Against a formation of airships, this handful of fighters would be good for little more than reconnaissance, thought Karpov. Yet they can get around much easier, and if they find a target, I can order them to shadow it and radio back the enemy course and altitude. Then we’ll get up to a good firing position above that, and see if they want any trouble here.
Using instincts long honed in combat at sea, Karpov knew information was his first weapon. Find the enemy, get into the best firing position, kill the enemy. It was a lethal formula that he had used time and time again. It wasn’t long before his fighters had found something and his battle plan could take more definite shape.
“Sir, we have fighter reconnaissance reports of two large airships bearing 290 from our current position, about 110 kilometers out.” The signalman had just rushed in from the wireless room. “We should have them on our Topaz radar soon.”
“Two? Only two contacts?”
“Yes sir.”
Very interesting, thought Karpov. If Volkov knew I was here with Abakan, then he certainly knew that I had Angara with me as well. If he meant to make a power play here, why send only two airships? He knows I’ll see them long before they get anywhere near Kansk. He’s either being very overconfident or acting stupidly. There is no way those airships could be bringing enough men and equipment to threaten my position, but he’s certainly checking up on me, isn’t he. Something tells me he wants a much closer look at my operation here than his intelligence arm can give him. He turned to his signalman.
“Altitude?” The look of displeasure on Karpov’s face was enough of a lesson to the young midshipman.
“I’m sorry sir. The contacts are at 3500 meters.”
Karpov raised an eyebrow at that. “Let me know the minute that changes.” Then to Bogrov he said: “Make your altitude 4000 meters, Commandant. But be ready to climb again on short notice.”
He was going to show these interlopers his gondolas, and let them get a good long look at the guns there for their trouble in coming all this way. But even as he thought that, he suspected there was something more to this move by Volkov than it seemed at first glance.
Chapter 6
The Airships hung in the grey sky, as if suspended from the heavens on unseen cables. Karpov was standing on the main gondola bridge of Abakan, his eyes lost in a pair of field glasses as he studied the enemy ships, noting tail numbers, the training of their top mounted guns, the thin wisps of exhaust at the engines, the trim on the big tail rudders and elevator fins. Abakan was 500 meters above, and broadside to the intruding ships. From their tail numbers he soon knew what he was up against.
The lead ship, about a thousand meters in the van, was the very same ship he had protested over at the conference-the ship that had been brazenly named Omsk. Yet now he saw the bright fresh white paint that had been applied and the newly stenciled lettering: Alexandra — Symenko’s ship. He had heard of the man, a veteran Captain, and a bit hot under the collar from all accounts. Symenko was a Squadron Commandant in the Eastern Airship Division of the Orenburg fleet, a surly man, ill tempered, too eager to find trouble. He was probably not happy to put his painters back to work so soon. Karpov smiled, thinking. Why send this man?
The second ship was the Oskemen, named for the big city on the southern border zone, and both ships were in the same class as Karpov’s airships, about 100,000 cubic meter lift, maximum airspeed at about 120 knots, and each with six recoilless rifles mounted on the gondolas, with two more top mounted on the rigid gun platforms there. Yet Karpov knew he had the edge for the moment as the airships squared off, because even though he was presently outnumbered two ships to one while Angara was hastening to the scene from her recon sweep to the northeast, Abakan could bring all six of its gondola mounted guns into action, while the two opposing airships could only train their two top mounted rifles at the moment. He had the Orenburg ships outgunned six to four. They would have to climb 500 meters quickly to get any of their gondola mounted guns into action, and Karpov wasn’t about to let them even try. He had them outgunned, and he intended to keep things that way until Angara reached the scene.
The niceties of protocol had already begun. Karpov sent over a challenge, requesting both ships hover in place and make no change in altitude. He asked them to state their business in Siberian airspace in no uncertain terms. Now he moved to the radio for a two way conversation with Symenko to take the measure of the man.
“What are you doing here, Symenko? You’re a long way from home.”
“Begging your pardon to barge in like this,” came the voice on the headset. It was a harsh, gravelly voice that matched the man’s temperament, and there was no real apology in his tone. “This is a diplomatic mission, and I come bearing a pouch for your eyes only.”
“From Volkov? Papers to sign? I thought we settled all that at Omsk.”
“I’m not privy to the contents, but I’m told to deliver it to you, Karpov, and so here I am. You want it, or not? If so then I’ll request permission to heave to over your tower on the river.”
“Why wasn’t I informed of this mission? I could have put my guns on you the moment we sailed up, Symenko. You’ve a lot of nerve violating Siberian airspace like this.”
“Set off alarm bells all along the rail line from here to Novosibirsk, did we? Well like I said-I have orders and I follow them. You want to complain about the violation of your precious airspace? Then you can write Volkov a nice long letter about it and I’ll happily carry it home and deliver it personally.”
Karpov frowned. The man was a real smartass, he thought, just the type he enjoyed goading from time to time. So he stuck in a barb, just for the pleasure of it.
“Nice paint job, Symenko. A lot more letters now, eh? Were you eager to drop your ground anchors at Omsk? What’s the matter. Weather doesn’t suit you at Alexandra?”
“Try that tone with me when I’m sitting 500 meters above your prow and see what it gets you, Karpov.”
“Yes? Well it looks like I’m the one sitting on your nose, Captain, and don’t think to move a muscle or you’ll soon find out that I can be a most disagreeable man.”
“That so? Well I can drop ballast and pop up there in three minutes if you’d care to do this eye to eye.”
“Drop ballast? If I so much as see anyone take a piss off that ship of yours to lighten your load I’ll put a nice fat 105mm round into your forward gas bags, and that will slow you down, won’t it? Look, Symenko. Enough with the pleasantries. You can dock at Kansk, but we’ve only room for one ship there. Deliver your pouch and then get the hell out of my airspace.”
There was a long pause before Symenko came back on the line again. “I’m told this is to be hand delivered, by me personally, and directly to you, Karpov. No intermediaries. I’m to wait here for your answer.”
Most unusual, thought Karpov. What was Volkov thinking? What could he possibly want? There was no way he was going to ground himself with this man now. He was up in fighting trim, and with good position on these brigands, and he meant to stay there.
“I’m a busy man, Symenko. It will take you an hour to dock at Kansk and then move off so we can do the same, and there’s no way I’d ever allow this ship to do that under your guns in any case. So we’ll do this another way. I’ll ease over and send down a sub-cloud car. You want to hand off that pouch, then you can climb aboard and we’ll reel you in.”
The sub-cloud car, also call the “spy basket” or “observation car,” was first developed by the Germans as a means of anchoring their radio antenna, and then later made into a small finned gondola that could hold one or two men. It could be lowered up to 200 meters on a cable, dipped through a heavy obscuring cloud deck to allow for observation of the ground. A “man in the basket” could spot landmarks on the ground and call them up to the main gondola on a telephone line. In this case Symenko could climb aboard and be hauled up to the Abakan to make his delivery.