“Greetings Captain Gromyko, and all the crew of Kazan,” came Volsky’s deep voice. “We have been waiting for you. It appears our new control rod is only a distant cousin to the one we lent you, and we were never able to leave here. So we did not have to see the desolation you describe again. We have all seen it before, and now we set our minds on how we can prevent it. You come to us at a most critical time, and it is good that you are here.”
“Where are you, sir?” asked Gromyko.
“Believe it or not we are now in the Atlantic off Reykjavik, and I think we must now find a way to meet at sea.”
“That’s a long way off,” said Gromyko.
“We will come south to meet you half way off the Cape of Good Hope. Fedorov says it will take you nearly 12 days at 30 knots. Is that a problem?”
“I think we can manage it, sir. The boat is in fine shape.
“Excellent. We cannot discuss matters here, even on this encrypted channel, but there is much to learn. Try to be as discrete as possible. We will sail south to meet you, and then we drink together here in my ready room!”
“Very good sir. We’ll get underway at once.” Gromyko turned to his navigator now. “Get me an ETA on Cape Town by way of the Singapore Strait.”
Two old friends were about to meet.
The night was black and the sea was uncommonly calm when the sail of Kazan broke the surface. The submarine emerged from the dark waters like a behemoth, a fighting Orca the like of which this world had never seen. Above, sailing just a few hundred yards to the east, the battlecruiser Kirov waited to greet its comrade in arms. It had been six long months for Volsky and Fedorov, yet only a matter of a few weeks for Gromyko. The Matador was finally back, and he made arrangements to visit Kirov in a launch sent over from the battlecruiser.
Admiral Volsky was there at the gunwale when the Captain came aboard with his executive officer Belanov, giving him a hearty handshake.
“We are well met,” said Volsky. “The last time we gathered like this was to determined how we would plot the demise of this very ship, and our wayward Captain Karpov. Now we have other matters to decide.”
“Well Gromyko,” said Fedorov. “I must say that your submarine is a most welcome sight. We have been listening for you all these many months.”
That was hard for Gromyko to grasp, as it had only been a few days time from his perspective. The two vessels had decided to meet at sea off the southern coast of the Cape of Good Hope. Gromyko had surfaced and come aboard Kirov for this initial meeting, glad to see the Admiral again and feel the burden he had been carrying on his shoulders lighten a bit.
“This is home now, Gromyko,” said Volsky. “We have sailed here before; fought here to try and prevent what you saw when you returned to our old world. It seems we have more to do.”
“It does, sir.”
“First I must commend you for coming back for us.”
“That was an easy choice, Admiral. The radiation count was very bad. We had to get below 200 meters to feel comfortable.”
Volsky nodded gravely.
“Well this world has not yet suffered the blight of nuclear weapons. They are all busy enough using the conventional ones. This is World War Two, Gromyko, the Great Patriotic War, but things are considerably different now. Our homeland is fractured, and the only part of it that resembles anything I would fight for now belongs to Sergei Kirov, the man this ship is named after.”
“Sergei Kirov?”
“The living man,” Volsky smiled. “We have even met with him. He has agreed to give us a permanent base at Severomorsk, or at least the place where the base was built in our day. It isn’t much yet, but we are working on it. At least we have warm quarters there for shore leave, good food, a taste of home.”
“All of my men will be looking forward to that,” said Gromyko.
“Yes, but there is much we have to discuss. A great deal has happened since we last parted company. Mister Fedorov here can brief you in detail, but the short end of it is that we are stuck here, and so we have decided to stay put for a while and see what we can do to prevent the destruction you have just come from.”
“That was our thought as well, sir, and the reason we tried that control rod again.”
“I am glad you chose this course, Gromyko. I had hoped you would see this as your only option. That said, this is no paradise. As to this war, we have decided we cannot just sail about and try to avoid contact here. This war consumed the entire world, well named, so we have taken sides. I have kept the missiles in the silos of late, but that may soon change.”
He told Gromyko of the meeting with Sergei Kirov, and what was decided there, and the newly formed alliance between Russia and England. The news that their homeland was fragmented and locked in civil war was jarring enough, but then Volsky lowered his voice, his tone dark and serious.
