Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (35 page)

Admiral Volsky
found Fedorov on the bridge conferring
with Karpov at the clear Plexiglas navigation display. He was tapping out
positions with a light pen and luminous lines would appear on the glass,
indicating possible courses and predictive plots.

“We have obtained some very detailed
information from the KA-40,” said Fedorov. “Good HD video feed as well. Those
surface contacts Rodenko reported have now been positively identified.”

“What are we facing this time, Mister
Fedorov? I hope we haven’t stumbled across another carrier task force.”

“No sir, but our old nemesis is back.
While we were gone the KA-40 spent a good while searching the whole region
around us. It had ample time to track the movement of the carriers that
attacked us at dawn. They have moved south along the Australian coast and
regrouped about 160 miles northeast of Cairns. Apparently the Allies have
nothing much to bother them there. B-17s do not make for very effective naval
bombers. Here sir, I isolated some screen shots and I can put them up on the main
monitor.”

He tapped a key at the
Nav
station and the main monitor now displayed a formation
of four aircraft carriers. “That will be Admiral Hara, from what Nikolin has
been able to ferret out of the radio traffic. Those two larger carriers are
Zuikaku
,
and
Shokaku
, the smaller two are escort carriers, this one is the
Zuiho
,”
he pointed. “The flight deck lines are very distinctive, and I matched it to
photographs from my library. The other carrier looks to be
Ryuho
, the
only ship in her class, a converted submarine tender. But the thing to note,
Admiral, is the lack of aircraft on deck. Look, there’s not a single plane
aboard
Ryuho
or
Zuiho
and only those four fighters are visible on
Zuikaku
, two more on this last carrier. They may have other aircraft
below the flight deck in the hangers, but we kept a good tally of hits from the
two strikes these ships mounted against us. There can be no more than fifteen
planes available between all four carriers, and some of those may even be
damaged.”

“That is some comfort, given the fact
that we have lost our SAM umbrella.”

“Right, sir. As for the other Japanese
carriers, we haven’t sorted it all out yet, but Nikolin thinks the Japanese
lost their battle with the Americans off Guadalcanal.”

“More good news, at least I think that
may be good. That leaves them fewer ships to send after us! Now what is the bad
news?”

“Here sir…” He indicated two contacts
on the board. “This is a fast cruiser group, and the name Iwabuchi has been
heard in the radio traffic. Two of those ships were in his screening force,
Nachi
and
Myoko
. We engaged them near Melville Island, but the Captain held
them at bay with our deck guns. This other ship is the cruiser
Tone
,
very fast at 36 knots, and with four twin 8 inch gun turrets, all mounted
forward of the main bridge. Her entire aft deck area was used to mount up to
six sea planes. This is a classic high speed scout ship, sir. Without our SAMs
to destroy those search planes the enemy will find and mark our position very
easily. And I believe this Captain Iwabuchi off the
Kirishima
may have
transferred his flag to
Tone
. He may be a bit reckless, sir, and he is
now steering on a course to block our further passage southeast, with some
rather formidable company.”

Fedorov indicated a second contact
point almost due east of their present position. “These ships have been moving
southwest from the Solomons for some time. The KA-40 spotted them at 10:00 this
morning while we were still…elsewhere. The hours we lost this morning were
hours this force gained. We might have easily slipped by them earlier but now I
fear this group is also in a position to intercept us.” He tapped the Plexiglas
screen and two predictive plot lines vectored out to a point to the southwest,
and a bright red dot appeared, winking on and off.

“If we hold to this course they will
cut us off right there.”

“What is this second group composed
of?”

“One battleship, three cruisers and
three destroyers. It’s the battleship that worries me, sir…the
Yamato
.”

Volsky had heard of the ship, and he
folded his arms, concerned as Fedorov continued.

“The largest battleship ever built,
sir, excepting her sister ship
Musashi
. She was nearly 72,000 tons fully
loaded. That was 27,000 tons more than the American Iowa Class battleships, and
more than twice our displacement. She has nine 18.1 inch guns, in turrets so
heavy they would weigh as much as a typical destroyer of this era. They can
range out to 45,000 meters at full elevation, though it isn’t likely to hit
anything at that range. I believe the longest hit ever recorded by a battleship
on a moving target was at just over 26,000 yards. So we can hit her before she
gets too close, but that said, this was one of the best protected ships ever
built. She has 650 millimeters of armor on those gun turrets. That’s twenty-six
inches thick, sir.”

“650 millimeters?”

“Yes, sir. The US Navy conducted
ballistic tests on that face plate after the war using a turret that had been
built for the
Shinano
, another ship in this
class, and they found that it required nearly point blank range to fully
penetrate using a 16 inch armor piercing shell. They concluded that at normal
ranges there was no naval gun then in service that could penetrate it. As for
side armor, her main belt was 450 millimeters, and she had 200 millimeter deck
armor as well.”

“Her
decks
are as thick as our
armored citadel?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. This ship is a
veritable floating fortress of steel. And for all that she was relatively fast
at 27 knots.”

“Thank God for small favors,” said
Volsky. “At least we can outrun that monster at thirty-two knots.”

“Yes sir, but every one of these other
ships can match or exceed our speed. If they release the hounds on us, they
will catch us, and we simply do not have the missiles left to take on six
cruisers and three destroyers, let alone face down this battleship. And one
more thing, sir.
Yamato
will most likely be commanded by a very
distinguished guest. It was formerly Combined Fleet Headquarters at Truk, and
Admiral Yamamoto is likely to be aboard at this very moment.”

“I don’t suppose he might like to have
a little chat with me either,” said Volsky. “No, we are not going to talk
ourselves out of this one. I just had a lengthy discussion with Doctor Zolkin.
It seems we have a choice now, to go to full battle speed and try to outrun
these ships in space, or to ask Dobrynin to run his maintenance routine again
and try to slip away in time. The catch is this: Dobrynin cannot complete his
procedure if the ship is making more than ten knots. So we have a difficult
decision here, gentlemen. What will it be?”

“Why don’t we reverse course,” said
Karpov. “We are over 100 miles from each group at the moment. That’s a
considerable lead, particularly if we can make thirty-two knots after the
procedure.”

“It would mean we have to transit the
Torres Strait again, and perhaps our own minefield is still in place there.”
Fedorov was not enthusiastic about that prospect.

“Hopefully the Japanese will not get
curious and manage to get their hands on one,” said the Admiral.

“Another thing, sir. There was a heavy
bombardment group in the Darwin operations. Nikolin managed to get the names
from Australian radio traffic, the
Mutsu
and
Nagato
were
identified and said to be moving east away from Darwin.
Mutsu
was part of
first Battleship Division based at Truk. These ships may be returning via the
Coral Sea and, though they are slow, they could easily block the Torres Strait.
Then we have another fight on our hands, this time with
two
battleships.”

“Not very appealing,” said Volsky.

“Then what about turning due north,”
Karpov suggested. “That would leave these cruisers we faced earlier well to the
south and out of the action. We could only be intercepted by the
Yamato
group. It might give us better odds.”

“True,” said Fedorov, “But then we
would have to pass between Milne Bay here and the Louisiade Archipelago, and
enter the Solomon Sea. North from there the way is blocked by the Bismarck
Barrier, and the big Japanese base at Rabaul. We would have
Yamato
on
our tail and be trapped in some very dangerous waters, most likely subject to
land based air strikes and even submarine attacks. Moving north would set off a
lot of alarm bells. It’s right into the middle of their main defensive
perimeter.”

“Then if we run south east as we have
been what is the likelihood these two groups will intercept us?”

“Very high,” Fedorov did not mince
words here. “I’ve shown you the predictive plot. We’re going to have to fight
if we hold this course, I can assure you.”

“Then I suggest we fire up our time
machine again,” said Admiral Volsky. “Suppose we turn northwest at ten knots
while Dobrynin completes the procedure again. How long before they would catch
up to us?”

Fedorov tapped the screen, entering
some data and then called up the predictive plots. “The procedure takes at
least two hours. We got very good results last time. The effects were almost
immediate, but there is no guarantee that will happen now, even if we do shift
in time again. So assuming the worst… we hold at ten knots for a little over
two hours, then increase to full battle speed.
Yamato
will gain thirty
four miles on us in the first two hours, but then they lose five miles each
hour thereafter. If they are nimble and pick up our new heading quickly, then
we would have four hours, perhaps five before we are confronted by
Mutsu
and
Nagato
coming down from the Torres Strait. Then all bets are off. If
we haven’t displaced in time again within that time frame then we could be
facing both pursuing groups, as well as
Mutsu
and
Nagato
southwest
of Port Moresby.”

“And if we continue on our present
heading?”

“Then they will cut us off much
earlier, three hours, maybe four at the most.”

“That’s barely enough time to run the
procedure. It takes at least two hours, longer if there are any complications.”
Volsky was deep in thought now.

“I have one other possibility,” said
Karpov, looking at the situation he would probably have to fight in any case.
“What if we start the procedure immediately, turn south by southwest now. That
takes us away from
Yamato
, the slower enemy group, and makes it more
difficult for that ship to catch up with us. The other group is just these
three cruisers. I can smash them with what we still have in the missile silos.”

“And those carriers?” Volsky pointed.

“We can beat off fifteen planes if
that is all they have. Our CWIS system is superb, even if we can’t engage them
at long range. And we still have one S-300.”

“Make a run towards those carriers and
we will be hitting a nerve,” said Fedorov. “If the Japanese got hurt badly by
the Americans, then they will do everything possible to protect their remaining
carrier assets. There are two more light cruisers and ten destroyers escorting
Hara’s task force. We’ll have to assume they would attack with that entire
force. That’s a lot of work for the deck guns. Some of those ships will get
close enough to get their torpedoes off—unless we want to use our remaining
SSMs.”

“I like our chances to the northwest
better,” said Volsky. “There’s still a lot of sea room between our position and
New Guinea. Let’s turn north, start the procedure at once, then we can dance,
gentlemen, and see if we can evade them. We don’t have to enter the Solomon
Sea. We can just work our way east again and then southeast into the South
Pacific. Any objections?”

It seemed the one option that would
buy them the most time, and so Fedorov and Karpov agreed. The orders were cut
and the ship came about smartly on a new heading, true north.

*
* *

Down
in the reactor room Dobrynin received the order and
shook his head, turning to the system engineer on duty.

“Prepare to begin rod replacement
procedure,” he said calmly. “Rod number seven.”

“Again, sir? We just ran the procedure
for rod eight a few hours ago. Isn’t the interval twelve days, sir?”

“Very astute, Mister Garin, but no
questions, please. Begin the procedure for rod seven at once. This comes right
from the bridge. Monitor your temperatures carefully. ”

He walked to
Koslov’s
station, taping his monitor panel. “Keep a good eye on your prompt neutron
flux, Mister
Koslov
. Very well, let us begin. I will
initiate in five minutes. Start the data recorder please.”

The nuclear engine at the heart of
Kirov
was a delicate balance of a fission reaction that wanted to increase
exponentially being carefully controlled by the insertion of rods made of
materials that would absorb the excess neutrons generated by the fission. It
was all about temperature in the end. The reactor temperature had to be kept
within a narrow range by these rods, supported by a system of constantly
circulating purified and de-ionized water. The water would circulate through
the core, absorbing heat, then pass through a heat exchanger in a series of “U”
tubes that were in turn cooled by a secondary water flow inside that chamber.
This water was allowed to boil to generate steam, and this is what turned
Kirov’s
turbine engines. In effect, the reactor was a nuclear pressure cooker of sorts,
and the temperature, pressure and heat were all critical variables in the mix.