“With those naval rockets, sir?”
Tovey gave Villers a look. “I suppose we shall have to see… Very good, Mister Villers. That will be all.”
He looked at the sea, noting a sudden wave come sweeping in, seeing it break heavily over the forward bow, feeling it lift the entire ship. It was the fading swell of that thing out there, he knew. Even here, maybe sixty miles out, we feel it lift the ship with its anger, a weapon so powerful that it can move the sea itself.
He remembered Admiral Volsky speaking of this power, yet he could scarcely imagine how it had been achieved. Fire and steel, he thought. What will war become in the decades ahead? Is it any wonder that these ships and men flee to us here?
And now the memory of his own voice, the young Lieutenant shouting all those many years ago, sounded hollow. Port thirty and signal all ships to follow… But there was no one in his wake now, and HMS Invincible was alone.
* * *
Gordon MacRae was considering what to do now, standing behind the Captain’s station, as he often did, wanting his feet on the deck in any good fight, and not his ass in the chair. Mack Morgan had returned with Miss Fairchild’s consent, indeed her order, to stand the men up, and he had just put the crew to their battle stations. Rodney was finally on their horizon to the north, and the smoke there was certainly cause for alarm. He could see the distant flash, and hear the dull roar of the guns, like far off thunder. Somewhere over that horizon to the northwest, the German battleships also had Rodney on their horizon. The white geysers of shellfall seemed tiny in comparison to the awful wrack that now fisted up into the morning sky.
“What happened to that Russian sub?” Mack Morgan had an ‘I told you so’ look on his face. “And who the bloody hell is flinging nukes about?”
The tall column from the massive explosion to the north had been most alarming. The Russian sub was out there somewhere, supposedly on point. MacRae figured they had nukes aboard, but it never occurred to him that they would resort to their use. It was completely unexpected, a level of anger and violence that might have been par for the course in the world they came from, where he knew the hunter killer subs of his day had those shark’s teeth in them, and little hesitation to use them. But not here, not now, the ugly mushroom cloud blighting the sea for the first time in the history of this world.
“Lord almighty… That’s done it,” he said to Morgan. “Someone has one heavy hand out there.”
“Has to be 15 to 20 kilotons,” said Morgan. He was still watching the horizon, transfixed. Like MacRae, he had expected to see nuclear weapons in easy use in the war that was brewing back home, but not here. “It either came off that Russian boat,” he said, “or that bloody Astute Class we were warned about must have fired the damn thing.”
They had received one hurried radio message on the secure system, stating a British Astute class submarine was now on the scene, and that is when the whole scenario began to spin off like a wild Irish jig. Acting on pure reflex, MacRae had sent out an all channels message to try and stand the submarine down. Minutes later the crackle of static came over the airwaves and the horizon had erupted with the broiling mass of a good sized warhead.
Yet now they had no sign or word from either sub. It was as if they had also disappeared, just as the Russian battlecruiser had vanished some hours earlier. Were they down there, backs broken, and slowly sinking into the murky depths? He had no idea what was going on, but the sight of Rodney now was enough to rattle his reflex for battle again, and he knew he had to act.
The Germans were obviously closing in for the kill, and MacRae did not have to guess where the enemy ships were as the British might. His Sampson radar had their exact positions pegged, and he knew it was now time for Argos Fire to join the action. After seeing that mushroom cloud, anything he fired might seem a feeble thing by comparison, but he knew he could still influence the outcome of this battle if Argos Fire engaged.
He leaned in toward Morgan, lowering his voice. “Did her Ladyship say anything about our missile quota this time around?”
“Not a peep, Gordie. She seems particularly invested in the health of that ship out there.”
“Aye…” MacRae considered his situation. They had used seven of their precious GB-7 missiles in the Med, and only ten remained. He had already engaged the enemy planes swooping in to attack Rodney, his Aster-15s wreaking havoc with the German formation. Now the battleships were in range, and he needed to weigh in.
“The ship will ready for missile fire,” he said with as much calm as he could muster. “Ship-to-ship. Spin up three GB-7s, and be quick about it.”
The warning claxon sounded. The target was noted and assigned. “Let’s get after that number two ship in the enemy formation out there. I make it to be their flag. Engage!”
The missiles were up to greet the morning sun, their hot tails of fire pushing steel. The GB-7 was fast at Mach 3, and it would barely have the time to accelerate to its full speed before it had the target in its radar cross section, swooping down and then boring in at sea level to make the final run.
MacRae smiled. The bar fight was on, and he was just about to break a beer bottle or two over someone’s head out there. They’ve gone and picked a fight with the wrong man, he thought, folding his arms. Now let’s see about it.
Chapter 2
Kurt Hoffman had been on the weather deck off the bridge of Scharnhorst, clenching his fist with those last hits on Rodney, and knowing they were finally going to get their pound of flesh against the Royal Navy. Then he was stunned to see the massive explosion on the sea, driven by the expanding gas bubble of Gromyko’s heavy nuclear torpedo. It erupted in a crest of dark surface water followed by the expanding ring of white “crack,” and then the huge spray dome, rising upwards into a column of seawater and steam.
The plume would rise some 5000 feet, nearly a mile high in the sky, and out from its base a tsunami of water surged out in every direction, creating a circle around the blast that was over three miles wide. As it careened down into the sea, a series of smaller waves were generated, the first about 100 feet in height. Then a haze of mist expanded, some 1,800 feet high and forming the enormous dome, like some demonic behemoth that had emerged from the sea, its head suddenly crowned with the serrated bloom of the topmost edge of the detonation chimney.
God was in his heaven, thought Hoffmann, but what was in the sea? It looked as though hell itself had risen from the depths in a massive volcanic eruption from an unseen seamount. That was all he could think of as any possible reason for the calamity on the horizon, for it never entered his head that such power could have been the result of anything made by the hand of man. Then he felt the heavy swell as the shock wave finally reached his ship, feeling Scharnhorst rising up as though lifted by some mighty giant.
The wrath of Neptune was heavy on the sea, and the guns on every side were stilled, all eyes riveted at the scene on the horizon. The detonation had occurred some twenty miles off, far enough to spare the ships any real damage, but was spectacular in its sudden appearance, imposing a stunned hush on the scene. Then, if the madness of that moment were not enough, Hoffmann saw the sky clawed by three thin streaks, his heart leaping with the realization of what was now happening.
The missiles came like spirits fleeing from the awful scene on the horizon, just as crews on each side had finally recovered, and the shouts of officers urged them to resume their own little war on the sea.
The Germans returned to the heat of their action against Rodney, when Tirpitz fired again, and now Hoffman looked to see the British battleship was in serious trouble. He could clearly see the fires foreword, and heavy smoke, but the list caused by the damage it had sustained was more pronounced, as the ship had been rolled heavily by the shock wave of that terrible eruption, though it continued to fight on. Then the high watch above shouted out the alarm—Rockets!
Hoffmann was already watching them, tense and guarded when he saw the telltale contrails coming at them. They had n
ot been fired from Rodney, he knew, and he first thought they might be something hurled into the sky by the detonation. Yet soon he could see order within the chaos of their approach, and knew the worst. There’s something else out there, he thought, just beyond the horizon—another ship. They must be getting signals from the battleship to guide those rockets.
Up they went, then they fell to the sea, and he knew what was coming next. There was no way the gunners could stop them. They moved too damn fast!
In they came, until the bright fire at their tales could be seen as a hot glow on the sea. For a moment it seemed he would suffer the nightmare yet again, endure the fate of Gneisenau, already bludgeoned and fallen off the battle line. Then, to his astonishment, he saw the rockets execute a precision turn, angling right off his starboard beam and vectoring in on the Tirpitz! It was as if they had eyes, as if they were piloted. He found himself casting a quick upward glance at the skies, thinking he might see some aircraft being used to radio control these demons, but all was clear. Then came the roar and thunder of the rockets as they struck home, and he leaned over the gunwale, looking back to see the bright fire and explosions enveloping the forward segment of the Tirpitz.
Topp’s flagship had been hit hard, once on Anton turret, once at a point on the hull just below this, and the third hit behind Bruno at the base of the tall conning tower. He was transfixed for a moment, seeing the hot rolling smoke and fire. Then the watch shouted again and he looked to see two more ships had suddenly appeared on the horizon. He knew them at once. These were the British battlecruisers.
Hoffman had seen one close enough to duel with in the Norwegian Campaign the previous year off Lofoten Islands. Gunther Lütjens had been in command at the time, and they had come upon the battlecruiser Renown escorted by a pack of other smaller ships, which Lütjens took to be cruisers and destroyers. A brief action resulted, with both Gneisenau and Renown sustaining hits until Lütjens believed the British destroyers rushing in were much larger vessels, and broke off the engagement.
Always the reluctant Admiral, that one, thought Hoffmann. Only later did we learn that those were merely destroyers, and all that frenetic gunfire reported was well out of range. We could have stayed in that fight, but instead Lütjens ran off into the Arctic Sea. And where is he now?
In one brief moment, the situation had taken a major turn. Rodney had finally ceased firing, but now those two battlecruisers would bring another twelve 15-inch guns to the battle. How bad was the damage on Tirpitz? If those forward guns were compromised by that rocket attack… And what had caused that terrible eruption in the sea?
He soon learned that the damage looked far worse than it was. Anton turret had been temporarily put out of action, though its heavy armor had protected it from serious harm, in spite of numerous casualties there from the sheer shock of the attack. New crews were rushing to get it operational again, and fight the deck fire that resulted. The conning tower armor had also weathered the hit. The missile that struck beneath the forward guns had hit a segment of the hull above the main belt, where the armor was thinner at about 145mm. There was serious blast damage there, and yet another fire, yet none of these hits were fatal. The smaller 200kg warheads on the GB-7s did not have the punch to defeat heavy armor like this, and their effect was mainly one of heavy shock and fire.
Yet those punches had been enough to prompt Topp to turn to port. It would allow him to get his rear turrets in action, and also serve to put him on a better heading to disengage if that became necessary. Hoffmann saw the maneuver, and though he could see no signal flags on the battleship, he shouted orders to keep station and turned ten points to port. He could already see the flash of distant guns on those battlecruisers, and now he made the decision to shift fire to engage that new threat.
How long before those rockets find my ship, he thought, the memory of Graz Zeppelin still burning in his mind. My god, will we lose our whole squadron? What is that out there? He could not take his eyes from the still rising column on the horizon, mayhem and madness from another time, where two unseen warriors battled beneath the sea.
* * *
Aboard the Hindenburg, Admiral Lütjens was staring through his field glasses at what he first took to be a rapidly rising thunderhead. It had to be thirty or forty miles off, and how it could have appeared in the clear morning dawn mystified him. Yet there it was, billowing up in the distance, dwarfing the smaller columns of black smoke where he knew Graf Zeppelin must have died, and other ships must surely be burning with the fire of war.
Adler came to his side, both men on the weather deck, staring at the scene in silence. “Perhaps that is good news, Admiral,” he suggested. “That British battleship may have blown up!”
“That has to be over a mile high,” said Lütjens, gazing, beset with a deep inner feeling of misgiving. That was no storm, not on a day like this. That was death and destruction, but what on earth could have caused it?
“Send to Topp at once. Can he see that? What has happened?”
Then he felt the upwelling of the sea, just as all the others, which did little to still the feeling of disaster that was rising with that cloud on the horizon. It was not long before he saw what he had feared. The scoring of rocket trails in the sky, lancing up and speeding away towards the distant battle he now hastened to join.
They are here, he thought with some alarm. Yet we believed the Invincible was well to the southeast. Could those spotting reports we had be in error? He needed to know, and immediately ordered an Arado seaplane launched to overfly the battle ahead and report positions of anything in the vicinity. He knew that was risky. Those rockets could strike down aircraft as easily as they pummeled ships. He stiffened with a sudden chill, though the morning was not all that cold. The moment Adler returned he put his squadron on air alert, not for planes that might soon come, but for those rockets that would surely seek his own ships if they persisted on this course.
“Rockets,” said Adler. “Topp reports three hits—all from those rockets, but the damage is controllable. He does not know what has happened with that eruption, nor do I. What could it be, Admiral?”
Lütjens gave the scene another narrow eyed look, his face grim. “Three trails in the sky, and three hits. Such accuracy! If we could do that with our guns we would destroy anything we encounter. And here we get yet another report of these rockets striking with unfailing accuracy. Whatever means they have discovered for guiding these rockets, it is the greatest breakthrough of the war. Now it comes down to what we discussed earlier, Adler. Just how many rockets do they have out there? And how many hits can we absorb before we get into gun range? The ship will come to battle stations. Now we see what that new armor may do for us. Tell the Chief of Engineers that he may deploy his hydraulics. And as for you, Captain, in another half hour you get your battle.”
* * *
Elena Fairchild was now on the bridge, her eyes also pulled to the rising column of steam and vapor on the horizon. MacRae explained it in frank starkness.
“It’s one hell of a donnybrook out there, and who knows where it might have come from. Mack thinks the Russians got spooked and made a bad call. In any case, they believed they were in jeopardy, and they lit one off.”
“Lit one off?”
“That has to be fifteen to twenty kilotons out there,” said MacRae. “Probably fired it on one of their Type-65s. Believe it or not, that would be standard operating procedure against a major threat in our day. It’s the one warhead that would be almost certain to take out the target, even if they missed. This is what Morgan thinks.”
“They got that spooked? From a U-boat contact? I thought this Russian sub was the best they had.”
“That’s the odd thing,” said MacRae. “They sent us a flash radio message saying they thought they had an Astute Class sub on their tail. I know it sounds crazy, but our man Haley says he thinks he heard torpedoes in the water—Spearfish. Those are British weapons, but from our time, so this message is starting to have a ni
ce ripe smell.”
That took Elena by surprise. “A modern British submarine? Here? How did it get here?”
“I was thinking to ask you that myself,” said MacRae. “They wouldn’t happen to have another box and key like the one you’ve fished out of Delphi, now would they?”
Elena had a strange feeling now. She found herself staring at the sea outside, the tall lowering cloud in the distance chilling as it overshadowed the scene. It was as if the power and dreadful terror of the next war made all they were doing here in this one seem ludicrous and insignificant.”
“Any word from our X-3?” She wanted to know what had happened to the Russian battlecruiser.
“They’ve been up an hour,” said MacRae. “All the British ships are just where they were, but the Russians are gone, and now there’s something else out there. Sampson radar has it too. We’ve got a string of seven more surface vessels about 20 kilometers out off our port side. X-3 says they look for all the world like Point-Class sealift ships—four of them, and a few other auxiliaries, including the Ulysses.”
Elena knew the ship, a transport ferry of Irish registry. “Ulysses?”
“And fancy this…” MacRae forged on, thinking to dump the whole unseemly lot out at one time. “We picked up a message on a secure channel—coded channel used in Royal Navy operations in our time. Well, we’ve got the equipment here to decode it, seeing as though we’re wearing the uniforms ourselves. Morgan says he thinks it came from that sub the Russians were squawking about. They were sending to the Diligence—fleet Auxiliary and repair ship—and asking about the Destroyer Duncan. That’s a Type 45 destroyer, which would make it our long lost cousin, would it not?”
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