“Things have changed here,” said Karpov, “just as they changed in the Western Desert when you ran into that Brigade from 2021. We may have to take a different view of things now that these damnable modern Japanese ships have appeared. If we stay here, I think I would have to withdraw to the north soon to support the renewal of operations on Sakhalin. That is very near Japanese home waters, and so we’ll probably have to face that enemy task force again soon. Combat is always risky, as we’ve just seen. Suppose we get hit, or even sunk?”
“Losing your nerve, Karpov?”
“No, quite the contrary. I’m just listening to my head. It tells me that we have some hard days ahead. This new Japanese task force could cause a great deal of trouble. Imagine what they could do if they aren’t eliminated? They could stop the momentum the Americans are building up in the New Hebrides, I’ll guarantee that much. Those F-35’s would make short work of a few Essex Class carriers, and never even be seen while they do so. The Americans will be cruising along, and then their carriers will simply begin exploding right under their fat asses.” Karpov smiled. “Oh, how I’d love to see the look on Halsey’s face when that happens.”
“Considering that he almost ran you off the map in 1945,” said Fedorov. “No offense intended.”
“None taken, Fedorov. I get your point.”
Now Karpov lapsed into silence for a moment, thinking. “Fedorov,” he began. “Suppose we’re going at this all the wrong way. All these contaminations we’re trying to cleanse from the time line seem to be multiplying. We set our minds on getting Takami, and now we’ve a whole new enemy task force out there to deal with.”
“Yes,” said Fedorov. “Don’t remind me.”
“Well this isn’t going to be as easy as we first thought.”
“I never thought it would be easy.”
“True, but you thought it would be possible, otherwise why commit to this course of action in the first place?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Well,” said Karpov, “things have changed. The presence of that new Japanese task force may present us with an insurmountable problem.”
“You really don’t think we can beat them?”
Karpov narrowed his eyes. “Like I said, I’m just reasoning this all out. I’m a realist, Fedorov. You saw what it took to fend off that surprise F-35 attack. We had helos up, and the damn planes flew right through their radar coverage. If we engage again, this ship will do harm, I can assure you that, but we may have to take our lumps to do so. We could survive one hit, and possibly two, depending on where the weapon struck us. But tangling with that task force here and now is going to be very dangerous. Kazan has a better chance than a surface ship like Kirov. He has both stealth and speed at his command, not to mention the missiles and torpedoes. If we continue this fight, we’ll have to rely a good deal on Gromyko.”
“How would you proceed?”
Karpov thought for a moment. “I would picket Kazan, well north of my position, and then I’d bark like a dog until they get a fix on me. They’ll come for me, and to do that, they would have to run right over Gromyko. That’s when he throws everything he has at them, and I mean everything. If he can’t take them out with his missiles, then he should also strongly consider resorting to a special warhead.”
“What? didn’t you hear what I just said about the fragility of the continuum?”
“Yes, I heard all of that, but if you want the job done concerning this new threat, you have to be ready to use a hammer.”
“Well, you might just end up smashing your own thumb,” said Fedorov. “I’d be very cautious about throwing another nuke here.”
“Agreed,” said Karpov. “Your scheme to drive a wedge between Hitler and Volkov was very clever, but there may be another way. We could roll the dice again.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is this—beating that Japanese task force isn’t going to be easy, and if we do, our missile inventory is going to be very thin when we’re done. Kirov has 33 SSMs left under that front deck. And we’ve only 24 S-400’s remaining. After that, we’re down to the medium range enhanced Klinok system. They aren’t nearly as effective as the Triumf, and their range maxes out right around the typical release point for another of those damn glide bomb attacks. That means that they can penetrate our radar coverage, and probably get to their release point safely if I don’t have the range of the Triumf to deal with them first. If I get another sixty bombs inbound, we’re finished. The Klinok system can’t handle that kind of saturation attack. Oh, we’ll get many of them, and it will be a grand fight when they get in close and the Gatling guns and Kashtans go after them, but I’m telling you right now—we’re going to take hits. We stand a very good chance of losing the ship. That eradicates us from the time line, eh? But it may leave the Japanese ships here to raise more hell. Kazan has only so many missiles. Gromyko won’t get them all.”
Karpov was finally telling it like he saw it, and now Fedorov had another angle on why he had instinctively resorted to the use of a special warhead. As powerful as Kirov was, it was not invulnerable any longer. A carrier with good strike planes was still top dog, and it wasn’t likely that Kirov would ever get close enough to the flattop to use its missiles.”
“Yet you beat Tanner and that American Carrier task force,” said Fedorov.
“Yes, but I had fighters off the Admiral Kuznetsov, five other ships, and strong support from our land based bombers, not to mention three good missile boats under the sea, including Kazan. That’s how I beat Tanner, and I also had that massive eruption cloud to force him to divert his strike waves.”
It was clear to Fedorov that Karpov was now telling him they could just as easily lose the next fight with the Japanese. If that happened, that task force would remain here in 1943, and how long would it be before they began to intervene in the battles now underway?
“You told me we were going about this the wrong way,” he said. “But you haven’t explained that.”
Karpov opened his desk drawer, and pulled out a Japanese fan, opening it. “Something I picked up in Vladivostok,” he said. “I actually had it with me on Tunguska, and had it shipped aboard here with my sea chest—just a little souvenir from that time.”
“What time?”
“1908.” Karpov smiled. “Look at this another way, Fedorov.” He touched the base of his open fan. “Here is that time—1908. We both know that it all started there, with the Tunguska event. Then all these segments of the fan are the future that event gave rise to. Look how they fan out in all directions. We’re on one of them, this particular Meridian, and probably right about here.” He fingered a mid-point on one of the fan segments. “And way out here at the top edge, let’s say that is 2021. See how the trouble fans out, getting wider and more pronounced as the change initiated in 1908 migrates forward in time?”
“Yes,” said Fedorov. “A very good analogy.”
“Well were here in the middle of this fan and trying to fold it closed again, so we can get rid of the Japanese, and Volkov, and everything else we discussed. Just as we swat one interloper, and kill Takami, we find all these new uninvited guests, and now they’re out to kill us!”
“Not very promising,” said Fedorov.
“Agreed. Face it, Fedorov, even if we do get lucky and kill those other Japanese ships, we’ve still commissioned many more on either side of this war. My intel service tells me that the Japanese are building out new hybrid carrier designs as fast as they can. This war is off on its own tangent now, and if we survive our next engagement, I doubt we’ll have much left to change these other things.”