Paradox Hour

Chapter 22

Engineering Chief Dobrynin was the next man to hear it, the same deep disturbance in the sound field that Tasarov had heard earlier. The Chief’s ears were fine tuned to the nuances of the ship, every squeak and rumble and grind of the turbines and engines, the hum of the reactors, the symphony of the entire machine itself as Kirov cut its way into the Atlantic. He had been reviewing service readouts from the main propulsion system, pleased that the reactors had been holding up very well, in spite of long hours at high speed. As he folded the file closed, he heard something that prompted him to incline his head, listening…

“Mister Garin,” he said to his reactor Technician, Ilya Garin. “Any disturbance on your monitors?”

“Sir?” Garin looked over his panels, noting nothing out of order, and reported as much.

“Very well… “ Dobrynin should have been satisfied with that situation, but he was still not content. He set the sheaf of files down, sat in his swivel chair and put his feet up on the low stool he often used like a makeshift ottoman. Then he closed his eyes, listening… Listening…

There it was, something barely perceptible. Was it a vibration, or a sound? It seemed to reside on some undefined grey zone between those two sensations, and it was as if the Chief had a sixth sense that could perceive the medley. A sound… a tremor… a warning… There was nothing in his file readouts, and nothing on Garin’s monitors, but he could feel it, sense it, and it gave him a deep sense of misgiving. He listened for a time, and the longer he did, the more foreboding the feeling became. After a while it began to create a slowly rising anxiety in him, as if his body could feel the vibration, and interpret it as danger. He could feel that thrum of adrenaline in his torso, and could no longer sit still.

“Mister Garin, I believe we should initiate a diagnostic routine of the reactor system.”

“Again sir? We only just completed compiling the data from that diagnostic we ran two days ago.”

“So we will have new data to compile. Yes? Let’s begin with the thermodynamics. We will use the primary monitor, and the backup system as well.”

Garin shrugged, but knew there was really only one response that was acceptable. “Aye sir. I’ll get started right away.”

Fedorov could feel the tension on the ship. It had been a very long journey, perhaps one of the longest deployments at sea ever endured by any modern ship or crew. After those first harrowing encounters in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and finally in the Pacific, the crew had some brief relief off the coast of Australia, and on that island Admiral Volsky had been longing for. The time they had in Vladivostok was brief, and provided no real sense of homecoming for them. There were odd incidents there, resulting from the subtle changes in the time line caused by Kirov’s intervention. The city was different, yet in places oddly familiar. There had been restaurants that were apparently meant to be, in any time line, and other familiar businesses. Yet some crew members had gone home to find total strangers living where their house once was, or worse, to find their home, or even street, was entirely missing!

So we left a different world from the one where we started, he thought. I was lost along the Siberian Rail line when Karpov took the ship out, so all I know of that period was what I have learned from the others here. There was more combat against the American navy, in two different time periods. And then that unfortunate situation that saw the ship blasted deeper into the past must have been very hard. When that happened, I think the crew abandoned any hope of ever seeing home again as they once knew it. Even Admiral Volsky took to a little relief in a bottle of Vodka in his quarters. I certainly don’t blame him.

Doctor Zolkin has been a life saver, and in more ways than one. It was his character and opposition to Karpov at that critical moment that eventually enabled us to complete our mission and remove Kirov from the early 20th Century. Yet we remain stuck here in WWII, the great catharsis of the modern world, the most devastating war mankind has ever inflicted upon itself—save that last one, the war we were trying so hard to prevent.

We arrived here last June. Now here it is May of 1941! In all that time the crew has been faithful at their posts. They got some relief when we sailed north to Murmansk, yet I think all that did was give them a taste of what they had lost. The brief shore leave we arranged in Alexandria was hardly enough. They must be wound up tighter than a spring, and this incident with Lenkov was most unsettling.

Everywhere Fedorov went as he walked the ship, he got the same questions. The crew wanted to know what was happening, and he had no real explanation for them. “We experienced a moment where our position in time was not stable,” he said in one compartment near the missile bays. “You remember what happened to us when that Japanese ship seemed to move right through us.”

“Who can forget that sir?” said a mishman of the watch.

“Well it was something like that, only a very minor incident. Lenkov was just unlucky, that is all I can say. I know you men have had a hard time here, We have asked more of you than any man should have to give in the service of their country. I thank you for being the strong bone and muscle of this ship, and I am sorry I have put you through all of this.”

The men were silent for a time. Then the mishman spoke up, going so far as to even put his hand on Fedorov’s shoulder. “We stand with you, Captain. Where you lead us, we will follow. Don’t worry sir. We are all fine.”

That was a hard moment for Fedorov. He felt the emotion clench his throat, nodded his acknowledgement, and moved on. Here the men were trying to comfort me, he thought. This is a good crew, loyal to a man, and god go with us now. God help me lead them, and if there is anyplace out there that we can ever call home again, show me the way…

He finished his silent prayer, ducked into a hatch, and found the ladder down to the next deck. That was when he ran into Chief Dobrynin.

“Good day, Chief. How are the engines holding up?”

“Well enough, sir, but there was something else I wanted to speak with you about.”

“Oh? Shall we go to your office?”

The two men walked down one more ladder, and found the Chief’s working hideaway. Fedorov took note of the books he kept there, a mix of technical manuals, physics, thermodynamics, engineering, and strangely, music. He had several books on the great Russian composers, and even a few musical scores of symphonies by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky.

“When do you ever get time to listen to good music?” said Fedorov.

“Not often enough,” said Dobrynin. “In fact, it is something else I’ve been listening to that I wanted to discuss with you. You know I have good ears. That’s how I was able to try and control those flux events when we used Rod-25. Well… I’ve been hearing something of late—something strange.”

“A problem in the engines?”

“I’m not sure yet, though I have Mister Garin running the second diagnostic this week.”

“Have there been any unusual readings.”

“Not lately. Not even with this Lenkov incident. I went over the charts very carefully, but I could not see anything in the data that would lead me to believe that the ship had any kind of problem.”

“That is some relief, I suppose.”

“Perhaps,” said Dobrynin. “But if the ship did lose its integrity in this time, even for a brief moment, I should have noticed it. There should have been some readings in the reactor flux.”

“But why, Chief? We are not using Rod-25, so the reactors were not exposed to anything it may have contained. Why would we begin to pulse again? Have you given that any thought?”

“I don’t know sir, but remember we do have those other control rods aboard, and that thing Orlov found in Siberia.”

“Yes, the Devil’s Teardrop. Is it still in a secure location?”

“As far from the reactors as I can get it,” said Dobrynin. “I have it down in the empty weapons storage bay for special warheads. That area has extra radiation shielding, which should be some protection, assuming this thing emits that kind of energy.”

“Explain.”

“Well sir, this whole business of the ship moving in time… It must be happening on a quantum level. I can’t say that I can give you any real explanation, but whatever is in that thing may be in a concentration great enough to have an effect, even far from the reactors. It certainly sent us right into a flux event any time it came within ten feet of the reactor room.”

“I see… Then what have you been hearing, Chief?”

“A sound of some kind. A vibration. Both.”

“A vibration in the propulsion system?” asked Fedorov.

“I don’t think so, Captain. In fact, I have listened very carefully of late, and I don’t think its mechanical at all. But I can sense it.”

“Yet it is coming from somewhere on the ship? Have you localized it?”

“Not exactly, sir. That was the first thing that came to my mind as well. So I walked the ship from stem to stern, thinking I would hear it more in one place, less in another, but that was not the case. It seems to be resonating from all directions. I could not get any sense that it was emanating from a specific place on the ship.”

“What does it sound like?”

“Very deep, sir. A very low sound, so low that it becomes something felt as much as anything heard. It may be well below the threshold of human hearing. But I can pick it up with these dog’s ears of mine.”

Now Fedorov remembered a report that Rodenko had given him concerning Tasarov. He had reported hearing something, first in his quarters, then at his post while listening on sonar. Rodenko had him prosecuting it up on the bridge as if it were an undersea contact, yet there was no data trace in the electronics, not on radar or sonar. Now Dobrynin was hearing something odd, and it was clear that it was bothering him, if only because he could not isolate it and determine the cause.

“Now here is the strange thing,” said Dobrynin. “I have tried for some time to locate the source of this sound, but with no results. In fact, I have come to think I might get out in a launch, away from the ship, and then see if I can still hear it.”

“I’m afraid we haven’t time to stop for a boat launch operation, Chief. There’s trouble ahead.”

“I understand, sir. And that is a good way of describing this sound—trouble ahead. It’s what it feels like, Captain—trouble.”

Fedorov looked at him for a moment, then scratched his ear. “Keep listening, Chief. Let me know if you think this is having any effect on the engines or reactors. I’ll go down to the missile bays, and see if any of the men there report this, and I’ll make sure Admiral Volsky is informed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

A sound that could not be heard, but it could be clearly felt. Every good ghost story has seen the dogs and cats become aware of something long before it came on the scene. Dobrynin’s comment about his dog’s ears was very telling. Tasarov hears it too. In fact, didn’t Orlov report something like this on that mission to Siberia? Perhaps Sergeant Troyak can shed some light on this. I’m told he heard what Orlov reported, along with several of the Marines.

Now he found himself heading for the Helo Bay and the Marines. He thought he would find them involved with routine operations, cleaning rifles, tending to the KA-40, but when he got there he could see that Troyak had a problem on his hands. There was some commotion, swearing, and the sound of obvious alarm. He could hear Troyak’s deep voice interrogating a Marine as he came on the scene.

“Then nobody knows about this? No one saw a thing?”

“No Sergeant. It was just there! I was stowing this equipment from the desert mission, and when I opened that locker—”

“Captain on deck!”

The Sergeant turned, saluting as Fedorov came up. The other Marines were at attention, and Fedorov could see they were in some distress.

“I’d like to say as you were, but is there a problem, Sergeant?”

“You had better have a look in that storage locker, sir.”

Fedorov was surprised for a moment, wondering what this was about. He stepped over to the half closed locker, and eased the metal door open, his eyes widening as he did so. Several of the other Marines leaned in to peer into the shadows of the locker once again, as if to convince themselves they were actually seeing what they had reported to Troyak.

“My god…”

“Litchko found it a moment ago,” said Troyak.

“Yes sir,” said Litchko. “Like I was telling the Sergeant. I was just going to stow away those mortars after cleaning and inspection. When I opened the locker…”

“I had a closer look,” said Troyak. “I found this.”

He handed Fedorov a piece of crumpled paper. It was a list of supplies, cooking oil, flour, potatoes, starch, salt, and then below a line at the bottom of the note that read: “One pack of cigarettes for one extra serving. No exceptions.”

“I don’t understand,” said Fedorov. “Who is that?” He pointed to the shadows of the locker.”

“I think it is Lenkov, sir… or at least a part of him. That note was in the trouser pocket. He had a game going taking cigarettes in trade for extra servings at the mess.”

“Lenkov? But we found him dead in the galley?”

“We found a part of him there,” said Troyak. “Those are Lenkov’s legs. Just that, nothing more. They’re stuck right in the back side of that locker at the waist. The rest of him was left in the galley.”

Trouble ahead, thought Fedorov. Too many questions, and not enough answers. Here were Lenkov’s missing legs! They did not simply wink out of existence as Kamenski suggested, like Turing’s watch, because the damn watch never winked out of existence either—it simply moved!

And so did Lenkov’s legs.

Chapter 23

Fedorov gave orders that this latest incident should be kept quiet, as far as possible. “No need to let this get out among the crew,” he said. “The first incident was bad enough.”

He wondered if this had happened at the same moment that the other half of poor Lenkov had turned up in the galley, and why his body would have been split in two like that. But with no answers, all he could do was try to minimize the psychological damage, and carry on. He pulled Troyak aside, asking him about that sound he had been discussing with Chief Dobrynin.

“Yes,” said Troyak. “I heard it when we found that cauldron in the clearing. Devil’s Cauldron, Devil’s Teardrop, glubokiy zvuk. It is not the first time I have heard it. Very deep sound. Bone deep.”

“Tell me more.”

“I come from the Chukchi Peninsula, and as a boy I would often hike the highlands and taiga. Yes, I have heard such a sound before. But you do not hear it, unless you have very good ears. You feel it, sense it, and it is very strange.”

“You say you heard or felt this on that mission to Ilanskiy… Have you heard anything lately, here on the ship?”

“No sir, just my men complaining more than they should.”

“Complaining? About what?”

“Little things. Nothing in particular. They’re just edgy.”

“Give them some rest, Sergeant. They were away on combat tour for several months. Getting back into the routines of the ship may take a while. Give them some rest.”

“I will sir, but it would be better if we don’t find any more body parts in the lockers.” Troyak smiled. “Sir… There was one other time when I heard this sound. It was in the desert, just before that incident—the lights in the sky.”

“I see… And did it continue?”

“No sir. It settled down when the sky did the same.”

And that was when Kinlan’s Brigade came right through a breach in time at the Sultan Apache facility, thought Fedorov. Orlov had that object with him, and he reported it changed temperatures at that same time. The dots were slowly connecting in Fedorov’s mind, and he was slowly convincing himself that this sound being reported by Tasarov and Dobrynin had something to do with the Devil’s Teardrop.

“Very well, Sergeant. If you hear this sound again—any sign of it at all—please report it to me at once. Keep that locker sealed off for the moment. I’ll have Doctor Zolkin and the Engineers take care of everything.”

“Good enough, sir.”

Fedorov was off, returning Troyak’s salute and heading forward and up, bound for the bridge. He stopped several times along the way, and made a point of visiting Doctor Zolkin, where there were several men waiting in a line outside his sick bay. Zolkin saw the Captain and stuck his head out.

“Privilege of rank, gentlemen,” he said with a smile. “Let me have a moment to see what the Captain needs.”

“I hope you are alright sir,” a man said, as Fedorov stepped in through the hatch.

“I am fine, Mister Yakov. I just need to see to the doctor’s supply needs.”

The men smiled, somewhat relieved to know that Fedorov might not be coming here for the same reasons they were. Once inside, with the hatch closed, Fedorov folded his arms.

“We found the other half of Lenkov,” he said starkly, getting right to the point.

Zolkin raised his cinder grey brows. “Where?”

“In a locker near the Helo Bay. Can you summon those same Engineers and see to it?”

“Of course, Mister Fedorov.” Zolkin shook his head. “Now I have the whole body, and we can arrange a proper burial at sea. Should it be a ceremony with the men standing by?”

Fedorov thought for a moment. He wanted to keep the discovery of Lenkov’s legs quiet, to still the rumor mill that was already troubling the ship. But the thought of just summarily dumping Lenkov overboard like so much trash was distasteful. The man deserved more than that.

“Yes, Doctor,” he said. “Arrange it and inform the bridge ten minutes before you begin. Either I or the Admiral will have some words for the crew over the P.A. system. Lenkov sailed with us, fought with us, and endured everything we have been through. He will be given his due respect.”

“Agreed,” said Zolkin. “And let us hope we have no further incidents like this. What could have caused it?”

“I’m still not certain, but it may have something to do with that thing Orlov found. We have it stowed in a radiation safe area, but its effects may not work that way.”

“Quite a little bag of wizards tools we’re collecting here, Fedorov. First the control rods, now this!”

Fedorov nodded. “That line out there is a little troubling,” he said, thumbing the hatch. “What’s going on with the men?”

“Nothing serious. Oh, there were a few bruised shins from the engineering section, a cut thumb, and the rest just seem to be complaining they can’t sleep well. And several have complained about hearing something. I asked what it was, but they had no real answer for me.”

“Who were these men?”

“Tomilov for one…. And Sorokin.”

“They’re both assigned to the missile bays, yes?”

“Ask Orlov. I just pass out the aspirin and sedatives, and take care of men who end up in two places at once when the world can’t decide where they belong. This is very strange, Fedorov. I hope you get to the bottom of it. But do be careful.”

“I will, Doctor, carry on, and thank you. I know this must be hard on you as well.”

“I can’t say it’s all in a day’s work, but I’ll manage.” Zolkin smiled.

Fedorov was out past the line of waiting crewmen, talking briefly with the men there, and then on the way to the bridge to report to Volsky.

“Things are adding up now, sir,” he said. “But I haven’t decided what we should do about it. If this sound is associated with a time breach, as Troyak’s report seems to suggest, then its emergence here is most alarming. I’m beginning to suspect that object may be responsible for destabilizing the ship’s position in time. The fact that several men are now reporting they hear or feel this deep sound, as Troyak calls it, is not something we can ignore.”

“What do you suggest we do, Fedorov?”

“We’re well out to sea,” he started, thinking. “I once considered dropping that thing from the KA-40 into the Qatarra Depression, but held on to it to see what we could learn. Dobrynin gave it a good inspection. He does not think it is a natural object. He thinks it was machined, which made me all the more curious about it.”

“Machined? By who?”

“We don’t know, but the level of technology required to achieve the properties he observed was very high. It could not be from this era.”

“Then you believe this thing came from the future? Our Future?”

“Dobrynin says we might create something like this in 2021, so it must be from some future time, possibly even beyond those years. Remember, time goes both directions. We arrogantly believe there is nothing after our own time until we live it, but the future is as real as this past, or at least I think it is.”

“You don’t sound all that convinced,” said Volsky. “And what we may have seen of the time beyond our own was not very pleasant.”

“Miss Fairchild strongly indicated they believed that future time was attempting to contact them.”

“Yes,” said Volsky, “and sending them warnings about this ship! What do they know that we don’t know, Fedorov. This is what I wonder now. I think you were going to suggest that we throw that object Orlov found over the side. Yes?”

“Well, these strange effects associated with it are putting us all in grave danger,” said Fedorov. “Lenkov got the worst of it, and I must think now to the safety of this ship and crew. If that object is affecting our stability in time, then we might continue to phase, and that could happen on a quiet night at sea, or right in the middle of a battle. Suppose it gets worse? Suppose the entire ship moves again?”

“We’d be leaving Tovey high and dry here,” said Volsky, “and then this history would take its course as it might have without our meddling. Didn’t you say yourself that it may be something we do here that causes this great doom the Fairchild lady was speaking of?”

“Or something we fail to do…” Fedorov was deep in thought. “That’s the dilemma, sir. We could throw that thing overboard, and it would most likely sink to the bottom of the sea. Unless we get to an abyssal trench, it might be discovered again one day, and who knows how long it would still remain active, and cause these strange time aberrations?”

“A little like contemplating throwing radioactive waste into the ocean,” said Volsky. “Well, the Japanese didn’t worry much about that after the Fukushima disaster. Out of sight, out of mind, Fedorov. Nobody knows what that contamination really did to the sea, or the coastlines all around it.”

“This is why I hesitate to simply throw it over the side, but then I think that decision may be wrong as well. It’s maddening.”

“But yet we must choose,” said Volsky. “Few men have the privilege of knowing what the consequences of their actions may be when they must make a choice. We at least had a peek at that when we shifted to the future, and the world we see here now is also the result of our choices in the past. I do not think we can sit on the fence here. We must decide. I could make this decision now on my own, but I ask your opinion. What should we do?”

Fedorov hesitated, but he knew there was nothing to do but choose one course or another. He could think of no reason to keep that object aboard the ship. What good would it do them? He already suspected it had caused grievous harm here… then he remembered what Dobrynin had said about his attempt to localize the sound.

“One more thing, Admiral. Chief Dobrynin said he tried to find the source of this sound, but could not localize it. He wanted to get out into a boat and listen—away from the ship. I wonder if we could try that?”

“You mean put that thing in a launch and tow it—get it off the ship while still keeping it under our control? I see what you are thinking now.”

“That may not work, Admiral. Its effects could have a very wide radius. Remember, it may have helped open that breach that brought Brigadier Kinlan’s troops here to this time, and that force was spread over many kilometers.”

“So what then? You propose to just send someone out in a launch with it?”

Fedorov shook his head, realizing he was being foolish. “No sir, you are correct. I’ve been stubbornly holding on to that thing, though I don’t really know why. Now I think we must put the ship and crew first. Let us dispose of it, in the deepest water we can find out here, and soon. We should be approaching the Peake Deep. That is a small trough or depression on our present heading. The water there is the deepest in this region, over 4000 fathoms.”

“Deep enough,” said Volsky. “Very well. Then it is decided. I will rely on you to take care of this matter. Please let me know when it is done. Then, once the ship has sailed on, we will see if Tasarov and Dobrynin can still hear this thing.”

“Agreed, sir. I will handle it, and I think now is as good a time as any.” He reported what the Marines had found in the helo bay locker. Volsky nodded gravely, and agreed that the man should be given a decent commemoration.

“I will make a statement to the crew,” he said. “In the meantime, I suggest you steer for this deep water.”

Fedorov consulted a few navigation charts, then had the navigator plot an appropriate course adjustment, and told Nikolin to inform Admiral Tovey that they would need to steer a little to port for a time. So here we are, he thought, caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. He smiled, glad to have finally made a choice in this matter, and started aft again to go and retrieve the object.

Sometime later he had the small radiation safe box in his hand. It is probably not necessary, he thought. Orlov had the damn thing in his pocket for days on end, and with no ill effects. I wonder why he never heard anything—this sound the others are reporting. I hope I’m not wrong about this. What if I toss it overboard, and Tasarov and Dobrynin still report this sound? Then what?

Still, he could think of no good reason to keep the object on the ship, though if it was responsible for catalyzing the shift of Kinlan’s brigade, it was an object of considerable power. Yet it did not seem to act on its own, unless Lenkov’s fate is evidence of that. It needed a nuclear detonation in the future, and then served like some beacon or magnet, opening the breach here in this era. Very strange.

From what we already know, there will be no shortage of nuclear detonations in the future. Thus far we’ve been lucky not to sail through a place where one went off. Gibraltar would have been a most likely candidate for an early ICBM strike, yet we sailed on through the Pillars of Hercules with nothing else following in our wake. At least nothing we know of…

Thank god for that.

He removed the object from the box, staring at it as he felt the cool smoothness of the metal surface, and seeing his own distorted features reflected on its gleaming shape. He suddenly felt a strange sense of dread, and quickly slipped the object into his pocket and started on his way.

Doctor Zolkin had arranged the sea burial for Lenkov off the starboard side, and while the crew focused its attention there, Fedorov made his way to the opposite side of the ship. He consulted his watch, seeing the time was right now. For the next ten minutes they would be over the Peake Deep, and so as the sound of Admiral Volsky’s voice came over the intercom, speaking of Lenkov, and how he served the ship, shared their many days at sea, the good times, and the bad, Fedorov took a deep breath. He took the object out of the box, then hurled the Devil’s Teardrop as far as he could, watching it vanish into the choppy green sea. He did not know if he had chosen rightly, or if he had just secured the doom of the world, or even if this strange object had anything to do with that at all, but he had made his choice.

As he went to rub his hands together to warm them, he was startled to see that his right hand seem to be wrapped in a strange luminescent aura. Then, for the briefest moment, he was aghast to see his hand phase and vanish! Thankfully it reappeared immediately, and he blinked, his heart racing as he flexed his hand to see that it would still work. There was no pain, the light was gone, and all seemed well, but the incident weighed heavily on him, and he did not put that hand into his pocket all that day, in spite of the cold. He wanted to keep an eye on it at all times, afraid he would look and find it missing, and then discover it in a drawer somewhere… Like Lenkov’s legs.

At the same moment Fedorov threw the Teardrop overboard, Lenkov’s body, its two parts finally together again, slipped silently down the ramp and joined the object that had taken his life. Now they would both take the long journey down into the deep trough beneath the ship. Lenkov fell like a grim shadow, descending slowly with the weighted body bag dragging him inexorably down, down, down…

Not far away, the Devil’s Teardrop fell with him, still glittering with eerie light. Then something happened that no one saw, and that no one could ever imagine. Fedorov would never know about it, nor would any other man aboard the ship. The only witness was poor Lenkov, but the old maxim that ‘dead men tell no tales’ was very true, and he would never speak a word of what he had seen.

Chapter 24

Darkness had put an end to the fitful air attacks mounted by HMS Glorious, and the guns were finally silent on Hindenburg. Six enemy planes had been blown from the sky, one small reason for Lütjens to be confident. Yet he was not happy. The fact remained that his task force was now one ship light, with Kaiser Wilhelm forced to detach and return to a French port.

After lingering to see Kaiser Wilhelm off to France, Lütjens had turned northwest. The enemy carrier he had driven off was still in the game, however, and was running on a parallel course. Both sides had planes up sparring with one another, but neither was able to mount a serious threat. Goeben had only three Stukas, and the pilots aboard Glorious were licking their wounds until late on the 5th of May when they came again, just before sunset.

The action had been hot, the AA gunners doing an excellent job against the low flying Swordfish. Two enemy fighters fell to the Goeben air defense screen, and the flak gunners got four Swordfish before it was over. Three enemy torpedoes posed a threat, but all were easily evaded. Yet the incident had Lütjens thinking now, and he was feeling a rising sense of discontent. Goeben had only six fighters. Thus far they had been enough to fend off this single enemy carrier, but he knew the British had several more at sea, at least according to the latest reports out of Group West.

We thought that carriers might be good for little more than scouting operations, thought Lütjens, that and onshore support in the Norwegian operations. Now they have proven to be a principle offensive weapon here! We spend years designing and building these ships, and untold numbers of Deutschmarks. When finished they are the most marvelous warships in the world, yet all it took was a single old plane, obsolete before it was even put in service, and the fastest battlecruiser in the world was hobbled. The fighters off Goeben did a fine job, and the gunners here as well, but fill the sky with enough of those flying fruit crates, and something just may get through.

He shook his head, feeling a strange sense of presentiment, almost as if the fate of Kaiser Wilhelm was predictive, a prelude to what may come. It was May of 1941, a dangerous month for the Kriegsmarine as history might have it, though only the likes of Fedorov would know that.

By now I should be well to the west, joining up with Topp to plan the destruction of the entire British convoy system. This order to turn east again, and seek out this small British force makes no sense.

He had waited for some time for confirmation on that order, and when it finally came it was stark and to the point. REPEAT: ALL UNITS TO LOCATE AND SINK BATTLESHIP RODNEY. NO EXCEPTIONS – THIS ACTION IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE. PRESUMED POSITION AND HEADING TO FOLLOW.

Some U-boat Kapitan must have found that ship, thought Lütjens. But what was so important about a single old battleship? Why that ship and not the others that were now surely maneuvering to engage us? Is Raeder so sent on achieving some victory here that he wants us to gang tackle this ship to assure success? Thus far we have killed a couple destroyers and an enemy cruiser, but it cost us Kaiser Wilhelm in the bargain. That ship will live to fight another day, the damage can be easily repaired, but the fact remains that I am one ship light. Perhaps Adler was correct about this enemy aircraft carrier. Am I failing to see something here?

He paced slowly on the bridge, his eyes scanning the dreary horizon. In the Mediterranean, it was those damnable rockets that put the damage on us, and not shells from the enemy guns. And when we struck back, it was the land based planes the enemy feared most. Am I witnessing a sea change in naval tactics and strategy here? Look what the presence of Graf Zeppelin did for us in the Norwegian Sea last year. It was that ship that so bedeviled the British. Yes, our battleships were a real threat, but first blood went to those hot Stuka pilots off the Graf Zeppelin, and that will likely be the case here. Even though Goeben has only nine planes, it has been very useful. Again, it was a Stuka that put that hit on the enemy carrier, not Kaiser Wilhelm. Things are changing. It is no longer the big ships like Hindenburg that will rule the sea, but the aircraft over those waters, and these long range rockets. How long before we have them ourselves?

Lütjens had turned north around midnight, stubbornly thinking he might still meet up with Topp on that course and then continue west. When this last signal came from Group West, firming up his orders to seek out this British battleship, he also learned that Topp had been given the same order. Tirpitz had turned southeast, and if he did not turn as well, he could not rendezvous with the northern task force.

And so, reluctantly, Lütjens turned east on a heading of 080 degrees. As the light faded on the 6th of May, the alarm was sounded again and the gunners ran to man their stations. This time, however, the planes in the sky were friendly. It was a flight of three fighters off Graff Zeppelin, and they were soon dancing in the sky with Marco Ritter above the task force. Topp was getting close.

“Admiral,” said Adler, coming in with the latest status report. “U-556 is still shadowing that British battleship. We have a good fix on its location, heading south. Even if we make only 24 knots they are only about ten hours east of us now. If they continue south, we could possibly intercept them mid-day on the 8th.”

“Where will Topp be if we keep to this heading until dawn?”

“Very close, sir. About sixty miles to our northeast tomorrow morning.”

“And the British?”

“Over a hundred and twenty miles behind us to the west—at least the two battleships that were trying to catch up with Topp.”

“What about that enemy carrier that has been bothering us?”

You mean the ship you failed to order Kaiser Wilhelm to sink, thought Adler, but he was wise enough not to speak his mind.

“Our turn to the east seems to have shaken them off. I don’t think we have anything more to worry about from them, particularly now that we are coming in range of our planes off Graf Zeppelin.”

“And the Invincible?”

“The last information we have is that they have detached a cruiser north, probably to lend additional support to the Rodney group. Two ships were seen by a Kondor out of Spain, and their last known heading was 330.”

Lütjens was plotting out that course on the map room in his mind. Still on an intercept course with us now. Could they know we have turned? Then again, we were steering that course earlier, and they could still be following our presumed track. In any case, it appears we may meet them soon, sometime tomorrow. The only question is whether we should effect a linkup with Topp first. I think this wise.

“Very well,” he said. “Yes, Adler, I have been thinking about that British aircraft carrier. Perhaps you were correct. If I had ordered Kaiser Wilhelm to go in for the kill, we might not be worrying about it now. Then again, we both saw what happened. Where is the Kaiser? Back in a French port, and with a good stomach ache. So my caution was not without merit either.”

“Of course, sir,” said Adler. “Yet now the situation has changed. Graf Zeppelin has a full complement of aircraft—twelve more fighters to go with the six we have on Goeben, and another thirty Stukas! Nothing can stop us now. Nothing.”

“Are you forgetting what happened in the Mediterranean?” Lütjens wagged a finger. “We had plenty of land based air cover, but they could do nothing against those naval rockets. This is why we must keep an eye out for this British flagship. You say those two heavy ships are still steering 330? We must confirm that. Send a message to Goeben and see if they can locate that ship. If we can strike it with those Stukas, and eliminate it early on, then we can take these rockets out of the equation here. After that, I will share your confidence and enthusiasm, Adler, but not before.”

“Agreed, sir. That would be best. But how many rockets can the British have on a single warship? Once we join with Topp, we will have ten ships, the most powerful task force to sail these waters in decades.”

“Suppose they have twenty missiles,” said Lütjens. “You saw what they can do, Kapitan. It took us hours to put out those fires, and months to repair the damage. It was uncanny how they seemed to leap at us, just before they struck the ship, and avoided our main belt armor.”

“This time things may be different, sir, if Koenig’s hydraulics actually work.”

The time in the docks at Toulon had been put to good use aboard Hindenburg. Chief Engineer Viktor Koenig had been shaking his head at the damage to the superstructure, and wondering how he could increase protection there. They were lucky that there had been fresh secondary batteries available, waiting on the trains for delivery to the Oldenburg, but diverted south to Toulon for Hindenburg instead. And he had also managed to pilfer a good deal of excess armor in storage for that ship, and had several tons left over when the repairs were complete. He came up with an ingenious idea that he could mount these armor plates on sections of the deck, raising them with hydraulics when needed to provide several inches of armor protection to the main superstructure that had been so severely damaged earlier. When not in use, Hindenburg would also have a much thicker hide against plunging shell hits in those sections.

The extra weight shaved off just a little speed, but with her great beam, Hindenburg still handled well, and rode easily, even in very heavy seas.

Armor, thought Lütjens, we certainly have that in abundance now. But it was not merely the structural damage that compelled me to break off that last engagement, it was those terrible fires. If we are hit like that again… And we never once set eyes on the ship that fired at us. That was the most frightening part of that battle. How do you kill something that is not even on your horizon? What good are these massive gun turrets if they have no targets? He looked up again, hearing the drone of the fighters swirling in the skies over his task force.

Graf Zeppelin… The carrier…. That ship was now the most important vessel in the entire navy, and it was humbling to realize this. With the carrier he had much greater situational awareness, and the same long range over the horizon striking power that his adversary had. The Stukas had proven to be most able threats, particularly against more lightly armored ships. We very nearly destroyed the entire British battlecruiser squadron in that engagement up north. Then again, if we had stayed in the fight in the Med, this ship might not even be here now… another humbling thought.

Things have changed. Hoffmann was correct. The entire character of naval warfare at sea has taken a pivot, and we failed to see it coming. Koenig is rigging out makeshift steel plates to try and compensate for our short sightedness. The carriers will mean everything now, and any surface warship without these naval rockets will be at a decided disadvantage. Everything has changed, yet in the meantime, we must fight with the ships we have…

He thought of that fluttering old Swordfish torpedo bomber again, obsolete before it was even introduced, and realized that may very well apply to his own ship now, the pride of the fleet. He looked at his Kapitan, a haunted look in his eyes as he spoke.

“So you will soon get your battle, Adler. This is all or nothing now. It is time to fight. I intend to find this British battleship, sink it, and then turn to do the same to anything following us. We will fight to the last shell here if need be. See that Eisenberg is ready on the guns!”

“That is what I have been waiting for you to say all along, Admiral. Have no fear! We will win through. I promise you this.”

Lütjens smiled as Adler saluted and rushed off to see to the ship. He was like a steed that had been given free rein, and now he wanted to gallop into battle as soon as possible. The smile faded on Lütjens’ face as he watched his Kapitan go, and his eyes darkened with that odd feeling that had plagued him all morning. He could feel the rising adrenaline in his chest, though all about him the sea was clear and calm, and nothing threatened his ships.

But he could feel something was very wrong here, a strange sensation that was almost a tangible thing, something he might hear on the wind, or in the depths of the ocean, something moaning, lost, dangerous. What was it? He listened, but could hear nothing beyond the normal sounds of the ship, running smoothly at 24 knots now, the sturdy bow cutting the sea with little effort. He could hear nothing amiss, but he could feel it, sense it, a persistent sensation of rising danger.

I must be getting old, he thought. Am I getting butterflies in the belly now that the ship is heading into combat soon? I am Admiral of the Fleet!

That afternoon two seaplanes off his own ship set off to look for the British flagship. They searched down a heading of 120 southeast, and neither one would return. The radio man came running onto the bridge an hour later saying the planes had seen the one thing that was haunting Lütjens now.

“Rockets in the sky, Admiral! That was the last report we have from the Arados. Both our seaplanes are gone!”

So they were out there, he thought. 120 southeast. “How far out were those planes when they last reported?”

“About 280 miles, sir. They were just about to turn back.”

So there is your confirmation, thought Lütjens. They are still steering 330, coming at us as if they know exactly where we are. That was another odd thing about these engagements. The British seemed to have eyes everywhere. Well, if my seaplanes have spotted them at this range, then they could do the same. But there have been no reports of any further enemy planes, and we still have six fighters overhead. How are they seeing us? Could they have submarines out here too, or is this just good British seamanship? Probably the latter, he thought.

He looked at his watch. If they are coming fast, then Adler will be busy sooner than we think. He walked to the plotting table, looking at the lines drawn to indicate the converging courses. The task force was at 24 knots, and the enemy was easily making at least that speed. This meant the two sides might be converging at nearly 50 nautical miles per hour. Those 280 miles would diminish rapidly. In just under six hours he might have the enemy on his horizon, right near dawn. Then we will see what the sky holds for us, a good sunrise, or the tails of those cursed naval rockets. He did not have long to wait, and it would be a fitful night’s sleep before he got his answer.