John Schettler - Kirov

“They crushed the Japanese empire and practically incinerated their entire country with just a third of their war effort. And liberated half of Europe, and all of Asia in just four years. This is not the United States we know from our time, Doctor. This United States doesn't start with soft words and sanctions. They don’t move a battalion here, a brigade, a few planes, a carrier steaming offshore for a week or two. They won’t take ten years fighting a war like the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan and then leave with nothing in hand when they are done. No…This United States will stop at nothing to achieve its ends. And this war is like nothing we could possibly imagine. A hundred thousand will die on a bad weekend in this conflict. Karpov has stuck his hand into a beehive. We are one ship. How many missiles does he think we have?”

“You know your history well, Mister Fedorov.” The Doctor finished up with a little antiseptic ointment on his cheek. “I think it would be wise if you stay clear of Mister Orlov for a while. As for the Admiral, I'll have a little chat with him.”

“We need more than a little chat, Doctor. I'm afraid the Captain has his mind set on something involving the Atlantic Charter conference. It’s just a few days from now, and as soon as the ship's engines are certified for high-speed rotations again he will hasten on his way, and he will strike at anything in his path.”

Zolkin nodded gravely. ”What exactly is in his path?”

“At the moment, another US surface action group. The battleship Mississippi, two cruisers, five destroyers, and four transports. And behind them there will be much the same escorting their president to Argentia Bay. He will engage these ships if he spots them. We’re jamming all their radar frequencies now. They can’t see us, and he’ll shoot down any plane that comes near us. We can fire at five times their range and hit them before they even know we are here. It’s not warfare, doctor, it’s murder. Our only weakness is the fact that we have a limited weapons inventory, and I'm afraid that when our missiles begin to run low…”

The Doctor knew what Fedorov was angling toward. He scratched his chin, his head to one side as he thought. “I understand,” he said. “I'll do what I can, Mister Fedorov.”

“Thank you, sir. Anything you can do to get the Admiral back on his feet might help.”

Zolkin smiled. “That's what doctors are for. The admirals and captains and generals send men out to fight, and we doctors, we try to put them back together again when they fall apart. In the meantime, I suggest you get some sleep as well. The Chief Engineer was in here an hour ago. It may comfort you to know that I told him to take his time working on the engines. In fact I was rather insistent.” He winked at Fedorov again, removing in one gesture some of the loneliness and isolation the young navigator had carried on his shoulders for days now.

“Now then,” said the Doctor. “Sleep! Doctor’s orders! I will summon you to sick bay at 1800 hours for your prescription.”

“What prescription, sir?”

Zolkin just smiled, and Fedorov knew he had found an ally.

On the bridge the excited flush of victory was well savored. Karpov ordered the KA-226 to scout out toward the position of the American task force and send back live video, and this time he trusted what he saw. The scene was still shrouded with smoke and burning oil, though the sole remaining American destroyer had limped away to the south, her decks laden with every man she could pull out of the sea. All too many were left there, either dead before they hit the water, or dead within the hour. O’Brien lingered as long as she could, but after CV Wasp leaned over and finally began to sink, her skipper felt it would do no good to the survivors if another attack came in and blew his own ship apart. He sped south, back towards the Mississippi in TF 16, which was hurrying north to render any assistance possible.

The four troop and cargo transports were immediately ordered to turn about and return to Argentia Bay. Two destroyers went with them, the remaining three hastening north at full speed to pick up the last of the survivors. Behind them came the heart of the task force, cruisers Quincy and Wichita, and the battleship Mississippi. But at 16:00 hours a signal came in ordering the ships to hold position, then turn about and steam for Argentia Bay as well. Apparently the Admirals wanted to get all their eggs in one basket, count them well, and then hatch some plan of attack against this lethal, unseen German raider.

Karpov studied the footage, watching the movements of the three destroyers closely, then assured himself that they were there only to rescue the fallen. Before long they, too, turned and steamed south leaving only the still burning flotsam on the oily sea. The men on the bridge gathered round the video monitor, their eyes alight at first, until the helo zoomed in on the floating bodies of sailors adrift in the wreckage. They saw the arm of one man raise up, as if he was trying desperately to call back one of the destroyers. Then exhausted or stricken by the cold, he slipped from the spar of a mast he had been clinging to, and was taken by the sea.

There is an unwritten law among men who go to sea that binds each one in a silent kinship. The essence of it is that they live or die at the whim of a force greater than any man can sound or fathom, and that a man alone in the water was every man among them in his place.

Watching that last man slip beneath smoky green-gray waves and die took the fire and light of battle out of the eyes of the young mishman on the bridge. It was a perceptible shift in the tone of the emotion they shared, and a sullen silence came over them, perhaps as each one realized now that they had made a mortal enemy of the two single powers that mutually ruled these seas, and that from this point forward, their lot was to fight for their very survival, or to die like the men they had seen on the video screen. And slowly, one by one, they drifted away, back to their posts, keeping the last of their thoughts to themselves the way a man keeps the review of each day he lives in the quiet minutes before sleep takes him. Orlov noticed it, felt it as well, yet his only way of understanding it was to channel the emotion into derisive anger.

“Those stupid bastards,” he said. “What did they think they were doing launching those planes at us? What did they think we were supposed to do, sit here and let them come in on us and put our balls in the sea? No. They got what they damn well deserved, and I hope to god they learned from it.”

The men glanced his way warily as he spoke, but no one said anything, the echo of Fedorov’s warning still in their minds. It was not as Orlov had told it, they knew. The Americans had no intention of attacking. They were unarmed. They had no idea Kirov was even there, and not one of them ever laid eyes on the enemy that had struck them down; butchered them with weapons and capabilities they could not begin to comprehend. Somewhere in that train of thought was a ripening seed of guilt, and each man sat with it, dealt with it in his own way.

For Karpov, it was his to retreat to the silence of command. With Orlov at his side, no one questioned him. So his mind was already leaping past any notion of recrimination and on to the next evolution of his maneuver to the south. Yes, he would have to explain his actions to the Admiral, but he could claim, and justifiably so, that the Americans had struck the first blow in launching those planes, just as Orlov had said.

Why was the engine room taking so long on the reactor cooling problem, he wondered? The ship had been making no more than ten knots throughout the whole engagement. He wanted to put on speed, and cruise south to get into the most favorable position for the confrontation he knew was only a matter of days and nautical miles ahead of them now. What was done, was done. He would live with it and waste no time brooding over his fallen enemy.