Liberators

Refugees!

Chapter Fourteen: Refugees!

Aboard the submarine tender Rokossovsky, disguised as the freighter Vidkun Quisling

Somewhere in the Kara Sea

October 11, 2008 0648 Rivymiyitevko time (0248 Krakozhian time)

"Comrade Captain, our radar has picked up a contact."

Captain Second Rank Yuliya Pavlovna Koneva, who was currently manning the bridge, walked over to the radarman's console. "Do you have more information on the contact?" she asked.

"It's on the edge of our radar's detection zone, Captain, but it's too big to be a submarine's conning tower. It's probably a gunboat."

"Good. I'll contact the Captain."

A few minutes later, Captain First Rank Pavel Akselovich Belyayev walked into the bridge and took command. "Electronic warfare officer, do you detect any emissions from the contact?"

"None, Captain."

Turning to his executive officer, he asked, "Have you seen anything on the horizon yet, Yuliya?"

"It's far, Captain, but something's there, all right," she replied. A few minutes later, she said, "Yes, Captain, I can see it now! It looks like a gunboat with a six-pounder gun on the bow, a single smokestack, and—I don't believe it, Captain! It looks like an armed paddle steamer! And it's full of people, too."

“What?” Belyayev took his own pair of binoculars and looked out to the sea. The ship—or steamer, whatever it was—was sailing on a course perpendicular to the Rokossovsky, giving him a good view of the ship’s identifying marks. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “Old Gedevanishvili has come back to haunt us.”

The Gedevanishvili was an old German steamship whose crew surrendered to the Russians before the Russian Revolution. She was turned into an auxiliary training ship by the newly-established Soviet Navy until the end of the Second World War, when she was retired and mothballed in what would become the Babayev Prospect Port in Rivymiyitevko. During negotiations with the Soviet government about the island, the Krakozhian navy received the vessel although nobody technically owned her. She became the flagship of the Rivymiyitevko Defense Force, and later, the Provincial Militia, until newer warships became available, but she still held a special place in the heart of the Republic. Her namesake, Semyon Gedevanishvili, was the only member of the Soviet Politburo who openly opposed their involvement in the Krakozhian Revolution. Before his death in 1997, he was given a tour of the ship, awarded the Order of Umayev, and an honorary doctorate in Pretoska State University.

Unfortunately, the Gedevanishvili had been captured by Konstantin Benin’s forces during the Battle of Babayev Prospect.

“Do you want us to capture that ship, Captain?” asked someone on the bridge.

“There’s nothing on our orders that say that we can’t capture enemy vessels, is there?” asked Belyayev. “Besides, the Rokossovsky was built for that purpose. It wouldn’t hurt to see her in action, would it?”

“Wait a minute, Captain,” said Koneva. “The ship has struck its colors, and it’s raising a white flag. I think they’re surrendering.”

“Send over a launch,” Belyayev ordered. And then, speaking on the ship’s radio, he said, “All hands, man your stations. Repeat, all hands, man your stations. Gunners, man your guns.”

The bridge suddenly became a maelstrom of activity. Commands and curses were shouted as men and women who had been looking forward to an uneventful cruise were suddenly thrown back to a war footing. Throughout the ship, crewmembers were taking their rifles and as much ammunition as possible without leaving the others short. At the blow of the ship, the gunners loaded fifty-one caliber shells into the five-inch guns hidden inside the hull of the ship.