Джон Шеттлер: Able Fire: The Next War - 2025 and Beyond

“Yes,” said Karpov, “and see how it ends. They got their tails clipped, but it didn’t end that way. They went to an alchemist and he gave them a tonic.”

“Here it is,” Fedorov read. “They could not see, and they had no end; They sought out a Chemist and found a Friend. He gave them some ‘Never too late to mend,’ These Three Sick Mice.”

“A tonic,” said Karpov. “It regrew their tails and restored their sight. Then they settled down somewhere, and all was well. The story had a happy ending, Fedorov, and ours might have one too.”

“It’s hard to see that now,” said Fedorov. “Particularly after Markov and Volushin.”

“Oh, we might get our tails clipped before the end, but we’ve got a tonic, Fedorov. We’ve got those keys, that box. They were engineered in the future, and for a reason. It was all about sealing off those time fissures, healing what was broken. Don’t you see? I’m betting that box will be our salvation in all of this. It’s never too late to mend… In the meantime, removing other destabilizing elements on the ship might be wise. Why don’t you get down to the reactor section and have Dobrynin put together a disposal team for Rod-25. If need be, we can use a torpedo. I can get one in the water off the ship and we could strap the container to the damn thing, then send it deep.”

“Good idea. I’ll see if Dobrynin can still hear anything wrong—that sound—and let you know. What will you do?”

“What else can we do? At the moment, we’re in the middle of a battle here. Don’t forget we’re still at war.”

“Right, but should we be in this fight, Karpov? Isn’t that why we’re so dangerous? We’ve already changed things. You want to continue our meddling? What if the Chinese were supposed to succeed in their push for Iwo Jima?”

“Idon’t think that would have been a likely outcome,” said Karpov. “The Americans had too much carrier power there. Besides, that theater looked like the main event when things started, but it was just the early rounds of this war. The real fighting is in the Indian Ocean, and the land war in the Middle East. We had nothing to do with any of those outcomes.”

“But we’re altering things here,” said Fedorov. “The Chinese kicked the British out of Singapore, and then we teamed up with the New Jersey Battlegroup to stop them. We pushed them back into the South China Sea, and so now they’ve changed their plans. They’re striking east. These new operations are aimed at taking down the American Pacific island bases, and so we’re trying to help prevent that. What if Palau, or Yap, or even Guam was supposed to fall? What if the Chinese were supposed to dominate the Malacca Strait? Sinking Shandong was a heavy blow. It set them back on their heels in that encounter.”

Karpov didn’t like the thought that he shouldn’t be in this fight. His warrior’s soul wanted to mix it up, lay down the law, and show the enemy who was in charge out here. Yet Fedorov was quite correct. There would have been no Siberian Navy in this conflict, and they had already determined that Kirov was never even built at this end of the history they altered in WWII. That alone was reason enough for time to paint a target on them. But why were they sent here? Perhaps Fedorov was correct. Maybe there was no other future they could go to, but that did not change the fact that they were an anomaly here, something Time had to correct. That fat black cat was out there—Paradox—and its teeth and claws were very sharp. It was already collecting lost souls like mice, and that was a very scary thought.

But they had a tonic…

Yes, they had something in their pocket to give them the hope that they could avoid that same descending slippery slope that took one man after another. They would relinquish the one magic wand they had used in the past, Rod-25, but these keys were something else.

“Fedorov, perhaps I should wear the other key, like you do. It’s in the ship’s safe now, but maybe it would be better if I had it with me 24-7, in case something were to happen… Like with Lenkov.”

“I suppose that might be wise,” said Fedorov. “Then again, Kamenski had this key with him, and he still vanished. Be careful what you wish for, Karpov. You might be hanging yourself with that key.”

“I’ll take my chances. Before you go down to the reactor section, let’s open the safe. Something tells me these keys are a tonic, something to regrow our tails if Time cleaves them away. Something to restore our sight. I’ll admit that we haven’t exactly been clear headed in a lot of what we did. You always had one eye on trying to fix things, the force of order I suppose. Sorry to say, I was all chaos. I just had every confidence in my ability to wield the sword I had in hand— Kirov , and frankly, I still do.”

“Yet here we are, changing the outcome of this war, just as we did in WWII.”

“Understood,” said Karpov, “but who’s to say the changes we make aren’t for the better? Suppose China wins this war? Look what they did in the Middle East. The world could see them building out that Blue Water Navy for years before they decided to try and really use it. Maybe that’s an outcome that would be best avoided. Then again, think of it this way. We’re Siberia’s Navy.”

“But there’s been an armistice signed on that front,” said Fedorov.

“Perhaps, but that situation is far from over. You read the history, it’s been a flashpoint since 1990. This was just the second major outbreak of war there, and frankly, I think a third will be inevitable. Siberia sits there with a tiny population commanding vast resources, trees, fresh water, oil and gas, minerals, strategic metals. China wants and needs those things, and 1.5 billion people have a way of getting what they want if they put their minds to it. That’s why I think this naval war is just the first. In my opinion, China came in too early. In another five or even ten years, they would have nearly a 600 ship navy. They jumped the gun in 2021, but that was only because of the alliance they had with us, with Russia. Here they may have jumped the gun as well, but they’ll be back, win, lose, or draw.”

“You’re saying that has to be prevented? Russia was a communist state. It wasn’t all that bad.”

“Well it wasn’t all that good, Fedorov. You don’t see long lines and empty store shelves in the US, except in that strange pandemic of 2020, but we always had them in Russia. Face it, Capitalism succeeded because it understands that people want things, and chief among them is a better life. It gave them that, but China is something else. China swallowed the Capitalist Pill when they absorbed Hong Kong. They were going about buying up the world left and right. Their economy had real muscle. I think they made a grave misjudgment with this war, and perhaps it may be better to help make that clear to them. Yes, I sunk carriers—put men in the sea, but it will buy time, Fedorov. Each one I put under is one more they will have to build.”

“So what’s the plan?” asked Fedorov.

“We keep the keys, and get rid of Rod-25. You make sure you keep an eye on men you know are vulnerable, particularly Tasarov and Dobrynin. You say they’ll hear the train coming long before it hits them, right? That will be our warning period. We’ll be able to take action before that happens. If something happens to Lenkov, that will put us on guard too.”

“But what will we do? You want to use the keys again?”

“That would appear to be our only recourse.”

“Yet we’ll have no way to know where we will end up.”

“Well, there were two arrows on that box, the red one and the green one. We already know the green arrow takes us forward in time, so it’s no great leap to guess where the red arrow takes us. We could use the box to reach some other future, but who knows how far it might take us. I don’t think we want to go to the past again.”