Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) Read Online Free Page B

remaining, and I pulled it off the line for replenishment two days ago.
It’s in the Sea of Okhotsk with the Admiral Kuznetsov . That’s the last real
fighting ship we have—that, three Uladoly class destroyers and a couple
old NKVD frigates that should have been retired decades ago. I’m not even sure
how they got them running again. I’ve reformed a battlegroup with those ships,
but they will be little more than nice targets for the Americans if we sortie
again.”
    “ Kazan …That’s the new Yasen class boat,” said
Fedorov. “That will do, Admiral. It has a KPM type pressurized water reactor
and can make over 35 knots submerged. It’s just what we need, fast, quiet, and
very deadly.”
    “This young man knows more about my ships than I do, Kamenski.”
The two older men smiled. “Very well, I will see what I can do about Kazan .
Yes, I think this will work out well. We can put the control rods on three
helicopters and fly them out to the Admiral Kuznetsov.”
    “Three helicopters? Why so many?”
    “So that we can be sure at least one of them gets there! The
Japanese are on full alert now, though that damn volcano still has the skies
over Hokkaido covered with ashfall. That said, we should not risk losing all
three control rods in a single helicopter.”
    “I agree,” said Kamenski. “Yes, this would be very wise.”
    “Then after we reach the carrier we can transfer to a smaller boat
for the rendezvous with Kazan . We must do this at night. The Americans
have undoubtedly been looking for this submarine as well, and we must not allow
them to find it. I would not be surprised if they already have a submarine in
the Sea of Okhotsk by now. This war has not gone well for us. If not for the
fact that the Chinese are making such a fuss over Taiwan, and drawing off the
American carrier battlegroups, we would be out of business as a naval force in
the Pacific by now.”
    “Ironic,” said Fedorov. “That is the very thing Karpov thinks he
is going to change in 1908.”
    “Why is it we cannot simply know what has happened by now?” Volsky
looked from Kamenski to Fedorov, his two resident guides where the confounding
prospect of time travel was concerned.
    “I understand what you mean,” said Kamenski, “but remember what I
explained about that still point in time? We are all there, the four of us, but
I think Karpov is there too, and with all the men aboard Kirov . He and
that ship of his are not where they belong. Their very presence in 1908 is
offensive to the flow of fate and time. Yes, they can act and work enormous
changes in the past, as we have seen, but I think they exist and sail in the
eye of the maelstrom. They are in the sea of time, yet in a protected spot, and
things cannot resolve until this whole situation works itself out.”
    “But everything Karpov does should be concluded by now. He should
have been in his grave long ago.”
    “It would seem that way from our perspective, but I do not think
time works that way. She must consider every point of view. Time is not the
nice straight line from point A to point B that you think it is. It is all
twisted and folded about itself and, in fact, any two points on that squiggly
line could meet and be joined. This is why I say we are all together now, in
one place, a nexus point where the lines of fate meet and run through one
another like a Gordian knot, and we sit here trying to figure out how to
untangle it. Karpov is there with us, and we have set events in motion here that
have a strong possibility of impacting what he does—deciding whether he does
anything at all! Therefore I don’t think things have changed yet. The
transformation has not yet occurred, though it might happen at any second. Can
you not feel the tension in the air now?”
    He looked around him as if he could see what he was describing. “It
is not merely because of the looming war. I think time itself is waiting to pass
judgment and read our sentence for the crimes we have