navy flying from atop the main mast.
“Either my eyes have failed me as well, sir, or that’s a Russian naval ensign there.”
“Russian? I know a few ships escaped from the Japanese and have been interred in places like Manila and others, but something this big? It’s unheard of! Anything that big at large in the Pacific would be well known by now. This is astounding!”
They watched as the approaching vessel drew ever nearer. “Mister Robinson. I think we’d best contact Dutch Harbor. Send that we’ve encounter a large warship, massive; apparently Russian. Send these coordinates. They should still be able to receive us. That ship looks to have business with us, and I’m feeling just a wee bit wary of that at the moment.”
“It doesn’t look like we can outrun her, Captain. And we certainly can’t outgun her. Why presume she would be hostile?”
A minute later they saw the ship winking at them by lamp.
“I’m getting a lamp signal. There, sir. Right amidships. They appear to be coming around in a wide turn now. I think they mean to come alongside us.”
“Mister Robinson. Send for Mister Cooper, and tell him he’s to bring his sidearm to the bridge, and three stout crewmen.”
It seemed a feeble precaution given the size and vastly threatening look of this ship, but the Chief nodded and went to see to the matter. Never a dull day at sea, he thought. But what in God’s name is this thing come up from Neptune’s locker? It’s a dragon, a real beast of a ship, and in ten minutes the damn thing will be right off our port quarter!
* * *
“Well Mister Rodenko? Seeing is believing.” Karpov folded his arms, smiling for the first time in a good long while. “The HD video feed was one thing, but there’s nothing like the evidence of your own eyes.”
“I’ve come to believe the impossible many times over on this odyssey, sir. But are we wise to make such a close approach to this ship?”
“It clearly poses no threat, Rodenko.”
“Of course, sir. But what will they think of us?”
Karpov looked at him, considering that. “They will think they are seeing the largest ship in the world, Rodenko, and I intend to give them a good long look. Come about and reduce to match their speed at 16 knots. Maneuver to come along side that ship at 200 meters.”
“Very well, sir.” Rodenko seconded those orders, though he had real misgivings. “You realize that they’ll report our presence here.”
“Of course they’ll report it. We’re likely to be the most memorable event of their voyage.”
“Well do we want word to get out, sir?”
“Why not, Rodenko? We’re here, are we not? We were obviously displaced to this year by that last detonation. It appears that nuclear weapons play havoc with the tick of Mother Time’s clock. I’ve read some theoretical papers about it, though Fedorov would probably give us an earful if he were still here.”
“I wonder how he fared in his hunt for Orlov?”
“That was ridiculous. What difference would Orlov make in the world? It was just a waste of time and resources. That control rod should have been left here aboard Kirov where we could have put it to much better use.”
“It seems as though we got our chance anyway, sir.”
“We did, Rodenko, but I was remiss in thinking this single ship could confront the entire combined Allied fleet in 1945. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that. But perhaps my own bull headed determination to make that engagement was the real deciding factor in all of this.”
“I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”
“Don’t you see, Rodenko? I had the right idea to oppose the Americans—but not the right time or place. Had we shifted just a few years further back in time as before, I could have used this ship to determine the outcome of the Pacific War. Fedorov believes our action in the North Atlantic prevented the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and brought the Americans into the war early. Even so, the Japanese seemed to be making a pretty good go of things at the outset. Then we showed up and Volsky sailed us right into the middle of a major Japanese offensive! We unhinged the whole scope of their operations and, in doing so, we inadvertently restored the balance of power in the Pacific. The Americans were able to establish themselves in the Solomons on Guadalcanal and defend that outpost. Then the rest of the history played out as before. Our arrival again in 1945 may seem like happenstance, but what if it was not? What if it was meant to happen this way?”
Karpov had a distant, searching look in his eyes now, as if he were coming to this conclusion for the first time, and suddenly seeing the possibilities inherent in the moment—endless open possibilities, for now he found himself in a most interesting position in time.
“It’s 1908, Rodenko! Nicholas II holds power in Russia now. The events of the early revolution, Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg and the October Manifesto have only just transpired a few years ago. The First World War won’t begin for another six years! The Bolsheviks don’t throw out the Tsar until 1917. At this point in time we could make decisive changes that would affect the history of the entire 20th Century! Think of it.”
Rodenko did think on it, but the memory of that awful atomic blast and mushroom cloud still haunted him. “I mean no disrespect, sir,” he began, “but haven’t we done enough harm to the history of the 20th Century? I mean, what will happen there in 1945 now that we’re gone? What happened to Orlan? We destroyed that American battleship, but will they just leave it at that if they sink our comrades?”
“That undoubtedly happened,” said Karpov. “Orlan could not survive what we were facing. It would have taken virtually every weapon we possessed to overcome the American navy there. I’ll have to live with that, and with what we saw happen to the Admiral Golovko. That we avenged in kind, but this situation presents all new possibilities.”
“But we have no idea how that intervention changed the history after we disappeared in 1945, sir. What if the Americans retaliated? They also had atomic weapons. Something tells me that all we did is make things very much worse than they might have been. They knew we were Russian, sir. We barely scratched their fleet in those engagements, but our actions left behind deep distrust, if not outright enmity between the US and Russia.”
“We left nothing behind that was not destined to be born in any case, Rodenko. You remember the history of the cold war. The Americans will oppose us until it comes to the final war in 2021. And that, I’m afraid, we wil
l lose. Once the US establishes itself as a world power it will not be defeated by an external power.”
“Unless it goes down with the rest of the world, sir. Isn’t that what we saw when we shifted forward in time? Isn’t that why we sortied in the first place—to try and prevent the destruction we saw?”
“Correct, but once again, we had the wrong time and place. The Fleet was no more capable of effectively opposing the Americans in 2021 that we were in 1945. Yes, we hurt them in both engagements, but they can replace their losses and carry on. That is not the case for Russia. The losses we sustained were decisive. Volsky has nothing left to fight with now, unless Admiral Kuznetsov survived. So that war comes down to bombers and missiles. And I’m willing to bet that you are also correct that we caused more harm than anything else by our actions in 1945. The Americans will take a hard line with Stalin from the very beginning. It was the wrong place, but now we are here, Rodenko. 1908!”
“I’m sorry that I don’t know the history of these years well, sir.”
“We just took a licking in the Pacific that stopped Russian expansion into Manchuria. It wasn’t the Americans this time, but the Japanese. They kicked our ass in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904. You remember your studies at the Naval Academy, yes? The battle of Tsushima Strait was fought three years ago. It was bad enough that the Japanese were able to destroy our 1st Pacific Squadron and take Port Arthur. My God, they even shelled Vladivostok! Then the Tsar dispatched our Baltic Fleet and it sailed 18,000 miles to even the score—but was utterly defeated in the Tsushima Strait. That broke the back of Russian power in the Pacific, and it became the dawn of the Rising Sun. Japan emerged on the world stage as a major power. It was truly shocking that a small country like Japan could best us in battle like that. We had one of the strongest navies in the world before that war. Yet when it was over we were reduced to the status of a third rate power at sea.”
“I remember now, sir. Yes, the only naval force Russia has now is bottled up in the Black Sea.”
“Not so, Rodenko. See that ensign flying up there?” Karpov pointed to the Russian Naval Jack flying proudly from the mainmast of the ship. “That steamer over there has undoubtedly had a good long look at our flag by now, and the world will soon come to know and respect it once again. Russia may have lost her old Pacific Fleet, but now she has a new one!”
Rodenko gave the Captain a wide eyed look. “But sir… You mean to intervene here…after what we just went through?”
“Where else? We’re here, are we not? There is no Rod-25 aboard, and unless we run afoul of another volcanic island ready to blow its top, here is where we will stay. I suppose I could play a little Russian Roulette and fire off another tactical warhead to see if that moves us again, but who knows, Rodenko? For all we know we could just be blown deeper into the past.”
Rodenko scratched his head, realizing that the Captain made a good point. They were trapped in 1945 until the nuclear scalpel sliced open the time continuum again and…and now they were here.
“What do you propose we do?” Karpov continued. “We could take Admiral Volsky’s approach and go find an island. Yes, we could choose any little Pacific paradise we desire, take it, hold it, and live out our lives while the history rolls forward to whatever doom awaits it in the future. Or…we could use the power we have now to decisively change the course of those events. The US has not yet established itself as a great Pacific power. The Japanese have only just made their appearance on the scene. This world has nothing to oppose us but old pre-dreadnought battleships half our size! There aren’t even any aircraft to worry about. The Wright Brothers have just developed their first flying machines. The skies are completely empty here! Understand? We can outrun any ship that tries to approach us, and destroy any vessel we encounter with a single missile or torpedo if we so choose. We aren’t facing a desperate battle in 2021, or 1945, where we must fight for our very survival. It’s 1908, and here—here this ship is invincible!”
Part IV
Changes
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things… Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
— Apple, Inc.
Chapter 10
“Turn the page, please. Yes… there in the right hand column. See for yourself… Page 363.” Kamenski pointed out the reference in the Chronology Of The War at Sea, and Admiral Volsky squinted, needing his reading glasses, but what he saw filled him with foreboding.
“Dear God,” he breathed. “Karpov engaged the US Pacific Fleet!”
“Apparently so.”
“He sunk the battleship Iowa…” Volsky read silently, a sadness rising in his eyes like a shadow. “I see…” he breathed heavily. “Then it appears that Karpov has fallen back on his old ways. He obviously did this after he took the time to deliver that letter to us, which means he deliberately sortied into the Pacific again to confront the Americans.”
“It appears that he bit off more than he could chew this time.”
“And he used a tactical warhead, just as before. But my God! The American reprisal against Vladivostok was terrible! Wasn’t that enough, three of our ships for one of theirs?”
“Actually the score was somewhat more even. I believe your enterprising Captain also sunk an aircraft carrier, several destroyers and a couple cruisers. It seems he was a very busy man. And in that final battle the Iowa scored a hit on what they describe as a Russian destroyer and broke its back before she, in turn, was sunk.”
“By an atomic weapon! I might have known Karpov would revert to his old ways. A bear is a bear, whether it is hunting for honey, fish or foul. But if the Americans bombed Vladivostok, then what are we doing here? How is it the history has survived to bring the two of us here like this? The odds against it ever happening would be staggering.”
“Hiroshima is a thriving modern city today. The same for Nagasaki. The Americans destroyed both—at least in one rendition of the history. We rebuilt the city, or so I have learned. In fact, should you discuss the bombing of Vladivostok in 1945 with anyone else in your headquarters here they will already know about it.”
“You remember Hiroshima? No one else seems to here. I let it slip once…Pearl Harbor as well, and all I got were blank stares.”
“Yes, I remember Hiroshima, and Pearl Harbor as well. They happened in the old world you and I left behind so long ago. No one else here will know about them, though they will know that Vladivostok was bombed in 1945.”
“They have seen this book of yours as well?”
“No, they don’t need my book, it is all the world they have always known, the world they grew up in. It’s all history to them. You and I were the only ones in the dark, Admiral, because we’re from another world, in a manner of speaking.”
“I don’t understand. You are saying they already know what Karpov did?”
“Certainly, just ask your Chief of Staff, or anyone else around here. They will know the history you just read, though that reference mentions nothing about Karpov. It was very vague, simply describing a Russian flotilla. They will know that history recorded an engagement between Russian ships and the US Navy in August of 1945, but nothing else—not the way the world used to be before Karpov vanished and appeared in 1945, the world we came from. That is reserved for old grey heads like yours and mine. For them, nothing has changed at all.”
“How is it we know differently?”
“Think about that, Admiral. You know a world where you sailed quietly out of Severomorsk to conduct live fire exercises. Then you know the world you came back to when you returned to Vladivostok. Now you know this world, the world after Karpov’s intervention in 1945, though you have probably been too busy to read up on things. Perhaps there are more worlds we will come to be acquainted with. I have lost track of them as they go by.”
“But Talanov does not know anything of Kirov’s displacement in time. He has no idea what really happened after we left Severomorsk!”
“He wasn’t even assigned here in that world. Talanov was in the Baltic, but he doesn’t know or remember a single minute of that old life—the life before Kirov vanished. When it happens, when things change, no one knows it except a very few. Talanov lives in the bliss of unknowing. He looks around at the world and accepts it as a matter of fact. It was always this way, the history he knows. Vladivostok was destroyed by the Americans in 1945. It’s history as it reads now, at least for the moment, and he has never known otherwise.”
“Then he could not perceive the change? Three days ago Karpov was here and nothing I just read in that book had happened. Talanov knew that world too, and in that world there was no such event as the destruction of Vladivostok by B-29 bombers. Are you saying he has no recollection of that either?”
“Precisely. Yet how is it you know these things, but he does not? This is your next question. Yes? Well, I cannot be certain, but I believe it is because you have moved in time, Admiral. You are a member of a very select group of people on this earth who have actually displaced in time. Somehow the contents of your brain are not affected by these changes. It is as if you reside on some safe spot in the time line of events now, like the eye of hurricane or the center of a whirlpool on the sea. It is a dead zone, a zone of calm and stability, and yet a place where any possibility could manifest at any moment. You are there, safely aware of all your experiences and free from the ravaging hand that rewrites history each time a crazy sea Captain decides to take on the world.”
Volsky gave Kamenski a long look, his eyes narrowing. “You say I know these things because I have traveled in time. Very well, let us assume that has something to do with it. But how is it you know these things, Mister Kamenski? The last time I looked you were not on the crew roster of Kirov.”
Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) Page 8