“Sir, passing through 140 feet…. 130 feet and leveling off. Running shallow.”
“Very well,” said the Matador. “Time to skewer the bull. Warm up six 3M-22s.”
“Mister Gorban, signal Kirov and tell them I’m attacking Takami.”
“Sir, I’m getting interference on the secure channel. I can’t get a handshake.”
“Very well, persist until you do. Are we ready Mister Belanov?”
“Aye sir, six 3M-22 Zircons hot and ready. The boat is running shallow at 12 knots.”
“Range to target?”
“Sir, we’re passing through eleven nautical miles.”
Gromyko shrugged. “Barely enough air space for the missiles to get pointed the right way. Alright Belanov. Let’s kill that ship. Fire all ready 3M-22s.”
The missile firing warning sounded, the outer hatches opening ominously in the murky water. Then, with a wash of bubbles, the ship killers were up, rising like fast swimmers to the surface of the sea, then breaking out in a wild spray, sleek dolphins of doom. They streaked away, made a 15 point course adjustment, turned on their radar seekers, and began to burn toward the target like comets.
Chapter 36
Harada had received the contact report from his Sonarman, Koji Nakano, but was still scratching his head over it. Twenty minutes earlier, Nakano had reported a possible submarine, confidence high. As always in combat, it was something unexpected. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that one side or another might have a submarine out here. It could be a US sub, or even an IJN boat.
“Where is it, Mister Nakano?”
“About 16 nautical miles slightly southeast of us.”
Harada thought for a moment. “That helo off Kongo was coming in real low… Lieutenant Shiota, signal that helo and ask them to take a look at that position if they can get there soon.” Harada knew that some of these old WWII subs could be fairly quiet, all diesel boats. You don’t fool around with a sub in that close, and so he thought it best to get a helo on top of it.
“What’s the range on those old torpedoes?” he asked Fukada.
“Which side? If it’s a typical B series IJN boat, they’d have the Type 95, which could range out 9 to 12 klicks. That’s the baby brother of the Long Lance.”
“Sir,” said Shiota. “Kongo’s helo reports they can put down dipping sonar immediately.”
“Good,” said Harada. “That’ll give us two sets of ears and we should be able to—”
“Con, sonar…. I think I can read this skunk. Contact speed is approximately 20 knots, and it’s fairly deep. I’d put it just above the layer at around 400 feet.”
Fukada gave Nakano a dismissive look. “Come on Lieutenant. Get the wax out of your ears. Test depth for subs of this era was no more than 300 feet, and not one of them could make that kind of speed submerged.”
“Sorry sir, but that’s what I’m reading.”
“That can’t be right.” Fukada went over to the sonar station, as if to see for himself, though he knew nothing about that craft.
Harada did not like what he was hearing at all. His man Nakano was every bit as good as the equipment he was operating. “Lieutenant, Go active and see if you can nail this guy.”
“Aye sir. Active sweep…. I have him… bearing 060, speed twenty, depth 420, on a heading of 260…. Getting data from Kongo’s helo now as well…” Nakano looked up at the Captain, an unbelieving look in his eye. “Sir, we’re getting a pattern match, but this doesn’t make any sense. I’m reading Yasen Class. Kongo One confirms.”
That hit Harada like a good left hook.
“What? Yasen Class?” That was the only moment he would cede to hesitation, then he was all business. In any situation like this, you stow your assumptions and go with what your instruments were telling you. “Secure from active sonar,” he said, finally wondering just what was happening here. Yasen Class… That was the same class of the Russian boat that escaped after that scrap off the Kuriles. What if….
“Mister Fukada, with me please.”
His XO came over to where Harada waited near his chair. “Could this be that Russian boat that went missing off the Kuriles when the Yanks thought they sunk Kirov?”
Fukada took that in, then nodded. “The only other explanation is system malfunction.”
“Great Buddha… This situation is becoming a real bento box! Here we were about to spring a nice big surprise on Karpov, when he pulls one over on us!”
“Sir,” said Shiota, “I have Admiral Kita on the secure channel.”
“They picked up the data link and probably want to know what’s going on with that damn Russian sub.”
Harada began walking towards the comm station, one eye on the situation board, a digital screen that was displaying all known contacts and tracking events. Then he saw a bright white circle expanding northwest of Kirov’s position. There was a brilliant flash of light, and Captain instinctively knew what had happened. Karpov had thrown a nuke at them.
“Doshitano! What’s that crazy Russian doing?”
“Brace for shockwave!” said Fukada. “Recommend all systems move to EMCON status.”
“A little late for that,” said Harada. Then they felt the palpable wave in the atmosphere, the much dissipated shock wave passing the ship, and the moan of a lonesome wind. They were over 75 nautical miles from the position of the detonation, and so they didn’t expect any effects beyond that shock wave, or perhaps some EMP damage.
“This guy is a lunatic,” said Harada.
“No, he’s just damn smart,” said Fukada. “All our planes off the Kaga reported safe bomb delivery, we had over sixty GBU/53s inbound on those bastards. They were toast. It was only a matter of time.”
“So Karpov threw a nuke at them?”
“Obviously,” said Fukada. “There was no way he’d knock down even half of those Vampires, but if he positioned that blast right, he could take out everything there on that northern attack axis. That’s exactly what he did.
Ryoko Otani sounded off, reporting her system was experiencing difficulty. “Just got a hard flutter through the whole board,” she said. “I thought we were going to lose power.”
“Could be the EMP pulse,” said Fukada.
They would not have any time to think about it, nor would they have solved the problem if they did. That flutter was not any part of the residual shock wave from that blast, which was very attenuated at that range; not even enough to roll the ship. Nor was it EMP effects. The ripple was a small temblor in time, or rather spacetime, as Einstein would have it. We didn’t live in space, with time being nothing more than a contrived metric we superimposed on all our doings. We lived in spacetime, and Einstein had already showed us that it could be warped and bent by mass. It could also be broken and even shattered.
200 kilotons was not much compared to the larger explosive events that had battered spacetime. The Demon Volcano that had sent Kirov and his flotilla careening back through time to 1945 had power equivalent to 200 Megatons, a thousand times greater than Karpov’s warhead. The same could be said for the massive eruption of Krakatoa that first brought Takami and crew to this time. So it was a relatively light tap on the fabric of spacetime, all things considered. Yet for Kirov, possessing some rather exotic materials lurking within her control rods, the effect was enough to phase the ship for the briefest moment for those aboard. For those stalking her, the ship would disappear from all their radar screens for over ten minutes before it reappeared.