John Schettler - Lions at Dawn

“Looks like three more destroyers,” said Rodenko. These first two are reading Kongo Class.”

“You’ve got sensor emissions from them?”

“Aye sir. They’re modern ships. Look here’ sir. That’s a Seahawk returning to one of those destroyers.”

“Range to this contact? What is it designated… Brownbear?”

“Yes sir, Brownbear is at 120 nautical miles.”

“I see… Well Gromyko has fired and he’s probably running deep and sprinting to a new position by now. We can’t let him have all the fun, can we? Mister Samsonov. Key up four Moskit-II missiles and put them on Brownbear—low attack profile. Let’s see just how good that old Kongo Class is.”

Karpov had gone through the insanity of having to deploy a nuclear warhead, seeing Fedorov vanish and reappear before his very eyes as the ship phased in time, and still he was all business as usual, wanting to take advantage of any opportunity he could find. He seemed completely unshakable, for in truth, after having endured everything he had experienced in this long saga, he was unshakable, and this was a borscht he knew how to cook so very well. He wanted to keep fighting, even as Fedorov shook his head in amazement.

Seconds later, the four missiles were away, surging out 28 miles before they made a fifteen point turn to redirect at their target. The closed the range through the fifty mile mark, completely unseen. They closed through the 30 mile mark, rapidly nearing their target’s far horizon. They were running at 1,450 knots, 60 feet above the sea, each with a 320kg warhead.

At 20 nautical miles out, they crossed that horizon, and Kirishima’s radars picked them up for the first time. Captain Kenji Namura was shaken by the sudden alert, but reacted quickly, ordering offensive ECM and a full response from his SAM system. He was carrying 54 RIM-161 Standard Missile 2s, every bit as good as those that had been carried by Takami . Standard procedure would see two missiles assigned to each incoming Vampire, and out they went. It would take six to do the job, but they would get all four of those Sunburns.

Aboard Kirov , Samsonov turned and gave Karpov a sheepish look. “Strike failed,” he said. “All missiles destroyed by enemy SAM defense.

Karpov nodded gravely. He considered running due north, hoping he could find that carrier before they could turn over those strike planes. To do that he would have to fight all three of those other destroyers… “Secure from offensive combat. The ship will come to 180 and increase to all ahead flank. Mister Nikolin, signal Turkey-1 to stay outside 50 nautical miles of that contact and begin a return path south. Have the Helo Deck ready the next available helicopter for operations, maritime surveillance loadout.”

Fedorov came over, looking at Karpov with questioning eyes. “We’re breaking off?”

“That is the wisest course for now. I tested that Kongo class destroyer, but they were ready. Look now,” he pointed to the Plexiglas screen. “They have two of those, and there’s one more bear in the woods over to the east. That’s probably another destroyer as well. You figure out how they got all these ships here, Fedorov, and I’ll figure out how we deal with them. We have between four and six hours before they can rearm and fuel those F-35’s, then we could be facing another air strike. So I don’t intend to waste any more missiles on those destroyers. We’ll move south. That’s what Gromyko is doing too, running fast and deep. He knows they’ll get up off the mat and start getting helicopters up soon, and that carrier they have up north is going to want a pound of flesh for what we did to Takami . As soon as we get the comms up, I want Gromyko to reverse course and see if he can find that carrier. ”

“Damn,” said Fedorov. “We’ve a real headache now. Cleansing this time line isn’t going to be as easy as we thought. How do we deal with all those ships? Are you sure we should retire now?”

“Retire? We’re just redeploying. I’m going to use one more weapon we have in our arsenal.”

“What? You mean you’re planning to use another nuke?”

“Now don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Karpov. “Those warheads are very dangerous, to us and any enemy I target. No, I’ll keep those weapons tight for now, unless I’m forced to deploy again. We were caught by surprise with that F-35 attack. I did the only expedient thing, but for now, we’ll use a much simpler weapon—speed.”

“You want to outrun them?”

“I can’t quite do that, as they can match us knot for knot, but we’re over 110 nautical miles ahead of them now, and I want to keep that interval as wide as possible. Look here…. Their carrier hasn’t been spotted by Turkey-1 yet, and this line here is indicating its radar coverage. That’s over 180 nautical miles from us now. So let’s say that carrier is at least 200 miles out; maybe more. I want to open that range as far as possible while they’re rearming. If they don’t turn now and pursue immediately, that’s exactly what I can do. It’s the carrier I need to worry about now, not those three destroyers. We still have 33 SSMs of various types. Kazan has 26 more. That gives us fewer than 60 ways to hurt them with missiles, but I have one weapon in my quiver that they don’t have. Kazan has it too.”

“What?” asked Fedorov, his eyes wide. He was thinking Karpov had something else tucked away in his larders that he never knew about. After all, he was still 70% a Navigator, and 30% Starpom . He didn’t really know how to fight the ship in modern combat like this, any more than he had known how to do battle against the men of this era when he was first put in command by Admiral Volsky.

“Mister Fedorov, we have a nuclear reactor—unlimited fuel, and I can run all day and night, as long as Dobrynin and Biko can hold things together. Those Japanese ships out there use good old fashioned gas turbines, and they burn a lot of fuel if they run up over 30 knots.” He smiled. “Understand now?”

Fedorov understood.

If these unexpected Samurai wanted to stay in the chase and keep after him, they were going to have to match his speed and endurance to do so. He was going to run them ragged, force them to burn that valuable fuel. Once they ran low, he would have yet one more advantage in the battles still waiting to be fought. He would have speed….

He looked at Karpov with renewed respect. Yes, it was true, he was headstrong, full of himself, devious and sly, but he was a fighter, a survivor, and every man aboard was still there breathing only because he had the will and nerve to do what he had just done here in this engagement, and the skill—with just a little help from Mother Time.

Aboard the carrier Kaga , Admiral Kita took the news concerning Takami very hard. He turned to Captain Jenzu, his arms folded, eyes serious. “This is more than we bargained for,” he said. “They have a submarine.”

“Aye sir. If that helo off Kongo had been up with an ASW loadout, we might have jumped on it when Takami picked it up. Yasen Class. They said they thought it might be that Russian sub that also went missing in the Kuriles— Kazan .”

“Well that complicates things, doesn’t it,” said Kita. “The Russians have given us the slip. We can see their helicopter, and it’s heading south, but it was Takami’s helo and that had a leash on Kirov for us, and we’ve lost that contact.”

“They’re down there, sir. We know where they were before they slipped off. We still have four birds ready to fly on Akagi . Two have GBU/53s, and the other two have the JSOW. There’s a fighter up on our flight deck ready to go right now. We could send it up for recon.”