Armageddon

Chapter 10

“We must decide now,” said Admiral Volsky. “I have my mind settled on this question, but I would like to hear opinions.”

Kazan was now 40 kilometers south of Nakhodka, having crept down the long coast past Sovetsky Gavan and on south to a point where they would normally round the cape and head northwest to Vladivostok. They were now no more than 75 kilometers from the Fleet Naval Headquarters at Fokino, though the Admiral did not yearn for his desk there, or the damp shadowy darkness of the deep underground command bunker.

A strange lull seemed to have been imposed on the war since the eruption of the Demon Volcano, which was still broiling and belching its sulfuric ash to overshadow the whole region in gloom, the rolling clouds thick and impenetrable to the east, and creeping ever closer on the northwesterly wind. Though no one aboard the submarine could see them now, they could still feel their effects. Lieutenant Andre Chernov at sonar would occasionally report on the deep, dull rumble beneath the sea as the volcano continued its slow eruption, sustained and withering. It was affecting his system performance, with a great deal of sonic disturbance and an odd ebb and flow of general interference.

Dobrynin had taken the time during their journey south to mount Rod-25 in the replacement aperture of the submarine’s reactor. It was slow, dangerous work, as the rod was radioactive and had to be handled with utmost caution. It was actually mounted within its radiation safe container by means of a mechanical system designed to allow for this specific maintenance procedure, and the container was not actually withdrawn until it was safely sealed off inside the core area. It was a procedure that should have only been conducted in a secure dock, but the circumstances would not permit that, and Dobrynin’s skill was enough to get them through.

Now they had to decide whether to utilize the rod immediately, or to move south into the Sea of Japan and use it when they might appear closer to Kirov. The question of the hour was this: where was the ship now, lost in the distant haze of history?

“Mister Fedorov?” The Admiral wanted the opinion of his master strategist, the young officer who had come up with the plan.

“Well, sir. We shifted back here on the nineteenth of July, 1908. If, by luck or Dobrynin’s skill, we get back there again with Rod-25, we will most likely appear after that date in time.”

“Why do you say this?”

“Because we cannot co-locate, sir. We can’t appear the morning of the 19th because we are already there on the Anatoly Alexandrov in the Caspian Sea. My guess is that the earliest we might appear would be July 20th. Karpov said he was in the Sea of Japan, but we are not able to see anything in the history while we remain here in 2021. I suppose once we actually leave, and assuming we get back to our target date and do something decisive, then it will manifest here as history shortly after our disappearance.”

Volsky shook his head, somewhat bewildered. “This business is becoming an arcane science, Mister Fedorov.”

“In some ways it is, sir. This is theory developed by physicist Paul Dorland, who is presently engaged in a research project involving quantum particle infusion and artificial black holes at Lawrence Berkeley labs in America. His theory draws on the work of others as well, but it posits a Heisenberg Wave that is generated by any decisive intervention in the past, which then migrates forward through the continuum of potential futures from that point in time, like ripples from a stone thrown into a still pool. The wave works a transformation, literally re-arranging every particle of the universe as it propagates forward in time. Paradox eliminates anything that cannot be rationally accounted for in the altered reality. Things literally change, and the world is made entirely new. That’s one explanation. Another holds that the intervention actually changes the course of the continuum and it enters an alternate universe. It’s all theory, of course, but we have seen it happen more than once already. We have seen it made real, no matter what the process actually is.”

“So we can’t know exactly where Karpov and his ship is until we get there,” said Kamenski.

“That’s about the size of it, and so my recommendation would be to shift now. That would give us time to make a search of the Sea of Japan in 1908, sweeping south as we go.”

“But won’t that also give Tasarov the opportunity to detect us? The undersea world there would be completely empty. His ears are very good.”

“They are, sir, but it’s a risk that becomes academic if we intend to make contact with Karpov and see if he will comply with a direct order.”

“Yes…I suppose the instant we make contact the jig is up.”

“Not necessarily…”

They all recognized Orlov’s deep voice, and turned to hear him out. The Chief removed his hat, scratching his head. “You called him via shortwave before. Why not do that again? How will he know we are on a submarine?”

“Don’t forget Nikolin,” said Fedorov. “First off, we would be too close. Kirov would be in the shortwave dead zone and we would have to use normal radio bands. The only reason Kirov heard us from the Caspian was because the shortwave signal was reflected from the ionosphere. So if we contact him here, Nikolin will immediately know we are very close. He will be able to isolate the signal band in a few seconds.”

“But we could tell him we came east on the Mi-26,” said Dobrynin. “Might that account for the differing radio signal?”

“Perhaps at first blush,” said Fedorov, “but Nikolin will soon determine our location. He’s just too good, even as Tasarov is at sonar.”

“That’s part of what made the ship so deadly in combat,” said Volsky. “Each man was a real expert at his post. Rodenko at radar, Tasarov at sonar, Nikolin at communications, Samsonov at CIC, not to mention my ex-navigator here. Now he tries to plot this course through time.”

“We don’t have to say we are on Kazan,” said Orlov. “If we broadcast on a line back to Vladivostok, he could assume we are there.”

“A good point, Chief. In fact, he might assume we used the test reactor at the Primorskiy Engineering Center and shifted back that way. That uncertainty could be enhanced if we just state that is the case, and then the Admiral can take over and see what he can do.”

“That is worth a try,” said Volsky. “And the alternative?”

Orlov spoke again. “Sail south now, appear right on Karpov’s ass and put a torpedo into him before he can think twice.”

The simple brutality of the suggestion seemed cold and stark in the room, but that was what the surprise option left them with. It meant they might not have to risk battle with Kirov, but they would have to appear like an assassin in the dark and stab the ship in the back. They would have to be everything Karpov feared and loathed about submarines, and somehow the notion seemed distasteful to them all.

“Yes, we could appear suddenly like that,” said Volsky, “but we would still not know where Kirov was when we arrived. Our equipment could be bothered by the effects of the shift as it was on Kirov, and they would have the advantage. It could be they would detect us before we could get things in order here. That is one concern with plan B. The second is that I do not like the idea of torpedoing Kirov without first trying to persuade the Captain to relent. And from the looks on all your faces I think there is broad agreement on this. What do you think, Gromyko? After all, this is your boat at risk here.”

“Not my boat, Admiral. It’s just on loan to me at the moment. If you must know, a submarine’s stock in trade at war is stealth and surprise. In modern warfare you aim to detect and fire on the enemy before they can do the same to you. A submarine excels at that because of its inherent stealthiness. So while you may all feel uncomfortable sneaking up behind our flagship like this, Chief Orlov is correct. That is how I would fight this boat if asked to take military action against Kirov. Speed, stealth, surprise, and a good spread of at least four torpedoes.”

“There is one other consideration,” said Fedorov. “Karpov’s temperament. He has a phobia concerning submarines, and the sudden appearance of an undersea threat has often seen him take extreme measures. In fact, whenever he is truly surprised in battle, either by the skill of the enemy or by the failure of his own tactical approach, he resorts to a sudden, extreme escalation of force. He selects the one weapon which can redress the situation and applies it with absolute, ruthless violence.”

“Yes,” said Orlov. “That’s Karpov alright. I tell you what… Get close and then send me over in a frogman suit. I’ll put this fat fist in the Captain’s face and another fat torpedo right up his ass.”

They all laughed at that, but things settled down quickly to the difficulty of the decision before them now. “Well,” said Volsky, “as much as it may be sound submarine tactics, it is against my better judgment to strike as you suggest. Unless the majority here believe otherwise, I think we should do what Mister Fedorov advises. Shift now, while we are here in safe waters. We can drift over towards the Korean coast until we see what happens. Then head south if we reach the targeted time.”

“How will we know if we shift successfully?” Dobrynin raised another good point. “How will we know it isn’t 1945, or 1942 again? Rod-25 has been very stubborn about that year.”

“First we rely on that inner ear of yours, Dobrynin,” said Fedorov. “After that we rely on signals intelligence first, and if we still can’t ascertain our position in time, we could risk taking a look around by sending a team ashore in Korea, or even Vladivostok. That said, it is my belief that we will reach the target time successfully.”

“How can you be so certain,” said Dobrynin. “I’m not a miracle worker, you know.”

“Because if we failed to do what we now propose…if we failed to stop Karpov, then it would be history now, and we should have been able to read about it. No…I think we will get there, because the absence of definite information about what happened to Karpov indicates uncertainty prevails. We are still a primary factor in the outcome.”

“Very astute, Mister Fedorov,” said Kamenski.

“Then that will be the order,” said Volsky, feeling much better about the situation. “Any objections?”

No man had any further argument. They had made the gentleman’s agreement. They would contact Karpov and order him to stand down. If he refused it would be pistols at fifty paces, Kazan against Kirov. Yet like all plans, things can happen that set events off in a most unexpected course…And they did.

Dobrynin was still very uneasy as he settled into his chair at the reactor monitoring station, in spite of Fedorov’s confidence. The equipment here was somewhat different, even if it was still compatible with Rod-25, and he was wondering how this would affect the planned operation. He had spent the last several hours going over detailed charts and data from the two time displacement shifts aboard Anatoly Alexandrov. He was noting power levels, output, neutron flux levels, and then topped it all off by simply listening to his tape of the shifts that sent them back to 1908. He was like a conductor being introduced to a new orchestra. The score was in his head, in the delicate weave of sounds he could hear in the internal song of his mind, but the musicians were all new here. Would the sound remain the same?

He would try to repeat that score, yet he knew each player was now subtly different. Each of the control rods on this new reactor had a life span, some old, some young, some ready to be retired. Each would be a player in the music to come, and he wondered if he would be able to still hear the melody required for a successful shift. If he could not, then their whole effort was futile here. They might shift somewhere, but with no guarantee that they would not end up in a year and time that was most undesirable, no matter what Fedorov thought.

He was understandably very nervous about it all, as everything seemed to depend on him now. They could devise their plans, and talk and conjecture, but the real work was his to do, and if he could not get it done, then what?

He closed his eyes, trying to listen to this new reactor to determine its aural characteristics. At one point he had his technicians increase the power output slightly, and then dial it back again. In the same manner he lowered the power slightly, then increased it to normal again, listening to the orchestra play. There was something in the sound that seemed strangely odd, a resonance in the background that he found most disconcerting. He decided to record the sound to see if he could determine what it was, and the longer he sat with it, the more concerned he became. An hour later he went to see Admiral Volsky about it, finding him with Fedorov in the officer’s lounge.

“Admiral,” he began, “I must report an anomaly.”

“Come in, Chief Dobrynin. What is it? I hope there isn’t a problem with the control rod installation.”

“No sir, that went quite well, but I have been listening to things to get familiar with this new equipment and…well there is something in the background causing interference.”

“Interference? What kind of interference?”

“I’ve tried to isolate the sound, sir. Of course I first believed it was coming from the reactor equipment itself, but this proved not to be the case. So I moved around the boat a bit, and I listened, thinking it might be something on the submarine.”

Schettler, John

Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series)

“And what did you discover?”

“Nothing…that’s the bad news, Admiral. It’s not coming from the boat either. This prompted me to check with Lieutenant Chernov.”

“I’m sorry, Chief. Who is Chernov?”

“He’s the sonar man here on Kazan, sir. I reasoned a man like this will also have good ears, and so I asked him to listen to my recording and see if he could hear what I was experiencing.”

“Did he hear anything?” asked Fedorov.

“More than we might wish to know about,” said Dobrynin. “It’s that damn volcano, sir. It is continuing to spew thousands of tons of electrically-charged ash into the eruption column. This charged ash can cause interference to radio waves and even render radio and telephone systems inoperative. Chernov says he has been having trouble with his sonar beyond the normal sonic effects. There seems to be some persistent electromagnetic disturbance as well, and it is affecting the undersea environment.”

“How is that possible,” said Fedorov, “an EMP pulse can’t even affect us down here.”

“True, that’s why we must surface an antenna to use normal radio, otherwise we must rely on the Extreme Low Frequency communications module and our ZEVS broadcast from land. That uses a very low frequency, way down at 82 hertz. Chernov says the boat’s communications man has heard this disturbance there as well. Whatever it is, it has aural characteristics. He can hear it on sonar!”

“I see,” said Volsky. “Yes, we had the same problem with equipment at Fokino, even in the deep underground bunker. We had to use a secondary land line to contact Moscow. That Demon is still grumbling out there, but what does this mean, Dobrynin?”

“It means I have real doubts about this operation now, sir. I can’t hear the nuances of the system with this odd throbbing in the background, and I also suspect that this interference might cause trouble if we attempt to shift from this location.”

Fedorov produced a pad device and called up a map. “We are almost 1500 kilometers southwest of that volcano. I know it was a very large eruption, but there was no ash fall at Vladivostok when we landed there.”

“It is getting closer,” said Volsky. “They tell me there is a seasonal wind change that takes place in October here.”

Fedorov knew what the Admiral was referring to, being a navigator and familiar with weather effects in the region. “Yes,” he said, “I should have considered this. The Aleutian Lows start to form and we get what they call the Winter Monsoon, northwest winds. They must be plowing into that eruption column and driving it in our direction. It has covered all of Hokkaido Island, and also parts of northern Honshu near the Tsugaru Straits. A plume that size can also have dramatic weather effects.”

“And you can hear this interference, Dobrynin?”

“I hear a kind of general background resonance from the geothermic and electromagnetic disturbances when I am listening to the reactor on headphones. Not here, not now as we speak. I hear it when I listen to the data in the reactor room. I’m worried, sir.”

“In what way?”

“Well… to do my job I have to listen to some very subtle sound fields…sound caused by turbines, and steam moving through the system, the coolant water, the servo-mechanical noise, and the sound of the reaction itself. I’m not sure I can hear things well enough under these conditions. I’m not sure I can control the displacement.”

Fedorov looked at him with a stubborn expression. “Are you certain, Chief?”

“It was worse earlier, when we were northeast up the coast and closer to the Kuriles. There I could hear the interference on a number of system monitors. It is not as bad here, but I can still perceive it, and it has the effect of someone playing music while you are trying to tune your instrument. You cannot hear the subtle harmonics. I have tried to adjust by accounting for the disturbance in the background, but at times we get a strong emission, a real deep rumble that overshadows everything, and should that happen in the midst of our shift, particularly when I am trying to make an adjustment…well I don’t know what to expect.”

“What if we got further from the eruption, sir?” Fedorov suggested the obvious. “There isn’t much sea room here, but we could still move southwest towards Korea and see what conditions are like there. We could lie off Yonhung-Man Bay near Wonson. That’s about as far west as we can get, and it would put us nearly 2000 kilometers from the eruption.”

“Very well, I will speak with Captain Gromyko and see what we can do. It would mean entering the Korean Eastern Sea Command region, and the North Koreans are not the most reliable group these days. China thinks they can control that snarling dog, but I have my doubts.”

“Those extra 500 kilometers might make the difference, sir,” said Fedorov. “It’s worth a try.” That distance, and the time it would take them to get there, were going to make a considerable difference indeed, but no one knew it just then.