Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (22 page)

Karpov turned to the helmsman now. “Come left 10 degrees and
steady on two, zero, zero. Speed twenty.”

“Aye sir, ahead two thirds and coming round to two, zero, zero.”

* * *

It
came out of a bank of low clouds, rolling like moving fog on the
sea. A shadow darkened the waters there and then took the form and shape of an
enormous steel prow. As Onoshi stared at it he realized what he must be seeing.
This was the Russian ship he had been told to look for, and his was the only
torpedo boat within miles. Boat number 75 was one of four in her class, a Type
67 class TB of 90 tons and relatively slow for the job at only 23 knots. It had
three torpedoes available, one in a bow mounted tube, and one to either side on
her port and starboard deck.

“Come right and ahead full. Ready all torpedoes!” Onoshi was so
excited by the prospect of being the first to find and attack the Russian ship
that he almost forgot his primary duty was to signal the location of his
sighting. “And signal Lieutenant Commander Fujimoto! Tell him the monster is
here, and we are attacking!”

Yet even as he swung round on a new heading, his bow cutting into
the sea with the sudden turn, there came a snarling rattle and he saw the sea
before the bow of his ship erupt with small white geysers, as though someone
had flung a barrel full of stones into the water. The stones were 30mm rounds
from
Kirov’s
air defense Gatling guns, and they tore into the bow of
Number 75, the heavy rounds riddling it to detonate the torpedo there in a
violent explosion that sheared off the entire front of the boat. Water flooded
in and the boat was soon foundering rapidly in the heavy swell.

Onoshi ran forward, realizing he had been caught completely by
surprise and his only hope now was to get off his signal. He had reached the telegraph
room back of the bridge where he saw the operator rapidly pecking out his
signal. Then a sharp
crack, crack, crack
was heard and three 100mm rounds
straddled the boat, one to port, one to starboard, but the third dead
amidships, blowing one of his two stacks clean away and knocking everyone
around him to the cold metal deck.

Crack, crack, crack—
another burst of fire, and his ship was hit again, this time by
two rounds. The second smashed the bridge and black smoke and fire poured from
the open viewports there. The snarling rattle of the Gatling gun was heard
again, and the rounds now came ripping through the telegraph station. Onoshi
was not alive to hear the last dying scream of the telegraph operator.

There were now only three other Type 67 Torpedo boats in the
Imperial Japanese Navy. Boat Number 75 was down at the bow, slipping into the
grip of the sea with a sibilant hiss as the water doused the fires. Minutes
later it was gone.

Ten miles east Lieutenant Commander Fujimoto saw his telegraph
operator turn, shaking his head.

“That is all, sir. The message was cut off. The signal is gone.”

Fujimoto narrowed his eyes. Then the boat is most likely gone, he
thought. Only a few words had come to him—
Boat 75 sighting large ship
—but
they were enough. He knew where he had posted the Number 75 boat, and now he
turned to his wireless telegraph operator and told him to signal Vice Admirals
Dewa and Kataoka. The enemy was here, in the Tsushima Strait!

“Say they are heading south from Boat 75’s last reported
position,” he said quickly.

“But sir, there was no heading or course given.”

“Where else would they be going? Just do as I say!” He slipped
through the hatch and onto the small open bridge, ordering his boat to turn
about and head southwest.

“They are here! We have found them! All boats will now execute the
plan as ordered. Come to 220 degrees and ahead full!”

The helmsman echoed the order and the boat came smartly around on
the new heading. Something had come out of the mist and low clouds to devour
Boat number 75, thought Fujimoto. A behemoth—the great sea dragon the fishermen
were whispering of so fearfully. Well I will find it and skewer it with my
torpedoes if I can. This is no fishing boat.

A voice shouted from the bridge watch, stiff arm pointing ahead
where something was streaking through the sky, low over the water. It came at
them like a javelin and his eyes widened as it came flashing in to the center
of his boat, exploding to send a hail of shrapnel in every direction and
cutting down men all over the forward deck. A fire started forward, the thick
smoke quickly engulfing the bridge.

Karpov had pulled a surprise out of his hat, using an S-400 SAM
modified for low level attack and aiming it by radar at Fujimoto’s boat. The
Lieutenant Commander staggered off the bridge, seeing men bleeding on the watch
deck, one with his face nearly cut clean away by shrapnel where he slumped on
the deck. He fought his way to open air, coughing fitfully from the smoke only
to see a second javelin roar in from the sea to explode again, careening into
his boat.

Fire arrows! He had heard the reports of a fire arrow rocket
weapon. This must be what he was seeing! His boat had taken two hits, and many
men were down. The bridge was on fire, clotted with smoke. He looked
frantically about him, searching every horizon for sign of the enemy, yet there
was nothing to be seen. How could it find and attack his ship with all the low
cloud obscuring the area? This was impossible!

The fire amidships suddenly exploded, and the small boat heeled
over to one side, wallowing in the water, its speed down and fire everywhere.
It would be all he could do to get survivors into the sea, and launch a few
life boats to see them through. Whatever this enemy ship was, it was truly
fearsome if it could find and attack his boat while remaining unseen itself. He
would not be hunting the sea dragon today.

The dragon was hunting him!

Chapter 18

Vice
Admiral Dewa got the news soon after, fretting on the bridge of
the armored cruiser
Kasagi
. He had returned from his conference with Kataoka
unsatisfied. The other man’s caution and the obvious warning in his tone seemed
inappropriate on the eve of battle. Then came the news he had been waiting for.
The Russian ship had been sighted to the north about ten kilometers off the
coast of Tsushima Island. Yet here he was with orders to withdraw! The news
that two of the four torpedo boats from Fujimoto’s division had been attacked
and sunk was most disheartening, though not unexpected. The boats were there as
a trip wire, and now the enemy’s location was certain.

Signals filled the wireless channels, leaping from ship to ship, and
also coursed along the undersea cable from Tsushima Island that stretched all
the way back to Japan. Such means of communication were still relatively new, in
the era where men named Morse, Hertz and Tesla still lived, and experiments
with the arcane craft of electromagnetism were in their early days. Hertz had
proved the existence of radio waves, actually calling them Hertzian waves in
his experiments, but he saw no real application for them. “It's of no use
whatsoever,” he said… “We just have these mysterious electromagnetic waves that
we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there.”

By 1895 others soon found new ways to use these waves, though the
means of transmitting wirelessly could only reach a mile in range, and two
years later it was extended to 34 miles. Soon coastal stations and lighthouses
set up Marconi designed instruments and ship to shore wireless communications
became a reality. By 1903 Teddy Roosevelt had been able to send a wireless
message all the way across the Atlantic to the King in England, and from that
day forward the mysterious unseen electromagnetic waves Hertz had talked about
began to permeate the air.

 Now the wireless telegraphy was chattering out the alert. The
enemy was coming. Dewa had little doubt that Togo was already darkening the
skies above his squadron with smoke as he hastened south to the planned
rendezvous point. Now the 10th and 15th Torpedo Boat Divisions, each with four
boats, would hastily form the last skirmish line off the coast of Tsushima. They
would have a very special mission, deploying mines in the waters and then
withdrawing south to bait the enemy on. Dewa was to take his cruisers and
destroyers to effect a conjunction with Kataoka’s ships. Though he chafed for
battle, he knew that every minute that passed now before the engagement only
served to strengthen the Japanese position.

To make matters even more interesting, Vice Admiral Uryu in the Inland
Sea had received word that the American Great White Fleet had postponed its
planned visit to Yokohama, pausing only for coal, and would now proceed
directly to Kure, intending to transit the narrow strait at Shimonoseki. That
news seemed alarming to Dewa, and the thought of such a strong foreign fleet
boldly navigating the waters of the Inland Sea seemed most disconcerting. The
Japanese had intended to meet and escort the American fleet, matching them ship
for ship at Yokohama, but that was no longer possible. Vice Admiral Uryu had no
more than eight small destroyers and a few cruisers, hardly enough to show the
flag of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Now the rumors and speculation as to what the Americans were
really up to began to be whispered on the ship, passing from man to man like
wireless telegraphy, and Dewa himself was not immune to the sense of foreboding
they carried. What if the Americans and Russians were colluding? What if the
attack on that Canadian mail ship had been staged to simply create a pretext
for the movement of this massive American fleet into Japanese waters?

Time will tell, he thought. The Americans certainly favored the Russian
side in those ill handled negotiations at Portsmouth. If the their fleet were
to have any hostile intention, that would soon come to light—the light of
battle.

He rubbed his hands together, thinking of the moment his cruisers
would first begin to open fire and recalling that glorious day three years ago
when they had savaged the Russians with their superior gunnery. We have been
lax, he thought, but I have trained my men hard these last few days to see if
they can recover their edge. Whatever happens, we must do our utmost now. I am
ordered to withdraw northwest to the rendezvous point, but no mention was made
of the timing on that movement. If I linger here I will be in a much better
position to find this ship…

He smiled, making a stubborn decision that would seal the fate of
his entire division.

*
* *

Tasarov
had been restless of late, with too much time on his hands. There
had not been much of anything for him to do at the sonar station in recent
days. Undersea threats were all but nonexistent here. Yet his passive system
could also detect and track the noisy surface contacts, and at ranges rivaling
that of the Fregat system under good listening conditions.

He had been listening to the picket line of torpedo boats ahead of
them, slowly fleeing before the oncoming wrath of
Kirov
. The example
made of two boats earlier was apparently more than enough to convince them that
they had no chance of attacking successfully. Then he heard something he did
not expect, particularly given the range.

“Con. Sonar. I have splash transients in the water, sir.”

Karpov had not heard Tasarov report for many days now, and seemed
surprised. “Splash transients? Are you saying they have fired a torpedo?”

“No sir. I detect no motor noise or any sign of a torpedo in the
water. But something big enough to make a fairly distinct noise has been
dropped into the sea. I think they are deploying mines, Captain.”

Naval mines had been around for centuries, from floating wooden
boxes filled with explosives used by the Chinese to powder keg barrels used in
the 17th century. They had always been a cheap, devious and very effective
means of interdicting and controlling waterways, and Karpov was not one to
underestimate them, even in this day and age. The Japanese had used mines very
effectively against the Russians in the last war, killing their best fighting
admiral Makarov and sinking the battleship
Petropavlovsk
in the process.

“Well…” said Karpov. “Up to their old tricks again, are they?” He
was well aware of Makarov’s fate, and determined not to fall into the same
trap. “The ship will reduce speed. Ahead one third.”

“Aye, sir. Slowing to 10 knots.”

“Mister Tasarov, go to active sonar and find me those mines.
Rodenko—post lookouts forward to port and starboard and stand ready to engage
any floating target with the ship’s Gatling guns. We will not blunder into one
of these mines on my watch.”

“Should we ready the RBU-1000 system?” asked Rodenko. The
Smerch
,
as it was called was the very same system they had used to blast the waters
around the ship and blow through the Italian minefields in the Bonifacio
Strait.
Kirov
was a veritable Swiss Army knife when it came to weapons
systems available for any application or defensive purpose.

“No, Mister Rodenko. I do not think it will be necessary. Those
boats could not have deployed more than one or two mines. This field will be
very porous. I think good eyes and well aimed small arms fire will be
sufficient here.”