Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (47 page)

Then the Admiral sailed resolutely
east to find his island, and the crew took a much needed shore leave on a
mostly deserted speck in paradise, to their great satisfaction.

Days later they made a careful
inspection of the ship, held long discussions with the crew about what had
happened, and let it generally be known that the whole event was to be
forgotten and never spoken of again. They were a select legion of ghosts and
goblins now, and the crew of
Kirov
became an elite and exemplary unit,
never breaking ranks on the secret pact they had made with one another. What
would anyone believe if they ever attempted to explain it with the truth of
what had happened? They would be thought insane. As the ship approached
Vladivostok they purged their logs, video footage and anything else that might
have left an odd fingerprint of time on their intrepid ship. It was said to be
a residual effect of the “
Orel
incident,” the files damaged by EMP burst
that had darkened the ship’s systems for many days.

Fedorov secreted away a digital copy
of the log books in a small memory key, and also carefully removed the
newspapers they had found on Malus Island. A clever man, with much foresight,
he went to the ship’s library and quietly “took care” of any volume that might
reveal a history that might not be in accord with the record written on the
world they were returning to. He did keep a very few cherished volumes,
however, in a dark and secret place. In particular, he coveted his old copy of
the
Chronology of the War at Sea
, for he found its version of the
history was markedly different from the narrative described in the very same
book as published in the “new world.”

Admiral Volsky thought he might retire
some years after his return and lived out the remainder of his days on one of
the Pacific islands he had yearned for all his life. Vladimir Karpov also found
that idea appealing, tired in the service of war. He thought he might slip
quietly away into a life of his own, a changed man, and some years later look
for a wife, having finally found the capacity to love. Doctor Zolkin would leave
the ship In Vladivostok, and take up a residency in the Naval hospital there.
Many of the ship’s officers and crew also found they wanted nothing more to do
with
mishmanny
, missiles and the military.
They had seen all too much of the fire and heat of war, and now sought out the
better things of life, meaningful work, good friends, good food and drink, a
love if they could find one, and time with a good book, or in a garden.

There was only one loose end that they
could not account for, though Anton Fedorov spent many long hours trying. What
had happened to Chief Gennadi Orlov? Where did he go? What effect, if any, did
he have on the  history that Fedorov could now spend long quiet years
re-reading, re-learning, much to his delight? His curiosity and diligence would
become a saving grace for the world, though he did not yet know that as he
stood on the weather deck when the ship first returned to Vladivostok harbor.
Kirov
was coming home, but it would not be the last time she would see the fire of
war.

As it turned out, fate was not so kind
to Orlov. Yes, he found a new life as well after he jumped from the KA-226 that
day,  yet it was not the life he had imagined. Time, fate, and the British
Special Intelligence Service had other plans for him. But that, dear reader, is
another tale.

Thank you so much for reading this
one!

- John Schettler

The Kirov Saga Continues…

Men Of War –
By John Schettler

It is late 1942
and the war rages on, but buried deep
in the hidden rooms of Bletchley Park are files and photographs of a strange
ship that bedeviled the world’s navies for two years, and then vanished. The
men in Whitehall and Bletchley Park have not forgotten what they learned about
this ship, which left behind more than nightmare visions and blackened ship hulls.
There was a man, Gennadi Orlov, leaping to his freedom in a fit of jubilant
violence—with a Glock pistol that would not be designed or produced for nearly
60 years…
and one thing more…

Now the true nature of the threat
posed by the ship they had come to call
Geronimo
is finally revealed to
the dogged analysts at Hut 4, and if one ship appeared to challenge the power
of the British Empire, when might the next one come? A ‘Great War’ is coming,
this they now know, a war so devastating and final that they must do everything
in their power to prevent it. Men have died that should have lived, and others
walk the earth who should have perished. What might they and their successive
generations write upon the tattered pages of history shorn by
Kirov’s
private war on war itself? The realization is so startling, and so frightening,
that a secret organization is established at Bletchley Park known simply as
“The Watch.”

Join the brilliant genius Alan Turing
and Admiral John Tovey as they now lead the hunt for
Kirov
into darkened
corners of history in an exciting intrigue of spymasters and sinister plots to
control the course of all future history. In so doing they find that one other
man has now become aware of their operations, in a future they can but dimly
perceive—Anton Fedorov, who has become obsessed with the mystery of
Kirov’s
disappearance and the secret of “Rod-25.” Then something very strange begins
happening to crew members who served aboard
Kirov
during that fateful
voyage, and it changes everything.

The Kirov saga continues as Anton
Fedorov joins with Admiral Leonid Volsky, and Captain Vladimir Karpov in a
desperate effort to solve the mystery and heal the breach in time that was torn
by their own bloodied hands in the heat of naval combat.

Men Of War
, by John Schettler

Coming from the Writing Shop Press

Please visit www.writingshop.ws for
publication date.

*
* *

“Every book, every volume you see
here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it
and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time
someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”

―
Carlos Ruiz
Zafón
,
The Shadow of the Wind

OTHER
BOOKS BY JOHN SCHETTLER

The Meridian Series

Book I:
Meridian
– A Novel In Time

ForeWord Magazine’s “Book of the Year”

2002 Silver Medal Winner for Science
Fiction

The adventure begins on the eve of the
greatest experiment ever attempted—Time travel. As the project team meets for
their final mission briefing, the last member, arriving late, brings startling
news. Catastrophe threatens and the fate of the Western World hangs in the
balance. But a visitor from another time arrives bearing clues that will carry
the hope of countless generations yet to be born, and a desperate plea for
help.

Book II:
Nexus Point

The project team members slowly come
to the realization that a “Time War” is being waged by unseen adversaries in
the future. The quest for an ancient fossil leads to an amazing discovery
hidden in the Jordanian desert. A mysterious group of assassins plot to decide
the future course of history, just one battle in a devious campaign that will
span the Meridians of time, both future and past. Exciting Time travel
adventure in the realm of the Crusades!

Book III:
Touchstone

When Nordhausen follows a hunch and
launches a secret time jump mission on his own, he uncovers an operation being
run by unknown adversaries from the future. The incident has dramatic
repercussions for Kelly Ramer, his place in the time line again threatened by
paradox. Kelly’s fate is somehow linked to an ancient Egyptian artifact, once
famous the world over, and now a forgotten slab of stone. The result is a
harrowing mission to Egypt during the time frame of Napoleon’s 1799 invasion.

Book IV:
Anvil of Fate

The cryptic ending of Touchstone
dovetails perfectly into
this
next volume as Paul insists that
Kelly has survived, and is determined to bring him safely home. Only now is the
true meaning of the stela unearthed at Rosetta made apparent—a grand scheme to
work a catastrophic transformation of the Meridians, so dramatic and profound
in its effect that the disaster at Palma was only a precursor. The history
leads them to the famous Battle of Tours where Charles Martel strove to stem
the tide of the Moorish invaders and save the west from annihilation. Yet more
was at stake on the Anvil of Fate than the project team first realized, and
they now pursue the mystery of two strange murders that will decide the fate of
Western Civilization itself!

Book V:
Golem 7

Nordhausen is back with new research
and his hand on the neck of the new terrorist behind the much feared “Palma
Event.” Now the project team struggles to discover how and where the Assassins
have intervened to restore the chaos of Palma, and their search leads them on
one of the greatest naval sagas of modern history—the hunt for the battleship
Bismarck
.
For some unaccountable reason the fearsome German battleship was not sunk on
its maiden voyage, and now the  project team struggles to put the ship
back in its watery grave. Meet Admiral John Tovey and Chief of Staff “Daddy”
Brind as the Royal Navy begins to receive mysterious intelligence from an agent
known only as “Lonesome Dove.” Exciting naval action and top notch research
characterize this fast paced alternate history of the sinking of the
Bismarck
.

Note:
Golem 7 is the book that led
author John Schettler to continue his exploration of alternate history naval
fiction in the breakthrough Kirov series trilogy.

Alternate Military History (Naval)

Kirov

The battlecruiser
Kirov
, is the
most power surface combatant that ever put to sea. Built from the bones of all
four prior
Kirov
Class battlecruisers, she is updated with Russia’s most
lethal weapons, given back her old name, and commissioned in the year 2020. A
year later, with tensions rising to the breaking point between Russia and the
West,
Kirov
is completing her final missile trials in the Arctic Sea
when a strange accident transports her to another time. With power no ship in
the world can match, much less comprehend, she must decide the fate of nations
in the most titanic conflict the world has ever seen—WWII.

Kirov II
–
Cauldron of Fire

Kirov
crosses the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean Sea when she suddenly slips in time again and re-appears a year
later, in August of 1942. Beset with enemies on every side and embroiled in one
of the  largest sea battles of the war, the ship races for Gibraltar and
the relatively safe waters of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the brilliant Alan
Turing has begun to unravel the mystery of what this ship could be, but can he
convince the Admiralty? Naval action abounds in this fast paced second volume
of the
Kirov
series trilogy.

Kirov III
  - Pacific Storm

Admiral Tovey’s visit to Bletchley
Park soon reaches an astounding conclusion when the battlecruiser
Kirov
vanishes once again to a desolate future. Reaching the Pacific the ship’s
officers and crew soon learn that
Kirov
has once again moved in time.
Now First Officer Anton Fedorov is shocked to finally learn the true source of
the great variation in time that has led to the devastated future they have
come from and the demise of civilization itself. They are soon discovered by a Japanese
fleet and the ship now faces its most dangerous and determined challenge ever
when they are stalked by the Japanese 5th Carrier Division and eventually
confronted by a powerful enemy task force led by the battleship
Yamato,
and an admiral determined to sink this phantom ship, or die trying. In this
amazing continuation to the popular
Kirov
series, the most powerful
ships ever conceived by two different eras clash in a titanic final battle that
could decide the fate of nations and the world itself.

Historical Fiction

Taklamakan ~
The Land Of No Return

It was one of those moments on the
cusp of time, when Tando Ghazi Khan, a simple trader of tea and spice, leads a
caravan to the edge of the great desert, and becomes embroiled in the struggle
that will decide the fate of an empire and shake all under heaven and earth. A
novel of the Silk Road, the empire of Tibet clashes with T’ang China on the
desolate roads that fringe the Taklamakan desert, and one man holds the key to
victory in a curious map but from a trader in the Bazaars of Kashgar.