Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) Read Free Page B

the
Russians I suppose, but not by any Russian engineer alive in 1942, that I can
assure you.”
    “But why, Turing? What are they here
for? Was this ship sent here deliberately? How could it possibly happen? Time
travel is a thing for fanciful writers to bandy about.”
    “We may probably never know the how or
why of it all. But we do know the facts we have witnessed, Admiral. The ship
was here, then it vanished and appeared in the Med a year later. That’s why we
never saw it waving at us in the Straits of Gibraltar or Suez. It was somewhere
else, moving in time , Admiral. Then it vanishes at St. Helena and
re-appears 7,800 miles away overnight! Again, it could only do so by moving in time ,
or possibly through some higher dimension. We may never know this either.”
    “Have they come here for a purpose?
This is a warship. Were they sent here with some mission? After all, the
history of this period is fairly critical, and as I think on it now, this ship
was making a beeline right for the conference between Churchill and Roosevelt
at Argentia Bay, and it bloody well blasted anything that tried to stop it, the
American Task Force 16 getting the worst of it.”
    “What you say makes a great deal of
sense, Admiral,” said Turing. “Can you imagine that atomic weapon falling at
Argentia Bay and killing both the Prime Minister and the American President in
one fell swoop?”
    “Believe me, I’ve had nightmares about
it, Turing. The Government has had nightmares about it ever since, though now I
think we can safely say that the Germans don’t have these weapons after all—not
the naval rockets or the warhead that was so terrible to behold. You should
have seen it, Professor. It was rather chilling.”
    “And again, now this question of why
we have seen no other deployment of these rockets by the Germans in a long year
makes perfect sense. They never had them! Oh they’re working on designs of
their own now, but not like the rockets that have been pounding the fleet, eh?”
    Tovey sighed, his eyes searching,
concerned. “I had a perfect opportunity to see just how many rockets this ship
had left, Turing, and I let this devil go. Had it by the tail and let it slip
away.”
    “That may have been the wisest course,
sir,” said Turing earnestly. “If you had fought your battle, and lived through
it, then we might not have come to this conclusion here today.”
    “It’s just that the man claimed to
want nothing more to do with our war, as he put it—this Captain Nemo. He said
he was only trying to get his ship and crew home. I wonder if this whole affair
is some kind of macabre accident?”
    “That may, in fact, be the simple
truth of the matter,” Turing suggested. “Perhaps they are as bewildered about
all this as we are. Perhaps the ship does find itself here by accident, and has
not been sent here for some darker purpose. But one thing now looms as a most
grave and dire threat either way. The presence of this ship has surely
changed the course of events, sir. That engagement in the North Atlantic, the
use of precision rocketry, atomic weapons…I’m afraid this ship has opened
Pandora’s Box, Admiral Tovey. I am aware, as you may now be, that His Majesty’s
government has undertaken to disperse its leadership assets all across the
Kingdom, and has intensified several projects involving high level physics…
It’s as if they were preparing for something they fear might come—something to
do with these weapons this ship has so ably demonstrated.”
    “I can’t say I find that prospect
comforting,” said Tovey.
    “Yes, and consider this…Surely these
engagements would have never been fought in the Atlantic or the Med were it not
for the strange presence of this ship. Why, we’ve canceled the planned air raid
on Kirkenes and Petsamo, pulled Force Z off Operation Pedestal early, canceled
Operation Jubilee, delayed the Torch landings. Those decisions must have had
some impact on the course of the war.