Armageddon

Chapter 17

“Now we choose,” said Karpov as he stood on the bridge examining the situation map. They had reached the northern tip of Tsushima Island and now had to decide their course, either left down the Tsushima Strait or right through the Korea Strait. The Captain seemed in good spirits, the rest he had taken doing him some good, and he was ready for the action ahead.

“From the latest Oko panel radar data, it appears that they have pulled back to protect the straits. By assembling at the southern end of this island.”

“That is understandable,” said Rodenko. “As we come south they will have amble opportunity to spot us from any of these islands. And note all these clutter contacts.” He pointed to the Tsushima Strait, indicating many small contacts scattered throughout the sea there. “They are probably trawlers or fishing boats…commercial traffic, but some may be military. It’s a thin veil, and nothing that could impede us, but if we take that channel we will be seen in time.”

“Then we have the Korea Strait, a much more likely approach,” said Karpov. “It avoids all this clutter you speak of and is a much more direct route to the Yellow Sea.”

“You believe they are expecting us to take that route, sir?”

“I do,” Karpov smiled. “Which is precisely why we will steer for the Tsushima Strait instead.”

“You give up the element of surprise. They will spot us much more easily there.”

“No, Rodenko, I create the element of surprise. You said yourself that they have assigned their heavier ships to the Korea Strait, west of the island. That is where Admiral Togo will be. I would love to sail there directly and engage him, but that would leave all these other ships unfought in the Tsushima Strait. So I will do what Togo does not expect. I will sail boldly into those waters, destroy his squadrons there, one by one, and then, when he comes rushing to the scene from the other side of the island, the surprise will be complete.”

“I don’t understand, sir. He will be well aware of our movements.”

“Yet surprised to see half his fleet burning when he gets there. Then we fire up the Moskit-IIs and I will make a quick end of his battleships. The rest is done with mirrors.”

Rodenko still seemed troubled, his expression hardened, eyes betraying his concern. “Are you certain we must do this, Captain?”

Karpov gave him an exasperated look. “How many times must we go over this, Rodenko? What is your problem with this? You would rather we take a vacation cruise here?”

“It just that… Well I was thinking about all this last night, sir. Suppose we do what you plan and smash the Japanese fleet here. Suppose it does have the effect you hope for, and Russia returns to the Pacific as a great power. Japan might eventually be driven from Manchuria and Korea.”

“Yes, and led by Kirov, our navy becomes the master of these waters.”

“Except for the Americans, sir.”

“The Americans?”

“Their Great White Fleet is approaching the region. Nikolin said he picked up some telegraphy traffic about an altered itinerary, so I looked it up. They were supposed to be steaming for the Philippines and then on to New Zealand and Australia first, but they have altered course, sir.”

“Indeed? Then things have already changed.”

“That mail steamer, sir. There were American citizens aboard and several were killed when we fired on the ship. Their Captain was spitting mad and threatened to make a major diplomatic protest.”

“To who? The Mayor of Vladivostok? The Tsar won’t hear about it for weeks, and would likely give it little notice. Besides that, Nicholas could send me a direct order to cease and desist here and I could tell him to go to hell without a second thought. There’s nothing anyone can do about what I now have planned, Rodenko. Nothing.”

“Well what about the American Great White Fleet, Captain?”

“It it makes an appearance, which is very unlikely, I can deal with it just as easily as these other ships.”

“But they have sixteen battleships, sir! We have only nineteen SSMs left in inventory, and there will never be any more after that. If we use some now against the Japanese that will leave us even less. Can you sink the whole American fleet with the deck guns?”

“I have some surprises planned for the Japanese, but to answer your question, yes. I can sink them all if I wish. Don’t forget our torpedo inventory. We have the Vodopad system, and a few torpedoes for the KA-40. I have ample ordnance to prevail, against the Japanese or the Americans if they get pushy.”

“Alright sir…” Rodenko took another tack now. “Suppose we defeat Admiral Togo here, and the Americans do stay out of things. Then it comes down to a standoff between us and them. Years go by, and they continue to improve their ship designs. We could sink their existing ships, but what if they build more? You saw what they did in WWII. They’ll start building aircraft carriers after the First World War.”

“Yes, I have thought about all of this too, and perhaps the one thing we will do here is change the complexion of WWII in this theater. If I stop Japan now-”

“Then it’s the Americans and Russia, sir. You said yourself that you would restore Russia to prominence here, but I don’t think the Americans will back down that easily, even if we do destroy their Great White Fleet. They’ll be outraged, and simply build another fleet. They know their place on the world stage depends on their navy, just like Great Britain. Why, the enmity we create here could have an effect on the First World War as well. Both Russia and the United States came in to fight against Germany, but with those two countries as enemies who knows what will happen?”

“You worry too much, Rodenko. We cannot control every possible outcome, or even predict what may or may not happen as a result of our intervention here.”

“But we can make reasonable assumptions, Captain. And we should. Each second that we pass here widens the rift we tear in history. There may come a point when it can no longer hold together and it all comes rending apart. We have no idea what will happen then, as you just said yourself. We won’t be able to control things, sir, not with all the missiles, torpedoes, and shells left to us. This ship is in good trim now, but it is already wounded and will need maintenance. Things will fail in the months and years ahead. The missiles also have a limited life span. We will get weaker and weaker, and the world will get stronger each and every day.”

“I don’t plan on trying to rule the world, Rodenko, just my little corner of a self-made hell, here. Understand? Yes, we are young men. I am thirty five, so if I live to be eighty-five that gives me fifty years here. I can do a lot with that time…change many things. But that is tomorrow. We start building that future today, in the here and now. Nothing happens unless we make a choice to do something about it, and that is what I have done-it’s what the crew of this ship chose as well, or have you forgotten that?”

Rodenko was silent, brooding, and still unsatisfied. “Don’t you see, Captain? The very existence of this ship arises from a very complex weave of history. Kirov was built as a result of the cold war, but we see how fragile that history is now, and you yourself seem to think you can change it all at your whim and no one here will suffer any ill effects. But what if we cut the very strand that we dangle from? What if we do something at affects our very existence?”

“Now you sound like Fedorov.”

Karpov looked out to the sea, noting the winds rising and a bank of clouds scudding low over the waves in the distance. It was pristine in its simplicity and emptiness, yet now it was the vast tapestry where he would sew and weave all of that future history. Rodenko’s fears were justifiable, but somehow Karpov believed they could do nothing that would affect their own existence here.

“Don’t clutter your head with these impossible thoughts, Rodenko. If I could do something to affect the fate of this ship and crew, then how did it ever get here to do that in the first place? It’s a paradox! You just go round and round with it in your head and the only result is that you become frozen with fear and uncertainty. Well I cannot live like that. I will do what I choose, and the world can go to hell with me when I leave. So forget tomorrow! Forget fate and time and destiny-all of it. Think of what we must do in the here and now, one thing at a time. This will be an easy engagement. Enough talk and strategy and useless speculation. Let’s do something! Let’s get moving!”

Karpov turned to the helmsman now. “Come left 10 degrees and steady on two, zero, zero. Speed twenty.”

“Aye sir, ahead two thirds and coming round to two, zero, zero.”

It came out of a bank of low clouds, rolling like moving fog on the sea. A shadow darkened the waters there and then took the form and shape of an enormous steel prow. As Onoshi stared at it he realized what he must be seeing. This was the Russian ship he had been told to look for, and his was the only torpedo boat within miles. Boat number 75 was one of four in her class, a Type 67 class TB of 90 tons and relatively slow for the job at only 23 knots. It had three torpedoes available, one in a bow mounted tube, and one to either side on her port and starboard deck.

“Come right and ahead full. Ready all torpedoes!” Onoshi was so excited by the prospect of being the first to find and attack the Russian ship that he almost forgot his primary duty was to signal the location of his sighting. “And signal Lieutenant Commander Fujimoto! Tell him the monster is here, and we are attacking!”

Yet even as he swung round on a new heading, his bow cutting into the sea with the sudden turn, there came a snarling rattle and he saw the sea before the bow of his ship erupt with small white geysers, as though someone had flung a barrel full of stones into the water. The stones were 30mm rounds from Kirov’s air defense Gatling guns, and they tore into the bow of Number 75, the heavy rounds riddling it to detonate the torpedo there in a violent explosion that sheared off the entire front of the boat. Water flooded in and the boat was soon foundering rapidly in the heavy swell.

Onoshi ran forward, realizing he had been caught completely by surprise and his only hope now was to get off his signal. He had reached the telegraph room back of the bridge where he saw the operator rapidly pecking out his signal. Then a sharp crack, crack, crack was heard and three 100mm rounds straddled the boat, one to port, one to starboard, but the third dead amidships, blowing one of his two stacks clean away and knocking everyone around him to the cold metal deck.

Crack, crack, crack- another burst of fire, and his ship was hit again, this time by two rounds. The second smashed the bridge and black smoke and fire poured from the open viewports there. The snarling rattle of the Gatling gun was heard again, and the rounds now came ripping through the telegraph station. Onoshi was not alive to hear the last dying scream of the telegraph operator.

There were now only three other Type 67 Torpedo boats in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Boat Number 75 was down at the bow, slipping into the grip of the sea with a sibilant hiss as the water doused the fires. Minutes later it was gone.

Ten miles east Lieutenant Commander Fujimoto saw his telegraph operator turn, shaking his head.

“That is all, sir. The message was cut off. The signal is gone.”

Fujimoto narrowed his eyes. Then the boat is most likely gone, he thought. Only a few words had come to him- Boat 75 sighting large ship — but they were enough. He knew where he had posted the Number 75 boat, and now he turned to his wireless telegraph operator and told him to signal Vice Admirals Dewa and Kataoka. The enemy was here, in the Tsushima Strait!

“Say they are heading south from Boat 75’s last reported position,” he said quickly.

“But sir, there was no heading or course given.”

“Where else would they be going? Just do as I say!” He slipped through the hatch and onto the small open bridge, ordering his boat to turn about and head southwest.

“They are here! We have found them! All boats will now execute the plan as ordered. Come to 220 degrees and ahead full!”

The helmsman echoed the order and the boat came smartly around on the new heading. Something had come out of the mist and low clouds to devour Boat number 75, thought Fujimoto. A behemoth-the great sea dragon the fishermen were whispering of so fearfully. Well I will find it and skewer it with my torpedoes if I can. This is no fishing boat.

A voice shouted from the bridge watch, stiff arm pointing ahead where something was streaking through the sky, low over the water. It came at them like a javelin and his eyes widened as it came flashing in to the center of his boat, exploding to send a hail of shrapnel in every direction and cutting down men all over the forward deck. A fire started forward, the thick smoke quickly engulfing the bridge.

Karpov had pulled a surprise out of his hat, using an S-400 SAM modified for low level attack and aiming it by radar at Fujimoto’s boat. The Lieutenant Commander staggered off the bridge, seeing men bleeding on the watch deck, one with his face nearly cut clean away by shrapnel where he slumped on the deck. He fought his way to open air, coughing fitfully from the smoke only to see a second javelin roar in from the sea to explode again, careening into his boat.

Fire arrows! He had heard the reports of a fire arrow rocket weapon. This must be what he was seeing! His boat had taken two hits, and many men were down. The bridge was on fire, clotted with smoke. He looked frantically about him, searching every horizon for sign of the enemy, yet there was nothing to be seen. How could it find and attack his ship with all the low cloud obscuring the area? This was impossible!

The fire amidships suddenly exploded, and the small boat heeled over to one side, wallowing in the water, its speed down and fire everywhere. It would be all he could do to get survivors into the sea, and launch a few life boats to see them through. Whatever this enemy ship was, it was truly fearsome if it could find and attack his boat while remaining unseen itself. He would not be hunting the sea dragon today.

The dragon was hunting him!