Steel Reign (Kirov Series Book 23)

by John Schettler

  Kirov Saga:

  Steel Reign

  By

  John Schettler

  A publication of: The Writing Shop Press

  Steel Reign, Copyright©2016, John A. Schettler

  KIROV SERIES:

  The Kirov Saga: Season One

  Kirov - Kirov Series - Volume 1

  Cauldron Of Fire - Kirov Series - Volume 2

  Pacific Storm - Kirov Series - Volume 3

  Men Of War - Kirov Series - Volume 4

  Nine Days Falling - Kirov Series - Volume 5

  Fallen Angels - Kirov Series - Volume 6

  Devil’s Garden - Kirov Series - Volume 7

  Armageddon – Kirov Series – Volume 8

  The Kirov Saga: Season Two ~ 1940-1941

  Altered States– Kirov Series – Volume 9

  Darkest Hour– Kirov Series – Volume 10

  Hinge Of Fate– Kirov Series – Volume 11

  Three Kings – Kirov Series – Volume 12

  Grand Alliance – Kirov Series – Volume 13

  Hammer Of God – Kirov Series – Volume 14

  Crescendo Of Doom – Kirov Series – Volume 15

  Paradox Hour – Kirov Series – Volume 16

  The Kirov Saga: Season Three ~1942

  Doppelganger – Kirov Series – Volume 17

  Nemesis – Kirov Series – Volume 18

  Winter Storm – Kirov Series – Volume 19

  Tide Of Fortune – Kirov Series – Volume 20

  Knight’s Move – Kirov Series – Volume 21

  Turning Point – Kirov Series – Volume 22

  Steel Reign – Kirov Series – Volume 23

  Second Front – Kirov Series – Volume 24

  More to come…

  Kirov Saga:

  Steel Reign

  By

  John Schettler

  Kirov Saga:

  Steel Reign

  By

  John Schettler

  Part I – Déjà vu

  Part II – In For A Penny

  Part III – Grim Realizations

  Part IV – Hook, Line and Sinker

  Part V – Developments

  Part VI – Combinations

  Part VII – Endgame

  Part VIII – High Tide

  Part IX – 5th of May

  Part X – The 7 Keys

  Part XI – Presentiment

  Part XII – Reap the Whirlwind

  Author’s Note:

  Dear Readers,

  We begin this volume with a visit to an old friend, yes, still out there in the ether somewhere, and Kirov also returns to the narrative, which will bring several of the ship’s characters into light again. Something is happening at both ends of the strange, attenuated rope that seems to connect the two ships, the one we first steamed into history with, and its doppelganger at large now in the Sea of Okhotsk. How it resolves will be very important.

  Meanwhile, we finished Turning Point at Hill 498, where Rommel finds once again that he simply cannot prevail in the desert as long as Kinlan’s 7th Brigade is on the scene. The first “Battle Book” in the series was released Feb 1st, all 58 chapters of the saga in the desert with Rommel, presenting that entire narrative as extracted from seven series novels in one continuous 500 page file. I hope you like the concept of seeing these major subplots from the series concentrated in a single volume like this. We will have another doing the same for all material in the war on the eastern front, and Sergei Kirov’s struggle for survival, and then another for the entire war in the Pacific.

  Readers suggested that other major subplots get this treatment too, and one is the long vendetta between the two great villains in the series, Vladimir Karpov and Ivan Volkov. That would capture all the intrigue and fighting for control of Ilanskiy in one continuous narrative, and the great Zeppelin duels between Orenburg and the Siberians. This is material that would not be presented in the East Front Battle book, so look for that soon as my time permits.

  In this volume, however, we continue with the thickening clouds of war in the Pacific. The unexpected eruption of Krakatoa brought us DDG-180, and now Takami joins the IJN as it embarks on campaigns that take us through the fateful months of April through June, 1942. In Fedorov’s history, those months saw the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. I present here the equivalent of both those engagements, though they take place as a result of a bold new offensive undertaken by the Japanese—Operation FS.

  As he did in Pacific Storm (Book III in the series), Yamamoto makes some very different choices here, largely because of the radical changes that occur due to the fact that the Japanese and France now control the New Hebrides. Rather than operating from Espiritu Santo, Efate and Noumea, the Allies must now operate from Fiji and Samoa. Operation FS (Fiji-Samoa) was a real plan conceived by the Japanese military in our history, which was summarily cancelled after their disaster at Midway. That battle is presented here, while in the north, the ice finally thins enough in the Sea of Okhotsk for one Vladimir Karpov, and his shadow self, to renew his Plan 7 operation. This time Sakhalin Island is the object of his desire, but he soon discovers that there is an unseen challenger at large, a new piece on the board, and Kirov finds itself on a collision course with a powerful new adversary.

  My thanks to all of you who bought the first Battle Book to support the cause. As you read this, I will launch myself into Book 24, Second Front, which will take us from the conclusion of Steel Reign and into the later months of 1942. As that title might reveal, it will focus on the plan and operation in the Atlantic to open a second front in a desperate effort to relieve the pressure on Soviet Russia. The action there with Germany’s summer offensive will also be presented, operations that capture events akin to Germany’s “Operation Blue” and the drive on Stalingrad.

  For now, I hope you enjoy Steel Reign.

  - John Schettler

  Part I

  Déjà Vu

  “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”

  ― Marcel Proust

  Chapter 1

  The Admiral sat in the quiet of his quarters, a rare and private moment alone, away from the workings of the ship, the burden of command that he had shouldered for so very long. He could never really set it down, he knew, for even now some deep inner sense was hearing the ship, instinctively processing the sounds, knowing the rhythm of it all like a mechanic might listen to a finely tuned engine. He could hear the movement of the crew in the corridors, up and down the ladders, and always there was that feeling of their eyes on him when he stood on the bridge, or passed them in the long narrow halls.

  Dobrynin once had his fine tuned ear on the reactors, but Volsky listened to the entire ship, all of it, the sound of the radar systems, the thrum of the turbines turning the screws, the mutter of voices, the movement of heavy booted feet on the metal decks. When it moved, rolling in an unexpected swell, his body instinctively compensated, sea legs tensing and shifting his balance, a reflex born of thousands of hours at sea. The thought that it was all his to govern and manage was sometimes heavy on him, as it was this night, with his heart burned again with loss.

  It had been seven hours now, and there had been no further sign of Fedorov. His faithful Navigator had been out on the weather deck, a place the young Captain often went to clear his head, and then, when Rodenko came up to relieve him that morning, he simply could not be found.

  There followed the inevitable sequence of events, innocuous reflex at the beginning as Rodenko put out an all points call on the ship’s P.A. for the Captain, but it was not returned. Long minutes passed, a distended period that saw two other P.A. calls unanswered. Then it all came to Vo
lsky where he had been walking the lower decks. He had heard the P.A. calls, yet gave them no thought, thinking Fedorov had lost himself in some business or another. Yet as the messages repeated, there came an inner thrum of anxiety that was carried in the silence. Something was wrong. Volsky could feel it, sense it, and he knew it on some deep inner level. Fedorov was not lost in his history books, or wandering in a place below decks where he could not hear the P.A. system. No.

  Fedorov was gone.

  As soon as Volsky heard the next plaintive call, he knew that to a certainty. “Admiral Volsky, please come to the bridge. This is the Executive Officer…” The hot potato was about to be quietly tossed into the Admiral’s lap, as it inevitably was. They were going to discuss it, initiate an all points search on the ship, circling in place as it had been for endless hours, with the watchmen puckering their eyes from every deck and mast. They might even launch boats to scour the seas around them, though Volsky knew they would not find any sign of the man adrift at sea. It was no good trying to use the helicopter, for that damnable fog remained stolidly impenetrable all around them.

  Yes, the minute Volsky heard that first call, he knew Fedorov would never be seen again; his calm and reassuring voice never heard again on the bridge. He was gone, and Volsky knew it with a heaviness akin to grief. He would go up to the bridge, huddling with Rodenko to begin the search. There would be Fedorov’s boots, still stuck in the deck plating near that odd depression, but the man would never fill them again.

  “I do not think we will find him,” said Volsky quietly to Rodenko, his voice hushed so none of the other bridge crew might hear him.

  “But sir… Where could he be?”

  “That is a very good question,” Volsky remembered his words to the XO. “We are still asking it about Mister Orlov, and Mister Tasarov, and Chief Dobrynin, and Director Kamenski, are we not? And God only knows who else is missing, and without a soul aboard remembering they were ever here.”

  “But this is different,” said Rodenko. “Fedorov… we all remember him. I spoke with every man on the bridge crew. They all know him. It’s not like the others, Tasarov, Kamenski, Orlov. We haven’t forgotten him. Could he have simply fallen overboard?”

  “I very much doubt that,” Volsky remembered how heavy hearted he felt when he said that, knowing Fedorov was gone, missing him already, mourning his loss from the very first report with a quiet inner grief. But Rodenko was correct. This time there was no hazy memory loss concerning the man. It was not like Tasarov, when only one man on the ship could remember he ever existed, his best friend Nikolin. Perhaps it was like that now with Fedorov, he thought. I was very fond of that young man, very close to him. He was at the center of everything that has happened to the ship and crew all these long months. Perhaps he simply has too much gravity to be easily forgotten.

  It had taken them some time, like men shaking off a dream and embracing reality, before they finally remembered the others, Dobrynin, Kamenski, Orlov. Fedorov said something about gophers, and that set everything loose in Volsky’s mind. That single thread of memory had rippled with fire, the energy leaping through one synapse after another in his tired brain, and the soft glow of recollection rekindled as it went. Places in his mind that had been stilled, as though misted over with that same heavy fog that now surrounded the ship, were now suddenly awake again, remembering… remembering…

  Yet with Fedorov, I knew it from the very first. I could never forget that man, he thought. It was just like that moment when they realized Orlov was gone as well. They had been huddled on the bridge, with Fedorov trying to jog everyone’s memories concerning these missing men. He could still hear the Captain’s voice….

  “My god—might there be more men missing? I was talking with Gagarin in the workshops, and he seemed very troubled, thinking he had a short shift, with a man missing. It was as if his old habits were at odds with the reality around him. I think he was struggling to remember something, just as I was, and Nikolin. Just as you did Admiral.”

  “Who else?” said Volsky. “Might there be other men missing? What if none of us remembers? We’ll have to find a way to go over the entire crew with a fine toothed comb and count our heads.”

  “Orlov would be the man for that,” said Fedorov, fingering the pocket compass the Chief had given him, suddenly remembering the man.

  “Orlov?”

  Now Fedorov gave the Admiral another cautious look. “Gennadi Orlov,” he said. “The Chief. He’s the one who found that thing I threw over the side—the Devil’s Teardrop….”

  “He reached for the dangling intercom handset again, grasping it and raising it to speak. “Chief Orlov, please respond immediately. This is Captain Fedorov.”

  They waited, each man looking from one to the other, wondering, held in suspense, as if they were waiting at the edge of infinity itself. They had all climbed to this place together, and the rope of their recollection and memory was still dangling over that precipice, as they waited for the last man to come up.

  But he never came. Fedorov repeated the call, but it went unanswered, his voice echoing plaintively through the ship, hollow, forlorn, lost.

  Orlov was gone.

  And this time it was Fedorov.

  Volsky sighed, turning when he heard the soft knock at his cabin door. He knew it was Rodenko, at least he hoped that was the case. He had asked the XO to come to his cabin, and was relieved when the hatch opened and he saw Rodenko’s face.

  “You wanted to see me, Admiral?”

  “Yes, come in, Mister Rodenko. I don’t suppose you have any further news concerning Fedorov.”

  “I’m sorry sir, but we’ve had no word from the search details.”

  Volsky nodded heavily. “Are the men still out in the launches?”

  “We have three boats out sir, all tethered to the ship by rope, but they’ve seen nothing in the water.”

  “And I do not think they will,” said Volsky. “Have Nikolin signal them to return to the ship… Assuming we still have a man named Nikolin at communications.” He gave Rodenko a searching look.

  “Yes sir, Nikolin is still with us.”

  “Good.” Volsky forced a half smile. “Well Mister Rodenko, it seems you are due for a promotion. A ship must have a Captain, and with Fedorov gone, you are next in line, the only other man I can rely on now. We will have to give some thought as to who we will put in your place as Executive Officer. Zolkin is a good man, with a good head on his shoulders, but he does not know ship’s operations. Any suggestions?”

  “I’ll give it some thought sir. Byko might stand in, though he’s been very busy of late checking for any further damage to the ship.”

  “Yes,” Volsky nodded. “Byko. He’s a steady hand, and just what we may need. He can coordinate his engineering crews from the bridge easily enough. I’ll speak with him.”

  “Very good sir.”

  Volsky had a vacant expression on his face, and Rodenko knew it well enough. Toska, sadness, loss, a melancholy that was too deep for words. It was anguish, heartache, a longing and regret. It was a restless uncertainty, anxiety, but also a nostalgia that was a cousin to grief, but behind all that there was love, and a quiet hope for better times.

  “Mister Rodenko,” said Volsky. “I must tell you that I have felt very odd of late.”

  “We all have, sir.”

  “No,” said Volsky with a wag of his thick finger. “It is more than this confusing madness that has been plaguing us. It is very strange… I feel… empty.”

  “Losing a man like Fedorov will do that to you sir. And we’ve lost so many other good men.”

  “Yes, but that is not what I mean. It is as though I was just not all here. I’m forgetful, listless, and very fatigued. The other day I was on my way to the bridge and found myself on the wrong deck.”

  “It’s just the whole situation, sir, this fog, the missing men, Lenkov’s legs.”

  “It’s more than that. Mister Rodenko, I must tell you that you should not
be surprised if I am the man who fails to make his next assigned shift. I feel all thin and stretched… I feel like something is pulling at me, reaching for me, but I cannot see it or understand it. If I should suffer the same fate as our good Mister Fedorov, then realize that all this business will then be on your shoulders. Understand?”

  Rodenko sighed, and nodded. He remembered the day his grandfather had spoken to him like this, telling him that he felt old and all used up, with nothing more to do on this earth, and nowhere to go. Three days later he died.

  “I will do my best sir,” he said.

  “I’m sure you will. The crew is having a difficult time as it stands. My presence here has done some good in holding things together, and Fedorov, god bless the man, was a very great help. If I turn up missing next, things may get very difficult…”

  Rodenko nodded. “I understand, sir.”

  “Do you? Well, I think you should have a talk with Sergeant Troyak. Should the crew become disturbed, he is another man that can help you pull things together. Use your best judgment when it comes to posting his Marines, but it may come to that in time.”

  He heard himself say that, and smiled inwardly… In time…

  “Sir,” said Rodenko haltingly. “What’s happening to everyone, the men. Where are they going?”

  “Better men than me have tried to answer that question, including Fedorov. I cannot help you any more than they could. Fedorov said it was this Paradox business, the same thing that’s been causing all the other problems around the ship, including Lenkov’s legs. We don’t belong here, Mister Rodenko. That is the simplest way I can put it. Time has no place for us, and so now we pay the price for our meddling.”

  “We don’t belong where, sir? Are we still in the Atlantic of 1941?”

  “We seem to be in the Atlantic, though we have never verified that. If we shifted again, as Fedorov believed we would, then most of the time we stayed right where we were, except for the time difference. There was that one occasion when we moved from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Fedorov said it was like someone picked the ship up, like a toy in a bathtub, and the earth simply turned beneath us. Well, here we are… somewhere. We’ve been circling in place like a restless shark. Fedorov advised it, in the event we sailed right up on land in this heavy fog.”