John Schettler: 9 Days Falling, Volume I

These changes were deliberate on my part, as were many other small details that I have given a Gaussian blur in the story. I think I have done a good job in placing the story in a historically sound setting in the 1940s, but don’t expect a carbon copy. I have deliberately chosen to alter certain facts to serve plot elements that have yet to be revealed.

A good story and plot is a bit like a bathing suit—it reveals just enough to be interesting while concealing that which is essential. I cannot disclose, at this point, why I have made some of these seemingly minor changes, though anyone who has read my Meridian Series alternate history time travel novels will immediately know that I hold to a theory that fate and time turn at the whim of insignificant things.

Playing with the ‘facts’ is what makes alternate history fun, and these changes are deliberate threads I am weaving into the plot. Some are planned foreshadowing of events yet to come; others are clues or the seeding of new potential plot lines, or simply a way of making it apparent that something is amiss and the history has changed. They may stand out like a loose thread at first, but they are there for a reason. I haven’t slipped a stitch. The moment Wake-Walker’s task force diverts from its assigned mission to raid Petsamo and Kirkenes and begins to shadow Kirov, the chronology of historical events has been fatally altered. The year 1942 the ship returns to at the beginning of book II is therefore not the same 1942 that played out in the history we know.

Tovey and Turing spend a good deal of time trying to sort out the consequences of Kirov’s mysterious appearance, and I have also used the character Anton Fedorov to try and point out many of these historical changes to the other characters, and to you as readers. While I enjoy omniscient point of view on the story, and already know its beginning, middle, and end, Fedorov’s viewpoint is limited. There are things he does not yet know, and therefore things that you, gentle readers, will not yet know about what is to come.

After crossing the bridge I built in Men Of War , the series will now transition to this initial volume of 9 Days Falling, a second trilogy that will present the first nine days of the war in 2021, with each volume covering three days time. Yet the story will continue to move back and forth between modern times and the 1940s, as you will soon see. All the major characters from Kirov will still be featured prominently in the action. I’ve grown too fond of them all to leave anyone behind. There will also be new plot lines here, and new characters, but they all are ‘common fated’ as the Tibetans might say. Each and every one of them has a part to play in how this story ends. There are some very startling and dramatic events ahead, and Kirov may again find itself in some very strange circumstances as in the opening book, so I hope you will buy a ticket and take the ride.

Thank you all for reading this far in the series. Your intelligence and curiosity, and your knowledge of the history, are all key ingredients in making this magic formula work. It was your enthusiasm for this story that has inspired me to extend it through a full seven volumes and I am very grateful for your support as I present this next evolution of the Kirov Saga — 9 Days Falling.

The heloswooped low over the site, the pilot aghast at what he was seeing. It was a British Petroleum ride, out from Port Fourchon in the Mississippi Region on an emergency rig tour after Hurricane Victor cut a swath through the production zone at sea. Thus far 15 platforms had sustained damage that would be at least a week in repair, perhaps longer. This was the last planned stop for the day, to the crown jewel in the joint BP-Exxon operation in the region. They were going out to Thunder Horse , the world’s largest semi-submersible oil platform, so big you could put three football fields up on the topside area. It was fully submersible now.

“Look at that!” the pilot pointed at the badly listing platform. Thunder Horse was keeling over on her massive industrial orange flotation columns, and apparently still taking on water. It weathered, a blow from Hurricane Katrina years ago, and the last few brushes from the big storms never seemed to bother the immense platform—until now. The 650mm torpedo was a little more than the design engineers had ever planned for.

“What could have caused this?” The engineer aboard knew they had not suffered a direct hit from Victor this time. Yet the damage was plain to see. “Can you get a bit lower, I want to check the other side.”

She was obviously floundering, and in very deep water, sitting right astride block 778/822 in the Mississippi Canyon, the bottom over a mile away, some 6300 feet below. One of her massive cranes was already completely underwater.

“Damn, with Mad Dog damaged we can’t lose Thunder Horse ,” said the engineer.

Mad Dog was dubbed one of the 50 projects to change the world by Goldman Sachs, sporting the world’s largest single piece truss spar, one of the biggest lifts ever set in the Gulf of Mexico. The big dog was permanently moored to the seabed, with a capacity to produce up to 100,000 barrels of oil and 60 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, much smaller than Thunder Horse , but significant. She was also damaged, but remained intact.

“Shall I spread the word?” The pilot gave the engineer a sheepish look.

“Better tell the techs on Mad Dog to get over here first,” said the engineer.

“Lord,” the engineer was scratching his head, eyes wide as he surveyed the platform below them now. “We’ve got a fire down there too! With Caesar and Cleopatra off line, and big rigs like this in the water, we’re buggered for weeks, mate. Better blow the horn. This baby needs help fast. Damn thing’s about to go down under!”

“Right-o,” said the pilot, flipping his headset on to begin transmitting. “ Mad Dog, Mad Dog, this is BP Survey, Over. “

A scratch voice answered in a few seconds. “Go ahead, Survey.”

“ Thunder Horse down, mates. Repeat. Thunder Horse down. Survey engineer says we’ll need all your people out this way on the double, with anything you can float, over.”

Someone swore on the other end of the transmission. Then the voice came back, “Roger that, Survey. Thunder Horse down.”

Thefall of Thunder Horse was to be the final blow that would virtually end drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. It made the earlier Deepwater Horizon spill seem a minor precursor by comparison, though the Gulf had yet to recover from that event. Coastal areas of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida, and adjacent marshlands were still contaminated with oil, as much of it was simply covered up by BP crews working late night shifts with bulldozers after the disastrous spill of 2010.

The vast deepwater plumes of oil had eventually settled to the floor of the sea, or dispersed in an emulsified soup throughout the Gulf. The massive methane gas release that was at least 40% of the total toxins emitted had created broiling tides and huge dead zones devoid of oxygen where nothing could live. The humid rain would be tainted for months after the event.

The public was not told the full extent of the damage. Mainstream news outlets focused on a single leaking well close to the original site of the platform, but Thunder Horse had long tentacles servicing widely dispersed well sites over a reservoir of one and a half billion barrels of oil. Seven wells were ripped from the sea floor when the big platform fell. They were going to gush into the ocean, virtually unimpeded, for the next year and a half, after which the pressure would equalize and the flow rate subside.