John Schettler - Paradox Hour

He had fired his Type 65 torpedo, back along the axis of the undersea enemy attack. His two supercavitating Shkvals had helped clear the way, lancing out in their bubble jet spheres and blistering in to find one of the two Spearfish that were slowly closing the range on Kazan. The Russian sub had been running at its best speed of nearly 36 knots, heedless of the sound they were making now. Soon, thought Gromyko, the sea will erupt with Neptune’s wrath.

It sounded like a great kettle being struck when it happened. Nearly a hundred meters deep, the 20 kiloton warhead went off with a resonant boom, the immense sphere of expanding gas and vaporized seawater creating a tremendous shock wave in all directions. The second Spearfish careened wildly off course, its sensitive sonar pummeled with the wrenching sound, dumbstruck.

Gromyko knew his torpedo would take too long to reach the enemy sub, but he only needed to get close. The shock of the warhead would expand out several kilometers, and all he needed was to get some of that awful explosive force close to his enemy to hurt this sub.

And he did.

The Ambush shuddered with the blow, emergency signals going off all over the boat, an outer stabilizing fin wrenched by the shock, and the tremendous pressure forcing a hull leak in the sail that sent torrents of seawater down into the compartments below, as men scrambled to seal off the hatches. No one could see what was really happening, the searing green fire at the outer edge of the nuclear bubble in the sea. There came a rending sound, so deep and terrible that every man on the boat covered their ears, their faces taut with pain. It was a sound from another place, the moaning agony of eternity, long and distended, the meridians of infinity being wrenched and twisted until they broke.

The fissure opened, and Ambush plowed right into the expanding wave of shimmering phosphorescent plasma. It was as if the edge of that fire was the maw of some great wrathful sea demon, opening to consume the submarine. Ambush’s rounded nose vanished at the glimmering edge, soon followed by the long, bulbous body of the vessel, which plunged right on through a deep rupture in time, rent open by the violence of the explosion. It was the first instance of atomic fire scorching the lines of fate that shaped these altered states, pre-empting the angry blow that Vladimir Karpov might have flung at his enemies in August of that very year… but it would not be the last.

Thechaos of war swirling above the embattled British battleship was suddenly upstaged by the massive upwelling of seawater on the horizon. All eyes were riveted on the scene, and watchmen on every ship, pilots in their headlong dives, and crewmen at the gunwales of perdition gripped the hard steel there and held on for dear life.

A cold wind swept over the battle, just as Anton turret on the Tirpitz sent not one, but two more 15-inch rounds plunging down on Rodney . One struck the conning tower, the second smashing into the hull very near the damaged compartment where the battleship hid its secret cargo. The magazine for the forward torpedoes was there and, one by one, the long sleek weapons blew up in a series of shuddering explosions.

Bulkheads burst open and the outer hull itself was wrenched with a great tearing gash. A dark stain of oily blood clouded the sea, and through it, came the glimmering of tiny bars of gold bullion, falling, falling into the depths of the sea. And with them went the great stolen treasures of the Parthenon, a Metope of a Centaur, rearing up and locked in fitful combat with a Lapith warrior, the wild charge of horsemen carved into a marble Frise, and one more thing, the Selene Horse, exhausted by its recent sortie through the heavens, veins bulging, eyes wide, mouth gaping open and gasping for air.

Down they fell, a flutter of debris on the endless swelling currents of the sea. Down and down they went, into the deep depths where only one pair of human eyes could ever hope to see or find them again, the eyes of Lenkov, dark in death, where his body drifted near the silted bottom of Peake’s Deep.

No man aboard Rodney knew what they had lost, the King’s business, made flotsam in the deep green sea, and never to be seen again. No one on Argos Fire would learn what really happened, nor any soul on another ship, lost in the grey fog of infinity that now seemed to swirl and eddy about its tall mainmast, where the swirling watch of radar eyes twisted with their ceaseless watch.

Yet in all this chaos, there moved the secret stealthy hand of order, some unseen force, whisper soft, yet bent on its work with mindless logic. All of these various players, like pieces in a great game of chess, were now unknowingly conspiring with one another to reach some unfathomable zero sum in the infinite calculus of time. So while Rodney burned, the Stukas plunged down through the gauntlet of missile fire, and over it all there rose the massive blight of steam and vapor rising up like a terrible storm, its shadow deep and impending, where the sea itself, sucked up in the torrid gyre of that nuclear fire, stood there like a tower of chaos, slowly collapsing in a roaring wave of destruction.

Fedorovhad a very odd feeling. It was more than that oddly spinning compass in his pocket. It was more than his boots, a brush with a fate that could have seen him end up like Lenkov. It was more than the unaccountable damage to the ship itself. When he walked the ship, he felt like a man who had left for work that morning and forgotten his lunch box or wallet. Something was off, twisted, rearranged. Something was missing.

He had the distinct feeling that he had misplaced something, but he could not think what it was. As he made his way to the bridge, he found himself peering through one hatch or another, noting the crew at work, the equipment, almost like a mother hen checking her nest to see that all the eggs were still there.

Yes, he thought. That was it. A missing egg… Had something hatched here in this strange displacement the ship was experiencing? Was this the moment he had feared all along, that day of reckoning for all the crimes they had committed in their long, incredible journey through time? What was happening here?

He remembered the many things he had discussed with … How very odd… with who? The arguments were there in his mind, fresh and clear, but he could not recall the face on the other side of the discussion he had about them. Things had been topsy turvey these last days. He was tired, needing sleep, and it was a miracle he could even still function here. He felt very confused, and he had the distinct feeling that there were others on the ship that felt the very same way, like Mister Gagarin, staring at his work detail clipboard with a bemused and puzzled expression on his face.

These time shifts are beginning to have an effect on me, he thought. This situation is most unusual. Clearly we’ve shifted somewhere. This is not simply the pulsing instability that we experienced before. The ship seems suspended in time, somewhere, but we are clearly afloat and underway on the high seas. But where? This damn fog is impenetrable.