Kirov III: Pacific Storm

“Mutsu and Nagato? They cannot match our speed. They won’t get anywhere near us, but I plan on running in their direction until I’m forced to turn on another heading. Hopefully that will keep us well ahead of these other two faster groups to the east and south, and buy time for the displacement to kick in.”

“Are you sure it will happen again, Fedorov?”

“Who can be sure of anything? We’ve stumbled on a possible trigger point for this madness, and I can only hope it will work for us one more time.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

Fedorov gave him a long look. “Then we fight, Rodenko. We fight—what else?”

They ran on that heading for two hours, but Fedorov calculated a predictive plot that showed the cruiser Tone getting uncomfortably close if he persisted on 292, so at 17:00 hours he turned north again, running away from the cruiser and nervously watching the ship’s chronometer, counting the time since the reactor maintenance had been completed. There had been no signs of anything unusual for the last two hours. The sea was calm, Nikolin’s airwaves were steady, Rodenko’s radar was functioning without interference, and the Japanese were still following, bearing in on him from multiple headings. Three pesky seaplanes were marking Kirov’s position steadily now, growing a bit bolder and venturing nearer as they shadowed the ship.

“Damn,” said Karpov, “I miss those five S-300s we wasted on Orlov.”

“They may have been well spent, Captain,” said Fedorov, “but I understand what you mean. It feels a bit naked knowing we can’t do much of anything against an aircraft unless it gets in close now. At least we still have some punch on the main missile deck.”

“Twenty-two missiles,” said Karpov. “That was more than the original load for the first Kirov. The old ship carried the big P-700 Granit missiles back then, but only twenty of them. They were slower, big fat missiles weighing over 15,000 pounds, but they had twice the range of our Moskit- IIs, and a huge 750kg warhead. The only problem was that they made too good a target for enemy SAMs, but I wish I had a few of those as well. Lob one on these Japanese cruisers and we could sink a ship with one shot. Our NATO friends called them the ‘Shipwreck,’ and it was a good name for them.”

Karpov folded his arms, gazing out the forward viewports. “The sea is so calm,” he said. “Stare at it for ten minutes and you could almost forget we’re in the middle of the greatest war ever fought on this earth.”

“At least the greatest one we know of,” said Fedorov. “Something tells me it wasn’t the last world war. We’ve seen aftermath of the next one first hand.”

“You think it started in 2021 then? Here in the Pacific?”

“Those newspapers seemed to indicate as much, one of our cruisers got restless and took out that American sub. A trigger point like that could have cascaded into a big crisis in the Pacific, and then the Chinese got into the act over Taiwan. The Americans hit their carrier, they hit back and sunk the Eisenhower. On and on it goes. Both sides were just playing the same old game all along, a slow escalation of tension that can lead to no good. What do you think we put to sea for? Live fire exercises. They were getting ready for a war they saw coming, and we were the tip of the sword.”

Karpov nodded solemnly.

“Then perhaps our presence here in the past hasn’t really done much harm after all. Have you lost your fear of disturbing the history, Fedorov?”

“Yes, Captain, I think I have, though it still bothers me. Nations have put men in trenches, ships at sea facing off against one another for centuries, but now I see what it comes down to in the end. Very few fought for God or even the Rodina. They fought for the fellow next to them in the line.”

“And to save their own damn skin,” Karpov agreed. “Well, if we don’t move again, in time, then I’m going to have to put some serious harm on anything that gets close enough to threaten us.”

“And you want to know what I’ll think of that, yes?”

“It crossed my mind, Fedorov. After all, if what you have told us is true, Admiral Yamamoto is out there this time. He’s a bit of a demigod in your history books—his ship a legend as well.”

“He was…” Fedorov had a distant, empty look in his eyes. “Yes, the ship was a legend once. In our day it was a broken wrecked hulk, 1200 feet below the sea. That’s where legends end up all too often, Captain, and the world forgets. This war practically destroyed all of Europe and Asia, and yet they still build the ships and planes and missiles in our day. The world forgets.”

Karpov nodded, a sudden melancholy coming over them now, a taste of bitter toska, the old Russian yearning for a better day. “I wonder if they forgot about us as well,” he breathed. “I mean Severomorsk, Suchkov, the navy, the whole stinking mess of a country we set sail to defend. From their perspective we simply vanished that day. I suppose they blamed it all on that accident with Orel.”

“Most likely,” Fedorov agreed.

“Mighty Kirov,” Karpov smiled. “We take on all comers, the British, Americans, Italians and now the Japanese. And they probably don’t have the slightest inkling about us.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Fedorov. “The British learned a great deal when the Admiral met with Tovey. If word of our presence here has gotten back to the Admiralty by now, it will give them the last clue they needed to come to the only conclusion that could possibly explain who and what we are.”

“Clue? What clue?

“We vanished on August 23, 1942, Captain. And then we reappeared just a day later, but over seven thousand miles away. A ship doesn’t move in space that distance in a single day. If they do spot us here, and put two and two together, then they could only conclude one thing—that we moved in time. And they have a few people there in Bletchley Park who are quite good at math, Mister Karpov. Quite good indeed.”

“Hard to believe,” said Karpov. “This whole affair.”

Fedorov looked at his watch. “Why don’t you get some food and rest, Captain. Something tells me we’ll be very busy by sunset.”

Karpov gave him a knowing look.

“Fedorov…” he started, then paused, thinking. “I never did tell you how wrong I was before. I thought you were a wet nosed school boy, and I was…well, I was very stupid.”

“Forget about it, Captain. We all make mistakes. We live and we learn. I’ve learned a great deal watching you these last weeks, and one thing you have taught me is this: a man is always bigger than he thinks he is, bigger than the burdens he carries that would want to crush him, even bigger than his fear. Your service here has been something to admire, and we are all grateful for it.”

~ ~ ~

An hour later, at 18:00 it was clear that the two Japanese battleships to the north, Mutsu and Nagato, were now on a good course to intercept. Kirov had opened the range on the Yamato group to 150 kilometers, but the fast screening force out in front of the battleship was now inside 112 kilometers. His earlier turn had frustrated Captain Iwabuchi aboard Tone, which was now left just over 200 kilometers to the south. But the slow approach of the two big battleships forced a difficult choice on Fedorov. He could either turn west now, out into the Coral Sea, in which case he would likely have to engage both battleships and the fast cruisers of Iwabuchi’s force, or he could turn and run east, which would put Yamato in a good position to try and cut him off as he approached Milne Bay.

The odds seemed even no matter which way he turned, but something pulled at him from deep within. If he turned east he might just lay eyes upon the greatest battleship the world has ever seen, the ship he had studied and admired for all these many years. Be careful what you wish for, he mused. He couldn’t say that thought decided things for him, but the fact remained….

He turned east at sunset, following the night, the sky a brilliant smear of red and orange behind him. The ship’s new heading was 68 degrees northeast, running for the southern coast of New Guinea. The dogged seaplanes would have difficulty following the ship after sunset, but they caught the course change in time to get warning to Yamato. Some minutes later Rodenko reported that the battleship had altered course to 45 degrees northeast, and Fedorov kicked himself for not waiting until well after dark before he changed his