Kirov Saga Men of War - By John Schettler Page 0,6
It was no easy life, but it was one way Orlov could finally get out of the city without having to make an equally hazardous journey overland.
He had thought about heading east to Russia, but the prospect of traveling through occupied France and then most of Europe now under German control was not encouraging. Perhaps he could loiter in Algeria for a while, jumping ship in this port Rybakov was talking about and truly sampling the wares in the local brothels there. Thankfully his ship, Duero would make the day’s journey without incident.
Ironically, Orlov was soon cruising south along the Spanish coast through the very same waters that Kirov had navigated just a few months earlier. Yet his old ship, and the life he once had there, were now long gone, lost in the mist of time. While he wasted away the days in Cartagena, Kirov had fought its battle in the Med, negotiated safe passage to St. Helena, and then vanished into the fire of the Pacific. The ship was already forsaken the world of 1942, and the war that Orlov now found himself struggling to avoid.
One day, he knew he would have to get serious about his situation and start using the incredible knowledge of days to come to better his lot in life. Yet Orlov was content, for the moment, to drink, and fuck his way along the Spanish coast, and forget the old life he once knew completely. One day soon I will start remembering, he thought, and asking questions. Yes, he would start to remember what the days ahead would hold, and soon, very soon, he would be a wealthy and powerful man.
He was not an educated man—not like Fedorov, who could call up statistics and names from memory as he lectured everyone else on the ship….Kirov, the most powerful ship in the world. It had come to the war by accident, or so Orlov believed, and they had raised hell wherever they went. He wondered what had happened to the ship, or if pug faced Nikolin had ever heard the message he tapped out in Morse one night after breaking into a telegraph station while drunk in Cartagena. Nikolin, Nikolin, Nikolin…you lose.
It was his last, plaintive good-bye to the life he once knew. Yes, they were all a bunch of losers in his mind now. Let them all go to hell. They could have their ship and its private war, he had something else, and it was going to make him the most powerful man in the world. Yes, Orlov was not educated, but he wasn’t stupid either. He knew that he could never learn the things Fedorov had in his head, the dates, times, and dimensions of the world ahead. But Kirov’s library had a lot of very useful information in it, and Orlov was smart enough to download a good bit of it into the computer built right in to his flight jacket, which he still wore.
The touch screen devices of the early 21st century had revolutionized the world of computing, and ushered in what came to be called the “era of personal computing in the post-PC world.” Everyone had cell phones, touch pads and they carried them virtually everywhere they went. Their only liability was the short battery life, which forced them to always be plugged in and recharged on a regular basis. Then an enterprising man came up with a new idea, that we no longer needed fingers to poke at glass screens to do our computing, we could go one step further and simply use our voices.
Computers soon became part of common clothing and other personal items like eyewear and jewelry. Orlov had a clever system where the flexible and highly durable circuitry was built right into the lining of his flight jacket within a watertight Polyflex container, and the outer fabric was laced with solar sensitive filaments that would charge the computer any time he stood in sunlight. Orlov’s military model was particularly durable, designed for the rigors of combat. There was a microphone in his collar, allowing him to speak commands to the voice recognition software, and earbuds would let him listen to results. So he went to the ship’s library and he downloaded “The Portable Wikipedia” into his jacket memory so he could use the info to his advantage and become wealthy. All he had to do was whisper a question now, and then listen to the answer spoken to him by Svetlana, the voice of