Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (12 page)

“Now you need not wonder any
longer…” Karpov lowered his revolver, eyes tight, thinking. “You will surrender
your airships?”

“I would order it, but I cannot
speak for what Petrov might do.”

“Petrov?”

“He’s Captain of the
Oskemen
,
and one of Volkov’s boys. I’ve little doubt that he was sent here with me to
prevent what we are now discussing, though I do not think he foresaw that you
would haul me up here in a basket. We anticipated docking and meeting on the ground.”

“You have troops aboard?”

“Of course, two light
battalions.”

“Why, Symenko? If this was simply
a delivery run then why bring two battalions along?”

“You’ll have to ask Volkov that.”

“You had no orders to debark and
operate on the ground?”

“Of course not. What would we do
here?” A lie was best at this point, thought Symenko.

“You might try tearing up the
rail line for a start.”

“Look, Karpov, if we wanted to do
that then we would have done so between Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. We know
you have the 91st Division in reserve at Krasnoyarsk, and by god we knew you
had airships right here! So why come here for a rail sabotage operation? No. It
is just as I have told you. I was to come here, deliver that pouch and be done
with it.”

That bit about hitting the rail
line west of Krasnoyarsk made sense, thought Karpov. That would prevent the
91st from getting to the main front quickly, but yet, Symenko is here, red
faced, big eyed and now ready to talk business. Let me see what he knows.

“Suppose I spare your life
here—assuming you can deliver your airship intact. As for Petrov and the
Oskemen
,
leave them to me. But what else do you know, Symenko? Are you telling me you
had no idea this offensive was being planned? There would have been orders cut,
munitions to be moved forward, and supplies. The roads would have been prepped
and cleared. Sapper teams would have been training for cross border action for
weeks. Beyond that, Volkov would need airship support. Your division would not
have been enough. He would have had to cut orders and bring up units from the
southern divisions. You heard nothing?”

Symenko stopped at that,
thinking, remembering, his eyes suddenly registering recollection. “Yes!
Pavlodar
was detached south last week—right in the middle of your conference.”

“Pavlodar?”

“That’s ship number three in my
division… But I had orders to take my ship up to Perm before this little
venture was sprung on me.”

“Perm? What were you to do
there?”

“We never know. Volkov moves us
around like chess pieces. More often than not my ships are used for
reconnaissance, but we never get operational orders until we arrive at our
assigned patrol station.”

That was useful information,
thought Karpov. He might want to keep Symenko alive for a while, just to see
what else he could learn.

“Then what about
Pavlodar?”

“It was sent south to operate
with one of the southern divisions.”

“What ships?”

“Sarkand, Tashkent, Samarkand,
Kazan
—big ships, all 150,000 cubic meter lift, and high climbers too.”

“Why would one of your ships be
detached south right before a major operation? We were watching your
division—all four ships—and they were being well dispersed as per the agreement
we made with Volkov at Omsk.”

“Yes,” said Symenko. “I was taking
my ship to Perm.
Astana
was pulled west, and only
Oskemen
was
left on the line. Then I got these orders to rendezvous with Captain Petrov at
Tyumen, and we were to sneak in here well north of the rail line and, well,
here we are.”

“Yes… Here you are. Volkov could
have sent me a cable to tell me anything he wrote in that letter. He could have
also told me to expect you, so as to avoid any unpleasantries. But that isn’t
what he had planned, was it? He wanted to make sure things would get edgy here.
That’s why he ordered you to swing well north and approach this place unseen.
Well, I have news for you, Symenko,
Pavlodar
is back, only now we’ve
identified at least three other airships coming up from the south. Volkov
dispersed your division, showing me the open hand near Omsk, but all the while
he was clenching another fist behind his back. I have little doubt that those
ships you just mentioned will be crossing the southern border zone even as we
speak.”

Symenko held up a finger,
thinking, playing the act out as best he could. “And now I recall orders for
the 8th Kazakh light armor to move! Yes, I signed transfer papers for a young
Lieutenant last week. He was tired of freezing his ass off in the Aero Corps
and had been wanting a posting to a ground division for some months now. When I
sent him off we talked about how bad the food was down south—he was posting to
Karaganda—but he said his division wouldn’t be there long. Those were his exact
words.”

“What other divisions were on
that border zone?”

“15th Rifles, way down at
Oskemen, and the 22nd just arrived to replace a worn out unit at Pavlodar.”

“Yes, we saw them pull out, the
old 19th. They were good for nothing, but it looked as though Volkov was
lightening up his deployments on the line, so we were glad to see them go.”

“Don’t be so happy. The 22nd is a
specially trained unit, Karpov. It’s air mobile! Damn thing operates with that
very same airship division coming up from the south. Why… They’re going to
swing in over the mountains down there! That’s what they’re up to! There’s a
big hole in your line there. I’ve scouted it many times and wet my beak in the
high lakes of the Altay Mountains. With that many airships Volkov could lift a
full brigade and drop it right on the city your ship is named for.” Symenko
smiled. There, he had just thrown the bear a nice fish.

“Abakan?”

“You have nothing there, eh?”
Symenko pressed his argument while he had Karpov nibbling. “Don’t you see? Volkov
could take Abakan and cut the road all the way south to Mongolia—cut off your
107th division down there and leave them to the Japanese.”

Karpov frowned. “You know a good
deal more than you let on, Symenko. Keep talking and I just may find a place
for you in my command staff. But first we have a situation here to resolve. What
do we do about this Captain Petrov?”

“He won’t surrender his ship, not
Petrov. That man is a stiff prick, if ever there was one. He’ll fight.”

“But not long. I have
Angara
sitting off his hind end.”

“He’ll drop ballast and come up
shooting.”

“And he’ll go down the same way.
Leave that ship to me. The question now is what to do about your ship? Who is
your Executive Officer?”

“Barmenko—a good man, but he’s
with me. In fact, most of my officers were with Denikin. Others transferred
in.”

“Sounds like Volkov was getting
all his rats onto the same ship, but no offense meant, Symenko.”

“None taken, Karpov. Well, I can
tell Barmenko we’ve permission to dock at Kansk. We could ease my ship over
there, and I could order Petrov to stay put where he is. Then you settle affairs
with him any way you wish.”

Karpov smiled. “You see, Captain.
The things they say about you have been very much exaggerated.”

“Oh? What have you heard?”

“That you are a hot headed old
fart, too quick to anger and without a reasonable bone in your body. But I find
you quite reasonable, wouldn’t you say?” Now Karpov raised the revolver,
pointing it right at Symenko’s head again, and this time he pulled the  trigger.

Chapter 11

There
was a dry clink,
and
Symenko jumped as the hammer of Karpov’s revolver snapped down on an empty
chamber. Karpov smiled, seeing the look of real fear on Symenko’s face now.

“The other five chambers all have
bullets,” he said as he fixed Symenko with that same evil grin.  He knew damn
well that Volkov would have never sent a rabid dog like Symenko out as a
courier boy. No. And all that talk about losing his appointment to the
Governorate was a nice little sob story. He had his suspicions about
Pavlodar
moving south like that, and Symenko had just confirmed them, along with a good
hint at what was soon to transpire on the southern border zone. Could he be
believed?

The Lieutenant rushed in when he
heard the gun clink, his eyes wide. He saw Symenko slouched in the chair,
breathing hard, a look on his face like a trapped animal.

“Get him to the brig,” said
Karpov. This man was too useful to kill just now. “Then get the spy basket ready
and signal the
Alexandra
that their Captain is returning.”

What happened next was planned
from the very moment Karpov had news of these air contacts. He knew he had to
act quickly, because a third contact had been spotted and it could be here
within the hour, changing the odds considerably. For the moment, he had the advantages
of both position and surprise, and he was going to use them while he could.

“A pity you won’t be able to see
what I’m about to do to your airship,” said Karpov. “Good day, Symenko—at least
for me.”

He was up and out of the briefing
room, his footsteps hard on the metal grid of the keelway as he hastened
forward to the main bridge. He was down the ladder quickly and ready to fight.

“Admiral on the bridge!”

“All guns manned and ready,
Bogrov?”

“Aye sir. Shells chambered and
guns trained on the targets. We couldn’t miss if we tried.”

“Very good. In a few minutes we
will begin lowering the spy basket to return Captain Symenko to his ship. He’s
in the brig, but no one down there will know that. Lower it right down on that
open gun platform so it blocks their line of fire. The moment that basket comes
in reach of their crew, we open fire. Signal the gun crews. All batteries fire
on code red! Be ready on that signal flare.”

“Aye sir! Code red.” Bogrov
nodded to a Lieutenant, and the order was quickly piped down to the gun pods
beneath the gondolas. He had his ship hovering perpendicular to the
Alexandra
so he could bring every gondola gun to bear on the target. He had a big 105mm
recoilless beneath the bridge gondola, three 76mm guns under the main gondola
amidships, and two more of those on the aft gondola. Six rounds were going to be
a most unpleasant advantage in the opening salvo, and Bogrov was correct, at no
more than 200 meters range they could not miss.

Down went the spy basket, even as
word was passed via field phone to the upper gun platform on top of the ship:
Ready
on signal flare one.
A young mishman was fitting the red tipped round to
his flare gun, waiting for the order, and then the phone rang again. He looked
smartly to the gun master, who nodded. “Red, red,
red!”

The sound of
Abakan’s
broadside split the silence with a loud roar. Six rounds blasted into the
cotton canopy stretched over the duralumin airframe of
Alexandra
,
penetrating easily and exploding deep within the ship. Not even the Vulcanized
gas bags could close a wound from a high explosive shell in that caliber.
Alexandra
shuddered under the blow, sheets of her envelope fabric torn and set afire, gas
bags penetrated and venting their precious helium, shrapnel cutting men down on
ladders and lacerating the interior ballonets with a hundred tiny cuts.

“Drop ballast!” Karpov shouted
over the action of the guns. “Full retraction on that spy basket. Fire for
effect!”

Now both ships seemed to belch
white falls of water from the ballast tanks on the undersides, which fell in a
grey rain seeding the clouds below.
Abakan
immediately began to rise,
intending to stay well above her adversary, even as the open top gun deck on
the
Alexandra
desperately trained and returned fire with the two 76mm
recoilless rifles there. With the spy basket now clear, the second volley from
Abakan
struck her foe again, and two guns hit that platform, killing every man there
and silencing
Alexandra’s
only reprisal unless she could gain parity in
altitude.

But that would not happen. Karpov
smiled as he watched the gun duel through his field glasses. There was a moment
when the aft 20mm AA gun on the enemy ship was able to rake his central gondola
with a burst of fire, but then the big 105mm gun under the bridge scored
another direct hit on the brow of the enemy ship.

“That’s the way!” Karpov shouted.
“That’s my big bag buster!” He could see that there was now severe damage
forward on the
Alexandra
where the 105 had ruptured at least two main
gas bags with that last shot. Even though the elevator controls were
desperately trying to get the ship’s nose up, and
Alexandra
was bleeding
more ballast forward, the ship’s tail was much lighter. The airship’s nose
tipped downward, and the tail rotated wildly off axis as it careened up,
riddled by continuing gunfire.

They put fifteen holes in the
outer canvas in the first three minutes. Smoke bled from the nose of the ship,
and her big tail fins seemed to jut obscenely up, the rudder moving to try and
control the airship’s wild turn. Then one of
Abakan’s
76mm guns put a
round right into the aft port engine near the tail, and it exploded in angry
red and yellow fire. Karpov clenched his fist when he saw the propeller blown
clean away, still spinning wildly as it plummeted down and away from the ship.

The spy pod was finally hauled
up, and Karpov smiled to himself. A pity I didn’t just put Symenko in there so
he could see what I did to his ship, he thought.

Now he turned his field glasses
north to see what was happening with
Angara
in its engagement with the
Oskemen
.
His ship had the advantage of surprise, but that battle was still raging. That
stiff prick, Symenko had talked about, Captain Petrov, was better than he
expected. He had been ready on all ballast tanks and he dumped everything at
once in a desperate emergency drop to try and rapidly gain altitude. He had his
nose up, engines full out, good elevator control, but it wasn’t going to be
enough. His ship still had nearly a full contingent of troops aboard, and it
was just too sluggish with all that weight.
Angara
was much lighter, maneuvering
in a nimble, fiery dance above the other ship and riddling the enemy’s tail
fins and elevators with deadly fire.

Both ships rose up into the grey
sky, but
Angara
maintained the advantage of position, and so
Oskemen
decided to run. Karpov could see all six engines revving madly to gain power,
and he saw the enemy ship level off, no longer trying to gain altitude it could
never reach in time.

“That’s right, Petrov, you
son-of-a-bitch,” Karpov breathed. “Yes! You run level when outgunned from
above. You get your ass out of there.” He could see
Angara
revving up
her engines to pursue, but that ship had risen over a thousand meters above her
foe and the gunfire was now less effective. Rounds were reaching the target,
but exploding above and beside the enemy ship in bright angry blossoms of fire
that became blackened roses of smoke in the sky.

Karpov took one look at the
Alexandra
,
burning forward, belching smoke from her wounded brow, flames devouring the
cotton canvass envelope. He knew that ship was finished. We must have ruptured
half her gas bags, he thought. They’ve lost all buoyancy and gone critical.
That ship is going down.

Alexandra
had dropped too
much ballast trying to climb, and now he saw men flinging equipment overboard
in a desperate attempt to halt their descent, but with a full battalion still
aboard the loss of buoyancy had become fatal. They could try to jettison their
spy baskets and cargo lifts, thought Karpov, but it will still do them no good.

There came a terrible hissing
sound, and Karpov knew that the  other ship had opened all their emergency
pressurized helium tanks and were pumping it into any gas bags that were still
intact. Then he heard another explosion, and saw the side of the ship burst
open, revealing the duralumin frame like the bare metal ribs of an animal that
had been flayed alive. A man dangled from one of the girders, then fell, a tiny
speck vanishing into a cloud below with a fading scream.