Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 25

July 24, 1940

They spent some days in the harbor at Severomorsk, and Fedorov was making good use of every minute of free time he had. He was in the officer’s mess hall, the table covered with the cache of books he had been given by the Russians, and was happily perusing one after another.

Much had changed, but he was still amazed to find that other parts of the history remained remarkably consistent with events he already knew so well. The history of his own homeland was badly fractured. Stalin’s death was a backwater footnote now, the assassination of a minor figure on the fringes of the incipient revolution, well before it had taken real form in 1917. Stalin had been relatively obscure in the early years, gaining prominence in revolutionary circles only after Lenin’s return to Petrograd in April of 1917. In his place it was Sergei Kirov who shined by the borrowed light of Lenin.

The twin defeats at the hands of the Japanese in 1905, and again in 1908, had humiliated Russia. Karpov’s great dream of Russian Pacific power had completely backfired. The Japanese Empire was catalyzed by the events in 1908, and incursions into mainland Asia, on both Chinese and Russian territory, soon followed.

This crisis did much to cause many defections in the military, eroding the power base of the Tsar, but the nation was still swept into the gathering maelstrom of the First World War, and continued to bleed. The revolution happened right on schedule, between February and October of 1917. A few faces were different, but it all played out much the same.

The civil war that followed, however, was suddenly overshadowed by the rising figure of Volkov in the White movement. After an abortive bid for power in Moscow, Volkov withdrew through the Ukraine and into the Caucasus and border states that now made up his Orenburg Federation. There were periods of tentative peace as Red and White struggled to find balance, but the fighting invariably re-ignited, spurred on by much foreign interference.

By 1924 the borders had cemented again. There were seven years of truce, seven more of war until 1938, when the Siberian Free State began to organize into a third major entity. Remnants of Kolchak’s White movement there were joined by Kozolnikov, yet information on what was happening in the far east was very sketchy. None of the books had covered any recent events there. Siberia had been a wild frontier, a loose confederation of warlord states with a few centers of Kolchak’s White movement in the major cities. No one seemed to want the place, not even the Japanese who exerted nominal control all along the frontier of the Amur River, but with little real strength.

Fedorov spent some time reading on Volkov, watching his slow rise to power, first as a master of intelligence under Denikin, then slowly co-opting that man’s authority. The Bolshevik Red Army had gained the Ukraine, but could not seem to make inroads into Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, and the Caspian region. Instead of trying to defeat one another, both sides entrenched and consolidated their power, and the long civil war dragged on and on, a simmering conflict that spilled across one border or another, then cooled until the next incident stoked the fires.

Volkov eventually secured power and established his seat of government in the growing city of Orenburg. He then changed the White movement to the Grey Legion, breaking ties with remnants of Denikin’s supporters. There had been fighting back and forth along the Volga with Kirov’s Soviet State ever since.

Fedorov was finishing up his research, thinking of the implications on the war that was now unfolding. Surely Volkov knew this history as well, or at least knew the general outcomes of the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Even against a united Russia ruled by one strong hand, Germany devoured half the nation. Was he doing this to finally destroy the Bolsheviks under Kirov? Did he think he would somehow find a way to manipulate Adolf Hitler in the end? These questions and so many others percolated in his mind, but weariness overcame him, and the tea he was drinking was not helping. He was just about to finish up and get some sleep when Orlov happened along.

“What are you doing, Fedorov? Nose in the books again? You should have been promoted to the ship’s librarian.” Orlov said that with a grin, realizing, after all, that he was speaking to the ship’s Captain now, and remembering the humiliating lesson Troyak had taught him about showing due respect when he had been busted to the Marine detachment. He had come to the officer’s dining hall for a cup of coffee before going on duty, and found Fedorov sitting at a table reading.

“The world has changed, Orlov,” said Fedorov. “I did not realize just how much has gone awry.”

“I know you are wanting to blame me for that, yes?”

“What? No Chief. I think I got to you in time, or at least those British commandos did. Besides, most anything you may have changed would have had to occur after 1942. The altered state of affairs I am reading about now all happened well before that. I think it was Karpov who had a great deal to do with some of the changes, and I must also confess that I am equally to blame.”

“You, Fedorov? What did you do?”

Fedorov confessed his crime, that errant whisper, and he told Orlov that it ended up resulting in the death of Joseph Stalin himself.

“My god!” Orlov exclaimed. “Here I was worried a bit about choking Commissar Molla, and you took a contract out on Stalin!” As always, Orlov interpreted the events in light of his own life experience, running with the Russian mob for so many years before he had joined the navy had left him very jaded.

“So you see, Orlov, you can sleep easy now. I’m the real culprit.”

“And that bastard Karpov. He sleeps easy too-with the fishes!” Orlov grinned again.

“Yes, I suppose so. In fact, as to that Commissar you speak of, remember, in this world now it is only 1940, so he may still be alive out there somewhere, though if he is he will be working for Volkov, and not the Bolsheviks.”

At that Orlov’s face and mood darkened. “Still alive? But I killed him.”

“In 1942, but that world, those events that saw you make your way to the Caucasus… well, they might never occur. This is a new world, Chief. Another life altogether, for you, and I suppose for Commissar Molla as well.”

“Sookin syn!” Orlov swore, clearly unhappy with what he was learning now. “I wondered about that. Was another Orlov going to appear and do everything we just lived through?”

“We’ve all wondered about it.”

“It is not possible, right Fedorov?”

“Director Kamenski does not think so. He believes we are in a completely altered world now, separate from the one we left. So come July 28, 1941 when we first appeared here, nothing will happen. In his mind we have trumped all our previous exploits.”

“You mean none of it counts? Molla is alive, none of those ships we hurt are sunk?”

“That could be so, Chief. Our appearance in 1908, and now here in 1940 predates all that experience. Perhaps it counted in the world we left, but not this one. It hasn’t even happened yet, at least according to Kamenski.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It does sound reasonable. Otherwise we will have a real paradox on our hands in another year.”

“Yes,” said Orlov with a smile. “One ugly mug like this one is enough for the world.” He tapped his own cheek. “So that means we are living in a world where Karpov doesn’t exist any longer. There is one good thing about our fate, eh?”

“I see you still have hard feelings about him.”

“I hold a grudge, Fedorov. That’s why I killed Molla. Frankly, to learn he is still alive makes me want to go and kill him again! But don’t worry. I’ll stay put this time.”

“Please do, Chief. We need you here.”

“Now that you mention it, I have duty on the bridge in ten minutes. Keep reading, Captain!” Orlov clapped Fedorov on the back and went on his way, shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

Fedorov smiled, putting the book he had been perusing aside, entitled Rise of the Orenburg Federation. The photographs there had convinced him that the leader of that state was indeed the same man they knew and met on the ship with Inspector General Kapustin.

He went down those stairs, he thought. So it wasn’t just what Karpov did, or even what I did. It was Volkov too. Yet it all comes back to me again. If I hadn’t insisted on retrieving Orlov, leaving as I did with Troyak and Zykov, then Volkov would have never tried to find me along that route, and never had a chance to take that trip down those stairs. Then again, Orlov’s recent visit put him in the spotlight again. If Orlov did not go missing… No, I was Captain, he thought. I was the one who gave that order to fire on the KA-226, so it all comes back to me again.

He passed a moment wondering what might have happened if he had not fired. If there had been a fire on the helicopter as Orlov claimed, they might have made an emergency landing. They could have even parachuted to safety, and we could have rescued them by zeroing in on their service jacket transponders in both cases. It was only because we thought those missiles made an end of both the helicopter and Orlov that we failed to mount a search-that and the urgency of the hour with that race to Gibraltar underway.

I was sloppy, he berated himself. I was too inexperienced to take on the role of ship’s Captain at that time. I wasn’t thinking clearly as to proper procedure. All I could do was think about avoiding any contamination to the history, but there we were, ready to slug it out with the Nelson and Rodney. How foolish I was! That duel seems to have caused very little change, but the little things-my failure to search for Orlov then and there-that’s what really put a missile into it all, and ripped the history open from bow to stern.

Orlov slipped away, I hatched my plan to go after him, and then that stairway at Ilanskiy changed everything. There was the death of Stalin in one errant whisper. There was the rise of Volkov and the deadlock in the civil war that shattered my homeland. Now that will have a dramatic impact on the outcome of this war. How can Britain survive without a united Russia fighting against Germany on the Eastern Front? We have chosen to place Kirov on the scales of Time to try and help, but we are just one ship. How can we possibly counterbalance the grievous harm I have done?

Feeling very dejected, and harried by a nagging sense of guilt, he reached for another book, a study of the French naval buildup between the wars. Then his eye fell on a plain manila envelope, and he opened it to see what the Russians had tucked inside. It was marked, “Free Siberian State,” and Fedorov found that it contained a few folded newspapers, some very recent by the dates. He found himself drawn to the headlines and photos, turning the page on one issue and then nearly choking on a sip of tea as he did so.

Another man would have cursed, or invoked the deity, but this time Fedorov just stared in shocked silence, slowly lowering his teacup, his hand noticeably shaky as he did so. A sense of rising apprehension gathered like a sickness in his belly and rose like bitter bile in his throat. His impulse was to sound battle stations, raise the alarm! There, standing on an airfield tarmac beneath a massive tethered zeppelin, was a man in a uniform that Fedorov clearly recognized, right down to the pips on his collar.

Fedorov leaned forward, his pulse racing, a rising sense of distress in him now that bordered on panic. He squinted at the photograph, the man’s face, his stance, the cut of his shoulders. His eyes scanned and rescanned the photo caption, as if he was simply unwilling to believe or admit what he was reading there. “Air Commandant Karpov inspects the fleet flagship Irkutsk as operations begin on the Samara Front.”

Air Commandant Karpov… It was him!

Fedorov stood up, stiff and alert, looking about him as if to seek help. He stared at the newspaper again, noting the date as April 10, 1940. How? How? How could this be? Were his eyes deceiving him? Was he seeing something here born of his own fear and recrimination? Could this be nothing more than a coincidence, another man, a mistaken appearance?

He sat down again, his hands shaking as he fished out all the other newspapers in the large envelope. Then he began to go through them, page by page, his eyes dark with misgiving. He soon found that he was not imagining anything at all. There were three other articles referencing the man, and one giving his full name: Admiral Vladimir Karpov, First Air Commandant of the Siberian Aero Corps.

Vladimir Karpov…

He was up, quickly gathering and folding all the newspapers again, and tucking them under his arm. His footfalls were quick and heavy on the deck, his breath fast as he went. Where was the Admiral? He found himself almost running now, racing to the officer’s deck and down the long hallway to the Admiral’s cabin. Resisting the urge to simply barge in with the urgency of his news, he stopped, took a deep breath, and then knocked on the door.

There was movement from within, then the door slowly opened and he saw a red-eyed Volsky peering at him, a look of surprise on his face.

“Excuse me, Admiral,” Fedorov gasped, still breathless. “Something very important has come up.”

“Another contact? Is the ship in danger?”

Is the ship in danger, thought Fedorov wildly? My god, the whole damn world was in danger now! “No sir, but I have found something in the research that you must see at once.”

Volsky looked a bit disheveled and weary, but he opened the door, beckoning for Fedorov to enter. The young Captain could not help but notice the small glass of Vodka on the Admiral’s desk near the photo of his wife, the letters there.

The Admiral gestured to the other chair by the wall, and shuffled to his desk, reaching to put away the letters. “You will forgive an old man a moment of sentiment, Fedorov,” he said quietly. “I was just reading the last letter I had received from my wife before things started going crazy at Vladivostok. And I suppose I was drowning my sorrows in a glass of good Vodka. Don’t worry, I am not one to overindulge, but we all have places to hide and heal, do we not?”

“Of course, sir. Please forgive me for barging in like this. I can come another time-”

“No, no, please be seated. I can see by the redness in your cheeks that you have run all the way here, and you can barely catch your breath. Very well. Let me hear what you have found. Sit please. Take a moment if you must.” The Admiral eyed the newspapers under Fedorov’s arm, a squall of trepidation on his face now, yet curious.

Fedorov composed himself, looking at the photo of Karpov beneath the looming hulk of the airship, seeming a doppelganger, a dark shadow of the man he was, something born again of trouble and the whirlwind of chaos.

“ Sir,” he began haltingly. “Have a look at this!”

He handed the Admiral the paper.