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:
“No small feat,” Nicholas said, nodding appreciatively. He moved his bishop to threaten Chekov’s knight. “Were you studying medicine at university? Following in your father’s footsteps?”
“No, I was studying economics,” Chekov said, responding to Nicholas’s threat by positioning a rook to threaten the sandalwood queen. “At least until the war broke out.”
Nicholas backed down from his attack as Chekov suspected he would, moving the knight directly in front of the queen to block Chekov’s rook. The resignation of impending defeat clouded his eyes.
“Papa,” Anastasia spoke up from the carpet. “Can we read more Sherlock Holmes tonight?”
“Oh, dearest, we only have a chapter left in The Great Within the Small,” Nicholas said. “I know detective stories are more fun, but it’s important to understand our situation and Nilus has the best read on all of this.”
Chekov’s pulse quickened and a hiss escaped his lips unbidden. Rather than complete the elegant trap he’d been setting to checkmate Nicholas he went on the offensive and began forcing exchanges of pieces.
“I take it you disapprove of Nilus?” Nicholas said as he removed Chekov’s rook with his queen.
“I wouldn’t dream of venturing opinions on such lofty matters,” Chekov said, moving a bishop to check Nicholas’s king. “I’m just a common soldier after all.”
Nicholas moved a pawn to obscure the bishop’s line of attack unsupported, Chekov took the pawn with a knight.
“Clearly you’ve impressive faculties, Feldfebel,” Nicholas said. “Speak your mind, good man.”
Chekov clenched his teeth. Dostovalov, who stood behind Nicholas, shook his head emphatically.
“If you insist, Citizen Romanov,” he said. “Nilus is a bigoted crackpot who scapegoats the relatively tiny population of Jews here in Russia for problems that have little to do with them, arguably that are even somewhat ameliorated by their presence.”
Chekov threw his queen across the board into the midst of Nicholas’s defenses.
“You know who did an actual scientific study on Jews in the Pale of Settlement?” Chekov continued, as Nicholas stared at the board, looking for some escape. “A fellow named Bloch. You’re familiar with him? One of the reasons Russia has any railways to speak of?”
“Yes, I know Bloch,” Nicholas muttered as he castled his king with this queen’s rook. “I was the one who saw to it his Future War and Its Economic Consequences was distributed at the Hague Conference. If only my idiot cousin had read it, perhaps we would’ve avoided this whole catastrophe. I know that Bloch had Semitic sympathies, but I’m unfamiliar with any such study of the Jews.”
“I’m glad you recognize the man’s talent,” Chekov said. “Bloch and a team of researchers compiled a five-volume study that comprehensively proved that not only do Jews do little harm; they enrich every single community of which they are a part, both culturally and economically. We were just praising Ossip Bernstein, for example, were we not? And he is, indeed, Jewish.”
Chekov took Nicholas’s rook with his own queen, cornering the sandalwood king behind a line of his own pawns and demanding the former tsar’s queen as a sacrifice to remove the threat.
“Your father’s ministers banned the study, of course,” Chekov continued. “And I’ve only ever seen but one copy of the full study while I was at university in Yaroslavl. Bloch’s research partner, Subotin, was able to publish a summary, titled, ‘The Jewish Question in the Right Light.’ It is somewhat easier to find, and infinitely superior to half-baked, self-serving mystical nonsense.”
“Come now,” Nicholas said, taking Chekov’s queen with his own. “You mustn’t think I hate all Jews, there are many who contribute to Russia, but clearly there are a larger proportion of malcontents amongst them than in the Christian, or Mohammedan populations. Surely, you’ve noticed the raw number of Jews among the Bolsheviks!”
“I think perhaps you’re confusing cause and effect, Citizen Romanov,” Chekov said as he removed Nicholas’s queen from the board with his own rook. “For generations Jews have been brutalized and murdered and you and your ancestors have done little but scapegoat them, eat away at their rights and reduce the sentences of the bastards who prey upon them, then you have the audacity to wonder why revolution might appeal to some of them.”
The room was absolutely silent until Anastasia stood and faced Chekov, hands balled into fists.
“You can’t talk to my father that way,” she said.
The remaining children were silent, Maria and Alexei looked uncomfortable, Olga’s features mirrored Anastasia’s fury. Tatiana’s expression was inscrutable, her gray eyes contemplative. Dostovalov’s eyes were bulging, his eyebrows threatening to retreat into his hairline.
“I can, miss,” Chekov said, quietly maintaining eye contact with Nicholas. “I can because he isn’t the emperor anymore, and he isn’t the emperor anymore because he refused to hear the things he didn’t want to hear.”
Chekov took the pawn in front of Nicholas’s king with his rook, which was backed by one of his bishops.
“Checkmate,” Chekov said, standing up and grabbing his rifle. “Dostovalov, you stay here. I’ll post on the balcony. Good night, Citizen Romanov. Thank you for the game.”
Dostovalov walked his paces in the main hall for several hours until a familiar silhouette detached itself from the staircase and hurried across the hall, out into the passageway. Olga poked her head back around the corner into the hall and grinned at him, beckoning with an ivory-skinned hand. She then tiptoed to the kitchen. No sooner had he stepped into the kitchen than she flowed into his arms, kissing him fiercely.
“Oh, Antosenka,” she murmured, her voice low to avoid waking anyone else. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting, it took forever for Tatiana to fall sleep tonight.”
“It’s all right,” he said, leaning back a bit to look into her eyes. “I just thought perhaps you found better company.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Olga said. “And that’s my joke, plagiarizer.”
“We’re just lucky Sergei is still sulking out on the balcony,” Dostovalov said. Olga leaned back, frowning. She withdrew from his arms, leaving Dostovalov with a confused expression.
“Why was your friend so rude tonight?” Olga said. “I know Papa is hard on the Jews, but why did he take it so personally? Is he Jewish?”
“Sergei isn’t a Jew, but it is personal for him,” Dostovalov said, his brow furrowing. “He has his reasons, but they are his to tell, not mine.”
Olga stared at Dostovalov’s unusually serious expression for a long moment.
“Antosenka, I’m not sure I trust him,” she said. “He sounded so hateful.”
“Sergei is a good man,” Dostovalov said. “You can trust him as much as you trust me.”
Olga frowned, but then her expression softened as she visibly changed her priorities. She smiled impishly as she pulled loose the sash on her thick winter robe, letting it fall loose in the center to reveal the silken nightgown clinging to her body underneath. Dostovalov sucked in a large breath through his nose and stiffened instantly at the reveal.
“As much as I trust you,” she said. “Really?”
“Well,” Dostovalov said, then stopped, coughing lightly to clear his throat. “Perhaps not that much.”
“Antosenka,” Olga said, her voice low and serious. “I want you to do it to me.”