Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 12

Zykov looked at Troyak, a warning in his eyes. He had been working the radio equipment, shifting bands when he suddenly picked up clear signals. He tuned it in, the hiss of the interference abating as the sound of sharp voices broke over the speakers. The two men knew what they were hearing immediately. Those were the hard voiced orders of officers signaling one another on the ground, and the longer they listened the clearer the picture became. There was an operation underway somewhere ahead. Troops were assembling and moving on the ground.

“This doesn’t sound good, Sergeant,” said Zykov. “I’ve heard three different unit designations already. There’s at least a battalion out there somewhere. Very close.”

Captain Selikov had taken Narva to a position northeast of the village Troyak had pointed out. They were hovering at 2000 meters as Zykov tried to get through to Kirov again, when the close signal contacts were picked up, commanding his attention.

Troyak had a restless look on his face. He had been sitting with his men for what seemed like an eternity, cooped up on a submarine and then finally back aboard Kirov again to rejoin the Marines there. They had one good fight in the Caspian that got his blood up and put that fire in the belly that he always felt in combat. Now he could smell another good fight forming out there somewhere, like a man smelling rain at the edge of a storm.

Their Oko panel was now close enough to break through the odd interference that had been restricting its range. He already knew that there were four other airships south of them, very close to Ilanskiy, and then the radar system lost one of the contacts. He knew exactly what that meant. There was a fight underway. This was not a unified force of four airships. They were in battle, and one of them had just gone down.

So what did all this mean? An airship duel, men on the ground shouting harsh battle orders. He could read the situation well enough, though he had no idea who might be involved. Yet it was clear that some of those airships had deployed men here, just as he was intending, and they were already forming up for a battle that he could smell coming, just as he could hear it in the radio voices Zykov had stumbled upon.

Somebody was having a nice, private little fight out here, right in the middle of his well planned operation. The old military maxim that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy was well proven here. They had thought to slip in quietly, riding the soft grey clouds and then deploying at night. They had thought to make their stealthy approach in the darkness, infiltrating through the wooded park he recalled, just behind the railway inn. It was to be a quick mission, the position easily taken by his well trained Marines. Now what should he do?

Troyak could hear the battle slang easily enough. There were fighting men on the ground, Lieutenants and Sergeants bawling out orders, and now they began to hear the mutter of small arms fire in the background, and the sharp pop of mortar fire through the hiss and static of the radio. It was clear that someone else had moved men and equipment to this place on airships, and a well planned raid was underway by another force. He had no idea what it could be about, though Fedorov had told him this place was very important.

Could these men know just how important that railway inn was? Could they know about that damn back stairway Fedorov had gone down? He remembered how the young navigator, then made a commanding officer on their first mission to Ilanskiy, had told him that incredible story of what had happened when he went missing down those stairs. He had gone back to yet another time, with no nuclear detonation or control rod in the mix. It had something to do with those stairs, the very same stairs Troyak was now tasked with taking and possibly destroying here, though now the odds were shifting against his mission.

They could not get farther south aboard the Narva, not with an airship battle underway there at the moment. Captain Selikov was very skittish about putting his ship in harm’s way, though it appeared to be well armed. That said, if anything happened to Narva, there was no way for them to get back to Murmansk, and that would be a very long walk. So Selikov was probably correct-they had to preserve their line of communications back to the home base. Narva was their only means of extraction and safe return. It could not be compromised.

Now the situation on the ground had changed considerably. He could take his men in, deploy from here, but they would most likely soon find themselves pulled into the fight he could hear growing in those spotty radio transmissions Zykov was tuning in. He could lay low and wait things out. That battle would have to resolve one way or another, but how many troops were involved down there? Would more be coming? His orders were to report his status and let the Admiral decide whether they were to make a go of it.

“Alright, Zykov, enough of that. See if you can punch through a signal to Kirov.”

“Good enough, Sergeant. I’ll keep trying.”

Troyak’s instincts were to deploy his men and go now. The lure of combat below pulled at him. He wanted to get down there and join the fray. This was obviously part of the long simmering civil war Fedorov had told him about. The thought that he might soon have to take up arms against his own ancestors was suddenly disquieting. There had been a lot of talk between the Admiral and Fedorov and the old deputy Director, Kamenski. They had been trying to sort through this impossible puzzle and find a way to put the pieces back together again.

Troyak knew that if he took his men down there he would find no friends on the ground, even if every man was a brother from his homeland. They were all dead and gone before he was ever born, but they were Russians nonetheless, and he would be forced to make them his enemies if they came between him and his objective.

Now strange thoughts that might bother Fedorov came to his mind. What if someone down there is sitting quietly on the tree of life in the branches below where he and his men now sat? He doubted if there was anyone down there from the Chiuchi peninsula where he had been born, but he had men here in his contingent with roots from all over the homeland. What would happen if one of their great grandfathers was down there, and they died here in this fight?

He shook his head, realizing that those were useless thoughts. He had enough to worry about if he took his Marines into battle. The bullets and mortar rounds would be more than enough, clear and present dangers that would quantify themselves in bright red blood when they struck home. An unseen death of annihilation because of all this time business was not anything he could fathom or worry about now. Yet the thought of killing his fellow Russians if it came to it did give him some pause.

Time passed, and Zykov’s eyes seemed clouded over with frustration. He looked up at Troyak, shaking his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “We can receive now, but I just can’t seem to get a signal through on any of the military bands that Nikolin will be monitoring. The interference is very close. Its clouding over here, at the source-not out there somewhere.” Zykov pointed plaintively.

Troyak nodded. So it wouldn’t be up to the Admiral or Fedorov after all. Orlov would throw his two cents in, but Troyak had his orders. I was to make the final decision if we were unable to get through. Orlov was not to be considered in command. So it’s down to me now, he realized, not the Admirals and Captains and deputy Directors. It’s down to a Marine Gunnery Sergeant with a hankering to get on the ground and kick some ass.

And that was exactly what he was going to do.

In Russia they were called the ‘Black Death,’ the elite Russian Naval Marines, their faces streaked with dark grease paint, black berets and dark coats, with heavier mushroom shaped helmets netted with camo scheme when called for. They were called for now.

Troyak had three squads of seven men each, and they were heavily armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers, RPGs, a Pecheneg Bullpup 7.62 machine gun, and a handheld Ilga SAM in each squad. Their motto was a simple one: “Where we are, there is victory.”

“A chance to put my Bizon-2 SMG back to work,” said Zykov naming his weapon as he checked the gun mechanism. “High impulse Makarov rounds in a helical sixty-four round magazine. Very good in a firefight, particularly at close quarters.” He never tired of saying that about his weapon.

“I’ll stick with my Bullpup,” said Chenko. “It combines the firepower of a good heavy machine gun and the mobility of an LMG. Superb accuracy, excellent durability, and with the night vision sight I can hit targets at 1500 meters with this little boy.”

Kolnov was checking ammo on his GM-94 multi-shot grenade launcher. It had pump action, with a three round tube magazine of 43mm grenades, and could be hand fired for close quarters action, which is what it was designed for. That was his fallback. His primary role was fire support with the AGS-30, a belt fed automatic grenade launcher with a high fire rate 30 round drum. It had an adjustable day or night sight, and could range out 2100 meters.

Another man carried an RPG-30 Kryuk, or “Hook,” which was a man portable 105mm anti-tank weapon, with rounds that could defeat 650 mm of rolled homogenous armor, or blast through 1500mm of reinforced concrete and 2000mm of brick. That was almost eighty inches! The Sergeant considered whether or not to take a mortar, but with light, powerful weapons like this at his disposal, he decided against it.

The fighting man had a kind of love affair with his weapon. He lived with it, day in and day out, and would die without it in combat. The other Marines were carrying more standard AK-12 Kalashnikov assault rifles, all with night sights, muzzle fired grenade packs, and plenty of ammo. By WWII standards the three squads would make up a platoon with the firepower of a full company. The typical Russian WWII infantry squad might have two sub-machine guns and eight carbines. Troyak’s squads had the equivalent of seven machine guns, and with much more support fire from the RPGs, and other hand held anti-tank and SAM weapons they were packing. The Black Death was ready to rumble.

Now all Troyak had to do was convince Captain Selikov to get them a bit closer. “There’s a fight going on down there,” he said. “I’d like to get my men into it fresh, and not after an eighteen hour hike.”

“You mean to go down anyway?”

“I have my orders.”

Selikov naturally looked to Orlov, who was standing with arms folded, brooding on the matter. The Chief said nothing, still wondering what was so damn important about this mission-Fedorov’s mission. It had something to do with all this time travel nonsense, but he was not exactly sure what was going down here. Beyond that, he was still steamed up with the thought that he had not been properly briefed.

“What is your mission, Troyak? What’s the objective?”

“As I said, we deploy to Ilanskiy, take and hold the railway inn and make contact with the ship to report our status.”

“Well that isn’t going to happen. We can’t get through.”

“Then my orders were clear,” said Troyak. “I was to destroy the facility.”

“Destroy it? We came all this way to blow up a railway inn? What in god’s name for?”

Troyak just shrugged. “I don’t ask things like that when I get an order, Chief. They want it destroyed-that I can do.”

“And you say there’s a fight underway down there?”

“We’ve heard the combat radio traffic. Some of those airships must have put men down too.”

“For the damn railway inn?”

“Who knows, Orlov? They have their orders-I have mine.”

The best laid plans of mice and men have often gone awry.

Selikov smiled. “That’s this whole damn war in a nutshell, isn’t it. Alright, Sergeant. I can get you closer. We’ll have to drop down low, and it will be damn risky if another airship gets elevation on us. Narva is a big ship, but we don’t climb fast. If someone catches me hovering to put your men down we could be in real trouble.”

“Don’t worry about that, Captain. We brought along a few things that can get you out of the stew if that situation arises.”

Orlov grinned at that. “Alright then, how many men are you taking-just the two squads as planned?”

Troyak hesitated a moment. He wanted all his men with him now, but how could he convince Orlov to stay aboard the airship as the Admiral and Fedorov wanted?

“I’ll need twenty men,” he said.

“All three squads then?”

“Correct, but I have a problem, Chief.”

“What problem?”

“We need someone who knows what they’re doing here on overwatch. I need a man here on our radio set, and someone who can handle a needle and thread.”

“Needle and thread?”

Troyak nodded his head to a nearby weapons cache where two of the Ilga, “needle” SAM missiles, were leaning against a bulkhead wall. “If what the Captain warns about should happen, I need a man who will know what to do about it. Can you man that post, Chief?”

“Me?”

“This airship has some good recoilless rifles mounted,” said Troyak, “and we may also need fire support. I’d like you to coordinate all that with the Captain here, protect the ship, and read our signals for the extraction.”

“Then assign a private, Troyak. I was figuring to get on the ground.”

“Are you ready for combat? All my men are. That’s all we train for. Once we get down there we’re going to be moving fast and humping a lot of equipment and firepower. It’s going to be tough work, and we may have to engage anyone that gets in our way. Besides, I can’t hand off ship overwatch and extraction to a private here, or even a corporal.” A little Lozh now, and some butter on Orlov’s bread was in order.

“You’re senior officer,” Troyak finished. “You’re the only man who can hold this thing together on this end. You command from here.”

It was probably more than Troyak had said at any given one time for months. He was a man of few words, and hard actions, but he knew he had been ordered to make sure Orlov stayed on the airship, and he did his best to convince him here. Then, seeing Orlov hesitate, he said one last thing, and in a tone that Orlov instinctively could hear and understand.

“Those are my orders, direct from Admiral Volsky. You are to coordinate with Selikov, manage the defense of the airship, and oversee the extraction on overwatch. I am to handle the ground operation with my Marines.”

Orlov also heard something more there-my Marines. Even though Orlov had once been busted and placed in Troyak’s detail he knew he was never a member of the club. He was a ship’s officer, not a ground pounder, and Troyak was also correct to point out this would be a combat mission, and Orlov had never been trained for that. He knew that trying to buck the gritty Sergeant would lead to nothing more than a needless confrontation, so he relented.

“Alright, Troyak. Take your men in. I’ve got your back.”

Troyak walked over and clasped him by the arm. “We’ll be counting on you, Chief.”

Schettler, John

Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series)