John Schettler - Lions at Dawn

Rodenko’s systems fluttered briefly, then his screens seemed to light up again with fresh data, the colored symbols repopulating the Plexiglas conference screen between the CIC station and his own. Karpov looked at it, his eye going first to the 45 degree track that Samsonov had last been firing along. Those smartbombs might be getting very close by now… but they were gone. Could they have lost their hold on them? He squinted, looking through the forward panes, eyes searching for information stubbornly withheld by his electronic systems. He drifted over to Fedorov, a question in his eyes.

“Well,” he said in a low voice so the others could not hear. “Any idea what just happened?”

“What just happened? You lost your damn head again, that’s what happened.”

“Don’t get all bothered,” said Karpov quickly. “I did what was necessary. You have no idea what was coming for us, but you heard Rodenko’s report. There were sixty-four warheads out there looking for us, and it was almost certain that some of them were going to hit home. I’ve simulated it a hundred times at the academy. We could never stop more than thirty incoming Wolfhounds in a single saturation attack. This ship was dead, so I did what I had to do in order to even the odds. That warhead took out everything they threw at us to the north, allowing me to concentrate only on the bombs coming in at the 45 degree axis. Even then, it would have been a very near run thing, and it is likely we would have been hit by at least one GBU/53.”

“What’s that?”

Karpov smiled. “American smart bomb, slow, completely unpowered, but very accurate, even in hostile ECM environments. Those planes threw a fist full of hailstones at us, and believe me, it isn’t easy to get them all in the very few minutes we had. So I did what was necessary, and you can thank me that we aren’t all dead. We should be. Their attack was perfectly planned and executed, and that damn F-35 was so stealthy that the KA-40s never even saw the last two strike groups until they had already launched. They must have had something externally mounted on that first group, which made them a better radar target. We came this close to perdition, all of us.” Karpov held up his thumb and index finger to measure out the slim interval of time that had saved the ship.

“We got the northern group of 32 bombs with that special warhead,” he said again. “But what happened to the others?”

“Look at that fireball,” said Fedorov. “See how the cloud has sheared off. That takes time, perhaps ten or twenty minutes. I think we phased when that detonation went off. You know what I said about time being so fragile now, and how we used to pulse and slip earlier on the first sortie.”

“Yes….” Karpov breathed. “That makes sense. If we did phase, then those bombs may have come right in on us but—”

“We just weren’t there in that moment.” Fedorov finished his thought. “We phased. I’m almost sure of it.”

Karpov smiled. “Well you can thank any God you’d care to pray to for that. Thank old Mother Time if you will. But Fedorov—have we moved? Have we gone to some other time?”

“I don’t think so. That detonation cloud is still out there, plain as day. No, I think we’ve settled back into 1943, just where we were.”

Then Rodenko spoke up again, confirming the issue. “I have re-established contact with both KA-40s.”

“Sir,” said Nikolin. “Blackbird is hovering and requesting permission to land. Very strange… They say they lost sight of the ship as they descended and couldn’t relocate us for over ten minutes. Now they have only three minutes fuel left.”

“Permission granted. Bring them in.”

Karpov gave Fedorov a knowing look. He felt his whole frame relax, the tension unwinding, but it left him feeling strangely weak. He walked slowly to the Captain’s chair, and took a seat, with Fedorov following him.

Fedorov reached for his missile key, intending to return it to Karpov, a sour expression on his face. “There’s no point in my having this.”

“What? Now don’t be so sensitive, Fedorov. I’m sorry, but I had only seconds to complete that missile launch—you understand? Seconds.”

“Oh I understand completely. You gave me this key, and made me Starpom , but all I seem to be good for here in your eyes is sorting out the time travel.”

“Come on, Fedorov. Don’t be that way. You know I trust your judgment.”

“Except when it comes to the use of special warheads.”

“I already told you,” said Karpov. “I had no time. A moment’s hesitation and those smart bombs would have been too close for me to do what I did. Grilikov is all synapse and nerve, and that was what that moment required. I could have no hesitation; no discussion. The missile had to be fired. If you want to discuss it now, be my guest, but hold on to that key. Under any other circumstances, I would have brought you in on the decision. In that situation, I had to make it alone.”

“And you made damn sure you had the means to do so. In fact, Grilikov is on the bridge for more reasons than turning missile keys, yes?”

“Well Fedorov… Let’s just say that a man once burned is twice guarded. I’ve had you raise the alarm and set Troyak and his Marines on me, and I’ve seen that one over there raise a ruckus,” he nodded at Rodenko, “though it was Zolkin that did the real meddling. That isn’t ever going to happen on this bridge again. If it takes Grilikov, then that’s what it takes. But why all this talk? We should all be glad for the breath we still have to waste on it. Forgive me, but let me check in with Rodenko.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Radar—anything out there I need to worry about?”

“Sir, no airborne contacts, but we still have that Japanese destroyer. The datalinks are back up, and Turkey 1 has a good fix on their position. But the range has closed to 73 nautical miles, bearing 32 degrees. I have them on a heading of 216 degrees, at 30 knots. Designate Greybear.”

Karpov took a deep breath, finally able to relax, if only for a moment. “This confirms that we’ve settled in to the same time, right Fedorov?”

“It seem so, like a wave rolling over us. We may have only been out of phase with this time for a very brief moment.”

“A perfect moment,” said Karpov, somewhat buoyant now. “In that moment, death may have very well passed right through us in those thirty two glide bombs. Oh, if I had to fight them I would have probably taken down at least twenty-eight… But there were thirty two. If any of the others had struck us…” He didn’t have to finish.

“Then I guess we got lucky,” said Fedorov.

“Luck had nothing to do with it. I reached this end by taking decisive action when it was needed—cause an effect—and I was the cause. Of course I couldn’t foresee the exact effects of that detonation, but I’ll take the hand we were dealt after that. I traded that warhead for our lives, and the life of this ship. Now then… We have a lot more on our hands than we did an hour ago. Here we thought we were out to get Takami , and all the while, they were out to get us. It could be that these other forces were already in theater, and we just never knew about it. They may have arrived at the same time Takami did.”

“No way to really know,” said Fedorov, “unless you feel like chatting with Captain Harada again.”

“F-35’s…. The Japanese have those planes, and they can lift them on their Izumo class carriers. So my bet is that we’ve got one out there to the north. We faced twelve planes, and by god, this isn’t over. Those that got away safely could be landing on that carrier even as we speak. In training we figured four to six hours for turnover if they have to arm and refuel them again. Modern ordnance is a little more tricky than just latching on a dumb iron bomb, as in this war. But the dangerous fact remains that we could be facing another air attack, and very soon.”