Lions at Dawn

Chapter 34

“Bear!” said Rodenko, seeing another enemy plane. At 10:23 his screen lit up with scarlet, the blood red contacts piling up as his system reported the position of Kita’s other two groups. “Four unidentified aircraft due north, same elevation and speed increasing through 600 knots. It looks like they’ve put ordnance in the air. Wolfhounds! I’m reading multiple contact clusters. And I’m getting another off axis airborne contact—Bears—with more hounds in the air at 45 degrees northeast. My god, I have 64 separate contacts inbound!”

The Western brevity code would had tagged the planes as ‘Bogies,’ and the missiles or bombs as ‘Vampires.’ No one knew much about Russian brevity code, short phrases meant to convey a quick message in the heat of battle. The crew of Kirov had long used the word ‘bear’ to indicate a hostile contact, and the wolfhounds that ran with it were the enemy missiles and bombs.

Karpov could not believe what he was hearing. F-35B fighters had been clearly identified by his systems, and they were coming in fast and furious. While he had concentrated his SAMs on the first group they spotted in the center, two other groups had remained undetected on the wings until they suddenly delivered their ordnance, and his mind was already racing through his own internal database to determine what might be coming his way. Those planes could carry the American Joint Standoff Attack Missile, but not in such numbers, and not released at that range.

Sixty-four Wolfhounds….

“Rodenko! Do you have the planes that made that delivery?”

“Yes sir. They are turning and breaking off to the north.”

“How many did you say? Quick!”

“Two groups of four planes each.”

“Range to leading hound?”

“62 nautical miles, sir. Inbound at a little over 550 knots.”

Bears and Wolfhounds. Planes and unfriendly ordnance inbound on his ship. There was only one way the human side of him could respond.

“Damn!” Karpov swore. Now he knew what his enemy had just thrown at him. “Smart bombs!” he said. “They have to be GBU-53s.”

He had spent hours and hours studying American Naval strike ordnance to learn their characteristics and applications, and match them to the aircraft that could carry them. He knew all the typical loadouts common to the F-35. It was one reason why he was so good in combat. His razor sharp mind for battle was operating on top of a thick database of real knowledge. The F-35 could carry the GBU-53, and one loadout configuration allowed for eight bombs to be carried in the internal weapons bay. Its optimal release point was about 60 nautical miles out, and that’s what Rodenko had just reported to him: eight planes, 64 hounds in the air running subsonic, unthinking death from above, gliding towards him with precision navigation systems and a host of other sensors guiding them in.

Smart bomb munitions were central to the American bag of tricks in naval combat, but who was out there? How did it get here? He could not answer those questions. His mind was all focused on the adrenaline of fight or flight, and for Karpov every synapse in a situation like this screamed at him to fight.

“Helm, ahead flank and hard to port. Come to 145!”

This was going to cost him—big time—where missile inventory was concerned, but it was sink or swim now. The life of the ship and crew was at stake here. His own life, and all his heated aspirations, were on the line, in the crosshairs of those incoming wolfhounds. It wasn’t time, or fate, or the devious will of an opponent like Volkov that was gunning for him now. It was a string of glide bombs, mindless metal, yet seeking his life with their deviously engineered electronic sensors, both radar and infra-red.

“Rodenko,” he said, his voice controlled and steady. “Deploy all offensive ECM systems.”

“Aye sir.”

“Samsonov! Switch to full automatic and fire at the group bearing 045—salvos of six. Fire!”

“String of pearls!” shouted Hideo Honjo at the CIC aboard Takami. They had been watching the battle unfold in the phosphorescence of their own sensor suite, and saw that first missile targeted at the lead plane off Akagi. Their planes had taken the direct approach to the contact, while those off Kaga had moved off axis to come at Kirov from two other angles.

They saw the lead plane get hit, the crew reacting with disappointment. When the next Russian SAM salvo struck home, there was an audible reaction from the bridge crew. Harada looked over his shoulder, feeling the same as his crew did, but knowing he had to hold it all inside.

“See to your work,” he said sternly. “This fellow nearly took us out the last time we saw him, and we have to be damn good to survive out here. Now get it done.” Tensions rose in the silence that followed until Honjo shouted out that epithet—string of pearls. He was describing the ordnance being delivered by the strike planes, all lined up on his screen.

They saw the Russian ship firing again, this time throwing serious metal. They were ignoring Takami completely, their defense now a flurry of SAMs directed at those vampires.

“Good,” Harada said under his breath. “Throw your eggs, you bastard. You’ve got to be letter perfect now, and there’s 64 smart bombs heading your way. Anything you use now is one less missile under that deck when we get close enough to get in this fight.”

They watched, spellbound, as all of 64 JDAMs dotted the screen, descending from that high altitude towards the Russian ship. Then they picked up two more very fast contacts that the system identified as the Zircon SS-N-33s. Kirov must have thrown something their way, and he authorized the use of the best long range defense asset that might have a chance at getting them—his Standard Missile 3. They had been designed to get out after ballistic missiles inbound on a carrier task force, and the Zircon running close to Mach 6 was in that same speed category. It was now going to be a contest between the very best ship killer the Russian technology had designed, against the best defense the Americans had to offer.

RIM-161B did exactly what it was designed for that day. The missiles rose with alarming speed, tracking unfailingly as they sipped data from the network of sensors playing on those two Russian speed demons. But the SM-3 was the crown jewel in the US Aegis defense system, with a Mark 104 rocket boost sustainer that was capable of throwing that missile out at the dizzying speed of 5750 knots. The Block 1 version could make Mach 10. Block 2 and later versions could go even faster at Mach 15. It was a hypersonic killer the likes of which the world had never seen, and now the two sets of missiles closed on one another like bolts of lightning jousting in the sky. The SM-3 would have the hot minute to its credit that day. Both missiles ran true. The semi-active radar homing suite found the Zircons, tracked them accurately, and the SM-3s blew them to hell.

Harada breathed a sigh of relief. He was even surprised that Karpov had bothered to throw those missiles at him, but he had just showed his adversary that Takami could still fight, slapping aside the very best missile his enemy had. Now all he had to do was get close enough to let his own SSMs fly. The ordnance delivered by Kaga and Akagi was already in the air. Karpov had taken out all the JSOW missiles on those planes before they could deploy, but all the smart bombs were still inbound, and yes, Hideo Honjo had called the tune. He could see the GBU/53s strung out like a string of pearls in the sky.

A sleek bomb when it launched, the weapon deployed a pair of long thin wings to begin its glide into the target. They were not rocket assisted in any way, moving with the sheer momentum imparted by the plane delivering the ordnance. That momentum, the wings, and gravity were doing all the work, and it amounted to a deadly saturation attack on a single target like this. By now, all of Kita’s surviving planes off the Kaga had turned for home, but that first salvo of six Growlers fired by Samsonov went out after them, and he had followed up by adding two more at the end.

Of the four F-35’s in the eastern group, he would get two, the others evading and living to return to Kaga. Nothing had been fired at the planes in the northern group, and they would all escape to return home, for now Karpov had more to worry about than the planes. In less than ten minutes, those smart bombs would converge on his ship with a lethal attack from two directions. His decks were bristling with missiles, though he had very few of his longer range SAMs remaining. His second line of defense was the Klinok system, an upgraded version of the original missile, only with much extended range.

“Samsonov. Cease fire on the S-400s. Switch to the Klinok system and fire at will. Target the same eastern group. Now!”

In they came, and now Kirov’s defensive response was coming down to brief minutes of potential life remaining as the first salvo of missiles went out to challenge those glide bombs. The bombs had been delivered from a very high altitude to get the range required to reach their intended target. So they were coming down at a range above the Klinok / Gauntlet system until they got inside 40 nautical miles. As soon as the missile could reach them, Kirov started to fire.

The tension in that moment was extreme, and nowhere more intense than in Karpov’s mind. He had gamed attacks like these a hundred times on the simulators, and they were never pretty. Throw enough metal at a target, and something was bound to get through. Yes, something always gets through, he thought.

Yet in most scenarios he ran, he had faced ordnance packages of no more than 32 Wolfhounds inbound at any one time. Even then, the odds were still not good for the ship. This was why it was always imperative that you find and attack the incoming enemy strike group before it could get to their weapon release point. The JSOW Shotai off Akagi had to get to a range of 40 nautical miles to release, which allowed Kirov to see and kill them before they could get close enough to do harm. Yet they had not even seen the other strike groups off the Kaga until they were already releasing their bombs. That was mute testimony to the effectiveness of the F-35B as a stealthy aircraft. Those planes had flown right through the overlapping radar circles of both the Russian KA-40s, completely undetected. It was only when those weapons bay doors opened, enlarging their radar return, that they were finally seen.

Stealth was a physical thing, built into the structure and design of the aircraft itself. It was achieved by design angles and exotic materials, and in this case, it worked exactly as planned. The Japanese did not have the better US standoff weapons, but the planes had gotten in close enough to deliver what they had in the magazines.

Seconds passed, and Karpov suddenly realized in one awful moment that his ship was dead. 64 Wolfhounds…. He had fought them in the simulators, battling the soft phosphor glow on the battle screens, but never once beat more than 30 incoming weapons. As good as the missiles were beneath that forward deck, the sheer mass of the attack would always see at least one or two bombs get through. This time those odds were doubled down, impossibly long, 64 wolfhounds!

In a split second his mind did the one thing it had always done when pressed into an impossible corner. His hand was moving to the missile key around his neck before he even reached a certain conclusion in his thoughts. At the same moment, he turned to Grilikov, pointing at him with two fingers extended on his right hand. It had been a pre-arranged signal between the two men, and as Karpov reached Samsonov’s station, Grilikov stood, a vast looming presence there, and pulled a second missile key from a chain around his neck.

“Samsonov—Moskit II, bank four, missile number sixteen. Program it for high altitude profile. Here is your target.” Karpov tapped the screen, indicating where he wanted the missile directed.

“Aye sir.”

Fedorov stood there, suddenly realizing what was happening. Karpov was already inserting his missile key into the CIC panel, the first authorization to fire the weapon in question, Grilikov’s big hand was right next to his, the devil and his deep dark shadow, side by side.

“On my mark…”

“What are you doing Karpov?”

“Not now Fedorov! Grilikov, turn!”

Both men rotated their keys, and the board lit up. It winked red three times, then went yellow as the missile accepted and acknowledged the attack profile that Samsonov had sent to it. A second later it went green, indicating it was ready to fire. Karpov did not hesitate one second more. He flipped up the protective plastic key mask, and pushed his thumb firmly down to fire the missile. The klaxon of doom sounded loudly, deep and jarring amid the whooshing hiss of the Klinok missiles that were still firing. Then one of the larger forward hatches opened on that long red deck, and the Sunburn was up in a roar of angry fire, climbing into the sky.

Fedorov was slack jawed. Karpov had given him the second missile key, and he instinctively reached to feel for it, finding it was still there on the chain around his neck. But Karpov had given Grilikov a third key, insurance that any fire order he would give would certainly be obeyed. Fedorov knew exactly what had happened here, chiding himself for thinking Karpov was a leopard that could ever change his spots. That number sixteen missile was carrying a nuclear warhead.

“Set missile for manual detonation,” said Karpov, and Samsonov toggled a switch, his thick finger poised, eyes on the Admiral, the first glimmer of fear awakening there. The CIC Chief knew exactly what Karpov was doing, and if his commanding officer had to resort to such measures, Samsonov knew the ship was now in the gravest possible danger.

The seconds ticked off, the Sunburn raged into the sky. Karpov took a deep breath and looked at Rodenko, who was watching him closely now. “EMCON,” he said. “All systems dark.”

“All systems dark, aye sir.” Rodenko repeated, instinctively knowing what Karpov was doing. If the weapon produced an EMP burst, the chance their electronics would receive damage was lessened when they were toggled off. For good measure, Rodenko put the system into Shield Mode, cross circuiting to a different set of relays that were highly shielded against EMP.

Then Karpov watched the Plexiglas screen, seeing the fast track of his killer missile about to reach the long string of inbound ordnance. He looked down at Samsonov and gave the final order.

“Detonate warhead.”

Chapter 35

Everyone on the bridge shirked when it went off. Karpov instinctively raising a hand to shield his eyes. He had fired the Moskit II with a 200 Kiloton warhead at the northern group of Wolfhounds, and the massive fireball, even fifty nautical miles away, dominated the entire seascape now. The blast was sufficient to destroy or divert the entire group of 32 smartbombs, consumed by the shock and fire of that terrible nuclear detonation.

There came a quavering sound on the air, and a little later the shock wave hit the ship, rattling equipment all over the bridge. The crew were now mesmerized by the display in the sky, and Karpov realized it was the first time they would have seen such a thing. That was not the case for him. He had thrown his first warhead at his enemies long ago, in the cold north Atlantic, the end of the American battlegroup that had been centered on the battleship Mississippi. Having seen what such a blow could accomplish, he fired his second special warhead in 1945, destroying, among other things, the vaunted battleship Iowa.

The quavering sound became a wind, dark, soulless, passing over the ship like a banshee. A strange glow surrounded them, and for the briefest moment, Karpov, looking at Fedorov, saw the other man vanish. An instant later Fedorov was still there, his face pallid and eyes wide as he looked around, struggling to determine what was happening.

There came a groaning sound, a low counterpoint to the last missile sent off by Kirov before Karpov turned to Samsonov and ordered him to cease fire. Now all of Fedorov’s dire warnings presented themselves in Karpov’s mind. Time was fractured, unstable, prone to increasing damage by the power of massive detonations like the one Karpov had just set off, twenty times bigger than the bombs at Hiroshima or Nagasaki The sound deepened, descended, and Karpov seemed to feel as though he were riding a fast moving elevator. Slowly, the feeling subsided. He needed to know what was happening.

“Rodenko. Light us up again. I need to know what’s out there.” He looked at Fedorov, then tapped Grilikov’s arm, nodding his head to the man as if to say “at ease.” He walked slowly towards Rodenko’s station, one eye on Fedorov. Both men would have information he needed, but Rodenko’s status report was his first concern.

“I have nothing, sir,” said Rodenko. “I cross circuited to shielded systems before the detonation, and so I’m certain my system is functioning, but I read no contacts—not even the two KA-40s. We’ve lost our data link.”

“I neglected to have Nikolin put them into EMCON mode,” said Karpov. “They might have suffered EMP damage, and as our primary line on Takami was being fed by their radars, that could account for this situation.”

“But we should still be reading those Wolfhounds at 45 degrees,” said Rodenko. “Fregat could see those clearly enough inside sixty miles.”

Yet they were gone. Karpov had killed half the Wolfhounds with his 200 Kilotons of nuclear rage, but the others had simply vanished.

“Could they have been affected by the detonation?”

“They were well to the east, sir. Over 50 nautical miles, just as we were. For that matter… Where’s the goddamned fireball…” Rodenko was staring out the forward viewport, away from his screen now as he just realized his system wasn’t even seeing that fireball any longer. Then, even as he looked, he saw a soft glow in the distance, burning brighter, second by second, and by degrees, the fireball reappeared. He could see it in the sky, using nothing more than the old reliable Mark 1 Eyeball. Yet the top of the cloud had been sheared off by prevailing upper winds, a long ocher smear in the sky.

Rodenko’s systems fluttered briefly, then his screens seemed to light up again with fresh data, the colored symbols repopulating the Plexiglas conference screen between the CIC station and his own. Karpov looked at it, his eye going first to the 45 degree track that Samsonov had last been firing along. Those smartbombs might be getting very close by now… but they were gone. Could they have lost their hold on them? He squinted, looking through the forward panes, eyes searching for information stubbornly withheld by his electronic systems. He drifted over to Fedorov, a question in his eyes.

“Well,” he said in a low voice so the others could not hear. “Any idea what just happened?”

“What just happened? You lost your damn head again, that’s what happened.”

“Don’t get all bothered,” said Karpov quickly. “I did what was necessary. You have no idea what was coming for us, but you heard Rodenko’s report. There were sixty-four warheads out there looking for us, and it was almost certain that some of them were going to hit home. I’ve simulated it a hundred times at the academy. We could never stop more than thirty incoming Wolfhounds in a single saturation attack. This ship was dead, so I did what I had to do in order to even the odds. That warhead took out everything they threw at us to the north, allowing me to concentrate only on the bombs coming in at the 45 degree axis. Even then, it would have been a very near run thing, and it is likely we would have been hit by at least one GBU/53.”

“What’s that?”

Karpov smiled. “American smart bomb, slow, completely unpowered, but very accurate, even in hostile ECM environments. Those planes threw a fist full of hailstones at us, and believe me, it isn’t easy to get them all in the very few minutes we had. So I did what was necessary, and you can thank me that we aren’t all dead. We should be. Their attack was perfectly planned and executed, and that damn F-35 was so stealthy that the KA-40s never even saw the last two strike groups until they had already launched. They must have had something externally mounted on that first group, which made them a better radar target. We came this close to perdition, all of us.” Karpov held up his thumb and index finger to measure out the slim interval of time that had saved the ship.

“We got the northern group of 32 bombs with that special warhead,” he said again. “But what happened to the others?”

“Look at that fireball,” said Fedorov. “See how the cloud has sheared off. That takes time, perhaps ten or twenty minutes. I think we phased when that detonation went off. You know what I said about time being so fragile now, and how we used to pulse and slip earlier on the first sortie.”

“Yes….” Karpov breathed. “That makes sense. If we did phase, then those bombs may have come right in on us but—”

“We just weren’t there in that moment.” Fedorov finished his thought. “We phased. I’m almost sure of it.”

Karpov smiled. “Well you can thank any God you’d care to pray to for that. Thank old Mother Time if you will. But Fedorov—have we moved? Have we gone to some other time?”

“I don’t think so. That detonation cloud is still out there, plain as day. No, I think we’ve settled back into 1943, just where we were.”

Then Rodenko spoke up again, confirming the issue. “I have re-established contact with both KA-40s.”

“Sir,” said Nikolin. “Blackbird is hovering and requesting permission to land. Very strange… They say they lost sight of the ship as they descended and couldn’t relocate us for over ten minutes. Now they have only three minutes fuel left.”

“Permission granted. Bring them in.”

Karpov gave Fedorov a knowing look. He felt his whole frame relax, the tension unwinding, but it left him feeling strangely weak. He walked slowly to the Captain’s chair, and took a seat, with Fedorov following him.

Fedorov reached for his missile key, intending to return it to Karpov, a sour expression on his face. “There’s no point in my having this.”

“What? Now don’t be so sensitive, Fedorov. I’m sorry, but I had only seconds to complete that missile launch—you understand? Seconds.”

“Oh I understand completely. You gave me this key, and made me Starpom, but all I seem to be good for here in your eyes is sorting out the time travel.”

“Come on, Fedorov. Don’t be that way. You know I trust your judgment.”

“Except when it comes to the use of special warheads.”

“I already told you,” said Karpov. “I had no time. A moment’s hesitation and those smart bombs would have been too close for me to do what I did. Grilikov is all synapse and nerve, and that was what that moment required. I could have no hesitation; no discussion. The missile had to be fired. If you want to discuss it now, be my guest, but hold on to that key. Under any other circumstances, I would have brought you in on the decision. In that situation, I had to make it alone.”

“And you made damn sure you had the means to do so. In fact, Grilikov is on the bridge for more reasons than turning missile keys, yes?”

“Well Fedorov… Let’s just say that a man once burned is twice guarded. I’ve had you raise the alarm and set Troyak and his Marines on me, and I’ve seen that one over there raise a ruckus,” he nodded at Rodenko, “though it was Zolkin that did the real meddling. That isn’t ever going to happen on this bridge again. If it takes Grilikov, then that’s what it takes. But why all this talk? We should all be glad for the breath we still have to waste on it. Forgive me, but let me check in with Rodenko.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Radar—anything out there I need to worry about?”

“Sir, no airborne contacts, but we still have that Japanese destroyer. The datalinks are back up, and Turkey 1 has a good fix on their position. But the range has closed to 73 nautical miles, bearing 32 degrees. I have them on a heading of 216 degrees, at 30 knots. Designate Greybear.”

Karpov took a deep breath, finally able to relax, if only for a moment. “This confirms that we’ve settled in to the same time, right Fedorov?”

“It seem so, like a wave rolling over us. We may have only been out of phase with this time for a very brief moment.”

“A perfect moment,” said Karpov, somewhat buoyant now. “In that moment, death may have very well passed right through us in those thirty two glide bombs. Oh, if I had to fight them I would have probably taken down at least twenty-eight… But there were thirty two. If any of the others had struck us…” He didn’t have to finish.

“Then I guess we got lucky,” said Fedorov.

“Luck had nothing to do with it. I reached this end by taking decisive action when it was needed—cause an effect—and I was the cause. Of course I couldn’t foresee the exact effects of that detonation, but I’ll take the hand we were dealt after that. I traded that warhead for our lives, and the life of this ship. Now then… We have a lot more on our hands than we did an hour ago. Here we thought we were out to get Takami, and all the while, they were out to get us. It could be that these other forces were already in theater, and we just never knew about it. They may have arrived at the same time Takami did.”

“No way to really know,” said Fedorov, “unless you feel like chatting with Captain Harada again.”

“F-35’s…. The Japanese have those planes, and they can lift them on their Izumo class carriers. So my bet is that we’ve got one out there to the north. We faced twelve planes, and by god, this isn’t over. Those that got away safely could be landing on that carrier even as we speak. In training we figured four to six hours for turnover if they have to arm and refuel them again. Modern ordnance is a little more tricky than just latching on a dumb iron bomb, as in this war. But the dangerous fact remains that we could be facing another air attack, and very soon.”

Chief Biko stepped through the main bridge hatch, removing his cap. “Sir, damage control report. We had a few feathers ruffled by that shock wave, and some minor EMP damage.” Biko was all business. He had been as surprised as anyone else when the nuke went off, but that want not his business. He saw to the ship, fretting over each and every mechanical and electronic component like they were his children.

“Anything serious?”

“A little damage to one of the MP-407 ECM systems, and strangely, to the secure radio set. I have men on it now, but we won’t be able to send messages to Kazan until I get that fixed. Give me twenty minutes.” He saluted and withdrew, more business to attend to.

Karpov looked at his Plexiglas status board. “Well, Kazan is right on top of those bastards. Why hasn’t he fired?”

Gromyko looked to be no more than 16 nautical miles from Takami, and in fact, he was just about to enter the game. He had brought Kazan from its cruising station above the layer up to shallow depth, about 130 feet, suitable for missile launch. He slowed to 12 knots to prevent cavitation at that depth, wanting to remain as silent as possible, even if he was about to give away his position and fire.

Chernov, his Sonarman, then reported something odd, a sound, like that of a great kettle drum being struck, and a deep rumble that resolved to some very strange harmonics.

“Where?” said Gromyko, leaning over his station, and Chernov pointed out the location. “Here sir, about fifty nautical miles north of Kirov’s position.”

Gromyko listened to the recording of the sound Chernov had heard, his eyes narrowing and his aspect more resolved with each passing second. He had heard this before. Something was happening, and every sense warned him of danger. Kirov was at war…

“Admiral,” he said to Volsky. “With your permission, I would like to engage and kill that ship.”

“Permission granted,” said Volsky. Then he inclined his head. “Can you kill it, Captain?”

Gromyko gave him a thin lipped smile.

He decided to send a distraction towards the Japanese ship to see if they were on their toes. He wanted to know the score when he went shallow, so he fired a Fizik 533 mm Torpedo to see what his quarry would do, internally counting the seconds that passed after he made that launch. Sure enough, the Japanese reacted almost immediately, without ten seconds hesitation, Chernov reported the enemy ship had turned away from the torpedo, and they were putting on speed.

So they know I’m here, he thought. Either that or they have a very good sonar operator to locate the exact bearing of that torpedo launch so quickly. No. They must have made me long ago, so I’d better finish up here and be quick about getting somewhere else.

“Sir, passing through 140 feet…. 130 feet and leveling off. Running shallow.”

“Very well,” said the Matador. “Time to skewer the bull. Warm up six 3M-22s.”

“Mister Gorban, signal Kirov and tell them I’m attacking Takami.”

“Sir, I’m getting interference on the secure channel. I can’t get a handshake.”

“Very well, persist until you do. Are we ready Mister Belanov?”

“Aye sir, six 3M-22 Zircons hot and ready. The boat is running shallow at 12 knots.”

“Range to target?”

“Sir, we’re passing through eleven nautical miles.”

Gromyko shrugged. “Barely enough air space for the missiles to get pointed the right way. Alright Belanov. Let’s kill that ship. Fire all ready 3M-22s.”

The missile firing warning sounded, the outer hatches opening ominously in the murky water. Then, with a wash of bubbles, the ship killers were up, rising like fast swimmers to the surface of the sea, then breaking out in a wild spray, sleek dolphins of doom. They streaked away, made a 15 point course adjustment, turned on their radar seekers, and began to burn toward the target like comets.

Chapter 36

Harada had received the contact report from his Sonarman, Koji Nakano, but was still scratching his head over it. Twenty minutes earlier, Nakano had reported a possible submarine, confidence high. As always in combat, it was something unexpected. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that one side or another might have a submarine out here. It could be a US sub, or even an IJN boat.

“Where is it, Mister Nakano?”

“About 16 nautical miles slightly southeast of us.”

Harada thought for a moment. “That helo off Kongo was coming in real low… Lieutenant Shiota, signal that helo and ask them to take a look at that position if they can get there soon.” Harada knew that some of these old WWII subs could be fairly quiet, all diesel boats. You don’t fool around with a sub in that close, and so he thought it best to get a helo on top of it.

“What’s the range on those old torpedoes?” he asked Fukada.

“Which side? If it’s a typical B series IJN boat, they’d have the Type 95, which could range out 9 to 12 klicks. That’s the baby brother of the Long Lance.”

“Sir,” said Shiota. “Kongo’s helo reports they can put down dipping sonar immediately.”

“Good,” said Harada. “That’ll give us two sets of ears and we should be able to—”

“Con, sonar…. I think I can read this skunk. Contact speed is approximately 20 knots, and it’s fairly deep. I’d put it just above the layer at around 400 feet.”

Fukada gave Nakano a dismissive look. “Come on Lieutenant. Get the wax out of your ears. Test depth for subs of this era was no more than 300 feet, and not one of them could make that kind of speed submerged.”

“Sorry sir, but that’s what I’m reading.”

“That can’t be right.” Fukada went over to the sonar station, as if to see for himself, though he knew nothing about that craft.

Harada did not like what he was hearing at all. His man Nakano was every bit as good as the equipment he was operating. “Lieutenant, Go active and see if you can nail this guy.”

“Aye sir. Active sweep…. I have him… bearing 060, speed twenty, depth 420, on a heading of 260…. Getting data from Kongo’s helo now as well…” Nakano looked up at the Captain, an unbelieving look in his eye. “Sir, we’re getting a pattern match, but this doesn’t make any sense. I’m reading Yasen Class. Kongo One confirms.”

That hit Harada like a good left hook.

“What? Yasen Class?” That was the only moment he would cede to hesitation, then he was all business. In any situation like this, you stow your assumptions and go with what your instruments were telling you. “Secure from active sonar,” he said, finally wondering just what was happening here. Yasen Class… That was the same class of the Russian boat that escaped after that scrap off the Kuriles. What if….

“Mister Fukada, with me please.”

His XO came over to where Harada waited near his chair. “Could this be that Russian boat that went missing off the Kuriles when the Yanks thought they sunk Kirov?”

Fukada took that in, then nodded. “The only other explanation is system malfunction.”

“Great Buddha… This situation is becoming a real bento box! Here we were about to spring a nice big surprise on Karpov, when he pulls one over on us!”

“Sir,” said Shiota, “I have Admiral Kita on the secure channel.”

“They picked up the data link and probably want to know what’s going on with that damn Russian sub.”

Harada began walking towards the comm station, one eye on the situation board, a digital screen that was displaying all known contacts and tracking events. Then he saw a bright white circle expanding northwest of Kirov’s position. There was a brilliant flash of light, and Captain instinctively knew what had happened. Karpov had thrown a nuke at them.

“Doshitano! What’s that crazy Russian doing?”

“Brace for shockwave!” said Fukada. “Recommend all systems move to EMCON status.”

“A little late for that,” said Harada. Then they felt the palpable wave in the atmosphere, the much dissipated shock wave passing the ship, and the moan of a lonesome wind. They were over 75 nautical miles from the position of the detonation, and so they didn’t expect any effects beyond that shock wave, or perhaps some EMP damage.

“This guy is a lunatic,” said Harada.

“No, he’s just damn smart,” said Fukada. “All our planes off the Kaga reported safe bomb delivery, we had over sixty GBU/53s inbound on those bastards. They were toast. It was only a matter of time.”

“So Karpov threw a nuke at them?”

“Obviously,” said Fukada. “There was no way he’d knock down even half of those Vampires, but if he positioned that blast right, he could take out everything there on that northern attack axis. That’s exactly what he did.

Ryoko Otani sounded off, reporting her system was experiencing difficulty. “Just got a hard flutter through the whole board,” she said. “I thought we were going to lose power.”

“Could be the EMP pulse,” said Fukada.

They would not have any time to think about it, nor would they have solved the problem if they did. That flutter was not any part of the residual shock wave from that blast, which was very attenuated at that range; not even enough to roll the ship. Nor was it EMP effects. The ripple was a small temblor in time, or rather spacetime, as Einstein would have it. We didn’t live in space, with time being nothing more than a contrived metric we superimposed on all our doings. We lived in spacetime, and Einstein had already showed us that it could be warped and bent by mass. It could also be broken and even shattered.

200 kilotons was not much compared to the larger explosive events that had battered spacetime. The Demon Volcano that had sent Kirov and his flotilla careening back through time to 1945 had power equivalent to 200 Megatons, a thousand times greater than Karpov’s warhead. The same could be said for the massive eruption of Krakatoa that first brought Takami and crew to this time. So it was a relatively light tap on the fabric of spacetime, all things considered. Yet for Kirov, possessing some rather exotic materials lurking within her control rods, the effect was enough to phase the ship for the briefest moment for those aboard. For those stalking her, the ship would disappear from all their radar screens for over ten minutes before it reappeared.

“I’ve lost Kirov,” said Otani. “The system is just guesstimating now.” SPY-1 was only reporting the last known location of the contact, and drawing an expanding area around it that encompassed all possible locations where it might have moved as the seconds ticked off—their electronic ‘farthest on.’

“Mister Nakano,” said Harada. “Do you still have that sub?”

“Aye sir, but it’s changing depth, climbing through 300 feet and reducing speed.”

Harada didn’t like the sound of that. Seconds later he heard what he had been fearing when his Sonarman called out: “Torpedo in the water! Bearing southeast, range 11 nautical miles and inbound on our position at 30 knots.”

“Helm, come hard right to 270 and ahead full!”

“Aye sir. Coming to 270 and all ahead full.” Harada was turning and running away from the torpedo. His ship could make those 30 knots easily enough, and those fish would never catch him… Surely that Russian sub Captain had to know that….

“Damn! Why you sly son-of-a-bitch,” Harada breathed. “He wanted to see if we had a fix on him! He wanted me to do exactly what I just ordered, and now he knows we had him in red. He’s coming up to run shallow at missile firing depth. That’s one cagey sub driver. Alright people, get everything hot, and I mean everything. Charge the laser and stand up the SM-2 system. We’re about to have unfriendly visitors.”

Kazan had finished firing at 11:41, and the missile warning had shaken the bridge to tense alertness. They were coming, blistering fast, and only seconds away at this range of just under eleven nautical miles. The air defense system was on full automatic, the aft deck cells on the SM-2 were already firing. The first missiles out would have a ghost of a chance at getting those Zircons, and in the first group of four, two of them would get hits.

But not a single missile fired after that would find its target. The Vampires were so close that they could not achieve their top speed in this short timeframe, but they were still coming very fast. A second after those first two kills, the ship’s Phalanx guns were grinding away at the incoming missiles, and had perhaps a 35% chance of hitting something in this equation, but they were not good enough that day. The Zircon was just too fast.

Three seconds later, Takami showed the Vampires some leg. The ship deployed its Mk 182 Chaff in an attempt to seduce the sensors on the incoming missiles. That had no more than a 10% chance of success, and it failed. They heard the laser fire and saw the bright explosion off the aft port quarter when it hit. There were three vampires left.

The SM-2s were still firing, but the Vampires weren’t going to be stopped by a missile now, they were too damn close. The J/NOLQ-2 ECM defensive jammer was trying to fry their brains, and it spoofed one of the missiles, causing it to malfunction, but the other two came ramming home. One hit the fantail, and they were lucky there was no Seahawk there being armed and fueled for operations. It came in a little high, the explosion a bright fireball that was mostly an air burst. It was as if the missile scudded right off the deck when it hit.

The other Zircon was fast and true, and it plowed right into Takami’s gut, achieving near 100% penetration. The explosion rocked the ship heavily, like a boxer being hit low. Takami rolled back through the black smoke, critically wounded. There was a flash on the bridge and then all systems went dark as the ship’s power failed. Heavy smoke obscured everything and the fire alarms were going crazy. Almost all the fuel that Zircon could have used to run out hundreds of kilometers was now feeding that fire.

The entire engagement had taken just twelve seconds, and the ship would not survive that hit. The destroyer listed heavily to port, shipping water from the enormous hole in the hull. The eight shiny new SSMs they had taken on from Omi would never be fired, nor would Fukada ever get to take a poke at his enemy with that rail gun at long range. Harada knew it was now only a question of trying to save as much of his crew as he could. He turned to Fukada, looked him in the eye, and gave the order: “All hands, make ready to abandon ship!”

Admiral Yamamoto’s Guardian Angel was out of the game.

“Admiral!” said Rodenko. “Kazan has launched missiles on Takami!”

“Show me.” Karpov rushed over, almost too late for Rodenko to point out the radar contacts.

“It’s about time,” Karpov breathed.

“Look how close he was, inside eleven miles. That’s an explosion, sir. They got at least one hit.”

“Excellent!” Karpov stood up, smiling and looking for Fedorov. “So much for this Captain Harada’s little game out here. Now he knows we mean business, if he even survived that. What did Gromyko throw at him?”

“Six Zircons,” said Rodenko. “Damn, sir. They were so close.”

“I think we can safely say that ship is dead. But what about these other bears out here north of Takami?”

Turkey 1 was still feeding them data, in spite of local interference as a residual effect of that nuke. They had seen three more contacts well north of Takami, effectively pegging the positions of Kirishima, Kongo and Atago. It was Takami three times over, and behind them there was still Admiral Kita with the carriers Kaga and Akagi, and that still left both the destroyer Takao and DDH Kurama in reserve.

“Looks like three more destroyers,” said Rodenko. These first two are reading Kongo Class.”

“You’ve got sensor emissions from them?”

“Aye sir. They’re modern ships. Look here’ sir. That’s a Seahawk returning to one of those destroyers.”

“Range to this contact? What is it designated… Brownbear?”

“Yes sir, Brownbear is at 120 nautical miles.”

“I see… Well Gromyko has fired and he’s probably running deep and sprinting to a new position by now. We can’t let him have all the fun, can we? Mister Samsonov. Key up four Moskit-II missiles and put them on Brownbear—low attack profile. Let’s see just how good that old Kongo Class is.”

Karpov had gone through the insanity of having to deploy a nuclear warhead, seeing Fedorov vanish and reappear before his very eyes as the ship phased in time, and still he was all business as usual, wanting to take advantage of any opportunity he could find. He seemed completely unshakable, for in truth, after having endured everything he had experienced in this long saga, he was unshakable, and this was a borscht he knew how to cook so very well. He wanted to keep fighting, even as Fedorov shook his head in amazement.

Seconds later, the four missiles were away, surging out 28 miles before they made a fifteen point turn to redirect at their target. The closed the range through the fifty mile mark, completely unseen. They closed through the 30 mile mark, rapidly nearing their target’s far horizon. They were running at 1,450 knots, 60 feet above the sea, each with a 320kg warhead.

At 20 nautical miles out, they crossed that horizon, and Kirishima’s radars picked them up for the first time. Captain Kenji Namura was shaken by the sudden alert, but reacted quickly, ordering offensive ECM and a full response from his SAM system. He was carrying 54 RIM-161 Standard Missile 2s, every bit as good as those that had been carried by Takami. Standard procedure would see two missiles assigned to each incoming Vampire, and out they went. It would take six to do the job, but they would get all four of those Sunburns.

Aboard Kirov, Samsonov turned and gave Karpov a sheepish look. “Strike failed,” he said. “All missiles destroyed by enemy SAM defense.

Karpov nodded gravely. He considered running due north, hoping he could find that carrier before they could turn over those strike planes. To do that he would have to fight all three of those other destroyers… “Secure from offensive combat. The ship will come to 180 and increase to all ahead flank. Mister Nikolin, signal Turkey-1 to stay outside 50 nautical miles of that contact and begin a return path south. Have the Helo Deck ready the next available helicopter for operations, maritime surveillance loadout.”

Fedorov came over, looking at Karpov with questioning eyes. “We’re breaking off?”

“That is the wisest course for now. I tested that Kongo class destroyer, but they were ready. Look now,” he pointed to the Plexiglas screen. “They have two of those, and there’s one more bear in the woods over to the east. That’s probably another destroyer as well. You figure out how they got all these ships here, Fedorov, and I’ll figure out how we deal with them. We have between four and six hours before they can rearm and fuel those F-35’s, then we could be facing another air strike. So I don’t intend to waste any more missiles on those destroyers. We’ll move south. That’s what Gromyko is doing too, running fast and deep. He knows they’ll get up off the mat and start getting helicopters up soon, and that carrier they have up north is going to want a pound of flesh for what we did to Takami. As soon as we get the comms up, I want Gromyko to reverse course and see if he can find that carrier. ”

“Damn,” said Fedorov. “We’ve a real headache now. Cleansing this time line isn’t going to be as easy as we thought. How do we deal with all those ships? Are you sure we should retire now?”

“Retire? We’re just redeploying. I’m going to use one more weapon we have in our arsenal.”

“What? You mean you’re planning to use another nuke?”

“Now don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Karpov. “Those warheads are very dangerous, to us and any enemy I target. No, I’ll keep those weapons tight for now, unless I’m forced to deploy again. We were caught by surprise with that F-35 attack. I did the only expedient thing, but for now, we’ll use a much simpler weapon—speed.”

“You want to outrun them?”

“I can’t quite do that, as they can match us knot for knot, but we’re over 110 nautical miles ahead of them now, and I want to keep that interval as wide as possible. Look here…. Their carrier hasn’t been spotted by Turkey-1 yet, and this line here is indicating its radar coverage. That’s over 180 nautical miles from us now. So let’s say that carrier is at least 200 miles out; maybe more. I want to open that range as far as possible while they’re rearming. If they don’t turn now and pursue immediately, that’s exactly what I can do. It’s the carrier I need to worry about now, not those three destroyers. We still have 33 SSMs of various types. Kazan has 26 more. That gives us fewer than 60 ways to hurt them with missiles, but I have one weapon in my quiver that they don’t have. Kazan has it too.”

“What?” asked Fedorov, his eyes wide. He was thinking Karpov had something else tucked away in his larders that he never knew about. After all, he was still 70% a Navigator, and 30% Starpom. He didn’t really know how to fight the ship in modern combat like this, any more than he had known how to do battle against the men of this era when he was first put in command by Admiral Volsky.

“Mister Fedorov, we have a nuclear reactor—unlimited fuel, and I can run all day and night, as long as Dobrynin and Biko can hold things together. Those Japanese ships out there use good old fashioned gas turbines, and they burn a lot of fuel if they run up over 30 knots.” He smiled. “Understand now?”

Fedorov understood.

If these unexpected Samurai wanted to stay in the chase and keep after him, they were going to have to match his speed and endurance to do so. He was going to run them ragged, force them to burn that valuable fuel. Once they ran low, he would have yet one more advantage in the battles still waiting to be fought. He would have speed….

He looked at Karpov with renewed respect. Yes, it was true, he was headstrong, full of himself, devious and sly, but he was a fighter, a survivor, and every man aboard was still there breathing only because he had the will and nerve to do what he had just done here in this engagement, and the skill—with just a little help from Mother Time.

Aboard the carrier Kaga, Admiral Kita took the news concerning Takami very hard. He turned to Captain Jenzu, his arms folded, eyes serious. “This is more than we bargained for,” he said. “They have a submarine.”

“Aye sir. If that helo off Kongo had been up with an ASW loadout, we might have jumped on it when Takami picked it up. Yasen Class. They said they thought it might be that Russian sub that also went missing in the Kuriles—Kazan.”

“Well that complicates things, doesn’t it,” said Kita. “The Russians have given us the slip. We can see their helicopter, and it’s heading south, but it was Takami’s helo and that had a leash on Kirov for us, and we’ve lost that contact.”

“They’re down there, sir. We know where they were before they slipped off. We still have four birds ready to fly on Akagi. Two have GBU/53s, and the other two have the JSOW. There’s a fighter up on our flight deck ready to go right now. We could send it up for recon.”

“The fighter may be a good idea, but I think it wise to hold the strike planes on Akagi at the moment.”

“But sir, it will be nearly five hours before we have our planes ready again.”

“That’s why we should wait. If we hit them again, I want to use every strike plane we still have. We’ll run that recon sortie as you suggest, but we have to think about ASW operations now as well, and we may have good men in the water out there. I’m hoping a lot of Takami’s crew got safely off that ship.”

“Aye sir, we all are. What are your orders?”

Kita thought for a moment. “We move to Takami’s last known position. Get the Merlins ready for at-sea rescue operations. All the Seahawks get ASW loadouts. They caught us by surprise with that damn sub. Harada didn’t know it was there until it was right on top of him.”

“We need to even the score, sir,” said Jenzu.

“Damn right,” said Kita. “We’re going to get after those devils, nukes and all. Make it so.”

The hunt for Kirov was on.