Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (5 page)

He read
the account of an eye witness named Semedec:

“...
I was sitting in the porch of the house at the trading station of Vadecara at
breakfast time... when suddenly in the north... the sky was split in two and
high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared to be covered
with fire. At that moment I felt great heat as if my shirt had caught fire;
this heat came from the north side. I wanted to pull off my shirt and throw it
away, but at that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash was
heard. I was thrown to the ground …”

A large
explosive event—Tunguska! There he saw the map of the presumed location of the
event, and a report in the Irkutsk newspaper dated July 2, 1908, published two
days after the explosion. What if that event had somehow caused this rift in
time, a permanent effect, instead of the transient effects they had experienced
aboard
Kirov?
The fact that this phenomenon persisted even to the year
2021 was very telling. The impact of the Tunguska event must have been so
severe that it opened this permanent hole in time, and it must have been so
aligned in space as to run right along that stairway. What other explanation
was possible?

He did
not yet know why this happened, only that it did happen. Facts were facts. There
it was, a gateway, a bridge between three separate eras. Why it seemed to
involve the 1940s was as yet a mystery he could not answer. But I don’t need to
know why it happens just now, he thought. Knowing that it does happen is quite
enough! Now I must set my mind on how to best use it. Going back up those
stairs from here is fruitless. A visit to the naval arsenal at Kansk might have
allowed me to pick some nice cherries off the tree, but not any longer. The
arsenal, and probably Kansk itself, has been obliterated in 2021. Yet what
about going
down
that stairway? Yes, that was the real threat now.

That’s
what happened to Volkov. He must have gone down twice, and found himself in 1908,
at the source of the rift. He was probably so disoriented and confused that he
never made the connection between his madness and that staircase. Too bad for
him.

Yes, I
could go down those stairs myself now, but what would I find? Would I find
Volkov there in 1908? Did the stairway deliver each traveler to the same time?
Imagine it. If I went there and did find him, I suppose I could easily convince
him to come back with me. What then? Would we arrive at the top of that landing
in 1940 again? Would we find that there was no “Orenburg Federation?”

The
more he thought on this, the more he realized how precarious his own fate was
now. Someone had killed Josef Stalin in 1908. Who? Was it Volkov? Kirov? Volkov
would certainly have a motive, but Kirov? How would Sergie Kirov have known
Stalin would become the monster he was? Could it have only been happenstance, a
random change when these events replayed in the history?

I
remember how plaintive and urgent Fedorov sounded when he learned of my
decision to remain in 1908. He knew that I could topple the base pillars of the
entire modern world from there. Now, with this stairway, I could do the very
same thing. I could go back and get rid of Volkov, Stalin too if he’s still
around. Then I could position myself within the revolutionary elite when the
Tsar falls, and perhaps I would be the Secretary General instead of Sergie
Kirov.

He
smiled to think that he had the power to become the new Stalin of this world,
right there on that back stairway. Then he considered the life he had now, a
rising star in the Siberian Free State and certainly destined to rule here in
time. Kolchak is old and tired, Kozolnikov easily dealt with. I could get rid
of Volkov, but chances are I would find that someone took his place if I
decided to return to this year. Now I am still young, while Kirov and Volkov
are both over 50. This war is the hinge of fate. It will decide how the modern
world looks after 1945, and from here I have a chance to shape that world.

Back
and forth he went with all this in his mind. Should he stay here, and live into
the modern era, or go back to 1908 and rewrite all the history he had just come
to know? Karpov was still brooding over all this in his ready room aboard
Abakan
when a signalman came to him, startling him with alarm and surprise. Something
had been seen on the airship’s long range early warning radar.

The
early system was primitive, but just enough to do the job it was designed for
that day. The Leningrad Electro-Physics Institute had pioneered development of
rudimentary continuous wave radio emission sets to replace the old listening
posts that required a human ear to actually hear incoming planes. Continuous
wave was capable of detection and bearing location of an incoming threat, but
could not determine range until it was converted to a pulse system in 1934.
Others argued that higher frequency or microwave systems would better serve the
purpose desired. The first equipment, dubbed Bistro (Rapid) and Buraya (Storm)
used microwaves and became truck mounted radar, designated RUS-1. These
advances eventually became the Redut (Redoubt) pulse radar tested in 1939 and
entering service by 1940.

Designated
RUS-2, it could detect high flying targets out to 100 kilometers, and lower
level targets at 10 to 30 kilometers. Most of this development remained in
Kirov’s Soviet Russia, but there were equivalent systems developed under
Volkov’s regime in Orenburg. Even so, there were no more than fifty RUS-2 sets
in all of Soviet Russia as the storm clouds of war gathered, though two had
fallen into hands of independent Tartar cavalry units who had captured them
near Perm during a raid on the border zone there.

Realizing
the importance of radar, Karpov moved heaven and earth to secure the two
systems when he learned of them in early 1940. One was posted in the frontier
bastion city of Omsk, and summarily withdrawn to Novosibirsk when that city was
lost. The second was in Irkutsk. There the Siberian Technical Corps had managed
to reverse engineer the system and, with considerable guidance from Karpov,
they were making rapid improvements. No one knew how this remarkable man
possessed such a breadth of technical and scientific knowledge, but he was able
to catalyze the research and remove false starts and roadblocks to set it all
on the proper course. The information in his service jacket computer proved to
be a limitless resource, which Karpov kept very secret. A new system, code
named “Topaz” appeared in the mid-1940, and Karpov insisted that the first sets
were mounted on all his airships.

The
problem was where to place the new equipment for maximum effect? Mounting it on
the gondolas allowed for good low level search capability, but the mass of the
airship above was a major obstacle. Placing it in the nose only allowed
coverage of the forward arcs, and there were too few systems available to have
nose and tail mounted units. In the end, a small platform was extended from the
interior frame on the forehead of the ship, and it was able to see incoming
aircraft at altitude well enough, forsaking low level approaches in the
bargain.

The
threat of enemy planes coming in at low level could be mitigated as they would
have to first cross the border zone where ground based systems could detect
them. Few enemy planes had the range to venture into the vast interior of
Siberia in any case. Yet Karpov was not satisfied with that. He ordered two
Topaz sets for each of his airships, and mounted a second on the forward
gondola to scan downward.

So it
was that the fledgling Topaz system operator on the brow of
Abakan
spotted something he did not expect to see that day, sitting up stiffly and
double checking his equipment to make certain he was not tracking the sudden
onset of a storm. He squinted, adjusted his dials, and was then convinced this
was something much more. His hand was on the crank to his voice set moments
later, ringing the receiver in main control gondola below. The runner was off
with the contact report, straight to Karpov, as he had insisted in his standing
orders.

“Airborne
contact, sir. Topaz operator reports a signal about seventy kilometers north,
and closing.”

“Airborne
contact? North of our location?” Karpov’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, his
mind working like a computer. He knew the locations of all his airships, which
mostly operated from the home cities they were named for. None were north of
his position now, and it was 2000 kilometers to Volkov’s airfields at Chelyabinsk
to the West. Only another airship could cover such distance and return.

“Volkov!”
he said aloud with some alarm. “Sound action stations and tell Bogrov to cast
off and climb to the highest altitude he can get to. Never mind. I’ll go there
myself. You get to the wireless room and signal
Talmenka
and
Novosibirsk
.
Tell them to make ready for immediate operations, and rig for air combat. Then
signal Krasnoyarsk airfield. I want fighters up, and heading this way at once!”

So, he
thought, Volkov finally put two and two together. In fact, I would not be
surprised to learn if he has been tracking the whereabouts of my airships ever
since I left Omsk. He has men everywhere, and if he learned I had come here,
with two airships, it would have certainly aroused his suspicions. Of course he
would have had to take a roundabout course well to the north. All they had to
do was swing well north of Tomsk to avoid our Topaz system there and then
follow the
Yenisey River south. But how many ships did he send?

Karpov
was up at the run, and heading to the forward gondola, hastening along the mesh
metal keelway until he came to the ladder down.

“Admiral
on the bridge!”

He
emerged to see Air Commandant Bogrov snapping off orders to a midshipman. The
man saluted as Karpov strode in, all business. “Has the battalion debarked?”

“Yes
sir. The last two platoons went down the ladders a half hour ago. They are all
assembling at Kansk.”

“Get
them to Ilanskiy.”

“Ilanskiy?
But there is nothing there.” Karpov gave him an irritated look and Bogrov knew
enough to keep his mouth shut and simply repeat the order. He turned quickly
and collared a watchstander. “Pipe to the wireless room. The ground force is
ordered to proceed to Ilanskiy immediately.”

“Have
them establish a strong defensive perimeter all around that rail station.”
Karpov reinforced the order gruffly. “Understood?”

The man
was off at a run, and everyone on the gondola bridge was suddenly alert. They
had seen Karpov this way before, and knew he was ruthlessly efficient when he
set his mind to military matters.

“Are we
at actions stations?”

“Yes
sir. All guns manned.”

“Then
what are we doing still tethered to the mooring tower, Bogrov? Get us up there.
Get me altitude! Signal
Angara
that if they have not off loaded their
troop detachment they must do so immediately and climb.”

Altitude
in any air duel between zeppelins was the key factor. As most guns were mounted
on the lower gondolas, whoever had the advantage in altitude was going to have
nice fat targets below them, and only a few guns could be mounted on the top of
the airframe. Karpov knew he was already at a disadvantage. The other side was
undoubtedly well up at higher altitudes and it would take time for him to shed
ballast and climb.

Bogrov
could read the Admiral’s concern clearly enough, and spoke reassuringly. “Don’t
worry sir,” he said. “We are very light now after off loading all those men and
their equipment. We’ll climb like an eagle and be up there in no time. The
weather is low today, with cloud cover at 3000 feet. We’ll pierce that shortly
and then make a very rapid ascent.”

He
turned and barked orders to the Elevatorman and Rudderman, and soon they were
casting off from the tower, the mooring cables retracting as the airship eased
away.

“Orenburg?”
Bogrov asked.

“What
else?”

“What
could they be doing out here?”

“Someone
is getting curious.” Karpov’s eyes narrowed.

“Let’s
hope this is nothing more than a probe.”

“I very
much doubt that,” said Karpov. “Someone tipped Volkov off as to my whereabouts.
If he had the balls to violate our airspace like this, than he sent at least
two or three airships.”

“But
why, sir? There’s nothing of value here? Kansk is a deep reserve supply depot,
but Ilanskiy is barely on the map. I don’t understand.”

“Oh
really? Well open your eyes Air Commandant. Look who is standing in front of
you. I am here, correct?”

“Of
course sir, but if Volkov wanted you why didn’t he act earlier? They had us
outnumbered five ships to three at Omsk. Why risk coming all this way here to
get into a fight?”

“Just
climb, Bogrov. Leave the where and why of things to me.”

“Yes
sir.” The Air Commandant folded his arms, eyeing the inclinometer and seeing
they were now nosing up. “Fifteen degrees up bubble,” he shouted to his
Elevatorman, and saw him rapidly spinning the big metal wheel.

So up we go, he thought with some
misgivings. Yes, up we go, and if Volkov has sent more than we can handle, we
may just come down in a flaming wreck!