John Schettler - Kirov

“Yet she'll be vulnerable to these German rockets, sir; so is Renown. As for Nelson, she can't make much more than twenty knots, and that will slow down Somerville considerably.

“Twenty knots will have to do for the moment,” said Tovey. “I need ships with big guns and the armor to stand in a fight for a time. Nelson may not be able to catch this German ship, but we might, and if we get her by the ankles and hold on tight enough, then Nelson can come up join the party, just as Rodney did against Bismarck. Let's get on a heading to the south. This German ship is not likely to try steaming into the Labrador Sea. They'll be heading south as well. Eventually we can work our way to join up with Prince of Wales. As long as Somerville will be making no more than twenty knots, if he has a fast tanker in port at Gibraltar, tell him to bring it along. Vian’s cruisers would be in need of fuel by the time we get down south. It's either that or we send them home soon.

“Very good, sir,” said Brind, thinking. “What about the Americans?” he said at last. “Don’t they have a convoy headed for Iceland at the moment? They'll have warships bound for this meeting in Newfoundland as well. It would be wise if we brief them as to the nature of the threat, sir.”

“Yes, they’ll run right afoul of this rogue and won’t have any idea what the Germans are capable of. We’d best warn them as soon as possible.”

“Admiral Pound is aboard Prince of Wales with the Prime Minister,” said Brind.

“Let's leave the Admiral to his tea and crumpets for the time being,” said Tovey. “He’s likely to sit on things if we go through channels. We’d best let the Yanks know directly. I'll take full responsibility.”

“Very well, sir. I'll see that the orders are sent out at once.”

Kirov raced south, passing the distant Cape of Greenland to the west and heading into the North Atlantic. She pushed on through the Denmark Strait without the slightest scratch from the enemy. Karpov was pleased when Rodenko informed him the British battleships had turned about, heading southeast for a time until they vanished, beyond the range of his surface radar. The British carriers that had been following also disappeared from Rodenko's screens.

Tovey was steaming south on course almost parallel to that of Kirov, but Karpov could not know this unless he sent his KA-40 helos up to extend his sighting range. For the moment however he was content to have shaken off his pursuers. He had given the British another hard lesson, demonstrating that he could strike them heavy blows well outside the range of their guns. They had turned tail and sped away, bruised and battered by his missiles. Yet before he had too much time to gloat, he needed to handle a maintenance problem that had come up at a most inopportune time.

Chief Dobrynin in engineering had called up and asked him to make slow revolutions on the turbines again while they investigated a reactor cooling problem. There was no immediate danger, but Karpov knew that a ship’s reactors at sea could be temperamental pieces of equipment, and there had been more than one ‘incident’ in the navy over the years. What had happened to the Orel? As much as he wanted to get down south quickly, his better judgment led him to slow the ship to a sedate 10 knots while the engineers investigated. There was nothing wrong with Kirov’s radars, and she could defend herself from any and all threats well before they became a problem. Yet he wanted speed when he needed it, and so he decided to linger on the 5th of August and effect repairs. It would put the ship in its best, battle worthy condition, and also give him time to think as he set his mind on bigger fish to fry.

Somewhere to the east there was another British battleship at sea, he knew, and she carried a gaggle of high-ranking officials, and officers from every arm of the military, including fat Winston Churchill himself. He thought what a tempting target Prince of Wales would make for his Sunburns. Then again, he could allow the ship to complete its journey and see all the eggs in one basket, there in Argentia Bay of Newfoundland, where he could keep them as long as he wanted, or deal with them in any way he saw fit.

With the American president and the British prime minister holed up, he had any number of choices. One was to join the negotiations himself, standing in for his uninvited countrymen and assuring that the Soviet Union would not be marginalized in the postwar environment the two Western powers were now scheming to build.

He passed a moment imagining his arrival, with all three helicopters used to ferry in an honor guard of marines, led by the formidable Kandemir Troyak. He pictured them in their dress olive greens, long double breasted trench coats with gold buttons and collar tabs, braided gold belts and the brilliant red sash strap from shoulder to waist, where a six inch tasseled gold horsetail tied it off. Their black Ushankas rose proudly as they marched, stiff backed, their pace timed precisely to the beat of black jack boots polished to a mirror like finish. Each man would carry a bayoneted rifle, and the squad leader would hold a long silver sword, gleaming balefully in the morning light. Behind him would come the flag bearer, with the tricolor of the new Russian Federation snapping proudly in the wind. The symbolism would be apparent to all those who watched them come, their eyes glazed with awe, jaws slack with fear and surprise. They would be the sword of Mother Russia. They would seem a phalanx of doom as they marched, with the Captain strutting boldly in their midst as commanding officer.

Karpov smiled to himself, dwelling on the image. But it would not be mere theater, he mused. The considerable weight of Kirov's firepower, and the nuclear weapons he could demonstrate on some empty forsaken tract of Newfoundland would be his big sticks in the negotiations, sure to bend the minds of both heads of state. If they gawked at his helicopters, he could only imagine their shock at the sight of a nuclear detonation, and their fear as he calmly told them his ship was laden with a hundred similar warheads, lozh to be sure, but a lie that would surely be believed after his demonstration. What would the duplicitous titans of the West do, he wondered?

Roosevelt and Churchill had given their assurances time and time again, toying with Stalin throughout the war as they promised to eventually open a second front in Europe, while in fact they left most of the fighting to the Russian army. They might do the very same with him, he thought, promising him the world with sweet tongued graces, yet delivering nothing in the end. What would he do with the ship in the meantime, while the British and Americans most likely gathered every fighting vessel they could get their hands on and vectored them in? He needed to know more about the enemy capabilities to make a firm decision one way or the other. As much as he disliked Fedorov, the navigator was the only man on the ship he could rely on for the information he needed. The book he had been reading was in no way comprehensive.

“How many more ships might we expect to encounter if we proceed south now,” he asked.

Fedorov was grateful for the opportunity to speak. Perhaps he could persuade the Captain to alter his course and avoid further combat. “I've done some research, sir, and we are fortunate that many British capital ships are laid up for repair and refit at this time. They have four or five more aircraft carriers available, but two are in American ports for refit, and one is in the Indian ocean. Aside from the two we have just driven off, that will leave them only the Ark Royal at Gibraltar. This is a more experienced ship and could pose a threat.”

“It will serve only as a good target for our Sunburns,” said Karpov. “And we have already seen what happens to their aircraft should they dare strike us again. But what about battleships?”