“Shall I send Sergeant Troyak, sir?”
“Send Zykov. He’s been moping over losing Orlov, so it might do him some good.”
“You haven’t exactly been cheery since we got the news he was missing,” said Malkin.
“It was a hard blow, Captain. I came all the way from Vladivostok in the year 2021 to get here and find that man. To have him in custody and lose him at the last minute like that was hard to bear.”
“I understand, sir”
But Fedorov did not have to wait long for good news. Zykov was soon on the short range communications system through his service jacket and reporting something that brightened Fedorov’s mood considerably.
“Well I’ll be a donkey’s ass, Colonel! I have Orlov here on this damn Soviet trawler! He’s with two other men in NKVD trench coats, but they have on khaki uniforms beneath. I think they are British soldiers! They looked as though they were going to put up a fight, but the 50 caliber machine gun convinced them that would be most unwise.”
“British?” Now Fedorov was completely stumped. What would British soldiers be doing in a Soviet trawler on the Caspian Sea? How did Orlov get there? He gave orders for Zykov to lead the trawler over to the Anatoly Alexandrov at once, and rushed to the communications room.
“Have we raised anyone on shore yet?”
“No, sir. We’ve been sending standard hails to the naval facility at Kaspiysk, but we get no answer.”
“Anything on radar?”
“It has not been functioning, sir. We are only now starting to get coastal returns as the system reboots. The sea around us appears clear out to 15 kilometers, and our range seems to be increasing by degrees as time goes by.”
It was just like the slow recovery of their electronics aboard Kirov, thought Fedorov. All the signs were indicating that they had shifted in time, but where? Now that they finally had Orlov, his mission was successful, but did they get back home to 2021? Was the world still there waiting for them? Then he felt compelled to go and see Orlov when he came alongside the facility, and he rushed down to the lower decks.
He soon caught sight of the big Chief, his head crowned with a black Ushanka and wearing an NKVD trench coat like the others. The two men had not seen one another for long months, but it seemed more like the centuries that had separated them. As the Chief came up the ladder Fedorov could not suppress a smile.
“My God, Orlov. You are one hard man to find! Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”
“I knew it would be you,” Orlov said sullenly.
“You knew it would be me? Then why didn’t you make contact? We lost good men searching for you here!”
“That should be obvious. I didn’t want to be found, Fedorov. You’re just going to drag me home to stand at a court martial. The prospect of a life on my own was much more appealing.”
“I’m not here to judge you, Chief. Just to find you and bring you home. Do you have any idea what’s been going on since you left the ship?”
“Of course not! I’ve been dragged from one ship to another, transferred from the Spanish to the British to the Russians and now apparently back to the British again before you came along.”
“Who are these other men?”
“Hell if I know. They gunned down a pair of Marines Zykov attached to me and led me off at gunpoint. I was planning how to ditch them and make another getaway. Then Zykov showed up again. That man is like a bad shadow.”
The corporal smiled at that. “I could smell you, Orlov, even that far away,” he jested.
“Is that so? Well there were three of these others until just a minute ago. You’d better have a good look around, Zykov. You lost a fish! One man probably went into the water when they saw you coming.”
Zykov’s face reddened, and he quickly shouted orders to a handful of Marines, telling them to get out in rubber rafts and search for the man.
Fedorov folded his arms. “Well, what were you trying to pull jumping ship in that KA-226?” He was justifiably upset with the Chief.
Orlov pursed his jaw, expecting this question and ready with an answer he hoped might better his situation. “What do you mean? I didn’t jump ship! They wanted an Oko radar panel up on that mission and the goddamned technicians didn’t have the correct cables installed. So I grabbed the hardware with some tools and boarded the helo to finish the job. The stupid pilot reported a fire on his control panel and it was playing havoc with all our electronics. I was spending too much time on the bridge when this whole thing started. I should have been down below decks knocking heads together. Then maybe the damn equipment would work.”
“That’s why you didn’t respond to our hails?”
“Of course! The radio was dead, Fedorov. That should be obvious.”
“But Karpov said you were deliberately jamming us. I had to have Kalinichev isolate the jamming frequencies to try to track you.”
“Yeah? The system came on by itself. It was probably that fire, but who the hell fired those missiles at us?” Orlov knew the best defense was a good offense. “We were trying to get control of the chopper. I look over my shoulder and see a fist full of S-300s coming at us! Thank God I had the presence of mind to have a chute on and jumped before you blew us to hell. The pilot wasn’t so lucky. Whoever gave that order to fire has that man’s blood on his hands.”
Fedorov was shocked to hear Orlov’s version of those events. The story was entirely plausible. They had reacted to the incident on the spur of the moment, and with the pressure of their race to Gibraltar and the British fleet bearing down on them. He was new to command, somewhat rattled, worried over what Orlov might do or what might happen if the technology on that helo survived intact. He had given the authorization to fire, and Karpov was only too happy to oblige. Now he felt a tinge of guilt over how he had handled the matter. Orlov in a helicopter heading away from the ship was one thing, but seeing him here now put a human face on it all. He looked tired, disheveled, dragged half way around the world from where he leapt to safety, just as he had said.
“We… we didn’t know, Chief. We thought you were abandoning the ship. The helicopter had advanced technology aboard. There was no way we could allow it to possibly fall into the hands of the Spanish or anyone else in 1942. You know what we decided with Admiral Volsky.”
“It was Karpov, wasn’t it? That little bastard had it in for me ever since he tried to take the ship. He wanted to blame that all on me. I noticed how he wheedled his way back onto the bridge in no time at all, while I was rotting in the brig, busted, and sent down to the Marines.” He looked at Zykov now, who had been listening to all of this with some amusement.
“No offense, Zykov.”
“None taken, Orlov.” Zykov grinned. “But you mean sent up to the Marines, yes? I have a bone to pick with you for making me take that damn train ride all the way from Vladivostok to find you here. We never leave a man behind.”
“What do you mean? Vladivostok? You made port there?”
Fedorov took a moment to explain some of all that had happened after the Chief left the ship, and how Kirov eventually returned to Vladivostok. He also told him there was a big war brewing, and possibly underway now.
“It’s too complicated to go into all of it, Chief,” he finished. But we used that same control rod off Kirov to get back here and rescue you. If what you say is true, then there will be no court martial. You can come home, Chief, come home where you belong. There was nothing you would do here but cause trouble, eh? And we’ve meddled with the history enough as it stands. It was my aim to find you and bring you back home. We found your service jacket.”
Orlov laughed at that. “Very clever, Fedorov. I forgot it could track my location. Well I stuffed it down that Commissar’s throat to try and be done with this whole affair.”
“You killed the Commissar?”
“Of course!”
“Why? What did he do to deserve that?”
“What did he do? He bothered my grandmother for starters, and that was eno
ugh. You think he was some kind of angel? He was herding young women for Beria—you know the history. I just did the world a big favor by choking the life out of that man, that’s all.”
Fedorov knew that was probably true. Molla and so many others like him had caused nothing but pain and misery, just like those NKVD men Fedorov had confronted on the journey west, and they had been responsible for the suffering and death of tens of thousands. Yet who knows what Molla did to keep the world on the course it was sailing. Killing him, removing him and all his ancestors from the time line was one thing—restoring the lives of all he may have killed, and adding in all their offspring was quite another thing! It had enormous ramifications as to how the history might play out. He tried to explain this to Orlov, but the big Chief just shook his head.
“How many Germans did our boys just butcher with this little amphibious landing, Fedorov? What about them? What about their lives and children and all their grand children as well? Don’t think I’m some kind of madman or monster here. I satisfied myself with Molla; you’ve done much worse. You should have just left me alone here if you were so worried about your precious history books.”
Again, Fedorov could feel the iron in Orlov’s words, because he was correct. What did he think he was doing launching this much force at the history to try and save just one man? He had placed the burden, and the blame for the entire war, on Orlov, but the Chief made a good point. There was no way to know whether he was responsible for any of the events that were unfolding in 2021, or for those blackened cities and coastlines they saw.
Now he came to doubt everything he had been doing, from the very moment he was elevated to command of the ship. They had all looked to him to solve everything, to explain everything, to figure out what was happening—but he was just a navigator! He really didn’t know why any of this was happening, why Rod-25 worked its magical effects. That was just one part of the mystery. What was going on with that back stairway at Ilanskiy? He had ideas about that, thinking it might have something to do with the big explosive event at Tunguska, but it was nothing more than his own wild speculation. There was no way to figure all this out. They just had to live through it as best they could.
Now the weight of the history he so loved seemed an impossibly heavy burden on his small shoulders. He thought he might blame Orlov, and now he was thinking it might all be Karpov’s fault. Yet behind it all was a nagging doubt that he was just as responsible as either man, and that if there was any fault to find here, he had best begin by looking at himself.
He shrugged, suddenly feeling weary beyond measure. Looking around him he saw all the men and equipment gathered here, all scrapped up by Admiral Volsky to make certain he might be safely recovered. Now the elation in finding Orlov was replaced by a feeling of profound discouragement. No matter how hard he tried, he realized there was no way he could navigate the dangerous reefs of all the history to unfold from 1942 to 2021. For that matter, he didn’t even know where they were!
“Well…” He looked at the two British soldiers, realizing this was yet another problem in his column, and another man was missing as well. They were obviously from 1942, and now they were his charge. How in the world would he get them back there where they belonged? He couldn’t think about that just now. His mind was too full of other urgencies and priorities. First he had to find out where they were.
“Zykov, have these two escorted to a secure room below. I’ll see if we have someone who speaks English aboard and check in on them later.”
Then he gave Orlov a long look. “We’re all tired, and you look like you could use a good meal, Chief. Follow Zykov to the mess hall and get something to eat.
He looked at the corporal now. “He is not to be handcuffed, and he is to be accepted as a member of this crew, with his full rank of Captain restored.”
“Very well, sir. A promotion and a good meal will do any man some good, yes Orlov?”
“Right,” said Fedorov, “but don’t get pushy and start ordering the men around. And promise me you won’t jump ship!”
“Where are we, Fedorov? What is this thing?” Orlov gave the facility a wide eyed look.
“The Anatoly Alexandrov. It’s a floating nuclear power plant. We’ve got that control rod aboard, and we just used it to displace in time…somewhere. I’d better go and see about that while you eat with the Marines. You’re Captain of the second rank now, though I’m afraid Kirov is a little far away for us to still call you the Chief of Operations. I may still do so by habit for a while.”
“Where is the ship—at Vladivostok?”
“We don’t really know…”
Orlov raised an eyebrow at that, nodding. He had not expected this grace. Fedorov, naive as he was, had bought his whole pile of shit and paid full price! Good enough. He would go have some food, get some sleep, and then figure what he might do next. For now, however, there was one part of him that was glad to be home. He started after Zykov, who was showing him the way.
“Welcome back, Chief,” said Fedorov after him, and something in the sincerity of the other man’s words touched him. He turned, forcing a smile on his otherwise grumpy and miserable face.
“Thank you, Fedorov,” he said in return. He didn’t know why, but he meant it.
Chapter 26
Troyak was watching the coastline closely with his field glasses as they approached. They had taken a high speed swift boat that had been part of the Aist hovercraft inventory, and now he was with Fedorov and a squad of his best Marines. They could not raise anyone on radio, and so the only thing to do was to go ashore in a landing party. Fedorov was leery of using the Mi-26 at this point, so the boat made perfect sense. It was small, much more inconspicuous than one of the hovercraft, and fast enough to get them ashore in good time.
“Well at least everything is here, Fedorov. The coastline doesn’t look developed like it should be in our day. Do you suppose this is still 1942?”
“Then where are the Germans we were just fighting? They would have taken the port at Makhachkala by now. The warehouse by the rail station was on fire and we should still see it burning. I see no sign of fighting ahead.”
Troyak nodded, but had nothing more to say.
“Look, there’s the new lighthouse they built in the 1800s.” He pointed to a hill rising from the shore where an octagonal tower stood with a lantern fixture at its top. “That’s Aji-Arka Hill. I’ve been up there before. Peter the First made his camp up there when he mounted his campaign against Persia in the early 1700s. The place was just a small fishing port at that time.”
Troyak was amazed at all Fedorov knew. “How do you manage to fill your head with all these facts, Colonel?”
“I just read a lot, Sergeant. Reading is my way of getting into worlds I might never have a chance to visit in the flesh. And sometimes it can be a very pleasant time to escape into the past and leave the sorrow and pain of routine navy life behind.”
“Yes, until you actually do start visiting that past and find German infantry shooting at you.” Troyak smiled. “The past has seemed far more dangerous than the life we had on the ship, Fedorov.”
“I suppose that’s true…But where in hell have we ended up this time? Can you make for that sand bar south of the harbor?”
They eased up to the shore, and Troyak’s Marines fanned out, much to the surprise of a group of fishermen who were working to untangle their nets. Nothing in the landscape looked right to them, and Fedorov knew they were certainly not in the future. He could see rows of small buildings made of sun-dried brick, what looked to be a small public bath house, a few open water pipes where people would pump water, and few buildings of any real size.
It was clear that a railway like the one they had just been defending was getting started here, but it was much smaller. Fedorov had the sinking feeling that reminded him of that moment when he had stepped outside the dining room at Ilanskiy and saw the rail yard was different, the train was missing and the whole town site reduced to a cluster of j
ust a very few buildings. My God, he thought. We’ve gone back in time, not forward!
He approached one of the fisherman, who stepped back, somewhat intimidated by his uniform and the obvious military bearing of the Marines.
“Good day, sir.” Fedorov removed his Ushanka, trying to appear less threatening. “We are Navy sailors and our ship had foundered on a Caspian sandbar. We’ve lost our navigation charts in a bad storm. Can you tell me what port we have found here?”
“What port? Why, this is Petrovsk. Where have you come from?”
Fedorov was confused at first. Petrovsk? Then he realized that was the old name for the port and town that became Makhachkala, but the city had not been called that since the late 1920s! He needed to find out the date. “We put out from Astrakhan some weeks ago, but the sea has not been kind to us. Our ship ran aground and it has taken us many months to refloat it. What is the date? What has been happening? Have we slipped into another year while we were struggling at sea?”
“Another year? No. it is still the summer, July if you want to know. The weather should tell you that much.”
“And the year?”
The man gave him a perplexed look. “1908, of course! You must have been at sea a good long while if you are that confused.”
Fedorov half expected to hear that. The clues were stacking up in his mind, one after another, and things were now starting to make sense. Dobrynin told him that Admiral Volsky had confided something about the control rods they were sent.
“These are very unusual,” he said. “The inspector General looked up the source materials, and they have some very strange trace elements that were mined near Vanavara. You know the place—it is very near the Stony Tunguska in northern Siberia!”
That word spoke volumes of untold mystery in Fedorov’s mind. He had been fascinated by the Tunguska event since he was a young boy, reading any story he could ever find about it. The largest impact event in recorded history, it was felt over a wide area, its effects lighting up the skies as far away as London for days after, and it had just happened, if this fisherman was correct. If this was early July of 1908 they might still see the effects in the sky after dark, even this far south.
Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) Page 21