Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (13 page)

“But
sir… This is 1908. What if we affect the history that led to the development of
the Soviet Union—the history that led to the design of this very ship!”

“If
we do so, it will be for the good Rodenko. You have to believe that. There will
be no need to resort to extreme measures here as I did before. I am ordering
that all nuclear warheads currently mounted on missiles or torpedoes are to be
removed and replaced with conventional warheads. They will be placed in secure
storage in the magazine.”

“A
wise precaution, sir. Then you intend to make Vladivostok our primary base of
operations?”

“Initially,
but it will have the same problem that prompted Russia to look for warm water
ports in Manchuria—ice. That was why Russia was expanding here in the first
place. We have always sought access to blue water ports throughout our history,
and we have never been successful. That is why we shiver in the ice and snow of
Severomorsk and Vladivostok. Admiral Makarov of this era set his sights on Port
Arthur, but the Japanese foiled our expansion here in the interest of
furthering their own domination of China, and they set us back on our heels.
Russia never recovered from the beating she took in the Russo-Japanese War, at
least not as a Pacific Power. We never were able to achieve our true and
rightful destiny here. All that changes now.”

“But
how, sir? What can we do?”

“First
we secure the cooperation of our homeland. Then we teach the Japanese a lesson
they will not soon forget.”

“The
Japanese?”

“Don’t
you know the history, Rodenko? Japan’s victory against us opened the door to
Manchuria. They will push us out and move right in, and we won’t get back there
again until 1945. The Japanese campaign in Manchuria led to the rapid
development of their army, and they will built one of the finest navies in the
world over the next few decades. This is what leads to their war of expansion
in the Pacific, and it took the considerable power of the United States to
crush them. I intend to stop them here, now, before they ever get the chance to
expand their dreams of a far eastern empire.”

“But
sir! We have only twenty-one missiles in the SSM inventory.”

“Correct,
but we also have thirty-two S-400s left and a hundred missiles in the
Klinok
system. The Americans have adapted their RIM-67 Standard Missile 2 as a dual
purpose weapon. It can now be used against ships as well as aircraft. They also
did this for their RIM-174 ERAM missile, the SM-6. Time to get creative,
Rodenko. We can do the same. The
Klinok
Gauntlet missile is effective
for target heights as low as ten meters. Yes, it has only a 15 kilogram
fragmentation warhead, but it could prove very useful against small craft or
even coastal targets, and it will outrange most naval guns of this era as well.
Don’t forget our deck guns either. We have 3000 rounds for the 152mm guns,
correct Samsonov?”

“Yes
sir. Plenty of ammunition for that system.”

“That
and a thousand rounds for the 100mm bow gun.”

“But
don’t they have battleships, sir? Look what it took to hurt the American ship
just now. The Japanese were able to smash our entire fleet in 1905.”

“Yes,
they call them battleships, but have a look here. Mister Fedorov left quite a
few of his old naval books at the navigation station and I have taken the
liberty of looking up some data. These are nothing like the ships we faced in
WWII. The Japanese Admiral Togo’s flagship at the Battle of Tsushima was the
Mikasa
.
Look for yourself, Mister Rodenko. The ship is half our size in both
displacement and length. It has four 12 inch guns that can range out to 18,000
meters, and fourteen 6 inch secondary batteries. Those are irrelevant, because
we will never let them get within gun range.
Mikasa’s
guns normally
fired at no more than 15,000 meters or less. The ship can make only 18 knots.
We can sail rings around anything the Japanese Navy has, and pound them with
our deck guns from as far as 28,000 meters. They can’t catch us, or hit us with
anything they have. True, our 152mm guns will not be as heavy as those of the
enemy, but they will hurt these old ships, that I’ll guarantee. In special
circumstances we can use a
Moskit-II
or
MOS-III
for a decisive
moment to decide the issue. And don’t forget the
Vodopad
torpedo mounts.
They range out 56,000 meters. How many torpedoes do we have, Mister Samsonov?”

“Sir,
we have a standard load of ten
Vodopad
torpedoes and six more UGST
torpedoes available for the KA-40 helo.”

“There,”
Karpov smiled. “Put a single torpedo into the gut of one of these old ships and
that will be all it takes. Why, we could sink all their battleships with our
torpedoes alone!”

Karpov
ran his finger down the pages of one of Fedorov’s books, and then turned, addressing
the entire bridge crew. “Listen to this, gentlemen. Here is a passage from one
of Fedorov’s books. It presents the Japanese view of the Russian Navy in the
Russo-Japanese war.” He began to read, looking up from time to time to note the
reaction of the men.

“The
Russians are very brave—very brave. But not many are good, and they are
savages. They can be very polite when it suits them, but Russian sailors are
miserable people who lie on the snow, and have very little money, which they
spend in buying cheap fish. They are dirty. That is all we know of Russian
sailors, who are quite strange people to us. But we have no fear as to the
result of a war with the Polar Bear.”

He
gave the men a long, searching look. “Hear that, men?”

“He’s
right about the money and fish, sir,” said Nikolin, and the whole bridge crew
laughed.

“Yes,
but we’ll see about raising your salary, Mister Nikolin, so you can afford a
little caviar. In spite of what this man wrote of us, we are now the most
powerful men on this earth. Mister Rodenko, we have sufficient conventional
ordnance to smash the entire Japanese fleet, and that is what I intend to do
should they challenge us at sea. But first—Vladivostok. We’ll announce
ourselves and see what kind of reception we get. Then we will see about Port
Arthur and the Japanese, and we will soon teach them that this Polar Bear has
sharp new teeth!”

* * *

It’s
name meant “Ruler of
the East.” The city was a bustling frontier town at the very end of the world,
as most Europeans might regard it. Its coat of arms, the famous Siberian Tiger,
reflected its wild and sometimes fierce nature. Founded in 1860 as a military
outpost by about 7,500 people, it had grown to a City of just over 90,000 by 1908.
In many ways Russia’s defeat in the war of 1904-05 had led to its rapid
development, along with the continuation of the Siberian Rail project. The loss
of Port Arthur returned the city to preeminence by default, as Russia had no
other suitable Pacific port.

Vladivostok
was a wild mix of many cultures and ethnicities—European civility rooting
itself in the central quarter, fringed by muddy streets, brothels, bars and
gaming establishments, and bordered by the Oriental quarter, Millionka, which
was home to numerous Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrants. Crime was rampant
there among the opium dens, and drug lords held sway in whole neighborhoods
where at times they would amuse themselves in a game that sought to discover
how long a man could remain alive while hanging from a rope by his neck. The
First River Penal center north of the city center was never lacking for new
arrivals.

Even
in the main European district along Svetlanskaya Street by the harbor quays the
atmosphere was that of a devil may care frontier town, where entertainment offered
by a troupe of dancing gypsies often began at midnight in the favorite Pacific Ocean
Theater, and carried on into the early morning hours. Here was found the
Imperial Bank, Lutheran Church, Museum, Oriental Institute, Post Office and the
Upenski Cathedral, yet these staid institutions could not impose but the barest
patina of civility on the place. It was still a den of thieves, gamblers,
adventurers, frontiersmen, and indigent sailors, with enough cafes,
restaurants, cinemas and gaming houses to keep them all well occupied. It was
an outpost of debauchery at the end of two thousand miles of iron rails that
scratched their way through the wilderness of Siberia. It was at once the terminal
end of that long overland passage, as well as the place of new beginnings that
was at the heart of every frontier.

A
new beginning meant opportunity, and that prospect was not lost on wealthy
entrepreneurs, which came to the city by sea in search of profit and fortune. A
great department store stood near the main railway station,
Kunst &
Albers,
burgeoning with wares from every quarter. Here also were the famous
Versailles Hotel and the Golden Horn, offering a taste of real European luxury
to passengers debarking from steamers. Military barracks surrounded the docks,
a steady source human firewood for the fires of gambling, prostitution and
crime in the city. Yet all this existed side by side with elegant performances
at the Pushkin Theater, museum lectures, Sunday tea parties, opera at the
German Singing Club, and Victorian ladies meeting in sewing circles.

With
all these contrasts apparent, the city was also both a gateway to the heartland
of Asia, accessible by rail and sea, and a bulwark of defense. Its famous
fortress would reach final completion in 1912, standing in the shadow of
concentric circles of brooding hills. It invited even as it held the world at
bay and, like any gateway city, the door might be open one day or closed the
next.

It
was to this bawdy and feral port that
Kirov
now sailed, and one thing was
at least immediately familiar to the crew as the ship approached—the mid-year
gloom of fog and low clouds. Like many coastal cities, the heat of the summer
simply added humidity to the atmosphere, and rain and fog was almost a daily
occurrence in June and July. By the same token, the Arctic chill of winter
would often be broken by many clear days of welcome sunshine in January and
February, and the autumn was particularly pleasant, the so called “velvet
season” of mild temperatures, falling leaves and soft fluffy clouds painted by
glorious sunsets.

If
Karpov hoped to conquer the world, as it now seemed his inner ambition once
again, he would first have to face the challenge of conquering Vladivostok. Yet
his first great trump card was the massive and looming might of the ship
itself. With accurate navigational charts, he decided to arrive well after
sunset, and with the ship’s lights darkened. They could creep slowly up through
the Eastern Bosphorus Strait, noting that there was no longer a great bridge
there spanning the gulf.

Rodenko
suggested they at least send a telegraph signal ahead to notify the authorities
that a ship of the Russian fleet was returning to base. “There will be guns at
the fortress, Captain, and numerous shore batteries. We don’t want some startled
gunnery officer to put a shell through the citadel window.”

“Good
point, Rodenko. Very well, I will have Nikolin cable the arrival of the new
Viceroy of the Far East—Vladimir Karpov, to be expected before dawn on the main
quay of the Golden Horn Harbor. We will have to turn out in full dress
uniforms—flags, honor guard with swords and baton. Spectacle will be a big part
of our initial impression. The ship alone should put them in awe, but I want to
make an equally intimidating appearance.”

“But
sir…Won’t they send to St. Petersburg for confirmation on this? As soon as they
find out that we have not been sent by the Tsar their suspicion will become
poison. They will never trust another word we say.”

“I’ve
considered that, so I will make no claim to that effect. I will say we have
come on our own accord, and that will be the truth. What they don’t know works
in our favor. Our words will mean nothing in the end, unless there are actions
to back them up. They will see the ship, and our actions will speak volumes
when we put it to good use.”

“But
why make contact at all then, sir? Won’t that merely complicate matters?”

“To
tell them what will soon happen,” said Karpov. “I will let them know what I
intend to do, and then deliver it. Only then will my demands receive any real
ear from the Imperial government here. Now, we must see to the landing
ceremony.”

“Very
well, sir…Or should I now begin calling you Viceroy, your grace?” Rodenko
smiled, yet he was inwardly worried that Karpov’s newfound energy and ambition
would end up being the same heady drink that had seen him let loose two nuclear
weapons on forces he perceived as mortal enemies, and the heartlessness of a
man who could do that frightened him.

The
Captain moved from the edge of despair to the ebullient energy of the conqueror
in a heartbeat, thought Rodenko. There is something inherently unstable about him,
and without Fedorov or Volsky here, as
Starpom
I am the only
countervailing force that might serve to moderate him. Yet thus far all I have
done stand by and watch stupidly while the Captain raged on. Fighting to defend
the ship in time of war was one thing. I knew my duty was clear there. But this
plan to start a war that was never supposed to be fought is quite another
thing. Yet what should I do?