John Schettler - Crescendo of Doom

By fate, chance, or perhaps through the sheer effort of his own will, as Karpov believed, the ship had appeared in a perfect position to ambush Volkov’s Caspian Division as it was descending to conduct troop deployment operations. There, some 500 meters below the massive airship, a group of four smaller 120,000 cubic meter volume battlecruisers was gliding in a tight square formation. At lower elevation they would separate to gain adequate space for troop deployment, but now they made a perfect target. And Karpov’s eyes lit up with hot fire when he saw them.

“Thermobaric crews! Make ready to deploy forward weapon! Prepare to climb, Bogrov.”

The rifle crews were already opening fire on the enemy ships, but Karpov had another terrible surprise for them, He was carrying two of his prized thermobaric bombs, christened “Autumn Mist” in his code lexicon. They would eject from the ship, fall to a designated altitude, and then deploy parachutes to hover in the sky, dispensing a highly volatile mist that could be ignited by incendiary rounds. The Autumn Mist would then become a hot, all consuming fire, and it was a perfect weapon to attack the formation below and deal a heavy blow.

Reach for the hammer first. Karpov no longer hesitated to deploy the most powerful weapon at his disposal if he saw clear advantage in doing so. The thermobaric bomb was Tunguska’s equivalent of a nuclear warhead, and as the undisputed master of the airship, and the fleet it led, there was no hand to restrain Karpov now, no key around his neck requiring another to turn in agreement. He could unleash hell with a single word, and did not hesitate a moment when he saw the opportunity beneath him.

“Sir, two more airships off the port quarter, about 100 meters above us!”

Karpov turned to look for them, seeing the long grey shapes in the sky, nearly as big as his own ship. It was the enemy flagship, Orenburg , and he clenched his fist, eager to engage.

“Bogrov! Climb! Get me elevation!”

“Aye sir, flushing number one and three ballast now!”

The order was given to deploy the forward thermobaric, and its weight in falling also helped to lighten the ship as Tunguska vented ballast in a rain of water. They could see that the other airships, Orenburg attended by the smaller battlecruiser Saran , were also venting ballast, and the race for elevation was on. Yet falling with the rain, Karpov’s deadly weapon plummeted down, the parachutes snapping out to slow the fall just above the center of the airship formation below.

The gun crews on the ships below saw the chute deploy, yet it seemed deceptively harmless, perhaps a ballast weight dropped by the other ship, or a range marker for their gunners. The topside crews had only just reached their gun mounts, surprised as they were by the sudden appearance of the massive airship above them. It seemed as if Tunguska had just emerged from a cloud, its flanks rippled with eerie phosphorescent lightning that looked like Saint Elmo’s fire. Then, on Karpov’s command, the forward gondola loaded incendiary rounds and took aim on their own falling parachute. Karpov was lighting his match.

The resulting explosion was terrible to witness, a massive fireball that expanded to quickly engulf the nearest ship, the unlucky Battlecruiser Salsk . It was a ship about the size of Karpov’s old command on the Abakan , at 120,000 cubic meter volume. Its gunners barely had the time to load and train their topside guns when the explosion engulfed the ship, expanding in a horrific plume of hot fire. Salsk was immolated by the weapon, and the shock of the pressure wave struck the other airships a heavy blow. The tail of Armavir was also on fire where a plume of flame caught it and spun the airship about. Both Anapa and Sochi rolled heavily, yet being forward of the main explosion, they were spared the all consuming fire.

Salsk had her canvas shell seared off in just seconds, gas bags exploding as the temperatures literally melted away the self-sealing linings. When the intense fireball diminished, Karpov could see the skeleton of the ship glowing hot from the blow he had delivered. Burned and savaged by the heavy shock wave, anyone alive on Salsk would soon be asphyxiated as the searing fire consumed all the oxygen in the immediate vicinity of the explosion.

It would have been a much heavier blow if the weather had been calm. As it was, the deadly Autumn Mist sprayed by the falling bomb was too dispersed on the wind, and the explosion was only half as intense as it might have been in calm conditions. But it was enough. Karpov had his first kill, as Salsk withered away and began to fall, all buoyancy lost, the ravaged frame of the airship bent and afire. Karpov could see that the tail of a second ship, Armavir , was also engulfed in flames, and he knew that airship would soon lose its ability to steer and maneuver.

“Come hard to port! Concentrate fire on those forward ships! Give them the bag busters!”

The gunners on Tunguska were quick to respond, feeding shells to the bigger 105mm breech loading rifles on the main command gondola and firing. The skies bloomed with the black roses of the explosions around the enemy ships, but the gunners were getting many direct hits against the ponderous targets below. Karpov could see the outer canvas of the forward ships torn by the shells, the glow of fire within, and then the trail of heavy smoke from the wound, the vaporous blood of an airship in distress.

One ship, the Anapa , was still descending, perhaps from loss of lift due to the many holes Tunguska had punched in her outer shell, the rounds penetrating to the gas bags within. Yet the second ship, Sochi , was trying to climb, hoping its lighter weight might outpace the elevation gain of the bigger dreadnought above it. For a moment it seemed as though the ship would succeed, blowing all its ballast in a desperate attempt to gain rapid elevation and get out from under the serried rows of the gondola mounted rifles on the massive enemy above. But Karpov saw what they were doing, and had a quick reprisal in mind.

“Forward gondola!” he shouted. “Ready on RS82 system. Target that ship and fire!”

Seconds later the hiss of the 82mm rockets filled the air as a stream of twelve fired out from the rocket mounting. With the rear of the firing tubes venting to open air, the elevation gain of the enemy, quickly rising to come even with Tunguska , actually played in Karpov’s favor. The rocket rack had limited downward angles of fire, or the hot fire of the engines might be directed back at Tunguska’s underbelly. It was meant to be fired dead ahead, with the rockets eventually falling on ground targets as a saturation artillery weapon, but in this case it proved a remarkably effective anti-airship weapon.

The rockets seared into Sochi , striking her brow as she climbed and shredding the canvas with the fire of their explosions. The upper girder structure of the interior frame was blasted apart, and the ship suddenly seemed to be breaking in two, with the intact nose section bending downward as the central frame failed. Then fire blazoned in the gash ripped by the rockets, and Karpov knew he had struck the ship a fatal blow.

Two enemy airships down, one wounded and possibly out of the fight. The battle was opening well for Tunguska , but the Orenburg had recovered from the shock of the surprise arrival, and was beginning to return fire.

Kymchek was on the main bridge, horrified by the scene below as he watched Salsk , and then Sochi die their agonizing deaths by fire. Rockets! Why didn’t we think to mount Katyushas on this ship? Too late now. It will have to be up to the gunners, but we need more elevation. That monster out there just dropped heavy ballast, and it’s climbing fast. Any advantage we had will be lost, and god help us if that beast gets above us. My god! Look at those guns!