Three Kings (Kirov Series)

by John Schettler

  It was then that there came a knock on the door, and Executive Officer Dean was there, a look of concern on his face. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said still using the more relaxed protocols of civility, as the ship had always been a corporate HQ. “It seems we have an AEW warning light.”

  “Air alert?” That got Captain MacRae’s attention immediately.

  “Yes sir, Mister Haley says it looks to be a flight of five aircraft, relatively slow, and coming from the vicinity of Athens to our northwest.” They had been cruising for Heraklion on Crete, and were now passing the second in a string of five Greek Islands off their starboard side, Kythnos. Athens was a little over 100 kilometers to the northwest.”

  “Well stand to, Mister Dean! The next time you get such a warning the ship is to come to full alert, with all battle stations manned. Understood?”

  “Aye sir. Sorry sir.”

  “Consider this ship to be on a wartime footing from this moment forward,” MacRae reinforced his order. “Come on, Mack. Let’s see what we have.”

  They were soon out with the bridge crew, who had the news of what happened but were understandably confused by it all. They had been facing the difficult prospect of surviving a war in 2021, now they were right in a new kettle, and having difficulty getting their minds around the news they had been given.

  “Listen up!” MacRae thought he had better get the crew focused again. “Enough chit chat over what’s happened to us. We’re here, and it’s bloody well 1941. That’s the fact of it, and one we’re going to be living with for some time. And if any of you still remember your history books, there’s a war on here as well, and a damn nasty one. So buck up! This is a war zone, and from this moment forward this is a ship of war, and in the service of the Royal Navy. We may still be wearing our dress whites, but the gloves are comin’ off, ladies and gentlemen. Now… What do we have, Mister Haley?”

  “Air contact, 80 kilometers out at 15,000 feet. Flight of five aircraft, speed 300KPH. They look to be vectored right in on our heading sir.”

  “Air alert one!” MacRae gave his voice the amplitude the moment required. He had to get the crew’s instincts and reflexes sharpened for war, and shake them from the dazed stupor that had seemed to settle over the entire ship when Ms. Fairchild made the announcement on the P.A. system explaining what had happened. Now she was walking the ship, talking with the crew, answering the thousand questions that were sure to be asked by her 300 Spartans.

  Haley punched the audible alarm, and the warning claxon sounded. The deck panels opened and the sleek lines of the ship were now studded with the emerging close in defense guns, a pair of Phalanx CIWS systems, two Oerlikon 30mm batteries, augmented by two miniguns and six more general purpose MGs. But the ship’s real air defense was in her missiles, a cell of speedy Sea Vipers under the forward deck. They were so accurate they could hit a cricket ball in flight. They had fired 12 of 48 in the Black Sea against the Russians, and were now ready to deal with this new threat, whatever it might be. Crews in battle dress were already preparing the close in defense systems, removing the protective gun tarps as the batteries emerged from their hidden underdeck compartments.

  The ship may have had a facelift and makeover to look more civil in her role as a corporate HQ, but it was every bit as deadly as the military version of the Type 45 Destroyer, a vessel that had five times the capability of the older British Type 42 which it replaced.

  The bridge of the ship was a bit roomier than that of the British destroyer. It spanned the entire beam of the ship, where seven large windows took in the expansive view forward, and the bridge crew sat right along these, serving a line of glowing digital displays and consoles to manage all the ship’s systems in a series of EMEs, Electrical Modular Enclosures. Behind these there were two comfortable blue chairs, one for the Captain and the other for his XO. Other Watchstanders would do exactly that, and take up standing posts to the left and right on the carpeted deck.

  Now MacRae was considering what to do. “Missile count on the ready Viper system,” he said sharply, all business.

  “Sir,” a crewman responded, Ensign Temple, Angela Temple, coordinating air defense that day. “I have 36 missiles ready in the VLS module.”

  “Reloads?”

  Temple tapped her screen for magazine inventory. “Two cell reloads of 48 missiles each.”

  “Very good.” MacRae knew his ship was like a shark, with a row of sharp outer teeth at the ready, but with plenty more in reserve. The Daring class had been built primarily as a fleet air defense ship, perhaps the best ever designed, with its Sampson radar able to track hundreds of targets at any given moment out to 400 kilometers, and the longer range air surveillance radar, designated S1850M, could track a thousand more. The missiles were actually Aster 15, an ancient Greek word meaning “star,” but aboard the Argos Fire the crew preferred the overall system name, “Sea Vipers.”

  “Now what might be coming from that direction,” MacRae said aloud to no one in particular. “I doubt if this is the Greek air force.”

  “My money is on the Germans,” said Morgan. “A flight of five would make it strike planes or fighters. You don’t bunch up that many for simple reconnaissance.”

  “Aye,” MacRae scratched his chin. Yet he had the inclination to wait and see what was coming. Might it be a flight of British planes heading for Crete? They did not have long to wait. The planes were in visual range in under fifteen minutes, and the ship’s long range optical cameras had an image that was chilling. The dark fuselage and characteristic bent gull wings of the German Stuka were quite evident, and easily recognizable—and they were just starting to tip over to begin their diving attack.

  “Miss Temple,” said MacRae coolly. “Shoot down those planes.”

  “Sir?”

  “Sea Vipers. Right now.”

  “Aye, Aye Captain.” Temple minded her business as air defense officer that day, and keyed the firing commands. Seconds later the forward deck of Argos Fire seemed to belch angry flame and smoke, and, one after another, the Aster-15 “Vipers” launched and hurtled up to find their targets. They watched as the first four missiles swatted the planes unerringly from the sky. The last had come in close enough that the system held the final missile in the salvo and elected to utilize the CIWS Phalanx system. It rotated, the barrels elevating and then blasting out its lethal shower of 20mm rounds that shattered the Stuka in mid flight, ending the attack with a shuddering roar as the plane exploded.

  The incident got the attention of everyone aboard, and as he expected, the bridge intercom soon carried the voice of their CEO asking what was going on. MacRae tapped the switch. “No worries, mum,” he said calmly. “But we’ve just made it official and taken up sides here. That was a flight of five German Stuka dive bombers thinking to say hello. I saw to the matter.”

  “Very well,” came the familiar voice. “How much longer to the gate?”

  She was referring to the Sikinos/Ios gate, named after the two islands that flanked the narrow passage. Beyond it lay the caldera island of Santorini, the volcano also known as Thera, that some believed was the site of the ancient Atlantean civilization before it exploded in what was called the “Minoan eruption,” a massive event with a V.E.I. of up to 7 by many estimates, equal to that of the Demon volcano that had been in the news just before these events occurred in 2021. Yet now the Argos Fire was far from that news cycle, lost in another era, and she had just fired her first shots in anger.

  MacRae checked quickly with his navigator. “We should be through the gate and off Santorini within the hour, mum.”

  “Good enough. Meet me in the executive cabin, please. I’m heading there now. And if you can find Mack Morgan, have him come along.”

  “He’s right here on the bridge, and we’ll be there directly.”

  Mack Morgan leaned in, catching the Captain’s ear. “That was easy enough with those planes,” he said. “We outclass anything they can throw at us.”

  “Aye,” said M
acRae in a low voice. “At the moment.”

  Morgan thought about that, then realized what MacRae might be thinking. Ensign Temple had just reported 36 ready Vipers with two cell reloads of 48 missiles each in the ship’s magazines. Four had just been fired, and the count ticked down to 32 ready, which MacRae immediately corrected.

  “Miss Temple,” he said calmly. “Kindly send down an order to have the ship’s Vipers reloaded. I want that VLS system topped off to a full battery.”

  “Aye sir.”

  MacRae looked at Morgan now. “What day have you figured it is, Mack?”

  “30th of January, 1941.”

  The Captain folded his arms, saying nothing more in front of the crew. There was a tense silence on the bridge now. The men and women there were tending to their business, watching system panels and radar screens, but their thoughts were searching the world around them now with equal intensity. It was 1941! None of them really understood what had happened to the ship, or how it could possibly be here. The incident just concluded had also made them keenly aware that they were in dangerous waters. The island of Santorini up ahead was a hotbed for European tourist traffic, with nightclubs and bars generating most of the heat on the island in 2021. Yet they would never see that time again, or so Miss Fairchild had told them all. She had not really explained how they came to be here, but did make one thing very clear—they could not go back, she had said. They were here to stay.

  Ensign Temple had caught the low discourse between Morgan and MacRae as the two men started away. As she keyed the system maintenance order, she suddenly realized what the Captain meant. Her system board told the tale well enough. Their Viper inventory had just rotated from a total of 132 missiles to 128. That count was also stuck on a one way journey, she realized. If all this was true, if this was really what it looked to be, and they had landed right in the middle of the Second World War, then that missile count might tick away over time… And then what? The meaning of the Captain’s statement to his intelligence master was now quite apparent.

  When the two senior officers had gone, Mister Dean seated himself in the blue Captain’s chair, his face still troubled by all that had happened. Dean was a young and handsome man, and Angela Temple had always enjoyed taking her watch while he had the bridge.

  “Funny, sir,” she said quietly.

  “What’s funny, Miss Temple?” Dean gave her those dark eyes.

  “It’s just that it looks odd now in color.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This, sir.” She waved her hand expansively. “World War Two. All I ever knew about it was in black and white.”

  Dean sat with that a moment. “Well,” he said at length. “There’s one color they used with a liberal brush in this damn war, red—blood red, Miss Temple. It’s not black and white any longer. This is living color, and that wasn’t an old newsreel we were just watching as we took down those planes.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “My Great Grandfather fought here. Died here in fact, right in the Mediterranean.”

  Temple raised a blonde eyebrow at that. “Then he’s out there somewhere? Right now?”

  “Not quite,” said Dean. “He was aboard HMS Regulus, a British submarine. Damn thing struck a mine off Taranto and went down with all hands.. December 6, 1940. So he’s gone, I suppose.”

  “Lucky he got his business done with your Grandmother before that,” said Carl Hampton, the Helmsman on that watch. “He smiled with the remark, then thought twice about it. “Sorry,” he apologized.

  “Never mind it,” said Dean. “I expect we all have ancestors out there somewhere, right this very moment.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” said the Helmsman.

  “Let’s just hope time keeps a very tight ledger on them. Gramps went down with the Regulus, but what if something slips?”

  “What do you mean?” Temple didn’t follow him.

  “Well,” said Dean. “I think we just made a new entry in the record books with that missile fire. Who knows how those five fellows out there were supposed to finish out this war? Well, we’ve seen to that, haven’t we? They were Great Grandfathers to somebody out there, eh? Let’s hope they got their business done too before our Vipers took them down.”

  No one said anything.

  Part XI

  Echoes

  “I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”

  ― Richard Wright

  Chapter 31

  “See here,” said Popski. “You can stow that crap about us being prisoners, lad. That is if you want to keep those two Lieutenant’s stars on your shoulder for very much longer. Sorry I’ve only got one on my shoulder, but it’s a bloody crown, mate, and you damn well know what that means in the British army. Now, if you haven’t got any sense in your head, then where’s your senior officer?”

  Reeves eyes could not be seen, but his jaw tightened. “I can send you to see someone who’s got one of those crowns on his shoulder if you like. Only he’ll have three stars beneath it! Will that suit you? Now, I don’t care if you’re Prince Harry in the flesh! I’m officer on point, and there’s a war on. You’re standing here with this man—a Russian—and you tell me one of their damn helos is out there. You have crew aboard that helo? How many are you?”

  “Of course we’ve got crew! I’ve told your Sergeant here what we’re about and why. Search and rescue! There’s a man out there in this mess, and a particularly important one. He won’t last long with you wagging your ruddy jaws here, will he?”

  Fedorov could not follow all the English, but he could see the exchange was heating up, and his heart beat faster as he considered what to do. These men were certainly not British soldiers from the 1940s. There was a modern IFV sitting in front of him with its engine on a low growl, and he had managed to catch the Lieutenant’s remark about Prince Harry. Now he knew he had to discover what had happened. Could we have moved again, he wondered? How? That thing Orlov had—could it be responsible? He said he found it along the Tunguska River on that last mission. That thought knocked down one domino after another in his mind.

  He had to determine what had happened here, and his first thought was to get to the helicopter and radio Kirov. If the ship responded, then they were still in 1941. But he did not think this Lieutenant would take kindly to him trying to contact a Russian battlecruiser just now, so he had another idea. Popski had radioed for support from his comrades at Siwa. They were supposed to be bringing in jeeps tonight, and the plan was to establish a base camp here, and at least have vehicles available for a ground search in the event this storm persisted and they could not fly. Time was of the essence, or so Popski stressed. A man could only survive so long in the desert, and this was not just anyone, but General O’Connor himself. Yet if they had somehow moved in time again, all that was irrelevant now. He had to decide what to do; how to find out what had happened here.

  “Major,” he said in English, then switched to Russian in a low voice. “When might your men arrive on those jeeps?”

  “Soon enough to straighten this lot out,” said Popski with an indignant look on his face. This cheeky Lieutenant in front of him had riled his temper, and he was clearly not happy.

  Reeves own impatience got the best of him, as the entire column was lined up behind him and waiting to move out. He reinforced his demand. “I said how many are you?”

  “What does he say?” Fedorov asked quickly, and Popski translated, arms folded on his heavy chest.

  “Tell him we have two squads of Naval Marines deployed 100 meters behind us with the helicopter. Tell him we have no quarrel with him, and we’ll stand down and cooperate fully as he wishes. But we have an urgent need to speak with his commanding officer.

  “Look here,” said Reeves. “Do I have to order my squadron to deploy?”

  Popski
could hear the urgency in Fedorov’s voice, though he did not understand why. Yet his own instincts also argued quietly with him, and he knew this might be a dangerous situation that he should diffuse as quickly as possible. That tough Russian Sergeant with his Marines looked to be the sort to shoot first and ask questions later, and that could be a problem. This Lieutenant here didn’t seem happy to have found Russians at all, and he wondered why. He also realized the man had a job to do, orders to comply with, and knew they might only get things resolved by seeing his senior officer as Fedorov urged.

  “Alright Lieutenant,” Popski relented. “We’ve ten good men behind us, and two pilots, all well armed and holding a perimeter around that contraption back there. But we’ll do things your way. We’ll need to see your commanding officer right away and get this sorted out.”

  “Tell your men to lay down their arms and come forward,” said Reeves. “And if you have any ideas about doing anything else, I’ve a column of tanks and infantry behind me five miles long. Understand?”

  Popski grimaced, but swallowed his pride. “Well enough,” he said. “But I’ll say one thing. We expected we might get this sort of treatment from the Degos or Jerry out here, but not the Desert Rats!”

  While he was talking Fedorov turned discretely and pinched his own collar microphone. “Troyak,” he said in a low voice. “All is well. Stand down immediately and stow all weapons in the helo. Understood? All weapons in the helo. Contact the ship tell me immediately if they respond. Then come forward, and no man is to carry as much as a pistol with him. Get it done, Sergeant.”