John Schettler - Devil's Garden

“We can and we will, Fedorov.” The Captain cut in, sending right on top of Fedorov’s incoming message.

“What in God’s name do you think you are going to do?”

“It may not be in God’s name that we do anything, Fedorov. That is the nature of war. You know the history as well as anyone. We will restore Russia as a Pacific power and prevent Japan from becoming the militaristic power that leads her into World War Two. What do you expect us to do back home? All we could do is sit there waiting for the ICBMs to arrive. Besides, Fedorov. You have no idea whether or not those other control rods will even work, or where they might send us if we try to use them. Am I not correct?”

Again the long pause… “Yes, that is so, but Captain, anything you do here could have terrible consequences-things you cannot foresee now. It may seem so easy from the bridge of Kirov now, but it never is. We should at least try and get the ship and men home safely. I came all this way just to find Orlov, and by God we finally have the man. What you propose now is utter madness! It will change everything!”

“They is exactly the idea, Fedorov. Yes. We are going to change everything.”

“I cannot believe this! You have no idea what you are doing. You are betraying more than your own pledge to me and to Admiral Volsky here, Karpov. Do you remember it? What about the Russia you pledged to defend? Our homeland is in 2021, not here! We have no business even being here!”

“Do not think this is entirely my doing, Fedorov. You will want to make me out as a traitor and consign me to the Ninth Circle of Hell. Better to rule here than to serve in heaven, eh? So be it. Yet you should know that I put this question to the entire crew, the vote was decisive, five to one. We stay here . How is it we even find ourselves here? Have you wondered about that? We are here for a reason, Fedorov, and I think I know what that reason is now. If you must return to the future we came from, then do what you must.”

“…You must reconsider, Karpov. This is insane what you propose now.”

“That has yet to be proven, Captain. If you do make it back, you may read the history we write here yourself and see if we prevail. Once we finish here we will contact you again. If you still remain marooned in this time, as we are, then we will reconsider your plan. But do not get your hopes up, or wait for us. We have a world to change, Fedorov. I know that is the worst thing possible in your mind. You want to keep all the eggs in the nest, safe and sound, but that is clearly impossible now. We could not do that in 2021, nor even in all our battles in World War Two. But here, we are invincible, my friend. You know that. Here we make the real decisive difference! That is all that matters now. There is nothing more to be said. I wish you and the Admiral well. Yes, I know you will judge me, but so will time and fate. Kirov, over and out.”

“Captain…Listen to reason here! You cannot do this!”

Karpov gave Nikolin a hard hand signal to cut the transmission, and he did so, though he could see pain in the young officer’s eyes. He looked at Rodenko and the others, knowing this would be hardest part of the decision before them.

“I know you all loved Fedorov,” he said quietly. “Yet you also know he would do anything to set the table as it was before we left Severomorsk so long ago. Understand that he cannot assure that in any wise, no matter what he does. He had no intention of ever arriving here, in 1908; any more than we did. So you see he really has no control over what happens. Yes, it is hard to turn our back on him now, but this we must do. We are here, on these waters, in this ship, at this moment. The men have decided to stay and fight. So God bless Fedorov, but he will not understand what we must now do. He was always the white Angel, I was the demon of shadows. He would never understand me any more than white can know black.” He sighed, walking slowly toward the Captain’s chair. “Helm, come to 180 and steady at twenty knots.”

“Helm answering, Captain, Coming round to one, eight, zero, Aye.”

* * *

Thetransmission ended and Fedorov stood there, a shocked expression on his face. Dobrynin was sitting on a chair by the main operations console.

“So Satan has fallen from heaven and now he rules in hell,” he said quietly. “I cannot say that this surprises me as much as you, Mister Fedorov.”

“The man is insane,” Fedorov said with a defeated tone in his voice. “What you say is not too far from the truth, Chief. The ninth circle of hell was reserved for traitors, particularly those who betray the trust of their nation. Karpov has been trying to do this all along. I could feel it even before we learned he was here. He wanted to strike the decisive blow and kill Churchill and Roosevelt at the Atlantic Charter meeting. Then he argued we could destroy Malta or Gibraltar and change the course of the war that way. After that it was the Japanese, then the Americans. He keeps looking to find his Waterloo, well, now he has found it here.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s right about the ship being invincible. There is nothing in this era that can pose a threat if he maneuvers smartly here. So I can only guess what is in the man’s mind now. He will probably think to first challenge the Japanese again, and reverse the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war. That sounds like the obvious thing to do, but anything could happen from here on out. Anything… If he starts another war here it could affect all Russian history, all world history from this point forward. Russia might not even enter the First World War. And considering that man has nuclear weapons at his disposal still-in 1908! It is truly chilling.”

“What can we do?” Dobrynin held up an empty hand. “Do you want to launch the Mi-26 mission now anyway? We might be able to get to the Pacific. We could strip the helicopter down to the bare essentials-just food, fuel and those two control rods. Perhaps even one will do.”

Fedorov’s mind was a chaos of plans and counter plans, and all beset now with the real terror of what Karpov was going to try to do. How could he decide anything now? He felt completely powerless here. But he could not simply sit there and do nothing. The idea of trying to find Kirov in the Pacific now was fruitless, and Dobrynin made that evident as he continued.

“Then again, even if you do find the ship, Karpov could refuse to use the control rods. Why, he could even shoot the Mi-26 down if he wanted to.”

“Zolkin was correct,” said Fedorov dejectedly. “And I was a fool to think I could trust and rely on Karpov without the countervailing authority of the Admiral to keep him in check.”

“Technically Karpov is the acting Fleet Commander now. Volsky is in strategic command, but Karpov was given the Red Banner Fleet on the operational level. In fact, that makes him your superior officer.”

“Yes, and what happened to that fleet?”

“I suppose we will never know…unless we do get home, and then you can read about it as the Captain suggested.”

Fedorov’s eyes suddenly brightened, and he spun around. “Yes…That’s the only thing we can do here. We’ve completed our mission, and for some reason we ended up here. Who knows why? Maybe it was only to learn what Karpov was going to do, but we can’t do anything about that at all here. You are correct, Chief, he would simply refuse to use the control rods until he had his way.”

Dobrynin nodded quietly.

“Then we go home,” said Fedorov flatly. “At least we try to go home. If we do get there, and anything is still left of the world Karpov leaves us, then we can discover exactly what he does. There will be history, times, places, events.”