John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

“Perhaps the Tunguska event caused all this,” said Fedorov. “Perhaps it ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time—right there, in that one small place—the back stairs of the inn at Ilanskiy. How that could have affected the ship I have yet to see, but it was a very strange coincidence. Very strange. Yes, it’s crazy, but there it is. I know what I saw, and I’ll tell you another thing…” He looked searchingly at Troyak, not sure that he had followed him this far and unwilling to lose his strength and support.

“That man Zykov brought in…Well he called himself Mironov. That name rankled in the back of my head for a while, and then I remembered it. Mironov! That wasn’t his real name, of course. That’s why I pressed him on it. His real name was Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov. He just shortened that middle name and called himself Mironov as an alias. I read a lot of history, Sergeant. In 1907 that man was arrested on charges of distributing leaflets against the state, and imprisoned.”

“Who was imprisoned?”

“Mironov, or I should say Kostrikov. Do you know that name, Troyak?”

“Can’t say I do. Who is he?”

“Well he went by that name when the Tsar’s secret police began to shadow him. He was a member of the Social Democrats before the revolution. Then he assumed an alias and called himself Mironov. There was an illegal printing press in a hidden room in Tomsk. This was back in 1907, you see, and he was part of all that, though the Okhrana never found it until 1909.”

“Okhrana?”

“The Tsar’s secret police. They had enough suspicion to arrest and indict him. He was imprisoned at Tomsk for 16 months, though he later claimed he was sentenced to three years to make it seem he suffered more heroically than was the case back then. He was a revolutionary, you see, arrested for advocating the overthrow of the existing civil structure of the state—the Old Russia, Troyak, under Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov—Nicholas II, the last Tsar! Well, they released Mironov in June of 1908, and very little is known about his life for the following eighteen months. It was believed that he went south to Novosibirsk, and then wrote his sister in Irkutsk and went to visit her there. If that is the case then he would have seen it—Tunguska! He would have been right there where we were on the Trans-Siberian rail line heading east to Irkutsk on the morning of June 30th, 1908.”

“Who would have seen it? This man Mironov?”

“Yes, of course. Mironov was Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov, but you and I know him by yet another alias that he took upon himself some years later. In fact, we serve on the very ship that was given his name— Kirov .”

Fedorov had a satisfied smile on his face now, for at least one part of this incredible incident made sense to him—the part he could fetch from his history books. “Don’t you see, Troyak?” he said, his voice low, barely a whisper. “That was Kirov! The Okhrana found the hidden printing press in April of 1909 and began looking for him again, so he fled south to the Caucasus and changed his name. Some say the prefix Kir comes from the Persian word for King, and he just Russianized the word and called himself Kirov. Sergei Kirov , one of the great men of the Russian Revolution! There was a statue of the man overlooking the harbor in Baku for many years until it was removed a few years ago in our day. You’ve seen the statue in St. Petersburg as well. We’ve named towns, cities and ships for the man ever since.”

“Amazing,” said Troyak. “You are a very well educated man, Fedorov, but are you certain of this?”

“I knew the moment I named him, Sergeant. I could see the recognition in his eyes. It was Kirov. He died a kind of martyr when he was assassinated in Leningrad on the first day of December, 1934—shot in the back of the head as he was leaving his office that evening. He was very close to Stalin, you know, and Stalin reacted to his death with what we now call the Great Purge. A million died, but many historians suspect that Stalin himself was connected to Kirov’s assassination in some way. Nikita Khrushchev stated that Stalin personally gave the order to have his old friend, and chief rival, killed. He tried to control Kirov, who was taking a very lenient attitude against opponents of the party at that time, but he failed. Kirov was very popular, much more so than Stalin. After his death Stalin eliminated all his potential opponents and fully consolidated power…And that was him , Troyak! That was Sergei Kirov as a young man in 1908! He must have come up that back stairway and walked right into our little nightmare here in 1942. That’s why I was so adamant that he go back down those stairs. Understand?”

Troyak looked bewildered, but Fedorov’s energy and enthusiasm had carried him along this rail line from Vladivostok of 2021 to Omsk of 1942. He could believe anything now.

“Well I’ll be a horse’s ass,” he said. “Kirov!”

Admiral Volskywas sitting at the command desk receiving scattered reports from assets throughout the North Pacific region, and the picture they were painting was very mixed. Two A-50U AEW planes had been deployed in the initial standoff with the Americans. Of these, one plane designated ‘Black Bear’ had been destroyed in the early minutes of the US attack. Yet Karpov’s plan was executed perfectly, and the moment the Russians confirmed the Americans were going weapons hot they stole a march on them with their long range air and sub launched cruise missiles. The initial damage reports were very encouraging, but tensions rose in the staff briefing room at Fokino when the US strike squadrons engaged.

“We took a few hits, Admiral,” said Talanov, Volsky’s new Chief Of Staff. “Minor damage on the Varyag , but it looks like we’ll lose one of the Udaloy class destroyers. All things considered we were not hurt that badly.”

“Yes, but that is one less destroyer on the watch, and we’re still waiting on the second American strike group,” said Volsky. “It was coming in from the east and was engaged by Kuznetsov’s fighters.”

“That was quite a duel, sir. We lost eight Mig-29s but have nine confirmed kills. Kuznetsov appears to have shielded our flank as planned.”

“We’re trading them plane for plane,” said Volsky, “and we both know we cannot do that for very long. The Americans still have two more carrier battlegroups in theater at the moment, not to mention their Third Fleet mustering in the Eastern Pacific.”

Talanov was handed a signals decrypt, and read it quickly. “Karpov apparently executed phase two of his long range attack as well. We just received the code Longarm , sir, but we are not sure if it was executed.”

“If so, that will mean he has no further long range assets, unless we can get another squadron of bombers to him quickly. What is the status of our—”

There came a noticeable shudder, and Talanov looked up at the overhead lighting. It was followed soon after by a strong blast wave and three windows in the outer room shattered. The Admiral was very surprised. “Are we under attack?”

“We had nothing on radar, sir. No alert warnings of any kind!”

“Don’t forget their damn B-2s, Talanov,” Volsky admonished, and then they heard it, a deep roar that sounded as if the earth itself had growled in anger. The Demon on the Iturup / Urup island gap had finally blown its top. A much stronger shock wave was felt, and Admiral Volsky was nearly thrown from his chair. He turned, awestruck, as he saw the angry red glow on the horizon and what looked like a massive mushroom cloud out east where the fleet had deployed. His first thought was that the Americans had struck with nuclear weapons.