John Schettler - Paradox Hour

Forreaders who might be dropping in without having taken the journey here from book one in the Kirov Series , this is the story of a Russian modern day battlecruiser displaced in time to the 1940s and embroiled in WWII. Their actions over the many episodes have so fractured the history, that they now find themselves in an alternate retelling of those events. In places the history is remarkably true to what it once was, in others badly cracked and markedly different. Therefore, events in this account of WWII have changed. Operations have been spawned that never happened, like the German attack on Gibraltar, and others will be cancelled and may never occur, like Operation Torch. And even if some events here do ring true as they happened before, the dates of those campaigns may be changed, and they may occur earlier or later than they did in the history you may know.

This alternate history began in Book 9 of the series, entitled Altered States , and you would do well to at least back step and begin your journey there if you are interested in the period June 1940 to July 1941, which is covered in books 9 through 16 in the series. That time encompasses action in the North Atlantic, the battle of Britain, German plans and decisions regarding Operations Seelöwe and the attack on Gibraltar in Operation Felix. Action against the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir and Dakar is covered, along with O’Connor’s offensive in North Africa, and the coming of Rommel. The little known British campaigns in Syria and Iraq get a good deal of attention, and other events in Siberia occur that serve as foundations for things that will happen later in the series.

To faithful crew members, my readers who have been with me from the first book, this volume stands as the sequel to the Grand Alliance Trilogy and also concludes the second eight volume “Altered States” saga in the series. It will take the action to the eve of that fateful day and hour on July 28, 1941, when Kirov first displaced in time.

Karpovstood on the gondola bridge of Tunguska , riding the turbulence of the angry skies in the largest craft ever to fly above the earth. Everywhere on the ship, men were standing in taut readiness at their battle stations, the gunners behind the long steel barrels of their recoilless rifles, the flight engineers at their stations to watch speed, buoyancy, elevation and the trim and cut of Tunguska’s massive tail rudders. There was still a stunned silence on the bridge, and Captain Bogrov could still feel the sting of Karpov’s gloved hand on his cheek. They had all seen the agonizing death of Big Red, the awful searing fire of the explosion when Karpov launched every RS82 rocket that remained into the tail of the ship to ignite his terrible fire bomb.

The flagship of the enemy fleet was caught in that explosion, her sides rent open, canvass shell burned away, gas bags serrated by the fragments of Big Red’s shattered duralumin tail frame. Both ships had been struck a fatal blow with Karpov’s merciless order, and both would die in those last terrible minutes, suspended in the fires until the weight of their own twisted airframes overcame their buoyancy, and started the long plummeting fall to their doom. Down they went, like two massive smoking comets in the sky, crashing to earth with a thunder that challenged the storm above in its fury.

Yet out of that calamitous moment, a few souls were lucky enough to escape, leaping for their lives from the burning airships, and the men on the bridge of Tunguska watched in horror. Parachutes bloomed in the sky, and something fell like an evil seed from the deep underbelly of the Orenburg —a small metal sphere.

Karpov saw it fall, and immediately knew he was seeing the desperate retreat of his enemy, Ivan Volkov. His hard voice had broken the stillness on the bridge, the biting barb of orders forcing life and movement into hands, arms, and legs again, setting the crew to the task that was now uppermost in his mind—get Volkov. Get him before that seed fell to good ground and could sprout again in the Devil’s Garden he had made of this world. And so the Rudderman was hard on the wheel, then engines roared, and Tunguska lurched about in the sky, turning north by northwest, and riding the wind in feverish wrath.

Ports opened on the smooth brow and chin of the ship, and the concave Topaz radar dishes deployed, ready to search the grey lines of clouds for any sign of the enemy. Up ahead, Karpov could see a smaller silver fish diving into a cloud, the Abakan , slowly taking up position in the vanguard of his formation. This was all that remained of his fleet at the moment, unless Talmenka could hasten up from the south, or he could get help from his last two battleships to the east, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk .

Volkov believed he would destroy my entire fleet, thought Karpov. Instead he got a nasty little surprise here again. The tables are turned! Orenburg is a smoking wreck down there, and I’ve already killed or beaten off eight of his ships! Yes, we paid a heavy price for that. It was not easy for me to do what I had to do just now and sacrifice Big Red. So now I must be certain Volkov suffers. He’s down there somewhere, and if he managed to survive that fall, then he will be scrambling to make contact with his men on the ground and get to another airship as soon as possible.

Good, let him try.

“Topaz stations, report!” His voice was hard on the voice tubes, the thin reply barely discernible over the noise of Tunguska’s engines.

“Contact bearing zero-one-two degrees true. Large signal. Speed and elevation unknown.”

Rodenko would come in handy at a time like this, thought Karpov. But even he would have difficulty reading the signals from this antiquated equipment. Four enemy airships remained, and this could be nothing else than what it seemed. Volkov was planning to get there on the ground and gain the protection of those airships. His signalmen had been listening to the enemy on radio as orders were called out, ship to ship. In the heat of combat they had foolishly resorted to use of the open airwaves, instead of coded Morse signals. He knew he might now be facing these four enemy airships, and last reports had three at good elevation, at least 5000 meters, somewhere to the north. Now he finally had a good read on where they were.

They have two S-Class ships out there, Sarkand and Samarkand , and they’ll have no more than eight 76mm guns each. The other two ships were reported as A-Class, the Armavir and Anapa —eight guns each again, though they will have a single 105 on the main gondola. That’s 32 guns in all for the enemy. I’ve got 24 on Tunguska alone, and half of those are heavy 105s. Throw in the eight guns on Abakan and we match them easily enough. It will all come down to tactics and air maneuvers, and let them try to best me if they dare. One look at Tunguska will probably send them scattering like a flock of frightened birds.

So there you have it, Rudkin!

He spoke now to the unknown author of that precious little book Tyrenkov had inadvertently picked up on that trip up the back stairway at Ilanskiy. When Giants Fall—The Death of the Siberian Air Fleet. Well you can tear all that to pieces now, can’t you, Rudkin—just like I tore Volkov’s fleet apart here. Yes, this isn’t over yet. We’ve another good battle to fight, but I have little doubt as to the outcome. And one day, where ever you are, Rudkin, you’ll settle into a library chair and find out that everything you based your stupid little story on has been turned on its head! It will not be Ivan Volkov you glorify with that flowing prose. You have a good deal of editing to do. Try to write me out of the story? I don’t think so. No! I don’t go down so easily. So this time get it right. Remember my name—Vladimir Karpov. I’m going to re-write your entire book!