Tigers East

Chapter 1

Gromyko did not have much time, and there were still so many questions unanswered in his mind. He had struggled to understand all the things Director Kamenski was telling him, but he was a submarine Captain, not a master of the arcane science of time travel. It was all still a great mystery to him, something he could not fathom, but yet something he could also not deny. He had lived it all thru, seeing that strange control rod shift his boat to the past, and at a most opportune moment in the heat of a fight with a combined Japanese and American ASW task force. After that, things only got more and more complex.

Admiral Volsky had been his one contact point with reality, a sane and sensible man if ever there was one. Kamenski agreed that if he could get to Volsky again, or to his able confederate, Fedorov, that they could help him sort through this mess. But Karpov was another matter, and Kamenski told him that it was very likely that Karpov would eventually achieve his aim of getting control of the ship… Kirov.

I was in this position once before, he thought. In fact, this mission was on my back when I first shifted to WWII with Volsky and Fedorov. They were dead set on trying to accomplish the same thing Kamenski wants me to do—get control of that ship and send it home, and that failing….

Kill the ship.

That would be a very hard decision, and perhaps even harder to accomplish. I can set my own scruples aside, but I would be asking a great deal of my men. Kirov was the flagship of the fleet, and it was all ready to lead us to war, the sad reality of the situation in 2021. It was going to be a most difficult fight. The navy had been given quite a few new ships in the days leading up to that war, but we were still a shadow on the sea compared to the American Navy. My boat was counted on heavily to address that balance. The same for Kirov. If that ship has to die, then it should do so fighting for Russia—an honorable death—and not this dastardly assassination Kamenski has pushed upon me. I fought side by side with Kirov. Now Kamenski puts this bloody knife in my hands and asks me to stab my comrades in the back. It isn’t right, and yet, the consequences of failure here are difficult to contemplate.

He shook his head, as if trying to clear the errant thoughts that troubled him, the endless nagging questions. Gromyko liked answers, not questions, but now they sat around him like fresh young crewmen that had been mixed up in a fight, and he had to lay down the law, sort things out, restore order.

I’m to go back, he thought, but where will I end up? Kamenski says I’ll get where Time needs me, but that’s as much a guess on his part as anything else. Alright, let’s assume I get right back to the time I left after that scrap with that British sub. I still have no idea how it got there, or how it found my boat to launch that ambush attack. A good name for that sub, Ambush. But I’m to leave that one alone if I ever find it again, or so Kamenski tells me.

Supposing I do find Volsky or Fedorov still in command of Kirov. That would make things so much easier. I just tell them all these things Kamenski told me, and they will certainly cooperate. I just deliver this nice shiny new control rod, and that Engineer of theirs will know what to do next. What was the man’s name? Dobrynin. Yes, I remember him now. We had tapes he sent over controlling our reactors, keying our men as to when the power had to be ramped up. It’s all Greek to me.

Alright… I get that far, Volsky uses that damn control rod—then what? Where does Kirov go? To which world does it return? Does it go forward, or farther back, as it did once before? Does it get back to the world it came from—the world I came from when we first sortied with the Red Banner Pacific Fleet at the edge of that war? Does it get back to this world where my boat sits here getting a nice new set of very sharp teeth? Something tells me that won’t happen. We built Kirov from the bones of the Four Brothers, as Kamenski calls them: Ushakov, Lazarev, Nakhimov, and Pyotr Velikiy. They are still here, so I don’t think Volsky will suddenly appear here with the ship. In fact, the Admiral is probably here as well, clueless as to all of this. Strange how Kamenski knows of all these events, but he does, and that’s a fact.

He tells me not to ponder these things, and to leave that part of the mission up to Mother Time. She will get me where I need to be, and she will then put Kirov where it needs to be. Sounds very tidy, but I’m old enough to know things will almost always go wrong if they can. The universe wants chaos.

The missile launch was completed under the grey skies of Severomorsk. That was good. That would keep the prying satellite eyes from looking down and seeing what was going on here. Kazan was out in the long channel soon after, past the last buoy, rounding the rocky headlands as they turned east, and out into the cold of the Barents Sea. It was going to get much colder. There was a lot of ice out there now, and winter was coming again.

Where would he go? A lot may have happened since he fired that last torpedo. Kirov was in the Atlantic then, and would most likely be found there, but he could not know that for certain. Then he realized that all he had to do was run the procedure with that damn control rod, right there, in the Barents Sea. First things first. He would find out whether Kamenski was full of shit or not. He’d run the procedure with Rod-25, and see where he ended up. Then it would be a simple matter to just get on the encrypted HF radio and find out where Kirov was, and who was in command. That would be risky, but it was certainly one way he could quickly locate the ship—he’d just phone home.

His boat was soon under that dark water and taking a route that was well off the beaten path used by most Russian subs. The Americans always had boats of their own out here snooping about, lurking in the grey sea, looking to sniff out the trail of any Russian sub that tried to deploy. He couldn’t allow that to happen this time, and he would rely on the inherent stealth of his boat, and his own considerable skills, to see that he slipped away undetected. Besides, he thought, we aren’t sticking around here long. Even if an American boat did pick up our trail, we’d vanish soon after.

He smiled at that, wishing he could see the look on the US Sonarman’s face when Kazan just flat out vanished, slipped into a hole in the sea and disappeared—back to a time before that young rascal was even born, before any of them were ever born. Even thinking of it now gave him the shivers. And so he would flee now, from the edge of this war to the heart and fire of the last one.

Then he had one of those thoughts that always lurks in the back of every submarine Captain’s mind when he first puts to sea. If Time had issues with Kirov for meddling in the history, might she not also have issues with Kazan? Kamenski seemed to think that Time would cozy up to his boat, welcoming it with open arms. Things were all knotted up, he said, and I’m to be the scissors—and Kazan. He supposed that Time had no problem at all in using him like that—using him like a thief in the night, an assassin, a stealthy Ninja of death. Then that thought arose, like an untucked shirt, a loose shoestring. What will Time do with us after we do her dirty work for her?

Yes, he thought. Suppose I do get Kirov home safely, wherever that might be, and failing that, suppose I kill the damn ship, and everyone aboard her. Then what? I’ll be the last loose end in the loom, the last dangling thread. What will Time do about that? What will that bitch do with Kazan?

Hauptmann Karl Linz was a daring man. He had seen what was in front of him on the rudimentary radar set aboard Fraenir. There were two big enemy airships circling about Ilanskiy like a pair of great white sharks. If I can see them, he thought, then it is likely they can see me. Did the Siberians have radar? He would find out soon enough.

Those two sharks had names, Riga and Narva, and they had radar sets as well, though they were only the Topaz equipment Karpov had developed. The really good Oko Panel sets were few in number, and so they were only installed on the T-Class Airships, Tunguska and Baikal. They would see Fraenir in five minutes, and then a pair of fighters would be scrambled from the airfield at Kansk to get out and eyeball the contact. The garrison at Ilanskiy would go to full alert, and crews would soon be manning the heavy flak guns Karpov had set up there.

The two fighters were actually IL-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft, a gift to Karpov from Sergei Kirov’s relocated factories in Siberia. The name literally meant “Storm Birds,” and this plane was produced in the tens of thousands during the war, exceeding the production of any other aircraft in history. Karpov liked them because they were relatively fast, compared to an airship, very hardy, with an armored box protecting the pilot spaces, and they could take MG fire from typical 7.62mm guns and still keep flying. It would take several 20mm rounds to really damage the plane, or a solid hit from a 37mm round, and while the enemy was trying to shoot them down, the Storm Birds would fire back with two 23mm cannons and a pair of wing mounted 7.62 MGs. There was also a bigger 12.7 MG manned by the rear cockpit gunner, and the plane could carry eight RS-82 rockets, or four of the larger RS-132s.

“Enemy aircraft,” came the alert. “Bearing 195 degrees south.”

The ship was already at action stations, all guns manned and ready, and Fraenir was a very well defended beast. The airship had three gondolas beneath the main body where its secondary batteries mounted sixteen Rheinmetall 7.5cm LG 40 recoilless rifles, with an effective firing range of 6,800 meters. There were also another eight Krupp 10.5cm LG 40s, with a range of 7,950 meters, and the 88mm guns were the main battery for long range engagement, four guns in all. There was one each in the nose and tail with 300 degree arcs of fire, and two on the main central gondola, one firing to port, the other to starboard.

Against aircraft, there were three top mounted gun platforms, each with a twin 20mm AA gun. Similar mounts in the nose, tail and lower gondolas raised the count to 18 twin 20mm guns, and there were also twelve twin MG-42s mounted on small portals along the main canvas body on either side of the ship. The Sturmoviks would be too fast to be bothered by the 88s, but all those 20mm cannon were a severe threat.

Both planes came streaking in from above, guns firing until the streams of red hot counter fire began to zero in on their line of approach, whereupon they split apart to divide the enemy fire. One got off without a hitch, but the plane that angled off the bow of the airship saw its wing riddled by a rake of 20mm gunfire, enough to cause serious damage and a fire. The two storm birds had sunk their claws into the behemoth, their own cannon perforating the big flanks of the ship, but the double lined Vulcan sealed airbags survived unscathed. The number six bag on the port side took the brunt of the enemy attack, where two crewmen were killed and a small leak started, but the engineers had it repaired in good time. Only one of the two Sturmoviks made it back to Kansk, the other pilot was forced to bail out and let his plane fall.

Had there been a typical attack group of eight planes flying in their characteristic ‘circle of death’ formation, the Storm Birds might have put some credible damage on Fraenir. And if they had all come with RS-82 rockets, willing to brave those guns to get close enough to fire them, they might have done much more than harm. As it was, the Siberians had too few of these planes, being a backwaters front, with all the production needed so desperately on the real battle front to the west. But they had eyeballed the target, picked at it with their talons, and now the word went to the Captains of the Riga and Narva.

They were big ships, both in the same class at 200,000 cubic meter lift capacity, all of 840 feet in length. They had ten 76mm recoilless rifles, and six 105mm rifles each, allowing them to combine their fire to outgun Fraenir 20 to 16 in the 76mm category, and 12 to 8 in the 105s. The edge for the Germans would be those deadly 88s.

Captain Selikov was still on the Narva, the very same man that had taken Orlov and Troyak on a similar mission, appearing right in the middle of one of Volkov’s ill-fated raids. He was in command here, coordinating the defense over Ilanskiy with his comrade, Captain Ivanov on the Riga.

“A big fellow from the looks of it,” he said to his wheelman on the forward bridge gondola. He put his field glasses aside. “This has to be the same ship the Germans came in with earlier. Took the Andarva down, did they? Well now let’s see them try on a pair of hefty boys like the Riga and Narva. Up ten degrees and take us to 5000 meters. Signal Riga to follow.”

The game had begun with the mandatory struggle to achieve altitude on the enemy. But there had been survivors off the Andarva, and Selikov had taken the time to speak with them. “We climbed,” they had told him. “We had good altitude, well over 7000 meters, but they still hit us. There was a nasty top mounted cannon on that thing, and it’s a real bag buster.”

Maybe I’m going about this all wrong, thought Selikov. I heard three accounts of that battle, and they all said the Germans had a gun that could hit them well outside the range of their 105s. So if I want altitude, I want it with just enough of an edge to take their lower gondola mounted guns out of the fight. And I want it inside the range of my 105s. Normally we’d stay at least six or seven klicks out, but now it might be better to rush this beast, with all guns blazing. We’ll take hits. A ship like that has firepower, and by god we might even get blown out of the sky, one or both of us. But we’ll take that monster with us. Karpov won’t like that—trading a pair of battleships for one of the enemy. He’s enough on his hands holding off Volkov’s fleet, and every ship we have counts.

He could feel the tension on the bridge, with his new young navigator, Yuri Babkin, craning his neck as he looked over his shoulder to try and get a look at the enemy ship.

“Eyes on your charts, Babushka,” said Selikov, using the handle he had given the young man. “Is that weather front still prevailing from the north?”

“Aye sir. I make it four hours or so before we see a squall line forming up, but the sun will be down by then.”

“That’ll make for a cold night on the upper gun platforms,” said Selikov, “and likely a wet one too, unless we finish this business and find a nice tower to dock.”

He reached for his field glasses again, his eye catching a gleam as the other ship sided them, the sun to the west playing over the taut silvery painted canvass. They’re turning, he knew immediately.

“By god, he’s showing us his backside! Range to target?”

“Sir, I estimate 15 kilometers,” said Babkin. Then the Captain saw the other ship’s tail wink at him, and he knew they had fired. The round exploded much closer than he expected, and Selikov raised his eyebrows.

“That was inside two klicks,” he said aloud. “That’s the goddamn long range gun that took down Andarva, and it’s a real game changer. Why, he could stand off and pick us apart with a gun like that.”

“Helm, ahead full and signal same to Riga.”

Here we go, he swallowed. How fast can we close that range? He’s already nose away from us, and probably has plenty of speed up. There, he’s fired again….

“Range to target,” he said again, his face stern, voice steady.

“No change, sir. I’m still reading 15 K on the Topaz.”

“Crafty bastard,” said Selikov. “All engines to one third and Riga the same. He can match our speed and I’ll be damned if I’ll sit up here and let him take pot shots at my chin while he leads us off into that squall line up north. That’s what he’s planning. He’s waiting for darkness and the storm. It’ll foul up the radars, and he’d like nothing more than for us to go gallivanting off after him like this. No sir. We stay on objective. Signal Riga to take up her normal station two klicks off the towers at Ilanskiy. Babushka, take us back there. We’ll not chase him. The bastard will have to come to us.”

Selikov was a very smart man, for that was exactly what Hauptmann Linz was planning. He would come alright, but in a dark and cold hour of his own choosing, at the edge of a storm.

Chapter 2

“So what is this really all about?” asked Symenko, eased into his chair in the desk of his stateroom. “You come off that thing back there, the strangest looking flying beast I’ve ever laid eyes on, and you and your Marines pull a nice little trick getting all the way in here like this. Take me to Ilanskiy you demand, and no matter how politely you say it, all I hear is my death order.”

“Don’t worry, Captain,” said Fedorov. “We have no intention of harming you or anyone else aboard this airship. This is just as it seems. I need a ride, and your ship is the only thing that can provide it at the moment.”

“Well, you can all be choir boys here and it won’t make any difference for my fate,” said Symenko. “I’m a dead man as soon as Karpov gets wind of what happened here. He already knows I was a turncoat once before. Now he’ll see this as colluding with the enemy, or incompetence at best. Either way, I’m a dead man. So before I get the bullet to the head, suppose you tell me what I’m dying for.”

“It’s too much to explain, Captain. Suffice it to say that I have business at Ilanskiy, and it’s imperative I get there as soon as possible.”

“What business? Certainly not any business Karpov has sanctioned. I may look stupid, but I’m not as slow witted as you might think. I was to pick you all up and ferry you to Ilanskiy. Then, right out of the blue, his lordship changes his mind. Instead I’m to take you into custody and haul your asses to Irkutsk. Then you pull this hat trick on my men. If it would make any difference I should have them all shot, since I’m to take a bullet soon myself. Misery loves company. But listen here, Captain Fedorov, I can do exactly as you wish and run you up to Ilanskiy, but what happens next won’t be so pleasant.”

“I said that once you get us their you’re free to do what you wish,” said Fedorov.

“Oh really? Do you have any idea what your compass heading has in store for you? Volkov has tried to get his hands on that place three times. He sent me to scout the place out last year, and that was when I made the acquaintance of his lordship for the first time. He’s not your sort at all—not nice and polite and reasonable sounding. He welcomed me aboard with a nice little honor guard, but had a gun to my head a few minutes after. Hell, I knew Volkov was throwing me to the wolves when he ordered me to make that delivery.”

“Delivery?”

“Too long of a story to tell, just like yours. Needless to say, I was nearly a dead man then and there, until Karpov changed his spots and offered me a position in his airship fleet—in exchange for information, of course. What was I to do, die like a hero? For Volkov? To hell with that. So now you know how I come to be sitting here, but it’s you that I can’t figure yet. You say you come off a ship—battlecruiser Kirov. I’ve heard it fights for Karpov now, which means you fight for Karpov, eh Captain? Then wonder of wonders, you hijack my ship. As I said earlier, if you start your own private war with Karpov out here, good luck. He’s already none too happy with whatever you were planning—otherwise why would I get this order to apprehend you and your comrades? So what is it? You a turncoat as well? You jumping ship, Captain Fedorov?”

There was a sting of truth to what Symenko was saying, but Fedorov didn’t quite see things that way. “Karpov and I came to an agreement. I can’t say why he’s decided to renege on that, but there isn’t time to argue the matter. I need to get to Ilanskiy, and that is that.”

“I see….” Symenko folded his arms. “Then you’re a dead man too, just like me. You know that, don’t you? Karpov will be right there waiting for you… Then again, maybe he won’t. I got orders to take you to Irkutsk. Yes… his lordship was at Novosibirsk pounding Volkov’s line on the Ob with Riga and Narva. Come to think of it, he’ll probably be on his way to meet me at Irkutsk if he was so damn worked up about getting his hands on you again. You say you had an agreement with the man? Doesn’t sound that way to me. But let me think out loud for a moment, if you please. This agreement of yours has to do with this mysterious business at Ilanskiy. Karpov gets very sensitive about that place. Like I said, Volkov has been after it for the last year, so he’s beefed up the defenses there three times over. He’s always got an airship on patrol there, and after what happened to the Angara, he doubled that watch as well. I was posted there with this ship and the Abakan. But something tells me you’ve hit a nerve with this little caper, and knowing his lordship as I do so well now, he’ll double that watch yet again. I’d guess he’s already ordered Riga and Narva to Ilanskiy while he swings down to Irkutsk to fetch you. That’s a pair of nice fat battleships added to the watch, and Karpov won’t bat an eyelash in ordering them to blast this ship to hell if I don’t cooperate. Right now he thinks I have you all tied up in a sack, and bound for Irkutsk. Surprise, surprise when he finds out I’m not there! Then he’ll turn the whole fleet out after us. So you see, you can’t get through to Ilanskiy, not on this airship, and not on the ground if I drop you all off and wave goodbye.”

“We can try,” said Fedorov, his voice betraying just a little doubt. “We did it once before—my Sergeant Troyak got through. He’s a very able man.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. He strong armed my security detachment easily enough, and didn’t even have to use those fancy rifles there.” Symenko pointed to Troyak’s assault rifle, as he had never seen its like. “But that one and four others with your Marines won’t get you through the defensive perimeter at Ilanskiy. If you think that’s likely, you’re just deluding yourself. And supposing by some miracle you do get through. The guard in the city is now composed of the Black Watch—Tyrenkov’s men. He’s Karpov’s Chief of Security, and his men are very efficient. No. You won’t get through. You may cause a ruckus and kill quite a few men with those fancy rifles, but you’ll never live to conduct this business you’re so keen on, and that’s that.”

Now Fedorov looked at Symenko with a harrowed expression on his face. The man was probably correct. Everything had happened so quickly, and he had acted on impulse, driven by the urgency of his quest. Karpov radioed to call off the mission, and he had been too bull headed to listen, too driven, so completely convinced that the fate of the world was in a sand glass of time that was quickly running out. Now, after the seamless way they took this airship, he had come to think he would stroll into Ilanskiy just as easily. Yet Symenko’s words galled him with the hard spike of reality. What he said was true. Getting to Ilanskiy they could probably do, and he had simply put his faith in Troyak working his tactical magic to get him inside the city. Now that Symenko put the challenge before him in this cold light, he was finally realizing that his mission was most likely doomed.

But I must get through, he thought. Time is running out. I’ve got to get to that railway inn by September 30th. Doesn’t Karpov understand that? I thought I had convinced him how imperative this was, but he always had reservations. Doesn’t he realize what’s at stake?

Behind that desperate thought, came the shadow of doubt. If he was honest with himself, Fedorov didn’t really know what would happen if he failed to get through, and now Symenko was making it fairly obvious that getting to the railway inn would not be as easy as he thought. Troyak and his men slipped through in the middle of one of Volkov’s raids, while most of the garrison there was distracted. It was just good luck that it happened that way, but this time that would not be the case.

There would be airships on patrol overhead, just like Symenko was telling it. They would have to go to ground well before they came into contact range of those patrols, and then hump it to Ilanskiy on foot. That would take time, and all the while Karpov would very likely be tightening the cordon of steel he undoubtedly has around Ilanskiy. Now that he actually had time to think it through, the folly of his decision to try and proceed was becoming apparent. He had acted impulsively, with the edge of desperation and the urgency of his own dark fears over the consequences of failure. Yet he had been stupid to think he could succeed in all of this—in any of it, even if he did get through to the railway inn.

Suppose I did get there, he thought. I just assume I’ll get right back to Mironov if I go down those stairs, and then, instead of having breakfast with him, I’ll have to kill him—timely cruelty. That was how I put it to Karpov when I argued all this. He wondered then whether I had that in me, the capacity for that cruelty, and believe me, I wonder now if I could ever go through with this and actually gun down Sergei Kirov. It isn’t the thunder and chaos that would likely follow that gunshot that feeds that doubt, it’s just that moment itself, me, alone, standing there with that pistol in my hands and with Mironov in front of me. There he would be, young Mironov, innocent, like a seedling just taking root in the history, and there I would be, reaching down in the garden to pluck him out before he could root and grow and bloom to become the man I have already met here—the man I so admire.

He lowered his head, deeply troubled. Symenko had just made all his own inner doubts and fears real and palpable again. He had fled from them in the urgency of the moment, with the pulse of adrenaline still hot in his blood after that missile nearly took down the KA-40. Karpov had fired that missile in desperation as well, and with an urgency that Fedorov did not yet understand. Something had caused him to change his mind, and now he was dead set on seeing that decision through. Symenko wasn’t simply taunting him, he was correct. Karpov was going to do everything in his power to stop him now. He was on alert, most likely already tightening everything down at Ilanskiy; most likely sending those other two airships there to bolster the defense—the Riga and Narva.

Was there any play there? The Narva was Captained by Selikov. Was he still in charge of that airship? Could he be persuaded to cooperate with me?

That was just another desperate thought, he knew. Even if Selikov welcomed him with open arms, he would then have to get the Captain of the Riga to stand down and allow this airship to get in close—even to dock at a tower right over the city. Then what? Then Tyrenkov’s men are waiting right there at the bottom of that tower, just as Symenko tells it here. I have Troyak and the Marines, but I would be asking them to fight against very steep odds. If we do try to fight our way off that tower, then we still have to fight our way from there to the railway inn—unless I can get Symenko to put us down right on top of the place. All these thoughts and realizations passed through his mind in an instant. Then Symenko spoke again, his voice the cold argument of reality.

“Got through once before, did you? That was then. This is now. Karpov’s all riled up about this, which is why my life isn’t worth a nickel now that you’ve come this way with your plans, whatever they may be. Oh, I’ll get you as close as I can, but it will have to be well outside the range of all those flak guns Karpov moved into Ilanskiy after that last attack Volkov pulled.”

“Flak guns?”

“Of course! He ringed the place with 85mm AA guns—nasty little fellows when pointed at an airship. There isn’t much the Vulcan lining in my gas bags can do about a round that big, and now Karpov has flak batteries set up at every landing site—all the airfields Volkov used in that stupid attack he made recently, and double batteries at Ilanskiy. So if his lordship is really pissed, and I think he is, then he’ll blow this ship out of the sky if I get inside that circle of fire, and the range on those gun sis ten to fifteen klicks. Just to be safe, the closest I can get you is 20 klicks. I can just drop you off and turn my 105’s on you for all the trouble you’ve brought me. Like I say, I’m a dead man after this. Might as well take you with me, and I’d likely be doing you a favor by killing you that way. His lordship would make it hurt if he got his hands on you—and he will, mark my words.”

Flak guns, twenty kilometers on the ground, Symenko above them with all those recoilless rifles the whole time, not to mention the other airships…. Selikov was a good man, but would he buck Karpov as well and disobey the orders he most likely has now to defend Ilanskiy against all comers? Karpov will soon realize that this ship wasn’t going to Irkutsk, and that they were also not enroute to Kirov on the helo. These were things that had never entered Fedorov’s mind in the heat and haste of his decision to proceed against Karpov’s direct order to the contrary. It was all forming up like a phalanx of steel. Symenko was correct, they would never get through to the railway inn, so what in god’s name was he doing here? He should have obeyed Karpov’s order to return to the ship, and then tried to convince Karpov to proceed as they first agreed. He needed Karpov’s compliance to get through to Ilanskiy. It was just that stark and simple.

Three days… That was all the time they had before the 30th of September. Three days, and all time and eternity waiting on what would happen between now and then. Now, with a darkness and feeling of utter frustration that was heavy on him, Fedorov knew his mission was folly. He was going to fail. Symenko’s life was already blood on his hands, and he would likely get Troyak and the others killed if he tried to proceed; he would likely be killed himself.

Zykov had been listening to all of this across the room while he was fiddling with the radio set he carried in a backpack. He wasn’t sure what any of it was about, but he could see that this Captain Symenko was stacking up a fairly convincing argument. What was going on between Fedorov and Karpov? They ought to just get on the secure channel and hash it out. He was going to suggest that, but then something unexpected happened, the radio set lit up with the incoming signal light, a clear amber light on the encrypted line. There came an audible tone, three solid beeps, and the light continued winking, waiting.

“Captain,” he said. “I’ve an incoming signal on the encrypted channel.”

Fedorov turned, his mind still in the anguish of all his inner doubt and guilt. “You mean the command link to Kirov?”

“No sir, it’s the long range channel for HF encrypted communications. Someone’s trying to contact us, but I’d have to know the code to open that channel.” He showed Fedorov the winking amber light, and as he stared at it, the realization of what it was struck Fedorov like a hammer.

My god, he thought. Could it be so? His pulse quickened, for here was a joker on the table, something dealt out by the hand of Fate that he never expected. Could it be so? His mind was a whirl—the code, the goddamned code! What was it? He had devised it himself, so long ago it seemed now. What was it? Something he knew he would never forget…

“Zykov,” he said quickly. “Key in 07-Alpha-03-Zeta-2018.”

Zykov just blinked at him. “The code sir?”

“Quick now,” said Fedorov. “Yes, that is the code, but use the letter o for every instance of zero—the first one upper case, the next two lower case. Quick now!”

Zykov flipped open the key panel and entered the code: O7Ao3Z2o18. It was a cypher that Fedorov was sure to remember, the day he first set foot on battlecruiser Kirov as its newly assigned Navigator, March 7th, in the year 2018. If it were confirmed on the other side, he knew exactly who was calling, and his heart rose with the thought of the voice he might soon hear on that radio.

Chapter 3

The code was in, the yellow light now a steady amber, waiting for confirmation from the other end of that transmission. Fedorov was literally holding his breath, and then he saw the light go solid green, the handshake made, the voice on the other end beginning to come through.

Miles and miles away, in the Sea of Okhotsk, Lieutenant Isaac Nikolin also got the yellow link light, and on a channel that was never used except for the most serious message transmissions, high level HF signals that would carry orders from Severomorsk, emergency action messages. He was very surprised to see it, the yellow light pulsing on and off, waiting. Normal protocols would see him immediately report the signal to command authority on the bridge, and then they would respond by fetching the link code from a secure safe. Then, as he stared at the light, and at the ID number for that channel, he saw that it was two cyphers off the normal EAM command link channel, a special frequency variation, which struck him, as that was most unusual.

Yet the longer he stared at that number, the more a feeling arose in him like some deep memory rising from the depth of the dark sea of his mind. It was a behemoth, a monster rising with sharp teeth, then in a shaking moment of realization, it broke the surface, careening up into the clear light of his understanding, and came thundering down like a great whale splashing back into the ocean. The code! He suddenly knew what he was supposed to enter. It wasn’t to come from the secure Comm-box, but it was beaten into his head by Fedorov, somewhere, somewhere... long ago….

He could not find the where and when of that memory, only the alphanumeric truth that now glistened in the light of his awareness. He knew the code! His hand shook, and almost seemed to move as if commanded by another mind, another self within him, another Nikolin. He reached for the keyboard, clicked the line for code entry, and entered the cypher, unerringly: O7Ao3Z2o18. His heart was pounding, though he did not know why. He saw the light go to solid amber, waiting, and then the steady green of affirmation. His numbers were good. Seconds later he heard the voice speaking on his headset, and with it came the rush of a thousand memories.

He saw Karpov on the bridge, and Troyak standing before him like a stony Golem, snatching away the missile launch key in a sudden violent motion. Then again came the image of Karpov, this time with a pistol in his hand, Rodenko down on the deck near Doctor Zolkin, who clutched his bleeding arm. The cascade rolled over him, memories, realization, awareness of a life he had lived, experiences careening into his brain in a torrent of recollection. He closed his eyes, putting his hands on each side of his headset as he often did when listening to a difficult signal. It was too much, too fast, too intense.

Sweat dotted his brow as he listened to that voice speaking, and the memories piled in. He saw himself standing next to Admiral Volsky, translating for Admiral Tovey. He remembered all the secret things they were talking about, all the plans and strategies he was supposed to forget the moment he heard them. He saw ships burning, heard the dull drone of old aircraft overhead, saw missiles roaring off the forward deck, and then he remembered hearing that voice, the last time it called, and on this very channel, the channel reserved for this secret com-link.

Fedorov had told him such a call might arrive one day, and what he was to do when it came. Fedorov had given him the code, and yet, even though he could see the other man’s face, the impossibility of that memory, and all the others, left him dizzy headed and very confused. When could any of these things have happened? Yet there they were, the memories clarifying with each passing second. He kept his eyes closed, listening, taking it all in, as if a whole other life was being poured into his head.

And it was.

Fedorov heard the voice as well when it came over the receiver, his pulse quickening. “We read you, Kirov, on secure Alpha-Zeta Channel, and your numbers are good. This is Captain Ivan Gromyko aboard the submarine Kazan. Come back. Over.”

Zykov stared dumbly at Fedorov now. What was an Alpha-Zeta channel, and how could they be talking to the submarine Kazan? Who was this Ivan Gromyko? Yet he saw the light of welcome realization in Fedorov’s eyes clearly enough. The Starpom strode over, his hand extended, reaching for the handset.

“Captain Gromyko?” There was just the hint of doubt lingering in the tone of his voice. “This is Captain Anton Fedorov. Come Back.”

“Kazan to Kirov. Glad to hear your voice, Fedorov. I assume all is well aboard the ship. Frankly, we haven’t determined the date here yet. Phoning home was our first order of business. Over.”

This conversation had been pre-arranged by Fedorov long ago. They knew there was always risk, that Time was fickle, that things could slip. Fedorov could see what was already happening to the ship, and so well before Kazan vanished at the edge of the hole opened by its own nuclear tipped torpedo, Fedorov had huddled with Gromyko. “Should you vanish for any reason, slip in time, then it is also possible that you might be returned to this timeframe. This happened to us several times. Kirov moved in and out of different times. We shifted to the future once, and found it very bleak, and then we slipped back again. Well, should this ever happen, I have arranged a secure encrypted channel, just above the EAM comm link that sends us orders from Severomorsk. If you ever re-appear, call us on that link. Here is the code you must receive for the link to be valid…”

“Fedorov here. It is late September, the 28th to be exact, in the year 1942. Over.”

“Understood. No doubt you are wondering what happened to us,” said Gromyko. “Where are you? Is the ship still in the Atlantic? Over.”

“The Pacific,” said Fedorov. “But Captain, circumstances have changed. There is a very great deal I will have to explain to you. At the moment, I am not even aboard the ship. We have a secured radio set that can dial in to the HF command channels. Over.”

“You are not on the ship? Explain. Over.”

“Too complicated for transmission over this channel. I doubt anyone else could be listening, but just to be safe, we should meet face to face.”

Fedorov’s doubt and fear had now been driven out with this sudden arrival on the scene. Now he had a choice to make. He was Starpom aboard Kirov, but already out here in direct defiance of Karpov’s orders to the contrary. There was still enough of the fear Symenko had stoked for him to realize this little act of mutiny would have consequences. He doubted that he could repair the damage. Karpov’s truce with him had always been uneasy. Look how quick he was to fire that S-400. It wasn’t as he said, trying to explain it away as theater to try and underscore the urgency of his order to return. No. That was direct violence, and it had been aimed to kill. If they hadn’t been so far out when the missile came, he shuddered to think what might have happened.

Karpov had no conscience, he thought. He had no scruples, and did not hesitate a single moment before he fired that missile. I did the same when we thought Orlov was jumping ship, and explained away that violence with excuses about contaminating the time line. Look at all I have done since then. So I have to face the fact that Karpov was, and still remains, a deadly nemesis. And I also have to realize that everything Symenko laid out was true as well. I won’t get through to Ilanskiy. I’ll never reach that back stairway like this, not with Karpov raising the alarm from here to Novosibirsk. And even if I did get down those stairs, I doubt I would have the backbone, and that timely cruelty I spoke of with Karpov. I cannot kill Sergei Kirov. I just can’t do it.

I’m sorry, he said inwardly. Sorry for everything. The torture of this world is on my shoulders, and I deserve all the chaos I have courted since the day we first shifted back to the 1940s. I was such a child then, enamored of the fact that I could see an old museum piece sweep over the ship as it did. Karpov wanted to kill that plane. Volsky stayed his hand. Then I opened my mouth, delighted as much as I was shocked to realize what I was seeing, for there I was, right in the middle of the history I have studied all my life. It was my own private heaven, and look what I have made of it—my own private hell.

“Kazan, Kazan,” he said through the handset. “Transmit your coordinates. I am on an airship and we can come to you. Then we can talk, Captain Gromyko. I can explain everything, and believe me, it’s a very long story. Over.”

There was a long pause, and Fedorov knew Gromyko was considering something. Then he came back. “Kazan to Fedorov. You say Kirov is in the Pacific? Please confirm. Over.”

Fedorov did not know why Gromyko wanted that, but he confirmed it. Then the submarine Captain came on again. “Kazan to Fedorov, we’re in the Barents Sea,” he said. “We’ll transmit exact coordinates. Can you get up here, and if so, how soon? Over.”

“Standby, Kazan.”

Now Fedorov looked at Symenko. “Captain,” he said. “I’m afraid we have yet another change of plans. Do you have sufficient fuel to get to the Barents Sea?”

Symenko raised an eyebrow. “It was 2000 kilometers to Ilanskiy from the rendezvous point where I found you. Let me think….” He reached for a chart he had on the desk, and walked a nav compass across it. “We’re skirting the northern tip of lake Baikal from the last report. The Barents Sea is a big place, but if he were up off the Nose of the Dolphin, it would be another 3300 klicks. Yes, I’ve got the fuel to get there, but not much more.”

The Dolphin Head was a long peninsula that jutted up where the White Sea flowed into the Barents. It looked just like the head of a dolphin, with a long nose at the end. Fedorov nodded, thumbing the handset to send.

“Fedorov to Kazan. We can make that rendezvous. Can you meet us off the Dolphin’s Head? Over.”

“Affirmative, Fedorov. Can do. Will transmit exact coordinates on approach. Anything more? Over.”

There was nothing else to be said, at least not now, even on a secure channel. Fedorov walked over to have a look at Symenko’s chart, his studied eye immediately knowing the heading change they had to make.

“Captain Symenko,” he said. “It seems that you and I are now quite literally in the same boat—in a manner of speaking. If you want to know the truth, Karpov will likely see my actions here as out and out mutiny. I’ve disobeyed his direct order to return to my ship to get this far, but given all you have just said, I don’t think it wise if we stay on this heading for Ilanskiy.”

“And this important business of yours?” said Symenko. “Not so important now with his lordship turning out the hounds on you. I was one of them, and I suppose I could still spit in your eye and let my men here have a go at your little contingent of Marines. Sure, those tough louts of yours would kill a good many, but we could also vent helium and simply bring this airship down. You could try to stop us, but I have a crew of 30 men on this ship. You want to try and kill them all?” He smiled.

“Then again,” Symenko continued, “I hear what you are saying about us being two peas in the same soup. Like the color on the other side of that jacket you’re wearing? You’re a turncoat, just like I was when Karpov flipped me from allegiance to Volkov and signed me on to his fleet. Like it or not, that’s what you are, and you’ll never set foot safely on your ship again, or anywhere else in all of Siberia. Since I’m not sure that even my heroic resistance here would spare me Karpov’s wrath, as one turncoat to another, welcome aboard. Yes, I can get you up to the Barents Sea, unless Karpov’s hounds get to us first.”

“Very well,” said Fedorov. “Then may I suggest we come twenty points to starboard?”

“Aye, that looks right. You’ve a good eye.”

“Came to the service as a Navigator,” said Fedorov. “Captain Symenko, I know my presence here has complicated things a good deal for you. Yet if you can get us up there, I can promise you safe haven in Sergei Kirov’s Soviet Union. Karpov can rant and rave, but he won’t get to you there.”

“How nice and generous of you.” Symenko reached for his telephone to the bridge. “Helm,” he said. “Come 20 points to starboard at once. I’ll send a man down to the chart room with the new course plotted. This is Symenko. Do it now.”

Symenko put the receiver in its cradle, smiling. “Well Captain, a Navigator you say? Have a seat and ply your old craft. Given our fuel situation, we’ll have to take a very direct route, and when you get busy with that compass and pencil, have a close look at some of the ground we’re going to have to overfly.” He pushed the chart across the desk, and Fedorov took a long look.

“Interesting,” he said. “We’ll fly north of the big bend in the Angara, deep into the Siberian wilderness.”

“Aye, and let’s hope we get good weather and smooth sailing, because there won’t be a friendly docking tower, nor food or fuel, anywhere along that route. Then again, if Karpov gets ships out looking for us, they won’t get up there either. No sir, we’ll be safe enough up there. Nobody overflies that ground. That’s the Devil’s Country.”

He was tapping a place on the map about 200 kilometers due north of the big bend in the Angara River, up past the outlying Siberian town of Vanavara, at the edge of a devastated wasteland that was only whispered about if it was ever mentioned. It was the great blight in the land that had come on the 30th of June, in 1908—the Tunguska Event.