Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (41 page)

Yamato
had thrown her first punches, a
strong right hook followed by an uppercut meant to find and demolish her foe,
and end the battle in one titanic blast.

Part XI

Shadow on the Sea

“Ships
that pass in the night, and speak to each other in passing,

only
a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness;

So
on the ocean of life, we pass and speak to one another,

only
a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. ”

-
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Chapter
31

Down
in the heart of the ship, Admiral Volsky sat with
Dobrynin, watching the digital readouts for neutron flux levels in the core.
The Chief Engineer fingered his monitor, pointing out a violet line. “You see
that variation is ten points high, yet it is not sustained. Look how it pulses
up and down, almost like a heartbeat.”

“And this only happens after you run
this maintenance routine? Have you checked the earlier records—data from our
sea trials before this mission?”

“I have, sir, but I had no such
readings in the past until… Well until we installed that new maintenance
control rod. It’s the number twenty-five rod, sir, and we installed a new one
at Severomorsk just before we set sail for the live fire exercises. I ran
maintenance on the number thirteen rod, and dipped number twenty-five for the
first time about six hours before that incident with the
Orel
.”

“I see,” said Volsky. “It looks like
thirteen was our lucky number, or unlucky, depending on how you look at it I
suppose. Then every time you have used it since we have experienced these odd
time displacements.”

The rumble and roar of the missiles
firing above was a pointed distraction, their eyes looking up to the ceiling,
as if seeing the battle begin through the many decks above them.

“What could be so special about this
rod twenty-five?”

“I don’t know, sir. All I can say is
that these variations occurred after it was installed.”

“Well, knowing this much is a good
deal more than we knew before. Thank you, Chief. It was your keen ear for the
equipment that put us on this trail. Now Fedorov thinks we can choose where and
when we move the ship, in time as well as space, and from the sound of things I
think he is getting eager to hurry on from this year and say goodbye to the
1940s for good. Listen, Dobrynin. Fedorov gave me this list earlier. He wrote
down the times he believes we have moved and he wanted to compare it to the
time log on your maintenance procedure. I think he is counting hours now, yes?
He wants to know the average time between the completion of the procedure and
our time displacements. Can you calculate it?”

“Certainly sir. Just give me a minute,
I’ll have Mister Garin take care of it.”

Minutes later they heard the firing of
yet another missile, and Volsky knew the sound of the weapons as well as
Dobrynin knew the song of his reactor.

“That was a P-300 SAM,” said the
Admiral, “the last one we had.” They heard a distant explosion, then the
droning wail of aircraft engines growling louder, the chatter of machine gun
fire followed by the sharp whirring rattle of
Kirov’s
close in defense
systems.”

All Volsky could think of was that a
seaplane had attempted to make an attack on the ship. Then Dobrynin’s eyes were
pulled to a yellow warning light on his reactor panel.

“What’s this,” he breathed. “We’re
losing ventilation pressure on the turbines.” He began fiddling with some
controls, but it was not long before Byko reported that the main shafts at the
rear of the tall central con area had been perforated by a strafing attack. It
wasn’t serious, he said, but it was going to cause some variation in the
pressure for a while.

“One of the rounds must have
penetrated a little deeper,”
he said over the intercom.
“I’m putting some men on it now.”

“That will cost us some speed,” said
Dobrynin. “You’ll lose two or three knots. I’ll see what I can do.”

They soon heard something Admiral
Volsky had hoped he would never have to listen to again, the sound of a heavy
caliber main gun shell screaming through the night, aiming for his ship. The
distant swoosh and explosion of the heavy rounds in the sea was also audible,
and it gave him no comfort to think that shells the size and weight of his car
back home were now being hurled at his ship.

But
Kirov
had nothing to fear
from those huge rounds for the moment. It was a much smaller shell that would
cause the problem, just a twenty millimeter round that had pierced the
ventilation shaft down low, near the base of the main con mast, and traveled
inward deep enough to nick a small metal hose that was carrying the outflow
from the reactor’s secondary cooling water cycle. The water was used to
generate the steam that would drive her turbines. It seemed a small wound
compared to the damage the ship had suffered earlier, just a pin prick in fact.
But it was to have far graver consequences. Pressure dropped. The heat in the
steam reaction changed with the reduced water flow. For a time the steam would
actually increase with the added temperature, but the heat was rising too
rapidly there and the water flowing through the U tubes that would eventually
return to the reactor core was getting too hot.

Temperature and pressure are part of
the delicate balance in any reactor core, and Dobrynin was soon to have more on
his hands than a strange neutron flux.

*
* *

The big rounds
fell wide and very long, as Fedorov
expected the first salvo would. There was virtually no chance the opening
salvos would find their target under these conditions, and he was surprised the
ship had even fired with the range at 28,000 meters. The British battleship
Warspite
had managed a stunning hit on the Italian
dreadnought
Giulio
Cesare
at 26,000 yards, and the German battlecruiser
Scharnhorst
had achieved
the same with a long range hit on the carrier
Glorious
, but these were
rare events for the record books, and seldom achieved in most combat at sea.

He knew that spotter planes would be
calling out the shell falls even now, and watching
Kirov’s
wake closely
to note any curvature that would indicate a new heading change. It would take
some time for the enemy to slowly adjust her fire and find the correct range
and bearing, and in that time
Kirov
had to punish the ship so badly that
it could no longer pose a threat.

Thankfully they still had the means to
do so. They could already see the fires flaring up amidships on the HD video
screen, and knew they had hurt their enemy, putting more missiles on this
target with four hits than any other ship they had fought, yet its speed was
undiminished, and there was obviously nothing wrong with her guns.
Yamato
was still a dangerous threat.

Karpov noted the fires himself,
reaching up to adjust the fit of his cap briefly. “Missiles remaining?” he
asked calmly.

“Six Moskit-IIs still ready sir. Four
P-900 cruise missiles; five MOS-III.” They were down to fifteen missiles.

“I read three small contacts closing
to 24,000 meters” said Rodenko. “Those must be destroyers.”

“Very well. Activate forward deck guns,
both the 152mm and 100mm guns please. Engage those targets at once.”

The Captain wanted to pepper the
destroyers well beyond the range of their small deck guns, but he was
forgetting the enemy torpedoes, and minutes after the deck guns had begun their
work he saw Tasarov stiffen, eyes alight, and his own heart leapt with the
thought that they now also had a submarine to contend with.

“Torpedoes in the water!” said
Tasarov, “multiple contacts. Three, now five… now eight contacts from a bearing
of 225 degrees.”

“Submarine?”

“No, sir. Those must be off those
destroyers.”

“I’ll handle this,” said Fedorov.
“Helm, left rudder twenty. Come to 45 degrees northeast.”

“Helm answering and coming around on
45 degrees, sir, aye.”

Fedorov was turning his backside to
the torpedoes, presenting the slimmest possible target. Though the Long Lance
torpedoes could easily close the distance, he had little fear they would find
his ship. They could not home on his wake, and all he had to do was watch
carefully for their approach and steer an evasive course if necessary. He knew
the Japanese destroyers had fired in anger more than anything else,  as
their own ships were straddled with
Kirov’s
accurate gun fire.

“Two more Moskit-IIs on the
battleship,” said Karpov firmly. “Same program, above and below. We’ll give
them another one-two punch.”

“Aye sir,” said Samsonov, “missiles
firing.”

Yamato
was going to suffer again, but even
as the sleek missiles leapt up and declined to their aiming points, the men on
the bridge saw the night horizon ripped open yet again as the enemy guns sought
them in the darkness. The bright backwash of the missile firing lit the ship
up, and the sharp eyes aboard the crow’s nests tuned their superb night optics
another few points to the good.

Yamato’s
second salvo would also miss;
Kirov’s
would not. The Sunburns struck the ship aft again, one slamming directly into
the massive rear turret this time, and the second plunging down on the broad
fantail where it hit one of the huge cranes and exploded before its armor
piercing warhead could strike the 200mm deck armor. The deck was still buckled
downward with the explosion, and the missile fuel now ignited another fire aft,
right in the midst of the seaplane tending operations. No more spotting planes
would rise to search for the enemy, and two that had been spotted on the
catapults were immolated.

As for the aft turret, it had been
turned to face the distant unseen foe, and the missile struck just beneath the
leftmost gun barrel, flush against its hardened faceplate of 26 inch steel. The
gun barrel was jerked upwards by the explosion so violently that the gears used
to elevate and depress it were broken and made inoperable. The crew inside the
turret took a fearful pounding, and new fires were raging outside their massive
armored shell, but the armor held. Seven men had been knocked senseless, yet
others were crawling up from the depths of the huge magazines below, to take
their place. Two of the three guns could still be fired. The turret was still
in the fight.

Damage control chiefs shouted reports
to the bridge. The first fire amidships had been quelled, only to be restarted
again when the Sunburns rekindled it. Thick black smoke still poured up from
the heart of the ship, adding darkness to the night as the angry fires burned.
Now desperate crews were rushing to fight the fires aft, where one of the two
seaplane catapults, which would have been the height of a five story building
if stood on its end, now jutted at a near 90 degree angle from the ship, bent and
twisted.

Aboard
Kirov,
Fedorov
skillfully maneuvered the ship as a fan of eight torpedoes approached, and when
the danger had passed he returned to a heading of 67 degrees. The three
Japanese destroyers would not get a chance to fire their second torpedo salvo.
Now all three of
Kirov’s
accurate 152mm guns were pounding them.
Hamikaze
was dead in the water.
Maikaze
was burning amidships, her captain dead.
Nowaki
fared a little better, making smoke in a futile attempt to screen the other
ships. Her decks were already crowded with survivors from the cruiser
Jintsu
,
and her Captain
Kora
thought the better of pressing
his attack under these circumstances.

“Those destroyers have been stopped at
20,000 meters,” said Rodenko. One is dead in the water, the others are
withdrawing.”

“Well enough, secure deck guns,” said
Karpov. “Any speed change on the primary contact?”

“No, sir. They are still making just
under 27 knots.”

“As are we,” said Karpov. “Helm, I
thought we were at full battle speed.”

“Sir, my indicator is ahead full.”

“But the reading is 27 knots,” the
Captain turned to Fedorov, raising an eyebrow. “You are correct about this
ship,” he said. We’ve put six harpoons in this whale and still it comes
undaunted. But our speed is off, and that is a matter of some concern.”

“I’ll see about it,” said Fedorov.

“We’ll hit them again. Another round,
Samsonov. Same as before. One above, one below.”

“Just a moment, Captain,” Fedorov
interjected. “Hold up, Mr. Samsonov.” His mind had been on evading the Long
Lance torpedoes the enemy sent his way, then it suddenly occurred to him that
they had Long Lances of their own!