The Romanov Rescue
- Автор: Кратман Том, Watson Justin
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Baen
- ISBN: 978-1-9821-2570-7
- Жанр: Альтернативная история
Электронная книга - «The Romanov Rescue». Краткое содержание книги:
As WWI comes to a close a German general, an escaped prisoner of war, and the crew of an airship converge to effect THE ROMANOV RESCUE. Can there be a world without communism?
Mankind’s history is bound up in the fabric of fate, a strong cloth, tough and closely woven.
It is the beginning of 1918, the last year of the greatest war in human history, to date. All the belligerents stagger on their feet. Starvation is an ever present reality, while disease waits in the wings. In Russia, no longer a belligerent but, instead, rapidly descending into civil war and chaos, a lone family—Father, Mother, four beautiful young girls, and a brave but sickly boy—await their own fate, shivering and hungry in the dark, hoping and praying for salvation.
Their relatives in England have turned their backs. The guards set over them do little but torment them. They look Heavenward, but God doesn’t answer. They know they’re a threat to the new regime, a threat that will, in time, be eliminated.
But even the strongest fabric has flaws. An escaped prisoner of war, caught, injured, and punished, but still highly capable, might be one. An airship, returned and at loose ends after a failed mission to Africa might be another. A German general, taking a wrong turn on his nightly walk and suddenly coming face to face with the reality of the monster rising in the east, would be a third.
Follow, then, as the general gives the orders, the prisoner of war raises the men from among his fellows, and the airship launches itself forward, to contest fate, to tear the fabric of time, and to effect The Romanov Rescue.
About the Carrera series:
Baluyev stood, abruptly, bringing another wave of nausea. When that passed, he stepped from the tent, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Poletov? Smirnov? Get over here; we have work to do.”
Not far away and not long after, Captain Romeyko annotated his list to add “cardboard” and “wax,” as well as “hand drill” and “large bit.”
Fortunately, thought the quartermaster, all of that is obtainable no farther away than Sofia, which is not so far away.
Range A (Rifle), Camp Budapest
Captain Cherimisov, commander of the Grenadier Company, spent the bulk of his work-day on two tasks; the first was evaluating potential snipers on Range A, the second was looking for Lewis gunners on Range B. Since Grenadier Company was slated to storm the compound and liberate the Romanovs, these selections were of much greater import than such personnel decisions usually warranted.
Today, it was Number One Company, the Headquarters and Support, refamiliarizing their troops on the Mosin-Nagant.
He didn’t yet have a way to select for the kind of moral qualities, reactions, coordination, strength, and speed that he needed for his two assault platoons. Nobody did, to include Kostyshakov, and yet everyone knew, and Kostyshakov had pretty much said, that these kinds of qualities would be critical.
Kostyshakov left it largely up to Cherimisov to select his own company. For now, that meant technical skills, shooting, basically, which was all he could do.
For the nonce, this placed the captain directly behind one soldier, Guardsman Nomonkov, who seemed incapable of missing.
Part of that is probably vision, thought Cherimisov. But there’s something else going on, too. The target goes up and this man snaps off his five rounds, and when they’re marked every one of them, even at seven hundred arshini, is within a circle of four inches or less. I’ve watched him go through forty rounds, now, and the center of the target is so far gone we can’t really be sure he’s even hitting anymore, though we don’t really doubt he is.
“Once he’s done,” Cherimisov told the range NCO for that firing point, “Send him to me, over by the control tower. Can you replace him?”
“Yes, sir, no problem.”
“Sir, Guardsman Maxim Nomonkov reports!” The marksman subtly looked over Cherimisov, whose friendly grin completely failed to reach his cold, blue eyes.
As the soldier studied him, Cherimisov likewise studied Nomonkov’s face and stature. Short, stocky, little bit of an epicanthic fold to the eyes. Part Tatar or Mongol or something from the far east.
He returned the soldier’s salute, then ordered him to, “Relax. I just want to talk.”
“Am I in trouble, sir? Because they couldn’t figure out if I’d hit the target or not?”
The grin grew broader, and yet still failed to reach the eyes. “Not at all, Nomonkov, not at all. Tell me, where are you from?”
“Little village in Siberia, sir; place you never heard of, maybe sixty, sixty-five versta north of Tobolsk.”
“Ever been to Tobolsk?”
“No, sir; they asked me that a while ago. My people stayed in their own place.”
“Where did you learn to shoot?”
“My father. He’s a hunter and trapper, a line of work I devoutly hope to follow him in.”
“Have you ever used a scope with a rifle, Nomonkov?”
“Never even seen a scope on a rifle, sir, though I’ve heard about them. Probably don’t need one, anyway.”
“Why is that?”
Instead of answering, the rifleman just started scanning around the sky. Finally, he pointed and asked, “Sir, do you see that hawk up there?”
The captain looked, indeed, he concentrated, but finally, shaking his head, had to admit, “Nothing.”
“I do see him, sir. As near as I can tell I can see about twice as far as any other man or maybe a touch more. Certainly I can see clearly twice as far as anyone I ever met… except for my mother, who is like me.”
“Hmmm,” mused the captain, “if you can see that well without a scope, I wonder—indeed, I marvel—at the thought of what you can see with one.
“Still, shooting’s not about just eyesight. What’s your best position to shoot from?”
The part-Tatar shrugged. “I’m compact. Pretty solid. Doesn’t make all that much difference, though standing supported is best by a little.”
“Is your rifle clear?”
“Yes, sir. Of course. They don’t let us off the range with loaded rifles.”
“Cock it then, please, and take up a kneeling unsupported firing position.”
When Nomonkov had done so, the captain took a small coin from his pocket, an 1898 copper half kopek, and laid it on the barrel. The captain also took another one in his hand.
“Now squeeze off the trigger.”
When the Guardsman had done so, the coin was still sitting, unmoving, atop the rifle’s barrel.
“Do it again,” Cherimisov ordered. He was sure this would cause Nomonkov to knock the coin off the barrel, but, no, it remained where it was throughout the manipulation of the bolt and stayed there again when the trigger was squeezed off.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Never seen anyone who can re-cock a bolt action rifle and still keep it that steady.”
“Sir, I learned that trick from my father, too.”
That raised a laugh. “Indeed? Well, let’s go find your commander or Podpraporshchik Mayevsky. You are now officially in the Grenadier Company.
“Oh, and how’s your night vision?”
“Quite good really, compared to most, sir, but not up there with my day vision.”
Baluyev being occupied with grenade development, and Mayevsky supervising the range, made the transfer simple, if not easy. The latter man glared at Cherimisov with his one remaining eye, and insisted there’d be hell to pay if the captain tried to “steal our best shot. I won’t stand for it sir. The company commander won’t stand for it either. It’s an outrage! It’s just bloody theft! It’s—”
“An order from Kostyshakov,” interrupted the captain. “Mine, once formed, is the company that goes in to rescue the royal family. I get my pick of manpower because of that. But relax, Top; I’ll go and steal my other sniper from Second or Third Company.”
“Fuck!”
Which really doesn’t get me that far, Cherimisov thought. I can do this with the snipers and my two future Lewis gunners, and their crews. But there’s still no test for the rank and file. So how do I handle this?
“All right, Cherimisov, all right, THINK, for God’s sake.”
We want toughness and determination; that seems obvious. All right, I go to Kostyshakov and request a weekly road march, the first one to be hard and the subsequent ones to be progressively harder still. That whittles the numbers down to what? Say sixty percent that never falter? Okay, so within a month or so, I’m down to maybe three or four hundred to choose from. “The people who are with thee are yet too many.” But, don’t forget that some who falter are not weak. Remember to look at their feet at the end; the man with eighty or ninety percent bleeding blisters on each foot but can keep up past the thirty versta point has more toughness than the one who can but whose feet are fine.
Soooo… fine, when we’ve identified the tough ones, we select out from them the inept, the clumsy, the poor shots, the stupid. Maybe fifty more, then, that don’t make the cut.