Джон Шеттлер - Sea of Fire

His mind dwelled on this for some time, circling the Pacific like a restless shark, swimming from one operational zone to the next. He was thankful that his navy remained one of the strongest in the world. Even though it had been weakened by the loss of Hiryu, and the damage and subsequent refits for Kaga and Akagi , he still had a most formidable carrier force, and the best trained naval aviation on the planet. Now was the time to fight, to employ every measure, every resource, to obtain the strongest possible strategic position before the end of 1942. Then, perhaps, if the enemy can be held at bay and convinced of the futility of fighting on, a negotiated peace might be obtained, though he had serious doubts about that prospect.

Now then… to this meeting with General Imamura. I will make arrangements to depart for Davao at once.

The plan they had devised to get their meeting with Yamamoto was going to work. As Lieutenant Commander Fukada had suggested, the General did not have to give his consent. They could simply say that because of the urgency of the moment, Yamamoto had requested this top level meeting to re-evaluate the situation around Java. They kept the General in private quarters, well isolated below decks, and gave the crew orders to stay clear. The last thing they wanted was for him to get restless and wander about. Thankfully, a leg wound sustained during his ordeal at sea saw to that. He was laid up in bed, under Doctor Hisakawa’s supervision, and all his meals were served there. The Captain paid him a visit to deliver the news, saying that they had been ordered to Davao on Mindanao to confer with Yamamoto.

To dissuade Imamura from coming up with any other ideas he might then fashion into an order, Captain Harada instructed his communications team to contact local Japanese commanders at Balikpapan, Makassar and Kendari. To do so he first had to relieve Ensign Shiota, realizing that a woman would never have such a position on a warship at sea in 1942. She understood his concerns, and he kept her as supervisor, coordinating all signals traffic and code work. The voices on any radio transmission, however, would have to be spoken by men.

Using call signs and codes provided by Imamura himself, they were able to establish a number of comm-links, and obtain status reports on the operations then underway. This allowed the General to arrive with his wits about him, as he was going to have to know these details with Yamamoto. Getting into the meeting itself was the next problem. Captain Harada wondered how they would arrange that.

“Don’t ask,” said Fukada. “We just go, the two of us. We’ll accompany the General, and no one will be the wiser.”

“That may get us to the meeting site, but I’m talking about the door that might end up between Yamamoto, Imamura and the two of us. I don’t think we’ll be offered chairs at that table.”

“Oh, yes we will,” said Fukada. “The instant we ease into the harbor, every head there will be fixed on us. We’re unlike anything they have ever seen at sea.”

“I’m not so sure they’ll be all that impressed,” said the Captain. “After all, we look a bit like a sleek fleet auxiliary ship, and with just that one visible deck gun forward. Sure, we’re much bigger than any destroyer of this era. Our displacement is three times that of a typical WWII destroyer. We’re in the heavy cruiser weight class here, but to them, it will seem like we wouldn’t get past the first round with one of their ships. We look like a seaplane tender. We look toothless.”

“Let’s count on curiosity first,” said Fukada. “They’ll certainly want to know who and what we are. There’s no Takami in the IJN fleet at this time.”

“Should we even use that name? Would it be easier if we just identified ourselves by hull number?”

“No,” said Fukada. “The IJN ditched simple hull number identification in favor of ship names long ago. I say we just call it like it is. We tell them were Destroyer Takami , or even Cruiser Takami if that feels better to you. Then they’ll want to know what’s going on. It may not get us a seat at Imamura’s meeting, but I’m willing to bet they’ll want to sit down with us afterwards.” Fukada had been thinking about this situation for some time, running through the possibilities in his mind.

“Damn,” said the Captain. “This whole thing still seems absolutely crazy. I still pinch myself every time I get up from the cot to see if I’m not dreaming. Kenji, you seem like you’ve warmed to it all in just these few days, but how in the world could this have happened to us?”

“I just don’t know sir. That eruption may have had something to do with it. That’s all I can say. Sergeant Kimura had the best line on it. We’re here. I can’t argue with what my eyes, ears, and nose tell me. Those ships we passed off Balikpapan were all vintage 1940s IJN warships. Believe me, to an old modeler like me, it was a real feast. I still can’t believe it myself, but I’ve accepted it as real, and dangerously so. We’ve got to use our heads now. Our presence here is very significant.”

“No question about that,” said Harada. “But do you realize what we’re considering here? We’re talking about intervening in history, am I right? No man can see the far ends of his choices, but if this ship gets entangled with this war, things are going to turn out much different. They would have to be different.”

“They already are sir…” Fukada let that hang.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been hanging out with Ensign Shiota.”

“Ah, I always thought you had eyes for her.” The Captain smiled.

“It’s not that,” said the XO dismissively. “I wanted to see how that SITREP you wanted was coming along. Well get this… The Japanese are fighting with Siberia up north. We’ve intercepted three messages that alluded to that.”

“The Russians?”

“The Siberians. That is what is strange about that traffic. From what I could gather, there was some kind of attack on Kamchatka recently.”

“Kamchatka, did we ever hold that during this war?”

“No, just the northern Kuriles, but this traffic clearly talked about Japanese units being withdrawn from a place called Kazantochi.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

“Me neither, but there’s more. We picked up traffic indicating additional naval support was to be sent to Urajio. That one I looked up—it’s Vladivostok, an old name from the 1800s.”

“Vladivostok. You’re saying the Japanese are sending ships there?”

“Three destroyers and a cruiser were ordered there yesterday, and the odd thing about it was that it seemed as though the place was already Japanese occupied territory.”

“Well that doesn’t make any sense,” said Harada, “but considering I’m sitting in the Celebes Sea in 1942, I guess I shouldn’t be picky. What else have you turned up?”

“BBC radio broadcasts. Shiota got an earful last night—a big offensive underway in Russia.”

“That I can understand.”

“Except from what she could gather, the Germans were in Moscow, and the Russians were trying to push them out. Well, I went down to the ship’s library. Come to find out, the Germans never set foot in Moscow. They got close, but the Russians held them off, yet not according to these news broadcasts. And here’s another thing. There’s been a mention of a man named Sergei Kirov running things over there.”

“Some Russian General?”

“The title was General Secretary—of the Communist Party!”

“Wasn’t that Stalin?”

“Right. He held the office until 1952, but there’s been no mention of him at all. It’s all this Kirov fellow. Whatever’s going on here, things appear to be quite different. The history is already twisted—just like that damn volcano was never supposed to erupt this year. I looked that up too. It was supposed to happen in 1883. Something is really strange in all of this.”