John Schettler: Three Kings

It worked as planned.

The Germans had hit upon the primal fear of fire, and the agonizing death it would bring, to unhinge Britain’s stalwart defenders under the Rock of Gibraltar. So he would use that same element to achieve his purpose here.

He strode down the long metal grating of Big Red’s interior walkway, all the way from the tail of the ship, where the last of the loading operations were now being concluded. Along the way he removed his black leather gloves from his uniform side pocket, slowly pulling them on one at a time, and making a fist to set the fit just as he preferred. The sound of his hard soled boots resounded in the enclosed space, echoing up through the metal duralumin framework of the massive airship. Karpov was ready. He would leave the ship to board Abakan for the planned attack. It would be much too dangerous to remain aboard ‘Big Red.’

That was the nickname of one of the largest airships in his small fleet, the Krasnoyarsk, or “OldKrasny,” which meant ‘red’ in the Russian language. Most simply called the ship ‘Big Red,’ and the tarps that covered its duralumin skeleton had been tinted a dull red to fill the bill nicely.

The project Karpov had been busy with was the development of a hammer big enough to smash the nail he had in his shoe, Ivan Volkov. He knew he would never get his hands on another nuclear warhead, so he tried something else, a rudimentary air fuel bomb the like of which had been pioneered by a German engineer named MarioZippermayr during the Second World War. In fact, the man was probably out there somewhere working on a similar project now, he thought, but I have beaten him to the punch.

He had come to theKaa-Chem coal mine to get the dust-coal dust, which could be highly explosive if applied properly in the weapon his engineers had designed. He had rigged out a bomb container the size and appearance of a sub-cloud car. In fact, he began with the empty shell of one such car to create his prototype. Then he used the data available in his jacket computer to find how to suspend the coal dust in a liquid, and combine it with oxygen in his new bomb. It would be a two stage delivery process, one to first burst open the receptacle and cause wide area dispersion of the material inside, and a second charge to then ignite the holocaust. The explosive shock of the weapon was severe, far beyond that off any normal detonation.

The trick was how to deliver it on target, an enemy ground force threatening his lines, without having his airships shot to pieces by heavy caliber flack guns. The answer was to drop or parachute the weapon over the battlefield from high altitude, and he drilled his zeppelin bombardiers hard on delivery even while the engineers were feverishly putting the weapons together. They tested for wind, altitude, potential drift off target. In time he had a deliverable bomb, and one of considerable power that had been tested to create an intense shock wave over an area of 600 meters in diameter.

Karpov had his hammer.

Big Red was soon rigged out with three of the new bombs, and Karpov assembled a small flotilla of zeppelins to make his first strike against the advancing forces of the Orenburg Federation. Volkov’s 9th Infantry, 22nd Air Mobile, and 8th Armored Cavalry Brigade had formed the right pincer of his attack against Omsk. Two other divisions invested the town, encircling Karpov’s 18th Siberian Division there, but these other three pressed on towards Novosibirsk, hoping to quickly storm the defenses.

There Karpov had positioned his crack 32nd Siberian Guards, blocking the way east behind their Ob River defense line. Volkov’s men would have a tough fight ahead, with an opposed river crossing being the least of it. It was the perfect opportunity to test out his new weapon. If the enemy was able to cross here, then they could maneuver to stage a crossing north of the city, and cut the main road and rail connections.

Big Red was up and approaching the river crossing zone, where Volkov’s forces were massing near a smaller tributary about 5 miles west of the main river. One advantage Karpov had was that he would not be opposed by enemy zeppelins here. He had amassed all the air power he could get his hands on and sent the fighters to the airfields in and around Novosibirsk. Volkov’s single zeppelin accompanying the attack, the Pavlodar, was finally forced to withdraw to avoid the ceaseless duels with Karpov’s fighters.

Fighter squadrons were now in dutiful escort, and Abakan was there should any other airship return to challenge the action. Karpov had rehearsed the maneuver five times, each time doing no more than high level reconnaissance, and this had the effect of dulling the enemy’s concerns, thinking the real attack was nothing more than another high level observation run. Now, in the pre-dawn hour, Big Red drifted ominously above the battle zone, accompanied by Karpov aboard the Abakan.

He could see that bridging equipment had been brought up the previous day, and knew the enemy crossing was imminent. But they did not expect the surprise Karpov had waiting for them that day.

“Well, Bogrov,” he said to his airship Captain. “Today we teach Volkov a lesson he will not soon forget. You will see what the real application of power is here. Mark my words.”

Bogrov marked them, though he inwardly felt there was something cowardly in the action. He had seen the test dropping of the weapon near the coal mines, and he knew there was not a flock of sheep down there, but men, human beings. Yes, they were enemies, but something in him preferred the more equal duel of airships, gun to gun, man to man, and not this dastardly attack. Karpov could see that he had reservations, though the Captain had said nothing.

“You have issues with this, Bogrov?”

“Sir? Well, war is war, I suppose, but they won’t know what hit them, will they.”

“Volkov will know when he gets the news. This war is just getting started, Bogrov, and the gloves have not yet come off. This is strategic bombing. Before this war ends both sides will adopt this tactic, mostly the allied powers. Entire cities will burn in a single night. You will see.”

There it was again, thought Bogrov, that odd way the Admiral had of talking about the war as if it had already happened, as if it was something he had read about once in a history book.

“And what will Volkov do when he gets the news, sir? That was on my mind.”

“Hopefully he will take a hard lesson from what happens here today, and realize who he is dealing with when he raises his hand against Vladimir Karpov.”

Bogrov thought he had raised it against the 18th Siberian Division encircled at Omsk, but he said nothing of that. “I suppose I meant that Volkov might think to do the same thing to us, sir. He has a lot more airships than we do. Suppose he were to rig out his zeppelins with these new sub-cloud car bombs as well. Then what?”

Karpov thought about that. What would the Japanese have done if they could have gotten their hands on an atomic bomb after being hit at Hiroshima?

“Perhaps you are correct,” he said. “He may think to fight fire with fire, unless I can talk some sense into him after this. But first, the lesson, the hard lesson of war-retribution. We’ll see how keen he is to cross the Ob after I get finished with his 9th Infantry Division down there. It’s a pity he hasn’t moved up all of his 8th Armored Cavalry yet, but we must go today. The weather will not hold, and today it is perfect. Signal Big Red. They may begin their bombing run.”

The massive zeppelin maneuvered out in front, and ten minutes later Karpov saw them fall, one, two, three, sailing down through the grey dawn to awaken the troops below when they ignited in a blinding flash and broiling fireball that carried a tremendous shock wave. Eardrums burst, the very breath of a man was literally squeezed from his chest as the shock wave thundered over the scene with terrible force. Yet more terrible was the searing fire that came after, devouring anything exposed, and literally sucking the oxygen right out of the air. Indeed, when the first small charged burst the weapon open to disperse the deadly contents, the liquefied coal droplets relied on the oxygen in the air to increase the potency of the detonation.