Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) Read online

  No, he thought. He did not get that far. He came here, to the 1940s. What was all this talk about meeting men who claimed they were NKVD? If that was so then he must have gone down those stairs a second time if he ended up in 1908. And why would that passage in time lead there? Rod-25 had done the same thing. It moved the ship from 2021 to 1941, and took us on that journey forward and back again many times. Then, for some reason, a hole in time had opened to the year 1908. He could not yet understand why this was, or even how Fedorov had managed to move from 1942 to find him in 1908, and on two occasions. What was so special about that year?

  He thought about that for some time, until he revisited what had happened when that Demon Volcano had erupted in 2021. Large explosive events… yes, something about the shattering power of these events was affecting the integrity of time. That volcano blasted the ship into the 1940s, and then his own use of nuclear weapons had sent Kirov even farther back in time.

  Why not Orlan, he thought? That ship was steaming just a few thousand meters ahead of me, even closer to the source of the detonation, did it move in time as well? It certainly did not move to 1908. Could it have gone somewhere else? None of the American ships or planes were affected either, as least as far as I know. We thought it was something unique to Kirov—Rod-25—but could it have been something more, something in the ship’s reactor core that Rod-25 was only catalyzing? And what did any of that have to do with that stairway at Ilanskiy? There were no nuclear reactors or detonations of any kind there. He could make no sense of it, but then again his life had been one impossibility after another since Kirov first disappeared in the Norwegian Sea. He had come to accept the impossible as commonplace now. Yet there had to be an answer to all of this, something he was not seeing. Fedorov was trying to figure all this out long ago. I must do the same, he thought.

  Why did the ship move to 1908? It was also the year where Volkov appeared when he went down those stairs. And Fedorov was able to get there using Rod-25 on both the Anatoly Alexandrov and Kazan. Why that year? Was it mere coincidence? The ship seemed to move in and out of the 1940s numerous times. First we arrive in 1941, then move to 1942 on two separate occasions. He said it was as if our position in time was unstable, like a rock skipping on a pond, and we always moved forward—until that last shift from 1945 to 1908. Was that a random event or was there something significant about that year?

  He thought about that, reaching for a volume of the history of the Siberian State, and scouring information for the year 1908 to see if he could turn up any clues. Here I am sitting like Fedorov with my nose in the history books, he realized. Then he saw a reference to the strange event in late June of 1908. Yes! That must be it! Tunguska! June 30, 1908.

  He read the account of an eye witness named Semedec:

  “... I was sitting in the porch of the house at the trading station of Vadecara at breakfast time... when suddenly in the north... the sky was split in two and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared to be covered with fire. At that moment I felt great heat as if my shirt had caught fire; this heat came from the north side. I wanted to pull off my shirt and throw it away, but at that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash was heard. I was thrown to the ground …”

  A large explosive event—Tunguska! There he saw the map of the presumed location of the event, and a report in the Irkutsk newspaper dated July 2, 1908, published two days after the explosion. What if that event had somehow caused this rift in time, a permanent effect, instead of the transient effects they had experienced aboard Kirov? The fact that this phenomenon persisted even to the year 2021 was very telling. The impact of the Tunguska event must have been so severe that it opened this permanent hole in time, and it must have been so aligned in space as to run right along that stairway. What other explanation was possible?

  He did not yet know why this happened, only that it did happen. Facts were facts. There it was, a gateway, a bridge between three separate eras. Why it seemed to involve the 1940s was as yet a mystery he could not answer. But I don’t need to know why it happens just now, he thought. Knowing that it does happen is quite enough! Now I must set my mind on how to best use it. Going back up those stairs from here is fruitless. A visit to the naval arsenal at Kansk might have allowed me to pick some nice cherries off the tree, but not any longer. The arsenal, and probably Kansk itself, has been obliterated in 2021. Yet what about going down that stairway? Yes, that was the real threat now.

  That’s what happened to Volkov. He must have gone down twice, and found himself in 1908, at the source of the rift. He was probably so disoriented and confused that he never made the connection between his madness and that staircase. Too bad for him.

  Yes, I could go down those stairs myself now, but what would I find? Would I find Volkov there in 1908? Did the stairway deliver each traveler to the same time? Imagine it. If I went there and did find him, I suppose I could easily convince him to come back with me. What then? Would we arrive at the top of that landing in 1940 again? Would we find that there was no “Orenburg Federation?”

  The more he thought on this, the more he realized how precarious his own fate was now. Someone had killed Josef Stalin in 1908. Who? Was it Volkov? Kirov? Volkov would certainly have a motive, but Kirov? How would Sergie Kirov have known Stalin would become the monster he was? Could it have only been happenstance, a random change when these events replayed in the history?

  I remember how plaintive and urgent Fedorov sounded when he learned of my decision to remain in 1908. He knew that I could topple the base pillars of the entire modern world from there. Now, with this stairway, I could do the very same thing. I could go back and get rid of Volkov, Stalin too if he’s still around. Then I could position myself within the revolutionary elite when the Tsar falls, and perhaps I would be the Secretary General instead of Sergie Kirov.

  He smiled to think that he had the power to become the new Stalin of this world, right there on that back stairway. Then he considered the life he had now, a rising star in the Siberian Free State and certainly destined to rule here in time. Kolchak is old and tired, Kozolnikov easily dealt with. I could get rid of Volkov, but chances are I would find that someone took his place if I decided to return to this year. Now I am still young, while Kirov and Volkov are both over 50. This war is the hinge of fate. It will decide how the modern world looks after 1945, and from here I have a chance to shape that world.

  Back and forth he went with all this in his mind. Should he stay here, and live into the modern era, or go back to 1908 and rewrite all the history he had just come to know? Karpov was still brooding over all this in his ready room aboard Abakan when a signalman came to him, startling him with alarm and surprise. Something had been seen on the airship’s long range early warning radar.

  The early system was primitive, but just enough to do the job it was designed for that day. The Leningrad Electro-Physics Institute had pioneered development of rudimentary continuous wave radio emission sets to replace the old listening posts that required a human ear to actually hear incoming planes. Continuous wave was capable of detection and bearing location of an incoming threat, but could not determine range until it was converted to a pulse system in 1934. Others argued that higher frequency or microwave systems would better serve the purpose desired. The first equipment, dubbed Bistro (Rapid) and Buraya (Storm) used microwaves and became truck mounted radar, designated RUS-1. These advances eventually became the Redut (Redoubt) pulse radar tested in 1939 and entering service by 1940.

  Designated RUS-2, it could detect high flying targets out to 100 kilometers, and lower level targets at 10 to 30 kilometers. Most of this development remained in Kirov’s Soviet Russia, but there were equivalent systems developed under Volkov’s regime in Orenburg. Even so, there were no more than fifty RUS-2 sets in all of Soviet Russia as the storm clouds of war gathered, though two had fallen into hands of independent Tartar cavalry units who had captured them near Perm during a raid on the border zone
there.

  Realizing the importance of radar, Karpov moved heaven and earth to secure the two systems when he learned of them in early 1940. One was posted in the frontier bastion city of Omsk, and summarily withdrawn to Novosibirsk when that city was lost. The second was in Irkutsk. There the Siberian Technical Corps had managed to reverse engineer the system and, with considerable guidance from Karpov, they were making rapid improvements. No one knew how this remarkable man possessed such a breadth of technical and scientific knowledge, but he was able to catalyze the research and remove false starts and roadblocks to set it all on the proper course. The information in his service jacket computer proved to be a limitless resource, which Karpov kept very secret. A new system, code named “Topaz” appeared in the mid-1940, and Karpov insisted that the first sets were mounted on all his airships.

  The problem was where to place the new equipment for maximum effect? Mounting it on the gondolas allowed for good low level search capability, but the mass of the airship above was a major obstacle. Placing it in the nose only allowed coverage of the forward arcs, and there were too few systems available to have nose and tail mounted units. In the end, a small platform was extended from the interior frame on the forehead of the ship, and it was able to see incoming aircraft at altitude well enough, forsaking low level approaches in the bargain.

  The threat of enemy planes coming in at low level could be mitigated as they would have to first cross the border zone where ground based systems could detect them. Few enemy planes had the range to venture into the vast interior of Siberia in any case. Yet Karpov was not satisfied with that. He ordered two Topaz sets for each of his airships, and mounted a second on the forward gondola to scan downward.

  So it was that the fledgling Topaz system operator on the brow of Abakan spotted something he did not expect to see that day, sitting up stiffly and double checking his equipment to make certain he was not tracking the sudden onset of a storm. He squinted, adjusted his dials, and was then convinced this was something much more. His hand was on the crank to his voice set moments later, ringing the receiver in main control gondola below. The runner was off with the contact report, straight to Karpov, as he had insisted in his standing orders.

  “Airborne contact, sir. Topaz operator reports a signal about seventy kilometers north, and closing.”

  “Airborne contact? North of our location?” Karpov’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, his mind working like a computer. He knew the locations of all his airships, which mostly operated from the home cities they were named for. None were north of his position now, and it was 2000 kilometers to Volkov’s airfields at Chelyabinsk to the West. Only another airship could cover such distance and return.

  “Volkov!” he said aloud with some alarm. “Sound action stations and tell Bogrov to cast off and climb to the highest altitude he can get to. Never mind. I’ll go there myself. You get to the wireless room and signal Talmenka and Novosibirsk. Tell them to make ready for immediate operations, and rig for air combat. Then signal Krasnoyarsk airfield. I want fighters up, and heading this way at once!”

  So, he thought, Volkov finally put two and two together. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn if he has been tracking the whereabouts of my airships ever since I left Omsk. He has men everywhere, and if he learned I had come here, with two airships, it would have certainly aroused his suspicions. Of course he would have had to take a roundabout course well to the north. All they had to do was swing well north of Tomsk to avoid our Topaz system there and then follow the Yenisey River south. But how many ships did he send?

  Karpov was up at the run, and heading to the forward gondola, hastening along the mesh metal keelway until he came to the ladder down.

  “Admiral on the bridge!”

  He emerged to see Air Commandant Bogrov snapping off orders to a midshipman. The man saluted as Karpov strode in, all business. “Has the battalion debarked?”

  “Yes sir. The last two platoons went down the ladders a half hour ago. They are all assembling at Kansk.”

  “Get them to Ilanskiy.”

  “Ilanskiy? But there is nothing there.” Karpov gave him an irritated look and Bogrov knew enough to keep his mouth shut and simply repeat the order. He turned quickly and collared a watchstander. “Pipe to the wireless room. The ground force is ordered to proceed to Ilanskiy immediately.”

  “Have them establish a strong defensive perimeter all around that rail station.” Karpov reinforced the order gruffly. “Understood?”

  The man was off at a run, and everyone on the gondola bridge was suddenly alert. They had seen Karpov this way before, and knew he was ruthlessly efficient when he set his mind to military matters.

  “Are we at actions stations?”

  “Yes sir. All guns manned.”

  “Then what are we doing still tethered to the mooring tower, Bogrov? Get us up there. Get me altitude! Signal Angara that if they have not off loaded their troop detachment they must do so immediately and climb.”

  Altitude in any air duel between zeppelins was the key factor. As most guns were mounted on the lower gondolas, whoever had the advantage in altitude was going to have nice fat targets below them, and only a few guns could be mounted on the top of the airframe. Karpov knew he was already at a disadvantage. The other side was undoubtedly well up at higher altitudes and it would take time for him to shed ballast and climb.

  Bogrov could read the Admiral’s concern clearly enough, and spoke reassuringly. “Don’t worry sir,” he said. “We are very light now after off loading all those men and their equipment. We’ll climb like an eagle and be up there in no time. The weather is low today, with cloud cover at 3000 feet. We’ll pierce that shortly and then make a very rapid ascent.”

  He turned and barked orders to the Elevatorman and Rudderman, and soon they were casting off from the tower, the mooring cables retracting as the airship eased away.

  “Orenburg?” Bogrov asked.

  “What else?”

  “What could they be doing out here?”

  “Someone is getting curious.” Karpov’s eyes narrowed.

  “Let’s hope this is nothing more than a probe.”

  “I very much doubt that,” said Karpov. “Someone tipped Volkov off as to my whereabouts. If he had the balls to violate our airspace like this, than he sent at least two or three airships.”

  “But why, sir? There’s nothing of value here? Kansk is a deep reserve supply depot, but Ilanskiy is barely on the map. I don’t understand.”

  “Oh really? Well open your eyes Air Commandant. Look who is standing in front of you. I am here, correct?”

  “Of course sir, but if Volkov wanted you why didn’t he act earlier? They had us outnumbered five ships to three at Omsk. Why risk coming all this way here to get into a fight?”

  “Just climb, Bogrov. Leave the where and why of things to me.”

  “Yes sir.” The Air Commandant folded his arms, eyeing the inclinometer and seeing they were now nosing up. “Fifteen degrees up bubble,” he shouted to his Elevatorman, and saw him rapidly spinning the big metal wheel.

  So up we go, he thought with some misgivings. Yes, up we go, and if Volkov has sent more than we can handle, we may just come down in a flaming wreck!

  Chapter 5

  Air Commandant Bogrov watched the status board as the Abakan began to ease away from the mooring tower, nose up. The ship had gained a lot of potential buoyancy when the troop contingent debarked, and to compensate for the sudden loss of weight, water was pumped into the ballast tanks from hoses at the top of the mooring tower. Now the weight balance was restored to “neutral buoyancy” allowing the ship to operate normally, but it had a lot of ballast that could be jettisoned to gain altitude if needed.

  “Five degrees up elevator,” he said. “Engines one and three ahead one third.”

  "Aye sir, one and three ahead one third.”

  Bogrov keyed the airship’s internal intercom. “All hands,” he announced, “prepare to lift ship. Moorin
gs away and ascending now.”

  An Airman called out their status.“Climbing through 500 feet. Wind steady at five knots. All mooring lines secured.”

  Abakan rose through the serried cloud deck and emerged like a behemoth, a massive silver fish in the sky. Sunlight gleamed on the long graceful curve of the hull, her sides and tail trailing white vaporous mist as the airship broke into clear skies.

  Karpov was standing on the bridge near his chart table, one hand clasping the wall rail to steady himself as the ship continued to climb. What was Volkov up to with this maneuver, he thought? Here we have just reached an understanding at Omsk. He goes so far as to withdraw from the city, and now he has the temerity to run airships about like this—into Free Siberian airspace! Is he doing this to test my resolve?

  The more he thought about that, the more he realized that there was something else behind this maneuver. Volkov clearly knows I am here, and Bogrov is correct, why would he be trying to threaten me when he had me three feet away just last week with a revolver pointed at my chest? That was theater, but the threat was real. I took a very great risk with that meeting. No, there is something more to this. He is curious. His intelligence services don’t know what I’m about here, so he is sending a reconnaissance in force.

  This is a very risky thing to do. How many airships did he send? He must know that I have both Abakan and Angara here. That means he most likely sent three airships on this mission, and they could be transporting a full regiment between them. But why? What good would it do him to put troops down here? Even if he could take Ilanskiy or Kansk, how could he hold them? His men would be isolated and we can bring up reserves on the rail line from both directions. Our main defense line is west, anchored on Novosibirsk, and I have a full division in reserve at Krasnoyarsk, and the latter is no more than 200 kilometers away by rail. Kolchak’s army at Irkutsk is just 700 kilometers away to the southeast. What is he doing here? It just doesn’t make any sense. Unless…