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:
“You are a criminal in the making, Engineer Shukhov.”
“Yes, sir. I know, sir. Sad, is it not, sir?”
Southwest of Taganrog, Russia
With the ship stopped dead in the water, and while the lieutenant led everyone but Mokrenko, Babin, Natalya, and Shukhov through boat drills designed to get them as far from the ship as possible in the shortest possible time, Shukhov prepared the demolition but without either emptying the batteries of acid, filling the pot with lye, or puncturing the tank.
For their parts, Mokrenko and Babin moved everything the team had brought with them, plus the captain’s little treasure chest, plus a few of the things they’d found on the ship that might be useful, up on deck. This formed a growing collection on the side away from the shore.
Watching from the deck, Mokrenko had been, at first, rather disgusted with the obvious cluster fuck that was the ship’s boat. He saw oars being tangled, momentum being lost, and a good deal of instability in the boat as the lieutenant shifted people around.
Shaking his head and thinking, We’re so fucked, he went back below to grab a couple of packs. When he came back, the boat seemed to have regained a degree of stability, but the oars were still a mess. Rather, the oarsmen were.
You would think that, having learned to march in step, they’d be able to pull an oar in cadence, too. Tsk.
Lieutenant Babin came on deck then, dragging one of the cases holding half the rifles and ammunition behind him. He, too, stopped to watch the boat’s progress. He said it aloud, “We’re fucked.”
“Know anything about small boats, sir?” Mokrenko asked, hopefully.
“Not a thing. But you don’t need to, to know that’s not the way to do it.”
“Yeah…”
I wish I had two drums and a couple of mallets to beat out the cadence, thought Turgenev.
“All right, people, let’s give this one more try. We don’t know the actual commands, none of us being sailors or yachtsmen, but we can figure out what has to be done and make commands up for ourselves.
“Once again, when I say ‘Ready oars,’ push the oars out until the handle part is right in front of you and all the oars are parallel to the water, with the blade—that’s the thin part—pointed straight down to the water. Got it?”
“Okay… ready….oars.”
What actually happened then was that the men, the rowers, lifted their flaccid oars out of the water and held them, stiffly, more or less straight out.
So far, so good….I think.
“Next, when I say ‘Get ready to row,’[4] lean forward and push your arms straight out—yes, still holding the oar—so that the oars move up a little and toward the front….now… get ready to row.
“Yeah… no, Let’s try that one again. First… ready oars… now… get ready to row… and once again…”
With the glass bowls arranged on the floor, and a convenient can of gasoline waiting to fill up the outer half ring, Shukhov contemplated the fuel tank.
Hmmm, he thought, I’m not going to risk losing my kindjal to a quick retreat once I puncture the tank. Let’s go see what the galley has available.
With that, he left the engine room; a subset, but a slightly higher and much drier one, of the bilges where they’d kept the crew prisoner. Up one ladder and around the rearmost mast, or mizzen-mast, led the sapper back again to the galley. The crew had left most of the ship pretty filthy, but, to give the late cook his due, the galley was spotless, to include the pots, pans, bowls, dishes, and cutlery.
Puttering through one of the drawers, Shukhov thought, I want a steady drip, or two or three of them, not a huge gusher. I think that leaves the cleaver and butcher knives out of consideration. Hmmm… wonder if I could arrange something burnable that would not even begin to leak much until the fire from the lye, the battery acid, and the gasoline in those bowls sets it on fire. But what?
A-ha! I can make a good size hole but plug it with a wad of cloth… yeah, that’s it. Now, what kind of cloth shall I use? Something tight-woven and heavy, I think. Canvas would probably do nicely…
Mokrenko dropped the last rucksack on the deck, then walked a step to the gunwales, to watch the boat perform. Better, he thought. Maybe the lieutenant used to be a yachtsman.
Babin, after heaving down his load, went to watch. “They’re getting better you know, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir, but if the blast is going to be as impressive as Shukhov expects—thirty to forty tons of high explosive—I’m not sure there’s anything quite good enough or fast enough to get away from it.”
Babin’s eyes grew wide, then narrowed. “I wish I had some way to detonate that inside the Kerch.”
“The world would not be the poorer for a hundred or so fewer Bolsheviks, sir. Speaking of which, what do you intend to do once we reach landfall?”
“I don’t know. No wife—she died, years ago, and I’ve never remarried. No children. Maybe I’ll find an anti-Bolshevik faction and kill the Reds until they manage to kill me.”
“We may have a better offer for you,” the sergeant said. “I’ll bring it up with my lieutenant.”
Destroyer Kerch
The shout came up, “There’s something or someone off the port bow!”
The ship’s skipper—he’d been a petty officer not long before but was Comrade Captain Razin now—gave the orders to investigate. What the object turned out to be, once recovered, was one very fat, white-clad Romanian with his hands, now quite blue, bound behind him and a bad case of hypothermia racing at a snail’s pace to kill him.
Once the man was hoisted aboard, there being no way for him to climb, even though they untied him, the captain discovered that no one could understand a word he said. Indeed, with feeling—agonized feeling—rushing back into his tortured hands, the man could do little but scream and then moan for a long time. The crew had to pour hot, highly sugared tea into him, since he couldn’t even hold a glass or cup for himself. This was not just because of the state of his hands, but also because of his uncontrollable shivering.
“Anybody understand what he’s babbling?” asked the skipper.
Answered the mate, also a former petty officer, “Not a word, comrade, but it sounds… mmmm… Italian or Romanian, to me. I’ve heard that kind of language before. It’s not French. Not Spanish; he isn’t lisping despite the freezing. Italian or Romanian, most likely.”
“Should we toss him back in, Comrade?” asked the mate.
“Let’s see if we can get some use out of him, first. If he lives. Ask around and see if any of the crew speak either of those languages.”
Barquentine Loredana
“Well,” said Turgenev, as Mokrenko tossed him a rope to tie up the boat, “we’re not very good but we’re as good as we’re going to be in the time we have.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed the sergeant. No one needed to mention that they were already three precious days behind schedule.
“Have Natalya start the engine and set course for vicinity Taganrog.”
Within minutes, with squeals and groans, a few coughs, several puffs of dense, black smoke, and some disquieting chattering, the engine sprang to life.
4
The actual command is “Prepare to give way.”