Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (45 page)

How would you have voted, to stay in the past and shape the future
with the power you had, or to do everything possible to preserve the history as
it was? Would you stand with Karpov or Fedorov? The revelations made at the end
of the Fairchild and Duke of Elvington plot lines are deeply disturbing. If
Fedorov had been completely aware of them I wonder what he would have decided?

The conversations between Volsky, Kamenski, Fedorov and Gromyko
over how WWII ended are all very revealing. Each man knows a different ending!
Thus the history is not the fixed and certain thing Fedorov would have it be,
but something that is constantly shifting, cracking, ever in doubt.
Kirov
was not the first to take a hammer to fate, and this is a fairly shattering
revelation that Fedorov struggles with at the end.

We learn that the Watch as established by John Tovey in 1942 has
received cryptic messages from the future, and given vital information to guide
their operations. Then the Duke reveals the astounding fact that there are more
fissures in time, more cracks in the mirror than any of the characters in
Kirov
series know—all except one, the enigmatic figure of Pavel Kamenski.

First introduced as an amiable and curious old grandfather in
Men
of War
, Kamenski is slowly revealed to be someone far more important. When Inspector
General Kapustin and Volkov obtain Fedorov’s note at the Naval Logistics
Building they lead you directly to Kamenski, and his advice to simply “let the
matter go” is aimed at covering it up. We later learn that he knows far more
about time travel than Volsky and Fedorov realized, and he is really like a
groundskeeper in the Devil’s Garden, finding the Admiral and his young
ex-navigator have climbed the  fence and are sneaking about in the tulips!

You may have been perceptive enough to realize that Kamenski, like
Elena Fairchild and the Duke of Elvington, is also a Key Holder, and this is a
bit of the mystery that I leave you with at the end—that suspicion and the
uncertain ending where Karpov is missing, presumed dead, yet with no body
found, and the ship itself is now in unknown waters.

 If any of you have ventured to read my five
Meridian Series
alternate history time travel novels, you already know that long story also
ends with this same mystery in the hand of the main character, Physicist Paul
Dorland. Fedorov would love Dorland and his intrepid group of time travelers,
particularly the head of “Outcomes and Consequences” in that story, a woman
named Maeve Lindford who acts as a guardian of the history.

The
Meridian
team is all about the discovery of time travel
by means other than a massive explosion as in this series, so it is much more
refined and controlled in that regard. Yet the same tension behind the
Kirov
Series
, that taut rope with Karpov on one side trying to change the
history, and Fedorov on the other side trying to preserve it, is at the heart
of the
Meridian Series.

The project team in
Meridian
first tries to change the
history that has led to a devastating terrorist attack in modern times, but
then stumbles upon the ominous fact that others are also walking the shadowy
meridians of time, and in fact a “time war” is being fought by two opposing
sides from the future. They then pledge their efforts to the protection and
preservation of what they call the “Prime Meridian,” or the history as they
know it stored in an enormous touchstone database and guarded by the ceaseless
patrol of ingenious computer programs installed all over the world called
“Golems.”

As that tale ended in the last book,
Golem 7
, the main
character also discovers a strange key in the hold of HMS
Rodney
during the
desperate battle with the German raider
Bismarck
. This was, in fact, the
very same key that the Duke of Elvington finds missing in the damaged section
of the Selene Horse sculpture at the British Museum, one of the  centerpieces
of the famous Elgin Marbles plundered from ancient Greece. That was the novel
that inspired me to write
Kirov
in the first place, and so by ending
this way, with the mystery of the Key Holders, I have finally come full circle.

Yet you, like Rodenko and other members of the crew may now ask:
where have
Kirov
and
Kazan
ended up? My thought was to possibly
answer that one day in a ninth book (
Altered States
) that will find the
Russians in a strangely altered world—the world they built with their own
meddling in time. Karpov was proved correct. The Humpty Dumpty history has
fallen and cracked, and not all the  King’s horses nor all the King’s men can
put it back together again. As you have already seen in the prologue to
Armageddon
,
Fedorov’s impulsive whisper in Mironov’s ear had some rather alarming
consequences! In fact, Fedorov’s own muse that his hunt for Orlov was
significant only because it brings him to that fissure in time on the back
stairs of Ilanskiy is perhaps proved true. Mironov’s curiosity shows him what
is to come in Stalin’s world, and so he takes matters into his own hands.

Altered States
will show that fractured world when Russia does not survive the
revolution as one unified nation. One side is ruled by the iron hand of Ivan
Volkov, the shadow that rose in Stalin’s place as Doctor Zolkin warned, and the
other is controlled by Sergei Kirov and his supporting power base. The borders
of other nations are re-drawn as well. It is a WWII era timeframe and the world
teeters on the brink of a new war. Germany has colonies in the Pacific. There
are new and different ship designs based on knowledge gained in the many
battles against
Kirov
. The science of rocketry has been advanced as
nations try to build the terrible missile weapons that posed such a grave
challenge. Aircraft carriers are shown to be vulnerable to ranged missile fire,
etc.

The question at hand is where to go now? As Kamenski said to
Volsky and Fedorov in chapter one of this volume: “We need not decide our final
course at the moment, but I agree, this will be a major fork in the road, and
in some respects it influences a choice we must make before we get underway.”

As to that choice, I invite you all to weigh in and
cast
your vote
to let me know where you might like to see me take my restless pen in another
story. I have several projects now underway…

Want something entirely
new? Here are two all new alternate history series that will rewrite either the
American Civil War or WWII:

Hindenburg

Another naval thriller,
this will be the first in a series of alternate history WWII novels that begin
with the early adoption of Plan Z by Germany and a dramatically strengthened
Kriegsmarine. The battleships
Hindenburg
and
Friedrich der Grosse
join
Bismarck
and
Tirpitz
at the heart of the fleet, along with
Graf
Zeppelin
class carriers and designs for new “Panzerschiffe” armored
battlecruisers. The resulting fleet poses a much greater threat to the Royal
Navy which struggles to forestall a German invasion in Operation Seelowe while
guarding the vital Atlantic sea lanes England depends upon for her survival. This
will be a fast paced alternate history WWII naval action that will re-write the
entire history of WWII in the West with an emphasis on the naval campaign.

The Old War Horse

In mid-August of 1863
Lee’s “Old War Horse” of the Eastern theater, General James Longstreet, made a
remarkable three week march by road and rail with the divisions of Hood, McLaws
and Pickett, and a battalion of artillery under Alexander Porter. The veteran
troops arrived on the eve of the Battle of Chickamauga, where Longstreet made a
bold and skillful attack to crush the Union army. It was only the stubborn
defense of Union General George H. Thomas that earned him the nickname “The
Rock of Chickamauga,” and the sluggish incompetence of the irascible
Confederate army commander Braxton Bragg that prevented the complete
destruction of the Union army under Rosecrans. But what if Bragg had fallen to
a sniper’s bullet and Longstreet assumed command of the entire Confederate army
of the Tennessee on the eve of the battle? An exciting alternate history
retelling of the Civil war in the West that begins at Battle of Chickamauga and
sees Longstreet elevated to command the entire Western Theater. His daring and
skill can be opposed by only one man, perhaps the finest commander the Union
Army ever put in the field, Ulysses S. Grant. First in a series focused on an
alternate history of the Civil War.

And then there are these
two books that could arise from story threads presented in the Kirov Saga. You
have already met the principle characters…Care to Join the Argonauts or take up
the challenge the Duke posed to Ian Thomas?

Argonautica:
The Odyssey of Argos
Fire – Lost Empire

The mysterious box taken
aboard
Argos Fire
does more than anyone expects. The nexus fades and the
ship appears in an ancient world before the great catastrophe and flood that
destroyed a highly advanced civilization in the Mediterranean. There they
encounter strange craft in the air and on the seas of the Aegean, and soon
learn the answer to the mystery posed by Plato so long ago—the fabled lost
empire of Atlantis was real, though it is not found to be the marvel of
civility the legends speak of, but a cruel and oppressive empire crushing the
fledgling cultures in Egypt, Greece and Rome under its iron foot…Until the heat
of
Argos Fire
arrives to give challenge!

Keyholders Saga:
Roll of Thunder -
Waterloo

Continue the journey of
Sir Roger Ames, Duke of Elvington, and Ian Thomas as they arrive on the eve of
one of the most significant and important battles of all time, Waterloo.
Pursuing a personal vendetta, the Duke has a mind to end the life of a key
player on that field of glory, which results in a markedly different outcome in
this alternate history retelling of the battle of Waterloo. Yet the mystery of
another key is also followed, to London where the Duke hopes to find the
missing key that was hidden in the base of the Selene Horse, a centerpiece of
the Elgin Marbles then being stored at Harrington House. What door it might
open to another past?

Gotta have more Volsky?
Can't live without Fedorov? Missing Orlov? Here is a possible 9th Kirov Series
novel that I mentioned above.

Kirov Saga 9:
Altered States

Kirov
and
Kazan
move
forward and find themselves stuck in the midst of WWII once again, only the
world is not the same! The consequences of all their interventions in history
have now calcified to a new reality. The political borders of nations have been
re-drawn, Colonial powers vie for control of the undeveloped world, and Russia
itself is a divided nation. Discovering they still possess a decisive edge in
weapons technology they must now decide which side to take and struggle to end
a long and terrible war that threatens millions more lives.

Stay In Touch!

Amazon doesn’t tell any of us poor authors who you are out there,
so I have no way to contact you with advanced notice of new releases. Want to
be informed directly by email when any of the above stories are ready for
release? Register at my web site and receive advanced notice.

If you would care to cast your vote on which title you would most
like to see you can do so at the link below or vote by simply dropping me an
email here:
mailto:[email protected]

Chose as many as you would like to see done, or simply choose your
favorite. I’ll have a Christmas surprise for all those who register or vote.

LINK TO POLL & REGISTRATION

Lastly, I would like to thank you all again for coming aboard and
steadfastly manning your post with your support of the
Kirov Saga.
It
was a tale that grew in the telling, and it was all for you.

With my deepest thanks and
gratitude to have you as a reader,

John Schettler

OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN SCHETTLER

Kirov

The battlecruiser
Kirov
is the most power surface combatant
that ever put to sea. Built from the bones of all four prior
Kirov
Class
battlecruisers, she is updated with Russia’s most lethal weapons, given back
her old name, and commissioned in the year 2020. A year later, with tensions
rising to the breaking point between Russia and the West,
Kirov
is
completing her final missile trials in the Arctic Sea when a strange accident
transports her to another time. With power no ship in the world can match, much
less comprehend, she must decide the fate of nations in the most titanic
conflict the world has ever seen—WWII.

Kirov II
–
Cauldron of Fire