Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series)

by Schettler, John

  The spy pod was finally hauled up, and Karpov smiled to himself. A pity I didn’t just put Symenko in there so he could see what I did to his ship, he thought.

  Now he turned his field glasses north to see what was happening with Angara in its engagement with the Oskemen. His ship had the advantage of surprise, but that battle was still raging. That stiff prick, Symenko had talked about, Captain Petrov, was better than he expected. He had been ready on all ballast tanks and he dumped everything at once in a desperate emergency drop to try and rapidly gain altitude. He had his nose up, engines full out, good elevator control, but it wasn’t going to be enough. His ship still had nearly a full contingent of troops aboard, and it was just too sluggish with all that weight. Angara was much lighter, maneuvering in a nimble, fiery dance above the other ship and riddling the enemy’s tail fins and elevators with deadly fire.

  Both ships rose up into the grey sky, but Angara maintained the advantage of position, and so Oskemen decided to run. Karpov could see all six engines revving madly to gain power, and he saw the enemy ship level off, no longer trying to gain altitude it could never reach in time.

  “That’s right, Petrov, you son-of-a-bitch,” Karpov breathed. “Yes! You run level when outgunned from above. You get your ass out of there.” He could see Angara revving up her engines to pursue, but that ship had risen over a thousand meters above her foe and the gunfire was now less effective. Rounds were reaching the target, but exploding above and beside the enemy ship in bright angry blossoms of fire that became blackened roses of smoke in the sky.

  Karpov took one look at the Alexandra, burning forward, belching smoke from her wounded brow, flames devouring the cotton canvass envelope. He knew that ship was finished. We must have ruptured half her gas bags, he thought. They’ve lost all buoyancy and gone critical. That ship is going down.

  Alexandra had dropped too much ballast trying to climb, and now he saw men flinging equipment overboard in a desperate attempt to halt their descent, but with a full battalion still aboard the loss of buoyancy had become fatal. They could try to jettison their spy baskets and cargo lifts, thought Karpov, but it will still do them no good.

  There came a terrible hissing sound, and Karpov knew that the other ship had opened all their emergency pressurized helium tanks and were pumping it into any gas bags that were still intact. Then he heard another explosion, and saw the side of the ship burst open, revealing the duralumin frame like the bare metal ribs of an animal that had been flayed alive. A man dangled from one of the girders, then fell, a tiny speck vanishing into a cloud below with a fading scream.

  “They blew a main gas bag amidships!” said Bogrov. “Tried to pump in too much reserve helium! They’re finished now.”

  “All engines ahead full!” Karpov shouted. “Come fifteen points to starboard! Let’s get after the Oskemen!”

  He took one last look at the Alexandra, seeing the ship falling like a stricken whale descending into the depths of the sea of clouds. It was a long way down. They were up over 4500 meters, and the ship was now going into an uncontrolled descent, nose down, trailing black smoke as it vanished, swallowed by the cloud deck.

  The thrum of Abakan’s engines was a loud roar now as the airship hastened north. Karpov could see that Angara had halted her rapid ascent by venting helium to her reserve tanks and pumping air to the ballonets. Now that airship had leveled off and was also running in pursuit of the Oskemen, about 1500 meters above the enemy ship and an equal measure behind.

  “Range to Oskemen?” He looked at his gun director and had an answer soon enough.

  “Sir! I make it 5200 meters, and we’re closing.”

  “He’s going to dive, Admiral,” said Air Commandant Bogrov. “He’s going to try to get into that cloud deck.”

  Yes. Petrov was another sort. He had the nose of Oskemen down, and slipped deftly into the thickening mist. Once masked by the clouds their gunfire would not be able to sight on the target. Damn, thought Karpov. Now we will need to track them on radar. I must get to work with a way to radar control these guns.

  “Topaz system! Call out enemy contact by range and bearing.”

  “Sir! I have the range at 5000 meters, bearing 290.”

  “Gun Master. Fire on those coordinates. We may not hit anything, but we can damn well let them know we are coming. Signal Angara. Tell them to drop a thousand meters elevation.”

  They were gaining on the unseen contact, but Karpov knew his fish might easily slip off the line. At this rate Oskemen could run half an hour or more before we might make visual contact to get guns properly trained again. Petrov might even get down below the deck to prevent that unless we come down to look for him. That could be dangerous in this weather… and there is still that third ship to worry about out there. The bastard is good. He’s done everything I would have done and he just might slip away.

  The roar of Abakan’s engines was fearfully loud now. The men huddled in their heavy woolen coats, dark Ushankas crowning their heads with the flaps pulled down over their ears, warming them as they muffled the sound. The airship vibrated with the urgency of its labor, and then the engine status board lit up with a bright red light. Bogrov’s eyes flashed as he scanned the board.

  “We just lost number six engine!” he shouted over the din. He knew engineers and mechanics were already running to the scene, and they would have men out from the aft gondola hatch and down the ladder to that engine in no time, but it would be bitter cold at this elevation. They were over two and a half miles up!

  “That won’t be fixed any time soon,” he said with a shrug.

  “What’s our airspeed?”

  “80KPH, and we’ll hold that with the other five engines running full out.”

  “Topaz operator, are we closing?”

  “Range 4800 meters, but holding steady, sir.”

  Bogrov shrugged. “They’ve still got six good engines, but they’re heavier than we are. At this rate it will be a long chase if we can hold onto them. We’ve certainly got a fuel advantage. Angara is much closer. They should be able to catch the bastards.”

  “There’s a third ship out there somewhere, Captain. Any readings? Is our fighter still shadowing?”

  “No sir. They had to return to Krasnoyarsk.”

  “He could be leading us right to that number three ship. What do you figure they have, Bogrov?”

  “Anyone’s guess sir, but they did have the flagship in the western region for that conference at Omsk.”

  “Orenburg? That’s Volkov’s ship, and he wouldn’t send it out on a mission like this.”

  Or would he, thought Karpov? It was clear Symenko had more in his orders than the delivery of that diplomatic pouch. That’s why I should have shot the bastard the minute I knew he was lying through his teeth. Was he playing for time with that delivery, time for that third ship to come in at high elevation on us? No time to find out now. I’ll deal with him later. Then the Topaz operator called out a position update.

  “Sir, I think he’s descending. We’re closing on his position, but the actual range being reported is out of sync. That can only mean he’s losing altitude.”

  “Very well.” Karpov had to decide what to do. Should he go down after this ship? What could he be up to? Think! Then he realized what Oskemen was trying to do. He wants to offload his troop contingent. He’s too damn heavy to maneuver in a gun fight, and if he gets those men landward he can also climb much easier if he needs to do so. But he’ll have to hover to deploy his cargo basket and put squads down. There’s no way he could do that if we’re close. It doesn’t make sense.

  “Shall I order Angara to get down after them, sir?” Bogrov was waiting, his eye on the altimeter board. They still had no reading on that third ship. If they both went down after the Oskemen, then that unknown contact could come in on top of them and turn the tables with the same advantage that had just sent the Alexandra to a fiery death. One of his ships would have to stay at good elevation to prevent that. He decided.<
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  “Alright, order Angara to descend and pursue. We’ll remain up here on overwatch.”

  It was the only decision he could make given the circumstances, and he hoped that the moment Oskemen hovered to debark her troops, the Angara would be able to catch the damn ship in the act and make short work of her.

  But it would not happen that way.

  Already 3000 meters below them, well beneath the grey cloud deck. Petrov’s men were standing in tense lines all along the main gondola, their rifles shouldered, eyes grim and set. A loud warning claxon blared and a ripple of movement animated the troops. A gunnery sergeant bawled out an order. “Hook up! Ready on red!”

  The light came on and the men heard the aft gondola hatch open as another alarm bell rang. The Sergeant yelled out an order. “Go!”

  The first men took three brisk steps and were out through the hatch, leaping from the gondola at 1500 meters. One after another the two lines shuffled tensely forward, the boots of the soldiers loud on the deck plating as they moved, grunting with exertion. The battalion was one of the specially trained air mobile units of the 22nd that Symenko had unwisely named during his interview with Karpov. It was parachute trained, and soon the skies were blooming with soft white chutes, like a school of a hundred jellyfish drifting in the sea, with the great, whale-like shape of the Oskemen high above.

  Even as they fell, they could see the smoke rising in the distance from the place where Alexandra had crashed to earth in a fiery wreck. But many men on that ship had leapt to safety this same way, and they were already assembling into makeshift squads, and rushing for the cover of nearby trees in small groups. Only two companies made it off in time. The rest went to a fiery doom. Yet as the sun began to lower on the horizon there would be five elite companies on the ground, all assembled and ready to head south for the place they had been ordered to strike that day.

  Ilanskiy.

  Chapter 12

  Zykov looked at Troyak, a warning in his eyes. He had been working the radio equipment, shifting bands when he suddenly picked up clear signals. He tuned it in, the hiss of the interference abating as the sound of sharp voices broke over the speakers. The two men knew what they were hearing immediately. Those were the hard voiced orders of officers signaling one another on the ground, and the longer they listened the clearer the picture became. There was an operation underway somewhere ahead. Troops were assembling and moving on the ground.

  “This doesn’t sound good, Sergeant,” said Zykov. “I’ve heard three different unit designations already. There’s at least a battalion out there somewhere. Very close.”

  Captain Selikov had taken Narva to a position northeast of the village Troyak had pointed out. They were hovering at 2000 meters as Zykov tried to get through to Kirov again, when the close signal contacts were picked up, commanding his attention.

  Troyak had a restless look on his face. He had been sitting with his men for what seemed like an eternity, cooped up on a submarine and then finally back aboard Kirov again to rejoin the Marines there. They had one good fight in the Caspian that got his blood up and put that fire in the belly that he always felt in combat. Now he could smell another good fight forming out there somewhere, like a man smelling rain at the edge of a storm.

  Their Oko panel was now close enough to break through the odd interference that had been restricting its range. He already knew that there were four other airships south of them, very close to Ilanskiy, and then the radar system lost one of the contacts. He knew exactly what that meant. There was a fight underway. This was not a unified force of four airships. They were in battle, and one of them had just gone down.

  So what did all this mean? An airship duel, men on the ground shouting harsh battle orders. He could read the situation well enough, though he had no idea who might be involved. Yet it was clear that some of those airships had deployed men here, just as he was intending, and they were already forming up for a battle that he could smell coming, just as he could hear it in the radio voices Zykov had stumbled upon.

  Somebody was having a nice, private little fight out here, right in the middle of his well planned operation. The old military maxim that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy was well proven here. They had thought to slip in quietly, riding the soft grey clouds and then deploying at night. They had thought to make their stealthy approach in the darkness, infiltrating through the wooded park he recalled, just behind the railway inn. It was to be a quick mission, the position easily taken by his well trained Marines. Now what should he do?

  Troyak could hear the battle slang easily enough. There were fighting men on the ground, Lieutenants and Sergeants bawling out orders, and now they began to hear the mutter of small arms fire in the background, and the sharp pop of mortar fire through the hiss and static of the radio. It was clear that someone else had moved men and equipment to this place on airships, and a well planned raid was underway by another force. He had no idea what it could be about, though Fedorov had told him this place was very important.

  Could these men know just how important that railway inn was? Could they know about that damn back stairway Fedorov had gone down? He remembered how the young navigator, then made a commanding officer on their first mission to Ilanskiy, had told him that incredible story of what had happened when he went missing down those stairs. He had gone back to yet another time, with no nuclear detonation or control rod in the mix. It had something to do with those stairs, the very same stairs Troyak was now tasked with taking and possibly destroying here, though now the odds were shifting against his mission.

  They could not get farther south aboard the Narva, not with an airship battle underway there at the moment. Captain Selikov was very skittish about putting his ship in harm’s way, though it appeared to be well armed. That said, if anything happened to Narva, there was no way for them to get back to Murmansk, and that would be a very long walk. So Selikov was probably correct—they had to preserve their line of communications back to the home base. Narva was their only means of extraction and safe return. It could not be compromised.

  Now the situation on the ground had changed considerably. He could take his men in, deploy from here, but they would most likely soon find themselves pulled into the fight he could hear growing in those spotty radio transmissions Zykov was tuning in. He could lay low and wait things out. That battle would have to resolve one way or another, but how many troops were involved down there? Would more be coming? His orders were to report his status and let the Admiral decide whether they were to make a go of it.

  “Alright, Zykov, enough of that. See if you can punch through a signal to Kirov.”

  “Good enough, Sergeant. I’ll keep trying.”

  Troyak’s instincts were to deploy his men and go now. The lure of combat below pulled at him. He wanted to get down there and join the fray. This was obviously part of the long simmering civil war Fedorov had told him about. The thought that he might soon have to take up arms against his own ancestors was suddenly disquieting. There had been a lot of talk between the Admiral and Fedorov and the old deputy Director, Kamenski. They had been trying to sort through this impossible puzzle and find a way to put the pieces back together again.

  Troyak knew that if he took his men down there he would find no friends on the ground, even if every man was a brother from his homeland. They were all dead and gone before he was ever born, but they were Russians nonetheless, and he would be forced to make them his enemies if they came between him and his objective.

  Now strange thoughts that might bother Fedorov came to his mind. What if someone down there is sitting quietly on the tree of life in the branches below where he and his men now sat? He doubted if there was anyone down there from the Chiuchi peninsula where he had been born, but he had men here in his contingent with roots from all over the homeland. What would happen if one of their great grandfathers was down there, and they died here in this fight?

  He shook his head, realizing that those were useless tho
ughts. He had enough to worry about if he took his Marines into battle. The bullets and mortar rounds would be more than enough, clear and present dangers that would quantify themselves in bright red blood when they struck home. An unseen death of annihilation because of all this time business was not anything he could fathom or worry about now. Yet the thought of killing his fellow Russians if it came to it did give him some pause.

  Time passed, and Zykov’s eyes seemed clouded over with frustration. He looked up at Troyak, shaking his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “We can receive now, but I just can’t seem to get a signal through on any of the military bands that Nikolin will be monitoring. The interference is very close. Its clouding over here, at the source—not out there somewhere.” Zykov pointed plaintively.

  Troyak nodded. So it wouldn’t be up to the Admiral or Fedorov after all. Orlov would throw his two cents in, but Troyak had his orders. I was to make the final decision if we were unable to get through. Orlov was not to be considered in command. So it’s down to me now, he realized, not the Admirals and Captains and deputy Directors. It’s down to a Marine Gunnery Sergeant with a hankering to get on the ground and kick some ass.

  And that was exactly what he was going to do.

  * * *

  In Russia they were called the ‘Black Death,’ the elite Russian Naval Marines, their faces streaked with dark grease paint, black berets and dark coats, with heavier mushroom shaped helmets netted with camo scheme when called for. They were called for now.

  Troyak had three squads of seven men each, and they were heavily armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers, RPGs, a Pecheneg Bullpup 7.62 machine gun, and a handheld Ilga SAM in each squad. Their motto was a simple one: “Where we are, there is victory.”