Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series) (41 page)

“Yes, sir. I read four contacts there, one out in front—most likely a destroyer picket—then a column of three ships about five kilometers behind it, two heavy contacts, one lighter.”

“That is the battlegroup that Tovey must concern himself with now. Let us get north and see if we can render assistance.”

* * *

Hoffmann
lowered his field glasses, smiling. “Look there, Huber, a pair of British cruisers! It looks like they did not learn their lesson earlier, eh?”

“Apparently not,” Huber folded his arms. “I make the range about 18,000 meters.”

“Let us close to 15,000. If they fire first, however, instruct Schubert that he may answer immediately. Now… Hard to port and come to 100 degrees east southeast. We will get all our guns into the action that way, and move to a conjunction with Lindemann at the same time.”

The crews were at the action stations, guns trained in the ruddy light, which presented an eerie setting, with drifts of grey fog over a blood red sea lit by the low crimson sun on one side and then washed over by the cold white moonlight. Here and there ice floes scudded along, some taken head on by the sharp bow of the ship, the shattered fragments clattering along the hull as
Scharnhorst
surged forward. The winds were calm, and it would make for good action by the guns.

Schubert reported all ready and awaiting permission to fire. “Range 16,000,” he called down from the upper gun director’s position.” The British soon obliged him by firing their first ranging salvo, and they could now see the dark shapes of the two cruisers turning east on a near parallel course, unwilling to have their T crossed and not eager to close the range more than it was.

“They will want to get ahead of us if they can,” said Hubert. “That way they will put the sun at our backside.”

“We have the speed to prevent that. Answer them Schubert. Permission to open fire. Hoffmann gave the order, raising his field glasses to watch the result.

The ripple of fire from the German ship came in three sharp reports, and only from the forward turrets. Schubert had an unusual ranging pattern, firing the centermost barrels of his two forward triple turrets first, then the remaining two barrels of each turret in a second and third salvo, all in rapid succession. In this way he aimed to frame the target quickly, as each salvo of two rounds was set to alternate ranges, plus or minus a hundred meters on the computed target position.

He quickly saw that he had a near straddle on the lead ship, close enough to order fire for effect, and before the minute had ended all nine of
Scharnhorst’s
11-inch guns were ready for action again, the lights winking on in his director tower.

“Ready! Good!” The next salvo added fire to the ochre night, the blast from all nine guns shaking the ship and sending anything unsecured careening to the decks. Seconds later Hoffmann, out on the weather bridge and heedless of the danger there, heard the whoosh and fall of the enemy’s second salvo. The shots were short and slightly wide, and he knew the spotters there were rapidly calling in the sighting corrections while crews labored to service the guns.

Schubert’s first big salvo fell all around the lead ship now, and bright fire lit up the fantail where Hoffmann saw the first hit of the action. The gunnery officer saw it as well through his powerful optics and made a small correction before giving the order to fire again. Then the second salvo came in, this time mostly fired by the trailing British cruiser, and Hoffmann heard its incoming wail even louder.

There came a hard knock, the ship shaking with the hit, right amidships on the heavy armor there. Two other rounds dolloped up the sea in a red and white geyser, the water glistening as it reached almost as high as Hoffmann’s chin on the upper bridge.

“Starboard fifteen!” he shouted. The score was even, but Schubert was quick to reply. This third full salvo roared in reprisal, and it was quickly followed by the sharp crack of
Admiral Hipper’s
8-inch guns where that ship trailed the lead battlecruiser by about a thousand meters. Hoffmann steadied himself, one leather-gloved hand on the outer hand rail and the other holding his binoculars. Seconds later he saw the sea erupt again near the lead British cruiser, and hits sent up bright fire and smoke, both fore and aft.

Now more smoke, thick and very black enveloped the ship, and he knew it was artificial. The British were turning, ready to run behind a smoke screen if they could.
Hipper
had found the range on the second cruiser with a near straddle, and
Gneisenau
had put a set of three 11-inch rounds right astride its bow, with one hit on the forecastle near the A-turret.

The two cruisers were still firing, and were lucky enough to score yet another hit, this time low on the water line against
Scharnhorst
, where they had both concentrated their effort. They were narrowing the score, yet the difference in this game was not the guns, but the armor. With 14 inches of heavy Krupp Cemented steel that could shrug off a 16 inch shell at any range over 11,000 meters,
Scharnhorst
was invulnerable to hits against her belt armor. With the action running at 14,500 meters, the 8-inch shells fired by the cruisers could simply not penetrate, nor even seriously damage the German ship.

By contrast the bigger rounds being fired by
Scharnhorst
found only 4.5 inches of hull plating, a measly one inch siding on the turrets, and deck armor of only 1.375 inches—and they were doing grave harm anywhere they struck the British ships.
Sussex
in the lead had taken three hits,
Devonshire
following had taken two, though one of these was a lighter 8-inch round from the
Admiral Hipper.

Though the action was only seven minutes old, it was clear that the British had had enough. They were challenged to face
Scharnhorst
alone, and now found both
Hipper
and
Gneisenau
looming out of the fog, guns blazing. The British cruisers steered hard to starboard, coming around nearly eighty compass points in a churning turn to run south at their best speed before either ship might sustain damage to their engines that would mean certain doom.

Hoffmann lowered his field glasses letting them dangle from the leather cord about his neck as Schubert fired his fifth salvo. He slowly pulled off his leather gloves, stuffing them into his warm greatcoat. Then he reached into his breast pocket and found the cigar he had been saving, lighting it behind his big cupped hand with a smile. He took a long satisfied drag and then gave the order to cease fire.

“Steady on and ahead full,” he called as he headed for the conning tower entrance. Now we run east to join Lindemann, he thought. And if he has found the bigger British ships we will show up like Blucher at Waterloo—only this time it is Wellington’s flank we turn. He chuckled at that. Victory was sweet.

* * *

Aboard
HMS
Invincible
Admiral Tovey was feeling anything but that. The Admiralty was hot for action, wanting news of a victory at sea to bolster the nation’s flagging morale, and the dispatches he was now receiving were not promising.

‘Hood under air attack at 19:40 hours, two hits both serious - B turret out of action and speed down to 20 knots. Repulse undamaged and now taking station ahead. Fires under control.’

No sooner had he read that when Lieutenant Commander Wells arrived with the news of the encounter on his left flank. He had been steering towards the sound of those distant guns, just over the gloaming of the horizon to the northwest. Now the news of two hard blows to Holland’s flagship had changed the whole complexion of his deployment.
Sussex
and
Devonshire
were retiring south, hoping to lead the Germans into his path, but spotters up in a
Walrus
reported that they were steady on 100 and heading on a course that might eventually intercept
Hood
. Under any other circumstances he might hope for such an engagement, but now his battlecruisers seemed all too vulnerable. Armor, he thought. Only
Invincible
had the hard steel to really stand in a fight like this. Even
Hood
could be a liability here as much as an asset.

“Mister Wells,” he said, the calm in his tone belying the turmoil within him, “Send to
Sussex
and
Devonshire
. They are to run south and then come about and find my wake. And on your way notify Captain Bennett to steer zero-five-zero. It's time we pulled the fleet together into one mailed fist.”

“Aye sir.” Wells started for the door at a run, but Tovey stopped him, frowning.

“Calmly, Mister Wells, a brisk gait will do. No need to run. And please ask how soon we can expect support from Vice Admiral Aircraft Carriers. Holland certainly isn’t covered properly, and where are my fighters?”

“Right away, sir.”

There had been too little time. The planes he had begged the Admiralty for were still en-route to Reykjavik. It now appeared evident to Admiral Tovey that the German main body was going to hit Holland hard, and right on the nose. In that instance,
Invincible
needed to be there, and if he turned now, his present position might also allow him to also cut the German battlecruisers off that were running east to join the main body.

Lookouts had reported that the German strike planes, those bloody damn
Stukas
, had turned north, which is just where he expected the German aircraft carrier to be waiting. What he really needed now was support from his own carriers, and he hoped the combined weight of their torpedo squadrons would be enough to get through the BF-109s, which were still circling like vultures over Holland’s task force.

Illustrious
had received the new prototype
Fulmar
fighter, exactly three to go along with her
Skuas
, which gave him little hope that they could tip the balance in the air duel over the sea. The Messerschmitts were clearly masters of the sky, and the
Skuas
of 800 and 803 Squadrons off
Ark Royal
had again taken heavy losses. It was up to
Illustrious
to bring the weight of her air squadrons to the task, and soon. Between the two carriers they had at least thirty
Swordfish
they could get in the air and, in spite of their antiquated appearance, they had proven to be a fearsomely competent and able warrior when it came to their primary role. The question was, how many could get through those German fighters, and of those how many could get in close enough for a chance at getting a hit?

A strange calm came over the scene now, a dark red gloom seeming to hang over the ocean in rosy fog that was rolling off the ice shelf to the west. It was just after 21:00 hours when he gave the order to make that turn and, as he stared at the plotting board to note the position of the wooden markers on the table, he reluctantly placed a red damage marker on
Hood
. It would likely be another long hour before he could come up to Holland's aid, and it was going to be one of the longest hours of his life.

* * *

Kirov
had run north at high speed, working up to thirty knots in spite of the strain on the bow. All the while Rodenko reported on the outcome of the cruiser engagement which did not surprise anyone on the bridge. At 21:30 hours Admiral Volsky brought the ship to battle stations.

“What is likely happening with those German dive bombers, Mister Fedorov?”

“By now they will broken off and returned to their carrier, sir. It will likely take them at least another hour to land, move below decks, and rearm if the Germans are planning a second strike. I would not expect them back in action for another ninety minutes.”

“Well if they do come, I am going to extend a SAM umbrella over the British fleet. Mister Samsonov will prepare a barrage of a few S-400s. Once we fire them I believe the shock value alone may be sufficient to break up the enemy strike wave.”

“It may, sir. While we were in the Caspian attempting to rescue Orlov the Germans threw several squadrons of
Stuka
dive bombers against the Russian positions on the coast. We had to engage them with all the handheld antiaircraft missiles at our disposal, and they found it most disconcerting.”

“Those were no more than needles and pinpricks compared to what we will be throwing at them with the S-400 system. I have little doubt that we can stop this next air attack.”

“I agree, sir.”

“Then we have the question of what to do about the surface engagement. There is a part of me that wants to let history run its own course here and see what Admiral Tovey can do.”

“I understand your feeling exactly, Admiral. Thus far this outcome could have been anticipated, but the real engagement with the action will come when the battleships sight one another.”

“One for the history books,” said Volsky, “and I wonder what they will write should we light up the skies with our missiles?”

Fedorov thought about that, realizing they were about to reach into the pages of that history and write their name.
Kirov
, battlecruiser of the Russian Federation. How strange it will be to realize no one in that Federation will have the slightest idea of who or what we are? What will be known about us soon if we continue this intervention? What can we reveal here without ripping the lid off of Pandora’s jar and bringing havoc and mayhem to the world?

They were walking a fine line again where the desire to do good and work to make for a better world at the end of this crazy chaos of a war might also unleash that one forbidden fruit that could bring it all crashing down again—knowledge. They will see every shot we fire, and my god, what would ever happen if it became known that we were not born to this time and place, that we are strangers on this strange land, interlopers from another time with power beyond the imagination of anyone alive this day?