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  “Yes sir.”

  “Glorious is going to be in repair for some time, but I have need of good men at sea right now. I should like to transfer you to HMS Invincible, unless you have objection.”

  “Objection? Why…No sir. None at all.” This was not the time for a moment’s hesitation. “I should be honored to serve in any capacity.” Wells was elated. A battleship! Not just any battleship. This was HMS Invincible, the finest ship in the fleet and truly one of a kind.

  “Good then. We’ll see how you train out in surface operations. You may report to Captain Bennett aboard Invincible tomorrow morning. I understand you and other officers aboard Glorious were awaiting leave, and if this upsets any plans you may have had…” He raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  “I am entirely at your service, Admiral.”

  “Good. Good. Mister Brind will see to the paperwork. Good day, Mister Wells. That will be all.”

  * * *

  The fleet left Scapa Flow the next day on the 14th of June with the battlecruiser squadron in the van. Admiral Tovey led the way aboard HMS Invincible. They would sail all day to reach a point south of Iceland by dawn on the 15th, and there Tovey hovered while he waited on other fleet elements to catch up. Ark Royal had refueled at Scapa Flow and was hastening out to join him, and Admiral Holland had roused Hood from its nap at Liverpool and got her out to sea with Repulse, and was still some 300 miles to the south. The slower battleships Nelson and Rodney were not with the fleet. Instead they were to assume patrol duty east of the Faeroes.

  Tovey had seen to it that the young Lieutenant Commander Wells was included in his Flag Staff for seasoning. “Watch and learn,” he had told him, “but like any good officer, feel free to speak your mind if you have one. Don’t be bothered by these stripes, or even the raw temper I have at times, Mister Wells. I want officers who can take initiative and keep cool, yet critical minds under pressure.”

  Wells promised he would do his very best, but to be there on the bridge of the flagship of the fleet, with the Admiral of that fleet ever present, was an eye opener for him at the outset. He soon saw that Admiral Tovey’s command style was much different than that of Captain D’Oyly-Hughes. Where Hughes had been somewhat irascible and prone to hound the officers and crew, Tovey exhibited that same calm, professional manner that he expected of all those around him.

  He was assigned to work with the Flag Lieutenant, an honorary title given to Commander James Villers, a new man on Tovey’s hastily assembled staff.

  “Ready to flog the sea a bit, Mister Wells?” said Villers.

  “I am, sir, and lucky to be here.”

  Villers was a dark haired, blue-eyed man, tall and aristocratic in bearing, with a stiff posture and a penchant for folding his arms behind his back, as many senior officers often did. Wells never adopted the habit, though his old friend Woodfield said it was a good way to avoid putting one’s hands into his pockets, which was frowned upon.

  “Good show aboard Glorious,” said Villers. “The fleet needs every ship we have now, what with Italy jumping in, the French sitting on the fence, and now Jerry rattling swords again up north. So we’ll go and have a look to see if they really want to mix thing up with the Royal Navy.”

  “They’ll be sorry if they do, sir.”

  “That they will, Wells. That’s the spirit, and you’ll be right in the thick of things here. You’re to be my messenger to the Admiral.”

  “Admiral Tovey, sir?”

  “There’s only one aboard, Mister Wells.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Yes, well I’ll be spending a good deal of time in the plotting room pouring over charts and maps. You’ll be my voice to the bridge and also serve as my liaison to the W/T room.”

  That brought back the memory of that day on Glorious just before she was hit. Wells had been sent as a messenger to the W/T room with the Captain’s sighting order, and that order saved not only his life, but by extension, the life of the ship itself. He hoped nothing of the sort would repeat itself here, though the thought that he would take the wheel of HMS Invincible and lead her in battle briefly crossed his mind. He was wise enough to know that he had a good deal to learn before he should ever contemplate a thing like that, and this was a posting any Lieutenant Commander would lust for, right on the bridge level and in the know. He would see how the ship was maneuvered, and why. He would be privy to every signal and contact made. It was going to be grand.

  “There’s been a good deal of rumor circulating round the mess decks, Wells,” said Villers. “In your position you learn more than most on this ship, but I wouldn’t throw logs on any of those fires, or even set yourself to quash them. The business of the Flag Bridge should be kept under your hat.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “We’ll be making a rendezvous with Ark Royal shortly with Admiral Wells. Any relation?”

  “No sir, it’s just coincidence.”

  “Well perhaps you’ll make Admiral one day yourself. Let’s step into the Flag Plot Room.”

  The two men moved aft to the open hatch where several charts were pinned to the walls and a large central table held a general map depicting the region from Scapa Flow to Greenland. They were surprised to see Admiral Tovey present.

  “Good day, Admiral. I wasn’t aware you were here yet, sir.”

  Villers saluted, with Wells following suit, and Tovey looked up from the chart he had been studying. “A bit musty below in the wardroom, Mister Villers. Ah, I see you have our young Lieutenant Commander there. Step over here, Mister Wells, and we’ll have a look at our situation.”

  “I was just going to brief Mister Wells, sir.”

  “I’ll do the honors.” Tovey handed his Flag Lieutenant an Admiralty message decrypt. “Have a look at that, if you please.”

  Villers read the message quickly, raising a single eyebrow as he did. “The Twins, sir? Out to sea from Trondheim…Well I can’t say as it surprises me.”

  “And the Germans will know that we are out to sea as well the next time they have a look at the Flow. So, gentlemen, here’s where things stand. I’m posting Nelson and Rodney as you see here.” He pointed to the situation map where two small wooden models indicated the battleships, held in place on the metal tabletop with embedded magnets.

  “Rodney will watch the passage between the Flow and the Faeroes. Nelson to backstop the cruiser patrol in the Iceland-Faeroes Gap. That leaves us with the Battlecruiser division, the fast hounds. I intend to take up a position here about 200 kilometers south of Reykjavik. From there we can move to interdict the Denmark Strait easily enough, or return to the Iceland-Faeroes passage is needed.”

  “This message doesn’t indicate any sailing date for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, sir.”

  “It does not, and that means the we cannot yet plot their farthest on. Unless we back-date to their last known sighting, and I’m afraid that was over 48 hours ago. So this is where Ark Royal will come in handy. It was set to pay a visit to Trondheim, but I recalled it two days ago. The carrier should join us in 48 hours.” He looked at the Lieutenant Commander now. “Where would you post your air search, Mister Wells?”

  Stepping up to the table, Wells took a long look. “If I recall correctly, sir, Ark Royal will be carrying a mix of Swordfish and Blackburn Skuas. I’d want planes in the air an hour before we reached our expected cruising station and flying a twelve plane fan approximately here, sir.” He indicated a section of the Denmark Strait as it approached the ragged icy coast of Greenland. “The ice floes peaked in April and have been thinning for weeks now. That gives the Germans a decent channel.”

  “A reasonable deployment, Mister Wells. We shall have to see what your namesake on the Ark Royal decides, but I may just pass along the recommendation.” He gave Wells a wink, turning to receive another dispatch from the W/T room.

  “It seems the Admiralty is wanting to keep me well read today,” said Tovey. “Carry on, gentlemen. I mean to visit Captain Bennett for a moment.”
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br />   The two men saluted, and the Admiral did indeed pass on a suggestion to Ark Royal on the search pattern Wells had chosen. As it happened the advice of his new staff officer was in accord with that of the Vice Admiral, Fleet Aircraft Carriers, and this particular search was going to troll up much more in the net than any of them expected.

  Chapter 14

  The news from Chief Dobrynin was not encouraging. Beyond the difficulty he experienced in handling the new control rods he was starting to see a basic problem in the reactor itself. Now he was meeting with the Admiral and Fedorov to discuss the situation. Kamenski was invited, but he had not yet arrived. Knowing he was going to be the bearer of bad news, Dobrynin began his briefing.

  “Something in the makeup of the materials in this latest control rod is not harmonizing well with the reactor, sir,” he began. “I made a close inspection of this new control rod after the procedure was concluded, and I began to see signs of unusual wear, micro-fissures, tiny cracks. It is very unusual for a new rod to exhibit these conditions. Apparently that last attempt to displace in time placed a great deal of stress on both the reactor and the control rod.”

  “The fact that we moved in space rather than time was rather alarming,” said Fedorov. “We did move in time, but only for the briefest moment.”

  “Yes, I could hear it,” said Dobrynin. “On all previous shifts the sound moved in the direction of our displacement. If we were shifting forward into the future there was always a rising chorus, and for shifts into the past it always descended. This may sound strange to you, but it is a very subtle harmonic that I can hear in the system as it operates.”

  “Those ears of your served us well,” said Volsky.

  “Yet not this time, Admiral. The sound attempted to rise, but it was as if it struck a barrier of some kind. The sound just quavered in a long, steady timbre. Then it simply faded.”

  “This does not sound good,” said Fedorov. “Given the possibility that this could happen again, and the ship could find itself marooned on dry land, I would not advise we attempt to use this control rod again until we know what is happening.”

  “I am in agreement,” said Volsky. “We have not given much thought to how these time displacements have affected the structural integrity of the ship itself. Beyond that, we are still bearing the scars of many engagements. I spoke with chief Byko to get a comprehensive report on the ship’s condition. We have no battle bridge, damage to the fantail, the hull is patched amidships, we have damage on our main mast, and now we have lost the Horse Jaw sonar system. Byko believes we need an extended time in port, a week or ten days so that he can complete repairs to the hull. In this light, damage to the main reactor system is the last thing we need. I cannot risk this.”

  “It's not serious at the moment, sir,” said Dobrynin. “I noted unusual flux readings in the core, and they were not easy to control this time. The rod is doing something it was not designed for, and it did not seem to bear up well under the stress. If this rod were tested in a live reactor after production, I believe it would have been discarded and destroyed.”

  “Inspector General Kapustin has told me that that these last two control rods have a much higher quantity of the material mined along the stony Tunguska River. It could be that the effects we experienced with Rod-25 require a very precise measure of this material in order to work.”

  “That's the problem, sir,” said Fedorov. “We really don't know what we're dealing with here. We don't know what this material is, we don't know where it came from, and we don't really know how to control it in spite of chief Dobrynin's best effort. It's a miracle we have been able to move in time as we have, but that may have largely been the work of the unique properties of Rod-25.”

  “So it is fair to say that our first live field test of these additional rods has failed.” The Admiral rubbed a cramp from his neck, stretching to ease the fatigue in his shoulders. “We could try the third rod, but something tells me it may produce similar effects. Our situation here is far from certain, and we could have the whole Royal Navy after us again in a few days for all I know. It would be good to know we could leave this war, but who knows where we might end up if we try this again.”

  “Agreed, sir. Perhaps we could do some testing under reduced power. But I would like to give the reactors a full inspection before we initiate this procedure again.”

  Volsky nodded, thinking the situation over. “Now here we are in the North Atlantic of 1940, and if experience is any guide we are likely to come into conflict with someone here, the Americans, the British, even the Germans. Our problem remains as it was. There are no friendly ports in this world for us, and any ship we meet at sea could be an enemy. The ship is broken and needs repair, and the world we sail in now is also broken. I'm afraid it may be beyond our capacity to do anything about that, Mister Fedorov. Karpov thought he could shape the days ahead to his liking, that he was invincible, but the world is much bigger than anything he could hold in his arms. It may be all we can do to survive here, and to do so we are going to have to change enemies into friends. What have you learned about the geopolitical situation here, Fedorov?”

  “You are correct sir, this is not the same world we left. Russia is fragmented into at least three major states, and two of those are at war with one another. Soviet Russia, centered on Moscow, is presently engaged in conflict with the Orenburg Republic in the heartland. Apparently the Siberian state remains neutral, and all three states are still neutral in so far as the war is concerned, but that may change.”

  “What have you learned about these three Russian states? Who controls them?”

  “Something very shocking has happened, sir, and I must now confess that I believe I may be responsible for it.”

  “You are responsible? What do you mean, Mister Fedorov?”

  “Admiral, the Soviet Union is now being led by Sergei Kirov, not Josef Stalin.” He left that out there seeing the reaction on all their faces.

  “You have confirmed this?”

  “Kirov was mentioned by name in several news feeds, so he was not assassinated in 1934, and he apparently prevailed in the power struggle against Stalin and took control of the Red Faction in the civil war. I have no hard information on that yet. In fact I have found no reference to Stalin whatsoever in the radio intercepts we've been monitoring. It is as if he never lived.”

  “That would indeed make a colossal difference. But how could you be responsible for that?”

  “Remember, Admiral, I met Sergei Kirov as a young man in 1908. I foolishly told him to be wary of Stalin. In fact I even whispered the month and year of his assassination and told him to beware. I don’t know what I was thinking to do such a stupid thing. Perhaps it was that I always admired him, and wondered what the Soviet state might have become under his rule and free from the shadow of Stalin.”

  “You are suggesting Kirov had something to do with Stalin's demise?”

  “Quite possibly, sir. It does appear obvious that Kirov won the power struggle between him and Stalin, and that alone is quite remarkable.”

  “What about this Orenburg Federation you speak of?”

  “It seems to have initially formed around Denikin and the White Russian movement that opposed the Bolsheviks, but from what I can gather Denikin is not empowered there either. A man named Volkov is controlling that government, and his name is mentioned prominently in almost every newsfeed we get.”

  The Admiral raised an eyebrow at that. “Volkov? I have heard this name… Yes, that was the name of the intelligence officer that accompanied the Inspector General. Probably coincidence.”

  “Yes, I remember now, sir. But he should be safely lost in the year 2021 and of no concern to us.”

  “That may not be the case,” came a voice, and they turned to see Pavel Kamenski at the door of the briefing room. “Forgive my tardiness, Admiral, but I have just come from a little chat with your radio operator. I was equally curious about the state of our homeland, as you all are, and thought I
would listen in briefly to Radio Moscow. Mister Fedorov is correct. Most of the news concerning Orenburg does seem to revolve around this nebulous figure known as Volkov. It may be a coincidence as you suggest, Admiral, but I must tell you that in order to remove the man as a potential threat to your operation at the Primorskiy Engineering Center, I sent this Volkov off on a little wild goose chase. When you disappeared, Mister Fedorov, there were only so many ways one could leave Vladivostok. We had men watching the airports and harbors, and that left the railroad. So, Admiral, just to get him out of the way I ordered this Volkov to search the entire route of the Siberian rail line to look for your Mister Fedorov. Of course I knew he would find nothing, because I already suspected there was another dimension to this secret operation of yours. In time I decided to reach an accommodation with you to see if I could help sort things out. So I sent the Inspector General to meet with you, Admiral, and here we are, one big happy family now. Yet after this amazing revelation concerning that back stairway in the railway inn at Ilanskiy, I now begin to hear more than I wish to in the name Volkov.”

  Fedorov stood in stunned silence for a moment, then he spoke, his voice laden with alarm. “Do you believe he may have found that stairway and moved into the past?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind.” Kamenski came in, closing the door behind him, and took a seat. “From what you have described that fissure in time connected 1908 with the year 1942. What we do not know, however, is whether that fissure continues on into the future. It could be that someone coming up those stairs could move beyond the year 1942, or even that someone coming down those stairs from the year 2021 would find himself in a most unusual place.”

  “I had never considered that,” said Fedorov. “The fact that I was able to move back and forth as I did was astounding enough. I did often wonder who else may have come up or down those stairs over the decades, and whether that stairway still opened a strange portal to the past, even in our day.”