Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (32 page)

Rodenko hesitated, his features taut, eyes hard. It wasn’t the
sting of the Captain’s words, but the long held reservations that had been
building like a storm front within him, and now the thunder rolled.

“Captain,” he said sharply, “on that I disagree.”

“What’s that? You disagree? Yes, you have held doubts about this
course of action all along, haven’t you. Well, you can disagree with me in
private—in the officer’s mess or briefing room—but not here, not on the bridge,
and
not
in front of the men! So now you are informed as to my intentions.
You’ve stuck your opinion in the borscht and expressed your vote of no confidence,
but I have vetoed it. That’s the
end
of it! If you have any further
reservations then look at my cuff and note the thickness of the stripe there.
How many stars do you see on my shoulder?” He stared at Rodenko, angry and
perturbed. “Now enough of this.  Let’s get back out there. We have a battle to
fight.”

*
* *

Togo
stared at the flag plot, noting the positions of the ships
assigned to their long battle lines. Dewa was to the south with four cruisers
and four destroyers. He should have come further north by this time. What was
he doing? Just north of him was Kataoka with five cruisers, four destroyers and
the ponderous old Chinese battleship
Chinyen
. It was his intention that
those two groups unite as one, but Dewa was still too far south. The Admiral’
squadron was still close by the southern tip of Tsushima Island with four
battleships, two cruisers and five destroyers.

Now he had yet another squadron to note. An officer of the watch
reported a column of smoke in the skies to the west, and he knew without asking
what this must be. Naval Minister Saito’s call for support from the British
must have been well heeded. These can only be the ships from the China Station
out of Weihaiwei. Good. We are reinforced with another six cruisers if they
have brought their best ships. This balances our loss of Kamimura’s strong
division up north. But will the British fight here, or simply observe? And what
about the Americans?

He had received a coded message sent by Admiral Uryu via the new
undersea cable to their base on Tsushima Island. It was relayed to his ship by
wireless and read simply:
Thunder on Mount Adachi.
That was a high
mountain just south of the Shimonoseki Strait that connected the Inland Sea to
the Sea of Japan. It meant that from that promontory, looking east, the smoke
of the American Great White Fleet could now be seen darkening the sky in the
Inland Sea. They had hastened here from Hawaii in just eight days, a remarkable
pace. Even now he knew that Admiral Uyru was steaming in the van of that fleet,
waving the flag of Imperial Japan.

Uryu was ordered to delay the Americans. His English was very
good, and he was to invite them to drop anchor there in the Inland Sea and take
tea with the local ministers of Nagasaki Prefecture. But the offer was politely
declined. It seemed the American Admiral Sperry had other orders that compelled
him to sail to the Sea of Japan at once. So be it…

“Admiral, sir! The enemy has been sighted!”

Togo turned to regard his watch officer, his face stolid and
unrevealing of any emotion. He stepped deliberately to the weather bridge, an
open area outside the armored conning tower and looked in the direction the
watchman pointed. Now he slowly raised his odd looking binoculars, the Marine-Glasmit
Revolver, a German made field glass by Carl Zeiss Jena. It had four eyepieces
instead of two, with two mounted on each ocular section that could be rotated
to select one of the two eyepieces. Depending on how they were paired, the
Admiral could get different magnification settings.

He stared through the glasses for some time, noting the dark
silhouette of the enemy ship and seeing it turn to his starboard as if to
present its broadside. It was true, he thought. There is no smoke! How does it
make way without charring the sky as we do? Could it be using some new means of
heating its boilers that does not produce smoke? And yes, it looks to be a
massive ship, even at this range.

Now his gaze turned to the ships ahead of him in two long battle
lines. Dewa was in the lead, and undoubtedly getting a much better view of the
enemy ship, and chafing at the bit to attack. But we are much too far away to
engage. The range looks to be over 18,000 meters, even in the van. If I point
the fleet at this beast to close that range, the enemy will be able to fire all
their guns at each ship in the line, smashing them one by one as they present
themselves. They would be crossing the T. This I cannot allow, but it does not
look like we will have the speed to gain the advantage of position here. Look
at that bow creaming the sea. It is completely different from any ship I have
seen!

He turned, seeking Captain Hikojiro. “The fleet will turn all
lines to a heading of 140,” he said firmly. He intended to run on a converging
parallel course to the enemy that would allow his ships to also fire from
broadside. He could then slowly close the range by making five point turns to
port. This maneuver would see his ships trail out from Dewa’s leading cruiser
and stretch back like a net to the tail of his own formation near Tsushima
Island. Should the enemy turn to starboard, they would be aiming to pierce that
net and break through his battle line. So
he
must close the range with
us now, or else he must turn away to the north, or east toward our home islands
where many torpedo boats wait in the shallow waters. There lies Iki Island, and
the minefields we have moored in the dark between that place and Kabe Island to
the southeast. If he goes there, he must either turn and fight, or else wallow
among my iron puffer fish.

Seconds later the flag men were signaling, and he saw the tail
ship in Vice Admiral Kataoka’s battle line passing the message forward. It
would ripple ahead, stiffening in the breeze flag to flag, until it was spotted
by Admiral Dewa’s watchmen aboard
Kasagi
, the flagship of the leading 3rd
Cruiser Division.

*
* *

“At
last,” said Vice Admiral Dewa. “Look! The enemy has turned south
towards Iki Island. This means they will be heading in our direction, and the
course Admiral Togo now orders will put us in the vanguard instead of the tail
of the action. Make ready all guns and torpedoes. This will be a glorious day!”

Officers scrambled to obey his directive as Dewa held up a long
telescope, studying the dark shape on the far horizon. So this is the ship that
defeated Kamimura, he thought, and he had at least two battleships. I still do
not believe it. We will soon see what my cruisers can do. I will form them into
a tight fist to concentrate all their guns along the same axis. Then I will
send my destroyers forward to harass and distract the enemy to weaken their
counter fire against us. We will not need Kataoka and Togo here. I will settle
things easily enough, and they will be watching behind me as I have the honor
of engaging first!

He smiled, snapping the glass shut and stepping back into the
conning tower to check with his fire control officers. At that moment there
came a distinct
crack, crack, crack
as naval guns punctuated the noise
with their fire. He stopped, his head jerked around again to see the enemy ship
in the distance, and then, to his amazement geysers of sea spray dolloped up
just ahead of his cruiser, wetting the bow there. The enemy had fired at
tremendous range!

“Quickly!” he ordered. “What is the range?”

“At least 16,000 meters, Admiral!”

So it was true. The enemy had a long arm, but from the looks of that
shell fall these were small caliber guns, just as he had been told. “Signal the
destroyers! They will break formation and turn towards the enemy in a torpedo
attack!”

Crack, crack, crack
… Again the sound of enemy fire, and this time he saw the wink of
red and yellow fire from the bow of the distant shadow, and spied the smoke
rising from their guns. Seconds later the shock and explosion of impact shook
his cruiser.
Kasagi
, guardian of the holy mountain it was named for, had
been struck amidships by at least two of the three shells. His instinct was to
immediately fire back, but he needed to wait just a little longer.

“Raise main guns to maximum elevation!” The cruiser had two 8 inch
Type 41 naval guns, one each mounted fore and aft on two large turrets. They
could elevate 18 degrees, and achieve a range of just over 13,000 meters at
that angle, though they would rarely engage until inside 10,000 meters, with
7,000 being the norm. But something told Dewa that he was going to have to fire
with everything he had, and as soon as possible. The accuracy of the enemy guns
was disturbing. Crews were already fighting a small fire near his number two
stack, and now he could see geysers of sea spray straddling the cruiser
Chitose
behind him, sister ship to his own.

If I turn slightly to port I will angle in toward this enemy ship
as we approach Iki Island. This will allow me to keep my ships broadside to him
if he turns in our direction, but it appears that the Russians have other
ideas. They look to be steering 150, right for the island. In due course I can
fire with our secondary guns as well. They are smaller but can elevate 25
degrees to reach over 9,000 meters. I will have to wait just a little longer while
the enemy continues to rake his glove across my face! So this is what Kamimura
endured.

The ship shuddered again, this time well aft where Dewa turned to
see a fire near the main 8 inch turret there. “Five degrees to port!” he
ordered, thinking to throw the enemy’s aim off. It was uncanny how they had
found his ship so far off, but have they nothing bigger to sting me with?

He was about to learn yet another hard lesson.

Chapter 27

Volsky
slowly placed the handset in the holding cradle, his eyes sad and
deeply troubled. All the men were huddled near the communications station now.
Kazan
had sprinted south at high speed after they shifted, streaking silently through
the dark seas at depth. Then, as their systems recovered one by one, they
slowed and crept up to the surface to use the radio and make the call to
Kirov
.

 What was Karpov thinking, thought Volsky? The man had relapsed
into his delusions of making a decisive change to the history, and though the
Captain’s final response was vague, Volsky did not think he was going to comply
with his order to cease and desist in this operation.

“I’m afraid he is just buying time,” he said to Fedorov.

“Then what do we do sir?” The young ex-navigator had a pleading
expression on his face. “I know it will be hard to raise our hand against
Kirov
,
but we must act before the Captain does something irreparable.”

“Mister Kamenski?” Volsky looked to the Deputy Director where he
stood nearby the console.

“I do not know the man, but he certainly made his intentions clear
enough. We chose to come here aboard
Kazan
for a reason. I know we have
put off the decision before us now, but the time has come. Yes, Armageddon is
at hand, but what do we do here? Has it occurred to any of you that if we
engage
Kirov
now the outcome of this event will be far from certain? You
have missiles and torpedoes aboard this ship. Suppose we use them and the ship
is damaged to an extent that it can no longer pose a threat here, yet here it
remains, with weapons, computer systems, technology, and men who know all about
them. And if we damage its reactors in any way, all these control rods are
useless. This does little to solve our problem.”

“You are saying
Kirov
must be sunk.”

“At the very least, though that would still leave a remarkable
shipwreck on the seafloor here, which is quite shallow in the straits, is it
not?”

“The average depth is only 140 meters,” said Fedorov. “If he gets
near any of the islands that will shrink to 50 meters or less.”

“Well, as time passes, a recovery of that shipwreck is a real
possibility, if not a certainty. Then what?”

“I see…” Volsky shrugged with resignation now, knowing this
question would eventually arise.

“Beyond that,” said Kamenski. “What about the question of
survivors? Suppose your Mister Karpov goes into the sea and winds up washed
ashore on a nearby island?”

“We could try to rescue them,” Fedorov suggested. “Assuming we
prevail in this battle. If I’m not mistaken we have an emergency VSK pod in the
sail that can hold up to 110 people.”

“That is correct,” said Gromyko.

“Well that is encouraging , but
Kirov
has quite a few more
than that, if I am not mistaken.”

“About 700 men and officers,” said Volsky. “No, I do not think we
can rescue them.”

“Which means we are facing a situation much like the one that sent
your Mister Fedorov off to hunt for Chief Orlov.” Kamenski was playing the
Devil’s advocate now, though they had all mused on these dark questions in
silence before they were voiced here. “You would have to hunt down any man who
might survive a conventional engagement. And there is still the other darker
possibility that
we
may not survive, and
Kirov
sails on.”