Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (44 page)

Soon Karpov would have another
real mystery to sort out, and very little evidence to come to any real
conclusion, except for the absence of one prominent thing in the sky. The date
on that newspaper was very odd, and the fat gibbous moon that had grinned at
them as they taunted the storm over the North Sea was gone. In its place,
rising that very moment, was a thin morning crescent, almost entirely dark!

Karpov looked at it, the
conjunction of too many ominous signs now stacking up in his mind in one sudden
moment. The strange rippling fire in the ship… luminescent, green and violet
light… the sudden disappearance of the rain and the warmer temperatures that
they would not expect in February at this latitude. Then the radio calls that
went without an answer became more significant, the scratch of Morse code in
their place. The missing airfield… and now this…

He stared down at the newspaper
Tyrenkov had handed him and read the headline: “Scareships over East Anglia for
a second night – Constables on the Watch!” It was Dated May 18, 1909…

* * *

How
could this have
happened, thought Karpov. How was it possible? There was no detonation, no
explosive volcano, and no Rod-25, but there had been that massive storm they
challenged, and the strange energy that had flowed through the skeleton of the
ship was most unnerving. Beyond all that, he could feel that something was
badly off its kilter. He had shifted in time too often now, and he knew the
feeling, the odd discomfiture and disorientation, and the sudden inner sense
that his life and being had been profoundly moved. He was somewhere else, not
in space, but in time. How it had happened did not really matter. If it proved
to be the case, then….

His mind now whirled with a
thousand thoughts mushrooming up just as that storm had hours ago. They shook
the outer canvass of his soul and rippled along the cold duralumin beams of his
brain. We’ve moved! By god in his heaven, the whole ship has moved!

Now he had a sudden realization,
and a heady feeling that was almost exhilarating. It was the same feeling he
had when he realized that Demon of a volcano had blasted
Kirov
into
another century, to the year 1908. He had managed to stay there only a few
brief days, but in that time he had hatched a plan to reset the entire power
structure of the Pacific. He could do this because he had a ship unlike any
other in the world, with power unlike any other man alive.

Now he looked over his shoulder
at the looming hulk of
Tunguska
—an airship unlike any other in 1909.
There it sat, bristling with recoilless rifles, racks of incendiary and high
explosive bombs, makeshift rockets in the nose and the makings of his
thermobaric bomb aboard as well. Britain’s first powered heavier than air
flight had only been achieved a few months ago, by Samuel Franklin Cody on 16
October 1908. There were a few airships in the world, but they could barely
navigate a distance of 700 kilometers or reach altitudes above 4000 feet. In
fact, the British had only one or two, and the Germans only three. If the date
on that newspaper is accurate, he was a demigod again, not merely a man
desperately trying to earn the respect and attention of others greater than
himself. He was invincible.

I’m here, he thought, and for a
reason too. Time keeps sending me back. Then he suddenly realized that Ivan
Volkov was here as well, but that he was just a very young man in the Russian
Naval Intelligence, somewhere in Siberia… perhaps still somewhere near Ilanskiy…

And that place was there as well,
wasn’t it? That little railway inn was just sitting there, and so was that damn
back stairway! He suddenly realized what he could do, his eyes widening with
astonishment and a heady sense of thrilling energy. He felt as big as the
airship, as big as
Tunguska
, bigger than all of Siberia, better than
them all.

“Captain Bogrov!” Karpov shouted
to his men. “Can the ship make way?”

“Sir? We’ve nearly finished
repairs on that aft engine. It was not as serious as I thought, and the
engineers had replaced a few loose and broken rivets and stabilized the
airframe.”

“Excellent! Get the men aboard.
Tyrenkov, let that idiot go and gather up your security team. We return to
Ilanskiy at once.”

“Now sir?”

“You heard the order, Bogrov. Now
let’s get moving!”

Yes, let’s get moving, because I
have miles to go before I sleep, and a lot of people owe me out there—owe me a
great deal.

So now they are all going to pay.

The Saga Continues…

Kirov Series:
Hammer Of
God

The decisive battles of February
1940 on both land and sea present new challenges for the Germans and British.
Paulus has convinced Hitler not to abandon his Mediterranean strategy, and
strong new reserves are ready to move to North Africa even as a massive
airborne operation is planned to seize the Island of Crete. The Germans hope to
press this two pronged offensive while Hitler continues to build up forces for
his next big operation, Barbarossa. This time the target is not Moscow, but the
Crimea, where the German Army plans to stop Sergie Kirov’s offensive in the
Caucasus and link up with Volkov’s Orenburg Federation.

At sea, the recent conflict has
moved the scales in the balance of power, but the imminent threat to the Crimea
compels Volsky and Fedorov to lay plans to come to the aid of their embattled
countrymen. It will mean a daring and dangerous sortie through the Aegean to
the Black Sea, and the gates of hell itself in the narrow Bosporus and
Dardanelles. Meanwhile, Vladimir Karpov confirms that the mighty airship
Tunguska
has indeed moved in time, and now he plans how to use this sudden unexpected
turn of events to his great advantage.

The action and mystery abound
in this action packed continuation of the amazing Kirov Series!

Dear Readers,

Thank you for reading
Grand
Alliance
, and especially if you have been with me from as far away as Book
I in this series. I am still seeking a “Wiki Master” to build the Wikipedia
entries to describe the series. Numerous examples exist for other fiction works
on Wikipedia, but they prefer that the entries are made by third parties and
not the author or publishers. Is there anyone out there who is a master of
Wikipedia and interested in taking on the task to become the official historian
of the
Kirov Series?
If so, please drop me a line and let me know.

My thanks also to all those who
have written to me with comments, questions, suggestions, and reflections on
the story, and in particular to Don Ursum who has been a valuable resource for
the extensive research that goes into each and every one of these novels.

Best regards,

John

Reading the Kirov Series

The
Kirov Series
is a long
chain of linked novels by John Schettler in the Military Alternate History /
Time Travel Genre. Like the popular movie “The Final Countdown” which saw the
US Carrier
Nimitz
sent back in time to the eve of Pearl Harbor in 1941,
in these books the powerful Russian battlecruiser
Kirov
is sent back to the
1940s in the Norwegian Sea where it subsequently becomes embroiled in the war.

Like episodes in the never ending
Star Trek series, the saga continues through one episode after another as the
ship’s position in time remains unstable. It culminates in Book 8
Armageddon
,
then is resurrected again in a 9th volume entitled
Altered States
, which
begins the third trilogy in the series.

How To read the Kirov Series?

The best entry point is obviously
Book I,
Kirov
, where you will meet all the main characters in the series
and learn their inner motivations. The series itself, however, is structured as
sets of trilogies linked by what the author calls a “bridge novel.” The first
three volumes form an exciting trilogy featuring much fast paced naval action
as
Kirov
battles the Royal Navy, Regia Marina (Italians) and finally the
Japanese after sailing to the Pacific in Book III. The bridge novel
Men Of
War
is a second entry point which covers what happened to the ship and crew
after it returned home to Vladivostok. As such it serves as both a sequel to
the opening trilogy and a prequel to the next trilogy, the three novels
beginning with Book V,
9 Days Falling.

The
9 Days Falling
trilogy
focuses on the struggle to prevent a great war in 2021 from reaching a terrible
nuclear climax that destroys the world. It spans book 5, 6, and 7, featuring
the outbreak of the war as Japan and China battle over disputed islands, and
the action of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet against the modern US Fleet. It then
takes a dramatic turn when the ship is again shifted in time to 1945. There
they confront the powerful US Pacific Fleet under Admiral Halsey, and so this
trilogy focuses much of the action as
Kirov
faces down the US in two
eras. This second trilogy also launches several subplots that serve to relate
other events in the great war of 2021 and also deepen the mystery of time
travel as discovered in the series. The trilogy ends at another crucial point
in history where the ship’s Captain, Vladimir Karpov, believes he is in a position
to decisively change events.

The next bridge novel is
Armageddon
,
Book 8 in the series, which continues the action as a sequel to Book 7 while
also standing as a kind of prologue to the
Altered States
trilogy. In
this third trilogy,
Kirov
becomes trapped in the world made by its many
interventions in the history, an altered reality beginning in June of 1940. The
opening volume sees the ship pitted against the one navy of WWII it has not yet
fought, the Kriegsmarine of Germany, which now has new powerful ships from the
German Plan Z naval building program as one consequence of
Kirov’s
earlier actions.

Altered States
also covers
the German attack on the carrier
Glorious
, the British raids on the
Vichy French Fleets at Mers-el Kebir and Dakar, and the German Operation Felix
against Gibraltar. Other events in Siberia involve the rise of Karpov to power,
and his duel with Ivan Volkov of the Orenburg Federation, one of the three
fragmented Russian states. (And these involve airship battles!)

The sequel to the
Altered
States
Trilogy and the bridge novel leading to the next set is volume 12,
Three
Kings.
It covers the action in North Africa, with a decisive intervention
that arises from a most unexpected plot twist at the end of that novel. Book
13,
Grand Alliance
continues the war in the desert as Rommel is suddenly
confronted with a powerful new adversary, and Hitler reacts by strongly
reinforcing the Afrika Korps. It also presents the struggle for naval supremacy
in the Mediterranean as the British face down a combined Axis fleet from three
enemy nations.

The Grand Alliance Trilogy
continues with
Hammer of God
, and
Crescendo of Doom
.

You can enter any of these three
trilogies that may interest you, though your understanding of the characters
and plot will be fullest by simply beginning with book one and reading through
them all!

The Kirov Series:
(Military
Fiction/Alternate History)

First Trilogy:

Kirov
-
Kirov Series - Volume I
Cauldron Of Fire -
Kirov Series - Volume II

Pacific Storm -
Kirov Series - Volume III

Bridge Novel:

Men Of War -
Kirov Series - Volume IV

Second Trilogy:
Nine Days Falling -
Kirov Series - Volume V

Fallen Angels -
Kirov Series - Volume VI

Devil’s Garden -
Kirov Series - Volume VII

Bridge Novel:

Armageddon
– Kirov Series – Volume VIII

Third Trilogy:

Altered States
– Kirov Series – Volume IX
Darkest Hour
– Kirov Series – Volume X
Hinge Of Fate
– Kirov Series – Volume XI

Bridge Novel:

Three Kings
– Kirov Series – Volume XII

Fourth Trilogy:

Grand Alliance
– Kirov Series - Volume XIII

Hammer of God
– Kirov Series – Volume XIV

Crescendo of Doom
– Kirov Series – Volume XV

Discover other titles by John Schettler:

Award Winning Science Fiction:

Meridian
-
Meridian Series - Volume I
Nexus Point
- Meridian Series - Volume II
Touchstone
- Meridian Series - Volume III

Anvil of Fate
- Meridian Series - Volume IV
Golem 7
- Meridian Series - Volume V
Classic Science Fiction:
Wild Zone
- Dharman Series - Volume I
Mother Heart
- Dharman Series - Volume II
Historical Fiction:
Taklamakan
- Silk Road Series - Volume I
Khan Tengri
- Silk Road Series - Volume II

Dream Reaper
– Mythic Horror Mystery

You can view information on all these books at:

www.writingshop.ws

or

www.dharma6.com

Mailto: [email protected]