“There’s no one on your right, Sergeant,” he said. “But from the sound of things there’s a lot of action on the left flank. Follow me!”
They pushed on through the tree line, then skirted the rail line as it made a wide sweeping arc south and curved up towards the town center. Now he began to recognize the place again, for he and Zykov had searched a long hour for Fedorov when he had first gone missing here, though that seemed ages ago. Yes, thought Troyak, this is where we slapped that smart ass NKVD Lieutenant around, and made him clean out those box cars with his squad. No trains here today, and maybe no gulags further east either.
The place looked strangely empty, devoid of life and haggard with neglect. Ilanskiy was no longer a way station for Stalin’s prison trains. Stalin was dead.
Troyak saw the big airship come about, whistling to Chenko when he saw his men come up. “RPG-30!” He yelled, pointing at the airship. Chenko whistled and his squad soon had the weapon in action, which was a man portable 105mm anti-tank weapon that was so good it had come to be called the “Abrams killer.”
“Put one more round into that aft gondola and silence those guns.” Troyak pointed, and the RPG was quickly deployed, a light weight shoulder fired weapon that was designed to defeat reactive armor by firing a decoy rocket ahead of the main shaped charge. The RPG-30 could blast through 650mm of armor. It could smash through the side armor of the toughest battleship, and the zeppelin would pose no challenge in that regard. So Chenko disabled the decoy and instead selected a special long range thermobaric round that relied on the oxygen in the air to create a much enhanced explosion and fire, with a very strong shock wave.
The airship was about 500 meters above them, just within the 600 meter range of this special round. It blasted into the aft gondola, exploded, and blew it clean away, along with both 76mm gun mounts and the number five and six engines in the bargain. The sustained blast wave was so violent that it also blew away much of the duralumin frame above the gondola, and ignited a fire that would burn the Oskemen to a torrid death. The nose of the airship canted upwards as the fire consumed its tail. Fire and shock had ruptured most of the aft gas bags, and the higher buoyancy in the nose quickly pulled the ship’s front end up.
The Siberian squad that had come up with Troyak’s men gaped in awe at the sight of the massive airship in raging flames above, black smoke clouding out like sable blood. Only the two good engines on the forward bridge gondola were still running, and they slowly dragged the burning hulk of the airship northwest over the open ground beyond the village, where it began to fall. They saw long rope lines extending down from the undamaged nose segment, and men clinging to them, hoping to reach the ground before the blazing wreck of the ship as the Oskemen fell to its doom.
“Alright!” Troyak shouted at the Siberian Sergeant. “Take your men across the rail yard and work your way west. That’s your fight now. We’ll hold the town center.”
His manner was so commanding that the Siberians immediately obeyed, their rifle squads rushing across the rail yard and into the town beyond. Troyak smiled. Now to see what is happening at that damn railway inn.
Chapter 14
Troyak led his Marines swiftly on, racing past squat warehouses by the rail yard and into the cluster of small dilapidated houses at the edge of the town center. The railway inn was another two or three blocks, and he stopped to reorganize his squads, barking sharp orders to the men.
“Weapons teams here! Set up your AGS-30 here!” This was the belt fed automatic grenade launcher with a high fire rate 30 round drum. It would stand in for the lack of a mortar team, and they had a full pack of extra ammo drums to lay down some good sustained barrages. Troyak pointed out the direction of fire. “Right there,” he said. “Make your range about 800 meters. Rifle squad, on me! Demolition teams ready! Zykov! Follow me in!”
The assault rifle squads of five men each moved out, the sixth man was a demolition expert, and the seventh stayed behind with the heavy weapons to fire on Troyak’s order. The men moved with expert swiftness, racing from the lee of one house to the next in brief rushes covered by at least two men on overwatch at all times.
Up ahead Troyak saw a building labeled “Secondary Boarding School Number 1,” and he remembered it from his last visit to the town. School was out today, and there had been no classes in session here for many months. Beyond this place lay the railway inn, so he signaled for a silent approach.
“Zykov, take your squad around the right and through that wooded park behind the inn. Signal me when you are in position. You men, follow me.”
He was through the back doorway to the school building and inside, intending to get a good look at his objective across the street before he committed his men further. He reached a window and peered cautiously around the edge. There it was, with the same quaint sign he remembered: Rail Crew’s Holiday House. It was here that Fedorov had first stumbled down that back stairway, and the iconic figure of the young Sergei Kirov had come up after him. It was here that Ivan Volkov had vanished in the year 2021 in his hot pursuit of Fedorov, so close on his trail in space, yet eighty years off in time.
The railway inn was the hinge of fate that day, for that dark stairwell was a portal to distant times where a knowing man could place his hands on levers that would move the decades and reshape the contours of all modern history.
Now Troyak recalled his orders. He was to take the building and report back to Admiral Volsky on Kirov for final orders. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. They had tried the radio several times and though they could still raise the Narva, they could not get through to Kirov. He put a man on the radio and told him to keep trying.
Now he had to decide. Do I go down those steps to look for this man, Volkov? What in God’s name will happen here if I find him? First things first. Secure this inn. He could see that the entrance was guarded by three men, and he knew there were probably more inside.
The sound of gunfire raged beyond the inn, and he knew the Siberians were hard pressed now. Angered by the fiery loss of their only ride home, the Grey Legionnaires were pressing their attack with fierce abandon. Troyak stuck his head out the front school door and shouted at the guards.
“Hey! Pizda! Get your men up to the front. I’m bringing up two reserve squads to hold this place. Move!”
The guards gave him a wide eyed look, one reflexively leveling a rifle in his direction, but Troyak paid it no heed. He walked right up to the three men, scowling at them. “Didn’t you hear me? Move your men up to support the perimeter! And get that rifle out of my face, Corporal, or I’ll shove the damn thing down your throat!”
The men looked and saw the rest of his rifle squad coming up behind him, hard men the like of which they had seldom seen. One passed a fleeting thought that these were the enemy. Their uniforms were strange and they carried unfamiliar looking weapons. Their insignia was nothing they recognized, but then Troyak gave them an evil grin. “Did you see how we toasted that stupid zeppelin? We’ll make short work of the enemy just the same.”
“You were sent by Karpov?”
That name jolted Troyak a moment, but he seized on it, realizing a moment when he saw one.
“Of course-who else? We’re taking over here. Move your men out to the causeway!”
It was all it took to gain entry. The sheer force of Troyak’s presence and will power, his uncanny command of the Siberian dialect, the dour Marines at his side, and a little lozh. The guards ran off to the front line and Troyak signaled Zykov to bring his men in. He took his squad up the main stairway to the second floor and the men instinctively tramped down the hallway and into the empty boarding rooms to take up firing positions at the windows. They found three more men inside, and sent them on their way.