John Schettler - 1943

“Sir! This is crazy. It’s reading as Astute Class!” He gave Gromyko a shocked expression. “We got lucky and recorded one boat after learning its deployment date. It’s the only profile we’ve ever managed to get, but my readings are above a 90% match for this signal.”

“Impossible,” said Gromyko, but then a deeper instinct asserted itself, reptilian, a reflex born of many hours beneath the sea. “All stop!” he said. “Launch noisemaker sled number one. Then right rudder fifteen, down bubble fifteen! Rig for emergency silent running!”

Astute Class … And Director Kamenski was most curious about that when he heard about it, thought Gromyko. My own reaction was perhaps overblown. There I was, fighting the second World War, when suddenly I’m told we have a visitor from the third. In my mind, I had no way of knowing where I was. There was never any certainty on this boat from the moment they first brought that control rod aboard. I could have been anywhere. The boat could have shifted again for all I knew. Yet there was one sure thing that I could count on in those split seconds—Chernov. There was no way he would make a mistake and classify an old WWII boat as Astute Class . So I did what I would have done in 2021, fought as I would have fought there. We barely avoided that surprise attack, and when I threw my punch back at the unseen enemy, I wanted to make sure I killed him.

The next thing I know, the boat was somewhere else….

Now this.

Another mission with Volsky, and with the same objective as the first—find Kirov , bring it home, and that failing… kill the ship. Volsky looks tired, but he seems to have settled himself. Yes, he experienced the same thing I did, with memories of different lives all jumbled together in his mind, but now things have quieted, the shock of that receded, and he has been able to sort things through. I still don’t understand it—how could I be carrying all these memories in my head. Poor Volsky apparently has a good many more.

“Captain,” said the Admiral. “This is going to be a most delicate situation. Since Fedorov never kept his appointment with you, something must have happened to him—we know not what. But knowing that young man, I will bet he is still alive and well. We have remained radio silent up here for some time, but now I think we must contact the ship again. That would be the most direct way to address our problem.”

“It would reveal our presence here to Karpov,” said Gromyko.

“I understand what you are saying, but what else are we to do?”

“We could remain silent. If you might have to go to someone’s house and kill them, would you knock first? In that event, we must hit the ship the old-fashioned way. I don’t think it would be too hard to determine where they are. Karenin picked up some radio chatter just yesterday. Apparently, there was an attack at an important Japanese naval base.”

“That should not be surprising,” said Volsky.

“But it involved missiles….”

That got Volsky’s attention.

“Missiles? Then that must have been Kirov ; Karpov. The man is fighting his own private little war with the Japanese out here. Such an attack would be very much in accord with the way Karpov thinks.”

“So we could just navigate to that sector and start the hunt there.”

“Suppose we do,” said Volsky. “I do not think we will just creep up on Kirov easily. You forget Tasarov.”

“Yes, yes, the best ears in the fleet. Our man Chernov is pretty damn good as well.”

“Yet one way or another, contact will occur,” said Volsky. “If we are to give Karpov the option of returning with us, then we’ll have to speak with him.”

“Frankly Admiral, I have very little hope in that. Didn’t we try to convince Karpov to return earlier? There he was, fighting the Japanese in 1908, and he was driven. I do not think he will be any different this time.”

“In that you may be correct.” Volsky shrugged. “He disobeyed a direct order from me to cooperate with us and return to 2021. Setting aside the fact that we have no idea whether or not we could even pull that off, Karpov will not want to cooperate this time either. He was quite determined to get control of Kirov , and now we see what he has in mind. He wants to fight the Japanese, and he will think that by doing so he can convince them to relinquish the territories they took from Russia after his last intervention failed in 1908. In fact, if we do contact him, he will throw that at us right from the beginning. He will say it was our interference that prevented him from settling things in 1908.”

“Then our only other choice is to do it on the sly,” said Gromyko. “Stealth is what this submarine is all about. I’m willing to bet I can get this boat into missile range before Tasarov hears us.”

“Which then presents us with the uncomfortable decision as to whether or not we fire.” Volsky was obviously bothered by that idea. “That is a good ship out there; a good crew. All of those men are like sons to me, which is why I suppose they came to call me Papa Volsky. The thought of killing them all is hard for me to even contemplate. But yet, Kamenski is convinced that we must do so as a last resort. I do not say I even understand the threat he sees so darkly, but I have been troubled by this for a good long while. When messages come from a future that we cannot even know, and they warn of our ship, it is more than troubling. It is deeply disturbing.”

“Messages?” Gromyko gave him a blank look.

“Signals that were aimed at this shadowy group founded by my good friend, Admiral Tovey. He called it the Watch, and I suppose we are the reason for that.”

“What did they say?”

“Beware of a ship… beware Kirov .”

There was a moment of silence, before the Admiral spoke again. “So it has something to do with everything Kamenski told you, and he went over it all again with me before I stepped aboard again. Well Captain, if it came down to it, how would you fight Kirov?”

“With everything I have,” said Gromyko. “It’s likely we’ll get into missile range, and they gave me a new set of some very sharp teeth.”

“Yes, the new Zircon MOS-III. How many?”

“Two full silos of eight missiles each. The remainder are the older Kalibr Class cruise missiles. I have another eight of the long-range 3M-14-K Series. That gives me striking power out to 2500 kilometers, and with a 450 kilogram warhead. But that is the land attack variant. The remaining sixteen missiles are the 3M-54-K, a shorter range variant out to 660 kilometers, but with the smaller 200-kilogram warhead. That was the dedicated anti-ship variant, though I suppose I could use the land attack missile against a water borne target as well.”

“It may interest you to know that Kirov also has the Zircon—ten missiles. They also carried older P-900s and there were 40 of the Moskit-IIs. I have no idea how many Karpov may have expended since he took over the ship. Fedorov would certainly know, assuming Karpov did not throw him into the brig.”

“The missiles don’t matter to me,” said Gromyko. “I won’t be firing from the surface. That’s where I have the real advantage. Their entire missile inventory is useless in this fight. All I have to worry about is their torpedoes.”

“Remember, they have three helicopters.”

“That is the real threat,” said Gromyko. “They expand their ASW search radius, and if they get a good idea where we are, they can drop sonobuoys to refine that contact and then we get trouble. It’s a pity that no one ever managed to put decent SAMs on a submarine. I’ve got the mast mounted 9k34 Strela 3, but its range is just a whisker over four kilometers. That might get a helo that was hovering right on top of us, but little more. Give me the S-400. That would really be a game changer. A few silos of those, and I would be virtually unbeatable against those helos or ASW planes. Then again, to see them I’d have to have my head above water, and for an old sub driver like me, that is the last place I want to be in a fight.”