Crescendo Of Doom (9 page)

“Kymchek here,”
came a voice through the tube to his right.
“The fight ahead is going well. Tomsk is hit, and burning badly, but two of our ships report damage.”

That didn’t matter either. Volkov thought that he could lose all four ships in that division, and then still outnumber the Siberians six to three with his remaining ships. This was going to roll on to its inevitable outcome. It was simply a matter of having more men, material, and insurmountable odds in his favor, and he knew he would prevail. What will they write about my little battle here in days ahead, he wondered?

“That storm astern is moving up on us fast,”
said Kymchek.

“Never mind the weather, Kymchek. Just let me know when those two airships are destroyed.”

It was then that Volkov heard a tearing sound of lightning that was enough to send a chill down his spine. Perhaps I should mind the weather, he thought. This storm could complicate my troop landing operation, and if the wind rises too much it will scatter my airborne troops all over the taiga. Southern Division has all four battalions on the ground, but I’ll need the troops from the Caspian Division to have any chance of taking Ilanskiy. The men from the two airships I sent home will stand in reserve at Kansk…. Which reminded him, and he shouted a question at Kymchek through the voice tube.

“What about Kansk? Are my men there yet?”

“Kansk? Yes sir, they are outside the town now. We took the garrison there by surprise, and should have the place secured in a few hours time.”

“Good, Carry on, Kymchek.”

Again that searing lightning, sending a shudder through Volkov’s frame, and jostling his hand so much that he almost spilled his tea. I should be back in Orenburg in my study revising the plans for those new jet fighter craft I plan on selling to Germany. Yes, I have the plans, but they have the factories, a good marriage. I must go to Peenemunde to see how things are progressing with engine development. Once they get that right, then it will be much easier to apply that technology to missile development. That damn battlecruiser gave the Germans quite a shock, but that worked out well for me. Now that the Germans have seen what a good missile can do, they are much more interested in talking.

He smiled, then passed another moment of trepidation when he felt the ship shudder, the air quaver around him, and a strange crackling static infested a brief moment of hushed stillness. What was happening?

“Kymchek? What in god’s name is going on? Is the ship under attack? I thought you told me the zone was secure for this landing operation!”

Silence. No voice in return, but then the sounds of men yelling, their voices distended and hollow through the voice tube. There was some great commotion underway on the bridge, and Volkov leaned to the nearest viewport, straining to see what was happening outside.

The sound of a recoilless rifle barrage joined the thunder of the storm with a sharp report. Then came the voice of Captain Grankin, hard and fraught with alarm, through the voice tube.
“Ship off the starboard aft quarter! We are under attack!”

Chapter 8

Tunguska
was a truly massive airship, the largest craft that had ever flown in the skies above the earth. With 225,000 cubic meter volume, it was also the longest craft ever to fly at over 1000 feet. A modern day 747 jumbo jet would seem a small thing in passing. And the ship had power to match its size, with twelve 76mm recoilless rifles, and twelve more larger guns at 105mm. To these Karpov had added two missile racks, one with 36 RS82mm rockets, and one with 24 larger RS132mm rockets. For air defense the ship deployed six twin 20mm gun mounts and eighteen heavy machineguns, though these were mainly used against small aircraft of the day. In a duel between airships, it was the larger recoilless rifles that would do the real damage. The innovative self-sealing lining on the interior gas bags could only be frustrated by a round of at least 76mm, which could defeat the resealing effort and cause a permanent rupture. The 105mm rifles were even better, and came to be called “the bag busters” in the air service.

By fate, chance, or perhaps through the sheer effort of his own will, as Karpov believed, the ship had appeared in a perfect position to ambush Volkov’s Caspian Division as it was descending to conduct troop deployment operations. There, some 500 meters below the massive airship, a group of four smaller 120,000 cubic meter volume battlecruisers was gliding in a tight square formation. At lower elevation they would separate to gain adequate space for troop deployment, but now they made a perfect target. And Karpov’s eyes lit up with hot fire when he saw them.

“Thermobaric crews! Make ready to deploy forward weapon! Prepare to climb, Bogrov.”

The rifle crews were already opening fire on the enemy ships, but Karpov had another terrible surprise for them, He was carrying two of his prized thermobaric bombs, christened “Autumn Mist” in his code lexicon. They would eject from the ship, fall to a designated altitude, and then deploy parachutes to hover in the sky, dispensing a highly volatile mist that could be ignited by incendiary rounds. The Autumn Mist would then become a hot, all consuming fire, and it was a perfect weapon to attack the formation below and deal a heavy blow.

Reach for the hammer first. Karpov no longer hesitated to deploy the most powerful weapon at his disposal if he saw clear advantage in doing so. The thermobaric bomb was
Tunguska’s
equivalent of a nuclear warhead, and as the undisputed master of the airship, and the fleet it led, there was no hand to restrain Karpov now, no key around his neck requiring another to turn in agreement. He could unleash hell with a single word, and did not hesitate a moment when he saw the opportunity beneath him.

“Sir, two more airships off the port quarter, about 100 meters above us!”

Karpov turned to look for them, seeing the long grey shapes in the sky, nearly as big as his own ship. It was the enemy flagship,
Orenburg
, and he clenched his fist, eager to engage.

“Bogrov! Climb! Get me elevation!”

“Aye sir, flushing number one and three ballast now!”

The order was given to deploy the forward thermobaric, and its weight in falling also helped to lighten the ship as
Tunguska
vented ballast in a rain of water. They could see that the other airships,
Orenburg
attended by the smaller battlecruiser
Saran
, were also venting ballast, and the race for elevation was on. Yet falling with the rain, Karpov’s deadly weapon plummeted down, the parachutes snapping out to slow the fall just above the center of the airship formation below.

The gun crews on the ships below saw the chute deploy, yet it seemed deceptively harmless, perhaps a ballast weight dropped by the other ship, or a range marker for their gunners. The topside crews had only just reached their gun mounts, surprised as they were by the sudden appearance of the massive airship above them. It seemed as if
Tunguska
had just emerged from a cloud, its flanks rippled with eerie phosphorescent lightning that looked like Saint Elmo’s fire. Then, on Karpov’s command, the forward gondola loaded incendiary rounds and took aim on their own falling parachute. Karpov was lighting his match.

The resulting explosion was terrible to witness, a massive fireball that expanded to quickly engulf the nearest ship, the unlucky Battlecruiser
Salsk
. It was a ship about the size of Karpov’s old command on the
Abakan
, at 120,000 cubic meter volume. Its gunners barely had the time to load and train their topside guns when the explosion engulfed the ship, expanding in a horrific plume of hot fire.
Salsk
was immolated by the weapon, and the shock of the pressure wave struck the other airships a heavy blow. The tail of
Armavir
was also on fire where a plume of flame caught it and spun the airship about. Both
Anapa
and
Sochi
rolled heavily, yet being forward of the main explosion, they were spared the all consuming fire.

Salsk
had her canvas shell seared off in just seconds, gas bags exploding as the temperatures literally melted away the self-sealing linings. When the intense fireball diminished, Karpov could see the skeleton of the ship glowing hot from the blow he had delivered. Burned and savaged by the heavy shock wave, anyone alive on
Salsk
would soon be asphyxiated as the searing fire consumed all the oxygen in the immediate vicinity of the explosion.

It would have been a much heavier blow if the weather had been calm. As it was, the deadly Autumn Mist sprayed by the falling bomb was too dispersed on the wind, and the explosion was only half as intense as it might have been in calm conditions. But it was enough. Karpov had his first kill, as
Salsk
withered away and began to fall, all buoyancy lost, the ravaged frame of the airship bent and afire. Karpov could see that the tail of a second ship,
Armavir
, was also engulfed in flames, and he knew that airship would soon lose its ability to steer and maneuver.

“Come hard to port! Concentrate fire on those forward ships! Give them the bag busters!”

The gunners on
Tunguska
were quick to respond, feeding shells to the bigger 105mm breech loading rifles on the main command gondola and firing. The skies bloomed with the black roses of the explosions around the enemy ships, but the gunners were getting many direct hits against the ponderous targets below. Karpov could see the outer canvas of the forward ships torn by the shells, the glow of fire within, and then the trail of heavy smoke from the wound, the vaporous blood of an airship in distress.

One ship, the
Anapa
, was still descending, perhaps from loss of lift due to the many holes
Tunguska
had punched in her outer shell, the rounds penetrating to the gas bags within. Yet the second ship,
Sochi
, was trying to climb, hoping its lighter weight might outpace the elevation gain of the bigger dreadnought above it. For a moment it seemed as though the ship would succeed, blowing all its ballast in a desperate attempt to gain rapid elevation and get out from under the serried rows of the gondola mounted rifles on the massive enemy above. But Karpov saw what they were doing, and had a quick reprisal in mind.

“Forward gondola!” he shouted. “Ready on RS82 system. Target that ship and fire!”

Seconds later the hiss of the 82mm rockets filled the air as a stream of twelve fired out from the rocket mounting. With the rear of the firing tubes venting to open air, the elevation gain of the enemy, quickly rising to come even with
Tunguska
, actually played in Karpov’s favor. The rocket rack had limited downward angles of fire, or the hot fire of the engines might be directed back at
Tunguska’s
underbelly. It was meant to be fired dead ahead, with the rockets eventually falling on ground targets as a saturation artillery weapon, but in this case it proved a remarkably effective anti-airship weapon.

The rockets seared into
Sochi
, striking her brow as she climbed and shredding the canvas with the fire of their explosions. The upper girder structure of the interior frame was blasted apart, and the ship suddenly seemed to be breaking in two, with the intact nose section bending downward as the central frame failed. Then fire blazoned in the gash ripped by the rockets, and Karpov knew he had struck the ship a fatal blow.

Two enemy airships down, one wounded and possibly out of the fight. The battle was opening well for
Tunguska
, but the
Orenburg
had recovered from the shock of the surprise arrival, and was beginning to return fire.

* * *

Kymchek was on the main bridge, horrified by the scene below as he watched
Salsk
, and then
Sochi
die their agonizing deaths by fire. Rockets! Why didn’t we think to mount Katyushas on this ship? Too late now. It will have to be up to the gunners, but we need more elevation. That monster out there just dropped heavy ballast, and it’s climbing fast. Any advantage we had will be lost, and god help us if that beast gets above us. My god! Look at those guns!

As Security Chief, Kymchek also stood in as fire control officer on the
Orenburg
when the ship was engaged. He had coolly directed the gunnery during the earlier engagement that had dispatched the Siberian battleship
Yakutsk
, but that ship had been heavily outnumbered, and had no chance of survival. The enemy they were facing now was an order of magnitude bigger. How in god’s name could we fail to detect that airship? Were the radar crews and watchmen blind? It was massive, bigger than anything he had ever seen. By comparison, the big battle underway ahead of them with Old Krasny would be a side show to the action that would now be fought here. That ship dwarfs Big Red, he knew. What could it be, a new ship we knew nothing about?

That was simply not possible. Kymchek knew his intelligence network was simply too good to miss the deployment of a ship like that. He peered through his field glasses, struggling to find insignia, and there, at the heart of the prominent double headed eagle of the Siberian State, was the Serial number: T1. The T Class airships were small heavy cruisers at 100,000 cubic meter volume. The Siberians had two in that class,
Tomsk
and
Talmenka
, and the Orenburg Federation deployed three with
Tashkent, Talgar
and
Taraz
. That serial number belonged to
Talmenka
, but that ship was deployed far to the south, well away from this action, and this was not the old T Class he knew. While the shape and design of the airship was similar to the heavy cruisers, this ship was more than twice their size! It was bigger than the
Narva
class airships deployed by the Soviets, and by god, it was even bigger than the
Orenburg!