“Yes,” said Zolkin. I’ve had matoc and mishmanny in here talking about Karpov as well. They call him our strong right arm, now. The word is all over the ship. Things are much better with the crew now that Orlov is gone. They say Karpov has been giving the enemy hell. Only I hope he won’t be contemplating nuclear bombs any time soon.”
“No, we have also reached an understanding about that. Do not worry about it. But Doctor… A little more advice from you, if you would be so kind. We tried out this maintenance procedure with Dobrynin, but now we have regressed—that is what Fedorov calls it. I don’t really understand it all. He says the ship seems drawn to this time period, and that it has regressed to this date and time. Who knows why?” He held out his big empty hands in gesture, clearly indicating that he did not have the answer.
“The KA-40 was up at the time on surveillance operations. Fedorov suggested that it could have acted as a kind of anchor. It belongs to us and it seems Mother Time wants us to collect our things before we go anywhere again. That is the only way I can understand it. The helo was well away from the ship when we moved, shifted, and though we were only gone an hour as we experienced it, when we regressed the Helo found us and was nearly out of fuel. It had been searching for us for over six hours! It was already past noon, though we first noticed the odd movement a little after six in the morning. We lost all those hours, just like we seem to lose many days while we are in that other place, a future time when the world seems so empty and forsaken. Now it does not seem such a terrible place to me. The Japanese have pressed us very hard. The ship has been hit three times. We’ve taken some very severe damage and the money I will have to pay damage control Chief Byko for overtime is adding up.”
“Put me on your payroll as well,” said Zolkin.
“Yes, I know it must be very hard down here. The casualties have been mounting up as well. How many have we lost?”
“Thirty-six.”
Volsky sat with that for a while, saying nothing, his face drawn and concerned. “I appreciate all you have done, Dmitri. But hear me out. We may have a solution here after all, thanks to you. We have just discovered that we can cause the ship to move on our own—in fact we were causing the ship to move in time all along! Dobrynin was running this routine maintenance procedure every twelve days. And Fedorov says every twelve days we have moved.”
“Then it wasn’t that accident on the Orel?”
“Who knows. He thinks that may have catalyzed the first incident, caused some change in our reactor. Then every time Dobrynin completes this procedure, we move in time.”
“Amazing,” said Zolkin. “Then do it again, Leonid. Get us away from these Japanese before they line more men up at my doorstep, or put another kamikaze dive bomber into the ship.”
“That is exactly what I was thinking to do. I just thought I would see what you suggested.”
“Do it, Admiral. It’s clear that we remain in grave danger here. We are not wanted. This Mother Time you speak of must be very angry with us, and not simply for forgetting our helicopters!”
“Fedorov is worried we have changed all the history and caused that holocaust in the future. In fact, none of the operations we have uncovered here are in his history books now.”
“We’ve done all this?”
“I’m afraid so. We started the war early for the Americans, raised hell in the Mediterranean with the Italians and British. It’s as if we have slipped into Time’s mansion and broken quite a lot of china. She has finally taken notice of us and yes, she may be quite upset about it. It has occurred to me that there may be some kind of backlash for what we have done. Consequences for us as well as that future time we have blighted.”
“If I were Mother Time I would certainly want to find a good way to get rid of us,” said Zolkin.
“Well…” Volsky sighed. “The Japanese may take care of that for her. We have run out of surface-to-air missiles, my friend. All we have now to stop those planes are the close in Gatling guns, and when the ammunition runs out on those…”
“I see.”
“Another thing. Rodenko’s radar has sorted itself out again. He has spotted enemy ships bearing down on us from two directions, so we may be in another battle soon if we stay here much longer. We have two choices, Dmitri: we can either run like hell and try to get past these ships out into the South Pacific—”
“And find that island you’ve been yearning for?”
“Exactly. Either that or we run this maintenance procedure and try to pull another disappearing act.”
“Do it, Leonid. In fact, why not do both? Run like hell, and while you are at it have Dobrynin do his maintenance. Get us as far away from the Japanese as you possibly can. Send us into a thousand tomorrows, but don’t fight here any longer than you have to. I think we have been lucky so far. Very lucky. That could change.”
Admiral Volsky nodded. “Ah, but there is one small problem, Dmitri. Dobrynin cannot complete his procedure while the ship is running at any speed over ten knots. It involves retraction of one of the control rods in the reactor core. When we run up at higher speeds the reactor must have all the rods in place. He can’t remove one or we might risk overheating the core.”
“So it’s one or the other,” said Zolkin. “We either move in space, or in time. You have to decide, Leonid, and that quickly. We make our decisions on the spur of a single moment, and we pay for them for a lifetime, so choose wisely. I wish I could help you, but I can only say that I think it would be good to just get us out of here, any way you can.”
“Good advice, my friend. I think I’ll go find Mister Fedorov and see what the other officers suggest. We may have a little time before those enemy ships can get close enough to cause us trouble.”
The warning claxon suddenly startled them both, and Zolkin met the Admiral’s eyes.
“I think you had better hurry,” he said, and the Admiral wasted no further time.
Chapter 26
Admiral Volsky found Fedorov on the bridge conferring with Karpov at the clear Plexiglas navigation display. He was tapping out positions with a light pen and luminous lines would appear on the glass, indicating possible courses and predictive plots.
“We have obtained some very detailed information from the KA-40,” said Fedorov. “Good HD video feed as well. Those surface contacts Rodenko reported have now been positively identified.”
“What are we facing this time, Mister Fedorov? I hope we haven’t stumbled across another carrier task force.”
“No sir, but our old nemesis is back. While we were gone the KA-40 spent a good while searching the whole region around us. It had ample time to track the movement of the carriers that attacked us at dawn. They have moved south along the Australian coast and regrouped about 160 miles northeast of Cairns. Apparently the Allies have nothing much to bother them there. B-17s do not make for very effective naval bombers. Here sir, I isolated some screen shots and I can put them up on the main monitor.”
He tapped a key at the Nav station and the main monitor now displayed a formation of four aircraft carriers. “That will be Admiral Hara, from what Nikolin has been able to ferret out of the radio traffic. Those two larger carriers are Zuikaku, and Shokaku, the smaller two are escort carriers, this one is the Zuiho,” he pointed. “The flight deck lines are very distinctive, and I matched it to photographs from my library. The other carrier looks to be Ryuho, the only ship in her class, a converted submarine tender. But the thing to note, Admiral, is the lack of aircraft on deck. Look, there’s not a single plane aboard Ryuho or Zuiho and only those four fighters are visible on Zuikaku, two more on this last carrier. They may have other aircraft below the flight deck in the hangers, but we kept a good tally of hits from the two strikes these ships mounted against us. There can be no more than fifteen planes available between all four carriers, and some of those may even be damaged.”
“That is some comfort, given the fact that we have lost our SAM umbrella.”
“Right, sir. As fo
r the other Japanese carriers, we haven’t sorted it all out yet, but Nikolin thinks the Japanese lost their battle with the Americans off Guadalcanal.”
“More good news, at least I think that may be good. That leaves them fewer ships to send after us! Now what is the bad news?”
“Here sir…” He indicated two contacts on the board. “This is a fast cruiser group, and the name Iwabuchi has been heard in the radio traffic. Two of those ships were in his screening force, Nachi and Myoko. We engaged them near Melville Island, but the Captain held them at bay with our deck guns. This other ship is the cruiser Tone, very fast at 36 knots, and with four twin 8 inch gun turrets, all mounted forward of the main bridge. Her entire aft deck area was used to mount up to six sea planes. This is a classic high speed scout ship, sir. Without our SAMs to destroy those search planes the enemy will find and mark our position very easily. And I believe this Captain Iwabuchi off the Kirishima may have transferred his flag to Tone. He may be a bit reckless, sir, and he is now steering on a course to block our further passage southeast, with some rather formidable company.”
Fedorov indicated a second contact point almost due east of their present position. “These ships have been moving southwest from the Solomons for some time. The KA-40 spotted them at 10:00 this morning while we were still…elsewhere. The hours we lost this morning were hours this force gained. We might have easily slipped by them earlier but now I fear this group is also in a position to intercept us.” He tapped the Plexiglas screen and two predictive plot lines vectored out to a point to the southwest, and a bright red dot appeared, winking on and off.
“If we hold to this course they will cut us off right there.”
“What is this second group composed of?”
“One battleship, three cruisers and three destroyers. It’s the battleship that worries me, sir…the Yamato.”
Volsky had heard of the ship, and he folded his arms, concerned as Fedorov continued.
“The largest battleship ever built, sir, excepting her sister ship Musashi. She was nearly 72,000 tons fully loaded. That was 27,000 tons more than the American Iowa Class battleships, and more than twice our displacement. She has nine 18.1 inch guns, in turrets so heavy they would weigh as much as a typical destroyer of this era. They can range out to 45,000 meters at full elevation, though it isn’t likely to hit anything at that range. I believe the longest hit ever recorded by a battleship on a moving target was at just over 26,000 yards. So we can hit her before she gets too close, but that said, this was one of the best protected ships ever built. She has 650 millimeters of armor on those gun turrets. That’s twenty-six inches thick, sir.”
“650 millimeters?”
“Yes, sir. The US Navy conducted ballistic tests on that face plate after the war using a turret that had been built for the Shinano, another ship in this class, and they found that it required nearly point blank range to fully penetrate using a 16 inch armor piercing shell. They concluded that at normal ranges there was no naval gun then in service that could penetrate it. As for side armor, her main belt was 450 millimeters, and she had 200 millimeter deck armor as well.”
“Her decks are as thick as our armored citadel?”
“I’m afraid so, sir. This ship is a veritable floating fortress of steel. And for all that she was relatively fast at 27 knots.”
“Thank God for small favors,” said Volsky. “At least we can outrun that monster at thirty-two knots.”
“Yes sir, but every one of these other ships can match or exceed our speed. If they release the hounds on us, they will catch us, and we simply do not have the missiles left to take on six cruisers and three destroyers, let alone face down this battleship. And one more thing, sir. Yamato will most likely be commanded by a very distinguished guest. It was formerly Combined Fleet Headquarters at Truk, and Admiral Yamamoto is likely to be aboard at this very moment.”
“I don’t suppose he might like to have a little chat with me either,” said Volsky. “No, we are not going to talk ourselves out of this one. I just had a lengthy discussion with Doctor Zolkin. It seems we have a choice now, to go to full battle speed and try to outrun these ships in space, or to ask Dobrynin to run his maintenance routine again and try to slip away in time. The catch is this: Dobrynin cannot complete his procedure if the ship is making more than ten knots. So we have a difficult decision here, gentlemen. What will it be?”
“Why don’t we reverse course,” said Karpov. “We are over 100 miles from each group at the moment. That’s a considerable lead, particularly if we can make thirty-two knots after the procedure.”
“It would mean we have to transit the Torres Strait again, and perhaps our own minefield is still in place there.” Fedorov was not enthusiastic about that prospect.
“Hopefully the Japanese will not get curious and manage to get their hands on one,” said the Admiral.
“Another thing, sir. There was a heavy bombardment group in the Darwin operations. Nikolin managed to get the names from Australian radio traffic, the Mutsu and Nagato were identified and said to be moving east away from Darwin. Mutsu was part of first Battleship Division based at Truk. These ships may be returning via the Coral Sea and, though they are slow, they could easily block the Torres Strait. Then we have another fight on our hands, this time with two battleships.”
“Not very appealing,” said Volsky.
“Then what about turning due north,” Karpov suggested. “That would leave these cruisers we faced earlier well to the south and out of the action. We could only be intercepted by the Yamato group. It might give us better odds.”
“True,” said Fedorov, “But then we would have to pass between Milne Bay here and the Louisiade Archipelago, and enter the Solomon Sea. North from there the way is blocked by the Bismarck Barrier, and the big Japanese base at Rabaul. We would have Yamato on our tail and be trapped in some very dangerous waters, most likely subject to land based air strikes and even submarine attacks. Moving north would set off a lot of alarm bells. It’s right into the middle of their main defensive perimeter.”
“Then if we run south east as we have been what is the likelihood these two groups will intercept us?”
“Very high,” Fedorov did not mince words here. “I’ve shown you the predictive plot. We’re going to have to fight if we hold this course, I can assure you.”
“Then I suggest we fire up our time machine again,” said Admiral Volsky. “Suppose we turn northwest at ten knots while Dobrynin completes the procedure again. How long before they would catch up to us?”
Fedorov tapped the screen, entering some data and then called up the predictive plots. “The procedure takes at least two hours. We got very good results last time. The effects were almost immediate, but there is no guarantee that will happen now, even if we do shift in time again. So assuming the worst… we hold at ten knots for a little over two hours, then increase to full battle speed. Yamato will gain thirty four miles on us in the first two hours, but then they lose five miles each hour thereafter. If they are nimble and pick up our new heading quickly, then we would have four hours, perhaps five before we are confronted by Mutsu and Nagato coming down from the Torres Strait. Then all bets are off. If we haven’t displaced in time again within that time frame then we could be facing both pursuing groups, as well as Mutsu and Nagato southwest of Port Moresby.”
“And if we continue on our present heading?”
“Then they will cut us off much earlier, three hours, maybe four at the most.”
“That’s barely enough time to run the procedure. It takes at least two hours, longer if there are any complications.” Volsky was deep in thought now.
“I have one other possibility,” said Karpov, looking at the situation he would probably have to fight in any case. “What if we start the procedure immediately, turn south by southwest now. That takes us away from Yamato, the slower enemy group, and makes it more difficult for that ship to catch up with us. The other group is just these three cruisers. I can smash t
hem with what we still have in the missile silos.”
“And those carriers?” Volsky pointed.
“We can beat off fifteen planes if that is all they have. Our CWIS system is superb, even if we can’t engage them at long range. And we still have one S-300.”
“Make a run towards those carriers and we will be hitting a nerve,” said Fedorov. “If the Japanese got hurt badly by the Americans, then they will do everything possible to protect their remaining carrier assets. There are two more light cruisers and ten destroyers escorting Hara’s task force. We’ll have to assume they would attack with that entire force. That’s a lot of work for the deck guns. Some of those ships will get close enough to get their torpedoes off—unless we want to use our remaining SSMs.”
“I like our chances to the northwest better,” said Volsky. “There’s still a lot of sea room between our position and New Guinea. Let’s turn north, start the procedure at once, then we can dance, gentlemen, and see if we can evade them. We don’t have to enter the Solomon Sea. We can just work our way east again and then southeast into the South Pacific. Any objections?”
It seemed the one option that would buy them the most time, and so Fedorov and Karpov agreed. The orders were cut and the ship came about smartly on a new heading, true north.
* * *
Down in the reactor room Dobrynin received the order and shook his head, turning to the system engineer on duty.
“Prepare to begin rod replacement procedure,” he said calmly. “Rod number seven.”
“Again, sir? We just ran the procedure for rod eight a few hours ago. Isn’t the interval twelve days, sir?”
“Very astute, Mister Garin, but no questions, please. Begin the procedure for rod seven at once. This comes right from the bridge. Monitor your temperatures carefully. ”
He walked to Koslov’s station, taping his monitor panel. “Keep a good eye on your prompt neutron flux, Mister Koslov. Very well, let us begin. I will initiate in five minutes. Start the data recorder please.”
Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) Page 24