If not for the sealed citadel bridge environment with conditioned air recirculation and full NBC protocols the crew might have been suffocated in the intensely thickening ash. As it was, the line outside Dr. Zolkin’s sick bay was a long one, and crewmembers that came in reporting respiratory distress were receiving emergency oxygen. Air filters on vital equipment were soon being overwhelmed, and emergency teams were trying to clear them.
Rodenko’s systems initially went dark, then winked on fitfully again and he gave an initial report. They were returning an unreadable signal from the massive ash clouds that had covered the entire area, but in time he began to localize on nearby contacts.
“I think have signal returns on Orlan and Admiral Golovko, sir. No sign of Varyag. This ash cloud is beginning to seriously degrade sensor performance.”
“Communications are spotty,” said Nikolin, “but I’m close enough to raise Orlan,”
“You mean to say you cannot raise Golovko?” Karpov looked over at Nikolin, unhappy.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m getting intense interference all over the band.”
“It’s the ash fall,” said Rodenko. “Byko has a team on the outer deck and reports it is all over the ship. We look like a gray lady wearing a funeral shroud. It’s three inches thick on the main decks, and every system on the superstructure is coated with the stuff. The Chief has men trying to hose down the vital sensors, but it’s difficult work in those NBC suits.”
Karpov walked to the forward view screens where the windshield wipers were smearing the ash back and forth in a blurry mess. Every window was completely coated, just as Rodenko had warned. Then Tasarov perked up, listening to his sonar headset.
“I’m not hearing it any more, sir.”
Karpov turned his head. “Hearing what, Lieutenant?”
“The eruption. I was monitoring it on the passive system with low volume, then it quieted down, so I tuned in to listen. It’s stopped, sir, unless my equipment has also failed. I hear nothing now. In fact my sonic field is completely clear.”
The bridge phone rang and Rodenko reached to answer it. He listened, his eyes registering surprise. “Chief Byko says conditions are clearing, sir. We can secure from NBC conditions and resume normal operations.”
“Clearing?” Karpov found that hard to believe given the size of the eruption they had seen. He was still peering through the muddied view screen, frustrated. “Activate Tin Man One and pan north,” he said, and Nikolin immediately toggled a switch to feed power to the system.
“Getting a picture now, sir.”
The digital feed was spotty, breaking up into checkered squares and reassembling again, but after a moment the image settled down.
“There’s Admiral Golovko,” said Karpov. “But my God, look at the sea conditions! And the sky—Byko was correct. There’s no sign of any disturbance at all.”
A few moments ago they were sailing in the massive ash fall shadow of a VEI Level 7 Ultra-Plinian Super-Colossal volcanic eruption, with tsunami driven seas and ashen skies that blotted out the sun itself, sending them into a limbo of brimstone and pumice—but now they were cruising on quiet seas, with a strange tinge of green fire in the ocean, and pristine white cumulus clouds in an azure blue sky. The distant silhouette of the Kuriles was calm and undisturbed. There was no sign of the eruption at all!
Karpov’s momentary shock soon gave way to instant recognition. “My God,” he said. “Not again…Look at the sea Rodenko. Look at the sky!”
The ship’s Radar Chief and new Starpom was staring up at the screen, dumbfounded. “That eruption was nearly forty kilometers high by my last signal returns. No way you can put that genie back in the bottle, sir. We’ve…”
“We’ve move in time again,” said Karpov. “How is that possible? That reactor control rod isn’t even on the damn ship!” Even as he asked the question he knew the why of it all would likely be a confounding mystery, just as it was the first time this happened. The question he needed to be asking now was not why, but when. That thought went from mind to lips as Karpov removed his hat, wiping the sheen of perspiration from his brow.
“Where have we ended up this time? Is this the future we saw before, or the past?”
One thing was certain, the present was gone, the war itself went up in cinders the moment the Demon vented its wrath. The eruption made the petty quarrels of humans seem totally insignificant. Yet now they had all been dragged into an old and all too familiar nightmare again… somewhere… somewhere in time…
~ ~ ~
He went to Zolkin, the man who was ever his foil and a prickling barb of conscience on the ship. He was the man who mended the crew’s woes, both physical and mental, bandaging up their souls as much as anything else. The Doctor had every intention of leaving the ship for private practice in Vladivostok, but when duty called and the fleet sailed he knew his place was aboard Kirov. Now Karpov sat with him in the sick bay, so many questions on his mind, though Zolkin had a few of his own.
“How did it happen this time? I thought they took that wizard’s brew off the ship.”
“They did, but the detonation of that volcano north of our position seems to have blown us half way through the last century again.”
“What year is it? Have you found that out yet?”
“I went down to Fedorov’s quarters and fetched a copy of that book he often referred to—the Chronology of the Naval War at Sea. We’ve learned the US fleet has been attacking the Japanese home islands the last several days, so I looked that up and compared the narrative to information we’ve picked up on radio. I believe it may be the 15th of August, 1945. We must be somewhere in that timeframe, or so I reckon it.”
“Good then, the war is nearly over. The surrender of Japan was accepted in Tokyo Bay about that time, was it not?”
“August 27th, in Sagami Bay, if Fedorov’s book is accurate.”
“I thought everything was different because of our meddling.”
“Not exactly. Fedorov tried to explain it to me once. He said it was like a cracked mirror—the changes we make in the history. The rest of the mirror is perfect, and reflects events down to the finest detail, but wherever there is a crack the image is distorted. I have no idea how badly cracked that mirror is now, Doctor. Each time we do something the cracks spread further, but the portion I am peering into at the moment seems to be accurate. We’ve heard the names of many vessels listed in US fleet units.”
“Well, with the war over I hope they’ll be going home soon and perhaps we’ll be left in peace.”
“Perhaps…” Karpov had a distant look in his eye, one part loneliness, one part despair, and yet behind it was a flicker of dark energy that always seemed to animate his mind. Zolkin noticed it at once.
“What’s on your mind, Captain?”
“I’ll put it as simply as I can, Doctor. I don’t think we can count on that volcano on Iturup Island blowing its top any time soon. For all I know Volsky must think that Demon wiped us off the map. That it did, but it sent us to this private little purgatory again, perhaps to atone for our sins.”
“It certainly seems that way.”
“The point is—we can’t get back this time. We have no magic wand. Dobrynin took Rod-25 to the Caspian to look for Fedorov in 1942. We’re stranded here.”
“Not necessarily,” Zolkin finished cleaning some oxygen dispensers with alcohol and was drying his hands with a towel as he spoke. “Suppose they found Fedorov, went home with Orlov and all the rest, then they would have that control rod to come back for us.”
“And suppose Fedorov and all the rest have been blown to hell already in 2021,” Karpov put in quickly. “That was no picnic I was invited to when I took the fleet to sea.”
“I understand you had quite an engagement with the Americans—yes, I heard the missiles going off, and saw the Varyag when they fired. Who knows how many were killed in that little argument.”
“Who knows,” said Karpov dryly, detecting just the hint of c
riticism in the Doctor’s voice. “The fact is we don’t know much at all. We can speculate, but there is no way of knowing what happened to Fedorov or Orlov now, and no way of knowing what happened to Volsky in 2021. Yes, I think I gave the Americans a bit of a black eye in that engagement. It was either that or they put us at the bottom of the sea, and in that equation morality has little room, Doctor. I’m willing to bet the Americans will want their pound of flesh in reprisal. Volsky’s position at Fokino is somewhat precarious. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Americans don’t have their B-2s in the air with bellies full of missiles to take those facilities out. That’s what I would have done.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
Karpov sat quietly for a moment, thinking to himself. “I suppose we should at least try to signal Volsky as to what happened.”
“And just how do you propose to do that?
“The same way Fedorov planned it. He was to write us a letter and slip it into an old locker in the Naval Logistics Building. I can ease over toward Vladivostok and get men ashore there to do the same thing.”
Zolkin had not heard any of this before. “And this locker remains undisturbed for almost eighty years?”
“That’s what Fedorov claims. If I can get a message into that locker, then Volsky has men there waiting to check it every night.”
“Amazing!” Zolkin shook his head. “That young Fedorov is ingenious.”
“A fine officer,” said Karpov. “But beyond letting Volsky know we’re alive, I don’t know what good my plan will do. There’s a war on, and we were the heart of the fleet. Now we’re gone. I managed to hurt one of the American carrier task forces but they have two more unfought, and another two in their Third Fleet on the West coast. All Volsky has left without us is the Varyag, a couple Udaloys, Admiral Kuznetsov and a few subs. They won’t last another week.”
“I hate to break it to you but adding this ship and the other two here to that mix would not amount to much either. Kirov is a good ship, but the US Navy is something more, I fear.”
“You are probably correct. It was a futile show of force, but Moscow ordered it and so…”
“I know that drill only too well,” Zolkin wagged a finger at him. “You must have learned enough by now to use you head, Karpov. What Moscow wants is seldom for the general good—at least that’s been my experience in recent decades, not to mention in this war ending right here.”
“We had hoped to find a way to prevent it,” said Karpov, the frustration evident in his voice. “I’m not sure why Fedorov was so damn set on this Orlov business. Well, either he succeeded, or he failed. The point is—we may never know either way.”
“What then?” Zolkin held out a hand. “What are you going to do, Captain, look for an island as Volsky planned? You say it’s August? I hear the weather isn’t too bad up on Sakhalin this time of year.”
Karpov gave him a wan smile. “There’s another consideration, Doctor.” His tone indicated that he was finally getting round to business—to the reason why he had come here in the first place.
“You have another idea?”
“Consider this,” Karpov began. “In just a few days virtually the entire American Fleet is going to be anchored in Sagami Bay; the British Pacific Fleet as well. Now the way I see things is that this volcano upset the porridge bowl. The fact that my ships were sent here was completely random, and it occurred only because of the decisions Admiral Volsky and I made to sortie with the fleet. So we’ve done it again.”
“Done what?”
“We’ve changed things, shuffled the deck. Kirov’s presence here is going to cause another major alteration to the history from this day forward. So since we have already changed the course of events, then we may as well finish the job.”
“Finish the job?”
“Look, Doctor, think clearly now. You know what happens from here on out, yes? The US and Britain ride roughshod over the rest of the world. The cold war has already started. MacArthur is shitting his pants to think the Soviets here might occupy northern Japan. They’ll wear us down for fifty years until it all collapses, and then by 2021 we’re going to be fighting the Americans for our lives again. It’s going to happen, one way or another…Unless I stop it.”
“Unless you stop it? Forgive me, Captain, but you are beginning to sound like your old self again. What are you suggesting?”
“Their entire fleet is there. All the dignitaries are going to meet on the battleship Missouri and watch Japan surrender.”
“So what’s on your mind? Are you going to sail into Sagami Bay with these three ships? And then what?”
“I haven’t decided that yet.”
Zolkin gave him a long look. “You’re serious? You are actually considering intervention here? I thought we went over and over this on the ship when Volsky was here.”
“That was different. We didn’t know about the next war then. Now we know—the world is going to be blown to hell unless we do something about it. To be frank I didn’t think there was much Kirov could do in the year 2021 to forestall that. Volsky said it would eventually come down to blood and steel, the old fashioned way, but those things have obvious limitations. When they took that thing off the ship—Rod-25—I’ll admit I felt strangely deflated, mortal again, if that makes any sense. Yet it’s happened again, and who knows why. Here we are again, an order of magnitude more powerful than any ship afloat. In fact, considering that we received a new allotment of heavy weapons, we are more powerful than that entire fleet out there.”
“Heavy weapons? You mean nuclear weapons, don’t you.” Zolkin folded his arms, clearly unhappy. “So it’s come round to this old song and dance again. What are you thinking to do, threaten the United States Pacific Fleet with annihilation? Well if I’m not mistaken the Americans have a few atomic weapons of their own by this time, don’t they. So what are you going to do, Karpov, start a nuclear war here so we can avoid a bigger one later?”
“That would make sense, Doctor, at least from a military perspective.”
“Make sense? It’s insane, Captain. Yes, you are a man of war, and I’m a physician. But this isn’t a garden we’re talking about here. This isn’t a matter of nipping something in the bud before the weeds spread too far. You’re talking about killing people now. Realize that—murdering thousands if they won’t accede to your demands. I can assure you that they won’t take kindly to you if you try to crash their party, nor will they allow you to push them around. They’ve just won the goddamned Second World War, Karpov! Now you come sailing up and want to start the third.”
“I can see it’s futile discussing this with you,” said Karpov. “But if it will calm you down I will say that nothing has been decided yet. I want to meet with the Captains of Orlan and Admiral Golovko first and discuss the matter. Remember, they have no idea what has happened—no idea at all.”
“If the sudden change of weather hasn’t clued them in, then they’ll find out soon enough on the radio, just as you did.”
“I’ve already signaled them and ordered complete radio silence. Right now they are busy washing the ash and silt from that monster volcano off the decks and equipment. This evening I will receive Captains Ryakhin and Yeltsin here in the officer’s dining hall for a briefing. Then we will decide what to do.”
“May I attend?”
“If you wish. I came to you to seek your opinion. We’ve had our differences before, Zolkin; there’s no question about that. You may speak your mind, but if we make a decision that you disagree with, be man enough to keep your place and don’t make a fuss about it.”
Zolkin looked Karpov in the eye. “If you think I’ll sit here like a good little Doctor and watch you drop another atomic weapon on Sagami Bay, then you’re not only a madman, but a fool. I’ll scream bloody hell!”
“Look Doctor, no one said anything about bombing Sagami Bay. Please don’t get hysterical and force me to confine you to quarters. The men need you.”
“You have already t
ried that trick once with Volsky, Captain. What did it get you?”
“Volsky isn’t even born yet!” The venom in Karpov’s voice told Zolkin more than the words. “Get that through you head, eh? I admit I was a fool to do what I did last time, but circumstances have changed. If we are to prevent the future we saw, then we have to act. Can’t you see that? You think I can avoid detection indefinitely out here? They’re going to find out about us, and my guess is that when they do they’ll come in shooting first. They’ll assume we’re a renegade Japanese ship this time.”
“Only if you start taking shots at their ships.”
“You said it yourself, Doctor. They just won the damn war. They’ll come sailing up with demands and orders, and I’m not one to be pushed right now. If they get in my face, they’ll regret it.”
“And then you get your war…”
Zolkin sighed heavily, imposing a measure of calm on himself. “I guess it is true what they say, that a leopard never changes its spots. I was proud of you, Karpov. We all were. You were in the most difficult situation imaginable, and you redeemed yourself admirably. Now… show me the real man in there. Who are you? The real man had better take hold of himself, and damn soon, because he’s wearing Captain’s bars and standing on a ship that can blow the world to hell and back with the push of a button!”
Karpov looked down, obviously conflicted, yet torn. The siren’s song of time was singing loudly to him now, calling him to glory, and to unimaginable power. Yet Zolkin’s voice scored him, touching the old wounds that he had struggled to heal in the months past. What would he do?
“Dinner is tonight at zero-six-hundred hours,” he said quietly. “You are invited.”
9 Days Falling, Volume I k-5 Page 30
