John Schettler - Kirov

The American destroyers did not fare so well. Two were swamped, the others forced to maneuver quickly to turn their bows into the wave, where they still floundered in the chaotic sea. But the great wave had one side benefit-its water helped quash the many raging fires aboard the destroyers as they struggled forward through the smoke of battle.

The mishman continued to point, however, and Karpov got up and stepped closer to the view screen, peering through the thick shatter proof glass and squinting as the external wipers sloshed back and forth to clear the spray of seawater. To his amazement, the ocean was rippled with a phosphorescent tide, an eerie glow of quavering green and gold.

“What in God’s name is going on?”

Everyone just stared at the scene in silence.

Admiral Volsky braced himself against a bulkhead when the ship rolled with the great wave. Karpov! That fool had fired a nuclear warhead against his expressed order. God only knows what he has done now, he thought. His mind raced, as he tried to get a grip on the tactical situation.

“Cease fire on those deck guns!” said Volsky. “Shut them down.” Then to Fedorov he said: “Can you examine Mister Kalinichev’s radar and tell me what I am looking at?”

Fedorov moved quickly, the Admiral coming to his side as both men hovered over Kalinichev at Radar 1. “Sir, I read four surface action groups. That is the coast of Newfoundland. The first is close in to our position, probably smaller destroyers of Desron 7 we were engaging with our forward batteries. The second group was probably hit by our warhead. Not much left it now, sir, as you can see. That smudge there must be the detonation. Groups three and four would most likely be Royal Navy units. It looks like the Captain fired a conventional missile barrage at group four earlier-most likely a collection of the forces that have been pursuing us this far, sir. That would be the British Home Fleet, probably commanded by Admiral Tovey. They were hit, but that group is still reading six viable surface contacts.”

The Admiral nodded, his face drawn and serious. “And the number three contact?”

“It’s track shows it arriving from the southeast, sir. This can only be Force H under Admiral Somerville from Gibraltar.”

“Gibraltar?” Volsky raised his heavy brows. “You were correct about these British. They have put to sea with everything they have. Will there be an aircraft carrier there?”

“Aye, sir. The Ark Royal. She probably has two or three squadrons aboard, with veteran pilots.”

“And Group two?”

My guess is that it was composed of the ships that were originally bound for Iceland. The Americans were escorting the second of many relief convoys to reinforce their garrison there. That group was probably Task Force 16, built around the battleship Mississippi. There were two cruisers and five destroyers escorting four transports, but we only read one ship there now. Probably the battleship. It’s the only ship that might have had the armor to survive intact, but I wouldn’t want to be aboard her now, sir. The detonation was very close and there would have been an enormous shock and base surge of ocean water from the explosion of our warhead.”

Volsky nodded. “How close are those destroyers?”

“I read five contacts still afloat there, sir,” said Fedorov. “ Desron 7 was the large destroyer escort accompanying Task Force 19 en route to Argentia Bay. Their speed has fallen off with the blast wave and tsunami shaking them up pretty badly. The range looks to be over 10,000 meters now. We’re still making 30 knots. I doubt if they’ll get any closer if we turn away.”

“Range 12,000 meters now and increasing,” said Kalinichev, to be exact.

The Admiral sighed heavily, his eyes troubled. “Karpov has more than likely put another two or three thousand men into the sea.”

“ Mississippi had over a thousand aboard,” said Fedorov. “Cruiser Quincy had another eight hundred. She was supposed to be sunk a year and a day from now, on August 9th 1942 at the battle of Salvo Island off Guadalcanal. But I’m afraid the Japanese will be denied, sir. The other cruiser, Wichita, served with distinction in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and survived the war.”

“But not this war,” said Volsky. “Another eight hundred men gone there…” He rubbed his forehead as Doctor Zolkin watched him closely.

“Very well. Helm, come about, take us north, away from those destroyers. I want to pay a visit to Mister Karpov and resume command from the main bridge. Thank you gentlemen,” he said to his young junior officers. “I may be calling you to duty on the main bridge as well after I have sorted this mess through. Mister Fedorov, Doctor Zolkin, would you both accompany me, please?”

They stepped through the hatch, then the Admiral peeked back at his men and said: “You have the bridge, Mister Gromenko. But don’t get trigger happy, please.”

“Aye, sir.” Gromenko smiled. It was the first time in his career that he had official control of a fighting ship. He assigned his station to another petty officer and stepped ever so quietly to the command chair. He looked at it for a moment, thinking, then sat quietly down, a look of profound satisfaction on his young face, and a gleam of joy in his eyes.

Admiral Volsky made his way forward through the interior of the ship, thinking hard about the situation. “Karpov has dropped a nuclear bomb on the Americans,” he said sullenly. “I had hoped to open negotiations with the aim of paying a visit to Mister Roosevelt and Mister Churchill, but I don’t think we will have much of a warm welcome after this. That idiot of a Captain must have killed over five thousand men in the last few days! What was he thinking?”

Doctor Zolkin spoke up. “I believe he thought he could alter the course of events, Admiral. He may have had a mind to visit this conference as well, but not as an ally of Britain and the United States, nor even as an equal neutral party purporting to represent the Soviet Union. He may argue that his combat actions were forced upon him by the enemy, but we shall see.”

“I warned him not to fire on the Americans, sir,” said Fedorov. “I told him those planes were unarmed, and the carrier no threat, but he had me relieved and sent below. He would not listen to reason, sir.”

“The question now is what do we do?” said Zolkin. “Are you going to continue this war, Admiral?”

“Good question,” said Volsky. “Perhaps it will be foolish for us to proceed. What’s done is done, and we have likely already had a profound impact on the course of events. If the Americans and British still believe we are a German ship, then Karpov’s attack will likely fill them with dread, yet with equal rage. They may assume that Germany has also been working on a nuclear weapons program, and has managed to deploy a workable weapon. In fact, they may see this as the test run, perhaps assume that the Germans intend to strike America itself with nuclear weapons. The situation is spinning wildly out of control here. The Germans will deny it, of course, and claim they never even had a ship at sea. But I think the Allies will believe the evidence of their own astonished eyes, and the watery graveyard of five thousand American sailors will ignite a fire worse than the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor did.”

“I agree, sir,” said Fedorov. “They will be intimidated, but they will not yield, at least not now. It would take the destruction of both London and New York, before they would ever contemplate surrender to Germany, and even that may not be enough.”

“You are correct, Mister Fedorov. And with this in mind it may be best if we turn east into the Atlantic and disappear. It would be foolish of me to think that I could reason with either Churchill or Roosevelt after this. We can make 32 knots, faster than any of their battleships, correct?”