Crescendo of Doom

Chapter 7

The ship rose into the slate grey sky, its massive shape casting a deeper layer of shadow on the ground. The rising wind blew fitfully, with cold fingers rippling the canvas. Tunguska was aloft, its great round nose inclined upward, rising into the sky as thunder rolled to greet her. Vladimir Karpov stood on the bridge, legs wide and one hand on the guide rail to steady himself. The storm in his mind seemed a reflection of the tumult in the sky above, and when lightning ripped the dark flanks of the clouds, its wrinkled fire seemed to gleam in his eyes.

Take me back, he commanded. Take me back to settle accounts and savor the vengeance I so roundly deserve. It was not a prayer, but an order, and even as the ship gained altitude, the winds rising with growing anger, so the fury in his own chest redoubled. Time was watching him, listening to him, waiting on his command as any other officer or member of his crew might. He could feel his own significance, a criticality in the nexus of this moment, and knew on some instinctive level that he would be obeyed. For he was not just anyone at that moment, not just a simple man subject to the whims of time as the ship might be buffeted by the wind. No, he was the master of all these events, sovereign of fate and time, Vladimir Karpov.

It is all my doing, he thought. I shook the foundations of Fedorov’s history when I launched that first nuclear warhead against the American fleet in the North Atlantic. It was my knowledge and experience in combat that saved the ship and crew, and my victories that brought Kirov safely home to 2021. And it was my hand that spared Key West, though that does not seem to have mattered much in the scheme of things. The river of time was flowing on to the terrible rapids of a new war, and I would move with it, into the Pacific this time for another round of fire with the U.S. Navy.

I prevailed, until that Demon of a volcano sent the ship careening through time again. Who would have thought I would ever find myself in 1908, out to face our enemies yet again, and right the injustice of history, until I was betrayed yet again by the very same officers I fought for and saved. Yes! Volsky owes me his life, and Fedorov, and Orlov as well. Yet they came for me out of the depths of time in that damn submarine, traitors all.

And yet, had it not been for their duplicity, where would I be now? Surely I would have mastered Togo and his decrepit old fleet, and restored Russia as a true Pacific power again. But I would be old now, thirty years on, as Volkov was when I met with him at Omsk. So all things have a way of guiding the flow of these events. I would not be here now if Volsky and Fedorov had not come for me aboard Kazan. Everything happens for a reason, and time has conspired to keep me always in the gyre of chaos, like a maddened conductor scoring the crescendo of doom.

So here I am, on another ship, a place I could never have imagined myself that night, so long ago now, when Orel blew up. And as for Volkov, that gutter snipe would be dead in 2021 if I had not opened the doors of fate that eventually sent him searching for Fedorov along the Trans-Siberian rail. So all of this was my doing, and to settle accounts I will start with Volkov. He thinks I am gone, lost, perished in that storm, but let him think again! Another storm awaits me, and I can feel the wind taking me as we climb.

Even as he thought that, there was a crackle of fire in the sky, as lightning rippled through the clouds. Karpov felt a tingling static, and something compelled him to look for the ladder up from the main bridge gondola.

“Admiral off the bridge!” called the Boatswain as he went, and the eyes of the crew followed him as he climbed, just high enough to gaze up into the massive interior of the airship. He perceived a tangible odor of ozone, sharp in the air around him now, and was awed to see a faint green glow emanating from the duralumin skeleton of the ship. It was happening again! It was happening just as he knew it would. Ahead full and on ‘til eternity!

The ship lurched in the heavy winds, and he steadied himself on the ladder, slowly descending to the main gondola again, announced by the Boatswain.

“Steady as she goes,” he said, and Air Commandant Bogrov gave him a wide eyed look. The elevator man was tensely laboring at his wheel, struggling to keep the ship aligned properly in the storm. The crack of lightning sounded again, a whiplash that sent the wind howling with pain. Tunguska shuddered as it rolled in the sky, climbing, climbing through decades to a future time, and a moment of destiny that Karpov was determined to write into Fedorov’s history books.

“All hands stand ready. Gun crews to battle stations!”

Karpov steeled himself for combat, knowing, with every fiber of his being, that he would lead the ship to a place in time that was precisely where he needed to be to savor his moment of vengeance. A man was never adrift on the sea of time, he knew. He was always precisely where he belonged, and it could never be otherwise.

There came a dull roar, perhaps the wind, perhaps the cold draft of infinity. The ship trembled in that moment, and then slipped through to another, vanishing from the skies of 1909, an emerging somewhere else. There it hung in the skies above Ilanskiy, a massive, looming presence, until shadows formed in the sky beneath the ship, and the dull boom of thunder resounded like a kettle drum.

No, not thunder, Karpov knew, but the roar of cannon fire!

“Gunners, man all weapons! Crews deploy topside, and ready for action! Mark your targets on my command!”

Bogrov turned to Karpov, a look of surprise and astonishment on his face. What was the Admiral saying? He had been fighting to maintain control of the airship as it rolled in the livid sky, and suddenly Karpov was barking out orders as if they were going into combat.

Then the shadows around the ship congealed to solid shapes, long grey cylinders in the sky and his surprise was complete. Airships! Suddenly the sky below them was filled with airships! His eyes widened with shock as he saw the dark eagle wing insignia emerging from a sharp letter “V” on the tail of the nearest ship.

“Ahoy! Airships off the starboard bow!” His voice betrayed credulity as he instinctively shouted out the warning.

Karpov had already seen them, his field glasses raised to his eyes, and his voice was hard with an order. “Forward gondola. All guns to bear on targets ahead. Fire!”

Mother of god, thought Bogrov. What was happening? He knew that insignia as if it were branded on his own skin, the sharp “V” for Volkov, the black wings of an imperial eagle, dark on the dull grey canvas. These ships were Orenburg Federation vessels! Where had they come from?

The sharp crack of the recoilless rifles, all 105mm guns, punctuated the moment, and Bogrov knew that his next order would be to come about and bring the main guns on the command gondola to bear. The ship was in just the perfect position to attack the formation ahead, about 500 meters above the enemy airships, and just behind a squadron of four ships.

Off in the distance he thought he saw lightning in the sky, but the dull crack of gunfire followed the flash, and he could dimly see the darkened shapes of more airships. A battle was raging there, and the dull red tint of one ship told him they were not alone in this fight.

“Ahoy! More ships off the port bow, and below. I think that’s Big Red out there!”

It was.

Old Krasny, Big Red, was fighting for her life at that moment. The news of the sudden incursion by the Orenburg fleet had shaken the morale of the Siberians. Karpov was gone, lost in that storm over the English Channel, and chaos had ensued. A big attack opened on the Ob River line, with at least five enemy divisions thrown into the fight. It was a major push to break through north of Novosibirsk, the place where Karpov had smashed the last enemy attack with his daring and innovative thermobaric bomb.

Then the airships came, the skies darkening with the first division of the Orenburg Northern fleet. The Siberians had only one ship in that sector, Yakutsk, and it was soon engaged by all of four enemy airships, the fleet flagship Orenburg among them. Brave Yakutsk but up a good fight, but was overmatched and blasted from the sky. Yet she had managed to make the enemy pay for her death, putting enough damage on two enemy airships that they were detached and sent home.

The remainder of that division hovered in the sky above the smoldering wreck of Yakutsk, as if they intended to feed on the carcass of the ship, watching until the hot fires laid the ravaged skeletal frame bare. Yet the ship had not died in vain. It put up just enough of a fight to buy the Siberian fleet a little time to rise for battle.

Aboard the Orenburg, Security Chief Kymchek had reported that the first enemy ship had fallen. With Pavlodar still burning when it was detached, and Talgar down at ground level with Saran to off load its troop contingent before returning home for repairs, Volkov’s main division was light, until reinforced by four more ships from the Caspian fleet. Two hours later, Admiral Zorki arrived with four battlecruiser class airships: Armavir, Anapa, Sochi and Salsk. They joined battlecruiser Saran and the fleet flagship Orenburg, and moved east in a massive formation of six airships, heading for Ilanskiy. Out in front of this formation, some 300 miles ahead, was the Southern Division under Admiral Gomel, with four more airships, battlecruisers all about 100,000 cubic meter capacity. This force, Sarkand, Tashkent, Samarkand, and Angren, would soon find an engage the hasty defense mounted by the enemy northeast of Ilanskiy.

There were two Siberian airships, the heavy cruiser Tomsk, a smaller 100,000 cubic meter ship, and the big battleship Krasnoyarsk, “Old Krasny,” as it was called by the Siberians. Big Red loomed over the scene, her massive bulk expanding with 180,000 cubic meter volume. That fight was raging in the sky when Volkov gave the order to begin air landing operations with the four ships of the Caspian Fleet. He would retain Orenburg and Saran on overwatch while he monitored both operations from the command capsule aboard the fleet flagship. It was an detachable armored chamber, hidden like an egg within the underlying bulk of Orenburg, just forward of the main gondola. From here Volkov could sit in relative safety, peering through observation ports, and receiving status updates from Kymchek over voice tubes and telegraph.

One day I will have to get a proper intercom system set up on this ship, he thought, but there were more urgent plans before him now. They were riding high, at 10,000 meters in darkening skies. Rain had followed them, a long cold front sweeping east in the wake of the fleet sortie. He had won his first battle, laying Yakutsk to rest easily enough, and the damage to his two heavy cruisers was not serious. But they would be out of the action for some time, though that was of little concern to him. He would now outnumber the enemy fleet ten to five in the immediate vicinity of Ilanskiy. They still had two more ships further east near lake Baikal watching the Japanese front, and he would deal with those in due course.

For now, two to one odds suited him very well, and so he ordered the Caspian Fleet to descend for troop deployment while the Southern Division dispatched the two enemy airships that had sallied out to challenge them. So there he sat, a cup of brandy in one hand, a pair of field glasses in the other, safely sheltered in the hidden armored sphere of his command capsule.

“Kymchek here,” came a voice through the tube to his right. “The fight ahead is going well. Tomsk is hit, and burning badly, but two of our ships report damage.”

That didn’t matter either. Volkov thought that he could lose all four ships in that division, and then still outnumber the Siberians six to three with his remaining ships. This was going to roll on to its inevitable outcome. It was simply a matter of having more men, material, and insurmountable odds in his favor, and he knew he would prevail. What will they write about my little battle here in days ahead, he wondered?

“That storm astern is moving up on us fast,” said Kymchek.

“Never mind the weather, Kymchek. Just let me know when those two airships are destroyed.”

It was then that Volkov heard a tearing sound of lightning that was enough to send a chill down his spine. Perhaps I should mind the weather, he thought. This storm could complicate my troop landing operation, and if the wind rises too much it will scatter my airborne troops all over the taiga. Southern Division has all four battalions on the ground, but I’ll need the troops from the Caspian Division to have any chance of taking Ilanskiy. The men from the two airships I sent home will stand in reserve at Kansk…. Which reminded him, and he shouted a question at Kymchek through the voice tube.

“What about Kansk? Are my men there yet?”

“Kansk? Yes sir, they are outside the town now. We took the garrison there by surprise, and should have the place secured in a few hours time.”

“Good, Carry on, Kymchek.”

Again that searing lightning, sending a shudder through Volkov’s frame, and jostling his hand so much that he almost spilled his tea. I should be back in Orenburg in my study revising the plans for those new jet fighter craft I plan on selling to Germany. Yes, I have the plans, but they have the factories, a good marriage. I must go to Peenemunde to see how things are progressing with engine development. Once they get that right, then it will be much easier to apply that technology to missile development. That damn battlecruiser gave the Germans quite a shock, but that worked out well for me. Now that the Germans have seen what a good missile can do, they are much more interested in talking.

He smiled, then passed another moment of trepidation when he felt the ship shudder, the air quaver around him, and a strange crackling static infested a brief moment of hushed stillness. What was happening?

“Kymchek? What in god’s name is going on? Is the ship under attack? I thought you told me the zone was secure for this landing operation!”

Silence. No voice in return, but then the sounds of men yelling, their voices distended and hollow through the voice tube. There was some great commotion underway on the bridge, and Volkov leaned to the nearest viewport, straining to see what was happening outside.

The sound of a recoilless rifle barrage joined the thunder of the storm with a sharp report. Then came the voice of Captain Grankin, hard and fraught with alarm, through the voice tube. “Ship off the starboard aft quarter! We are under attack!”

Chapter 8

Tunguska was a truly massive airship, the largest craft that had ever flown in the skies above the earth. With 225,000 cubic meter volume, it was also the longest craft ever to fly at over 1000 feet. A modern day 747 jumbo jet would seem a small thing in passing. And the ship had power to match its size, with twelve 76mm recoilless rifles, and twelve more larger guns at 105mm. To these Karpov had added two missile racks, one with 36 RS82mm rockets, and one with 24 larger RS132mm rockets. For air defense the ship deployed six twin 20mm gun mounts and eighteen heavy machineguns, though these were mainly used against small aircraft of the day. In a duel between airships, it was the larger recoilless rifles that would do the real damage. The innovative self-sealing lining on the interior gas bags could only be frustrated by a round of at least 76mm, which could defeat the resealing effort and cause a permanent rupture. The 105mm rifles were even better, and came to be called “the bag busters” in the air service.

By fate, chance, or perhaps through the sheer effort of his own will, as Karpov believed, the ship had appeared in a perfect position to ambush Volkov’s Caspian Division as it was descending to conduct troop deployment operations. There, some 500 meters below the massive airship, a group of four smaller 120,000 cubic meter volume battlecruisers was gliding in a tight square formation. At lower elevation they would separate to gain adequate space for troop deployment, but now they made a perfect target. And Karpov’s eyes lit up with hot fire when he saw them.

“Thermobaric crews! Make ready to deploy forward weapon! Prepare to climb, Bogrov.”

The rifle crews were already opening fire on the enemy ships, but Karpov had another terrible surprise for them, He was carrying two of his prized thermobaric bombs, christened “Autumn Mist” in his code lexicon. They would eject from the ship, fall to a designated altitude, and then deploy parachutes to hover in the sky, dispensing a highly volatile mist that could be ignited by incendiary rounds. The Autumn Mist would then become a hot, all consuming fire, and it was a perfect weapon to attack the formation below and deal a heavy blow.

Reach for the hammer first. Karpov no longer hesitated to deploy the most powerful weapon at his disposal if he saw clear advantage in doing so. The thermobaric bomb was Tunguska’s equivalent of a nuclear warhead, and as the undisputed master of the airship, and the fleet it led, there was no hand to restrain Karpov now, no key around his neck requiring another to turn in agreement. He could unleash hell with a single word, and did not hesitate a moment when he saw the opportunity beneath him.

“Sir, two more airships off the port quarter, about 100 meters above us!”

Karpov turned to look for them, seeing the long grey shapes in the sky, nearly as big as his own ship. It was the enemy flagship, Orenburg, and he clenched his fist, eager to engage.

“Bogrov! Climb! Get me elevation!”

“Aye sir, flushing number one and three ballast now!”

The order was given to deploy the forward thermobaric, and its weight in falling also helped to lighten the ship as Tunguska vented ballast in a rain of water. They could see that the other airships, Orenburg attended by the smaller battlecruiser Saran, were also venting ballast, and the race for elevation was on. Yet falling with the rain, Karpov’s deadly weapon plummeted down, the parachutes snapping out to slow the fall just above the center of the airship formation below.

The gun crews on the ships below saw the chute deploy, yet it seemed deceptively harmless, perhaps a ballast weight dropped by the other ship, or a range marker for their gunners. The topside crews had only just reached their gun mounts, surprised as they were by the sudden appearance of the massive airship above them. It seemed as if Tunguska had just emerged from a cloud, its flanks rippled with eerie phosphorescent lightning that looked like Saint Elmo’s fire. Then, on Karpov’s command, the forward gondola loaded incendiary rounds and took aim on their own falling parachute. Karpov was lighting his match.

The resulting explosion was terrible to witness, a massive fireball that expanded to quickly engulf the nearest ship, the unlucky Battlecruiser Salsk. It was a ship about the size of Karpov’s old command on the Abakan, at 120,000 cubic meter volume. Its gunners barely had the time to load and train their topside guns when the explosion engulfed the ship, expanding in a horrific plume of hot fire. Salsk was immolated by the weapon, and the shock of the pressure wave struck the other airships a heavy blow. The tail of Armavir was also on fire where a plume of flame caught it and spun the airship about. Both Anapa and Sochi rolled heavily, yet being forward of the main explosion, they were spared the all consuming fire.

Salsk had her canvas shell seared off in just seconds, gas bags exploding as the temperatures literally melted away the self-sealing linings. When the intense fireball diminished, Karpov could see the skeleton of the ship glowing hot from the blow he had delivered. Burned and savaged by the heavy shock wave, anyone alive on Salsk would soon be asphyxiated as the searing fire consumed all the oxygen in the immediate vicinity of the explosion.

It would have been a much heavier blow if the weather had been calm. As it was, the deadly Autumn Mist sprayed by the falling bomb was too dispersed on the wind, and the explosion was only half as intense as it might have been in calm conditions. But it was enough. Karpov had his first kill, as Salsk withered away and began to fall, all buoyancy lost, the ravaged frame of the airship bent and afire. Karpov could see that the tail of a second ship, Armavir, was also engulfed in flames, and he knew that airship would soon lose its ability to steer and maneuver.

“Come hard to port! Concentrate fire on those forward ships! Give them the bag busters!”

The gunners on Tunguska were quick to respond, feeding shells to the bigger 105mm breech loading rifles on the main command gondola and firing. The skies bloomed with the black roses of the explosions around the enemy ships, but the gunners were getting many direct hits against the ponderous targets below. Karpov could see the outer canvas of the forward ships torn by the shells, the glow of fire within, and then the trail of heavy smoke from the wound, the vaporous blood of an airship in distress.

One ship, the Anapa, was still descending, perhaps from loss of lift due to the many holes Tunguska had punched in her outer shell, the rounds penetrating to the gas bags within. Yet the second ship, Sochi, was trying to climb, hoping its lighter weight might outpace the elevation gain of the bigger dreadnought above it. For a moment it seemed as though the ship would succeed, blowing all its ballast in a desperate attempt to gain rapid elevation and get out from under the serried rows of the gondola mounted rifles on the massive enemy above. But Karpov saw what they were doing, and had a quick reprisal in mind.

“Forward gondola!” he shouted. “Ready on RS82 system. Target that ship and fire!”

Seconds later the hiss of the 82mm rockets filled the air as a stream of twelve fired out from the rocket mounting. With the rear of the firing tubes venting to open air, the elevation gain of the enemy, quickly rising to come even with Tunguska, actually played in Karpov’s favor. The rocket rack had limited downward angles of fire, or the hot fire of the engines might be directed back at Tunguska’s underbelly. It was meant to be fired dead ahead, with the rockets eventually falling on ground targets as a saturation artillery weapon, but in this case it proved a remarkably effective anti-airship weapon.

The rockets seared into Sochi, striking her brow as she climbed and shredding the canvas with the fire of their explosions. The upper girder structure of the interior frame was blasted apart, and the ship suddenly seemed to be breaking in two, with the intact nose section bending downward as the central frame failed. Then fire blazoned in the gash ripped by the rockets, and Karpov knew he had struck the ship a fatal blow.

Two enemy airships down, one wounded and possibly out of the fight. The battle was opening well for Tunguska, but the Orenburg had recovered from the shock of the surprise arrival, and was beginning to return fire.

Kymchek was on the main bridge, horrified by the scene below as he watched Salsk, and then Sochi die their agonizing deaths by fire. Rockets! Why didn’t we think to mount Katyushas on this ship? Too late now. It will have to be up to the gunners, but we need more elevation. That monster out there just dropped heavy ballast, and it’s climbing fast. Any advantage we had will be lost, and god help us if that beast gets above us. My god! Look at those guns!

As Security Chief, Kymchek also stood in as fire control officer on the Orenburg when the ship was engaged. He had coolly directed the gunnery during the earlier engagement that had dispatched the Siberian battleship Yakutsk, but that ship had been heavily outnumbered, and had no chance of survival. The enemy they were facing now was an order of magnitude bigger. How in god’s name could we fail to detect that airship? Were the radar crews and watchmen blind? It was massive, bigger than anything he had ever seen. By comparison, the big battle underway ahead of them with Old Krasny would be a side show to the action that would now be fought here. That ship dwarfs Big Red, he knew. What could it be, a new ship we knew nothing about?

That was simply not possible. Kymchek knew his intelligence network was simply too good to miss the deployment of a ship like that. He peered through his field glasses, struggling to find insignia, and there, at the heart of the prominent double headed eagle of the Siberian State, was the Serial number: T1. The T Class airships were small heavy cruisers at 100,000 cubic meter volume. The Siberians had two in that class, Tomsk and Talmenka, and the Orenburg Federation deployed three with Tashkent, Talgar and Taraz. That serial number belonged to Talmenka, but that ship was deployed far to the south, well away from this action, and this was not the old T Class he knew. While the shape and design of the airship was similar to the heavy cruisers, this ship was more than twice their size! It was bigger than the Narva class airships deployed by the Soviets, and by god, it was even bigger than the Orenburg!

T1! The new T class the Siberians had built this year… This was Tunguska! It could be nothing else. Yet that ship was reported lost over the English Channel just last week. How could it be here? Were all his network reports in error? Impossible!

“All guns to bear on that ship!” he pointed, and the rifle crews began to return fire in the chaos of the command bridge. The sharp report of the guns was deafening, the shell casings ejecting and falling from the ship as they fired, and smoke from their fire wafting up to the bridge level above.

Kymchek was on the voice tube to Volkov with the bad news. He knew he would have to answer for what was happening here now, and did not know how he could explain the presence of this ship, other than to say the obvious.

“Sir! That ship out there—it’s the T1—Tunguska!”

Volkov heard the clamor on the bridge, and the firing of the guns on the main gondola. Then Kymchek’s voice was loud in the tube again, and his eyes widened with surprise.

“Tunguska? Karpov? How is that possible? What in hell are you saying, Kymchek?”

“Sir… The reports we had… Well that must have been a deception, false information. There is no other explanation.”

The heat rose on Volkov’s neck, his eyes bulging with anger. “Damn your soul, man! False information? Are we that stupid?” Yet even as he shouted this his mind began to piece together the truth of what must have happened. Tunguska had been over Germany, rashly bombing Berlin before it made for the English Channel, apparently bound for London. Then the news was on the BBC of the airship lost in that storm, but they had never found evidence of the wreckage.

Yes, that was it. Karpov! That bastard must have been in league with the allies all along. He had just come from that meeting with Sergei Kirov, and there must have been some secret arrangement made with London at the same time. Perhaps he never sailed west at all, but turned about to come here. Could Karpov have learned of my plans? We were pulling airships off the front lines and assembling the fleet for this operation just a day after we got the news that his airship had gone down. The news was still fresh. Probably too fresh to really blame Kymchek for this lapse, though I’ll give him hell in any case.

But what to do now? The roar of the battle was growing and he felt the ship shudder with a direct hit. He craned his neck, seeing the forward gondola had taken the blow, with smoke and fire there.

Karpov! That son of a bitch! Look what he did to the Caspian Division. The skies were black with the smoke of Salsk and Sochi as they fell to their doom. Armavir was burning badly from her tail, unable to maneuver, and descending as rapidly as she could. Anapa had fallen off and dropped elevation as well, intent on fulfilling its mission and putting her valuable troops on the ground. Armavir was trying to get down, but now he saw the skies dotted with the tiny dark shapes of men leaping from that ship. The flutter of parachutes followed, and Volkov took some solace to think that battalion might also get men on the ground. He would need everything he had to press a credible attack on Ilanskiy.

That is the key, he thought. I must get the ship to Ilanskiy. Once I control that place on the ground, I’ll have the one thing Karpov prizes most.

“Kymchek! Break off this attack. Make for Ilanskiy, all engines ahead full.”

“But sir… That will take us directly into that storm front!”

“Damn the weather. All ships to Ilanskiy! Signal the Southern Division ahead to do the same. The fleet will regroup there. Understood?”

“Aye sir, signaling fleet regroup orders now.”

Aboard Tunguska, Karpov smiled when they scored the first hits on the Orenburg. The enemy flagship had been trying to climb, and maneuvering to bring all its gondola mounted guns to bear. Tunguska took a direct hit from the lighter 76mm rifles on the ship’s forward gondola. Then she returned a well aimed 105mm round there, and took her revenge.

Yes, revenge, vengeance, vendetta. That was what Karpov had in hand now. Was Volkov on the Orenburg? Was he looking at what I just did to those little airships of his below? Look at those fires!

Bogrov turned, a warning in his tone. “They’re breaking off, sir. It looks like they’re going to run for that squall line.”

Karpov saw the unwieldy bulk of the Orenburg veering off, the ship’s great nose coming around, and heard the fitful thrumming of engines.

“Shall we come round and pursue?”

Karpov thought quickly, his eyes moving from the silver-grey mass of Orenburg to the more distant battle where he could vaguely see Big Red in action at lower elevations ahead. Another ship was burning there, and reports indicated that they were going to lose the heavy cruiser Tomsk. He looked at the storm front ahead, thinking that the weather had its own dark pact with the tempest that had sent him here from 1909. If he pursued, what might happen to Tunguska? Was that front energetic enough to affect the ship’s position in time? Might he vanish from the scene right in the midst of the fight here, even as he had appeared to the great surprise and bewilderment of his enemy?

“No!” he ordered. “Do not follow Orenburg. Avoid that storm front. Make for Big Red, and all ahead full!”

Chapter 9

“Old Krasny” was hanging in the skies above the small hamlet of Karapsel, half way between Kansk on the River Kan and Ilanskiy to the east. The day was late and the setting sun finally fell low enough to send its amber gleam beneath the cloud deck. The light painted the dull red canvass in a tawny shade of port as the airship battled on.

The skies about Big Red were ripped by explosions. The ship’s aft gondola had been hit, the number four engine burning there. And above, on the broad flanks of the ship, three holes had been torn in the outer skin of the airship, one a large gash where singed canvas still fluttered fitfully in the wind.

The ship seemed to gasp, and then a rain of water fell from the bulbous nose as more ballast was vented. Big Red was struggling for elevation now, with at least two interior gas bags pierced by enemy shells and leaking helium, one on the verge of collapse.

Three enemy airships hung in the violent airs about her, two ‘S Class” airships at 120,000 cubic meter volume, the Samarkand and Sarkand. Above, and slightly behind was the Angren, a ship of equal size in the same “A Class” as Karpov’s old flagship Abakan. The last ship in this division, heavy cruiser Tashkent, had taken a full broadside from Krasnoyarsk, and was damaged so badly that it was forced to break off and run north for the open taiga. And Angren had taken hits as well, a deep gash gouged in the brow of the ship where crews had struggled to put out a fire that threatened to burn away the outer skin.

Big Red was well named at 180,000 cubic meter volume, with six 105mm recoilless rifles and another ten smaller 76mm guns. Yet it was still outgunned by the combined weight of enemy firepower. Now the odds were about to take a dramatic shift as Tunguska loomed on the scene, bringing another twenty four main guns to the battle, with half of those being the bigger 105mm caliber. To make matters worse for the enemy, Karpov had a thousand meter elevation advantage as he approached, so all his gondola mounted rifles were going to have perfect fields of fire, while the enemy could only bring its topside mounted guns to bear on him, and these totaled only six lighter 76mm guns between all these enemy ships.

Tunguska came in with a roaring broadside against the Angren, the skies about the enemy ship blooming with dark, fiery explosions. The gunners had the range, and the next salvoes were beginning to tear into the hull of the ship, the big 105s ripping holes through the outer shell, piercing the gas bags within, and blasting away fragments of the duralumin frame. Already fighting fires, the engineers climbing the interior ladders to damage control platforms, found themselves shaken and riddled with shrapnel. Some fell from their perches on the upper interior superstructure and plummeted down into the voids between the massive gas bags.

The forward nose bag had now taken so many hits that it collapsed, and the greater buoyancy of Angren’s tail set it drifting skyward, as if the airship was going into a nosedive, even though it still hung suspended in the tumult of the raging battle. Shocked by the sudden appearance of Tunguska, a ship nearly twice its size, the frantic topside gunners on Angren were turning every weapon they had on the enemy, sending thin streams of machinegun fire up in futile defiance.

“Main gondola gunners,” Karpov shouted through the voice tube to the men below. “Hold fire until all tubes are reloaded. Hit that damn ship amidships with one salvo on my command…. Ready… Fire!”

The resulting fire from all the rifles on the main gondola blasted into the heart of the enemy ship, tearing a massive hole in her side to expose the interior frame. There Karpov could see that the number three gas bag had been rent asunder, and was collapsing like a wet rag, the linings burning and soon engulfing the ship in choking black smoke. It was a fatal blow, and then there came two secondary explosions when the fires found reserve oxygen tanks. The resulting infusion of oxygen fed the flames, and the bridge crews watched the one nightmare they all secretly feared, the rapid, burning death of the airship, as fires engulfed it from bow to stern, and men fell, or leapt, from gondolas, preferring the headlong fall to the terror of a fiery death.

Angren hung in the sky, seeming to roll to one side for one brief moment, and then began to fall, the weight of the duralumin frame and gondolas overcoming all remaining buoyancy. It was now a fair fight, at least where ship numbers were counted. Yet with the loss of Angren, the captains of the two S Class ships could now clearly see that they were overmatched. Tunguska might have easily beaten them both, and though bruised and bleeding, Big Red was still throwing hard punches with its 105s.

Samarkand was the first to turn north, thinking to follow in the wake of the now distant heavy cruiser Tashkent. The Captain of Sarkand saw his sister ship turn, and knew that speed and maneuverability was now his only salvation. Both ships ran for the nearest cloud they could find, the skies about them pocked with explosions as they fled. The gunners began to cheer as the enemy turned, and Karpov smiled.

Big Red would live to fight another day. He was already re-writing the book Tyrenkov had found in that excursion up the stairs of the railway inn.

“Tyrenkov!” Karpov ordered. “Signal all ships to make for Ilanskiy. Tell them Vladimir Karpov is back, and ready for a fight!”

Kymchek stood in the open hatch to the armored command capsule where Volkov huddled. He saw the broken bottle of brandy on the deck, the sharp shards of glass a cruel microcosm of what had befallen the fleet. Volkov had thought to sip his brandy as he watched the battle in sedate isolation here, but the appearance of Tunguska had shaken the fleet to its core.

Two ships, Pavlodar and Talgar, had already been dispatched home after the initial battle that downed the enemy battleship Yakutsk. Salsk had been immolated by that dreadful fire bomb Karpov had deployed, and Sochi was smashed by those rockets. Now news came that Angren was down, Tashkent battered and fleeing north with the two S Class ships of that division.

“Samarkand and Sarkand are still battle worthy,” said Kymchek, trying to soften the blow as he reported. “They are steering for Ilanskiy as ordered, and will join our division there. If Tashkent can control her fires and stay in the fight, that will still give us six airships there when we reform. Anapa was the only ship to escape that surprise attack on the Caspian Division and got her troops down safely. She’ll join us directly.”

“Half the fleet is out of action!” Volkov blustered. “Where did Karpov come from? How did he manage to get a ship of that size in here without a single sighting from anyone in the fleet?” He shook his head, deeply bothered, his eyes moving about the confined space of the capsule as if he were a caged tiger, glowering to break free and get at his enemy. Then he clenched his jaw, a smoldering fire in his eyes beneath the thick gray hair, and reached for his map.

“What is happening on the ground?” he asked tersely.

“Most every ship was able to deploy troops,” said Kymchek. “We got 1500 men down, some northeast of Kansk, and the main body north of Ilanskiy.”

The “battalions” that the airships carried were really no more than large company sized units, though they were well armed, and among the best troops in the army. Orenburg could deploy about 200 men, with most of the other ships capable of lifting between 100 and 150. Volkov’s air mobile “division” would therefore not be much more than a single brigade in actual size, until fresh troops could be air lifted from the western front. Kymchek had warned him they would be outnumbered on the ground, with a full Siberian division occupying the area from Kansk to Ilanskiy. Yet Volkov had assumed he would quickly overpower the smaller Siberian airship fleet, and therefore have complete air superiority over the battlefield to pound the enemy from above.

The sudden appearance of Tunguska had changed all that. Now the fleet might have a hard fight when it reached Ilanskiy. They expected at least two other Siberian airships were lurking there on overwatch, the Abakan and Angara, the two ships that had successfully defended the place during the first raid mounted by Volkov, albeit with a little help from Kandemir Troyak and the heavy weapons fielded by the Russian Marines. With Krasnoyarsk and Tunguska now maneuvering to Ilanskiy, the odds were not as wide as Volkov had hoped.

“We’ll have six airships to their four,” he said darkly. “What about their ships out east?” He was asking about the Siberian eastern flotilla, where two more battleships, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk were supporting Kolchak in his uneasy watch along the frontier with the Japanese empire.

“The last word we had, as of 6:00 this morning, still had both those airships near Lake Baikal. That’s about 700 kilometers to the southeast. They might be here by dusk if they were summoned.”

“Not a very satisfactory situation,” Volkov steamed. “This will simply not do. Send to fleet command in Orenburg. I want every airship they can get their hands on mustered to a new division and heading east within the hour. Any ship that broke off and ran from the enemy here will answer to me personally, from the Captain on down through every crew station. I came here to command this damn operation, not to involve the fleet flagship in the fighting, yet now that is inevitable. We were hit back there, is the damage controlled?”

“A minor breach on the number six gas bag,” said Kymchek. “Gas volume was off fifteen percent there, but the engineers have patched it and re-inflated. Aside from some minor welding on the airframe, the ship is in good fighting trim.”

“Very well…” Volkov had a harried look on his face now. “What’s your assessment, Kymchek? Is this the place to have this fight?”

“It will be a risky operation, sir, but with all our troops landed, we’re committed here. Pavlodar and Talgar may get back west soon. If their damage is not great they could return with reinforcements. Krasnodar and Stavropol have already completed loading operations and should be underway soon. They will have troops as well.”

“You sound worried, Kymchek.”

“Well sir, the 11th Siberian Rifles are still down there. Karpov planted that division here last month, and they’ll have artillery. We hoped this unit would be rushed to the Ob River line after our attack started there, but at least a full infantry regiment remains here. The rail lines must be interdicted, in both directions, or we will likely see even more enemy forces arriving.”

“And the operation on the Ob River?”

“We’re still heavily engaged there. Three divisions are on the line, the last two are maneuvering north, but the Siberians have brought up the damn Tartar cavalry there. They won’t stop a regular division, but they’ll damn well slow us down. The woodlands are thick on that flank, with nothing in the area you could call a road. Our faster armored cars and lorried infantry will have a rough time there. I would not think we could count on any rapid movement east from the Ob River line, but we knew this from the outset.”

“Yes, you were quick to point that out the moment I proposed this operation. Something tells me you have been a reluctant warrior in this from the very first.”

“Sir, I will do all in my power to serve your interests and see that we prevail here… but—”

“But what, Kymchek?”

“But I’m a realist, sir. We can cut the rail lines here, tear up the tracks, but with our forces divided between Kansk and Ilanskiy, the prospect of taking the latter is not good, particularly if they do have the artillery I expect here, or even armor.”

“Armor? You said nothing of that before.”

“The 11th Siberian has a mobile element, with a full company of light tanks and two motorized rifle companies. It was in my report, and could be on the scene now. In any case, it will not be far away.”

“What kind of armor?”

“Armored cars, lighter T-60 and T-70 tanks.”

“We can stop those tanks, yes?”

“With what, sir? We brought no AT guns with us here. The men have AT rifles, grenades, and a couple 76mm recoilless rifles for direct fire support, but little else to stop an enemy tank.”

“Then we’ll hit them with our 105s from above. That was the plan from the beginning. I’m going to pound that Siberian Division all night if I have to.”

“Assuming we win the airship battle here.” Kymchek needed to say that, risky as it was. What good was his advice if he didn’t have the backbone to speak his mind?

Volkov shook his head, staring at the map, then decided something. “The plan to take the bridges at Kansk is to be scrapped. Instead that force is to simply tear up the rail lines east of Kansk and then fall back on Ilanskiy. I’ll want our entire ground contingent focused on that objective—and get that message off to fleet command. I want every airship we can find. I don’t care if we strip the entire front, by god! That bastard pulled a fast one here, and he’s not going to get away with it. I want the rest of the 22nd Airmobile division out here immediately!”

“There’s one other thing, sir—the objective.”

“The railway inn in the center of town. I want that under my thumb as soon as possible.”

“But why, sir? What is so important about that inn?” Kymchek knew it was dangerous to ask this again, but his need to understand the objective was paramount.”

“Just take it, Kymchek. I don’t care if we sacrifice every god damned squad in the brigade, but you take that railway inn! Understand? No more questions about it. Just get the job done!”

“Aye sir.”

Kymchek saluted and re-sealed the capsule hatch, leaving Volkov with his broken brandy flask and map. This wasn’t how things were supposed to pan out. I should be high above that storm, receiving reports on the ground fighting while I dined in my stateroom. Now look at me, huddled in this damn escape pod! Orenburg was never supposed to enter actual combat. I had eleven other airships with me to do that, but things have changed with the wind. Now this whole plan seems cursed. Karpov appears here out of thin air, coming right out of the heart of that storm. When this is over I’m going to find out how he managed that. In fact, that interrogation will be the only consolation I have in this affair.

Yet that ship of his… Tunguska is a match for Orenburg, and Karpov is too damn good at the helm. This could get very dangerous, and very soon, but I’m going to get to that railway inn if it’s the last thing I do.

Even as he thought that, another part of his mind realized how desperate and stubborn he was being here, and how rash and foolish. Suppose you do take the inn, it chided him, then what? Are you going to just sit there surrounded by your ground troops while Karpov summons every unit he can find within 300 kilometers of this place? And the inn itself is of no use to you now, correct? It was demolished in that earlier raid mounted by Sergie Kirov, and has not yet been rebuilt. What are you doing here? You’re making this a personal little vendetta, when you should be thinking in broader strategic terms. The Germans are about to launch their big operation against the Soviets. You should be back in Orenburg, planning how best to support that attack. Instead…

Vendetta!