John Schettler - Paradox Hour

Yet the madness of the moment was that Chernov still had all the German ships on his board, churning along to the west and northwest. I look that way and its world War Two—I look behind me and its World War Three! What in hell is going on here?

Think, Gromyko, he shook his head to clear his mind. Think! That Type-45 out there came through time, just like Kirov . So did we! So someone else has a ticket to this show, that can be the only possible explanation.

“Get a message to the British Destroyer,” he said quickly. “Highest priority. Tell them we are under attack by an Astute Class submarine and see if they can call their boys off!”

Perhaps he could talk his way out of this mess. Yet the confusion and chaos inherent in this moment led him to believe this would not likely happen, though it was worth a try. The Argos Fire would get the message, wonder about it, try to verify the presence of that sub out there, and it would be difficult to find. Oh, they’ll hear the torpedoes alright, and hopefully that will convince them, but can they get that sub Captain on the line in time? I don’t think so.

He nodded inwardly, his jaw tightening. Then we fight fire with fire, he thought. First we go defensive.

“Load tubes nine and ten— Shkval!”

They’re coming at me with a pair of fast heavyweights, but I’ll damn well show them what speed is under water. How about a pair of supercavitating hyper-torpedoes, running at 370kph? They were lightning quick, designed to kill subs, ships, and for just this tactical purpose as well—other enemy torpedoes. The jig was that they had a very short range, an envelope no more than 15 kilometers. He had to hold them in the tubes until those two Spearfish were closing on his tail, and then he would fire, turn his sea rockets around, and give them hell. I’ll either get those bastards or not, he thought. If one gets through it won’t have much fuel left.

The entire situation had now spun off in a wild twisted gyre of chaos. Two wars were underway at the same time! He was either going to be dead in the next ten minutes, or someone else was. It came down to that single glaring choice.

The best defense was always a good offense, he thought. Those bastards are out there now, grinning at the other end of that fiber optic wire, and as long as that silent devil of a sub is out there, my life will not be worth five rubles. That sub is just too quiet. It’s a miracle Chernov heard the damn thing. If they don’t get me today, they’ll certainly try again tomorrow. He knew what he would do if this were 2021. Time to get serious…

“Load tube number one,” he said, his voice hard and low. “Special warhead. Mister Belanov,” he turned to his Starpom , “stand ready to initiate permissions sequencing.”

He was reaching for the Hammer of God.

Argos Fire was about 30 nautical miles south of Rodney when the harried message from Gromyko came in over the secure channel they had arranged. Mack Morgan was in for yet another surprise when he got the message on the bridge, turning to MacRae with a befuddled look on his face. “Russians say they’ve detected one of our subs— Astute Class. They’re under attack!”

“Here? In bloody 1941?”

“That’s what the message reads,” said Morgan, shaking his head incredulously. “They want us to see if we can contact them and calm things down.”

They had been quietly advancing on Rodney ’s position, with Kazan well out in front, over 50 nautical miles away on point defense. The submarine had just launched torpedoes at the German battle fleet to the north, and his sonar station had clearly heard two hits. Then, out of the blue…

“Now let me get this straight,” said MacRae. “We’re sitting here closing on the old British battleship Rodney , and out of nowhere we get an Astute Class sub here taking a sucker punch at the Russians? What in bloody hell is going on here? They have to be mistaken.”

Then another voice spoke, his own Sonarman monitoring the bow-mounted medium-frequency Ultra/EDO MFS-7000 system. It was not good enough to catch the Ambush when it arrived, but he could clearly here the donnybrook now underway between the two subs.

“Sir, I have torpedoes in the water, and they sound like Spearfish . I’d recognize that pump-jet propulsor anywhere.”

Spearfish … MacRae knew that was the premier weapon on the Astute Class, and now his temper abated as he moved into battle mode. What was happening here? Did his own ship move again? Were they back in the soup of World War Three?”

“Radar—do we still have a reading on the Rodney ?”

“Aye sir, I have her at 28 nautical miles, speed ten knots. We should have her on the horizon in about ten minutes.”

What kind of salad was he being served at this bloody restaurant? Something slipped here, and he had no idea what it was, but he had to act.

“Put out a warning on standard fleet comm-link channels. See if you can wave off that submarine. Send this: Astute class submarine, Stand down! Your attack is blue on blue. Repeat. Stand Down! You are firing on friendly shipping!”

The message went out, but MacRae knew that if torpedoes were already in the water it may be too late to pull the leash on them. Some bloody sub Captain out there was going to be as confused as he was in another minute.

“Sir,” came the next report from sonar. “I have a Type 65 in the water now! The Russians are firing back!”

The entire situation had suddenly disintegrated into a Mad Hatter’s dance of teacups on the sea. The Russian battlecruiser was suddenly missing from their radar screens, and in its place an undetected Astute Class submarine appears, and immediately goes to war with the Russian submarine! All the while, the Germans are still licking their wounds from that missile attack put in by Kirov , and by now they will be right on Rodney’s western horizon, mad as hornets.

“The ship will come to general quarters,” said MacRae stolidly. He looked at Mack Morgan. “Is this a private fight? Or can anybody get in on it…. Now then. Get her ladyship up here please. This whole situation is twisted on its head! I’d like to know which bloody side of this bar fight we’re on!”

KurtHoffmann was angry, mad as the hornet Gordon MacRae made him out to be. He had seen his brother ship Gneisenau stricken by those torpedoes, and now that ship was dead in the water. Though his instinct had been to stop and render assistance, Karl Topp on the Tirpitz would hear none of that. He signaled all ahead full, and the formation was to begin an evasive zig-zag approach. The Gneisenau would be left to Prinz Eugen and Thor , their decks already crowded with survivors pulled from the water off Graf Zeppelin .

Hoffmann had that same feeling of rising alarm that he had in the North Atlantic the previous year. When he saw the morning sky alight with those golden yellow rocket tails, he knew they had the devil to pay. Somewhere out there, hidden just beyond that glowing horizon, a shadow plied the sea, dangerous, mysterious, and at war. It was here, he thought, the same ship that had bedeviled them in the North Atlantic. Could these rockets be coming off the decks of HMS Invincible , as Wilhelmshaven believed? He knew that a small flotilla of at least three ships had been reported running the straits of Gibraltar, and one of those was said to be a battlecruiser.

But we have the positions of all the British known battlecruisers pegged out here in the Atlantic, he thought. So what was that other big ship that blew through the Pillars of Hercules? Yes… it was here. Whatever that ship was, it was firing those rockets again—firing blind from beyond the horizon, unless that submarine that stuck it to Gneisenau was reporting our position. It was uncanny how the missiles sought out the carrier, the second time the British had targeted Graf Zeppelin . This time the ship did not survive.