“Look at that!” the pilot pointed at the badly listing platform. Thunder Horse was keeling over on her massive industrial orange flotation columns, and apparently still taking on water. Constructed in Korea and delivered to Corpus Christi, Texas in 2004, the rig had problems from the very first. Some grease monkey had set in a bad six-inch pipe, and water was misrouted between ballast tanks causing a major list in 2005. The big platform almost tipped completely over during that incident, and it took a week to pump out the water and get the ballast tanks balanced again. Six weeks later it weathered a blow from Hurricane Katrina, and the last few brushes from the big storms never seemed to bother the immense platform—until now. The 650mm torpedo was a little more than the design engineers had ever planned for.
“What could have caused this?” The engineer aboard knew they had not suffered a direct hit from Victor this time. Yet the damage was plain to see. “Can you get a bit lower, I want to check the other side.” The platform had finally sorted out its teething troubles and was brought on-line in June of 2008. She was expected to deliver all of a billion barrels of oil over her 25 year industrial life span, but this was a problem that could cause a drastic setback in that schedule. The 250,000 barrels she might have contributed to that total today were obviously not going to be delivered, let alone the daily expected quota of 200 million cubic feet of gas. She was obviously floundering, and in very deep water, sitting right astride block 778/822 in the Mississippi Canyon, the bottom over a mile away, some 6300 feet below. One of her massive cranes was already completely underwater.
“Damn, with Mad Dog damaged we can’t lose Thunder Horse,” said the engineer.
Mad Dog was dubbed one of the 50 projects to change the world by Goldman Sachs, sporting the world’s largest single piece truss spar, one of the biggest lifts ever set in the Gulf of Mexico, about 190 miles south of New Orleans in the Green Canyon plot. The big dog was permanently moored to the seabed, with a capacity to produce up to 100,000 barrels of oil and 60 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, much smaller than Thunder Horse, but significant. She was also damaged, but still intact.
“Shall I spread the word?” The pilot gave the engineer a sheepish look.
“Better tell the techs on Mad Dog to get over here first,” said the engineer. Crews were already working to restore the 24-inch lateral connecting Mad Dog to the Caesar oil pipeline. Her Natural gas was transported via a 16-inch lateral connected to the Cleopatra gas pipeline, both part of BPs Mardi Gras Transportation System in the Gulf.
“Lord,” the engineer was scratching his head, eyes wide as he surveyed the platform below them now. “We’ve got a fire down there too! With Caesar and Cleopatra off line, and big rigs like this in the water, we’re buggered for weeks, mate. Better blow the horn. This baby needs help fast. Damn thing’s about to go down under!”
“Right-o,” said the pilot, flipping his headset on to begin transmitting. “Mad Dog, Mad Dog, this is BP Survey, Over. “
A scratch voice answered in a few seconds. “Go ahead, Survey.”
“Thunder Horse down, mates. Repeat. Thunder Horse down. Survey engineer says we’ll need all your people out this way on the double, with anything you can float, over.”
Someone swore on the other end of the transmission. Then the voice came back, “Roger that, Survey. Thunder Horse down.”
The Saga Continues…
Illustrations
The Tiafeng (Typhoon)
Artist conception of the planned Future Chinese aircraft carrier scheduled for launch in 2020.
The existing Chinese carrier Liaoning is the old Russian Carrier Varyag which was purchased by the Chinese for $18 million and refitted as a functioning carrier, commissioned in 2012.
The name Varyag was then given to the one of the two remaining Slava class cruisers. (Pictured below)
A dangerous balance of power. Here is the lilneup in our day, but the PLAN adds two carriers in the Liaoning and Taifeng, and a number of new destroyers and frigates to beef up their fleet considerably by 2021.
Werner Czygan, the frustrated commander of U-118 who unknowingly puts the British on the trail of Gennadi Orlov.
Marine Sergeant Kandemir Troyak and Corporal Zykov provide security for Fedorv’s daring mission to find Orlov.
NKVD Commissar Molla, pursued by Orlov in 1942.
The Anatoly Alexandrov is based on the design for the Akademik Lomonosov shown here, a floating nuclear power plant using two naval nuclear propulsion reactors.
(Photo used under Fair Use and for informational purposes only)
CG Varyag sails to lead Kirov home and accompanies the new flagship when the Red Banner Pacific Fleet sorties under Captain Karpov
The main Island of the Senkaku / Diaoyutai archipelago that becomes a flashpoint for war in the Pacific.
All photos used to illustrate geographical and real-world elements under the “Fair Use” clause and are for informational purposes only.
Maps
WARNING: Some maps will reveal significant plot elements of the story. They are included here as references for those wishing to follow the saga graphically as they read. No real spoilers here.
US CVBG deployments on the eve of the war.
The complex energy arteries of the modern world.
Units engaged in Diaoyutai / Senkaku Island Flashpoint.
The Standoff between the major leaguers in the pacific as the Red Banner Fleet sorties from its bases.
Kirov Saga
NINE DAYS FALLING
As Fedorov launches his daring mission to the past to rescue Orlov, Volsky is caught up in a web of intrigue spun out from the dark corners of the KGB. The long journey west is fraught with danger for Fedorov’s team when they encounter something bewildering and truly astounding, an incident that leads them deeper into the mystery and origin of Rod-25. Yet even as they stalk Orlov’s shadow, the hunt is joined by Beria’s NKVD and Haselden’s 30 Commando in 1942.
Karpov faces his toughest challenge yet when Kirov is hunted by a US Carrier Strike Group and a determined Captain with orders to sink the Russian battlecruiser at any cost. Meanwhile, a desperate situation in the Caspian Sea endangers Volsky’s attempt to reach and rescue Fedorov’s team. The lines of destiny meet in a Nexus Point of violence and mayhem that will decide the fate of the world.
As the fuse of conflict is lit across the globe, the dread war has finally begun when the Chinese move to bring home their long wayward son—Taiwan. Combat begins from the very first chapter and rages throughout the entire novel as the war begins on the high seas and burns like a searing fire into the vital oil rich regions of the world. From the pulsing bitstream of the Internet, the deep void of outer space, the oil soaked waters of the Persian Gulf and Black Sea, to the riveting naval combat in the Pacific, the world is swept up in the maelstrom of chaos of war over nine grueling days.
This is the story of that deadly war to end all wars, and the desperate missions from the future and past to find the one man who can prevent it from ever happening, Gennadi Orlov. Can the mystery of Rod-25 and Orlov be solved before the ICBMs are finally launched?
OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN SCHETTLER
Kirov
The battlecruiser Kirov, is the most power surface combatant that ever put to sea. Built from the bones of all four prior Kirov Class battlecruisers, she is updated with Russia’s most lethal weapons, given back her old name, and commissioned in the year 2020. A year later, with tensions rising to the breaking point between Russia and the West, Kirov is completing her final missile trials in the Arctic Sea when a strange accident transports her to another time. With power no ship in the world can match, much less comprehend, she must decide the fate of nations in the most titanic conflict the world has ever seen—WWII.
Kirov II – Cauldron of Fire
Kirov crosses the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea when she suddenly slips in time again and re-appears a year later, in August of 1942. Beset with enemies on every side and embroiled in
one of the largest sea battles of the war, the ship races for Gibraltar and the relatively safe waters of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the brilliant Alan Turing has begun to unravel the mystery of what this ship could be, but can he convince the Admiralty? Naval action abounds in this fast paced second volume of the Kirov series trilogy.
Kirov III — Pacific Storm
Admiral Tovey’s visit to Bletchley Park soon reaches an astounding conclusion when the battlecruiser Kirov vanishes once again to a desolate future. Reaching the Pacific the ship’s officers and crew soon learn that Kirov has once again moved in time. Now First Officer Anton Fedorov is shocked to finally learn the true source of the great variation in time that has led to the devastated future they have come from and the demise of civilization itself. They are soon discovered by a Japanese fleet and the ship now faces its most dangerous and determined challenge ever when they are stalked by the Japanese 5th Carrier Division and eventually confronted by a powerful enemy task force led by the battleship Yamato, and an admiral determined to sink this phantom ship, or die trying. In this amazing continuation to the popular Kirov series, the most powerful ships ever conceived by two different eras clash in a titanic final battle that could decide the fate of nations and the world itself.
The Kirov Series, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 shown here with the author’s authentic Russian Navy Ushanka and his copy of “The Chronology of the Naval War at Sea” which figures prominently in the series.
Kirov Saga: Men Of War
Kirov returns home to a changed world in the year 2021, and as the Russian Naval Inspectorate probes the mystery of the ship’s disappearance, Anton Fedorov begins to unravel yet another dilemma—the secret of Rod 25. The world is again steering a dangerous course toward the great war that blackened the shores of a distant future glimpsed by the officers and crew. Fedorov has come to believe that time is waiting on the resolution of one crucial unresolved element from their journey to the past—the fate of Gennadi Orlov.
Join Admiral Leonid Volsky, Captain Vladimir Karpov and Anton Fedorov as they sleuth the mystery of Orlov’s fate and launch a mission to the past to find him before the world explodes in the terror and fury of a great air and naval conflict in the Pacific. It is a war that will span the globe from the Gulf of Mexico to the Middle East and through the oil rich heart of Central Asia to the wide Pacific, but somehow one man’s life holds the key to its prevention. Yet other men are aware of Orlov’s identity as a crewman from the dread raider they came to call Geronimo, and they too set their minds on finding him first… in 1942! Men of war from the future and past now join in the hunt while the military forces of Russia, China and the West maneuver to the great chessboard of impending conflict.
The Kirov Saga Continues with the blow by blow depiction of this great war over its first nine grueling days of intense conventional warfare in book V, Nine Days Falling.
The Meridian Series – Alternate History & Time Travel
Book I: Meridian – A Novel In Time
ForeWord Magazine’s “Book of the Year”
2002 Silver Medal Winner for Science Fiction
The adventure begins on the eve of the greatest experiment ever attempted—Time travel. As the project team meets for their final mission briefing, the last member, arriving late, brings startling news. Catastrophe threatens and the fate of the Western World hangs in the balance. But a visitor from another time arrives bearing clues that will carry the hope of countless generations yet to be born, and a desperate plea for help that leads the team on a mission to the Jordanian desert of WWI, where they are entangled with fabled exploits of Lawrence of Arabia.
Book II: Nexus Point
The project team members slowly come to the realization that a “Time War” is being waged by unseen adversaries in the future. The quest for an ancient fossil leads to an amazing discovery hidden in the Jordanian desert. A mysterious group of assassins plot to decide the future course of history, just one battle in a devious campaign that will span the Meridians of time, both future and past. Exciting Time travel adventure in the realm of the Crusades!
Book III: Touchstone
When Nordhausen follows a hunch and launches a secret time jump mission on his own, he uncovers an operation being run by unknown adversaries from the future. The incident has dramatic repercussions for Kelly Ramer, his place in the time line again threatened by paradox. Kelly’s fate is somehow linked to an ancient Egyptian artifact, once famous the world over, and now a forgotten slab of stone. The result is a harrowing mission to Egypt during the time frame of Napoleon’s 1799 invasion.
Book IV: Anvil of Fate
The cryptic ending of Touchstone dovetails perfectly into this next volume as Paul insists that Kelly has survived, and is determined to bring him safely home. Only now is the true meaning of the stela unearthed at Rosetta made apparent—a grand scheme to work a catastrophic transformation of the Meridians, so dramatic and profound in its effect that the disaster at Palma was only a precursor. The history leads them to the famous Battle of Tours where Charles Martel strove to stem the tide of the Moorish invaders and save the west from annihilation. Yet more was at stake on the Anvil of Fate than the project team first realized, and they now pursue the mystery of two strange murders that will decide the fate of Western Civilization itself!
Book V: Golem 7
Nordhausen is back with new research and his hand on the neck of the new terrorist behind the much feared “Palma Event.” Now the project team struggles to discover how and where the Assassins have intervened to restore the chaos of Palma, and their search leads them on one of the greatest naval sagas of modern history—the hunt for the battleship Bismarck. For some unaccountable reason the fearsome German battleship was not sunk on its maiden voyage, and now the project team struggles to put the ship back in its watery grave. Meet Admiral John Tovey and Chief of Staff “Daddy” Brind as the Royal Navy begins to receive mysterious intelligence from an agent known only as “Lonesome Dove.” Exciting naval action and top notch research characterize this fast paced alternate history of the sinking of the Bismarck.
Note: Golem 7 is the book that led author John Schettler to continue his exploration of alternate history naval fiction in the breakthrough Kirov Saga. Fans of alternate history / time travel adventure will enjoy all five books in the award winning Meridian series.
Historical Fiction
Taklamakan ~ The Land Of No Return
It was one of those moments on the cusp of time, when Tando Ghazi Khan, a simple trader of tea and spice, leads a caravan to the edge of the great desert, and becomes embroiled in the struggle that will decide the fate of an empire and shake all under heaven and earth. A novel of the Silk Road, the empire of Tibet clashes with T’ang China on the desolate roads that fringe the Taklamakan desert, and one man holds the key to victory in a curious map but from a trader in the Bazaars of Kashgar.
Khan Tengri ~ Volume II of Taklamakan
Learn the fate of Tando, Drekk, and the others in this revised and extended version of Part II of Taklamakan, with a 30,000 word, 7 chapter addition. Tando and his able scouts lead the Tibetan army west to Khotan, but they are soon confronted by a powerful T’ang army, and threatened by treachery and dissention within their own ranks. Their paths join at a mysterious shrine hidden in the heart of the most formidable desert on earth where each one finds more than they imagined, an event that changes their lives forever.
The Dharman Series: Science Fiction
Wild Zone ~ Classic Science Fiction – Volume I
A shadow has fallen over earth’s latest and most promising colony prospect in the Dharma system. When a convulsive solar flux event disables communications with the Safe Zone, special agent Timothy Scott Ryan is rushed to the system on a navy frigate to investigate. He soon becomes embroiled in a mystery that threatens the course of evolution itself as a virulent new organism has targeted mankind as a new host. Aided by three robotic aids left in the colony facilities, Ryan struggles to solve the mystery o
f Dharma VI, and the source of the strange mutation in the life forms of the planet. Book I in a trilogy of riveting classic sci-fi novels.
Mother Heart ~ Sequel to Wild Zone – Volume II
Ensign Lydia Gates is the most important human being alive, for her blood holds the key to synthesizing a vaccine against the awful mutations spawned by the Colony Virus. Ryan and Caruso return to the Wild Zone to find her, discovering more than they bargained for when microbiologist Dr. Elena Chandros is found alive, revealing a mystery deeper than time itself at the heart of the planet, an ancient entity she has come to call “Mother Heart.”
Dream Reaper ~ A Mythic Mystery/Horror Novel
There was something under the ice at Steamboat Slough, something lost, buried in the frozen wreckage where the children feared to play. For Daniel Edwards, returning to the old mission site near the Yukon where he taught school a decade past, the wreck of an old steamboat becomes more than a tale told by the village elders. In a mystery weaving the shifting imagery of a dream with modern psychology and ancient myth, Daniel struggles to solve the riddle of the old wreck and free himself from the haunting embrace of a nightmare older than history itself. It has been reported through every culture, in every era of human history, a malevolent entity that comes in the night… and now it has come for him!
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