John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

The segment ended, and Karpov folded his arms, watching the other Captains closely. “That explosion you heard at the last segment was a bomb from one of those planes that struck the ship on the aft citadel. The damage there was extensive, and we will take a little tour to show you after dessert.”

Zolkin noted how the Captain had edited the segment to end with the Admiral’s praise for his performance in the engagement, and he could clearly see that Karpov was fighting another battle now, one for the proverbial ‘hearts and minds’ of these two Captains. He would have to win here if he was to do anything more in this insane situation they found themselves in again. The Doctor could see the glimmer of uncertainty in the younger man’s eyes—Ryakhin. The more seasoned Yeltsin seemed deep in thought, but the footage had wiped the uncomfortable smiles of restrained disbelief from both men’s faces. They were clearly impressed by what they had seen and heard.

“Those ship’s logs are top secret,” said Karpov. “I showed them to you to give you something more than my own testimony to convince you of the truth here. It will be somewhat disturbing, I realize, even shocking. You will doubt either your own sanity or mine and that of the Doctor here. But the fact remains that we are where we are. Lieutenant Nikolin, our communications officer, has intercepted radio traffic to confirm the present day and year. It is the 15th of August, 1945.”

“Astounding,” said Yeltsin.

“Indeed, Captain. That footage clearly illustrates one other thing—this is a very dangerous place. The war here has ended, but the combined allied fleet is arriving in Sagami Bay near Tokyo in just a few days for the surrender of Japan. This is the same fleet we just engaged, albeit in another time—our own time. Yet the both of you know as well as I do that we will bump gunwales with the Americans at sea from this time forward, until it comes to what we just saw some hours ago and the missiles fly. They will be at our throats, one way or another.”

Zolkin could see he was angling to make his pitch now, the Captain on maneuvers, ready to fire.

“Now…” Karpov paused, looking the other men over. “Ours is to decide what we do about all this.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Yeltsin spoke, his voice still tentative. “You say we have…we have moved in time?”

“Captain…did you happen to notice the sudden change of weather? One minute we were sailing on the seas of hell. The Americans were attacking and their Harpoons were coming in at us from two sides. Then that mountain blew up. You saw the ash cloud. It was three inches think on the main deck! Now where is it? Where is that massive eruption to the north? Did you think a gentle breeze could just blow that all away in a few minutes?”

He had obviously hit on something that was very convincing. Ryakhin leaned forward. “Yes, that was very unusual. We could not understand what had happened.”

“The explosive force from that eruption was apparently so severe that it knocked us into the past,” said Karpov quickly. “This is how we figure it. When this happened to Kirov earlier—when Orel blew up—we were also displaced in time.”

“How did you get back?”asked Yeltsin.

Karpov pursed his lips, jaw set. This was the key question. He had to tell these men their bridges were burned now. How would they react?

“Chief Engineer Dobrynin noticed an anomaly taking place in our nuclear reactors. It came and went. Whenever it occurred our position in time was unstable. It so happened that on one occasion we were returned to our own time, and we came home.”

“Will that happen again?”

“We don’t know…”

Zolkin could see Karpov was straying a bit here. He told the men nothing of Rod-25, or the fact that the ship found a way to trigger the time displacement on their own. Karpov glanced at him, as if checking to see if the Doctor would protest, then continued.

“The fact is that this is all still a mystery to us. Yet it happened, and now it has happened again. Captain Ryakhin, your frigate uses a diesel and gas turbine powerplant, so there is no chance your ship could return to our time as Kirov did through some anomaly in the reactor. Captain Yeltsin, your ship is fortunate to have the nuclear power upgrade planned as an option for our new destroyers. We will send you technical data to alert your engineers on what they should look for. Perhaps the anomaly will occur again, but the more likely case is that it will not.”

“Then what becomes of my ship and crew?” asked Ryakhin.

“Don’t worry Captain. We have discovered that it may be possible for your vessel to move with Kirov , if you are in close proximity to our ship when it happens. That said, we cannot count on any of this. All we know for certain is that we are here, impossible as it seems. I will tell you, Captain Ryakhin, that we will not abandon you by choice. I give you my word on that. We will stand by you, come what may…which brings me to my next point.”

Here it comes, thought Zolkin. The deck hatches were opening in Karpov’s mind and the Moskit-IIs were ready to fire.

“It may be that we are all stranded here in this time indefinitely; that we may never find a way to return to the year 2021. In fact, it would be wise for us to assume as much, and act accordingly for our own survival. So I ask the question again—now that we are here, what do we do?”

The two Captains were quite disturbed, but neither man said anything for some time. Then Yeltsin spoke up. “Do about what, Captain?”

There was a glint in Karpov’s eye as he spoke. “The Americans and British have just won this war—or so they believe. They will conveniently overlook the fact that it was Soviet Russia that truly defeated Germany. If our Mister Fedorov were here he would tell you all about it, but we all know the truth from the history books. We carried the real burden of the war in Europe and we beat the Germans. Our only thanks was fifty years of Cold War. Now… We are only three ships, all that is left of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet for all we know. The world we left just a few hours ago may be obliterated—in fact, we have evidence that this will indeed happen. So in some way we can see our present situation as a reprieve—a second chance.”

“And what do you suggest, Karpov,” Zolkin had been quiet up until now, but spoke with a challenge in his voice.

“It’s quite simple, Doctor. We can’t just sail merrily off into the Pacific. Admiral Golovko has diesel fuel for only thirty days. So that means at some point we will have to make port—preferably in Vladivostok. We will not be able to hide these ships or slip into the Golden Horn Harbor for a quick oil change in the night. Our presence here will become known. In due course they will discover just who and what we are—the British may know this already. Therefore, why be coy about it? We are here—most likely for the rest of our lives. But we are not just a wayward fleet lost at sea. This fleet has power.”

He placed his index finger squarely on the table as he said that. “When Kirov returned some weeks ago it was our decision to do whatever we could to prevent the Third World War. I had little hope we could accomplish much in the year 2021. But here, now, in this time and place we have tremendous power.”

He looked at them, a gleam in his eye. “And here is how I suggest we use it…”