Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1 Read online

  And then, when he’d given up all hope, he caught a small break. As he was in the corridor that led to the communications center, he overheard someone telling the comm officer to broadcast a message to redouble the efforts to “capture and eliminate the impostor Velikaya Knyaghinya.” There were no more details than that, but it was enough to make his heart sing. No “impostor” would have come forward this quickly after Natalia’s death, and Kuznyetz wouldn’t have worried about it in any case—not when a fraud’s DNA would show she wasn’t a member of the imperial family. That could only be the real Natalia—which in turn meant that Eva was still alive and doing her job.

  The pressure he hadn’t even realized was on his shoulders suddenly lifted. All was not lost. There was still hope. Even though he and Eva hadn’t prevented the rebellion, it still had not succeeded in overturning the Empire.

  Because Kuznyetz had been invited to attend the Sovyet Knyazey, his ship was waived directly through the blockade the Navy had thrown up around Earth. It landed at the Tsar Gregoriy Spaceport with full diplomatic honors, and the knyaz’s party was led to the downtown region near the Kremlin where all the sectors maintained their palatial halls of state. As they rode into the city, Judah made sure to conceal himself within the ranks of the kavalergardy so Kuznyetz’s family wouldn’t spot him.

  Even though the Scorpio hall of state was grandiose, it was still not accustomed to holding such a large body of people, and the first hour was truly chaotic until everyone was settled into place. Judah was wondering how he could slip away undetected, but the problem resolved itself as Cdr. Aab asked for volunteers to man the outer perimeter of the compound. Judah was quick to volunteer, and as night descended he found himself outside the compound walls, stationed well away from anyone else.

  He slipped away into the nighttime shadows so quietly that none of his comrades knew he was gone. They were more on the lookout for people trying to get into the compound rather than leave, which made his job easier.

  Once he was well away from the Scorpio building he felt safer. He hooked his wristcom into the local net and found directions to the Orion hall of state, some twelve blocks away in the diplomatic district. His heart started beating faster as he realized he was close to completing his first assignment for the Empire. Well, not officially; Knyaz Nkosi was no longer commissar of ISIS, but as far as Judah was concerned that was merely a technicality. His assignment, official or otherwise, was to get information vital to the security of the Empire, and now he’d done that.

  The Orion hall of state, as befitted one of the Empire’s largest sectors, was a skyscraper forty-three stories tall, surrounded by a massive stone wall and luxurious gardens. The area was brightly lit and patrolled by stern-looking guards at the gate. As Judah approached, he was challenged by one of the guards. “State your name and business.”

  “I’m Judah Bar Nahum, and I have an urgent message for the knyaz.”

  “Come back in the morning.”

  This was not how Judah had imagined the scene going. “He’ll want the information right away.”

  “Give me the message and I’ll relay it to him.”

  Ilya Uzi never had this much trouble reporting his information. Maybe the fact that Judah was in the uniform of Kuznyetz’s kavalergard had something to do with the distrust. “He gave me the assignment personally. I can’t deliver it to anyone but him.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “The rebellion that’s happening right now. He needs to hear this directly.”

  The guard showed new interest. “The rebellion?”

  “Yes. And he said to trust no one but him,” Judah lied.

  The guard opened the gate just wide enough to let him in. “Report to the receptionist through that door,” he said, pointing to the building’s main entrance. He closed the gate again immediately behind Judah.

  Judah walked into the building and repeated his story to a bored receptionist behind the desk in a large foyer. The man invited him to take a seat and told him to wait. Judah sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair while the receptionist announced him.

  Judah waited and waited, getting increasingly nervous. He was worried his absence from his post might be noticed at any minute and his cover would be blown. His natural inclination was to pace about, but the stillness in the large foyer at this hour intimidated him a little.

  After nearly half an hour, a gravtube across the hall opened and Lady Hasina Wettig stepped out, dressed in a sharply tailored blue business suit. She walked briskly over to Judah. He stood up as she approached.

  “You’re late,” she said without prelude. “We’d given up hope for you.”

  “Sorry, but I do have important information.”

  She gave just the slightest harrumph. “Follow me,” she said, turning and walking back to the gravtube without even looking to see whether he was coming.

  They got into the tube and zipped up to the thirty-second floor, where she led him silently down a long hallway and into an unnumbered office. There was only a table with some chairs around it, no sign that anyone worked in here on a daily basis. She sat down at one side of the table and motioned for him to sit at the other.

  “If you’re just going to tell us the rebellion is breaking out, or what their military plans are, we’ve already figured that out for ourselves,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t waste your time with that,” he said, annoyed at her implied assumption that he was stupid or naïve. “But I do know Kuznyetz’s trump card.”

  “Which is?”

  “Shouldn’t I be telling this to your father?”

  “No, you should be telling this to me. If I think it’s worthwhile, I’ll tell it to my father.”

  Judah took a deep breath. “Kuznyetz is of direct imperial lineage.”

  Hasina transformed instantly. She sat up straighter and her face lost its expression of casual disdain. “How do you know this?”

  Judah carefully repeated the old woman’s story. Hasina listened intently, closely scrutinizing his face and not interrupting once. When he finished, she stared into space for a moment.

  “This does change everything. Kuznyetz suddenly transforms from a pipsqueak upstart to a legitimate—well, quasi-legitimate—claimant. With Natalia dead, people will rally to him just to end all this chaos.”

  “That’s my other news,” Judah said, allowing himself just the faintest of smiles. “I don’t think Natalia’s dead. I think my cousin managed to save her.” He went on to tell Hasina the brief bit of news he’d heard in the comm room.

  Hasina looked doubtful. “Why do you believe such flimsy evidence? Everything we know support the original story.”

  “Because I know Eva. My money’s on her.”

  Hasina was silent for several more seconds. “Any other revelations?”

  Judah shook his head. “That’s it. Other than we can’t let Marya Yevghenyevna get anywhere near the throne.”

  “That’s hardly a revelation.” Hasina stood up and reached out her hand. “Thank you very much for this report. I’ll take it to my father immediately.”

  Judah shook her hand, but asked, “What about me What do you need me to do next?”

  “For now, return to the knyaz’s service. I’ll leave word that from now on, you or any of your reports should be forwarded straight to me.”

  Judah was a little disappointed that she didn’t have an exciting new assignment for him, but he duly left to return to the Scorpio compound.

  Hasina, meanwhile, rode the gravtube to her father’s office on the top floor. Knyaz Nkosi was seated at his desk, staring at a barrage of computer screens rather than out the panoramic window with its forty-third floor panoramic view of nighttime Moscow. The bright lights of the city below just seemed to mock the gloomy mood that had overwhelmed him at seeing his worst nightmares for the Empire’s future playing out in real life. Even though he wasn’t at the nerve center of the Empire any more, he still received enough reports from different places to let him k
now how badly things were going.

  He hadn’t been sleeping well these past few days, and it showed in his face. The normal fire in his eyes was banked, and the bags under them were noticeable. Hasina had never seen her father looking so beaten down before. She stood before his desk and, without waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, she repeated Judah’s story about Kuznyetz’s family history and his theory about Natalia still being alive.

  Wettig didn’t react immediately, but Hasina waited patiently in front of him. Finally the big man shifted in his chair and sighed. “If I’d known all this a month ago I might have been able to—”

  He slammed his fist down suddenly on his desktop. “No!” he bellowed. “I won’t accept defeatist talk from others, and I certainly won’t hear it from my own lips.” He swiveled his chair around to face outside, but it wasn’t the beautiful cityscape he was looking at.

  “We now have knowledge,” he mused aloud. “We just have to apply it judiciously. And we don’t have much time—the Sovyet’s in less than thirty-six hours.” His voice became more commanding, more authoritative. “Get me Knyaz Lin-Tao on a secure line as soon as he reaches Earth; he’s the strongest ally I can count on. And get me Legal. I don’t care who you wake up, I need them now. I know there was some sort of proclamation removing Nikolai from the line of succession. I don’t know if that applies to his heirs. I need legal precedents to stand on. Not that it’ll matter much when people are flailing around hopelessly, but it’ll help me stall.”

  He stood up and took a deep breath. “We’d better hope young Bar Nahum is right about Natalia’s survival. If she can’t get here in time, the whole Empire’s likely to be dangling by a thread.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Down to Earth

  The lighting in the ship’s hold, never bright to begin with, dimmed instantly to a faint emergency red. At the same time, the artificial gravity cut out, leaving everything floating weightless. Those things, combined with the deafening alarms, made Eva yell up to the control room “Are we hit?”

  Fortier’s gruff voice came back down to them. “Nah. Just need extra power for maneuvering, that’s all. Might want to hold onto something, though. This might get a bit rough.”

  Even as his words came to them, the ship lurched violently to port, tossing both passengers hard against the wall. Natalia’s shoulder slammed hard against the bulkhead, and she cried out in pain.

  “Curl up in a ball,” Eva advised the girl. “Protect your head at all costs.”

  Their momentum in weightless condition sent them banging against the walls like balls in a pachinko machine as the ship dodged and darted through space in its effort to avoid enemy fire. At this point they didn’t know who was shooting at them, whether it was the rebel forces or the Imperial Navy. It hardly mattered; each side would have been just as happy to shoot them down.

  “Can’t we get a message out?” Natalia called up to the captain.

  “Wouldn’t do no good,” he replied. “Both sides think we’re a spy for the other, and they’re both jamming us. Gotta weave between them and hope they shoot each other instead of us. It’s gonna be fun.”

  “Fun?” Natalia asked. Even in the strange red emergency lighting, Eva could tell her face was pale.

  “Better’n sitting around, playing music and waving your hands in the air,” the captain said. “Now be quiet and let me concentrate.”

  For more than half an hour the ship dodged and weaved through space, making seemingly impossible cuts and direction changes as it tried to avoid taking fire—not just from one fleet, but two. Even though they were holding on to whatever they could grab, the two women were tossed around the cavernous hold and soon were covered with bruises. Finally the bouncing stopped, and the interior of the ship took on a preternatural quiet.

  “Is that over?” Natalia asked in a shaky voice.

  “For the moment,” Fortier said. “You ladies didn’t tell me everybody’s out to get you. Both sides are firing at us.”

  “We’re just popular, that’s all,” Eva said.

  The captain grunted something incomprehensible. Eva didn’t suppose it was either genteel or flattering. “How’d you get clear?” she continued.

  “Aah, those big warships ain’t much built for atmospheric maneuverin’.”

  “Are we? “ Eva asked.

  She could almost hear the captain shrug. “Better’n they are, at least. For a few minutes, anyway.”

  “What happens after those few minutes?” Natalia asked.

  “You ladies won’t have to worry about that. You won’t be here.”

  “Where will we be?” asked Eva.

  Fortier came down through the hatch. “In the lifeship, where good little passengers are supposed to be. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  He led them around the wall to a section where red-and-yellow tape marked off a sign: Emergency Exit. “You just go in there and I’ll jettison you out.”

  “What about you?” Natalia asked. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “Nope.”

  “There’s enough room for three, isn’t there?” Eva said.

  “Plenty of room for five,” the captain said. “But somebody’s got to stay with the ship and run it as a decoy, so they won’t notice the lifeship.”

  Natalia’s eyes went wide. “But that means you’ll—”

  “I’ve never run a lifeship before,” Eva interrupted her. “How does it work?”

  “It’s made to be simple, just a couple basic voice commands. They’re printed on the wall.” He hesitated. “I’ve modified it a bit over the years. A normal lifeship sends out emergency signals; this one don’t unless you ask it special. A normal lifeship homes in on spaceport beacons and lands at the nearest one. This one don’t, but it hooks into the local web and you can feed it coordinates. Kinda necessary adjustments in my line of work.” He opened the hatch for them. “Come on, get in.”

  Natalia looked about to say something else, but Eva put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and guided her firmly into the lifeship, then followed her through the hatch. She looked back at the captain. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

  Fortier seemed embarrassed, far more than when he’d simply been negotiating money. “I’ve got a boy named Paul,” he said hesitantly. “Well, a son, really. I guess he hasn’t been a boy for a long time. He wants to work in space and I’ve taught him all my tricks, but—well something must’ve gone wrong in his genes. He actually wants to be official, joined the Naval Academy and everything.” He looked straight into Natalia’s face. “If … if you know anyone in a position to help him get through, make a good career in the Navy—”

  “We’ll see he’s looked after,” Eva said solemnly.

  The captain’s embarrassment lifted. “Well then, good,” he said with a nod. “Smooth flying, ladies.” And he closed and locked the hatch behind them.

  Natalia was quiet for a couple of seconds. “Why did you interrupt me? He’s going to die.”

  Eva shrugged. “He’s a good man. That’s what I saw in him. Lots of good people have died serving the tsar over the centuries. When someone’s being heroic and noble, it’s bad manners to point it out to them.”

  There was a hint of tears in Natalia’s eyes. Eva moved over beside her and hugged her for a minute. “In the last few days, millions of people have died for you in one way or another. In the next few days there’ll be millions more. No matter how powerful you are, you can’t change that. You can give medals and speeches all you want; the only way you can really honor them is to go out and be the best damned tsaritsa the Empire’s ever seen.”

  The lifeship lurched as it was ejected from the bigger ship.

  Natalia clenched a fist. “I’ll take care of his son.”

  And I wish now I’d had sex with him, Eva thought. “Take care of yourself first,” she said aloud. “We’ve still got an Empire to reclaim.”

  * * *

  The interior of the lifeship was spartan. It was mostly b
are metal with a tiny galley and tinier head. There was a banquette of padded seating for when the lifeship was under acceleration or gravity conditions, and harnesses to strap yourself into in freefall. The lighting was dim, but still bright enough to see after the emergency lighting in the ship. The air smelled stale and long-unused; it was a bit chillier than comfortable, and the recycler made a louder hiss than it needed to. But, as the captain had said, it was big enough for five friendly people.

  There was no window, but there was a forward view screen that relayed images from cameras in the ship’s hull. In the darkness of space they could see the ship pulling rapidly away from them, its hull heated slightly red from atmospheric contact. It zoomed away from them in a rolling, looping motion. It quickly disappeared into the blackness, and for a minute the women thought it might have escaped safely—but then there was a blinding flash, and they knew it was gone. Eva set her jaw tightly, and Natalia tried to look stoic, but they were both surprisingly shaken by the loss of a man they only barely knew.

  Eva finally broke the silence. “Any ideas where we should go?”

  “Moscow,” Natalia said instantly.

  “Not directly. If we go straight in we’ll be shot out of the skies.”

  “Can’t we identify ourselves?”

  “(A), they might not believe us, considering there are reliable reports of your death. And (B), that will alert the rebel forces where we are, too. We don’t want to give them a chance to zero in on us. I was thinking some area outside the city, where we might not be noticed. Got any ideas?”

  Natalia shook her head. “The only times I got out of the palace were when I went to some official function, or when I went to some of our other estates. I really don’t know my way around.”

  Eva shrugged. “No matter. That’s what the web’s for.” As Fortier had said, the lifeship had plugged itself into Earth’s web and there were plenty of aerial images and maps for her to study. Moscow, as capital of the interstellar Empire, had grown over the centuries to a sprawling megalopolis that seemed to go on forever. So much of it was urbanized that finding any open area nearby where they could land unobserved looked hopeless. Russia still had vast areas of undeveloped land, but none close to the city.