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:
His captors turned at the sound.
“Shit, he’s awake,” the same dull voice said. The taller of the two men stood, picked his rifle up off the ice and walked toward Dostovalov.
Dostovalov tried to shout, but hacked up more blood and phlegm instead, he strained harder against the bonds, felt a hand start to slip out of position.
Pull harder, Anton.
“Fuck this,” the shorter man said in a laconic voice. “Shoot him in the head and let’s get the fuck out of here. We can say we were never here and didn’t have anything to do with Yermilov’s crazy-ass plan.”
“Why don’t you do it?” The big man snapped back. “You want to keep your hands clean, tell them it was all me and Yermilov? Is that it?”
Dostovalov gritted his teeth and yanked his right hand free of its bonds, scraping a layer of skin off the back of his hand from wrist to knuckles. He screamed his pain and rage.
“Fuck,” the little one shouted and leveled his rifle at Dostovalov’s face. The big man felt every beat of his heart as he scrabbled frantically at the ground with his brutalized hands, trying to pull himself behind a tree stump for cover.
The crack of a rifle shot split the frigid night air.
No! Dostovalov shut his eyes reflexively. Olga, forgive me…
But Dostovalov felt no projectile pierce his body. Instead, when Dostovalov opened his eyes, his would-be murderer was lying flat on his back, the contents of his skull splayed behind him onto the ice. Another crack, followed by the sound of an overripe melon being sliced, and the tall one who’d been whining fell beside his comrade. Dostovalov craned his neck around to see a slight man, rifle leveled, emerge from behind a nearby cypress and march toward the dead men. Chekov worked the bolt on his rifle and examined each body in turn. Apparently satisfied that both men were dead, he turned back to Dostovalov.
Unsheathing a utility knife, Chekov started cutting the twine binding Dostovalov’s legs.
“Thank you, Sergei,” Dostovalov slurred through his missing teeth.
“Don’t talk,” Chekov said, his voice cold. “We need to get you to a doctor to see what can be done about your face.”
“No time,” Dostovalov insisted, dribbling on himself as he spoke. “Yermilov—”
“Dead,” Chekov said, pulling his larger friend to his feet. “I killed him.”
“Thank God,” Dostovalov said, leaning gratefully on the shorter man. “Then Olga is all right?”
Chekov exhaled sharply and shook his head.
“She’ll live. She’ll recover, but no, Anton, she’s not all right,” he said. “I got there after Yermilov had finished.”
“No, oh, Jesus, no,” Dostovalov moaned. “This is my fault.”
“Yes.”
Dostovalov stepped away from Chekov and glared at his friend in shock, swaying as the pinpricks of nerves reawakening shot through his feet and legs.
“What, Anton? You expect me to comfort you?” Chekov said. “I told you fooling around with the tsar’s daughter was dangerous and it was. You were nearly killed, you stupid bastard.”
“Yermilov singled us out because you humiliated him our first week here,” Dostovalov shot back. “And then, when I wanted to take care of him, you insisted we wait. So, yes, I nearly got killed and Olga—”
Dostovalov stopped, tears choking off his voice, he stood silently for a second, composing himself.
“Did it occur to you, Sergei, for one instant, that maybe you’re not so fucking smart as you think you are?” He continued when he had a modicum of control. “That this time, if we’d done it my way, none of this would’ve happened?”
“Maybe,” Chekov said. “And maybe we’d be standing trial for murder. The Bolsheviks have no problem shooting men for the encouragement of others.”
“I’d rather that than have allowed the woman I love to be raped,” Dostovalov grated.
The muscles in Chekov’s neck and jaw worked for a moment as he returned Dostovalov’s glare, but finally he looked away.
“What’s done is done,” Chekov said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there in time to stop Yermilov. I really am. But now, if you don’t want Olga to suffer any more than she has to, we need to get our story straight. I’m assuming you paid the guards on duty to take the night off?”
Dostovalov, tired of talking, just nodded.
“Okay, can you stay on your feet awhile longer?” Chekov said. “Can you make it back to Freedom House on your own?”
“Yeah,” Dostovalov said, despite the agony reigning in his skull and the lesser pains shooting through the rest of his body.
“Good, I’m going to find the boys you paid off, here’s what we’re all going to tell them—”
An hour later, in the deposed tsar’s study, Chekov and the two guards, Blokhin and Virkhov, stood at attention while Kobylinsky, Matveev, and Nicholas all listened to Chekov’s version of the night’s events with intense interest. Tatiana sat in the corner wearing her customary inscrutable expression. Nicholas’s own doctor, Botkin, was working on Dostovalov’s face downstairs. When Chekov was done speaking, Kobylinsky turned to the two guards who were supposed to have been on duty.
“Is this accurate?” Kobylinsky said.
“Yes, Comrade,” the younger of the two men, a boy named Virkhov said. His pal, Blokhin, nodded vigorously.
“Yermilov told you the guard roster had been changed mid-shift and you didn’t think to check with me or the colonel?” Matveev said, his face screwed up in incredulity.
“We’re sorry, Comrade Ensign,” Blokhin said. “We didn’t want to wake you, it being so late. Yermilov is one of the senior men, we didn’t think he had a reason for lying.”
“Get out of here,” Kobylinsky said. “We’ll figure out a proper punishment for you idiots later.”
Blokhin and Virkhov needed no further encouragement; staggering just a little, for Dostovalov had found them at the bottle, they made their way hastily toward the stairs.
“It seems I owe you a great debt, Feldfebel Chekov,” Nicholas spoke up. “I must ask, though, how you knew to come here so late at night?”
I was afraid you might ask that. Chekov had concocted an answer, of course, but it was the weakest part of their alibi.
“I’m afraid it was mostly a matter of providence,” Chekov said. “I’ve had trouble sleeping lately, so I was out late myself. When I saw two lads who I knew were on the guard roster for the night, I knew something was amiss. Them already being in their cups, I grabbed Dostovalov and we got here as fast as we could.”
Nicholas turned to his daughter.
“Tatiana, dear,” he said. “Is all this reconciling with your memory of events?”
“As far as I could tell, Father,” Tatiana said. “I awoke to hear the big ugly one screaming, then I heard a rifle shot and Feldfebel Chekov begging him to put his rifle down. Then Feldfebel Chekov gave me the man’s rifle because he had to go after the others.”
“Speaking of that rifle,” Matveev interrupted. “While I applaud your initiative, Chekov, handing over a rifle to one of the Romanovs was a poor choice. While we will protect the former emperor and his family and will, of course, continue to extend them every courtesy,” Matveev nodded at the ex-emperor, “they are still in our custody.”
“Apologies, comrade Ensign,” he said. “But Yermilov’s co-conspirators had assaulted and carried off Dostovalov by that point. I needed to act fast to save his life but did not want to leave the Romanovs defenseless until new guards could arrive.”