Able Fire: The Next War - 2025 and Beyond

Chapter 34

They could feel it.

Everyone on the ship seemed uneasy that morning. The men at breakfast mess seemed listless, cheerless, and bothered. The Mishmanny, looked over the charts for work rotations, all while feeling some great thing was being overlooked. It was a general feeling of threat, something impending, like a great sword hanging over them, and the farther up the chain of command, the more those feelings registered.

Orlov’s dreams were dark that night, and the last image in his mind before he awoke was the face of the conniving security man—Ivan Volkov. He wasn’t trying to butter his bread this time, promising him things he could never deliver. No, this time is was just his face, staring, then laughing, and he heard the growl of some animal behind him, low, dangerous, threatening.

Doctor Zolkin was unable to sleep, restless in his quarters, and decided to open the infirmary early that morning. He had been cleaning up, and organizing things, when he came upon a memory key tucked away in an envelope, deep in his desk. What was this, he wondered? He took it out, eyes narrowing behind his thick dark-rimmed glasses. Then he went to his computer to see exactly what it was, but found the file was encrypted.

“That’s strange,” he said aloud. “Why would I…?” Frowning, he typed in a password, but it failed. Then he went to another old standby, a password he used only for very select files, and was gratified to see the file open. There, in a long column, were names of crewmen on the ship. Right at the top, three names jarred him at once: Markov, Volushin, Lenkov…. He sat there, staring at the screen, trying to remember what this list was all about.

Still sleeping in his cabin, Admiral Volsky was having that same old nightmare again. He was at sea, on the bridge of a great fighting ship, and hearing the roar of big guns firing. The sound of something big and dangerous in the sky possessed him, the whoosh of great metal rounds falling into the water off his port side. He saw the sea churned up in a great splash as one fell very near the long steep bow of the ship. Then the image faded, the dream fled, and in its place he saw the face of Pavel Kamenski, the old KGB man, and he was holding a book of some kind.

“It’s all gone, Admiral,” he said. “Everything has changed. Wake up now! Pay attention! You are on a ship with no name. You must see for yourself….”

The old man’s face faded away, and his eyelids fluttered open. For a moment, he blinked, confused, wondering where he was. Then the familiar sound and feel of Kirov registered on his waking mind, and he sat up. As soon as he did so, the sense of some grave and terrible error was upon him. What was it? What was wrong?

Two decks above, Fedorov woke with a start, eyes wide, knowing something had happened. Was it only a dream? The feeling he had was dreadful, as if some great wave was about to crest and break upon the ship, dragging Kirov down, down, deep beneath the sea. He looked about, as if trying to see if the room itself had changed, if the ship was stable, and still structurally sound, but all seemed normal and in place. Yet he could not shake the feeling that some great doom had befallen the world; that some news was vibrating on the airwaves, carrying the dreadful tale.

Nikolin, he thought. I must get to Nikolin.

Up on the bridge, Karpov opened the door from his ready room, seeing the night crew just getting ready to go off shift. The men saluted, and Kalinichev at radar for Rodenko announced him.

“Admiral on the bridge!”

“As you were,” said Karpov. “I heard no alarm, but I had the distinct feeling that something was amiss. Anything on radar, Comrade Kalinichev?”

“No sir, all clear.”

But this was something deeper, thought Karpov, something unseen. In his mind, the only thing that emerged was the hidden threat posed by a submarine, and he immediately looked to Velichko, who had the night watch there.

“Sonar, anything unusual?”

“All quiet sir. No readings to report.”

Karpov nodded, then walked slowly to the view pane, seeing the sleek grey shape of Kursk off the starboard side, about five miles out. The ship looked trim and ready, and nothing seemed amiss. Then why did it feel like something was wrong, something was out there, something was coming for them? He looked to Chekov at communications.

“Any overnight messages, Comrade Chekov?”

“Sir, a routine missile inventory and fuel status report from Kursk, routed to the ready room terminal two hours ago. That is all.”

“Anything on general airwaves of any note?”

“I’ve been listening, sir, to the news, but it seems a quiet day. The major news wires are reporting the Chinese have sent troops across the border into southern Iraq. That seems to be the big story this morning.”

It was, but it certainly wasn’t big enough to get Karpov bothered like this. He looked around, noting the ship’s position on the vertical plexiglass digital screen, then looked out to sea again, as if searching for some great white whale, a looming behemoth that he could feel and sense, but not yet see.

One by one, the senior officers of the bridge crew began to arrive, saluting the Admiral as they came in through the hatch, Tasarov, Rodenko, Samsonov. As the shift turned over, Karpov was just looking out to the grey horizon, as if waiting for something to appear. In time he turned, and the first man he went to was Tasarov.

“Lieutenant, give me a good listen, will you? And let’s get a helicopter up. We’ve been lax on ASW patrols of late.”

“Yes sir,” said Tasarov, toggling his message interface to order the helo to make ready for liftoff. Then he settled in beneath his headset, to listen to the sea, closing his eyes. He had been feeling something was wrong that morning, and now, beneath that headset, he could hear some distant moaning under the sea, like the song of a great wounded sea beast. It rose and fell, rose and fell, and he was immediately making adjustments to localize the sound.

Karpov was watching him very closely now, for he knew most every movement an officer might make at his station, and the things Tasarov was doing carried some presentiment of warning. He was listening, then looking up at his waterfall, the visual display of the sonic information the sonar system was picking up. Then he made an adjustment, listening… listening… and Karpov’s worrisome eyes were on him the whole time.

Kirov had a variable-depth low-frequency sonar aft, and a low-frequency bow sonar, known in the West at one time as the “Horse Tail” towed array and the hull mounted “Horse Jaw” in the bow. The towed array could be lowered down and away from the churning wake of the ship, into the quiet zone above the thermocline where submarines often loved to prowl.

“Trouble, Tasarov?” asked Karpov. “Do you hear something?”

“I’m not sure, sir… Yes, I have a sonic aberration, but I’m having difficulty localizing it. Give me a little time, sir.”

“I knew it,” said Karpov, vindicated to think his unease was now associated with his old fear—an enemy submarine. Yet this was an odd place to find one, if that was the threat. They had replenished on the 22nd and 23rd, and then made the passage out of the Java Sea into the Indian Ocean that Fedorov had recommended. They were south of Java, heading out towards the Australian outpost at Christmas Island, and over very deep water.

For Tasarov, something seemed to be resonating in those dark depths, and it was becoming one of those challenges he set his mind to. What was it? At the moment, the itch was there, but he could not scratch it. When the helicopter was up, he would have another data stream from its sonar, more distant from the ship, and he began toggling in the data from Kursk off their starboard side to utilize that ship’s sensors as well. Somewhere up ahead, he knew that Kazan was cruising silently below them, because he could hear it. So he made a mental note to see if they could get a message to Gromyko to coordinate their sonar search.

Fedorov came in through the hatch, breathless, and saw Karpov out on the weather deck with his field glasses. Rodenko announced him, and the crew saluted as he made his way out to see the Admiral.

“What is happening?” he asked immediately.

“Probable submarine,” said Karpov. “The helo is launching now, and Tasarov is working the contact. Don’t worry, we’ll find that snake.”

“A submarine… You’re sure? I woke this morning feeling that something terrible had just happened.”

“I can say the same,” said Karpov, “but it seems I have a sixth sense when it comes to submarines. I put Tasarov on it right away, and he heard something that Velichko missed.”

Karpov had settled on that tangible and familiar threat, and now he seemed to be searching for it through those field glasses, as if he was trying to spot a periscope. But for Fedorov, the sense of dread was deeper, something more fundamental, and not local to the ship—something global….

“I’ll check with Nikolin,” he said. “Can’t shake the feeling that there’s big news today.”

He went back in through the hatch and found Nikolin fiddling with his radio set, and the look on his face was one of annoyance.

“Anything important on broadband?” asked Fedorov, and Nikolin removed his headset.

“Bands are all faded out,” he said, very attenuated—even shortwave. The signals have been getting weaker and weaker. I can’t make out much of anything, sir.”

“What? We’re just 150 miles south of Java. You should have great reception from all their commercial stations.”

“You would think so, sir, and I did hear them when I first sat down—but no longer. Things are fading away. I’ve checked all the big stations locally, Jakarta, Singapore, Darwin. They’re all getting some strange interference, a kind of static that comes in waves, and they’re fading. I can’t even make out voice or music now. It’s just become mush, a wash of noise.”

Of course that did very little to ease Fedorov’s mind, and just reinforced his worry. What would put out general static all across the band like that? Could it have been an EMP burst? Had something started here as it had in 2021? Were the nukes about to fly?

“Rodenko,” he said rushing over to the radar station. “Have you seen anything unusual—anything like an EMP burst?”

“No sir, nothing like that, but I just noticed we lost the carrier signals from Iswahjudi airfield. It’s due north of us now on Java, about 175 miles off, but they just went dark.”

“What about Soekarno Airport to the northwest near Jakharta and the Sunda Strait?”

“Nothing radiating from there either, sir. They’re dark. They may have gone EMCON deliberately.”

“Well, do we still have the Enterprise group on the network?”

Rodenko toggles a few switches, changing his screen display, and raised an eyebrow. Sorry sir, the network feed appears to be down. It does this from time to time, but I can’t read Enterprise just now, or any of the other TF’s that were on our local network feed.”

“Well, they would have a Hawkeye up and that should be out there like a lighthouse beacon.”

“You would think so, sir, but I don’t see it.”

“Did Kalinichev say anything when you relieved him?”

“No sir, just that all was normal. Whatever’s going on it must have just happened.”

Fedorov nodded, clearly distressed. He tapped Rodenko on the shoulder. “Keep watching,” he said. “I need to sit with Tovarich at Navigation.”

“Aye sir.”

Fedorov moved quickly to the Navigation station, and Tovarich saluted. “God morning, Captain,” he said. “Just putting a few charts to rest. We won’t need them out here.”

“Right,” said Fedorov, “we’re in deep water here, and Christmas Island is the only land we’ll likely see.”

“350 miles west, sir,” said Tovarich.

“A long way… Well, I’d like to use the almanac computer. Take a short break and get some coffee or tea.”

“Of course, sir.”

Fedorov settled in and activated the computer module, which was basically just a big database with sun and moon rising and setting times for each day, projecting 200 years into the past and future. He was going to his old standby, the heavenly bodies, unalterable things that would always be where they were supposed to be, each and every second of every day. They were in the first hour of a new day, Zulu Time, which Fedorov always called “Zulu Hour.” Here it was a kind of Zulu Dawn instead, because they were many hours ahead of Zulu Time at this geographic location and it was 07:30, just about an hour after sunrise. That data would be consistent at this location, year after year. The sun rose that morning at 06:28 and it would set that day at a minute after 19:00. Ten years forward or backward in time, and those numbers would be identical—but not for the moon.

The wild mistress of the night shined by borrowed light, and its rising and setting times, and phase, would be different in this location every year. That day, on the 24th of January 2026, the moon was not yet up, and would rise at 10:46. That meant hours of uncertainty until he could get a visual on that moon and determine its phase. It should be an evening crescent, about a third full, and that was what he hoped he would see, though he feared that might not be the case. Just to satisfy himself, he got up and went to the port side weather deck off the bridge, looking for any sign of the moon, but nothing was there. Now he passed through the bridge to the starboard side to rejoin Karpov.

“Anything, Fedorov?” said the Admiral.

“Rodenko says he’s lost contact with land based radars on Java, and the network is down, so he can’t see the Enterprise or Washington groups either.”

“That happens,” said Karpov, “but Java isn’t radiating anything? That’s odd. You mean he hasn’t picked up any civilian aircraft either?”

“Nothing. So I was at navigation looking up sun and moon data.”

For the first time, Karpov lowered his field glasses and looked at him, a searching expression on his face. “You’re thinking we may have shifted?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what I’m trying to determine. I was just looking for the moon. It shouldn’t be up yet, and thankfully, it’s not visible, so that’s some relief. Yet Nikolin says there’s a wave like interference all across the band. I suggested there might have been an EMP event to Rodenko, but he said he saw nothing to indicate that.”

“So you’re thinking we might have drifted off to never-never land again. I wouldn’t put it past this ship, but Tasarov thinks he’s got a bite on an undersea contact, and that argues for the fact that we’re still in our nice little war here.”

“Possibly,” said Fedorov. “Has he confirmed that?”

“Not yet, but the helo is out in position now and he should be getting more data.”

A junior crewman was at the hatch. “Sir,” he said. “Rodenko is reporting an unidentified airborne contact.”

Karpov looked over his shoulder, and that report suddenly focused his attention. “Come Fedorov. Let’s see what this is about.”

They moved quickly to the radar station, and there they could see a pair of bears in the woods, about 236 miles out and very high at 60,000 feet.

“That’s unusual,” said Karpov. “What would be up that high, and out here, in the middle of nowhere like this? Is it on an intercept vector?”

“No sir, there are actually two contacts, and they are slightly off angle, heading 136 degrees southeast, speed 420 knots.”

Chapter 35

“Two contacts….” Karpov thought about that. “Well, it can’t be a Chinese aircraft, not way down here south of Java. Their nearest airfield would be Riau Island, and those contacts would have to be over 800 miles from that. They’re probably Australian aircraft, most likely from Christmas Island. They fly routine maritime surveillance over these waters. Comrade Nikolin—”

“Sir?”

“Get hold of Christmas Island. Ask them if they have any aircraft up this morning.”

It would not take Nikolin long to make that call, but it would offer them no more information. He reported that he was unable to raise anyone there. “No one answers, sir. I get no response.”

Karpov looked at Fedorov. If it was the Australian military, it would have been on the network, but that system was dark at the moment, so there was no joy down that hallway. Karpov didn’t like this ambiguity, and his eyes narrowed.

“The ship will come to Air Alert-2,” he said. “Warm up the Gargoyles, Comrade Samsonov.”

As he finished, Rodenko broke in with yet another contact report.

“New airborne contacts, Bear, Bear, two units off our starboard bow. Heading 133 degrees southeast, and that is an intercept vector. Speed, 480 knots at 45,000 feet.”

Now that was right in the wheelhouse for a fighter or strike plane, thought Karpov, but here?

“Nikolin, raise those aircraft with a warning. They need to respond, and now.”

But all Nikolin got back was silence, after repeated hails. This was very strange. Was it the Australians, the Indonesians? Could it be planes out of Singapore headed for Perth? He had no reason to do anything more than wait, but there was a stirring in his gut that was unsettling. His instincts told him this was an attack vector.

He was quite correct.

“Vampires!” shouted Rodenko. “The Bears have fired. Weapon speed 2000 knots. More Vampires to the north, now falling through 12,000 feet, speed 530 knots. I’m getting two more Bears there, sir—just picked them up as they fired.”

“Air Alert-1. You are cleared hot, Samsonov.”

“Kursk is responding with Growlers, sir,” said Rodenko.

They watched, riveted to the tactical screen as Kursk’s 9M96 Growlers lanced out and tore up the fast contacts Rodenko had reported. Then they fired on the slower contacts. Kursk had pulled ahead to take the morning forward watch, and it seemed to be able to lock on and engage. But Samsonov reported he had no reflectivity on the Vampires.

“What about the Bears?” said Karpov.

“Imprecise targets, sir. I cannot lock on.”

“Even at 65 mile range?”

“Sir,” said Rodenko. “Kursk has downed all the Vampires, but they also report they cannot get a solution on the Bears.”

Karpov nodded.

“Stealth fighters?” Fedorov suggested. “That looked like a glide bomb attack from the north, with anti-radiation missiles from the northwest.”

“Affirmative,” said Rodenko. “And I can now report the initial two contacts have turned on an intercept heading. They are now 206 miles out, and still at 60,000 feet.”

Karpov frowned. A J-20 might get up there, though it was believed that plane topped out at 55,000 feet. In his estimation, those had to be reconnaissance planes, possibly even UAV’s, but who owned them? Who was calling the shots here? They were suddenly jolted by yet another alarm.

“Vampires at one-o-clock!” said Samsonov in his deep voice. “Locking on and engaging now.”

“Sea skimmers, sir,” said Rodenko. “Very fast—over 1100 knots.”

“Well that rules out Tomahawks, and most every missile the Chinese have. Who the hell is attacking us?”

There were a lot of missiles out there, a train of 16 according to Rodenko, fast and low on the sea. Kirov’s Gargoyles responded now, but they would not have a good attack angle. The missiles would be coming in perpendicular to the train of Vampires, and would have to execute a turn to the left to catch them as they passed, apparently all directed at Kursk.

Karpov rushed to the window, and he could see the first explosions out near the horizon as the Gargoyles got kills. Kursk was trying to lock on, but was having difficulty getting reflection off the incoming vampires, so they were stealthy. It was up to Kirov, but given that attack angle, they had to use a great many SAM’s to clear that threat. The last five turned and had to race after the Vampires, finally catching them from behind with their superior speed. They had been using the medium range 48N6, which had an 80 mile range, but it had taken 27 missiles to catch and kill all 16 vampires.

When Karpov heard that, he started to become concerned. This entire situation was crazy. They were in waters that should have been entirely safe.

“Rodenko, were any of those airborne contacts to the northeast?”

“No sir. You can see all three contact pairs on the tactical display. I have no contacts behind us.”

“Then they might have come off a submarine,” said Karpov, returning again to the nemesis he thought he had sensed first thing that morning. None of this was adding up. Java was dark, all across the bandwidth; the network was down, and no one was responding to direct radio hails. Nikolin tried to raise the Enterprise, and got no response there as well. It was getting spooky. Then, before he could think another thought, the alarms jarred his nerves yet again.

“Vampires, low and fast, bearing on Kursk and just 16 miles out. The cruiser was out on the horizon now, and Karpov saw the white contrails of its SAM defense lacing up into the sky. This time, Kursk was firing Gargoyles. Soon the ship was lost in a great white cloud of all that missile exhaust, but they could hear the rolling thunder of explosions, just beyond the horizon, so they were getting kills. Kursk had 48 of those missiles, and it had taken 22 of them to do the job, but the cruiser stopped that Vampire train, another 16 missiles that had seemed to come from nowhere.

“Vampires!” said Rodenko again. “12-o-clock, at 530 knots.”

“9M96 system engaging,” said Samsonov. He went to the Growlers, fast and accurate at medium ranges. Even as he engaged, yet another train of fast Vampires came at Kursk from the west, 20 miles out. At 11 miles, their systems finally locked on and fired. It was suddenly a free for all, missile against missile, but the power of both cruisers was enough to win the day. Seconds after the last Vampire was reported killed by Rodenko, there were yet more coming in from the southwest, this time low and slow.

“Sir!” said Nikolin. “Kursk is reporting they are now depleted on all SAM’s.”

The ship had 48 Gargoyles and 48 Growlers, but all had been expended against those fast sea skimmers and glide bombs. They still had seven gatling guns, and Kirov started firing gargoyles to try and cover them. They were four for four, but got the last Vampire inside two miles from Kursk, which was too damn close as Karpov saw things. He was exasperated, still trying to figure out who was attacking them.

Another group of four missiles appeared coming in lazily from the northwest, and Kirov started firing again, clearing the threat. Then four more came from the southwest. They got three, but their fourth missile missed. Samsonov sent another, but it was going to be a race to the target. The Vampire broke through two miles, then Kursk directed three of its 30mm Gatling guns on the beast, and knocked it down just as that last SAM lanced through the smoke of that kill.

An uneasy quiet settled over the smoky seas around them. Anything they had been feeling that morning, that unseen threat, the sensation of impending dread, had suddenly materialized in to this well-coordinated and persistent attack. Yet it was completely unexplained. Yet Karpov had his suspicions, and that was a very dark road to go down if his misgivings were proved to be true. Could the Americans be behind these attacks?

It was now 08:30, and nothing more came at them. All they could see on radar were those very first two contacts, high at 60,000 feet, and moving away from them now to the northwest.

“Nikolin,” said Karpov, “signal Kursk to slow down. We will come up alongside her now.”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, what do you make of this, Fedorov? That looked suspiciously like a good sized carrier strike by stealth aircraft. Tasarov still has no confirmed submarine contacts, and we know damn well that attack wasn’t carried out by the Indonesian Air force. They don’t have the means.”

“A carrier attack? You’re suggesting the Americans did this?”

“With me,” said Karpov, wanting to take the conversation into the ready room. The bridge crew watched them go, and looked at one another, clearly confused and concerned. Why would the Americans suddenly attack them like that? It was the first question Fedorov asked when the ready room door had closed behind them.

“It makes no sense,” he finished.

“Nothing this morning makes any sense, but consider the kind of ordnance we just engaged. There were fast sea skimmers, over 1100 knots, much like the new American LRASM. Then slower missiles came at us, like Tomahawks, and also targets that presented like glide bombs. We never saw the planes until they were released, and they were about 60 miles out. That stinks of F-35’s and their damn GBU-53’s. What other planes could get in that close to us like that undetected? And guess what—the Chinese don’t have this kind of ordnance. The slower cruise missiles that attacked us were moving quicker than their YJ-100, and the faster cruise missiles weren’t YJ-18’s either. They were too far out to be moving at over 1100 knots. Could this be why we suddenly can’t see anything on the fleet network, or why the Enterprise would not respond to Nikolin’s hails? That strike group is just north of Java, about 380 miles from our position, which puts us right in their wheelhouse.”

“That’s quite a shit list,” said Fedorov. “Yes, now that you analyze it like that, it does sound suspicious.”

“Damn suspicious.” Karpov folded his arms.

“But why? I just can’t see why the Americans would suddenly turn on us like this, particularly after all we’ve done for them. Hell, we’re top dog for ship kills in this war, and with three carriers on the list.”

“Remember, Fedorov…. Wasn’t there a bounty out on us? Didn’t the West get messages, to Argos Fire from who knows where? Beware a ship, they said. Beware Kirov.”

That took a moment to sink in. Then there came another alarm. They rushed back out onto the bridge, and Karpov took a wide eyed look at the tactical screen, another massive string of Vampires was coming in at Kursk.

“I’m reading 40 contacts sir,” said Rodenko darkly. Karpov looked at Samsonov.

“SAM count!” he said.

“Sir, I have 79 Growlers and 61 Gargoyles. Attempting to resolve contacts.”

Too close, thought Karpov. The Vampires are too close to Kursk. We are several miles behind her, and it might take all our Growlers to have any chance of defeating that attack. If he give the order we might not even save Kursk given the weight of this attack, and our own SAM count would be dangerously low. But that doesn’t matter.

“Get at them, Samsonov.”

“Sir… The targets are very imprecise. The system is having difficulty locking on.”

Kirov’s Growlers did not lock on until it was too late to fire. To their horror, they looked and saw Kursk come under heavy attack. Explosions pummeled the ship, and they saw smoke and fire consume the superstructure.

“Damn!,” Karpov swore. “Can you get at the planes that delivered that?”

“Unable to lock on, sir. Insufficient reflectivity.” Samsonov’s voice was hollowed out, and the entire bridge crew was downcast. They had arrived here, with hope in hand and brave hearts, meaning to shape the future they had helped create. In all their many battles, they had prevailed, always hurting the enemy, always invulnerable to harm from the other side. Seeing that smoke and fire pouring up into the sky like blood was a shock to them all, and Karpov knew that they had lost many good men over there.

“Recall the helo. Tell them to get in close and prepare for recovery. Let’s get up there, and ready all boats. All ship’s engineers, prepare to render assistance. Kursk is finished….”

There was fire in Karpov’s eyes now as he stared at the burning ship up ahead. There was anger and the desire for vengeance. Fedorov had seen it before, and he knew how dangerous it was. As Kirov approached its stricken comrades, Fedorov looked at his watch and went out onto the weather deck. He would look east, low on the sea, and through the dissipating haze and smoke he strained to see the moon. Nothing was there. He went over to the bridge opticals, scanning the horizon again with good magnification.

Nothing was there.

Frustrated, he looked all over the sky, his careful eye aided by that high magnification on the telescope. He swept slowly, from side to side, gradually moving higher in the sky, and then he thought he saw something. It took him a moment to find it again through the opticals, but he got it centered and adjusted the magnification to full power.

There it was, not the evening crescent he should have seen, but an ominously dark new moon, sullen, bleak, and foreboding. He took note of its position in the sky, judging how long it might have been up there, but this would be an easy mystery to solve. Now he turned and headed for the bridge again. The navigation almanac computer would tell him exactly what he needed to know.

Chapter 36

“This confirms it,” he told Karpov when the two were conferring again in the ready room. “We’ve moved. Don’t ask me how or why, but that moon should have been up as an evening crescent at 10:46, and it was a no show. Instead I found a dead moon, high up, and so dark I had to use the optics on full power to see it. My guess is that it rose five or six hours ago, probably as early as 06:00.”

For a man who had spent so much time reckoning things by the sun and moon, the ex-navigator and now Captain of the battlecruiser Kirov was almost spot on. (That moon rose at 05:55.) Now he explained what he thought this meant.

“I think we’ve moved forward again.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Easy, because if we had slipped backwards, we would surely know that. Things we see around us would be historical events. Can you remember a time when Java was dark and all the radio stations within range of us in the Pacific were down? I can’t, so I think we moved forward. I consulted the Almanac computer to tell me when the moon would be new on this date and time, at this location. That data is chiseled in stone. All the computer has to do is look it up with a simple data query. I ran the search out to the turn of the next century, and it gave me four years: 2039, 2058, 2077, and 2088. Nothing else until after 2100.”

“So you’re telling me we’ve moved to one of those four years?”

“Assuming this is still the 24th of January. If we find out that isn’t the case, then I could redo the search with the date we verify, but by then, we’d already know the year. Right? So this is the best I can do assuming it is still January 24..”

“Lord almighty,” said Karpov. “But Rod-25 is gone, and we certainly haven’t activated that box again.”

“We’d better check with Dobrynin. What if the reactors were acting up again? We’ve been a little busy here to take calls from Engineering.”

“None came in that I’m aware of, but we’ll get to that in a moment,” said Karpov, thinking. “For now, let’s assume you’re correct and we’ve shifted to one of these four dates. My gut is telling me its 2039.”

“Why so?”

“Well, can you imagine how advanced things would be in military affairs beyond that? The weapons we saw coming at us at least resembled those we are familiar with, but I don’t think any navy in the world will still be throwing slow cruise missiles about much after that.”

“Good point,” said Fedorov. “Well, what in God’s name have we gotten ourselves into here?”

“It was certainly a rude welcome. Why would we come under attack like that, and I mean a well-coordinated, deliberate attack. We were hit from multiple attack vectors, with weapons of varying speeds, and with enough saturation to bankrupt Kursk and run our SAM count down as well.”

“The history could have changed a great deal since 2026. Your speculation that this attack was made by the Americans might be correct. What if we are enemies here?”

It was the only explanation that made any sense. The alarm sounded again, this time three consecutive tones, and that got Karpov’s attention immediately. His eyes widened, and he stood up.

“Undersea contact,” he said quickly. “Comrade Tasarov has found us a sea serpent.”

They both went quickly to the bridge, leaving their speculation behind for another hour. Kirov had come up on Kursk, and slowed to a few knots, as the cruiser was dead in the water, still burning fiercely. Orlov had organized the rescue parties, and they now had every lifeboat on the ship out moving the wounded off Kursk first. The morning helicopter ASW watch had landed, so in such a vulnerable situation, Karpov had ordered up another helicopter, and it had been circling them for the last hour, dropping a web of sonobuoys into the sea around the ships. Something had crept into that web, and Tasarov heard it.

“Report!” said Karpov.

“Sir, Goblin bearing 275 degrees, 16 nautical miles out. Speed estimate is 8 knots, depth estimate about 160 feet. Detection data relayed by buoy number 567, but I have no profile match yet. Moving the KA-40 to the site now.”

“Excellent, Tasarov. Excellent. Let’s get another one up.”

They waited, the tension mounting as the helicopter moved in on the location. Tasarov kept working, adjusting his systems, collating data from the sonobuoy sensor net now, and refining his contact. The helo was on site and using its dipping sonar when he turned to the Admiral, an excited look on his face.

“Sir, I have a firing solution.”

“Veter!” said Karpov, referring to the RPK-Veter ASW missile torpedo. Its name meant “wind” and it was the quickest way to get a weapon on an undersea target. It would move at a brisk 1000 knots, and could range out 54 miles before plopping into the water to become a torpedo.

At that moment, Rodenko chimed in.

“Undersea missile launch. The weapons are breaking the surface now. Eight Vampires.”

They saw the missiles rising up on the horizon, turning, then diving for the sea. They were subsonic, and descended to about 100 feet. Kirov’s computers locked on, and Samsonov sent out the Growlers to get the first six at range. Then the Gauntlet system was used to kill the last two. As that battle was fought, the Veter dove into the sea near the suspected goblin, found it, and bored in.

“Explosion in the water!” said Tasarov. “We got it, sir!”

“You got it, Comrade Tasarov. Good work.” Karpov looked at Fedorov. “See what I mean,” he said quietly. “Now they are moving in the submarine. I could feel it out there this morning—feel it in my bones. So it was a missile boat. That could have been firing the slower cruise missiles at us earlier, and by God, the instant they knew we had them, they shot the works at us. I’ve recalled Gromyko, and he’s out there somewhere too, but Tasarov will know that if he hears Kazan. This is a dangerous situation. There may be another boat out there somewhere.”

As if to underscore all Karpov had said, Tasarov sat up strait and called out another contact.

“Goblin! Bearing 307 Degrees Northwest, range 23 miles. No depth or speed data yet.”

“Confirmed,” said Rodenko. I now have missile fire from that location.”

“Take that bastard out, Tasarov, “ Karpov said quickly.

“Unable to engage with Veter or Vodopad systems, sir. Downrange ambiguity is too great at the moment. I am moving the KA-40.”

“Very well. Prepare to repel cruise missile attack. Cleared Hot, Samsonov.”

He would play his Ace, going to the Gargoyles, and taking down all eight missile in a rumble of fire. The helicopter was about 20 miles away, but moved quickly to the scene. It only had enough fuel left to make two dipping sonar deployments, but both yielded no further data.

By this time the morning had worn completely away, and the crew had worked right through afternoon mess, the men tireless as the rescue operation for Kursk continued. A freshly fueled helicopter went out to take up the watch and continue the hunt for this mysterious sub, which now had Karpov getting edgy again.

“One submarine—this I expected. I could feel it all morning. But two? What have we run into out here, a nice little rat’s nest?”

“More like a wolf pack,” said Fedorov, which didn’t help. Kirov continued to circle Kursk, like a great whale minding its wounded cub. That sub may have exhausted its missile inventory, but it still had torpedoes, and they were even deadlier. Then Tasarov reported that something had tickled the sonobuoy web again, and the downrange ambiguity tightened around the Goblin.

A second Veter was fired and soared out to plunge into the sea. It then became a UGMT-1 Orlan class torpedo, and immediately began circling to look for a target. The helicopter had arrived and continued dipping its sonar, but the Goblin was a slippery fish, the contact jumping around on Tasarov’s screen now.

The helo moved south, dipped again, and got a fleeting reading that allowed a second Veter to get out there from Kirov. The rocket hit the sea, circled like a shark, then detected something to the south. It angled towards it, and soon Tasarov had his second kill.

“Got it, sir!”

“Two for two, Tasarov. Good man.”

The day wore on.

Karpov could see his primary bridge crew was exhausted, and so he ordered the rotation, a little nervous to see Tasarov go. The men would get a good meal, and four hours sleep, ordered to return at 18:00, which was an hour before sunset. He took some rest himself on the cot he had in the ready room, and Fedorov went down to Engineering to see Dobrynin. He would eat, grab two hours sleep, and then report back to the bridge.

They were not attacked again, and all that late afternoon Orlov worked tirelessly to manage the rescue operation. He reported that Captain Molotov had assessed Kursk was over 80% damaged, with so many systems down that there would be no hope of saving the ship. The fires had been controlled, but there was still flooding, and the ship was listing to port. He asked Karpov for permission to abandon ship with the surviving crew, and that was granted.

In all this time, Admiral Volsky had emerged from his cabin, and he had been walking the ship below decks, talking to the men, encouraging them, praising their courage and giving direction as needed. The presence of “Papa Volsky” there among them was invaluable, and it served to buoy the ship’s morale. Then he went to the sick bay, where his good friend Doctor Zolkin had been a very busy man. The wounded had been moved over first, about thirty men, and many had burns, lacerations and concussive injuries. Kursk had a crew of about 400 officers and men, and Zolkin was saddened to learn that over 120 had been killed by that last attack. That left 280 men to see to, but Kirov was a big ship, and they would find room to get them all aboard.

Captain Molotov was among the last to leave the ship, as duty demanded, but he finally came over in a launch at 17:00. Two crewmen were with him, carrying something heavy wrapped in a tarp. They went into the ready room, and the crewmen set the bundle down, saluting as they departed. A gruff, dark haired man, Molotov, “the Hammer” as he was called, was understandably disturbed. Short and stocky, he pointed a thick finger at the bundle on the floor.

“Take a look,” he said to Karpov, who stooped and unwrapped the gift. His eyes narrowed when he saw a small bomb, with the stubs of a little wing deployed, though it was mostly sheared off.

“A glide bomb,” said Karpov sourly.

“That was what hit us in that final attack,” said Molotov. “Forty of them! This one failed to explode. We found it up on the mainmast, and even without detonating, it damaged one of the radars. Don’t worry, I had the engineers remove the warhead. It weighed just a little over 16 kilograms (36 pounds), and the whole bomb weighed only 27 kilograms, (60 pounds).” Molotov folded his arms on his thick chest with a huff.

“Not a GBU-53,” said Karpov. That’s the small diameter bomb carried by the American F-35, and it is over three times heavier. Even its warhead would almost double the weight of this entire bomb. That explains why Kursk wasn’t simply obliterated and remains afloat.”

“Then what is it?” asked Molotov. “It certainly looks like something the Americans might build. Yes?”

“That it does,” said Karpov.

“So what is going on here? Who killed my ship? Have the Americans just turned on us?”

“We don’t know,” said Karpov, “but I suspect as much. That attack was too damn coordinated. We didn’t detect the planes until they released weapons, and even then we could not get firing solutions just sixty miles out. It stinks.”

“Yes, it looks like stealth fighters, and not the Chinese—not way down here. I lost a lot of good men today. Am I to understand you also detected submarines?”

“Yes, and we killed two of them. I think they were missile boats, shooting those cruise missiles at us in close.”

“Their new Virginia Class can carry missiles now,” said Molotov. “You say you got two kills? That is either very good shooting or the American sub Captains got very sloppy. You know how good they are.”

Karpov nodded. Then he gave Molotov a long look. “Captain,” he said, “perhaps you had better take a seat. Captain Fedorov and I have discovered something else you should know….”

Captain Gromyko knew that Karpov suddenly had a fight on his hands, but he could not imagine how and why. He had been 40 miles ahead of the two ships, finding the sea quiet, the routine uneventful. Karpov had kept him on a very tight leash, using him mainly for close defense of the ships like this, or forward patrols. They had no encounters, so it was quite surprising to get a message that Kirov and Kursk were now under heavy attack from both air and undersea targets. Hours passed, and then he got an order to turn about and return to Kirov immediately.

He called in his first line bridge crew, and then came about, speeding away through the dark, deep waters south of Java. A careful man, he would sprint and drift, taking a little time to let his sonar man Chernov listen to the sea. If there were enemy submarines out there, he wanted to find them first, and at 17:06, Chernov had a contact.

“Undersea contact,” he said, “bearing 228 degrees, southwest. Range 28 miles, approximate. Estimate depth at 164 feet, speed 8 knots.”

“Helm,” said Gromyko. “Come right to 180.”

“Aye sir, coming right to course 180 true south.”

“Steady on at five knots,” said Gromyko. “Keep listening, Chernov. Any profile on it?”

“No sir, contact reads as unknown.”

“Then we will creep south on this intercept vector and see who this is.”

That would take a good long while, but Gromyko was a very patient man. He had turned so his bow sonar would also come into play, and he was also hiding his own screw noise behind the boat with this maneuver. A flash message went out to Karpov saying he had the scent on an unknown undersea contact that appeared to be moving to intercept Kirov. The message he got back was stark and to the point.

“Prosecute and kill contact. You are cleared hot.”

“Comrade Belanov,” he said, handing his Starpom the message to read. Belanov scratched his head.

“This is most unusual, sir. Would the Chinese have submarines down here?”

“Who knows, but something has killed Kursk, and you know how Karpov feels about undersea threats. Let’s put two Fizik-1’s on it as soon as we have the range.”

That would not be the case until a little before 19:00 hours when Chernov reported the contact range estimate was now just a little over seven miles. They fired, and the two torpedoes whooshed out, quickly accelerating to 70 knots. The first torpedo rapidly closed the range, and at 19:04, Chernov heard it explode.

“Did you hear countermeasures being fired?”

“No sir, just our torpedoes and the explosion.”

Gromyko raised an eyebrow. That was too easy, he thought. But the sonic field cleared, and silence settled around them again. “Resume course to Kirov,” he said. “Speed twenty, sprint and drift.”

Something was very strange with all this. He could feel it. He got a report from Kirov saying they had killed two undersea contacts, and now here was a third. Three submarine kills? This was most unusual.

Most unusual indeed.

Both Karpov and Molotov hated to abandon Kursk. While the cruiser had used all her SAM’s, it still had 64 Onyx cruise missiles that would be lost, and valuable ASW munitions, including a helicopter that was trapped in the aft hangar.

“This is a damnable mess!” said Molotov when Fedorov returned from his time below decks. “2039? 2058? You mean to say you don’t even know where we are? When we are?”

“The munitions used in the attack argue for the earlier date,” said Karpov, but this is merely speculation. We could still be right where we were, in 2026, but we have had no radio signals of any kind all through the day. This is looking grim.”

And it would get worse.

They would stand on the bridge, looking at the gaunt wreck of Kursk on the horizon as they pulled away into the darkness towards the setting sun. Then, to their surprise, there came a great explosion, and they looked, wide eyed, to see Kursk had blown up. The cruiser was gone minutes later. Something had crept in behind them, silent, unseen, deadly, and it had killed the ship. Each man had his own dark thoughts, but Karpov spoke his.

“The wolves have come for their kill,” he said. “There was no missile detected. That had to be another submarine. Helm, all ahead full. Get us out of here.”

The shadows of uncertainty ahead would offer them little comfort, for there were things lurking in the night, roving the seas, hidden beneath them, and now they had the scent of the kill.

And they were coming….