Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series)

by John Schettler

  “Then what have we just encountered here?”

  Fedorov smiled. “I’ll have your answer in just one moment, sir.” He pulled out a pad device and opened an application, poking at the screen briefly as he set up a search. Then he spoke into the pad’s microphone. “Display convoy data for June of 1940.” He waited, his eyes afire as he scanned the screen. “Let’s see what we have… HG-33, Gibraltar to Liverpool…There! It has to be this one, HX-49 out of Halifax. I can even get the convoy route data from U-boat dot net. I’ve got their entire database here.” He had that information soon after and smiled, looking at the Admiral with satisfaction.

  “The route crosses our present position, sir. We’ve just shifted half way around the world and almost landed right in the middle of HX-49, Halifax to Liverpool. And that—” he pointed at the Tin Man where it was still tracking the ship that had been signaling them. “That is the auxiliary cruiser Ausonia. It was the only escort assigned to the convoy on this day according to my data.” He put the pad down, folding his arms with a smile.

  “Well our resident historian does not fail us,” said Admiral Volsky, amazed at how Fedorov had quickly ascertained their position in time. “And it appears that your history has not failed to skip a beat either, at least not this segment. But apparently our new control rod needs a little remedial work. Did we hear from Dobrynin yet?”

  “Sir,” offered the Mishman, “I have him standing by.”

  “Put it on the overhead speaker please.”

  “Admiral?”

  “Go ahead Chief.”

  “We have a bit of a problem, sir…”

  * * *

  “They’re turning away, Captain,” said Bates as he watched the distant contact through his field glasses. The odd lights at the edge of the sea had glimmered for a time, then faded away. Now the day looked much as it did before, with no sign of threatening weather and relatively calm seas. The only danger on their horizon was the shadow of that distant ship, which Captain Norman was fully prepared to challenge by putting Ausonia in harm’s way. That was why he was there, the sole sheep dog guarding the flock should the wolves appear—and this one looked dangerous.

  So it was with some relief that the W/T room sent up a message that the ship had sent them a single word: Farewell, as it turned away. He could have pressed the matter or even fired a warning shot to insist on a proper identification, but why tempt the devil, he thought? The ship obviously had a very good look at us, and I don’t think they were at all fooled by our mass or intimidated by our challenge. Ausonia has but one single stack aft, and she doesn’t present a silhouette anything like that of a real heavy cruiser. They will soon realize we are a sheep in wolves clothing, to switch things around. But why would they break off if this was an enemy ship? Could they be simply opening the range before engaging us?

  Might they be biding their time to vector in a nearby wolfpack? It seemed unlikely that any German subs would be this far out, but it was not impossible. What was really going on here? Why didn’t they send their call sign and ship ID if they were friendly? Could it be a Royal Navy ship on a special mission? If so they might not want their position or identity known. Farewell… Well here we are just south of that cape and ready to make our turn east. He looked at his Executive Officer.

  “They appear to be moving off.”

  “Yes, sir, that they are. Shall we pursue?”

  “What, at fifteen knots? No, mister Bates, I think we’ll leave well enough alone for the moment. We’ve sent our sighting report, now I think it best if we make our turn east. If that is a German ship it may be passing the convoy heading and speed along as well. Signal the Commodore—twenty points to starboard and we’ll come round to zero-six-zero. And tell them to be especially vigilant for the next several hours in case we get more unexpected visitors.”

  “Very good, sir. Right away.”

  If anything happens, thought Captain Norman, it will happen after sunset in the dark. That’s when we’ll have to keep a sharp eye. It’s going to be a long and sleepless night.

  * * *

  Either there was nothing left of that world they were trying to reach in their own time, or else time had sullenly refused to let them leave without seeing the consequences of their misdeeds, but the ship had not moved but a few minutes in time. They were still marooned in the past, trapped in the web of the war where they had sailed and fought so many times. Yet the odd thing in Fedorov’s mind was the ominous fact that they had come here at a time before that of their first arrival in the Norwegian sea so long ago. Then it had been late July of 1941, and now they were here a full year earlier in mid June of 1940. The realization that they had also obviously moved in space was most unsettling. In a meeting of the senior officers with Dobrynin they discussed the situation to determine what they might do.

  “I do not know what happened, Admiral,” said the Chief, “but this shift sounded nothing like any of the others. Clearly the rod does something, but the sound was all wrong. No matter what I did to try and control the shift, it held steady.”

  “It did move us in time,” said Fedorov, “yet only for a brief moment. Then it returned us, and in that moment the earth had rotated 200 degrees. So it is that we find ourselves in the Atlantic, still a year before the time when we first moved here.”

  “Very odd,” said Kamenski. “These control rods were even more enriched with the substances that we suspect as being responsible for these time displacements, yet the result is obviously quite different.”

  “And quite dangerous,” said Volsky. “Fedorov says we might have landed on dry land! It appears only by chance that we were dropped into the sea again. What about Kazan?” They had been so busy with that initial contact that they completely forgot about the submarine.

  “Our automated signal activated as planned, Admiral,” said Nikolin. “We have not yet received a response.”

  “Kazan was using Rod-25,” said Fedorov. “Old faithful.”

  “So where might it be? Could Tasarov hear them if they were close by?”

  “Possibly, sir, but they would certainly hear us…Unless they are in the Sea of Okhotsk, which is where I fear they remain now. Rod-25 has never exhibited this behavior. It always shifted in time, but there was never a spatial variance.”

  “So I do not think we can expect to see Gromyko and Kazan any time soon,” Volsky shrugged.

  “No sir,” Fedorov put it bluntly. “They could be half a world and decades away by now. Only a long range short wave transmission could possibly reach them now, just as we called the ship all the way from the Caspian before.”

  “I could try this, Admiral,” Nikolin volunteered.

  “Try, but I don’t hold much hope for any result,” said Volsky. “The question now is what do we do here? Should we try this procedure a third time?”

  “Third time is a charm,” said Kamenski.

  “Indeed, we might just charm ourselves right into the middle of Siberia and come careening down on some mountain like Noah’s ark after the flood. No, I think we must learn more about how this happened before we attempt to run the procedure again. See what you can determine from the data recording, Chief Dobrynin. In the meantime, gentlemen, we are here in June of 1940. What should we expect to find, Mister Fedorov, aside from another of these convoys?”

  “It is likely that they reported a ship sighted, and we do look rather intimidating. That said, it was wise to simply break off as we did and signal them farewell. Perhaps they will conclude we were another Royal Navy or Canadian ship.”

  “The last time we were assumed to be a German raider. Their Admiralty will soon receive this sighting report, yes? What if they run down their list of ships and realize they had nothing out here?”

  “Then they may get curious as before, sir. When we showed up last time we introduced our first variation in the history by diverting Wake-Walker’s carrier force from the planned raid on Petsamo.”

  “Well we have just diverted that convoy,” said Rod
enko. “They made a twenty point turn to the east just as we broke off.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Fedorov. “The Germans had auxiliaries at sea that would often make sighting reports and vector in other raiders, be they surface ships or wolfpacks.”

  “What is the danger of encountering submarines here? Our Horse Jaw sonar is down and is not likely to be repairable, at least according to Byko. Tasarov says he can use the side hull sensors and the Horse Tail, but submarines are much less detectable now.”

  “We still have one KA-40, sir.”

  “Indeed. Well what is happening in your history books at this time, Fedorov?”

  “As before, sir. It is a fairly momentous period. The Germans have already broken through to the coast and the British have evacuated at Dunkirk. That will continue at Le Havre, Cherbourg and other French ports for some days. The Royal Navy has also just concluded the evacuation of Norway, and they are about to lose one of their principle aircraft carriers in that withdrawal—HMS Glorious. She was found and sunk by the Twins, sir.”

  “The Twins?”

  “The battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. That’s what the British called them. They also called them Salmon and Gluckstein after a tobacconist firm in the UK, but those two battlecruisers were operating to interdict the British operation, and got very lucky.”

  “A hard time for Admiral Tovey,” said Volsky.

  “Oh, he should still be in the Med, sir. But yes, the Anglo French resistance on the continent was fairly well beaten. Italy has just entered the war. Marshall Petain sues for terms of Armistice in a week on the 17th and France formally capitulates on the 22nd, at least in the history I have on file—but that could have changed.”

  “It was remarkably consistent up until now,” said Kamenski. “The Admiral tells me you were able to identify that convoy and its escort in a just a few minutes.”

  “It comes round to my cracked mirror theory,” Fedorov explained. “Throw a stone at a mirror and it will not crack everywhere. There will be large segments that remain just as they were before, then a web of fissures and cracks where the damage occurred. This part of the history may not have cracked.”

  “But the damage may be elsewhere,” said Kamenski. “Russia, for example, was fairly well fractured.”

  “I suppose that the closer you get to the source of the real damage the more broken things will seem. Something big obviously happened in Russia to produce all these separate states.” Even as he said that Fedorov experienced a roll of misgiving and quiet inner guilt. Something big? Perhaps not. Maybe it was only that little errant whisper that cracked the mirror this time….Me and my big mouth.

  “I suggest that you get those ears of yours to your station now, Mister Nikolin,” said Volsky. “See what you can hear of the history. Try all the BBC channels and record anything of interest.”

  “Alright, sir. I’ll get to work at once.” Nikolin was up and to his station, back under his headset where he lived each day in the world of dots, dashes and radio waves.

  “It’s a pity Admiral Tovey is in the Med,” said Volsky. “ I think that before we are discovered again it might be good to arrange another little meeting.”

  “With Tovey, sir?”

  “I think he is a man I can reason with.”

  “Well, yes sir, but he will have no knowledge or recollection of us at all. You met him in 1942, years from now.”

  “Yes, and that is a pity. We will have to begin all over here.”

  “And there’s one other thing, Admiral. If we cannot use these control rods to shift again soon, I’m still worried about what happens to us a year from now when Kirov is supposed to arrive here for the first time.”

  Kamenski raised his heavy grey brows at that. “Well, Mister Fedorov. This is now the first time, isn’t it? Something tells me this is not the same world you shifted into in July of 1941—certianly not with Russia divided as you believe. Something tells me that the mirror is already badly cracked, and the world we see reflected in it may be very different now, in spite of the near picture perfect replaying of the events concerning that convoy we stumbled upon.”

  “Well, gentlemen, the world took a spin and here we are.” Volsky put his finger on the heart of the matter. “Now any suggestions on what we should do?”

  Chapter 6

  The world was indeed not the same. Kamenski’s instinct had been correct. It had spun off its axis long ago, when Japan had decided to punish Russia for the losses they sustained in 1908 and invaded to seize all of Sakhalin Island and occupy Vladivostok. Karpov’s dream was dashed, and instead of inhibiting Imperial Japan, Kirov’s intervention only catalyzed the rise of that empire. Soon all of Manchukuo was re-occupied by Japanese troops, and all of Primorskiy and Amur province as well. Fedorov and Nikolin would now hear things on their radio that were quite shocking, and they all spent some time trying to determine what could have gone wrong.

  Yet they knew in their hearts what the real reason was. Too many things had changed; too many transgressions and sins, repented or not. The fatal stroke, however, was not the work of the man named Karpov. It was not the heedless abandon with which he flung the might at his disposal against the world, shattering fate and time even as he broke and burned the armored hulls of so many ships he faced in combat. His bold appraisal, that he was the man Fate must bow to, was mere braggery, the boastful ambition of a broken soul.

  Nor was it the work of Gennadi Orlov, who’s self-centered vendetta had ended the life of Commissar Molla, and in so doing gave life to thousands who might have died under Molla’s cruel regime, and tens of thousands more that would be born from those who escaped his malicious influence.

  Men had died that might have lived, and other men stood alive who should be in their graves. Yet none among them, the living or the dead, had the power to really work the change either. They lived their humdrum lives, ate, played, married, worked and died, yet none had the power to shift the lever beneath the ponderous weight of history.

  No, it was a quiet whisper on the upper landing of the back stairway at the railway inn of Ilanskiy. That was the final stroke, and it had been delivered by the a man who had set his mind and heart to the preservation of the past he had studied and so loved. There, in that wild, unexpected moment as he looked into Mironov’s eyes, Anton Fedorov succumbed to the folly of an inner desire for justice and good.

  He had tried to set things right in the long journey west along the Trans-Siberian rail, though he knew his intervention there had been useless. He sparred with the NKVD, standing up to relieve the harsh conditions imposed on innocent men and women who had been rounded up for the work camps. They had done nothing to deserve the fate that had befallen them, or so Fedorov believed, and he did his part that day to ease their suffering and chastise Lieutenant Surinov in the process.

  He could not make an evil man good, he realized. All he could do was stand against him, though the futility of what he accomplished that day had been made plain to him when Sergeant Troyak reminded him they could not place clean straw and fresh water in every train heading east to the camps. The war would go on—Stalin’s war—and there was little they could do to prevent that…until that quiet, desperate whisper that was powerful enough to change everything.

  It came like thunder, heralding the storm, that fateful rumble in the night, an echo of the titanic explosion of a vagrant from the deeps of space. Then came that strange walk down those stairs and the encounter with Mironov. That interaction, and the curiosity of the man he knew to be Sergei Kirov, was the decisive moment of change.

  It has been said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men to do nothing. In this case it was a good man who did something, for every good reason, and then the history he had so jealously thought to guard came tumbling down, brick by brick, hour by hour, day by day. When Anton Fedorov whispered his warning in Mironov’s ear, he did so in an impulsive moment of hope—the hope to save the life of one good man who might
stand against Stalin even as Fedorov had stood against Lieutenant Surinov, and it worked.

  It would not be Stalin’s war this time around. The world that Time built after that was altogether new, altered, a changeling doppelganger, a twisted image of the old history in the shattered image of time.

  There, trapped in the reflection of that broken mirror, like a stone embedded in the glass, sat a ship, alone on a still and quiet sea. There sat Kirov, named for the man who listened to that whisper of fate, and took it upon himself to take the life of Josef Stalin on a cold dark night in the stony cell of Bayil prison in 1908. That one single act, the flexing of a finger in the night, would change the lives and fates of millions, redraw the borders of nations, and recast the entire political landscape of the world in decades to come. Was it born in Fedorov’s plaintive and desperate whisper, or given life by Mironov’s insatiable curiosity that day?

  It did not matter. It was done. And by 1936 when another demon came to power in Germany, things were about to change yet again.

  * * *

  The Fuehrer looked at Admiral Raeder, his eyes dark and vacant, as if seeing visions of some apocalyptic future, compelling yet dreadful, an inner specter of chaos, war, and the triumph of his dream of Nazi supremacy.

  “Yes, yes, yes, I know all about the cruisers, and the U-boats, and destroyers. The battleships, Raeder,” he said. “What about the battleships?”

  Grossadmiral Erich Raeder never forgot those eyes. Every time he thought on this meeting they seemed to brand his soul again, haunting him. There was a darkness and a void in them, as if the Fuhrer was some satanic Golem, animated only by the hidden inner energy of his vision. The admiral cleared his throat, expecting this question, ready for it, yet still finding these waters turbulent and fraught with an element of danger. How could he satisfy the seemingly insatiable desires of this man’s blackened heart? He would offer him the moon, but the Fuhrer would reach for the stars.