Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1 (24 page)

Eva looked up at the waning crescent moon
near the horizon. “That’ll be west,” she said. “I remember seeing
some farm buildings over in this direction a couple kilometers.
Nice night for a walk, don’t you think?”

They started through the widely spaced trees.
Eva, always impatient to get where she was going, had to
deliberately slow her pace so she wouldn’t completely outdistance
Natalia’s crooked walk. The girl was young and healthy, though, and
refused to complain so they made steady if slow progress. At first
their way was lit by the setting crescent moon, but after half an
hour bright artificial lights appeared on the horizon. The
fugitives walked toward them warily.

The buildings Eva had spotted as they came
down were not a simple family farm, but a large dairy processing
plant. It was a complex of eight large buildings, fully illuminated
even at night. The women stopped at the top of a small hill a
hundred meters away and observed it. No one seemed to be moving
around at night. Natalia wanted to simply walk in and announce
herself; this close to home, she reasoned, they could expect people
to recognize her and obey her, and they’d provide transportation
into Moscow itself.

Eva was more cautious. She didn’t know how
thorough the rebellion’s forces had been at spreading their net,
even on Earth. There might be a sizable reward out for any “royal
pretender” who showed her face. In the end, she convinced Natalia
to wait on the hilltop while she reconnoitered the grounds.

She returned about an hour later with a mixed
report. The workers were stationed in a large bunkhouse at one side
of the complex. There might be as many as fifty people there
altogether; while most of them probably were loyal citizens, it
would only take one informer to betray them. She still wanted to
proceed cautiously and not reveal themselves.

Natalia was very unhappy at this report, but
then Eva said, “The farm might give us a chance to steal some
faster transportation.”

“Of course,” Natalia said happily. “They must
have some cars!”

“Well, they do, but I wouldn’t take them. The
instant they’re reported stolen, the GPS will give our position
away. I was thinking something a little more basic.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a stable with some horses and gear.
Do you know how to ride?”

Natalia’s voice was dramatically indignant.
“I have the finest stables on Earth. I’ve been riding since I was
four.”

“Good,” Eva said. “Then you can teach
me.”

* * *

Judah returned to his post on the perimeter
of the Scorpio hall of state without incident. He was of
conflicting emotions about that. On the positive side, it was a
tribute to his stealth and would mean there would be no
complications integrating himself back into the kavalergardy. On
the negative side, it meant he was so unimportant that he could
disappear for long periods without even being missed.

His return was timely, though, because not
fifteen minutes later Cdr, Aab summoned the kavalergardy back
inside. “I need volunteers for a secret assignment,” he said.
“We’ve heard rumor that an impostor to the throne may have landed
on Earth in a small ship. This pretender would cause total anarchy
at the Sovyet if she showed up. All the knyazya have been
consulted, and they’ve authorized us to hunt her down.”

“Why us?” someone asked. “Why not local
militsia?”

“Because we’re
not
local. If news of
the impostor got out on Earth, there’d be all sorts of chaos. We
can’t go blabbing to anyone because we don’t have any local
contacts to blab to.”

“You want us to capture her and bring her in,
then?” Judah asked.

Aab set his jaw. “No. Our orders are to kill
her on sight. She could cause too much trouble otherwise. Now, any
volunteers?”

Half a dozen hands went up, Judah’s among
them. He had to be a member of this party to keep the tsaritsa
safe. Many of the others, though, seemed to feel a little squeamish
about cold-bloodedly assassinating an innocent young girl.

The officer looked them over and nodded.
“Good. You’ll be issued stingers. Set them on high. You’ll also
have an unmarked huvver with unrestricted diplomatic access and
directions about where the impostor came down. If you call in, use
the code word ‘Phoenix’; it will get you through instantly. Good
hunting.”

A setting of high, of course, was instantly
lethal, frying the target’s nervous system beyond any hope of
recovery. Kuznyetz was really serious about eliminating the threat
from a fourteen-year-old girl. Even if her body was later found,
she’d be beyond challenging his rule.

They left Moscow in darkness, keeping the car
on the road until they were well past the crowded city’s borders.
Then they got Traffic Control’s permission to take off into the air
and flew toward the coordinates they’d been given. Their sensors
were extended to full range, looking for any traces of their
prey.

Moscow’s urban sprawl meant there were still
plenty of houses and people this far out, giving any fugitives
plenty of cover for hiding. The team leader had the markers for the
tsaritsa’s wristcom, but it wasn’t registering anywhere; she’d
probably been smart enough to get rid of it somewhere along the
way. Judah was beginning to think their search would be hopeless;
Kuznyetz would have other teams of guards watching the palace in
case Natalia showed up there. But the land became more and more
pastoral, and any people would certainly stand out from the
background.

“There!” Someone pointed at the screen. “Two
figures.” His brow wrinkled. “They’re not on a road and they’re not
moving fast enough for a car, but they’re way too fast for people.”
The car swooped silently downward for a closer look.

“Horses!” someone cried in astonishment.
“They’re on horseback.”

Judah couldn’t help but smile, and was glad
it was dark enough his comrades wouldn’t notice. That’d be Eva, all
right; leave it to her to find the dramatic way of making an
entrance. Just her style.

“Well, they won’t be for long,” said the team
leader, lowering the huvver further so they could get better
shots.

Judah decided this was the time to act. He
turned the setting on his stinger down to low and shot his
companions one by one. There seemed to be an agonizingly long time
between each shot—it took nearly a second for a stinger to recharge
each time—but he was still fast enough to incapacitate the other
kavalergardy before they could react.

Then he suddenly found himself in a huvver
plunging out of control. He had to reach awkwardly across two
unconscious bodies to reach the car’s controls. The vehicle lurched
and swerved violently, but it had already been close enough to the
ground that it didn’t burst apart when it came down. It was even
still drivable, which Judah decided was due to his expert
handling.

The huvver’s sensors showed two shapes in the
darkness not far ahead. They had stopped moving and were probably
watching the car cautiously from a safe distance. Judah clambered
clumsily over the tangle of limp bodies to open the door and step
out of the car. “Hey, Eva,” he called out as he waved to the
darkness. “It’s just me. I brought you some transportation.”

There was a moment of silence, and then a
wave of relief flooded over him as his cousin’s voice called back.
“I know it’s you,” Eva said. “No one else is that bad a
driver.”

Eva and Natalia dismounted as Judah walked up
to them. “Nata, this is my cousin and dance partner, Judah Bar
Nahum,” Eva said. “Judah, may I present Her Imperial Majesty,
Tsaritsa Natalia Ilyinishna Sokolova. Or should I say Tsaritsa
Presumptive?”

Judah knelt before her and bowed his head.
Natalia gave a quick nod of acknowledgment and said, “Right now I’m
nothing until the Sovyet Knyazey says otherwise.”

“You heard her,
boychik
,” Eva said.
“Get up. We’ve got work to do.”

Judah rose and led the two women over to the
car. While he couldn’t see the deformity of her right leg in the
darkness, he could see she had an awkward limp. He decided to be a
gentleman and ignore it.

“Who are they?” Natalia asked as she spotted
the unconscious bodies.

“They’re members of Kuznyetz’s kavalergardy,”
Judah said. “They came out here to stop you. I stopped them first.
What should we do with them?”

Natalia’s voice was calm and level. “Kill
them.”

Judah was shocked to hear such a harsh
sentence come out of such a young girl. Even Eva’s eyes widened a
trifle. “In cold blood?” Judah asked.

“They were going to kill me. That is a
treasonable offense, punishable by death.”

Judah still had trouble wrapping his mind
around this. “Well, to be fair, they didn’t think it was really
you. They thought you were a pretender to the throne.”

“They were willing to kill innocent people
without a trial. Do they deserve to live?”

“How can you be so …?”

“Heartless? Cold-blooded?” Natalia suggested.
“What do you know about my family’s history? The real story, not
what we print in the books.”

When Judah didn’t reply, she continued, “My
family didn’t become rulers of an interstellar empire by being
genteel and polite. Gregoriy I led a criminal gang known as the
most ruthless cutthroats on Earth. They were called the Russkaya
Mafiya, and they were so tough even the other gangs like the
Colombians and the Yakuza were afraid of them. When the old nations
crumbled in the face of so-called globalization, we branched out
and took over political power too. No one could stand up to us.”
She smiled grimly. “Ruthless runs in my genes. I’m not squeamish
about killing traitors.”

Eva laid a hand lightly on the girl’s
shoulder. “Of course you’re not. But just consider: There’ll be
hundreds, if not thousands, of executions in the next few months
after we round up all the key players. Kuznyetz and his tovarishchi
are responsible for millions of deaths. Save the most serious
punishment for the most serious offenders. Low level oprichniki
should get lower level punishments. Isn’t that what Gulag’s
for?”

Natalia was silent as she reconsidered. “I
suppose you’re right,” she said grudgingly, not wanting to let go
of the chance to vent her rage at the horrors of the past few days.
“But we’ve got to do something to keep them from raising an alarm
about us.”

In the end, the three took the men’s weapons,
wristcoms and boots. Eva would have stripped them completely naked,
but Judah talked her out of it on the very practical grounds that
they were in a hurry, and undressing unconscious bodies takes far
too much labor and time to make it worthwhile. “Without their boots
it’ll take them hours to get anywhere,” he said. Eva had to agree,
but she still enjoyed the mental image of the men walking naked
through the Russian countryside.

The huvver was still operable despite Judah’s
hard landing. “What’s the plan now?” he asked as they started back
toward Moscow.

“We go straight to the palace,” Natalia said
without hesitation.

“Not a good idea,” Eva said. “If even one
person on your staff is a turncoat, they’ll give us away before
we’re ready.”

“If I’m going to appear at the Sovyet
Knyazey, I must have the proper clothes,” Natalia insisted. “That
much is essential. I can’t just show up like this.”

“A good entrance is always important,” Judah
agreed.

“I also need a proper leg,” Natalia said more
quietly to Eva, who had to concede the point.

“We can’t let it be common knowledge,
though,” Judah continued. “Until you show up safely at the Sovyet
Knyazey, there’s still a chance Kuznyetz might get to you quietly
before anyone else knows about you. Is there one person at the
palace who could sneak you in and out, one person you’d trust your
life to?”

“Yes,” Natalia said without a second’s
hesitation. “Lady Elena.”

Eva nodded. “If she can’t be trusted, no one
can,” she said, confirming the girl’s choice.

Natalia promptly sent a high-priority encoded
text message to Lady Elena’s private number, telling her to be
alone at a seldom-used back door of the palace in an hour. The
message was unsigned and Elena wouldn’t recognize the sender’s
wristcom ID, but knowing the lady’s diligence she wouldn’t ignore a
coded message like that. If nothing else, she’d be curious.

Their huvver, with its diplomatic registry,
passed without incident into the city and into the Kremlin. Natalia
guided Judah around to the back of the palace, and entered the
security code to get them through the gates. The huvver glided up
to the chosen door without anyone in the palace being the wiser.
Eva and Natalia went to the door, while Judah waited with the car
in case of trouble.

Lady Elena opened at their knock. She stared
uncomprehendingly for a few moments when she saw the two women
before her. Then she fainted. Or she would have, if Eva’s reflexes
hadn’t been fast enough to catch her before she hit the ground.

She recovered quickly, but continued staring.
“Your … Your Highness. I … I never expected to seed you again. I
thought—”

“I know what you must have thought,” Natalia
said. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again, either. But here I am,
thanks to this very resourceful freilina you found for me.”

Lady Elena looked at Eva, as though noticing
her for the first time. Her expression was puzzled, wondering
exactly what had happened, but Eva gave her no time to think.
“Explanations later,” she said. “Right now we’ve got to get the
tsaritsa over to the Sovyet Knyazey. She’ll need suitable
clothes.”

“And a spare leg,” Natalia added.

“Can you get us in and out without anyone
seeing us?” Eva asked.