Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series)

by Schettler, John

  “When? Was this a recent event?”

  “Just days ago for us, but decades past in your time. You see, Mironov, our ship found its way to the same year when you first met Fedorov—1908. How it came to be there is a very long story, but this man, Karpov, believed he was marooned there permanently and took some rather aggressive action against the Japanese. He had it in his mind to reverse the humiliation of our defeat at the hands of Admiral Togo’s fleet in 1905. Yes, he thought he might restore Russia to her position of power in the Pacific, but we knew this would cause grave harm, and so at that time I did everything possible to impede him.”

  “You were there with him on the ship? He opposed your authority?”

  To make a long story short, Volsky decided to abridge his tale. “That is a fair assessment of what happened,” he said. “But he was stopped. The crew would not follow him any longer, and that was his undoing. Then he disappeared. We believed he had been killed in action, but this mention of his name has been somewhat jarring. Our ship moved again in time after that—I cannot explain it fully here, but if Karpov also moved with us, and was still alive…”

  Fedorov spoke now, very concerned. “You say this Karpov came on the scene some years ago?”

  “We first began to hear his name a year ago. I would think he would have been fermenting in the power structure for many years before that, but we could turn up no history on the man, and no records. Nothing is known of Volkov’s early life either. No one ever heard of the man until he began inserting himself into the revolutionary cadres in 1908. In time he co-opted Denikin’s entire operation in the Caucasus, and from there he has expanded to control all of Kazakhstan. We’ve held the line on the Volga, but now, with the Germans building up on our western front, our situation becomes very serious. So you see, I need friends as well. Soviet Russia needs friends. Otherwise we may not survive this war.”

  Volsky extended his hand. “When I learned from radio intercepts that it was you, Sergei Kirov, who control our homeland in Stalin’s place, I felt hope for the first time in a good long while. I told young Fedorov here that if there was one man in Russia I could fight for, it would be you. I will tell you now that we made contact with the British on our way here. In fact, I met face to face with their Admiral of the Home Fleet. He is a reasonable man, and one that could become a strong ally if you were so inclined.”

  “The British are hanging on by their fingernails,” said Kirov. “Yes, if they go, then we are surely next. Then the whole word comes under the shadow of Nazi Germany.”

  Volsky was clear and direct, and Kirov could see it in his eyes. “That cannot be permitted to happen. Mister General Secretary, this has been an hour of many revelations. We sit here discussing the impossible fates we have both suffered, and now this news of Karpov chills my blood if this is, indeed, the man we lost. He is a man of great ambition, and could prove a grave danger. Now, however, I think that Russia’s only chance at survival is in a speedy alliance with Great Britain and the United States.”

  “America? They are a neutral state.”

  “At the moment—but Russia is a neutral state as well. You and I both know that no nation with any power in this world will be able to remain a neutral bystander. We know how this war ended once, Kirov. It is only just beginning now, but it will grow and grow and become a whirlwind of chaos that will consume the entire world before it ends.”

  “Yet your presence here tells me Russia survives. I could spend days with you with the questions in my mind now.”

  “As I could with you, but we both have duties to perform. Yes, Russia survived—in the history we knew. In that war we were allies with Great Britain, but without their support, and the supplies and equipment that flowed to us through this very port, we may not have survived the onslaught Germany unleashed upon us. At this moment, all is in play. These years are the most dangerous of the entire war. Unless you get sound footing, the Germans could stampede all the way to Moscow, and now, with this Orenburg Federation and Volkov at your back, you have no refuge in the east as Stalin had when hard pressed.”

  “You tell me things that I have realized for some time now. Yes, I know we cannot stand alone, and for that reason I have already put out feelers to the British, and will now make a formal proposal of alliance. Do you think it will be well received?”

  “It will. I am almost certain. Britain stands alone in the west, even as you stand alone here. You must join hands and become brothers in arms. There is no other way for either of you to survive. If Germany can turn its might on either nation in isolation, they would certainly win. It is only the strength of the Royal Navy that now shields Great Britain from destruction.”

  “The Germans are planning to invade England even now!”

  “That plan will fail,” said Fedorov. “At least it never came about in the history we know. Yet this is a new history book we are living in now, at least for me. The Kriegsmarine is much stronger than we knew it to be. Things have changed, and the Germans may now be able to pose a serious invasion threat to England.”

  “Not on my watch,” said Volsky flatly.

  Kirov smiled. “You sound very confident, Admiral. I like that in a man. A good boast is sometimes a necessary food for the soul, as long as a man has courage to go along with it.”

  “I do not boast, Mister General Secretary. The ship I now command has the power to assure England’s safety from invasion. I could accomplish this single handedly, but the Royal Navy has great strength as it stands. If I commit my Kirov to their cause, then I can assure you that the Germans will not set foot on English soil.”

  “Well Admiral, then I urge you to do this. As for this Kirov,” he placed his hands on his broad chest now, “he is committed as well. Now then, let us drink on this new day together. I will call my Lieutenants back and we will have a good meal and some good Vodka as well. Then we will get on with the business of trying to save the world, eh? I have only one hope, Admiral Volsky. You have told me your ship has moved in time, though I do not grasp how that happens. That aside… will you move in time again? Can you do this? Or might it happen again by accident?”

  “We do not yet know,” said Volsky truthfully. “All I can promise you is our friendship and support as long as we can stay put.”

  Kirov clasped his arm in a hearty handshake. “Then I can promise you the same.”

  The meal was delicious and very fulfilling, a taste of real home cooking, as Volsky described it. Troyak and Zykov were also seated at the table, and the obvious good will between the General Secretary and these visitors lightened the mood of the security officers.

  As the evening concluded Kirov brought in a man in a naval uniform, introducing him as Vice Admiral Arseniy Grigoriyevich Golovko, currently serving with the Red Banner Northern Fleet. At first the man was surprised to see Volsky, as here was an Admiral he did not know. To forestall the questions this would surely raise, Kirov covered by saying he had just appointed this man, who was head of a very secret project.

  “I will have to find a way to explain your presence here, Admiral,” he had whispered to Volsky at the dinner. “And to explain your ship when it pulls into the harbor. So for now you are a state secret, a special project, and I can keep curious men under control if that will be a help to you. There is a good harbor north of the city here that we have been considering for a new shipyard. Perhaps you know it?”

  “Severomorsk,” said Volsky, smiling. “Yes, we sailed from that port… eighty-one years from now.” It still sounded fantastic and unbelievable every time he considered it. “Admiral Golovko will make good company here. In our day we had a ship that bore his name as well.”

  “Good then,” said Kirov enthusiastically. “The place is yours. I will marshal the resources to have facilities built there, and for now you will find it a safe anchorage. One day I should dearly like to see this ship of yours, but for now I am needed in Moscow.”

  “I will arrange a tour when next we meet,” said Volsky.

/>   “Then is there anything else I can do for you; anything you need?”

  Fedorov raised his hand and Kirov leaned around Volsky to smile at him. “Yes Fedorov? You have a request?”

  “If I may, sir. Books,” he said. “History books.”

  Kirov smiled.

  Part VI

  Wunderland

  “But I don’t want to go among mad people,”

  Alice remarked.

  “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat,

  “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

  “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

  “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

  ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

  Chapter 16

  July 2, 1940

  Kapitän Kurt ‘Caesar’ Hoffmann was brooding as he stared at the rocky Norwegian coastline off Trondheim. Raeder was upset over failure of the operation, and justifiably so. He had been convinced that it would succeed, and it should have been a great victory, until that strange vessel appeared.

  “I knew there was something amiss the moment I set eyes on that ship,” he said to the ship’s chief gunnery officer, Schubert. “There was something wrong about it. What ship was that, Schubert? Is the Abwehr so inept that they could fail to notice a ship of that size in the British order of battle? I don’t think so.”

  “It is very strange, sir.”

  “More than strange! You saw what it did to Gneisenau, eh?”

  They were standing on the weather deck, and the grey sky above seemed to lower over the bay, deepening the gloomy mood that was on the Kapitän.

  “I have never seen such a weapon, Kapitän. Such speed and accuracy for a rocket is incomprehensible. It must have been a lucky hit, just like that hit we got on that British aircraft carrier.”

  “Yes, and we should have sunk that ship, Schubert. That’s another thing that slipped from our grasp. Yes, things have been slipping. I have the odd feeling that we have been denied our rightful victory. We got close enough to the main battle to see the smoke from the fires on that British ship. They tell me it was Hood, and we should have put that ship at the bottom of the sea. Then Lindemann lost his nerve.”

  “He was only following orders, Kapitän. You know Raeder made it clear that if our capital ships were in danger of sustaining serious damage, he was to break off.”

  “Yes, but we were so close. So damn close. I could almost see us feasting on those fat British convoys to the south, but that’s another thing that slipped away.”

  “I’m afraid so sir.”

  “You are afraid? Well I’ll tell you the truth now Schubert. I am afraid. If the British have these weapons then our fleet is good for little more than target practice for them. My god, you saw what those rockets did to the Stukas off Graf Zeppelin, and I spoke with Böhmer as well. Thank God his best pilots survived that hell. His squadron leader, Marco Ritter, made it back, and one of his new hot shots survived as well—the fellow that got two hits on the British! All these battleships and the Stukas do the real work. We should have built more carriers. Böhmer says that Sigfrid was not hit by a torpedo as we first thought when we got that report. No! It was another one of those damn naval rockets!”

  Schubert seemed very surprised. “I had not heard that.”

  “I just heard it myself. It came in on this morning’s unit traffic: Böhmer confirms Sigfrid lost to rocket attack. Single hit amidships.”

  “One hit?”

  “Well having seen the damage on Gneisenau that does not surprise me. So there, we have lost one of our newest destroyers.” Hoffmann took a long drag on his cigar, and exhaled, clearly upset.

  “But sir, Graf Zeppelin was over 150 kilometers to the north. Are you saying the new British ship slipped by and got close enough to fire this weapon without being spotted by our search planes? We saw it well south of our position when we received the order to break off from Lindemann.”

  “You were in the gunnery director with your eyes fixed on the British, Schubert, so perhaps you did not see what happened. I was out here on the weather deck and saw everything. When those rocket weapons are fired there is one thing they do with that vapor trail they leave behind them. You can follow the trail like a smoky rainbow right back to the source of the firing ship. No. That enemy ship was nowhere near Graf Zeppelin, and that is what is so astounding about all of this. It hit Sigfrid from a position south of our own just as you say.”

  Schubert was dumbfounded. “But that would mean they would have had to fire from a range of 175 kilometers! That’s impossible! How could they even see the target or know where to aim, even if a rocket could travel such a distance?”

  “That is what is so astounding, Schubert. But they did see it. They knew the location so precisely that they would have put that rocket right into the belly of Böhmer’s ship. Sigfrid just got in the way. Böhmer tells me they had just sent over a case of beer and sausages, compliments of the Kapitän, to congratulate Graf Zeppelin on their successful strike on the British. They were keeping station just a couple hundred yards from the carrier. Then hell came from the sky. A lot of good men were lost when that destroyer went down.”

  “Sir, they must have had a U-boat nearby to spot that ship. Maybe they have some way of sending course corrections via radio.”

  “That is my suspicion,” Hoffman nodded. “If Altmark was hit by a torpedo, then that says the British had a submarine lurking nearby. It might be working in cooperation with this rocket cruiser.”

  “Rocket cruiser?”

  “That’s a good name for it,” said Hoffmann.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Böhmer launched everything he had, but the initial squadron was cut to pieces. When Lindemann gave the order to break off the engagement, the remaining planes scattered like crows in a cornfield when you put a good 12-gague shotgun to work. They searched the immediate vicinity, but found no sign of an enemy ship. Of course not, I saw where that rocket came from. It was south of us I tell you, and I have told Lindemann that as well, but he did not believe me.”

  “Who could believe such a thing?”

  “Yes, that puts your finger right on the heart of it, Schubert. We saw things that were completely unbelievable, and yet Sigfrid was sunk, Gneisenau and Bismarck both hit by these rockets, and don’t forget what happened to Altmark!”

  “I thought it was hit by a U-boat.”

  “Possibly, but did you hear what that oiler man said? Fritz Kürt. We pulled him out of the flotsam after Altmark went down, and I spoke with the man at some length. He says it was a torpedo, though no one saw any sign of a U-boat on the surface or periscope. But what he did see was a big fat battlecruiser, dark on the horizon. The man thought it was our ship, but then it turned away.”

  “Then it had to be British, sir.”

  “I think it was the same ship that fired those rockets. I’ve had this odd feeling about it since we first engaged those two British cruisers. At least we sent them packing, and sunk one to start things off. Everything was going so well, Schubert. Then the dominoes began falling. Altmark is sunk, we find this strange ship Fritz was trying to describe, and look what happened to Gneisenau! Don’t you see? Everything that went awry had something to do with that ship.”

  “Perhaps you are correct, Kapitän.”

  “I can feel it, Schubert. I had the feeling something was watching me, watching our ships from a distance, something lurking behind those grey clouds. It was stalking us, nipping at our heels, taunting us, and when we got close, it punched my battlegroup right in the nose. We must find out what this ship is, and then we must sink the damn thing or this new navy we’ve built will be good for nothing. Lindemann should have continued the engagement. Now look at us, stuck in this miserable fiord, sitting here waiting for the British to sneak up with a couple aircraft carriers and launch those damn Swordfish at us again.”

  “We’ll get another chance soon, sir.”


  “It may be a while. Gneisenau was ordered back to Kiel along with Bismarck. They left Tirpitz at Bergen, but Topp departs for Kristiansand and Bremen tomorrow if the weather is bad. They’re pulling our horns in, Schubert. It’s just us up here now, and a couple destroyers.”

  “What about Nürnberg, sir?”

  “That light cruiser? What good is that?”

  At that moment a signalman stepped onto the weather deck, saluting. “Message from Wilhelmshaven,” he said smartly, and handed off the note to Hoffmann.

  The Kapitän read it slowly, shaking his head. “Look here, Schubert. They managed to complete the refit on Admiral Scheer, and they are sending it up here tonight from Kristiansand as a distraction for the withdrawal of Tirpitz south. It’s going to make a run west, as if it might be headed for the Iceland Faeroes gap, then it turns north to join us here.”

  “Here sir? What for?”

  “Have a look, Schubert.” He handed his artillery officer the message. “Read it yourself. Raeder must be getting curious about this ship we’ve been talking about. One of our U-boats reported a large warship moved north around the cape, and a plane out of Narvik spotted it again. That’s why Nürnberg arrived last night. Misery loves company, eh? Now they are sending up the Admiral Scheer, and Raeder wants to have a look up north. They’re calling it Operation Wunderland.”

  * * *

  Wunderland was conceived to do exactly what Hoffmann had surmised—have a good long look up north to see what the Russians were up to. Naval intelligence had not been sleeping since the abortive engagement with the Royal Navy in the Denmark Strait. Information had been developed that suggested the strange ship reported by Hoffmann and other German assets may not have been a British ship at all! That seaplane out of Narvik got more than a sighting report that day—it got a photograph as well, and naval analysts could clearly discern the Russian naval ensign flying from the ship’s aft mast.