Armageddon

Chapter 25

Nikolin returned to his station, a nervous look on his face. He sat down, eying the Captain with a furtive glance, and when Karpov withdrew to the flag briefing room he fixed his headphones in place and reached for the message recording bank. His hand hesitated briefly as he wondered whether he should play the recording back, but curiosity overwhelmed him and defeated his caution. Who would know? It would seem as though he were just monitoring signal traffic. So he toggled the switch to replay the message, listening with surprise and then growing alarm as he realized what was happening. Fedorov was in Vladivostok with Admiral Volsky! The Admiral was ordering the ship to disengage and return to that port at once!

His gaze strayed to Rodenko, who seemed to be fidgeting uneasily at the Plexiglas situation map, his eye drawn upward to the Tin Man HD screen as he looked at real-time images of the symbols being tracked on the digital display. He was putting the two systems into synchronization mode, so that he could simply tap the Plexiglas screen and the Tin Man would zoom on that precise location to display the hi-res optical feed. At intervals Rodenko looked aft to the flag briefing room where Karpov had sealed himself away, and Nikolin could see the same curiosity in the Starpom’s eyes. What was the Captain doing? More to the point, Nikolin wondered what he was doing himself? Should he tell Rodenko what he heard? What if the Captain suddenly emerged from the flag bridge in the middle of that?

The urgency of the Admiral’s voice alarmed him now… “If you fail to obey, this order falls on your Starpom, and should he fail to heed this command, then it falls to the next senior watch officer on the bridge, Mister Samsonov, through Tasarov, and then to Nikolin…” My God, what was happening? What if no one else obeys the order? What should I do? His heart beat faster as the message concluded. Then the hatch to the flag briefing room opened and the Captain stepped onto the battle bridge, his face set and grim.

“Mister Tasarov, come here.”

Tasarov looked up sheepishly, not knowing why the Captain would want him. There had been very little to do at his station in recent days. This era presented no undersea threats, but he had busied himself listening to the sea around them, noting the special quality of its emptiness and silence when the ship was alone, and then honing in on the sonic characteristics of the Japanese ships when they were present. They seemed to slosh through the water with a ponderous noise, and he could easily hear their approach on passive sonar from many miles away, well over the horizon.

Now the Captain was waving at him impatiently, and so he removed his headset and slowly stood up. The look on the Captain’s face made him feel he was about to be disciplined for something. He knew he had been told not to listen to music at his post, but he had pocketed his music player and never used it now when Karpov was on the bridge. He had been sending text messages back and forth to Nikolin as the two men played an old favorite Russian game of riddles. Did Karpov discover the surreptitious messages?

“Com. Radar.” Kochenko was reporting again to note the current range interval. “Range is now16,000 meters and closing.”

Rodenko gave the Captain a look, as though he expected an order, but Karpov simply shooed Tasarov into the flag briefing room and then closed the hatch. This was enough of an irregularity to prompt him to move from behind the Plexiglas screen and onto the main bridge area, his eyes fixed on the closed hatch, and then straying upward again to the HD feed where the image of a long battle line of warships was clearly evident, under the long billowing charcoal smoke from their stacks as they labored into the rising wind.

Inside the flag briefing room Karpov now fixed Tasarov with a hard stare. “Mister Tasarov, there has not been much work at your station for some days, but that is about to change.”

Tasarov thought the Captain was angry with him and going to assign him to some new duty, but it seemed very odd to him that he would take such a disciplinary action at the edge of battle like this. Then the Captain asked him a question that set the conversation off on a most unexpected direction.

“You have sonic signatures of undersea boats stored in our computers?”

“Sir? Well, yes sir. Of course.”

“How extensive are they? Do you have profiles on our ships and boats as well as those of the enemy?”

“Yes sir. Our ships are in the secondary memory, but I can call them to the live profile track when we exercise with fleet units.”

“Excellent. Then you have sonic profiles on all our submarines?”

“Those we have maneuvered with are current, sir. Other boats would be in the data library, but they would be general recordings, and all the data would not be considering our current sound field. They are more like templates.”

“Could you identify one of our own submarines if it were anywhere nearby?”

“That depends on many things, sir, yes, I suppose I could, yet I don’t understand-”

“Alright. Then we will liven up your duty here a bit. I want you to assume undersea alert one when you return to your station. How would you look for one of our very best submarines-just as an example.”

“Sir?” Obviously the Captain had some kind of drill in mind to jeep him busy. “Well if it was a very quiet boat I would use the KA-40 and the towed Horse Tail sonar to augment my normal shipborne systems.”

“Excellent. Do this. Assume you must find the best submarine we have. I will be sending up the KA-40 as soon as it replenishes, and you may issue direct orders to that asset as well. Deploy the towed sonar array if you wish, or even use active sonar if you would deem it necessary to hone in on a contact. I want you to do anything you might normally do to provide the ship with the best possible awareness of any undersea threat. Understood?”

Tasarov raised his eyebrows beneath the dark crop of brown hair protruding from the edge of his service cap. “Is this an exercise, sir?”

“Of course. I cannot simply let you sit there musing on the ocean floor and listening to whales. You must be as sharp at your post as any of the others.”

“Very well, Captain. I will assume undersea alert level one.”

“And to make your exercise a little more demanding, assume we are actually in a war situation with one of our very best submarines. What boat would you select?”

Something in the Captain’s eyes made Nikolin very nervous now, a darkness that held fear as well as the cold logic and calculation of war. “In this theater, sir? Why… I suppose I would chose Kazan. That’s a Yasen class boat, sir, very quiet, very stealthy.” He noted what he thought was a flash of trepidation on the Captain’s face when he said that, as if he had hit some deep nerve of fear.

“Good…Assume it is out there somewhere, that very boat. Listen for it. Report anything you hear.”

Tasarov nodded, but the order made little sense to him. “But I won’t hear anything, Captain. Kazan is not out there.”

“Listen as if it was here. That is the only way to drill, Tasarov. Yes? Now, we are about to go into battle. Your job may be difficult here, but I want to know immediately, immediately, if you hear anything at all that might indicate the presence of a hostile undersea contact-of any undersea contact. Understood?”

“But sir, there won’t be…Yes sir.”

“And at undersea alert one you realize you will also have the RBU rocket defense system as well as the Shkval torpedo system and the RPK-2 Viyugas primed and operational at all times, correct? I want full readiness.”

“Yes sir.” Squalls and blizzards…That’s what Shkval and Viyuga meant. The undersea weather was going to be very bad, it seemed. He wondered if the Captain would ask him to fire any of the weapons.

“Do not look so confused, Mister Tasarov. You may not fully understand why I order this, but it has come to my attention that there are, indeed, fledgling submarines in this era.” A little vranyo, a simple garnish on the salad. That would do the job here, Karpov thought. “So if you are listening for our very best, and searching for it out there, then you will certainly find anything they might have deployed from this era, correct?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Alright then.” The Captain turned and punched the wall comm-link panel, taking the handset. “Flight deck,” he said tersely. “Prepare the KA-40 for operations as soon as it is recovered-full ASW loadout.”

There was a brief silence on the line before a voice came back. “Anti-submarine loadout, sir?”

“That is what I just ordered. Now be quick about it! Mister Tasarov will be authorized to conduct this launch at his discretion. You will coordinate with him.”

“Aye, sir. The helo is landing in five minutes. We’ll be ready soon after. Flight deck out.”

“There you are, Tasarov. I’m counting on those sharp ears of yours now, and I may join your exercise during this action. Understood? Be sharp. I will be watching. Now back to your post.”

Nikolin sat paralyzed for a moment, not knowing what he should do. The Captain had taken Tasarov into the Flag Plot briefing room and closed the door, and he wondered why. Curious, he toggled inter-ship communications and listened to any routine traffic underway. It was not long before he knew that there was activity aft on the helo deck, and that an ASW loadout mission was being prepared. That surprised him, but given the sudden conference with Tasarov, he now knew that the Captain was getting ready to defend the ship from a submarine. But why?

He played back the conversation again, hearing the urgency in Admiral Volsky’s voice as he ordered Karpov to cease his current operation and return to Vladivostok. Then, near the end, he heard another voice he hadn’t noticed before, and the name of another officer-Gromyko. He paused the recording, and played it back again. There is was: “Captain Gromyko, sir. I have the maintenance log for-”

Captain Gromyko? Who was that? Curious, he decided to solve the riddle by simply keying the name in the naval register. That data was always on file at his terminal, as he was responsible for maintaining all ships compliment and updating them in the general register to note promotions and service details. Seconds later he had the answer, and when he saw the notation for Gromyko’s present command the adrenalin rose like magma in his chest.

Now he found himself at a real precipice. What should he do? His instinct was to try and warn Rodenko, or at least get him the information he had uncovered so he could decide what to do, but they were at the edge of combat and Rodenko was across the room near Tactical Situation screen plotting the position of all enemy contacts with radar feeds. I can’t just blurt this out, he thought. Nor can I leave my station and go over there. What can I do?

Then another idea came to him. The game! The game he had been playing with Tasarov! With little to do in this environment, he and Tasarov had been sending riddles back and forth secretly. He was opening a quiet channel to Tasarov’s station, and the other man had a toggle switch that allowed him to receive Nikolin’s secret little messages using the ship’s closed short range cellular system. He could text Tasarov and send him his riddle, and then they would count the time it took to solve the word puzzle. The man who solved it first was declared winner that day, and they had been exchanging things in payment for the prize.

Nikolin’s last riddle had been simple and yet devious: It neither barks nor bites but guards the house well. Tasarov had not been in doubt for long. Two minutes later he sent back a text message with his answer-a lock! Then three minutes later he fired off his own riddle for Nikolin to solve: I have four legs and feathers, but I am neither beast nor bird. Nikolin knew that one easily enough, and sent back the answer in under a minute — a bed!

Tasarov was now busy loading in his sonic profile data and getting ready to set up his comm-links and data point feeds to the KA-40 when it launched. Then he saw the red light indicating a text message was coming from Nikolin and he looked over at Nikolin as if to shake off the incoming message. He had no time for games now-not with the Captain all hot like this and detailing him with this new duty. But something in the look on Nikolin’s face wasn’t right. He looked frightened, nervous, and there was an urgency in his eyes, in the nod of his head as he seemed to plead for Tasarov to answer.

With a shrug the sonar man reached for the toggle switch and enabled station to station text, casting a furtive glance at the Captain as he did so. He just thought to signal back NO TIME, but then he saw the message. It was not a riddle…

Karpov walked slowly to the view ports, his hand reaching for his field glasses as was his habit in a surface engagement. He stared out at the sea, then raised the binoculars to his eyes, his hand unsteady. For a long minute he searched the grey wave tops, as if he might spy out the tiny white wake of a periscope or sensor mast from a hidden submarine. He could see the distant silhouette of Iki Island off the port bow and now he knew what he had to do. He meant to use his deck guns here to open the action, and pepper the enemy with those S-400s to rake their decks with lethal shrapnel and start fires. Yet now the dire threat posed by Kazan forced him to open, or at least maintain the range and seek a better tactical position until he could get the KA-40 up and out to try and hunt down that infernal submarine. He looked down at his watch, considering.

I have to know where they are, he thought. I cannot get too engaged here until we have located the Kazan. We would be in the midst of battle for the next two hours if I attack now as planned, and what if Tasarov suddenly hears incoming torpedoes off that damn submarine. No! I’ve got to find defensive cover and eliminate attack bearings for torpedoes. That island there is perfect, but what if they hit us with a missile barrage? I’ve been reprogramming all the remaining SAMs to be used as anti-ship missiles! How far has that progressed?

“Mister Samsonov.”

“Sir!” Samsonov sat up stiffly, expecting battle orders, as he could see the range was inside 16,000 meters.

“How many S-400s remain?”

“We have thirty-one missiles, sir.”

“And how many have been converted for ship to ship usage?”

“Twenty-two, sir.” The big man’s hand hovered over the S-400 bank, expecting Karpov to order them into action.

My God, thought Karpov. He had given orders to restrict the missiles to low altitude flight paths with reduced speed. That leaves us only nine long range SAMs that could hit anything at altitude like an incoming cruise missile before it dives to its sea skimming approach. “Halt all conversions. Send down a message to the weapons bays and tell the crews to begin restoring the S-400s to normal operating parameters until further notice.”

“Restore to air-to-air configuration, sir?”

“That is what I said! Why is it I must repeat an order twice?”

“Sorry, Captain. I will send down the order at once.”

That got Rodenko’s attention, and he walked slowly to the Captain’s side, folding his arms as he leaned into the interaction with Samsonov.

“Air-to-air defense, Captain? I don’t understand. I thought you wanted to use the S-400s in SSM mode. If I am not mistaken the Japanese have no aircraft here.”

Karpov turned his head, eyes dark, lifeless, like those of a shark, but he spoke only to his CIC officer. “How long will this take, Mister Samsonov?”

“Sir? Well the men have been working for the last eight hours and doing about four missiles per hour.”

“Tell them to work faster. I want another dozen S-400s returned to original configuration within the hour. Activate Kashtan system and establish air alert two.”

“Captain,” said Rodenko again. “As Starpom I must understand what you are doing here.”

“What I am doing here, Mister Rodenko, is giving orders. Your task is to second them and see that they are accomplished in a timely manner. Now… Thirty degrees right rudder. The ship will come to one-five-zero. Battle speed! Ready on all 152mm batteries.”

Rodenko was ready to ask another question, but he turned his head and seconded the order. “Helm, come right thirty degrees and steady on 150. Battle speed. Ready on all deck guns.”

“Helm answering, and ahead at thirty knots, sir.”

“All batteries report ready,” said Samsonov.

“Captain?” Rodenko was even more insistent now. “What was that radio message about, if I may inquire, sir?”

“The main enemy column will be northwest of us on this heading, Mister Rodenko. I want to open the range.” Karpov deftly ignored the question, focusing on giving Rodenko information as to his battle strategy. “That surprise we had when we stumbled upon those other two battleships is also in mind.” He strode over to the tactical display and Rodenko followed to see the Captain increase magnification, centering the map on Iki Island. “Look there,” he said. “See those bays and islets at the southern end of that island? Who knows what they may be hiding there, eh?”

“We had no radar returns from that sector, sir. All their capital ships are massing to the northwest off our aft port quarter after this turn. It looks like they are trying to get into a position to prevent us turning on a heading to the Yellow Sea.”

“I can hit them any time I choose,” said Karpov. “But the helicopter is now replenishing, and they may slip something behind that island-perhaps a flotilla of those pesky torpedo boats. I intend to go over and have a look. This maneuver south may also compel them to move in this direction. I want to see what this Admiral Togo does. If they follow me the will be strung out like a string of pearls.”

Nikolin had been watching the scene, knowing exactly what was happening and why, but unable to say or do anything about it. Rodenko was slowly beginning to perceive that something was amiss, he thought. The incoming radio message, the Captain’s speedy retreat to the briefing room, the conference there with Tasarov had all been noticed, and started some suspicion smoldering. Now the odd order to Samsonov to refit the S-400s and an air alert order must have him thinking something is wrong. I can add fuel to that fire if I just speak up now.

The adrenaline pounded in his chest as he considered what to do. “Sir,” he said, trying to sound like he was making a routine report. “KA-40 reports ready for operations in ten minutes. Full ASW loadout.” He looked at Rodenko briefly as he said that, hoping it would be the last match required to light the fire. It worked.

“A word, sir,” said Rodenko firmly. “I still don’t understand what we are doing. Why the order to reconfigure those S-400s? There is no air threat here. Why is the ship on air alert two? And what is the KA-40 doing with an ASW loadout?”

Karpov’s jaw tightened, the emotion there intense. Rodenko thought the Captain might yell at him for a moment, but he saw how he mastered himself. Then he spoke in a hushed tone. “The ship will steer one-five-zero. Mister Samsonov, engage the nearest enemy ships with the two forward deck guns. Walk with me, Mister Rodenko, if you please.”