Axis of Evil

Chapter Five: The King’s Navy

Crete/Malta

Mediterranean Sea

26^th March 1941

HMS Warspite wasn’t his ship anymore.

Admiral Somerville paced his stateroom and scowled mightily. His face was grim; no rating, past or present, would have dared to disturb him. The massive battleship had been… outdated, certainly by the standards of the smaller ships that made up the 2015 Royal Navy, but it was needed. The Germans were growing better at swarming the 2015 ships with thousands of planes, and the older ships were still required.

He glared over at the computer screen on his desk. It had taken American yards – with a great deal of help from a Britain that no longer possessed a dry dock large enough for Warspite – four months to modify the battleship, then nearly another month to return to the Mediterranean. He’d hoped to serve in the Far East – he’d lost friends when Hong Kong had fallen almost without a fight – but the PJHQ had decided that his talents were better used in the Mediterranean.

Damn it, he snapped. It was coming to pass, as Lord Linlithgow had predicted; the 2015 British were using their comrades from 1940, without being willing to allow them to return to Britain. The wonderland of the future, or so 2015 Britain seemed, had no place for them. After the last riot, only small groups were given leave on the mainland; most of them had to go to Ireland, which was in a state of upheaval. Warspite had even escorted several shiploads of Irish Protestants, fleeing to South Africa. He supposed it made sense, after civil unrest had begun in Ireland, but it didn’t seem fair at all.

“I suppose that not all of this is bad,” he said, as Warspite nosed its way through the Mediterranean. The sea was calm and, since the rocket attacks seven months ago, free of Italian surface ships. The new radar and the sonar were picking up traces of German aircraft, or perhaps they were French aircraft, but they didn’t come out for a battle with the small fleet. They had learned hard lessons about tangling with the picket destroyers, to say nothing of Warspite, Resolution and Valiant.

He chuckled. Perhaps their technology wasn’t so bad; it was just their attitudes. Warspite now carried tons of extra-strong armour, made by a process none of the Contemporaries understood, which was capable of resisting even a direct strike by a kamikaze aircraft under the best circumstances. The radar and sonar now made Warspite the deadliest battleship on the surface of the sea – and she might even have been able to stand up to a missile attack. The guided torpedoes had destroyed the three Italian submarines that had dared to try to attack the ships on their long transit to their new home, when they had duelled with the German batteries mounted near Gibraltar.

And they don’t trust us, he thought. His mind returned again and again to that point. The British Army of 1940 had lost most of the crack troops when Churchill and Ironsides and all that was good about Britain had vanished forever; only the weakest units had remained, for they were all that could be spared from an invasion threat that now seemed like a joke. The men, not all of them happy with the newcomers, had responded with violence. The ensuring bar brawls, in a multitude of bars, had damaged relationships; not all of the Contemporaries had the mental flexibility to embrace change.

Still, there was the ever-present worry about Nazi Germany, and without the Nazis there might have been a civil war. Somerville shook his head; he was thinking nonsense, and he supposed that the Indians would be happier under their own government as well. He smiled grimly; even with the Japanese Army camped out on their borders, the Indians were still arguing about the form of their government. Would the Princely States maintain their unique status? Would there be constitutional provisions for minority rights?

“And it doesn’t matter without beating Germany,” Somerville said. The plan that Force H – they’d been allowed to keep the name – was about to execute was a step forward, although not a particularly dangerous one. His radio buzzed; the bridge was trying to call him.

“Admiral to the CIC,” Captain Jameson said. Jameson had been promoted in the wake of the confusion that had followed the Transition. Somerville nodded and left the cabin; the door hissed shut behind him. That was yet another uncomfortable thing in the old/new ship.

“Attention on deck,” the duty officer said, as Somerville walked into the Combat Information Centre, yet another new innovation, although one he vastly approved of. The screens and radio beacons allowed his small fleet near-perfect command and control, allowing him to move his ships like pieces on a chessboard.

“As you were,” he said, and his eyes gleamed as he looked down at the screen. The fleet was moving due east from Malta, heading towards Crete. The Germans had landed paratroopers on the island in the final action of their invasion of Greece, defeating and capturing the final remnants of the Greek Government. Since then, the island had been slowly converted into a German airbase… that was now going to be wrecked.

And taken, if we can do it, Somerville thought, and he smiled. Two of his ships were fast troop transports from 2015; modified small passenger ships that had been rigged up with basic weapons and packed with Contemporary troops. The PJHQ hadn’t been confident at all about the possible success – knowing how close Crete was to German air cover – but they’d finally agreed to give him discretion.

“Heads up,” a radar operator said suddenly. One of the RAF’s ultra-precious AWACS, as yet irreplaceable – was orbiting over the sea, close to Egypt, and escorted by a flight of Harriers. Its radars could see right over Crete and Greece, and it was transmitting the information to Warspite.

“We have bogies, probably German Stuka-II,” the radar operator said. The Stuka, the feared German dive-bomber, had been modified extensively by the Germans. It still possessed the limited range that had limited its deployment, but armed with torpedoes, or warheads for an SS suicide squad, they were still capable – and deadly. Tension rose in the CIC, even as the Germans turned away.

Somerville blinked. “Did they see us?”

“Uncertain,” the radar operator – who Somerville now remembered was called Tom – said. “I don’t think that they came close enough to see us, and there’s no sign of a swarming process being formed up.”

Somerville shook his head. “Keep the radars and sonar active,” he said. “They might be coordinating submarines.” He thought for a long moment; the supersonic Jaguars based in Egypt could intercept the aircraft over Greece, but even for those aircraft it would take too long. “Keep watching for surprises.”

General Kurt Student read the report, flashed to him through a line laid on the bottom of the sea, and smiled. He hadn’t been happy about his part of the grand strategy, but he had to admit that the high command had called it right; the British were trying to re-take Crete, even though they had only held it in the other timeline.

Student was glad of that; the casualty figures from the other timeline were appalling. Almost all of his elite paratroopers had been, or would have been, wiped out. Instead, he’d taken the island against almost no opposition, and then secured it against attack. The new weapons had to be tested… and where better than on an expandable island?

“Herr General, radar is picking up signs of enemy ships,” the technician said. Student frowned; he disliked the use of British terminology, even with the modified technology. “At least five large ships.”

“Good,” he said. “Any sign of a carrier?”

“No, Herr General,” the technician said. Student sensed the suicidal desire to reprimand the general; intelligence placed all of the British carriers in the Far East. Student, who knew better than to count on intelligence always getting it right, smiled; the technician had a lot to learn.

“Excellent,” he said, instead of biting the poor man’s head off. “Order the ready flights to launch and attack.”

“Jawohl,” the technician said. Crete was now covered with landlines, ones carefully hidden from the air. The Reich had been forced to learn hard lessons about computer-decryption after reading some of the history files. No radio transmission was safe; and landlines could be cut if the enemy tried hard enough.

Student struck what he liked to think of as his contemplative pose; arms held behind his back, face calm and composed. Inside, he was bubbling with excitement; an opportunity to deliver a blow to the enemy had come at last.

There weren’t any surprises until the ship reached Crete. The Germans finally deigned to notice their presence, launching a swarm of fighters and torpedo bombers. Somerville watched dispassionately as the electronic icons swooped low, coming in low just above the water, and trying to avoid the machine guns. One by one, they fell; swatted out of the sky by the anti-aircraft weapons. The only damage was taken by the destroyer Darter, which was hit by a torpedo and damaged badly by the explosion. Somerville ordered it to return to Egypt, something that would have been suicide in the pre-Transition days, and watched as the German planes retreated finally.

“Curious,” Somerville mused. It didn’t make sense at all; German patterns now were to press the attack as hard as they could. “Order the battleships to target the airfields on Crete.”

“Aye, sir,” Tom said. One advantage of attacking an island was that there was nowhere on the island that could not be hit by the battleship’s main guns – and with some of the new rounds, precision gunnery would be easy.

“I still think that these things are cheating,” Somerville muttered, as Warspite opened fire. Seconds later, there was an answering blast of fire – far too early.

“Incoming fire,” Tom said, as Somerville realised what it had to be. The Germans hadn’t focused on duplicating the gigantic waste of effort in fortifying the Channel Islands, but they had placed some guns to cover their airbases. Somerville wished that Warspite carried one of the Metalstorm units, but they were only being fitted onto the thin-skinned modern ships.

“Admiral…” Tom began, and broke off. A new flight of planes had appeared from Crete, homing in on the warships. Homing was the operative word; they were zooming in at a massive speed. The artillery rounds were slamming into the warships; their targeting was precise.

“How the hell are they doing that?” Somerville snapped, as one of the strange planes slammed into a destroyer. It must have been packed with explosive; the destroyer was blown right out of the water. The strange kamikaze planes were homing in on the ships, even as the machine guns started to chatter again. Resolution’s icon started to flash red as one of the strange planes slammed right into its superstructure. The noise of the explosion could even be heard in CIC.

“I think that they’re homing in on our radars, or theirs,” Tom said grimly. Bright sweeps of red and green light washed across the screen, zeroing in on the location of the enemy radars. “Recommend that we…”

“Kill them,” Somerville snapped. Warspite’s main guns began to fire again. The red sweeps vanished moments later, but the shells and aircraft were still coming in. “How the hell are they still doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “I honestly don’t know.”

“I like this kind of war,” Student said, as another of the V1s slammed into a British ship. They were running out of the missiles, and the shells were not doing the kind of damage he’d hoped for, but the new system was working wonders. One battleship was already limping out of the line of battle; another was hit and burning.

“This device is a wonder,” the technician agreed, patting the stolen piece of future technology. Some modified radio systems gave them the ability to steer the V1s; the passive sensor array allowed them to home in on the British ship’s radar emissions. Best of all, if the British caught on and shut down their own radars, the Luffwaffe could descend on them again. Planes were already forming up over Greece, awaiting their turn.

“Fire more shells,” Student commanded. The powerful cannons were targeting using one of the stolen laptops to compensate for the targeting; by combing the two systems the targeting was far more precise than had been possible before.

“Firing,” the technician said. The screen changed. “Sir, I think they just caught on; their radars have been deactivated.”

“Crease fire,” Student said. “Order the Luffwaffe to start the attack.”

It had become obvious the minute a small cruiser had been struck – directly on its radardome. Tom couldn’t understand it – British radars operated on a far more advanced system than the German radars and should have been practically undetectable – but there was no doubt about what was happening. The German fire fell away as the radar net was weakened; everything depended upon the AWACS radars now.

“Here comes the Luffwaffe,” Tom said. Somerville cursed; he’d wanted to take Crete back from the Germans. As a base, it would really mess up the German supply lines, to say nothing of the ongoing attempts to repair Plosti. The Germans were using prisoners from the Balkans to do the hard work of clearing the radioactive ruins, using information that some of the British had provided to him.

Somerville cursed again. Who in their right mind would tell the enemy how to clear up the ruins and get their oil back? He didn’t understand it at all; the future seemed to be scared of its own weapons. Now… nearly a thousand German aircraft were bearing down on the small fleet, which was already battered with the V1 attack.

At least I know when to cut my losses, he thought. “Order the fleet to withdraw,” he said. There was still time before the German aircraft caught up with the fleet. “Time to leave, I think.”

“Aye, sir,” Captain Jameson said. “Now leaving Crete behind.”

“We’ll be back,” Somerville vowed, and wondered why Tom was smiling. He ignored it; after such a defeat, it really didn’t matter. At least the future British were more forgiving of failure than Winston Churchill had been, before he’d vanished.

General Student watched grimly as the British fleet fled in the face of the Luffwaffe. He scowled; he’d hoped to do more damage to the ships than he had done, even though he’d nearly crippled the ships. The new armour, which spies in Alexandria had quite happily reported upon, was tougher than it looked; one of the battleships had been struck with enough explosive to sink it – and remained afloat.

Still, it was a victory, and it should serve the main purpose, as well as the ones that Student was not meant to know about. The supply lines through Turkey would remain intact, and the grand plan could go ahead. That all of the new weapons worked as planned was a bonus… and one that Student found both delightful and chilling. War wasn’t meant to be this way, not when someone could just push a button and condemn thousands of people to death, people who had no hope of ever seeing their tormentor.

He shook his head. It wasn’t his concern any longer. Now that they’d proven themselves, his paratroopers had another mission, one that would have to be launched without much in the way of preparation. It would be difficult, dangerous… and honourable. He was quite looking forward to it.

Right after discovering what had happened to Britain, Admiral Somerville had found reporting to a woman… strange, if not outright ludicrous. Women were bad luck on a ship; everyone knew that – except the Royal Navy of 2015. And most of the other navies of that era, if the future British were to be believed. Six months later, he had revised his opinion; not even Churchill could have diverted Admiral Grisham, First Sea Lord, from whatever she wanted. She was a very formidable person indeed.

Somerville had wondered about the crewmen and women; how did they get along in a professional manner? After the Battle of the Indian Ocean, when some of the feared Japanese fleet had been sunk, he knew that they were professional, maybe more professional than his own people. Their way of fighting was different, less rough, than that of the Contemporaries, but the finest traditions of the Navy were maintained.

Except the Damn the French toast, Somerville thought wryly. Perhaps, given how close Vichy France and Germany were now, it would be brought back. The Contemporaries still used it, and the 2015 crewmen joined in with gusto.

“So the fleet was badly damaged,” Grisham said thoughtfully. Her bulldog face scowled through the video link. “Exactly how many ships were lost?”

“Four destroyers and a cruiser were lost,” Somerville said. Somehow, she always reminded him of his teacher. “Resolution was very badly damaged; her Captain and most of her command crew are dead. If it hadn’t been for the new systems, we might have had to abandon her. The other ships were all damaged to some extent.”

“It rather reads like a trap for our ships,” Grisham said. “Your fleet, Force H, is the main force in the Mediterranean. They wanted to sink you, making the task of harassing their supply lines much harder.”

“It certainly seems that way, madam,” Somerville agreed. The Germans had been known to launch attacks across the Mediterranean from time to time; knocking out Force H would have been a step to regaining control of the disputed sea-lanes. “Now that they’ve secured Gibraltar, they have to be thinking about placing an attack right across the Mediterranean.”

“It would seem suicidal,” Grisham said. “Except… they’ve clearly progressed faster than we dared fear. These radar-homing weapons, they were developed by the Nazis, but only towards the end of the war, and they should not have been capable of tracking our radars. MI5 is going to have to work on it.”

“You think that we have a traitor somewhere?” Somerville asked. “It might be just a rag-head from Egypt.”

Grisham frowned. The Royal Navy of 2015 wasn’t keen on what they called racist language. Somerville, who knew that the Egyptians would have quite happily have knifed Britain in the back, didn’t care two figs.

“Perhaps,” she said finally. “Or perhaps it’s a source in America; we have given them a lot of our technology to study.”

“Foolish, in my opinion,” Somerville said.

“Perhaps,” Grisham said again. “Still, keep your eyes on the ball; the war will be over before you know it.”

She signed off. Somerville allowed himself a chuckle, before heading out of his stateroom. There was work to be done, and he couldn’t stay in his room forever, no matter how much he wanted to do so.