Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (11 page)

“And what if we suffer the fate of Kamimura, Admiral? What if this
ship runs and attempts to evade us?”

“At the first sighting of the enemy all other divisions in the
vicinity will be ordered to the scene. If the ship runs, then pursue it at your
best speed and keep the flag informed of any change in its course.”

“This may be all academic,” said Dewa. “If this ship is as big as
was reported, then it is certainly a battleship, and should not be able to make
more than 18 knots. Our cruisers are much faster. We will catch him and bring
this Captain to heel.”

“I would hope so, Baron Dewa,” said Togo. “But I must tell you
that the ship is very fast as well, possibly the equal of any of our cruisers.
This has been reported many times. It left the
Empress of China
in its
wake easily, and that ship can cruise at 18 knots. It also evaded Kamimura’s
cruisers with uncanny ease, almost as if they could determine his every move
and alter course to exactly the correct heading to evade him. All this further
reinforces the idea that this is a new ship, something we have never seen
before. So I advise you all to be bold and very diligent. Begin live training
exercises the moment you arrive at your assigned patrol station. Drill on
maneuvers aimed at intercepting a solitary ship, not a set piece battle line
engagement. If the enemy flees, drive him towards our other divisions. This
ship must not be allowed to transit the Tsushima Straits, for any reason.”

“Rest assured, Admiral,” said Kataoka, his eyes alight with the
excitement of the new assignment. The Navy had done little more than wallow in
port with an occasional training exercise in recent years. He was going to sea
again, and with the hope of battle. Now all these Vice Admirals made Barons for
the glory they brought Japan in the last war could tussle with one another for
this final piece of cake. He resolved, then and there, that he would be the one
to find and discipline this Russian Captain.

Admiral Togo could see the enthusiasm in his eyes, and had every
confidence in all the officers assembled. Then why this shadow rising in the corner
of my mind, he asked himself? Why this odd inner warning that there is more
waiting for us in the Sea of Japan than any man here might expect?

Chapter 8

Karpov
was watching the distant rise of Dogo Island, one of several
small outcrops forming the Oki Island group, about 40 miles north of the coast
of the main island of Japan. A thin column of smoke was rising from the far
shore, and he imagined that some hunter was up in those hills, lighting his mid-day
fire for a good meal. Now he walked to the clear Plexiglas map of the Sea of
Japan, considering his next move in a brief conference with Rodenko.

He had made a cursory review of the mail obtained from RMS
Monteagle
,
and was now satisfied that this could be no other year than 1908. Every letter
was postmarked with that date, and he had the mail distributed to the crew for
souvenirs, as much as to cement in their minds that they were now sailing the
waters of the early 20th Century.

Soon after he had Nikolin transmit his edict on the Naval
quarantine over wireless telegraphy. It was sent:
“All ships – all ships – all
ships bound for ports on the Yellow Sea and China coast. A naval quarantine is
now imposed on the Sea of Japan, Tsushima Strait, Korea Strait, East China Sea
and Yellow Sea where all shipping of Japanese origin is concerned. All Japanese
registered shipping is prohibited, hereby designated fair prizes of war to be
attacked on sight. International shipping will be warned to leave the quarantine
zone, and attacked upon non-compliance.”

“That is a fairly ambitious declaration,” said Rodenko. “There is
no way we can impose it on all these waters. The minute we leave the Sea of
Japan, it will fill up with normal shipping again.”

“Perhaps, but I have no intention on lingering here now. My real
intent is to begin the strangulation of Port Arthur and other Japanese
interests in Manchuria as a prelude to persuading Russia to re-enter that
region. We don’t have to control the Sea of Japan, Rodenko. It’s the Yellow Sea
that we need to close. To do that I plan take up a patrol station here.”

Karpov pointed at the digital map to the gap between the Shandong
Peninsula and North Korea. It was a natural choke point, and all shipping bound
for Port Arthur would have to pass through those waters.

“That is the spot we take and hold. From there we become quite a
thorn in Japan’s side. It’s really only the Bay of Korea and Bohai Sea that we
have to scour, and nothing can enter those waters unless they move through the
Yellow Sea and this gap.”

“Agreed, sir, but to get there we will have to transit the
Tsushima Straits ourselves, narrow waterways that are easily patrolled and interdicted.”

“That is what I expect,” said Karpov. “As we move south I want the
KA-40 up with an
Oko
panel and returning long range radar data feeds so
we can pinpoint the location of every ship in the Sea of Japan. I want this
tactical board lit up and notated by color. Designate commercial traffic as
green, but any warship identified will be denoted in red.”

“You know what they’ll do, sir. Sasebo and Kure are their
principal naval bases in the south. The bulk of their entire fleet is there,
and it will be more than enough to cover the Tsushima and Korea Straits.
Granted, those waters span 175 kilometers, but the Japanese also have a base on
the central island group. It may not be as easy to slip through as you
believe.”

Karpov smiled, shaking his head. “You still don’t understand,
Rodenko. I have no intention of trying to slip through. I’m going to simply
sail through, and destroy anything in my path that attempts to impede me.”

Rodenko hesitated, then spoke his mind. “That may strain our
available ordnance, sir.”

“We will use the missiles sparingly, and I have had work crews
busy preparing our remaining SAM inventory so it can be re-targeted at surface
ships. Many of those systems have an engagement envelope with a fairly low
altitude threshold. The
Klinok
system can engage at 10 meters, and be
switched to manual guided mode. We used only 28 missiles and have 100
remaining. They are small HE warheads, but I imagine a salvo of six or eight
against a capital ship would be most disconcerting. Our remaining P-400s are an
even better long range weapon, and I have made it a top priority. They can hit
targets as low as 5 meters and those missiles have a 180 kilogram fragmentation
warhead which could riddle the superstructure of these old ships with lethal
shrapnel. It won’t penetrate armor, but the kinetic impact at speeds from Mach
8 to Mach 12 will be considerable. Think of them as shrapnel laden fire arrows.”

“I see… You’ve given this considerable thought, Captain. But are
you truly prepared to engage the entire enemy fleet?”

“Why not? There is no undersea threat, no air threat, just
ponderous old ships in a line, like sitting ducks. This will be much easier
than you may think.”

“And what about Fedorov, sir?”

“Fedorov? How he appeared in this same time is a mystery. If he’s
still here he will be in the Caspian Sea, and after we conclude this business
we may find an occasion to sail to the Black Sea and rescue his party if it
remains stranded here.”

“But what if they use that control rod again and manage to return
home?”

Karpov shook his head. “The man isn’t even thirty years old. Even
if we lead long lives here we’ll both be dead well before he is even born.”

“If he
is
born, Captain.”

Karpov gave his
Starpom
an odd look now. “What do you mean
by that?”

“I’m not sure, sir, but I think this is what Fedorov was all
steamed up about. From here, in 1908, anything we do to change the history will
have a much greater effect on future years.”

“Yes, yes, he was always worried about his history. Well, how do
the American say it? You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

“I think he fears something more than that, sir. We could cause a
change so radical that it might affect the lives of millions yet to be born.
Some that were fated to live may come into the world, others not. Many fated to
die may survive and sire descendants that were never supposed to exist.”

“Yes, Fedorov tried to explain all that to me once. He used the
example of a mirror, and each change we have worked in the history is a crack
in that mirror. In places it remains as smooth and unblemished as it always
was, in others it is badly cracked.”

“And if we look into that mirror our own image may become
unrecognizable, sir. This is what I think Fedorov worries about.”

“It is all useless speculation, Rodenko.” Karpov batted the
argument aside, but even as he did so he could hear Zolkin admonishing him:
“Well,
here’s a thought you can put into your own scheming head. Suppose you do
something here; something that changes everything. Suppose the grandparents of
men aboard this ship don’t survive in the new world you create? What happens to
the men then? Do they end up dead, never born, just like the men on that list
Volkov was all worked up over, with no record they ever existed? Suppose your own
grandfather dies. Then what?”

He considered that for some time, worried about it at first. The
missing men had all died in combat. That was how time accounted for the fact
they had never been born. If the warnings from Zolkin and Rodenko proved true,
and many others on the ship suffered the same fate, then that would mean they
might die in combat as well. That thought shook him for a moment, yet he could
not see how he could fail to master the situation here. As long as he kept his
wits about him,
Kirov
was invincible. So he decided Zolkin’s warning
would be an impossible event. How could he do something here to prevent the
birth of his grandfather? That man would
have
to be born for him to even
be here and do anything at all!

“Look, Rodenko, I don’t know how you voted on the question of
staying here or trying to get home, and I don’t care. All this nonsense about
doing something that will alter our own fate is a waste of time. We can’t
control what may happen in years to come. We may try to shape that world to our
liking, but things will happen there that are beyond our power to influence.
All we can really do is shape the day before us now, and then stack up one day
after another in the shape of our desire. This worry over future generations is
useless.”

Is it, sir? It was my thought to mention it as a way of
personalizing this whole matter. What would we do if the lives of the crew—if
our
own
lives depended on the outcome of our decisions?”

“That is so any time you lead men into battle,” said Karpov. “The
ship and crew are always in the equation, and your own life as well.”

“But what about the men on the other side, Captain? They have a
yearning for life as well. Alright… I looked in a few of Fedorov’s books on my
last shift. We’ll most likely be up against Admiral Togo, regarded as one of
the world’s top three fighting Admirals.”

“Accolades he won by defeating his peers in this era. Well this
man can in no wise be compared to me, any more than his flagship can be
compared to
Kirov
. What would Admiral Togo have done when faced with a
hundred
Super Hornets
off CV
Washington?
Do you think he would
have led his fleet out of that engagement intact as I did? It wasn’t until that
damn volcano blasted us into the past again that our luck turned bad and we
lost
Admiral Golovko.
Togo is out of his league here now, Rodenko. I
will master him as easily as I master his ships.”

“You mean to kill him, sir?”

Karpov seemed annoyed now. “You make it sound like a personal
vendetta, but my motives are far broader here. I have no desire to see the man
to an early grave, but if he opposes me, and will not submit, then he must be
prepared to accept his fate. We all must face the possibility that death will
come calling on us one day in the heat of battle. We have faced it many times,
but thus far we have cheated death and prevailed.”

“Well you saw what happened to
Admiral Golovko,
sir. All it
took was a single critical hit.”

“True, but that was a fluke, and a massive round fired by a much
more powerful ship than anything we face here. Think of this in military terms.
Mikasa
is not the battleship
Iowa
. None of these ships are even
truly worthy of the name battleship—not while
Kirov
sails these waters.”

“What I meant was that battle often presents the unexpected, sir.
I don’t think Captain Ryakhin expected his ship would be hit at that range by a
random shell, but it was, and we both saw the result. I don’t think Captain
Yeltsin on the
Orlan
expected to look over his shoulder and find us
missing in the heat of that last engagement in 1945, but there he was, alone on
a sea of fire, unless he also shifted somewhere else. Who knows? What if he’s
been blown to another year—1905—1912?”

“We would know it if he arrived earlier than this time period. As
for the rest, what you say is true. War is uncertain, battle is inherently
risky. But the timid make bad warriors, Rodenko, and you will find the
graveyards littered with more of them than the brave men who fell in battle by
acting boldly. I intend to fight here and survive. If fate has other plans for
us, then let her try me in battle as well.”