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:
“What was I thinking? What the hell were you thinking?” Chekov hissed. “Screwing the tsar’s daughter in his own house? Are you out of what little mind you have left?”
“We weren’t screwing. I know you have little experience in such things, but one generally has to pull out one’s cock to screw a girl. My pants were up and buttoned,” Dostovalov said.
“Okay, you got caught before you could finish the deed,” Chekov said. “You want a medal for your restraint?”
“You think a little love-play is worse than calling the tsar a fool to his face?” Dostovalov said.
“Yes, you moron, it is,” Chekov said. “And, again, you got caught. What happens if Tatiana decides to confess everything to her papa after all?”
“She won’t,” Dostovalov said, maddeningly confident. “The Big Pair are too close to drive a wedge between. Tatiana would never inform on Olga. Face it, it’s not my pecker but your mouth that got you earmarked for every shit detail the First Rifles can find.”
Chekov frowned. He knew Dostovalov had a point. He’d been stupid to let himself lose his temper with Nicholas; private citizen or autocrat he was still a much more powerful man than Chekov. Kobylinsky, with Matveev standing behind him, had informed Chekov that he was off close guard duty and onto sanitary detail, VD inspection, and other such menial and degrading tasks until further notice. Despite that, Chekov knew that his friend getting entangled with Olga could only end in tragedy.
“It was still an inexcusably stupid idea to try to make love to Olga one floor down from where her entire family was sleeping,” said Chekov.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Sergei, what happens even if Nicholas does find out?” Dostovalov said. “He’s not the tsar anymore, he doesn’t rule a damn thing. For all that Kobylinsky kisses his ass, we all know the only real power in Tobolsk lies with that boy Matveev and that Latvian Jew and his Red Guards. Nicholas can do nothing to us without their say so.”
“Assume you’re right, assume the unit won’t punish you because of Nicholas. How quick before the Bolsheviks label you an Imperialist for consorting with Olga?” Chekov retorted. “How much quicker that I join you in a labor camp or in front of a firing squad for associating with counterrevolutionaries? They don’t even need a court-martial anymore for God’s sake.”
Dostovalov stared at Chekov for several seconds; the lines of frustration on his face eased and a resigned expression replaced them.
“You’re right. I know it’s dangerous,” Dostovalov said, “And you didn’t volunteer for more danger. But I love her, Sergei. I love her as I have never loved a woman before. I won’t stop. If you need to distance yourself from me, I understand, and I don’t hold it against you.”
“Distance myself?” Chekov said. “You damn fool. I—”
Overcome, Chekov stopped speaking and glared at his friend for several seconds. Then he stood up from the wooden bench and stormed out of the canteen without another word, pulling his thick coat closer around himself.
Outside the mess hall, less than a block from the door, Yermilov took stock of Chekov’s hunched shoulders and furious stride. When Dostovalov left and started walking the opposite direction from his short, ugly friend, his countenance clearly troubled, Yermilov smiled. He leaned closer to the two men standing close to him and jerked his head toward Dostovalov’s broad, retreating back.
“Lover’s spat, eh?” Yermilov said. His cronies laughed roughly.
“Let’s keep an eye on Dostovalov,” Yermilov said. “He tries to meet the Romanov peezda for another little tryst and this will be the time we have a little fun ourselves.”
A long day of emptying outhouses and staring at other men’s cocks looking for signs of chlamydia or syphilis left Chekov exhausted and despondent. He slept fitfully that night, waking several times at odd intervals. He hadn’t spoken to Dostovalov since breakfast and he was still furious with his big friend.
I should. I should cut ties and look out for myself. That moron has been trying to get us in trouble ever since we got here. He couldn’t just stick to whoring like a tomcat, he had to fall in love with the one girl likely to get us both killed.
Turning in his bunk, Chekov’s eyes fell upon on Dostovalov’s empty bunk.
Empty. He didn’t have the duty tonight…
Chekov rolled back onto his back and glared at the timber ceiling.
Not my business. He said as much. I’m not his father, and a doomed affair with Olga is more important to him than survival. He won’t listen to reason. If I try to stop him he’ll just tell me to piss off. He’s on his own.
Chekov took several deep breaths, willing himself back to sleep.
Son of a bitch.
Chekov swung his legs off the side of his bunk and slid quietly to the floor. He reached for his socks and pants and, swearing softly to himself the whole time, began to dress for the cold Siberian night.
Dostovalov peeled off a few bills and handed them to the guards on duty at Freedom House’s back door, both of whom grinned and slapped Dostovalov on the back before trudging off through the snow. Yermilov shifted slightly, let his rifle rest on the ground, and put restraining hands on the men lying on either side of him under the hedge.
“Almost,” Yermilov breathed. “Wait just a bit more.”
Yermilov kept his companions still until the bribed guards were around the corner of the Freedom House and then for twenty breaths more.
“Now,” Yermilov hissed.
The three men sprang from the snow-laden red bushes and charged. Dostovalov whirled to face them, but it was too late. Yermilov brought the buttstock of his rifle crashing down on the bridge of the man’s nose, sending him crumpling to the snow, blood erupting from his broken nose and busted mouth. The big man lay still on the ground, knocked cold by the blow.
“Take him to the river,” Yermilov said. “Break a hole in the ice and dump his body, then you can come back for your turns.”
“Wait,” the bigger of his cronies said in a thick voice. “No chance, we want to—”
“Do what the fuck you’re told, Ilyin,” Yermilov said. “We stay here arguing about it, someone will spot Dostovalov here and none of us will get a chance.”
Ilyin looked mutinous, but he and Yermilov’s other henchman grabbed Dostovalov by wrists and ankles and began to drag him through the snow, west toward the river.
Hopefully, the idiots don’t get caught by some Red Guard assholes. Assuming any of them are awake and sober enough to care at three in the morning.
Yermilov turned away from the door. From behind his size and stature were very similar to Dostovalov’s. He wanted to save Olga’s surprise for the last possible moment. From a sheath on his belt he pulled a knife, not his issued bayonet, but a smaller blade for closer, more intimate work. The kind of work he’d plied in Petrograd’s alleys since long before the revolution. Fortunately, the chaos of the Bolshevik coup had given him an opportunity to make an honest living out of his thuggery—at least it had until he’d been transferred to this outfit.
Kobylinsky and Matveev, those prigs, had kept him on a short leash since he’d been assigned to First Rifles. He’d been expected to stand his post and treat the reviled Romanovs with courtesy. Even after the men ripped off Kobylinsky’s epaulettes and “abolished” rank, the First had kept too many vestiges of its dreadfully dull discipline and standards for a man like Yermilov.