John Schettler: Steel Reign

Dear Readers,

We begin this volume with a visit to an old friend, yes, still out there in the ether somewhere, and Kirov also returns to the narrative, which will bring several of the ship’s characters into light again. Something is happening at both ends of the strange, attenuated rope that seems to connect the two ships, the one we first steamed into history with, and its doppelganger at large now in the Sea of Okhotsk. How it resolves will be very important.

Meanwhile, we finished Turning Point at Hill 498, where Rommel finds once again that he simply cannot prevail in the desert as long as Kinlan’s 7th Brigade is on the scene. The first “Battle Book” in the series was released Feb 1st, all 58 chapters of the saga in the desert with Rommel, presenting that entire narrative as extracted from seven series novels in one continuous 500 page file. I hope you like the concept of seeing these major subplots from the series concentrated in a single volume like this. We will have another doing the same for all material in the war on the eastern front, and Sergei Kirov’s struggle for survival, and then another for the entire war in the Pacific.

Readers suggested that other major subplots get this treatment too, and one is the long vendetta between the two great villains in the series, Vladimir Karpov and Ivan Volkov. That would capture all the intrigue and fighting for control of Ilanskiy in one continuous narrative, and the great Zeppelin duels between Orenburg and the Siberians. This is material that would not be presented in the East Front Battle book, so look for that soon as my time permits.

In this volume, however, we continue with the thickening clouds of war in the Pacific. The unexpected eruption of Krakatoa brought us DDG-180, and now Takami joins the IJN as it embarks on campaigns that take us through the fateful months of April through June, 1942. In Fedorov’s history, those months saw the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. I present here the equivalent of both those engagements, though they take place as a result of a bold new offensive undertaken by the Japanese—Operation FS.

As he did in Pacific Storm (Book III in the series), Yamamoto makes some very different choices here, largely because of the radical changes that occur due to the fact that the Japanese and France now control the New Hebrides. Rather than operating from Espiritu Santo, Efate and Noumea, the Allies must now operate from Fiji and Samoa. Operation FS (Fiji-Samoa) was a real plan conceived by the Japanese military in our history, which was summarily cancelled after their disaster at Midway. That battle is presented here, while in the north, the ice finally thins enough in the Sea of Okhotsk for one Vladimir Karpov, and his shadow self, to renew his Plan 7 operation. This time Sakhalin Island is the object of his desire, but he soon discovers that there is an unseen challenger at large, a new piece on the board, and Kirov finds itself on a collision course with a powerful new adversary.

My thanks to all of you who bought the first Battle Book to support the cause. As you read this, I will launch myself into Book 24, Second Front , which will take us from the conclusion of Steel Reign and into the later months of 1942. As that title might reveal, it will focus on the plan and operation in the Atlantic to open a second front in a desperate effort to relieve the pressure on Soviet Russia. The action there with Germany’s summer offensive will also be presented, operations that capture events akin to Germany’s “Operation Blue” and the drive on Stalingrad.

For now, I hope you enjoy Steel Reign.

TheAdmiral sat in the quiet of his quarters, a rare and private moment alone, away from the workings of the ship, the burden of command that he had shouldered for so very long. He could never really set it down, he knew, for even now some deep inner sense was hearing the ship, instinctively processing the sounds, knowing the rhythm of it all like a mechanic might listen to a finely tuned engine. He could hear the movement of the crew in the corridors, up and down the ladders, and always there was that feeling of their eyes on him when he stood on the bridge, or passed them in the long narrow halls.

Dobrynin once had his fine tuned ear on the reactors, but Volsky listened to the entire ship, all of it, the sound of the radar systems, the thrum of the turbines turning the screws, the mutter of voices, the movement of heavy booted feet on the metal decks. When it moved, rolling in an unexpected swell, his body instinctively compensated, sea legs tensing and shifting his balance, a reflex born of thousands of hours at sea. The thought that it was all his to govern and manage was sometimes heavy on him, as it was this night, with his heart burned again with loss.

It had been seven hours now, and there had been no further sign of Fedorov. His faithful Navigator had been out on the weather deck, a place the young Captain often went to clear his head, and then, when Rodenko came up to relieve him that morning, he simply could not be found.

There followed the inevitable sequence of events, innocuous reflex at the beginning as Rodenko put out an all points call on the ship’s P.A. for the Captain, but it was not returned. Long minutes passed, a distended period that saw two other P.A. calls unanswered. Then it all came to Volsky where he had been walking the lower decks. He had heard the P.A. calls, yet gave them no thought, thinking Fedorov had lost himself in some business or another. Yet as the messages repeated, there came an inner thrum of anxiety that was carried in the silence. Something was wrong. Volsky could feel it, sense it, and he knew it on some deep inner level. Fedorov was not lost in his history books, or wandering in a place below decks where he could not hear the P.A. system. No.

Fedorov was gone.

As soon as Volsky heard the next plaintive call, he knew that to a certainty. “Admiral Volsky, please come to the bridge. This is the Executive Officer…” The hot potato was about to be quietly tossed into the Admiral’s lap, as it inevitably was. They were going to discuss it, initiate an all points search on the ship, circling in place as it had been for endless hours, with the watchmen puckering their eyes from every deck and mast. They might even launch boats to scour the seas around them, though Volsky knew they would not find any sign of the man adrift at sea. It was no good trying to use the helicopter, for that damnable fog remained stolidly impenetrable all around them.

Yes, the minute Volsky heard that first call, he knew Fedorov would never be seen again; his calm and reassuring voice never heard again on the bridge. He was gone, and Volsky knew it with a heaviness akin to grief. He would go up to the bridge, huddling with Rodenko to begin the search. There would be Fedorov’s boots, still stuck in the deck plating near that odd depression, but the man would never fill them again.

“I do not think we will find him,” said Volsky quietly to Rodenko, his voice hushed so none of the other bridge crew might hear him.

“But sir… Where could he be?”

“That is a very good question,” Volsky remembered his words to the XO. “We are still asking it about Mister Orlov, and Mister Tasarov, and Chief Dobrynin, and Director Kamenski, are we not? And God only knows who else is missing, and without a soul aboard remembering they were ever here.”