“What you must understand now, General, is that this history may not repeat itself. There is no united Russia. Even if Sergie Kirov is inclined to join with you now, Ivan Volkov is not, and the Siberians are a wild card that could figure heavily in the outcome.”
“This Captain of yours, what was his name again?”
“Karpov.”
“Yes, well could you talk some sense into the man?”
“Possibly, yet Karpov is a man of dark ambition. At the moment that appetite has led to his conflict with Ivan Volkov and Orenburg-a Federation that never existed in our history. Don’t you see now how dangerous the knowledge we possess is? Volkov obviously used that knowledge to achieve the position he has. Our wayward Captain Karpov has done the same. And both men know full well how all this ended once. It may be that Volkov sees advantage now in his alliance with Hitler, but realize how dangerous that is. Orenburg controls 80 % of the oil that Soviet Russia needed to prosecute its war-the very same oil Hitler coveted, which was one reason he invaded Russia in the first place.”
“Yes, I don’t have to be a mind reader or man from tomorrow to figure that much.”
“So you see, the Soviet Russia today under Kirov is in a very serious and dangerous position. At the moment, there is still a cautious neutrality between Germany and the Soviets, even though Kirov has publically signed an accord with Great Britain. There is fighting on the Volga, and in the Caucasus, and none of that occurred in our history. Kirov’s army is on the offensive, but you, yourself, know the bitter tides of war.”
“I do indeed.”
“Exactly, and if the Soviets are defeated…”
Fedorov did not need to say anything more. He could see that O’Connor now appreciated the gravity and the magnitude of all that lay before them. He nodded grimly, but then looked up, another question in his eye.
“Indulge me one step further, if you would, Captain Fedorov. I have come to gather that this grand alliance you spoke of was short lived. This war you speak of in your time, the war you are trying to prevent… Your country was our enemy?”
“Sadly, this is the case. Soviet Russia and the West never found any true harmony after the war. There were decades of guarded watch, on both sides. We called it the Cold War, as no open conflict occurred, though both sides maintained armies at the ready.”
“Yes.” Kinlan had been listening to all this, and now he finally spoke. “This very brigade stood a long watch in Germany as part of an allied force facing down the Russians-and with German troops as our allies, if you can fancy that.”
“German troops?” O’Connor raised an eyebrow at that. “I see the future holds a good deal more than we might expect.”
“It does,” said Fedorov. “But the enmity that separated our two nations need not repeat, any more than the history governing your own personal fate has-though I might advise you to watch where you are driving in the days ahead, General O’Connor.”
O’Connor smiled at that. “Then you have come here to try and mend fences and set things right?”
“No, our presence here was a complete accident. We have been trying to get back to our own time ever since we arrived, but it seems time had business for us here, and so here we stay.”
“But you say you moved about from one year to the next?” Now it was Kinlan’s time to look for answers. “How did you manage that?”
Fedorov had not told them everything. He indicated that their position in time remained unstable, but said nothing of Rod-25, or the stairway at Ilanskiy. He anticipated this question as well, but knew that his best answer was to simply say they did not know.
“We’re as much in the dark as you are, General. In fact, we truly don’t know what really caused all this to happen. It’s a mystery I could guess at, and we are gathering clues as we go along, but I can’t say I have put all the pieces together.” That was true enough, he thought.
“But you say you saw the outcome of the war-our war-in 2021? How was that possible? How did you get back there?”
“As I have said, our position in time was unstable. We moved forward again, like a rock skipping off a pond I suppose, but then fell back again. On one of those skips, I think we arrived at a future time beyond the onset of that war, and we saw the utter devastation of the entire world-our world. Then we fell back again, and now that we are here we decided to try and do something about that. It started with the hand of friendship we extended to Great Britain. That grand alliance has to begin somewhere, does it not? Perhaps this time we can hold it together.”
“Good enough,” said O’Connor. “Any man who’ll sail and fight with Admiral John Tovey is a friend in my book. And as for you, General Kinlan, I don’t think there’s any question where you and your men will stand in this fight.”
“None sir. I signed on to fight for the Crown, no matter who’s wearing it at the moment.”
