Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (13 page)

“We cannot prevail,” he said grimly.

A ray of sunlight pierced the grey cloud and smoke and gleamed on
the water creaming at the sleek bow of the enemy dreadnought. At this range
Yamimura could finally see how massive the ship was, easily twice the length of
his own cruiser and over three times its displacement. His gunners had scored a
few near misses, but had not damaged the enemy ship in any way. To fire with
effect, he would want to get in much closer, closing the range to 5,000 meters,
but the enemy speed now prevented that. As he watched the big ship maneuver, he
realized it had been within their power to open the range any time they chose.

Rounds shuddered against his conning tower again with deafening
impact, and only the heavy 14 inch armor had saved the Admiral and his staff
from certain death. They hit us at least ten or twelve times, he thought
darkly. Look at my cruiser division! This single enemy ship has shattered it,
and now our only hope lies with the battleships.

“Signal
Tango
and
Mishima
. Tell them to move due west
now!”

The order was passed by telegraph, and ten kilometers away,
Nikolin was listening on his headset, trying to hear the dots and dashes in
Kana Code over the sharp report of
Kirov’s
guns.

“Captain, they are signaling a course change to two-seven-zero west.”

“What’s that, Nikolin?” Karpov beamed as he was watching the
action through his field glasses, preferring them to the overhead Tin Man
display, even if it would not give him as sharp an image. “They are most likely
going to run and hide behind that island. Very well. Cease Fire, Samsonov.
They’ve taken quite a pounding.”

“Sir, securing deck guns, aye.”

“What do you think now, Rodenko?” The Captain smiled at his
Starpom
.
“Still worried about changing history? Well, it’s begun. We put enough damage
on those five cruisers to send them all into dry dock for lengthy repairs. I
could linger here and sink them, but the damage we’ve inflicted has already
done the job. I doubt any of them will be serviceable in the months ahead.”

“Their effective range appears to be well under 8,000 meters,
sir.”

“Correct. I read this in Fedorov’s books, and so I had little fear
closing to 8,000 as I did. They got a very good look at us through their field
glasses, and that image will now be burned in their memory. A little fear will
be a strong ally for us in the days ahead. They will learn to feel it quicken
in their chest when they see us darken the horizon.”

“How many rounds did we expend, Samsonov?” Rodenko turned to his
CIC officer to determine what they had left.

“Sir, I fired thirty-six salvos with all three batteries,
expending a total of 192 rounds. This leaves us with 2,508 standard rounds and
200 rocket assisted rounds for the 152mm batteries.”

“Down from a full magazine of 3,000 rounds,” said Rodenko, looking
Karpov’s way.

“A small price to pay for the wrecking of five enemy cruisers,”
said Karpov. The range was too short for a test of our re-programmed SAMs, but
we’ll let that sit for the moment.” He watched as the last of the burning enemy
cruisers disappeared behind the long peninsula of Dozen Island.

“Congratulations, men,” said Karpov. “You have just logged your
first victory of the second Russo-Japanese war at sea! It will not be your
last.”

But the Captain had spoken too soon. The young radar operator had
been jubilantly nodding at his mates when he turned and suddenly saw a
distinctive blip on his screen.

“Captain. Radar. I have a contact…no sir,
two
contacts
bearing one-eight-zero south, speed 16 knots and on a heading of two-seven
zero. Range 10,000 meters!”

A distant boom rolled like thunder and they saw the second enemy
ship brighten with the glow of its main batteries. The ship was
Mishima
,
formerly the obsolete Russian battleship
Admiral Seniavin
, built as a
coastal defense ship in 1894
,
and she was firing 10 inch guns that
elevated fifteen degrees to produce a maximum range of just over 13,000 meters.
With better elevation they would have ranged much farther but, as it was, the
confining space of the turrets would only permit those fifteen degrees, and the
same liability would plague the ship following in her wake, the former
battleship
Poltava
now renamed
Tango
.

At range she appeared to be just another armored cruiser, actually
shorter than Vice Admiral Yamimura’s battered flagship
Tokiwa
at only
396 feet, though much wider abeam. Yet that beam of 70 feet gave her the girth
to mount two much larger turrets fore and aft of her twin smokestacks and
conning tower, and now they lashed out in the second surprise attack the
Japanese had staged in this hot, frantic hour. The Krupp 302mm 12-inch forty
caliber guns on
Tango
were the mainstay of the Russian pre-dreadnought
battleships. Not to be upstaged by
Mishima
, they deafened the scene with
their sudden roar, but the ship had fired too soon. The effective range was
only 7,200 meters given the maximum thirteen degree elevation of her guns, even
more restricted within their turrets due to their larger size.

Both battleships had been lying in the shallow bay formed by three
islands. On Yamimura’s signal they sailed due west through the narrow mile wide
channel and remained masked by the sweeping curve of hilly Nishinoshima, the
westernmost of the Oki Island group. So it was that they were not picked up on
radar until they were already in line of sight and with good range to open the
action.

The opening rounds from
Mishima
actually sailed well over
Kirov
with a long descending whoosh and fell heavily into the ocean behind the ship.
Karpov looked at the tall geysers with some alarm, thinking only of the fate of
Admiral Golovko
and Rodenko’s warning. Here they had blundered into
another surprise hidden away in those damnable islands! Red anger flushed his
face as he realized the ship was suddenly in jeopardy. The memory of Rodenko’s
words now taunted him
… “battle often presents the unexpected, sir. I don’t
think Captain Ryakhin expected his ship would be hit at that range by a random
shell, but it was, and we both saw the result.”
A haphazard round could
deal them a severe blow.

 “Those are heavy rounds. These must be battleships,” said Karpov,
“and we’ve stumbled right on them without a whisper on radar!”

“It’s those damn islands, Captain,” said Rodenko.

“Yes, well we should have scouted them with the KA-40! This is
sloppy work, but I will make an end of this nonsense at once. Samsonov, activate
Moskit II
system! Put one missile on each ship. Now!” The second salvo
from
Mishima
was already whining in on them and fell much closer as the
Japanese began to adjust the range.
Tango
was also firing, but the big
12-inch rounds were still well short.”

“Sir, keying
Moskit II
system and targeting now!”

The missile warning claxon sounded the alarm and the forward deck
hatches sprung open. Up leapt the sleek daggers their noses quickly inclined
towards the enemy ships. Then the engines roared and the Japanese would see
what looked to be two demons from hell soaring in like fiery dragons over the
sea, impossibly fast as the powerful engines accelerated to devour the distance
to the target in just twelve seconds. When they struck they were still
accelerating, though already moving at well over Mach 2.

The first heavy 450 kilogram warhead blasted against the side
armor of
Tango
, which was almost 12 inches thick, hardened Harvey armor,
an older cemented armor method developed in the United States before processes
by Krupp made it obsolete. It had a brittle exterior, and more pliant inner
segment all melded into one plate, but it was not enough to stop a missile
weighing over four tons moving at over 3000 KPH. The side of the ship buckled
and was blown completely inward, and the huge store of missile fuel, largely
unexpended, exploded in a massive fireball.

Mishima
got even worse, when the missile that struck her amidships came
in at deck level and smashed into the ship’s superstructure, penetrating easily
to immolate everything in its path. It blew completely through the ship,
destroying every compartment just beneath the conning tower, which now began to
collapse as the entire ship heeled to port with the thunderous impact.
Mishima
keeled over, but her conning tower shuddered down into the raging flames
amidships, killing her captain and all staff officers on the bridge.

Tango
wallowed to one side with the body blow she had taken, and then
rolled heavily, flames licking the sea as water careened in through the breach
in her hull. Then thick black smoke masked the scene, and Karpov stared with
amazement at the awesome power of the missiles.

Aboard
Tango
bulkheads were shattered, water tight doors
blasted open, and a torrent of raging seawater was swamping the ship. It rolled
to starboard, the crewmen falling on the wet decks and sliding through cinder
black smoke into the fire, which had spread to the sea itself, set aflame by
the tremendous fuel explosion. Men leapt from the forward gunwales into the
ocean, and secondary explosions began to rip through the guts of the ship as
the magazines from many of the smaller casement side batteries began to explode
with shuddering thunder. Smoke belched from both stricken ships, bludgeoned by
a weapon of inconceivable power.

There was no more fire coming from the Japanese battleships, and
both would capsize and sink within the next thirty minutes. Japan had taken
them from Russia, but now Russia had taken them back, and given them to Davey
Jones, who waited with greedy arms to receive them on the sea floor below.

The Oki Island engagement was over.

Part IV

Prelude

“The
megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful
rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type
belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”

―
Bertrand Russell

“I think
I’ll dismember the world and then I’ll dance in the wreckage.”

―
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

Chapter 10

“We
must decide now,”
said Admiral Volsky. “I have my mind settled
on this question, but I would like to hear opinions.”

Kazan
was now 40 kilometers south of Nakhodka, having crept down the
long coast past Sovetsky Gavan and on south to a point where they would normally
round the cape and head northwest to Vladivostok. They were now no more than 75
kilometers from the Fleet Naval Headquarters at Fokino, though the Admiral did
not yearn for his desk there, or the damp shadowy darkness of the deep
underground command bunker.

A strange lull seemed to have been imposed on the war since the
eruption of the Demon Volcano, which was still broiling and belching its
sulfuric ash to overshadow the whole region in gloom, the rolling clouds thick
and impenetrable to the east, and creeping ever closer on the northwesterly
wind. Though no one aboard the submarine could see them now, they could still
feel their effects. Lieutenant Andre Chernov at sonar would occasionally report
on the deep, dull rumble beneath the sea as the volcano continued its slow
eruption, sustained and withering. It was affecting his system performance,
with a great deal of sonic disturbance and an odd ebb and flow of general interference.

Dobrynin had taken the time during their journey south to mount
Rod-25 in the replacement aperture of the submarine’s reactor. It was slow,
dangerous work, as the rod was radioactive and had to be handled with utmost
caution. It was actually mounted within its radiation safe container by means
of a mechanical system designed to allow for this specific maintenance
procedure, and the container was not actually withdrawn until it was safely
sealed off inside the core area. It was a procedure that should have only been
conducted in a secure dock, but the circumstances would not permit that, and
Dobrynin’s skill was enough to get them through.

Now they had to decide whether to utilize the rod immediately, or
to move south into the Sea of Japan and use it when they might appear closer to
Kirov
. The question of the hour was this: where was the ship now, lost
in the distant haze of history?

“Mister Fedorov?” The Admiral wanted the opinion of his master
strategist, the young officer who had come up with the plan.

“Well, sir. We shifted back here on the nineteenth of July, 1908.
If, by luck or Dobrynin’s skill, we get back there again with Rod-25, we will most
likely appear after that date in time.”

“Why do you say this?”