Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14)

by John Schettler

  It was all too much for him to contemplate, and thinking about it left him feeling a deep sense of impending doom, a sense of dread that was now dogging his mind, ever since Tyrenkov had come out with that question.

  Could I find a way to somehow avoid that awful moment when the line of my own fate might become hopelessly tangled? We were only there for a very brief time, twelve days before the ship vanished again into that bleak future. If I could find a way to be somewhere else for that brief, twelve day period, then it was another long year before Kirov appeared in the Tyrrhenian Sea—safe ground. It was August into September of 1942 when they fought in the Med, and eventually made their way out towards Saint Helena, and that harrowing sojourn to the Pacific. Again, the ship was active in that year for only a brief period of time. That was when Fedorov began to piece together the clues that began with that twelve day interval on the time shifts, which eventually led us to Dobrynin’s maintenance procedure, and Rod-25. What was it about that control rod that caused it to open time?

  By the time inspector Kapustin had determined the origin of the materials used in that control rod, Karpov was already well out to sea in Kirov, leading the red banner fleet in that impossible journey that saw him face down the powerful American Pacific Fleets, and in two different eras. So Karpov had no inkling yet that Tunguska had anything to do with Rod-25’s unusual effects. Nor did he understand, really, why this time rift had formed on the plane of this stairway at Ilanskiy. He only knew that men who walked those stairs moved in time. He also knew that violent explosions could cause similar rifts. The Demon volcano had sent him to 1945, and nuclear explosions had also been involved in moving the ship to different eras.

  That thunderstorm moved Tunguska, he knew. What else could account for my presence here in 1909 now? Could I move that way again, or was that a random event that might never repeat? Suppose I did get safely back to 1941 before the date of Kirov’s first arrival. Would I spend the next weeks and months reviewing weather reports and chasing thunder storms? Suppose I get lucky and find one. What is to say it would not just simply return me to this year, 1909? Why should I assume I could get where I really need to go, to those days just after Kirov disappeared off Argentia Bay? That would give me another year free from this nagging paradox, but how can I get there?

  He was thinking all this when there was a sound on the stairway that made him suddenly tense up. Footsteps! Someone was there, coming down from the second floor—or from some other lodging in infinity. He reached into his pocket, hand firm on his service pistol, waiting. Anyone might be coming down those steps, by design or by mere happenstance.

  To his great relief, it was Tyrenkov, somewhat breathless himself, and flushed with urgency. The lower door opened, and he stumbled through, blinking in the light, and clearly disoriented. Then he saw Karpov sitting there just as he left him, and smiled, composing himself. The need for speed was over. He had plenty of time now—long decades, and he took a deep breath, relaxing.

  “Tyrenkov!” Karpov was up on his feet. “Thank god you are unharmed. What happened? Did you get back to 1941?”

  Tyrenkov shook his head. “No sir, not 1941, at least not any place in it that I recognized. But I did get somewhere else, somewhere much farther ahead in time, or so I believe. Everything looked … clean. The inn itself was quite different, the walls, décor, the carpeting. There was music playing, but I could not see where it was coming from. I went to the window to have a look at the town, and it is much bigger than it was in 1941. I could see people, oddly dressed, and strange vehicles. Then the train pulled into the station and the real business started.”

  “Not 1941? You are certain?”

  “The train I saw looked nothing like the cars we used on the trans-Siberian rail. They looked all shiny and new. I saw a plane in the sky—moving so fast that it left a streak in the clouds.”

  “A jet aircraft,” said Karpov matter of factly. “Then you did move much farther forward.” Karpov realized that Tyrenkov must have gone all the way to 2021, the place Volkov came from. There was already a clear connection to that year into the past, as Volkov had proven that. Yet Tyrenkov never lived in those years. He could get there safely, while when I went up those stairs, I had to appear in a time well after the onset of the war, before that battle in the Pacific against Tanner and his Carrier group. I saw only the ruin of the world, and that terrible detonation over the naval armory at Kansk. But Tyrenkov…. He could theoretically get to any date in the future after the time we vanished in that storm.

  “I see,” said Karpov. “So our little experiment was successful, at least in one regard. Time does make allowances. You were worried you might appear in January of 1941, a time when you were already alive there, but I was not concerned. I knew you could not appear at such a time. The chair was already occupied, and by your very own self. So you see, Tyrenkov, do not think harshly of me. I was not throwing you to the wolves. I knew you would get somewhere safely, but I see that it was not where I expected.”

  “Where did you expect I would go?”

  “1942—to a time after the stairway was rebuilt. That is where I must ultimately get myself. The years ahead are… problematic for me. I must find a way to avoid certain dates in the chronology—dates when I was already alive aboard my ship. But I see my experiment failed.”

  “But you can get home, sir. The stairway leads all the way to your time!”

  “I have always known that,” said Karpov quickly. “Otherwise how did Volkov get here? But I cannot get to any safe place there, Tyrenkov. I was in that world, fighting the Americans in the Pacific before I took the journey that eventually brought me here. So if I go up those steps, I must appear after I vanished from those years, and the war began in earnest at that time. I saw a glimpse of it, the utter destruction of Kansk, as I told you. Beyond that time I have also seen what happens to the world, and it is not pretty. It is no place to live. So you see, Tyrenkov, I am condemned to live out my days here in the past, if I want any semblance of a comfortable life, or if I ever hope to reap the harvest of what I know of days ahead. My only problem here are the days I already lived in the 1940s, like landmines on the road ahead for me if I ever do get back to that decade. That and the fact that I have enemies there—men like Volkov who know entirely too much.”

  Now Tyrenkov smiled. “Sir,” he said. “I have some news you will be very interested to hear.”

  “Oh? Out with it. What have you learned?”

  “While I was at that window, I told you a train pulled into the station. I watched the passengers exit, and I saw a group of uniformed men, clearly military, and security personnel. I could tell it immediately from the way they moved and acted, the way they surveyed the surroundings, watchful, looking at all the passengers. It was immediately clear to me that they were searching for someone, and the odd thing is this—their uniforms looked very much like yours!”

  “Like mine? You mean my service jacket?”

  “Yes sir, the one you often talk to near the collar. A man appeared, tall, grey haired, clearly the officer in charge of this group, and he was doing the same thing—talking to his collar. So I immediately lunged for that stairway to get back here as quickly as I could. Don’t you see, sir? You told me that there were men searching for that associate of yours—the man named Fedorov. Isn’t that what Volkov told you?”

  The light of shock and awareness was in Karpov’s eyes now.

  “Volkov!” he said jubilantly. “You believe you saw Ivan Volkov and his security team arriving at Ilanskiy!”

  “Yes sir,” Tyrenkov beamed.

  “Why didn’t you stay to try and verify this?”

  “That would have been very foolish. For one thing, I would be clearly out of place in that environment, and immediately suspect. But more importantly, I already knew that if that was Volkov and his security detail, then they were eventually going to search this inn. So I got back here as quickly as I could, to end my time line in that moment. Every second I spen
t there was a second I could not use when I go back.”

  “When you go back?”

  “Of course, sir. You see, we no longer have to waste days, weeks and months trying to find Volkov here in 1909, because now we know exactly where he is, and before he even traveled to the past! So I wanted every second possible available to me. I’ll need all the time there I can get, because next time I go up those steps, I can take a nice sniper rifle with me, and kill him—kill him right after he steps off that train, and from that very window!”

  My god, thought Karpov. Tyrenkov is correct! If that is Volkov as he suspects, than we have the bastard—I’ve got him at my mercy now, at long last. Tyrenkov can do exactly that! He can go right back up those stairs and gun him down…

  Yet even as he thought all this, his elation faded, replaced by that strange sense of impending doom again. Suppose I order Tyrenkov to do this. What then? What happens to the world they came from, the world where he spent those years from 1938 scratching his way into the position of power he now held in Siberia?

  If I kill Volkov here, then he never goes back… He never outmaneuvers Denikin, and it is then very likely that Sergei Kirov prevails over the Whites, and the Orenburg Federation never arises. That may be a most desirable outcome, insofar as our homeland is concerned. But how does it all happen? How do all the chess pieces suddenly get to new squares in the middle of the game?

  He thought, and thought. What should I do? How does this affect my own personal line of fate? Does Siberia remain independent, or does Kirov defeat Kolchak as well, and unite the entire country as the Soviet Union? If all else holds true, and I arrive at Vladivostok as I did in 1938, then what? I would have to do a great deal more there to achieve the position I have now, and I would have the tall shadow of Sergei Kirov looming over me the whole time.

  A queasy feeling stirred in his stomach now. When he first arrived here in 1909, he realized he was perhaps the most powerful man alive on earth. Yes, Volkov was here, but still unknowing, perhaps still wandering about in a fog. Sergei Kirov was here, but still a young buck, and easily managed given all I know. Yes. He was the most powerful man alive, a demigod. He could shape the contours of the world from this day forward…. He had come to the edge of a cliff in his mind, a precipice of doubt yawning beneath his feet. He had the power to change everything, but what to do?

  Strangely, it was the words of an English poet that suddenly ran through his mind now, Alfred Lord Tennyson… “Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change!”

  He decided.

  The Saga Continues…

  Kirov Saga: Crescendo Of Doom

  Tyrenkov’s trip up the back stairway at Ilanskiy has led him to a most unexpected place, and now Karpov has a moment that could change all history within his grasp, and a means of getting his revenge on Ivan Volkov. Will he seize the day? Yet Tyrenkov has also brought something back with him that is of great importance, and Karpov soon learns more of the days ahead than any man alive could ever wish to know. Even so, Ivan Volkov has plans of his own, to take a massive airship fleet to Ilanskiy and seize the day himself. Can he succeed, or will Karpov become the ruin of all he had plotted and built in his long sojourn to the past.

  Meanwhile, Anton Fedorov has a mind to become the next Lawrence of Arabia, and leads his mobile force in daring raids against the old Hejaz rail lines from Homs to Aleppo. It will bring him into contact with an old enemy, the wolf in the fold he frustrated at Palmyra. As the battle for Syria continues, Erwin Rommel launches a sudden new offensive in North Africa, and the Germans strive to crush the British defense in the Middle East in a mighty pincer attack. As these events play out, Hitler now plans to unleash his greatest attack of the war, Operation Barbarossa. The storm clouds of war darken the Russian border, and the thunder of the guns soon deafens the world, as the conflict rises in a dreadful Crescendo of Doom.

  Reading the Kirov Series

  The Kirov Series is a long chain of linked novels by John Schettler in the Military Alternate History / Time Travel Genre. Like the popular movie “The Final Countdown” which saw the US Carrier Nimitz sent back in time to the eve of Pearl Harbor in 1941, in the opening volume, the powerful Russian battlecruiser Kirov is sent back to the 1940s in the Norwegian Sea where it subsequently becomes embroiled in the war.

  Similar to episodes in the never ending Star Trek series, the saga continues through one episode after another as the ship’s position in time remains unstable. It culminates in Book 8 Armageddon, then continues in Altered States, which begins the third trilogy in the series, which will extend to at least 16 volumes.

  How To Read the Kirov Series

  The best entry point is obviously Book I, Kirov, where you will meet all the main characters in the series and learn their inner motivations. The series itself, however, is structured as sets of trilogies linked by what the author calls a “bridge novel.” The first three volumes form an exciting trilogy featuring much fast paced naval action as Kirov battles the Royal Navy, Regia Marina (Italians) and finally the Japanese after sailing to the Pacific in Book III. The bridge novel Men Of War is a second entry point which covers what happened to the ship and crew after it returned home to Vladivostok. As such it serves as both a sequel to the opening trilogy and a prequel to the next trilogy, the three novels beginning with Book V, 9 Days Falling.

  The 9 Days Falling trilogy focuses on the struggle to prevent a great war in 2021 from reaching a terrible nuclear climax that destroys the world. It spans book 5, 6, and 7, featuring the outbreak of the war as Japan and China battle over disputed islands, and the action of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet against the modern US Fleet. It then takes a dramatic turn when the ship is again shifted in time to 1945. There they confront the powerful US Pacific Fleet under Admiral Halsey, and so this trilogy focuses much of the action as Kirov faces down the US in two eras. This second trilogy also launches several subplots that serve to relate other events in the great war of 2021 and also deepen the mystery of time travel as discovered in the series. The trilogy ends at another crucial point in history where the ship’s Captain, Vladimir Karpov, believes he is in a position to decisively change events.

  The next bridge novel is Armageddon, Book 8 in the series, which continues the action as a sequel to Book 7 while also standing as a kind of prologue to the Altered States trilogy. In this third trilogy, Kirov becomes trapped in the world made by its many interventions in the history, an altered reality beginning in June of 1940. The opening volume sees the ship pitted against the one navy of WWII it has not yet fought, the Kriegsmarine of Germany, which now has new powerful ships from the German Plan Z naval building program as one consequence of Kirov’s earlier actions.

  Altered States also covers the German attack on the carrier Glorious, the British raids on the Vichy French Fleets at Mers-el Kebir and Dakar, and the German Operation Felix against Gibraltar. Other events in Siberia involve the rise of Karpov to power, and his duel with Ivan Volkov of the Orenburg Federation, one of the three fragmented Russian states. (And these involve airship battles!)

  The sequel to the Altered States Trilogy and the bridge novel leading to the next set is volume 12, Three Kings. It covers the action in North Africa, with a decisive intervention that arises from a most unexpected plot twist at the end of that novel. Book 13, Grand Alliance continues the war in the desert as Rommel is suddenly confronted with a powerful new adversary, and Hitler reacts by strongly reinforcing the Afrika Korps. It also presents the struggle for naval supremacy in the Mediterranean as the British face down a combined Axis fleet from three enemy nations.

  The Grand Alliance Trilogy continues with Hammer of God, covering the campaigns in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and Crescendo of Doom, the German response on the eve of Operation Barbarossa.

  You can enter any of these trilogies that may interest you, though your understanding of the characters and plot will be fullest by simply beginning with book one and reading through them all!

 
The Kirov Series: (Military Fiction/Alternate History)

  First Trilogy:

  Kirov - Kirov Series - Volume I

  Cauldron Of Fire - Kirov Series - Volume II

  Pacific Storm - Kirov Series - Volume III

  Bridge Novel:

  Men Of War - Kirov Series - Volume IV

  Second Trilogy:

  Nine Days Falling - Kirov Series - Volume V

  Fallen Angels - Kirov Series - Volume VI

  Devil’s Garden - Kirov Series - Volume VII

  Bridge Novel:

  Armageddon – Kirov Series – Volume VIII

  Third Trilogy:

  Altered States– Kirov Series – Volume IX

  Darkest Hour– Kirov Series – Volume X

  Hinge Of Fate– Kirov Series – Volume XI

  Bridge Novel:

  Three Kings – Kirov Series – Volume XII

  Fourth Trilogy:

  Grand Alliance – Kirov Series - Volume XIII

  Hammer of God– Kirov Series – Volume XIV

  Crescendo of Doom– Kirov Series – Volume XV

  And coming in 2015…

  Paradox Hour – Kirov Series - Volume XVI

  Discover other titles by John Schettler:

  Award Winning Science Fiction:

  Meridian - Meridian Series - Volume I

  Nexus Point - Meridian Series - Volume II

  Touchstone - Meridian Series - Volume III

  Anvil of Fate - Meridian Series - Volume IV

  Golem 7 - Meridian Series - Volume V