Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 3

Out on the weather deck Admiral Volsky stood watching the ochre light on the sea, deceptively calm, and the silver tint of the fat moon over it all. It was a day when no night would come, no place to fold oneself into the darkness and shadow, into the silence. The light gleamed on ragged shards of floating ice, like the cold white teeth of a great shark emerging from the sea. The ship was thrumming beneath his heavy soled boots, the metal hull pushing through the ice floes. A cold wind was crisp on his face, and above him he caught the ceaseless sweeping turn of the big Voskhod-2 “Dawn” Navigation and weather radar, the highest mast of the ship, and saw the silhouette of the watch posted there.

They had lost their original set in the Pacific, and this was a new model, hastily fitted before the ship left Vladivostok, though the umbilical cables and wire tentacles that would integrate it into the ship’s systems had just been connected in recent days. Engineer Byko managed to get it back on line to improve their radar coverage, but the Admiral knew it would only be the bringer of more bad news. They were sailing at the edge of a great battle at sea now, and steel gladiators hastened to converge in the watery arena where only death and destruction could possibly result.

Behind him he could see the glow of the red combat lighting in the citadel of the main bridge where his officers sat dutifully at their posts, their eyes fixed on their computer screens and system panels. Fedorov was standing like a shadow by the Plexiglas navigation panel, marking off the positions of the ships that had been fingered by the radar. Brave Fedorov. He had lost his tether to the history, and now joined the stream of ongoing events like anyone else, an unknowing participant, swept inexorably forward into the moment with each revolution of the ship’s powerful turbines.

Then he heard a distant rumble in the deep crimson of the midnight hour, the growl and thunder of a distant battle. Guns were firing, the big steel barrels of the battleships of this era blasting out their red anger. Admiral Tovey was now facing a trial by fire. Hood was engaged with two powerful enemies, the heart of the German battle fleet, Bismarck and Tirpitz. Tovey was racing to the scene aboard the battlecruiser Invincible arriving like the cavalry at the 11th hour to join the action. Off to the south Kirov’s radars had also spotted flights of aircraft, fluttering low and slow over the sea like moths drawn to the flame of battle. These were the Swordfish torpedo bombers off the British carriers, or so Fedorov had told it.

Yet the Germans had more reinforcements at hand as well. The dark shadows of another battle line were only now emerging at the edge of the horizon to the north. Volsky had come out to the weather bridge to have a closer look at them himself with his field glasses. He could have stayed in the heated battle bridge, watching the scene on the overhead HD video feed from the Tin Man, but somehow seeing the foe with his own eyes, feeling the cold air on his face, smelling the sea and hearing the distant guns was what he wanted now.

The Admiral knew that he could turn away here any time he wished, and avoid becoming embroiled in the conflict, withdrawing into the gloaming of this hybrid dusk and dawn. Yet somehow the grinning smirk of the near full moon seemed to taunt him with recrimination.

Yes, we do not belong here, he knew. We are uninvited guests, interlopers, trespassing on the sacred ground of years lived long ago, but he could say that very same thing to both the British and Germans now. None of this should be happening, as Fedorov would attest. The HMS Invincible that now carried the flag of the Royal Navy into battle was never supposed to have been built! Bismarck and Tirpitz should not be at sea either, not in 1940. The fact that this was happening at all sat heavy on his shoulders, a burden he knew that he and his crew would now carry for some time, perhaps for all their remaining days.

We did this, he said to himself. This is the face of the war that we shaped with our own meddling, the war we sculpted with missile fire and the hard chisel of a nuclear warhead. It is ours now, a world of our own making, and no, we cannot shirk from battle here and slink away into the shadows. We have chosen, I have chosen, and now we must own that choice and do what we must here. It could be no other way.

The dark shapes on the sea ahead were the very same ships Kirov had engaged earlier, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. They were hastening to the sound of the guns, even as Kirov was, latecomers to the battle, but ships that might weigh heavily in the balance and decide how fate would rule in this crucial engagement. Rodenko’s radar report told the tale. The British would be out gunned if these ships arrived on the scene. Invincible had scored a stunning long range hit, causing the Germans to veer off, but they had just skirted north to slip over the horizon and continued on.

Volsky knew this brief moment of calm, a breathless anticipation, would soon slip from him like his frosty breath. He could not wait here, watch here, a simple bystander letting the history they had created play out as it might. They had made a choice.

The time for battle was again at hand, but what should they do? They had no more than 26 SSMs remaining, and perhaps five long years of war ahead if they could not find a way to move forward to their own time again. Each missile was worth its weight in gold. Even if they could move forward, what would they find? The world might be fractured beyond all recognition. Is that what Gromyko found when he shifted on Kazan? What would he do? What if he shifts again? These and a hundred other questions ran through his mind now as he turned and opened the outer hatch to the citadel bridge. The red light of battle stations fell on him as he entered, like a baptism of blood and fire.

“Admiral on the bridge!”

“As you were.” Volsky pulled off his gloves and pocketed them, reaching for a handkerchief to chase the chill from his nose. “A cold summer night,” he said. “But the sea is calm.”

“Aye sir,” said Fedorov. “Those planes have veered on a heading of zero-four-zero and engaged the Germans. I thought they had mistaken Admiral Tovey’s ship as the target for a moment, but it appears they sorted things out.”

“That is good,” said Volsky. “I’m glad they did not find us here and we were not put in the uncomfortable position of having to fend off an attack. But now we must look to the action ahead. I just had a good long look at that contact to our north.” Volsky pointed to the overhead Tin Man video screen that was now tracking the ships vectoring in from the northwest.

“It looks like those ships will arrive at a most inconvenient time for Admiral Tovey. What should we do about this, Fedorov? I would be prepared to take further action here, but what would you recommend?”

Fedorov thought for a moment, hearing and seeing the launch of a missile in his mind’s eye, with all the drama and spectacle that would create. It would be clearly seen by the Germans again, and by Tovey’s ship. Perhaps it would make their claim as a warship just a little more convincing, he thought, but it would certainly raise quite a few questions should they ever share lunch and gin with the British again.

He remembered his thought, moments ago… 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 in this strange land, interlopers from another time with power beyond the imagination of anyone alive this day?

“How many cards do we want to show here, Admiral? Our missiles will be a shocking addition to this battle should we engage now. It will raise more than a few eyebrows, and not just with the British should we meet with them again.”

“Well the Germans have already seen what one of our missiles can do.”

“That was expedient and necessary given the circumstances we found ourselves in. Yes, that will have consequences too. They will think we were a British ship, and perhaps conclude that this is a new weapon system being deployed by the Royal Navy. It could have effects we cannot foresee just yet. Remember, the Germans already have interest and activity in rocket development. Even in the history we know they fielded radio controlled glide bombs, the V-1 cruise missile, the V-2 ballistic missile and jet aircraft before 1945. That effort could now be accelerated.”

“Yes, the cat is out of the bag, but we cannot control what they do now that they have seen our MOS-III.”

“Yet if we keep our missiles close, the lesson will not be repeated, sir. Perhaps they might see it as a fluke, a lucky shot, and the effects could be mitigated.”

“Perhaps, Fedorov, but we will never know. What was done was done. The Germans have see our fire, even though the British did not seem overly impressed with our ship.”

“That will change if we fire SSMs to intervene in this battle now sir, but it isn’t just the British I’m worried about.”

“No? What is on your mind, Fedorov?”

“Ilanskiy, Admiral. That strange time shift effect on the back stairway of the inn at Ilanskiy. I went down those steps and found myself in 1908! A journey up that stair took me right back to where I was, 1942 again, but Sergei Kirov also came up that stairway after me, and from what Deputy Director Kamenski told us I now suspect that Naval Intelligence officer may have taken that stairway as well-Volkov. If that is true, who knows how far back in time that would have taken him? What if he reached the year 1908 as I did, but never deduced that the stairway was the means by which he did so? He would have been trapped in 1908, which could explain how he would have seized the reins of power with the knowledge he had. If this is the same man who now seems to control the Orenburg Federation, then news of a ship firing advanced rocketry and SAMs may also have an unpredictable effect.”

“You suggest that Volkov might discover we are here?”

“That is inevitable if we continue with this intervention. He will know that no ship could possibly have such weapons in 1940, and if he ever does conclude that we have also come here from the future, then he will also know that we have other weapons on this ship as well.”

“How would he discover that?”

“Did you see the cameras the Royal Navy had on us when we made that rendezvous? Of course I understand why we did so, but now there are photos of us, of this ship, and if one ever comes to Volkov he will immediately recognize our silhouette. Remember, he is Russian Naval intelligence. If he does hear about a strange new British ship he will do everything possible to discover what it is.”

“This is all very disturbing, and I have not yet had time to consider it since Kamenski voiced his suspicions. How very odd… Volkov seemed to be a man in his later twenties or early thirties.”

“He was 32 years old, sir,” Fedorov put in. “I looked up his service records.”

“Then he would be twice that age now if he went all the way back to 1908 as you say you did on those stairs. To think that he has been here, shaping the history all that time, is very alarming. Of course, we have had no time to stop and take a remedial course in history. It seems we have been moving from one crisis to another, all with the aim of preventing damage to the time line, but each one wreaking more and more havoc.”

“We could still veer off and try to shift forward again,” Fedorov suggested.

“Yes, but that control rod is not reliable, Fedorov. You yourself said that we could end up marooned on dry land if the same thing happens and we move in space again as well as in time. That and the strain to our reactors leaves me very reluctant to wave our magic wand again.”

“What about the third control rod, sir? It has never been used, and it might work as Rod-25 did.”

“Possibly, but can we take that risk? I know if we accept that, then we must also accept we are already marooned here. It would mean we live out the rest of our lives in this time.”

“There may be other ways we can move in time, sir.”

“Other ways? What do you mean, Fedorov?”

“Kamenski has told us that intense explosive events can also rupture the time continuum. That is how we now believe Kirov was shifted back to 1908. Remember, they had no control rod at all when Karpov sortied from Vladivostok. It was the eruption of that Demon Volcano that sent the ship to 1945, and then Karpov’s use of atomic weapons that sent Kirov further back to 1908.”

“And where does this lead us?”

“I’m not sure… but Kirov was blown decades into the past by the Demon eruption of 2021. That might mean we could move in the same way, and we also know there is one other way to create an explosive event capable of moving us in time.” Fedorov stopped there, his point obvious.

“I know what you are suggesting now, but that is a dangerous alternative. And these events always moved us further into the past, yes? That would do us little good, and would be fraught with uncertainty. All I know is that we are here now, and at the edge of a moment where we may soon have to act. Something tells me that if the British lose this engagement, and are badly hurt, then their position becomes even more precarious.”

“I agree, sir.” Fedorov had an idea, but he kept things to himself for the moment. The Admiral made a telling point. They already had their foot in the door here, and trying to slip away now seemed a bit craven in some sense.

“We decided to intervene here,” Volsky continued. “The time is now at hand. What do we do? That is the question. I could put missiles on the German ships and end this fight in one decisive blow, just as Karpov would argue if he were here. But what you have said about all this gives me pause.”

“If need be, we can engage with deck guns to assist Admiral Tovey. The German Stukas are another matter. You said you would extend our SAM umbrella over Tovey’s fleet, but that may soon lead to some rather spectacular fireworks in the sky, Admiral. If the Germans manage to turn over and launch another strike from Graf Zeppelin, that could decide the battle in their favor. The British have just played out their air attack, and it will be some time before their carriers can recover any survivors and regroup for another strike. The surface action may be concluded before that happens, but the German air strike broke off and returned north over an hour ago. Those planes could have already landed on Graf Zeppelin, and they could be airborne again in twenty minutes.”

“You see the carrier as the real threat now?”

“The German Stukas hurt the British once before, and it is clear that they have already engaged and damaged ships in Admiral Holland’s task group.”

“Apparently so, but what about those German battleships?”

At the moment, sir, it looks to be Bismarck and Tirpitz against HMS Invincible, Hood and Repulse. That is even money. Perhaps your thought of allowing that battle to proceed without our intervention there is wise now.”

“What about those ships to the northwest, Fedorov?”

“ Scharnhorst and Gneisenau? We can stop them, sir. We did that once already. As for the carrier, here is what I suggest.”

Schettler, John

Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States — Volume II (Kirov Series)