Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (34 page)

He had fallen to the deck, terrified,
shaken badly, and even now he was still struggling to suppress involuntary
shivers, so great was the man’s fear.

“Now, now, Voloshin,” said the Doctor.
“This business has every man aboard on edge, yes? That plane that came in on
the ship a while back has sent twenty other men in here to see me as well. You
must remember that this is the first real look at combat for this crew, and you
are no exception. It is very harrowing, most frightening. You must allow
yourself that fear and yet still manage to do your duty. Even the Admiral has
come to see me about it. Yes, Admiral Volsky himself! You know he was hit by
those planes that found us in the Med, yes? Well take an example from him. Now
he is up on the bridge, as a good fighting admiral should be when his ship is
in danger. And you, Voloshin, you are a good fighting Seaman of the
battlecruiser
Kirov
. What you have seen is frightening, to be sure. But
you must put it aside, and find a way to remain stalwart.”

Voloshin nodded, still shivering.

“But I have a prescription for you
first.” Zolkin was writing now on a small pad of paper. “This is going to tell
the ship’s quartermaster to admit you to the junior officer’s mess hall. I want
you to go there right now and have a nice long meal. The food is much better
than the men’s mess below decks, so take every advantage. There is nothing like
a good meal to give a man back his strength, eh? After that I want you to take
two of these pills.” He held up a small medicine container, shaking it to
rattle the pills inside.

“Take only two, yes? Then go to this
cabin, number 147 on the third deck, and go to sleep. I will check on you in
four hours.”

“Third deck, sir?”

“Yes, the officers quarters. Don’t
worry, I’m writing it all down here. If anyone asks what you are doing there
say you have been sent on my orders. I am a Captain of the Second Rank, did you
not know? And you have heard of ‘Doctor’s orders,’ so follow these well. Two
pills—only two—and cabin 147. Have a good long sleep. I will check on you
later, and see how you feel then. But first, go and eat.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Good then. On your way. I hear they
have very good food on the menu today. Don’t let anyone bother you. Just hand
the kitchen master that note, and eat well.”

Good food and sleep, a couple of
aspirin with just a little tranquilizer in the mix. That was the prescription
for Voloshin, and Zolkin sighed after he left, wondering how the rest of the
crew was holding up. There was a knock on his door and he was pleased to see
Admiral Volsky step into the sick bay, removing his cap with a smile.

“Are you hungry and sleepy too?” asked
Zolkin, and he told the Admiral what had just transpired.

“The men have been under a lot of
strain,” said Volsky. “I have been making the rounds below decks again, but I
thought I would talk to you briefly. No, I am fine. I got several hours sleep
last night before this latest attack.

“And the ship?”

“Still here,” said the Admiral, at
least we think it is. Voloshin was not imagining things, Dmitri. One of those
planes went right through the ship.”

“We were struck again? I did not feel
any impact. I heard nothing.”

“Correct. It went
through
us,
but something was happening at the time. The ship was moving to another time.
This is what Fedorov thinks. He says that if we are as much as a second or two
out of sync, then they cannot touch us. But it is frightening how we still see
the shadows of the other time for a few brief moments when we shift. We are
here, but yet not here. It is all very disturbing and completely mind boggling
at the same time. But we were lucky we did move, or Voloshin would not be alive
now. Perhaps the ship itself would have been struck a fatal blow. Where did he
say this happened?”

“He was down tending to the missiles,
under the forward deck, very near the gun mount there.

“A very bad place for a plane to
strike us.”

“
Udachi
,”
said Zolkin. “Our luck is still good. But how could this have happened. We have
moved again in time?”

“Do you remember what you said during
one of the meetings in here while we were in the Med, Dmitri?”

“You mean about the atomic weapons?”

“No, not that—about Dobrynin and the
nuclear reactors. Fedorov was talking about this confounding time displacement,
and trying to link it to a strange flux in the reactor core. You said something
that stuck with me ever since. You asked if we had considered telling Dobrynin
to fiddle with the reactors a bit more.”

“Yes, you were all wondering what to
do about Gibraltar, so I suggested you just have Dobrynin crank up the reactor
and send us somewhere else. I was joking, of course. Just trying to lighten the
mood of the discussion.”

“Well,” said Volsky with a broad
smile. “We took your advice, Doctor! Fedorov and I conspired a bit and we found
out something very odd. Dobrynin was running a maintenance routine on the
reactor core, and every time he did it the ship ended up moving some hours
later. Moving in
time
, mind you. So Fedorov and I decided to conduct a
little experiment. We had Dobrynin run the procedure, and sure enough, the ship
moved again!”

Zolkin was truly surprised now. His
fanciful suggestion had been right on the mark. “You mean this is no longer
1942? We are somewhere else?”

“Not exactly, Dmitri. We did move, but
the interval was somewhat short lived this time. That’s what Fedorov is calling
these time shifts—intervals.”

Zolkin nodded, his eyes bright behind
his dark spectacles, charcoal brows bobbing as he spoke. “A bright young man.”

“Truly,” said Volsky. “He has worked
very efficiently with Karpov, and I must also say that my little experiment
with the Captain has worked out to much good as well. He’s saved the ship on
more than one occasion. A truly exceptional performance as a tactical combat
officer. If I had listened to him, and struck at the enemy carriers as he
advised, you would not have men in here talking about planes flying through
them. Together the two of them have kept us all alive. I’m afraid I’m starting
to feel like a big fat suitcase on a badly filled airliner. There’s not much
room for me on the bridge now. Those two have the matter well in hand.”

“It’s good they both have performed so
well,” said Zolkin. “Particularly what you say about Karpov. I must tell you
that I had my misgivings about the man when you first returned him to duty.”

“Don’t worry yourself about it,
Dmitri. I don’t think he will try anything like he did in the Atlantic. We seem
to have reached an understanding. The men have also seen him in the middle of
it all up there.” He pointed to the ceiling, fingering the main bridge
somewhere above them. “They have come to respect Karpov in a way they never did
before.”

“Yes,” said Zolkin. I’ve had
matoc
and
mishmanny
in here talking about Karpov as well. They call him our strong right arm,
now. The word is all over the ship. Things are much better with the crew now
that Orlov is gone. They say Karpov has been giving the enemy hell. Only I hope
he won’t be contemplating nuclear bombs any time soon.”

“No, we have also reached an
understanding about that. Do not worry about it. But Doctor… A little more
advice from you, if you would be so kind. We tried out this maintenance
procedure with Dobrynin, but now we have regressed—that is what Fedorov calls
it. I don’t really understand it all. He says the ship seems drawn to this time
period, and that it has regressed to this date and time. Who knows why?” He
held out his big empty hands in gesture, clearly indicating that he did not
have the answer.

“The KA-40 was up at the time on
surveillance operations. Fedorov suggested that it could have acted as a kind
of anchor. It belongs to us and it seems Mother Time wants us to collect our
things before we go anywhere again. That is the only way I can understand it.
The helo was well away from the ship when we moved, shifted, and though we were
only gone an hour as we experienced it, when we regressed the Helo found us and
was nearly out of fuel. It had been searching for us for over six hours! It was
already past noon, though we first noticed the odd movement a little after six
in the morning. We lost all those hours, just like we seem to lose many days
while we are in that other place, a future time when the world seems so empty
and forsaken. Now it does not seem such a terrible place to me. The Japanese
have pressed us very hard. The ship has been hit three times. We’ve taken some
very severe damage and the money I will have to pay damage control Chief Byko
for overtime is adding up.”

“Put me on your payroll as well,” said
Zolkin.

“Yes, I know it must be very hard down
here. The casualties have been mounting up as well. How many have we lost?”

“Thirty-six.”

Volsky sat with that for a while,
saying nothing, his face drawn and concerned.  “I appreciate all you have
done, Dmitri. But hear me out. We may have a solution here after all, thanks to
you. We have just discovered that we can cause the ship to move on our own—in
fact we were causing the ship to move in time all along! Dobrynin was running
this routine maintenance procedure every twelve days. And Fedorov says every
twelve days we have moved.”

“Then it wasn’t that accident on the
Orel?”

“Who knows. He thinks that may have
catalyzed the first incident, caused some change in our reactor. Then every
time Dobrynin completes this procedure, we move in time.”

“Amazing,” said Zolkin. “Then do it
again, Leonid. Get us away from these Japanese before they line more men up at
my doorstep, or put another kamikaze dive bomber into the ship.”

“That is exactly what I was thinking
to do. I just thought I would see what you suggested.”

“Do it, Admiral. It’s clear that we
remain in grave danger here. We are not wanted. This Mother Time you speak of
must be very angry with us, and not simply for forgetting our helicopters!”

“Fedorov is worried we have changed
all the history and caused that holocaust in the future. In fact, none of the
operations we have uncovered here are in his history books now.”

“We’ve
done all this?”

“I’m afraid so. We started the war
early for the Americans, raised hell in the Mediterranean with the Italians and
British. It’s as if we have slipped into Time’s mansion and broken quite a lot
of china. She has finally taken notice of us and yes, she may be quite upset
about it. It has occurred to me that there may be some kind of backlash for
what we have done. Consequences for us as well as that future time we have
blighted.”

“If I were Mother Time I would
certainly want to find a good way to get rid of us,” said Zolkin.

“Well…” Volsky sighed. “The Japanese
may take care of that for her. We have run out of surface-to-air missiles, my
friend. All we have now to stop those planes are the close in Gatling guns, and
when the ammunition runs out on those…”

“I see.”

“Another thing. Rodenko’s radar has
sorted itself out again. He has spotted enemy ships bearing down on us from two
directions, so we may be in another battle soon if we stay here much longer. We
have two choices, Dmitri: we can either run like hell and try to get past these
ships out into the South Pacific—”

“And find that island you’ve been
yearning for?”

“Exactly. Either that or we run this maintenance
procedure and try to pull another disappearing act.”

“Do it, Leonid. In fact, why not do
both? Run like hell, and while you are at it have Dobrynin do his maintenance.
Get us as far away from the Japanese as you possibly can. Send us into a thousand
tomorrows, but don’t fight here any longer than you have to. I think we have
been lucky so far. Very lucky. That could change.”

Admiral Volsky nodded. “Ah, but there
is one small problem, Dmitri. Dobrynin cannot complete his procedure while the
ship is running at any speed over ten knots. It involves retraction of one of
the control rods in the reactor core. When we run up at higher speeds the
reactor must have all the rods in place. He can’t remove one or we might risk
overheating the core.”

“So it’s one or
the other,” said Zolkin. “We either move in space, or in time. You have to
decide, Leonid, and that quickly. We make our decisions on the spur of a single
moment, and we pay for them for a lifetime, so choose wisely. I wish I could
help you, but I can only say that I think it would be good to just get us out
of here, any way you can.”

“Good advice, my friend. I think I’ll
go find Mister Fedorov and see what the other officers suggest. We may have a
little time before those enemy ships can get close enough to cause us trouble.”

The warning claxon suddenly startled
them both, and Zolkin met the Admiral’s eyes.

“I think you had better hurry,” he
said, and the Admiral wasted no further time.

Chapter
26