Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (22 page)

At the
mention of that name Volsky seemed very surprised.

“Zolotov…
Georgie Zolotov?”

“Yes,
that is the man. You know him?”

“I have
heard of the man, though we have never met.” Volsky seemed very upset now. “
Sasha
…
yes, I have heard his name before. This is a very serious matter, Golovko. What
do you propose to do about it?”

“That
is the dilemma, Admiral Volsky. I have already sent the best ships at my
disposal to find this German flotilla.
Kalinin
took three hits,
Kalima
was sunk and only
Saku
survived unscathed. We sent out the
Narva
to see if we could find and shadow the Germans, and this she has done.”

“Another
cruiser? I have not heard of this ship.”

“It is
an airship, Admiral. C-10, commissioned in 1938. We still have a few in the
fleet, but it won’t do us any good. There is nothing
Narva
can do to
stop those German ships. Oh, it can catch them, but if it tries to fire on them
they will blow it out of the sky with their secondary batteries. So here I sit,
commander of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, and I have six older destroyers and
another rusting cruiser moored at Murmansk.
Kalinin
will be in the
repair dock for at least two weeks, not that it matters. I have nothing to
throw at them but seaplanes and blimps!”

Volsky nodded,
remembering his own frustration as he contemplated sending out his Pacific
fleet against the powerful American Navy. His eyes narrowed, and he gave
Fedorov a glance before he spoke.

“Perhaps
I can be of assistance,” he said. “My ship can finish up repairs and be ready
to leave within the hour.”

Golovko
raised his eyebrows, for this is what he had come to ask, and it had been
offered. Yet his own misgivings about the lack of firepower on the ship he had
seen still nagged at him.

“I
would hate to ask this of you, and put your ship and crew at risk. After all,
Kalinin
was a very capable ship—nine 180mm guns, good speed, torpedoes. I am told that
your ship is very powerful, and forgive me now Admiral, but you do not seem
very well equipped. Those guns you have cannot be more than 152mm.”

Volsky
smiled. “The British thought the same,” he said quietly. “But I assure you,
Golovko, they were quite happy when we helped prevent three or four German
battleships from breaking out into the Atlantic. We are more than capable, and
yes, we will help you restore the honor of the Red Banner Fleet. Wait and see.”

Volsky
stood up, decisively. “Mister Fedorov, have the men prepare my launch. We are
returning to
Kirov
at once and the ship will sortie in sixty minutes.”

“Aye
sir.” Fedorov said nothing more and went to see to those orders.

Admiral
Golovko gave Volsky a smile and a handshake in thanks. “Go with God,” he said,
wishing the Admiral well.

“I’m
afraid God will have nothing to do with it,” said Volsky. “It appears the war
has started. Yes? If so, then this is work for the devil.”

An hour
later,
Kirov
hoisted anchor and slowly slipped out of the long inlet,
heading for the Barents Sea. Admiral Golovko watched it turn, again feeling
something was very strange about this ship, ominous and threatening.

Other
eyes were watching the ship as well, from a small trawler that was moored to
the quay, an inconspicuous commercial fishing boat. There, a man sat quietly in
the darkened cabin, the barest light of an oil lamp illuminating his work as he
tapped slowly on a telegraph key. It was a coded message that would be heard by
a relay station well ashore in an old hunting lodge in the hills. There another
man would tap his wireless telegraph key, and hand off the signal to another
relay station. The message would hop east, over the White Sea and into the
wilderness until it reached another logging cabin on the foothills of the
Urals. There it would be handed off to the Airship
Sarkand
, hovering
over the icy peaks of the mountains on a standing patrol for just this reason.
Soon it would come to the attention of Ivan Volkov himself. The ship—Karpov’s
ship—had finally been found!

Yet
Admiral Golovko knew nothing of this as he turned and got back into his waiting
car, wondering how long it would be before he received news that yet another
Russian ship had been sunk.

Kirov
must learn not to put his name on these ships until they can fight, he thought.
But he did not know just how very wrong he was.

Chapter 20

On
the bridge of his fighting ship, Admiral Volsky explained
his urgency to Fedorov when they were underway. “Golovko says he will radio the
position of the German flotilla,” he said.

“We
will most likely have them on long range radar as soon as we leave the Kola
Bay,” said Fedorov. “What is your intention, sir?”

Volsky
gave him a long look. “Someone has just broken into our neighbor’s house,
Fedorov. No. That was our brother’s house. It will not go unpunished. Beyond that,
I was alarmed to hear the name of that man taken as prisoner—Zolotov.”

“Who is
he, Admiral?”

“You
saw my surprise, yes? Well my father knew the man. Yes. Old
Sasha
. He
told me stories of that ship when I was a boy. I used to imagine it pushing its
way through the ice on the cold sea voyage east, a real pioneer ship. I often imagined
I was there on the bridge, watching the ice crack under the ship’s bow. Zolotov
was a friend of my father, and so you see, it cuts a bit close to the bone to
hear what happened to him. I can still remember the look in my father’s eyes
when he told me the Germans got him.”

“They
captured him?”

“You
can probably look it up in your old history books, Fedorov.”

“I did
check on this operation, sir. It wasn’t supposed to happen until August of
1942! It is very odd that it should occur so soon in this new time line, or
even reoccur at all.”

“Tell
me about it. What ships were involved?”

“Just
one, sir. The heavy cruiser
Admiral Scheer
. It did everything Admiral
Golovko described—even the sinking of that icebreaker you mentioned. It’s very
strange how the history seems to echo the events of the world we came from, yet
things have shifted, slipped. This time there is a second German ship, and that
is a new variation.”

“Just a
piece of your cracked mirror that has moved out of place, Fedorov. Well, you
will forgive me for what I am now going to do, and it may seem petty, but
suddenly this little war has become personal for me. I will not allow this
insult to stand. Do you understand?”

“Well
sir,” Fedorov thought for a moment. “If the Germans think they can come to our
home waters and attack Russian ships with impunity, they will likely come to
believe that they can easily close these ports and isolate Soviet Russia from
any outside assistance. This may have been a reason for this operation, to test
Russian resolve and measure our capabilities.”

“They
are going to need a very long measuring tape,” said Volsky grimly.

Sometime
later Rodenko reported to the Admiral where he sat in his ready room off the
main bridge. They had just cleared the bay and were now entering the Barents
Sea.

 “Nikolin
has received word on the German location, sir. They were hovering up near
Franz-Joseph and Alexandria Islands. Now they are headed west towards Spitzbergen.”

“That
will put them some 400 kilometers northeast of us,” said Fedorov. “If we steer
due north we should be on a good intercept course.”

“Make
it so, Mister Fedorov. When do you anticipate contact?”

“We can
be well within missile range in ten hours at 24 knots. Increase that a bit and
I can put you on their horizon in that same timeframe.”

“Do so,
and inform me when we get within fifty kilometers. I think we will have a
little chat with the German Captain and ask him to apologize for what he has
done. Of course he will laugh that off. Then we will show him the error of his
ways.”

“It
looks like they want to pass well north of Bear Island.”

“Cold
desolate waters there,” said Volsky. “But it is July, and so there should still
be plenty of sea room.”

 It was
a time when much of the sea ice was broken into drifts, with occasional larger
ice bergs leaving trails of open water behind them as they forged a path
through the smaller floes, like ghostly frozen ships.

The
senior officers rested, but were back on the bridge for planned operations at
18:00 on the 11th of July. By that time
Kirov
was well north, and had
now turned west on an intercept course as the German flotilla approached
Spitzbergen. Fedorov had increased speed to 30 knots to begin closing the
range, and
Kirov
ran easily, the time at Severomorsk being well spent by
Chief Byko to get much needed repairs completed on the ship’s bow. Admiral
Volsky was informed that the contact was being tracked on their Fregat radar,
and he returned to the bridge, his manner serious.

“Very
well,” he said gruffly. “Mister Nikolin, you will begin hailing the Germans on
an open channel. Tell them that they have violated Soviet territorial waters
and neutrality, and that they are now holding our nationals as prisoners. They
must stop. These men must be returned, or they will suffer the consequences.”

“Do I
send this in Russian, sir?”

“Yes.
Fedorov tells me there is a good chance they have a team aboard that will
understand you. Continue your hail and report any response.”

* * *

When
the message was heard on the
Admiral Scheer
it
caused a moment of levity on the bridge. Kranke looked at the signalman with
incredulity, then broke into a broad smile.

“Who is
sending the message, that zeppelin shadowing us?”

“No
sir, it is coming from a ship. They have identified themselves as the
battlecruiser
Kirov
.”

“The
battlecruiser
Kirov?
My, my, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union
is naming ships after himself. Well then, this must be the pride of the fleet,
yes Heintz?”

Heintz
stepped over, curious about the message. “What is it, Kapitän?”

“The
Russians are not happy with our little foray into the Kara Sea. They want their
prisoners back, or so they say.” The Kapitän turned to the signalman now. “Tell
them these men are now in the custody of the Kriegsmarine and will be
interrogated at our leisure. If they want to do anything about it they are
invited to try.” He laughed, shaking his head. “The nerve of these Russians, eh
Heintz? Perhaps they did not receive enough of a beating and we will have to
take them to the woodshed yet again.”

Time
passed and the message returned
. “Stop and surrender all Soviet nationals or
you will be engaged as a hostile ship.”

Kranke
dismissed it as nonsense, thinking the transmission had to be coming from the
Russian zeppelin that was still shadowing them, high above and just out of
range of their guns. But the incident, a laughing matter to him now, was soon
going to be more than he expected, and one that he would never forget.

At 21:20
hours the Germans spotted a contact off their port bow, and they knew that the
Russians had indeed sortied another warship to challenge them. Kranke had a
long look through the telescope on the weather bridge, returning somewhat
bemused.

“One
ship,” he said quietly. “And it looks to be something more than a cruiser.”

“The
Russians
have
nothing more than a heavy cruiser, sir,” said Heintz. “It
must be the light and shadow at this distance. Shall we steer on an intercept
course and have a closer look?”

“No, I
think we will just continue on this heading. Let them come to us if they can.”

“Battle
speed, sir?”

“No
need to rush, Heintz. Steady on at 24 knots.”

“But
they will catch us if this is a Russian cruiser.”

“Then
Schörner will deal with them.”

Messages
continued to stream in with the same demand:
Stop and surrender Russian
nationals or be engaged.
Kranke ignored them, a wry grin on his face,
though Heintz could see that the Kapitän seemed just a little more serious now,
with an air of concern shadowing his bravado.

Then it
began, they heard a distant thump, and then some time later the telltale
approach of a naval shell that landed smartly in the water about a hundred
meters in front of the light cruiser
Nürnberg
where it was steaming in
the van.

“They
say that was our final warning,” said the signalman.

“Do
they?” said Kranke. “What was that Schörner?”

“5.7-inch
round by my estimation, sir, and very strange that they could get it anywhere
near us at this range. We are over 26,000 meters away!”

Kranke
began to slowly pull on his gloves. “The ship will come to battle stations.
Hoist battle ensign and colors.” His voice was flat, all business, with just a
bit of annoyance in it now.