Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (30 page)

His gaze strayed to Rodenko, who seemed to be fidgeting uneasily
at the Plexiglas situation map, his eye drawn upward to the Tin Man HD screen
as he looked at real-time images of the symbols being tracked on the digital
display. He was putting the two systems into synchronization mode, so that he
could simply tap the Plexiglas screen and the Tin Man would zoom on that
precise location to display the hi-res optical feed. At intervals Rodenko
looked aft to the flag briefing room where Karpov had sealed himself away, and
Nikolin could see the same curiosity in the
Starpom’s
eyes. What was the
Captain doing? More to the point, Nikolin wondered what he was doing himself?
Should he tell Rodenko what he heard? What if the Captain suddenly emerged from
the flag bridge in the middle of that?

The urgency of the Admiral’s voice alarmed him now…
“If you
fail to obey, this order falls on your Starpom, and should he fail to heed this
command, then it falls to the next senior watch officer on the bridge, Mister
Samsonov, through Tasarov, and then to Nikolin…”
My God, what was
happening? What if no one else obeys the order? What should I do? His heart
beat faster as the message concluded. Then the hatch to the flag briefing room
opened and the Captain stepped onto the battle bridge, his face set and grim.

“Mister Tasarov, come here.”

Tasarov looked up sheepishly, not knowing why the Captain would
want him. There had been very little to do at his station in recent days. This
era presented no undersea threats, but he had busied himself listening to the
sea around them, noting the special quality of its emptiness and silence when
the ship was alone, and then honing in on the sonic characteristics of the
Japanese ships when they were present. They seemed to slosh through the water
with a ponderous noise, and he could easily hear their approach on passive
sonar from many miles away, well over the horizon.

Now the Captain was waving at him impatiently, and so he removed
his headset and slowly stood up. The look on the Captain’s face made him feel
he was about to be disciplined for something. He knew he had been told not to
listen to music at his post, but he had pocketed his music player and never
used it now when Karpov was on the bridge. He had been sending text messages
back and forth to Nikolin as the two men played an old favorite Russian game of
riddles. Did Karpov discover the surreptitious messages?

“Com. Radar.” Kochenko was reporting again to note the current
range interval. “Range is now16,000 meters and closing.”

Rodenko gave the Captain a look, as though he expected an order,
but Karpov simply shooed Tasarov into the flag briefing room and then closed
the hatch. This was enough of an irregularity to prompt him to move from behind
the Plexiglas screen and onto the main bridge area, his eyes fixed on the closed
hatch, and then straying upward again to the HD feed where the image of a long
battle line of warships was clearly evident, under the long billowing charcoal
smoke from their stacks as they labored into the rising wind.

Inside the flag briefing room Karpov now fixed Tasarov with a hard
stare. “Mister Tasarov, there has not been much work at your station for some
days, but that is about to change.”

Tasarov thought the Captain was angry with him and going to assign
him to some new duty, but it seemed very odd to him that he would take such a
disciplinary action at the edge of battle like this. Then the Captain asked him
a question that set the conversation off on a most unexpected direction.

“You have sonic signatures of undersea boats stored in our
computers?”

“Sir? Well, yes sir. Of course.”

“How extensive are they? Do you have profiles on our ships and
boats as well as those of the enemy?”

“Yes sir. Our ships are in the secondary memory, but I can call
them to the live profile track when we exercise with fleet units.”

“Excellent. Then you have sonic profiles on all our submarines?”

“Those we have maneuvered with are current, sir. Other boats would
be in the data library, but they would be general recordings, and all the data
would not be considering our current sound field. They are more like
templates.”

“Could you identify one of our own submarines if it were anywhere
nearby?”

“That depends on many things, sir, yes, I suppose I could, yet I
don’t understand—”

“Alright. Then we will liven up your duty here a bit. I want you
to assume undersea alert one when you return to your station. How would you
look for one of our very best submarines—just as an example.”

“Sir?” Obviously the Captain had some kind of drill in mind to
jeep him busy. “Well if it was a very quiet boat I would use the KA-40 and the
towed Horse Tail sonar to augment my normal shipborne systems.”

“Excellent. Do this. Assume you must find the best submarine we
have. I will be sending up the KA-40 as soon as it replenishes, and you may
issue direct orders to that asset as well. Deploy the towed sonar array if you
wish, or even use active sonar if you would deem it necessary to hone in on a
contact. I want you to do anything you might normally do to provide the ship
with the best possible awareness of any undersea threat. Understood?”

Tasarov raised his eyebrows beneath the dark crop of brown hair
protruding from the edge of his service cap. “Is this an exercise, sir?”

“Of course. I cannot simply let you sit there musing on the ocean
floor and listening to whales. You must be as sharp at your post as any of the
others.”

“Very well, Captain. I will assume undersea alert level one.”

“And to make your exercise a little more demanding, assume we are
actually in a war situation with one of our very best submarines. What boat
would you select?”

Something in the Captain’s eyes made Nikolin very nervous now, a
darkness that held fear as well as the cold logic and calculation of war. “In
this theater, sir? Why… I suppose I would chose
Kazan
. That’s a
Yasen
class boat, sir, very quiet, very stealthy.” He noted what he thought was a
flash of trepidation on the Captain’s face when he said that, as if he had hit some
deep nerve of fear.

“Good…Assume it is out there somewhere, that very boat. Listen for
it. Report anything you hear.”

Tasarov nodded, but the order made little sense to him. “But I
won’t hear anything, Captain.
Kazan
is not out there.”

“Listen as if it
was
here. That is the only way to drill,
Tasarov. Yes? Now, we are about to go into battle. Your job may be difficult
here, but I want to know immediately,
immediately
, if you hear anything
at all that might indicate the presence of a hostile undersea contact—of
any
undersea contact. Understood?”

“But sir, there won’t be…Yes sir.”

“And at undersea alert one you realize you will also have the RBU
rocket defense system as well as the
Shkval
torpedo system and the RPK-2
Viyugas
primed and operational at all times, correct? I want full
readiness.”

“Yes sir.” Squalls and blizzards…That’s what
Shkval
and
Viyuga
meant. The undersea weather was going to be very bad, it seemed. He wondered if
the Captain would ask him to fire any of the weapons.

“Do not look so confused, Mister Tasarov. You may not fully understand
why I order this, but it has come to my attention that there are, indeed,
fledgling submarines in this era.” A little
vranyo
, a simple garnish on
the salad. That would do the job here, Karpov thought. “So if you are listening
for our very best, and searching for it out there, then you will certainly find
anything they might have deployed from this era, correct?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Alright then.” The Captain turned and punched the wall comm-link
panel, taking the handset. “Flight deck,” he said tersely. “Prepare the KA-40
for operations as soon as it is recovered—full ASW loadout.”

There was a brief silence on the line before a voice came back.
“Anti-submarine
loadout, sir?”

“That is what I just ordered. Now be quick about it! Mister
Tasarov will be authorized to conduct this launch at his discretion. You will
coordinate with him.”

“Aye, sir. The helo is landing in five minutes. We’ll be ready soon
after. Flight deck out.”

“There you are, Tasarov. I’m counting on those sharp ears of yours
now, and I may join your exercise during this action. Understood? Be sharp. I
will be watching. Now back to your post.”

*
* *

Nikolin sat paralyzed for a moment, not knowing what he should do.
The Captain had taken Tasarov into the Flag Plot briefing room and closed the
door, and he wondered why. Curious, he toggled inter-ship communications and
listened to any routine traffic underway. It was not long before he knew that
there was activity aft on the helo deck, and that an ASW loadout mission was
being prepared. That surprised him, but given the sudden conference with
Tasarov, he now knew that the Captain was getting ready to defend the ship from
a submarine. But why?

He played back the conversation again, hearing the urgency in
Admiral Volsky’s voice as he ordered Karpov to cease his current operation and
return to Vladivostok. Then, near the end, he heard another voice he hadn’t
noticed before, and the name of another officer—Gromyko. He paused the
recording, and played it back again. There is was:
“Captain Gromyko, sir. I have
the maintenance log for—”

Captain Gromyko? Who was that? Curious, he decided to solve the
riddle by simply keying the name in the naval register. That data was always on
file at his terminal, as he was responsible for maintaining all ships
compliment and updating them in the general register to note promotions and
service details. Seconds later he had the answer, and when he saw the notation
for Gromyko’s present command the adrenalin rose like magma in his chest.

Now he found himself at a real precipice. What should he do? His
instinct was to try and warn Rodenko, or at least get him the information he
had uncovered so he could decide what to do, but they were at the edge of
combat and Rodenko was across the room near Tactical Situation screen plotting
the position of all enemy contacts with radar feeds. I can’t just blurt this
out, he thought. Nor can I leave my station and go over there. What can I do?

Then another idea came to him. The game! The game he had been
playing with Tasarov! With little to do in this environment, he and Tasarov had
been sending riddles back and forth secretly. He was opening a quiet channel to
Tasarov’s station, and the other man had a toggle switch that allowed him to
receive Nikolin’s secret little messages using the ship’s closed short range cellular
system. He could text Tasarov and send him his riddle, and then they would
count the time it took to solve the word puzzle. The man who solved it first
was declared winner that day, and they had been exchanging things in payment
for the prize.

Nikolin’s last riddle had been simple and yet devious:
It
neither barks nor bites but guards the house well.
Tasarov had not been in
doubt for long.
Two minutes later he sent back a text message with his
answer—a lock!
Then three minutes later he fired off his own riddle for
Nikolin to solve:
I have four legs and feathers, but I am neither beast nor
bird.
Nikolin knew that one easily enough, and sent back the answer in
under a minute
—a bed!

Tasarov was now busy loading in his sonic profile data and getting
ready to set up his comm-links and data point feeds to the KA-40 when it
launched. Then he saw the red light indicating a text message was coming from
Nikolin and he looked over at Nikolin as if to shake off the incoming message.
He had no time for games now—not with the Captain all hot like this and
detailing him with this new duty. But something in the look on Nikolin’s face
wasn’t right. He looked frightened, nervous, and there was an urgency in his
eyes, in the nod of his head as he seemed to plead for Tasarov to answer.

With a shrug the sonar man reached for the toggle switch and
enabled station to station text, casting a furtive glance at the Captain as he
did so. He just thought to signal back NO TIME, but then he saw the message. It
was not a riddle…

*
* *

Karpov walked slowly to the view ports, his hand reaching for his
field glasses as was his habit in a surface engagement. He stared out at the
sea, then raised the binoculars to his eyes, his hand unsteady. For a long
minute he searched the grey wave tops, as if he might spy out the tiny white
wake of a periscope or sensor mast from a hidden submarine. He could see the
distant silhouette of Iki Island off the port bow and now he knew what he had
to do. He meant to use his deck guns here to open the action, and pepper the enemy
with those S-400s to rake their decks with lethal shrapnel and start fires. Yet
now the dire threat posed by
Kazan
forced him to open, or at least
maintain the range and seek a better tactical position until he could get the
KA-40 up and out to try and hunt down that infernal submarine. He looked down
at his watch, considering.