Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series)
Read Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) Online
Authors: John Schettler
Kirov
Saga:
Darkest
Hour
Altered
States
Volume
II
By
John
Schettler
A
publication of:
The Writing Shop Press
Kirov Saga:
Darkest
Hour
, Copyright©2013, John A. Schettler
Discover
other titles by John Schettler:
The Kirov Saga:
(Military Fiction)
Kirov
-
Kirov Series - Volume
I
Cauldron Of Fire -
Kirov Series - Volume II
Pacific
Storm -
Kirov Series
- Volume III
Men Of
War -
Kirov Series -
Volume IV
Nine Days Falling -
Kirov Series - Volume V
Fallen
Angels -
Kirov Series
- Volume VI
Devil’s
Garden -
Kirov Series
- Volume VII
Armageddon
– Kirov Series – Volume VIII
Altered
States
– Kirov Series
– Volume IX
Darkest Hour
– Kirov Series – Volume X
Hinge of Fate
– Kirov Series – Volume XI
Award
Winning Science Fiction:
Meridian
-
Meridian Series - Volume I
Nexus Point
- Meridian Series - Volume II
Touchstone
- Meridian Series - Volume III
Anvil of
Fate
- Meridian
Series - Volume IV
Golem 7
- Meridian Series - Volume V
Classic Science Fiction:
Wild Zone
- Dharman Series - Volume I
Mother Heart
- Dharman Series - Volume II
Historical Fiction:
Taklamakan
- Silk Road Series - Volume I
Khan Tengri
- Silk Road Series - Volume II
Dream
Reaper
– Mythic
Horror Mystery
Mailto: [email protected]
http://www.writingshop.ws
~ http://www.dharma6.com
Kirov
Saga:
Darkest
Hour
Altered
States
Volume II
By
John
Schettler
“Two
qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest
hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and
second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”
―
Carl von Clausewitz
Kirov
Saga:
Darkest Hour
Altered
States – Volume II
By
John
Schettler
Part III –
Prodigal Son
Part IV –
Alliances
Part VII –
The Hunter
Part VIII –
Vulture’s Feast
Part IX –
Doppelganger
A note on the Kirov Saga
The
Kirov Series
is a long
chain of linked novels by John Schettler in the Military Alternate History /
Time Travel genre. Like the popular movie “The Final Countdown” which saw the
US Carrier
Nimitz
sent back in time to the eve of Pearl Harbor in 1941,
in these books the powerful Russian battlecruiser
Kirov
from the year
2021 is sent back to the 1940s in the Norwegian Sea, where it subsequently
becomes embroiled in WWII.
Like episodes in the never ending
Star Trek
series, the
Kirov Saga
continues through one episode
after another as the ship’s position in time remains unstable. It culminates in
Book 8
Armageddon
, then is resurrected again in a 9th volume entitled
Altered
States
, the book immediately preceding the volume you are now reading.
How to read the Kirov Series?
The best entry point is obviously
Book 1,
Kirov
, where you will meet all the main characters in the series
and learn their inner motivations. The series itself, however, is structured as
sets of trilogies linked by what the author calls a “bridge novel.” The first
three volumes form an exciting trilogy featuring much fast paced naval action
as
Kirov
battles the Royal Navy, Regia Marina (Italians) and finally the
Japanese after sailing to the Pacific in Book 3. The bridge novel
Men Of War
is a second entry point which covers what happened to the ship and crew after
it returned home to Vladivostok. As such it serves as both a sequel to the
opening trilogy and a prologue to the next trilogy, the three novels beginning the
fifth book
, 9 Days Falling.
The
9 Days Falling
trilogy
focuses on the struggle to prevent a great war in 2021 from reaching a terrible
nuclear climax, and features much modern era combat. It spans book 5, 6, and 7,
covering the outbreak of the war as Japan and China battle over disputed
islands, and the action of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet against the US Fleet.
It then takes a dramatic turn when the ship is again shifted in time to 1945.
There they confront the powerful US Pacific Fleet under Admiral Halsey, and so
this trilogy focuses much of the action as
Kirov
faces down the US Navy
in two eras. This second trilogy also launches several subplots that serve to
relate significant events in the great war of 2021 and also deepen the mystery
of time travel as discovered in the series. The trilogy ends at another crucial
point in history where the ship’s Captain, Vladimir Karpov, believes he is in a
position to decisively change events.
The next bridge novel is
Armageddon
,
Book 8 in the series, which continues the action as a sequel to the
9 Days
Falling
trilogy while also standing as a prologue to the next trilogy that
begins with book 9,
Altered States.
In this third trilogy,
Kirov
has moved to the year 1940 where it becomes trapped in the world made by its
many interventions in the history, an altered reality. It is important to note
that the ship’s position here
pre-dates
all the action of the first
eight books in the series by a full year, which raises the possibility of
paradox when the officers wonder what will happen to them in a year’s time when
the ship was first supposed to appear in July of 1941.
The opening volume,
Altered
States
, continues the long saga with the ship slowly becoming enmeshed in
the war, now taking sides against the one navy of WWII it has not yet fought in
any of the other books, the Kriegsmarine of Germany. In this alternate history,
however, the world’s navies have all built many of the “what if” ships that
were never built during the war. Britain’s flagship is the powerful G3 Class
battlecruiser HMS
Invincible
. Germany has built powerful new ships from their
Plan Z naval building program, and there are new ships in the French and
Italian navies as well… all as one consequence of
Kirov’s
earlier
actions.
You can enter any of these three
trilogies that may interest you, though your understanding of the characters
and plot will be fullest by simply beginning with book one and reading through
them all! Here now is book 10 in the long saga,
Darkest Hour
.
Part I
Ragnarök
“Axe-time, sword-time, shields are
sundered,
Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;
Nor ever shall men each other spare.
Much do I know, and more can see
Of the fate of the gods, the mighty in fight.”
—Valuspo ~ Nordic Poetic Edda
Chapter 1
Tovey
watched his new flag
staff officer turn and hasten away with his message to the bridge. Yes, he
thought, now you may run. The time is come. All the planning and maneuvering
and deployment was finished now. The bow of HMS
Invincible
was pointed,
the ship’s course set, her guns manned and ready with battle at hand.
The ship had cleared her throat
in the Norwegian campaign, providing shore bombardment briefly, though she
mainly ran with the carriers as their primary covering force against the
possibility of German intervention at sea. Thus far only the Twins had dared to
engage, but now the Germans were bringing out a pair of much stronger ships.
Let us hope we live up to our name, he thought as he took a last look at the
plotting map. Then he straightened his hat, adjusted the fit of his jacket and
started for the bridge himself. He would walk, not run. His order to turn for
battle had already proceeded him on the swift footfalls of Mister Wells. Now he
would follow, a steely calm settling over his mind. It was the witching hour.
“Admiral on the Bridge!”
Captain Bennett was waiting in
his chair in the armored conning tower, his eyes lost in the cups of his field
glasses. HMS
Invincible
was a truly novel design, Britain’s heavyweight
at just under 54,000 long tons full load, she was in fact the heaviest ship by
displacement in the Royal Navy. With three triple turrets mounting 16 inch
guns, she had tremendous firepower and an unusual turret arrangement that saw
two mounted forward of the conning tower, and the third directly behind it,
amidships. This meant her engineering sections and twin funnels were pushed aft
in the latter third of the ship.
Her main armor began at A turret
and stretched to C turret with all of 356mm or 14 inches of hardened steel.
Behind this it thinned to 305mm and eventually tapered to 254mm in the stern. Yet
this gave good cover to the engineering plant and vital propulsion systems.
Even the boiler room and funnels were surrounded by an armored box. With
armored decks between five and eight inches, the ship had a tough shell against
air attack or plunging fire. And the business end of the ship saw turret face
armor of 17.5 inches and 9 to 12 inches on the conning tower. Her anti-torpedo
bulge could withstand a blast from a 340kg warhead. All in all she had better
protection than any other British ship of her day, and the oblique 18 degree
angle of that heavy armor made it even more effective in stopping plunging fire
at longer ranges.
What
Hood
lacked,
Invincible
had in abundance, and to go with it she could hit harder, range farther, and
even had better speed than
Hood
, a truly remarkable design considering
it was conceived in the 1920s. There was only one other ship in the world at
that moment with a more innovative design—
Kirov
, and only the secret
mega ships being built by Japan and Germany,
Yamato
and
Hindenburg
were bigger.
To be standing in the armored
bridge of a ship like this gave one a heady feeling. This is the best we have,
thought Tovey. If I could have hastened the workout of the
King George V
class ships I would dearly love to have them at hand now, but this ship is the
might and sinew of the Royal Navy. We are facing Germany’s newest designs as
well, unproven, but fearsome on paper. Now we will put them to the test. I’m
going to come in at just the right angle, with all guns blazing. We’ll outgun
Bismarck
if we find her, but
Tirpitz
has been reported as well, and that is a
tall order indeed.
There had been no further word
from Admiral Holland on
Hood
, and they were no doubt engaged at this
very moment. Yet that ship was already hit by those damnable
Stukas
off
Graf
Zeppelin
. Tovey nonetheless believed he could still outgun the Germans—if
only he could get
Invincible
to the fight in time. The Twins were also
vectoring in behind him, set to arrive like Blucher at Waterloo… He did not
like the thought of casting himself in Napoleon’s shoes, but there it was.
He was rushing to the scene like
Napoleon’s Old Guard to restore order, but those damnable Twins were on his
heels, and he would have only a brief time of advantage when he came into range
of the heavier Germans ships before those two battlecruisers were nipping at
his flank with their 11 inch guns. Let’s see what C-turret has to say about it,
he thought, turning to Captain Bennett.
“Captain, let us train C-turret on
those two wolves bearing on our flank. Perhaps we can discourage them.”
“Aye sir, that we can. Mister
Connors!”
“Sir!”
“You heard the Admiral. Give the
Twins our calling card.”
“Very good sir.”
Half a minute later the roar of
all three 16-inch guns on the amidships turret shook the ship with their anger
as
Invincible
engaged the shadows lurking to the northwest. Forty
seconds passed and then Tovey heard a jubilant shout, prompting him to raise an
eyebrow as he turned to Captain Bennett.
“Am I to assume we’ve a hole in
one, Captain?”
“Aye sir, right amidships on the
number two ship. Straddled the bastards with the first salvo!”
Tovey knew that was a proverbial
long shot, and a bit of very good luck, but the Twins had done the same when
they crept up on HMS
Glorious
, and now Britain had evened the score when
it came to long range gunnery. The hit was obtained at just over 24,000 yards.
“They’ve had enough of that,
sir,” said Bennett. “Both ships are breaking to the north.”
“I shouldn’t count them out of
the game just yet, Mister Bennett. They’ll undoubtedly slip over the horizon,
but will still be running parallel to our track. Make sure the lookouts are
sharp.”
“Let them peek into the shop
window again, sir, and we’ll give them another black eye.”
They were running full out, and
even the two destroyers in the van,
Fortune
and
Firedrake
, were
laboring to keep up speed at a whisker under 32 knots. This ship is the pride
of the fleet, thought Tovey. She is one of a kind, with no siblings, and there is
nothing like her for raw power and speed in the entire fleet. Look how she just
sent the Twins off with one good stiff jab. She’ll outgun the German
Bismarck
class battleships, and she can outrun them as well, and all with armor every
bit as good as the protection the Germans gave their ships.
He passed a moment of regret,
thinking he should have deployed the ship together with Admiral Holland on
Hood
,
but there was simply too much sea room to cover. At least the two battlegroups
were not too far apart. He’d get there in time, he knew. Last notice from
Hood
had her steering 280, coming towards his own ship now. They could already hear
the distant boom of naval gunfire, rolling like the low rumble of thunder on
the horizon. He expected that the mainmast watch would see the smoke of that
battle any moment now, and the tall spires of
Hood’s
mast soon after.
They had already seen planes on radar all throughout the battle zone as pilots
from
Ark Royal
mixed it up with the Germans off
Graf Zeppelin.
“Air alert!” The call came in
with strident alarm, a bell ringing to underscore the urgency. “Formation low
off the starboard aft quarter!”
Invincible
had four
2-pounder gun mounts, each with ten barrels, the same pom-poms
Hood
had
deployed against the
Stukas
, but this alert was for low flying planes,
and her six 4.1-inch quick firing deck guns could also be brought to bear.
Crews were already at action stations and, as Tovey went to look over his
shoulder at the direction of the sighting, he could see the guns beginning to
train on distant targets.
Not very sporting of Jerry to
jump right in with an air strike again, he thought, but something about this
one didn’t seem to fit. As far as he knew the Germans had not yet deployed a
torpedo plane capable of operating from a carrier. The modified
Stukas
were their only strike asset, and they would certainly not come in this low. He
went to the nearest viewport to have a look and was soon convinced these were
British
Swordfish
. They had been ordered north to look for the German
fleet, and here they were, but at this altitude he had the sickening feeling
they might have mistaken
Invincible
for an enemy ship. He turned
swiftly, with every second counting now.
“Belay that air alert and send up
recognition flags and flares, gentlemen. Those are
Swordfish
off the
Illustrious,
if the mainmast would care to have a better look at them. Mister Wells, kindly
go to the W/T room and see that those planes are vectored northeast on a
heading of 040.”