Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (17 page)

“When?
Was this a recent event?”

“Just
days ago for us, but decades past in your time. You see, Mironov, our ship
found its way to the same year when you first met Fedorov—1908. How it came to
be there is a very long story, but this man, Karpov, believed he was marooned
there permanently and took some rather aggressive action against the Japanese.
He had it in his mind to reverse the humiliation of our defeat at the hands of
Admiral Togo’s fleet in 1905. Yes, he thought he might restore Russia to her
position of power in the Pacific, but we knew this would cause grave harm, and
so at that time I did everything possible to impede him.”

“You
were there with him on the ship? He opposed your authority?”

To
make a long story short, Volsky decided to abridge his tale. “That is a fair
assessment of what happened,” he said. “But he was stopped. The crew would not
follow him any longer, and that was his undoing. Then he disappeared. We
believed he had been killed in action, but this mention of his name has been
somewhat jarring. Our ship moved again in time after that—I cannot explain it
fully here, but if Karpov also moved with us, and was still alive…”

Fedorov
spoke now, very concerned. “You say this Karpov came on the scene some years
ago?”

“We
first began to hear his name a year ago. I would think he would have been
fermenting in the power structure for many years before that, but we could turn
up no history on the man, and no records. Nothing is known of Volkov’s early
life either. No one ever heard of the man until he began inserting himself into
the revolutionary cadres in 1908. In time he co-opted Denikin’s entire
operation in the Caucasus, and from there he has expanded to control all of
Kazakhstan. We’ve held the line on the Volga, but now, with the Germans
building up on our western front, our situation becomes very serious. So you
see, I need friends as well. Soviet Russia needs friends. Otherwise we may not
survive this war.”

Volsky
extended his hand. “When I learned from radio intercepts that it was you,
Sergei Kirov, who control our homeland in Stalin’s place, I felt hope for the
first time in a good long while. I told young Fedorov here that if there was
one man in Russia I could fight for, it would be you. I will tell you now that
we made contact with the British on our way here. In fact, I met face to face
with their Admiral of the Home Fleet. He is a reasonable man, and one that
could become a strong ally if you were so inclined.”

“The
British are hanging on by their fingernails,” said Kirov. “Yes, if they go,
then we are surely next. Then the whole word comes under the shadow of Nazi Germany.”

Volsky
was clear and direct, and Kirov could see it in his eyes. “That cannot be
permitted to happen. Mister General Secretary, this has been an hour of many
revelations. We sit here discussing the impossible fates we have both suffered,
and now this news of Karpov chills my blood if this is, indeed, the man we
lost. He is a man of great ambition, and could prove a grave danger. Now,
however, I think that Russia’s only chance at survival is in a speedy alliance
with Great Britain and the United States.”

“America?
They are a neutral state.”

“At
the moment—but Russia is a neutral state as well. You and I both know that no
nation with any power in this world will be able to remain a neutral bystander.
We know how this war ended once, Kirov. It is only just beginning now, but it
will grow and grow and become a whirlwind of chaos that will consume the entire
world before it ends.”

“Yet
your presence here tells me Russia survives. I could spend days with you with
the questions in my mind now.”

“As
I could with you, but we both have duties to perform. Yes, Russia survived—in
the history we knew. In that war we were allies with Great Britain, but without
their support, and the supplies and equipment that flowed to us through this
very port, we may not have survived the onslaught Germany unleashed upon us. At
this moment, all is in play. These years are the most dangerous of the entire
war. Unless you get sound footing, the Germans could stampede all the way to
Moscow, and now, with this Orenburg Federation and Volkov at your back, you
have no refuge in the east as Stalin had when hard pressed.”

“You
tell me things that I have realized for some time now. Yes, I know we cannot
stand alone, and for that reason I have already put out feelers to the British,
and will now make a formal proposal of alliance. Do you think it will be well
received?”

“It
will. I am almost certain. Britain stands alone in the west, even as you stand
alone here. You must join hands and become brothers in arms. There is no other
way for either of you to survive. If Germany can turn its might on either
nation in isolation, they would certainly win. It is only the strength of the
Royal Navy that now shields Great Britain from destruction.”

“The
Germans are planning to invade England even now!”

“That
plan will fail,” said Fedorov. “At least it never came about in the history we
know. Yet this is a new history book we are living in now, at least for me. The
Kriegsmarine is much stronger than we knew it to be. Things have changed, and
the Germans may now be able to pose a serious invasion threat to England.”

“Not on
my watch,” said Volsky flatly.

Kirov
smiled. “You sound very confident, Admiral. I like that in a man. A good boast
is sometimes a necessary food for the soul, as long as a man has courage to go
along with it.”

“I do
not boast, Mister General Secretary. The ship I now command has the power to
assure England’s safety from invasion. I could accomplish this single handedly,
but the Royal Navy has great strength as it stands. If I commit my
Kirov
to their cause, then I can assure you that the Germans will not set foot on
English soil.”

“Well
Admiral, then I urge you to do this. As for this Kirov,” he placed his hands on
his broad chest now, “he is committed as well. Now then, let us drink on this
new day together. I will call my Lieutenants back and we will have a good meal
and some good Vodka as well. Then we will get on with the business of trying to
save the world, eh? I have only one hope, Admiral Volsky. You have told me your
ship has moved in time, though I do not grasp how that happens. That aside…
will you move in time again? Can you do this? Or might it happen again by
accident?”

“We do
not yet know,” said Volsky truthfully. “All I can promise you is our friendship
and support as long as we can stay put.”

Kirov
clasped his arm in a hearty handshake. “Then I can promise you the same.”

The
meal was delicious and very fulfilling, a taste of real home cooking, as Volsky
described it. Troyak and Zykov were also seated at the table, and the obvious
good will between the General Secretary and these visitors lightened the mood
of the security officers.

As the
evening concluded Kirov brought in a man in a naval uniform, introducing him as
Vice Admiral Arseniy Grigoriyevich Golovko, currently serving with the Red
Banner Northern Fleet. At first the man was surprised to see Volsky, as here
was an Admiral he did not know. To forestall the questions this would surely
raise, Kirov covered by saying he had just appointed this man, who was head of
a very secret project.

“I will
have to find a way to explain your presence here, Admiral,” he had whispered to
Volsky at the dinner. “And to explain your ship when it pulls into the harbor.
So for now you are a state secret, a special project, and I can keep curious
men under control if that will be a help to you. There is a good harbor north
of the city here that we have been considering for a new shipyard. Perhaps you
know it?”

“Severomorsk,”
said Volsky, smiling. “Yes, we sailed from that port… eighty-one years from
now.” It still sounded fantastic and unbelievable every time he considered it.
“Admiral Golovko will make good company here. In our day we had a ship that
bore his name as well.”

“Good
then,” said Kirov enthusiastically. “The place is yours. I will marshal the
resources to have facilities built there, and for now you will find it a safe
anchorage. One day I should dearly like to see this ship of yours, but for now
I am needed in Moscow.”

“I will
arrange a tour when next we meet,” said Volsky.

“Then
is there anything else I can do for you; anything you need?”

Fedorov
raised his hand and Kirov leaned around Volsky to smile at him. “Yes Fedorov?
You have a request?”

“If I
may, sir. Books,” he said. “History books.”

Kirov
smiled.

Part VI

Wunderland

“But I don’t want to go among mad
people,”

Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat,

“we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re
mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

―
Lewis Carroll,
Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 16

July 2, 1940

Kapitän
Kurt ‘Caesar’ Hoffmann
was brooding
as he stared at the rocky Norwegian coastline off Trondheim. Raeder was upset
over failure of the operation, and justifiably so. He had been convinced that
it would succeed, and it should have been a great victory, until that strange
vessel appeared.

“I knew
there was something amiss the moment I set eyes on that ship,” he said to
the ship’s chief gunnery
officer, Schubert. “There was something wrong about it. What ship was that,
Schubert? Is the Abwehr so inept that they could fail to notice a ship of that
size in the British order of battle? I don’t think so.”

“It is very strange, sir.”

“More than strange! You saw what it did to
Gneisenau
, eh?”

They were standing on the weather deck, and the grey sky above
seemed to lower over the bay, deepening the gloomy mood that was on the Kapitän.

“I have
never seen such a weapon,
Kapitän
. Such speed and accuracy
for a rocket is incomprehensible. It must have been a lucky hit, just like that
hit we got on that British aircraft carrier.”

“Yes,
and we should have sunk that ship, Schubert. That’s another thing that slipped
from our grasp. Yes, things have been slipping. I have the odd feeling that we
have been denied our rightful victory. We got close enough to the main battle
to see the smoke from the fires on that British ship. They tell me it was
Hood
,
and we should have put that ship at the bottom of the sea. Then Lindemann lost
his nerve.”

“He was
only following orders, Kapitän. You know Raeder made it clear that if our
capital ships were in danger of sustaining serious damage, he was to break
off.”

“Yes,
but we were so close. So damn close. I could almost see us feasting on those
fat British convoys to the south, but that’s another thing that slipped away.”

“I’m
afraid so sir.”

“You
are afraid? Well I’ll tell you the truth now Schubert.
I
am afraid. If
the British have these weapons then our fleet is good for little more than
target practice for them. My god, you saw what those rockets did to the
Stukas
off
Graf Zeppelin
, and I spoke with Böhmer as well. Thank God his best
pilots survived that hell. His squadron leader, Marco Ritter, made it back, and
one of his new hot shots survived as well—the fellow that got two hits on the
British! All these battleships and the
Stukas
do the real work. We
should have built more carriers. Böhmer says that
Sigfrid
was not hit by
a torpedo as we first thought when we got that report. No! It was another one
of those damn naval rockets!”

Schubert
seemed very surprised. “I had not heard that.”

“I just
heard it myself. It came in on this morning’s unit traffic: Böhmer confirms
Sigfrid
lost to rocket attack. Single hit amidships.”

“One
hit?”

“Well
having seen the damage on
Gneisenau
that does not surprise me. So there,
we have lost one of our newest destroyers.” Hoffmann took a long drag on his
cigar, and exhaled, clearly upset.

“But
sir,
Graf Zeppelin
was over 150 kilometers to the north. Are you saying
the new British ship slipped by and got close enough to fire this weapon
without being spotted by our search planes? We saw it well south of our
position when we received the order to break off from Lindemann.”

“You
were in the gunnery director with your eyes fixed on the British, Schubert, so
perhaps you did not see what happened. I was out here on the weather deck and
saw everything. When those rocket weapons are fired there is one thing they do
with that vapor trail they leave behind them. You can follow the trail like a
smoky rainbow right back to the source of the firing ship. No. That enemy ship
was nowhere near
Graf Zeppelin
, and that is what is so astounding about
all of this. It hit
Sigfrid
from a position
south
of our own just
as you say.”