Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1

by Stephen Goldin

  “He was a top agent for ISIS. On one assignment, his left hand got sliced off by a beamer ray. He got it replaced by an artificial one, with all sorts of special functions. He says it’s even better than the one he lost.”

  Natalia’s face was noncommittal. “So?”

  “So I have to ask you: Why do you need a prosthetic leg?”

  Natalia’s whole body stiffened. “I don’t know what you—”

  “Let’s not play games, Your Majesty. I have to know.”

  The girl was bristling with a horrible combination of adolescent and imperial indignation. “My body is none of your business.”

  “As long as I have to keep it safe, every piece of it is my business. Including the pieces you don’t want to admit to.”

  Natalia’s teeth were clenched, and her eyes stared fixedly on the wall across the way. She said nothing.

  “I was a fourteen-year-old girl myself,” Eva said. “I could out-stubborn you any day of the week, but we don’t have time for that. We have to act fast if we’re going to save the Empire for you.”

  She paused, but there was still no word from Natalia. Eva continued, “Was it amputated? Were you in an accident?”

  “Why are you ask—?”

  “Because I need to know.”

  Natalia turned her face away. Eva grabbed her chin and turned it back to face her. “Can. You. Walk. With. Out. It?” she asked.

  Natalia averted her eyes, even if she couldn’t turn her head. “Yes,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Good. Take it off.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. “I can’t be seen like that!”

  “Bad for the imperial image, huh?”

  “The heir … the tsaritsa must have no weaknesses or imperfections.”

  “Take it off,” Eva said, “or I’ll rip it off you myself. We have to change your look as much as possible so no one’ll recognize you.”

  There was a long silence. “Turn around,” Natalia said.

  Eva obliged, smiling gently at the adolescent modesty. As a freilina and a traveling companion, she’d seen Natalia in all stages of undress and the girl had shown no trace of embarrassment. But this was different, this was an intimacy shared with almost no one else, and the young girl was very self-conscious. Eva could hear a few near-silent clicks as the leg was detached.

  After a few minutes of grunting, Natalia said, “Smooth, you can turn around again.”

  Eva did so, looking the girl over to evaluate the situation without seeming to stare. “I’m a hideously deformed freak, aren’t I?” Natalia asked bitterly.

  Her right leg was perhaps ten centimeters shorter than her left. It was withered and spindly, with the knee twisted inward at a bad angle. There were spots along the skin where contact points in the prosthetic could connect to react with the girl’s muscles.

  “Define ‘freak,’“ Eva said. “I’m Zionian. We were genetically engineered different from normal people. My abnormalities don’t show much, but they’re there.”

  “People will laugh at me, or look away.”

  “They won’t laugh when you’re on the throne. And for now I hope they do turn away, so they won’t recognize you.” Eva paused. “I presume you were born that way.”

  “Yes,” Natalia said glumly. “It’s a state secret.”

  “And it may save your life,” Eva said. “It won’t fool a iriscope, but it may keep anyone from using one. I suppose you have spare legs.”

  “There was one on Argosy and there’s three more in the palace.”

  “Good. We can ditch this one, then.” She stood up and casually tossed the artificial leg over in one corner. Natalia sulked.

  Next Eva took out some clothes from another of the shopping bags. “I had to guess at your size, but these should be smooth for a teenage girl who’s not a tsaritsa. Skirt, sweater, socks and shoes. Hm, the shoes may be a problem with your misshaped foot—but even if the clothes don’t fit perfectly, you can say they’re hand-me-down shmattes from your big sister Eva.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “That’s me. It’s my real name when I’m not pretending to be a freilina. I’m your big sister Eva, and you’re my kid sister Nata. Our last name will be Rostova. We’re on our way back to Earth after visiting our aunt and uncle here on Languor. Tickets were very hard to get, by the way. It seems everyone in the outer Empire suddenly wants to get back to Earth and, from what I hear, everyone on Earth wants to get away. I managed to find a decent liner—not first-class, but comfortable. If it all goes well, we’ll be on Earth in four days. Oh, and I had to pawn a couple of your rings to pay for it.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Just a couple of the smaller ones that wouldn’t be recognizable.”

  “You sold my jewelry?”

  “Nu, you expect me to spend all my own gelt?” Eva cracked. “Relax, you’re not the first royal to hock the family jewels. I have the pawn tickets, you can go back for them later.

  “Besides,” she added on a more serious note, “I didn’t want to leave a credit trail. Cash isn’t nearly as traceable. Here, I promised you a new wristcom, too. It’s not as fancy as your old one, but I’m the only one who knows the ID code, so no one can track you with it.”

  She handed Natalia the new wristcom. The girl took it reluctantly, as though it were a slimy sea slug she had to fasten to her wrist. Her leg, her jewelry, her clothes, her hair—she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and shuddered—and even her name had been stripped from her, all to be replaced by substitutes that left her no shred of dignity.

  Her mood grew increasingly dark. Intellectually she knew Eva’s actions were necessary, but she felt all wrong. “There’s nothing of me left,” she complained.

  “You’ve still got your whine down, Little Miss Tsouris,” Eva commented. “And they say Jewish princesses are spoiled.”

  “I thought you said our name was Rostova. What’s this ‘Tsouris’?”

  “It’s a Greek word—means ‘sweet’ or ‘candy’,” Eva said dismissively—then added more gently, “You still have your mind, your knowledge. You’re still my little tsaritsa, and I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  She gave Natalia a final top-to-toe inspection. “Despite everything I’ve done to disguise you, there’s still going to be some people who’ll say you look like Natalia Ilyinishna, even though they know she’s dead. What you have to do is look straight into their faces with the most bored expression you can manage and say, ‘Da, and if I had a piatak for every time I heard that I’d be richer than she is.’ Think you can do that?”

  The girl nodded sullenly.

  “Then we’re all set,” Eva said, trying to lift Natalia’s spirits. “Let me see that beautiful smile of yours. It’s showtime!”

  * * *

  They took a cab back to Languor Field. Eva kept up a stream of meaningless babble, gossiping about their supposed friends and relatives. Natalia sat beside her quietly, just hoping to get the entire ordeal over with without anyone seeing her in this hideous disguise.

  Despite its name, the New Canton was not a new ship, nor was it a large, flashy, comfortable one. It wasn’t a space-going casino/spa/shopping mall like many of the bigger, more modern liners. Its guest cabins were small but decently furnished, and it offered its passengers the basic amenities in a shabby-genteel manner. Its primary attraction, though, was that it was scheduled for a straight-through flight from Languor to Earth. No stops meant fewer chances for things to go wrong. It would get them to Earth in time to address the Sovyet Knyazey and clear up the slight misunderstanding about Natalia’s death.

  Natalia looked around disapprovingly. “You sold my rings for this?”

  “It’ll get us to Earth. Even if it was a donkey cart it would be worth the price. We can have our meals served in here, so you’ll never have to leave the room and risk being spotted.”

  “It’s like a prison.”

  “Better than some,” Eva said philosophically. �
��There’s plenty of entertainment on the shipboard web, and plenty of good books in the on-line library. Or we could play cards, or I could teach you how to speak without whining quite so much.”

  Natalia refused to answer the jibe, and sat around silent and sullen. They ordered meals in, and kept tabs on news broadcasts which reached the ship at regular intervals.

  The Empire was not going well. Massive fleets of ships from different factions were reported battling one another in the depths of space, and a number of planets had already been bombed. The death toll was rumored to be in the millions, and analysts made dire predictions of the number climbing by orders of magnitude.

  “If we can’t manage to stop this in time,” Eva said, “you might not have much of an empire left to rule.”

  In the middle of the second day of their flight, the captain made a general announcement. A fleet of armed ships had intercepted them and was forcing them to make an unscheduled stop on the nearby planet Farallon. These weren’t pirates, the captain assured the passengers; the ships expressed no interest in cargo or booty. They were, in fact, very vague about what they wanted. But Eva knew.

  “This is a ship going directly from Languor, where you were last seen, to Earth, where you’d want to go. They’d certainly guess you might be here.”

  “You knew this would happen?”

  “‘Knew’ is a bit strong. I considered it. I also considered a more roundabout route, going in other directions first and then working our way back toward Earth. But there wasn’t a lot of time. We need to get to Earth before the Sovyet Knyazey meets, so I chose the fastest way.”

  “So what do we do now?” Natalia asked. She tried bravely to keep her voice level, but a trace of fear crept in anyway.

  “I don’t know,” Eva said honestly. “I’ve been making this all up as we go along. They’re going to want to check all the passengers’ IDs, which we can’t let them do because your disguise won’t fool a iriscope. The good news is they’re forcing us to land instead of boarding us in space. That may give us some chance to get away. I can’t plan anything more than this because I don’t know what we’ll be facing.” She gave the girl a confident smile. “Just trust me. I happen to be brilliant; everybody says so. And nobody’s ever killed me yet.”

  “How long have you been a bodyguard?”

  “I’m not sure,” Eva said, her smile broadening. “What time is it now?”

  In due course the ship landed at Farallon’s small spaceport and the passengers were herded unceremoniously down the boarding tube. Most of the passengers were annoyed at this inconvenient and unscheduled stop. Even though most of them didn’t have their lives on the line the way Natalia did, they were very vocal in making their complaints heard and aiming most of their anger at the militsia guarding them.

  As the line moved slowly forward Eva looked appraisingly around the spaceport lobby. Branching off to the right was the concourse that led to the baggage area; to the left was a broad glass wall with many doors. Outside were rows of cabs, buses and cars waiting to pick people up.

  “Don’t look up,” Eva whispered to her companion. “There’s surveillance cameras all around, and we don’t want them capturing images of your face. Keep your head level, or even slightly down.”

  The line moved inexorably forward as their guards used iriscopes to check people’s identities. Eva continued evaluating the situation. The militsia were all armed with stingers, she noticed; that was a wise precaution when dealing with crowds—but it was also a weakness she could exploit guilt-free.

  “See that big red huvverbus just outside the door there? When I give the word, run like hell to it. Don’t look back, don’t look at me, don’t pay attention to any shouts or noises. Don’t let anything stop you. If you can’t get around something, go through it, and push anybody out of your way if you need to. Can you do that?”

  Natalia nodded.

  “Great,” Eva said. “Let’s see how much fun we can make this.” But in her heart of hearts, she knew this was going to be anything but fun.

  They finally came to the head of the line. Eva made sure to stand in front of Natalia. As the militsioner called, “Next,” and reached out to motion Eva forward, she reached out and grabbed his hand. Pulling it toward her, she pressed it against her right breast and held it there, meanwhile yelling at the top of her lungs, “Hey, watch where you’re putting your drapping hands! Let go, you oprichnik! Let go of me!”

  The militsioner, who’d had no intention of grabbing her breast, would have loved to comply—but Eva held his hand in place, and made it look like she was the one struggling to push him away. “Help, someone! Save me from this sex maniac!”

  While everyone, including the other militsia, were distracted by the struggle, Eva reached quickly down with her left hand and pulled the militsioner’s stinger from its holster. She shot the man before he could realize what was happening, and shot the two nearest militsia as well.

  Now she changed her yell. “Bomb! There’s a bomb here. Everybody run!”

  Some people just stood frozen in place, paralyzed by the sudden confusion. Other people, however, reacted instinctively to the bomb threat and began to scatter in all directions. Eva was pleased to see that Natalia had taken the cue to run for the door. Eva yelled “Bomb!” a couple more times, then took off after the girl.

  The concourse was in chaos. People were running every which way, and the militsia were undecided whether to shoot at the escapees or react to the bomb threat. They were paralyzed by indecision, and Eva took advantage of this to shoot another few militsia as she passed by them.

  Natalia’s escape had been largely unimpeded, but her stunted right leg made her “run” more of an awkward lope—and a slow one at that. Now Eva could see a militsioner closing in on the girl. From this angle, she wasn’t sure she could shoot the man without hitting Natalia by mistake, so instead she used her forward momentum to leap with Zionian strength. Her arc carried her over Natalia to come down right beside the man trying to apprehend her. Eva spun on one foot while raising the other to kick the man in the breastbone. He went down hard.

  She ran to the bus, leading the way for Natalia. She actually had to slow down quite a bit, making allowances for the girl’s twisted leg. She was fretting because the pace seemed so slow to her Zionian senses, but things were happening at a reasonably fast pace as far as normal people were concerned.

  It was night outside the terminal as she scrambled through the huvverbus’s open door. She didn’t have time to argue with the driver over who was in control, so she just stung him on general principles. He’d wake up in a few hours with a headache, but otherwise none the worse for wear. She pulled him out of his seat and took his place just as Natalia, panting heavily, scrambled in behind her. Eva closed the door and starter the engine.

  Not until then did she look around and discover that she and Natalia weren’t alone. Along with the unconscious driver, there were seven other passengers seated throughout the bus. “Hi everyone,” she said cheerily. “No reason for anyone to get hurt. We’re just going on a little unscheduled excursion, something exciting to tell your grandkids about. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  She gunned the accelerator and the lift simultaneously, and the huvverbus lifted off into the night, barely missing a couple of huvvers slowly descending to the ground. Her Zionian reflexes stood her in good stead as she steered frantically to avoid the collisions, and then she was in open air. She gained altitude so she could get her bearings. Through the front window she could see city lights off to her left. She turned the bus in that direction and headed that way at top speed.

  For obvious safety reasons, spaceports were not built within city limits, but several kilometers away. It would now be a race to see whether Eva could get the bus somewhere inside the city before the local constabulary could organize to stop her.

  It was a couple of minutes before she saw a group of lights behind her, giving chase. At almost the same time she spotted lights in f
ront of her as the city politsia rose to intercept her.

  She cut her headlights, even though she knew their radar would show her position, and she dropped altitude in almost a crash dive, leveling out again just before she hit the street. There wasn’t a lot of traffic at this hour, so it was easy to find a break in the flow to insert herself. The bus rolled to a stop near an alley and Eva opened all the doors. “Everybody out!” she called. “Thank you for choosing Desperation Bus Lines, and we hope you’ll tell your friends about us.”

  As the unwilling passengers scrambled for the exits, Eva turned to Natalia. “You too, kid.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “Not immediately. First I’ve got to throw some people off our trail.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Hide. Don’t worry, I’ll find you. Now go.”

  Natalia stepped out of the bus and the vehicle immediately took off again, forward and up. The young girl had a sudden cold, sinking feeling inside her. She was alone in the dark in a strange city on an unfamiliar world. She was being chased by people who would stop at nothing to find and kill her. To top the whole thing off, her protector had vanished, and she had no way of knowing when—or if—she’d ever see Eva, or Earth, again.

  She stood motionless on the sidewalk for several seconds, then belatedly turned and walked toward the alley.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Rebellion Strikes

  Following the close call with the stone-cats, Judah was more determined than ever to get off the palace grounds so he could call Nkosi Wettig and warn him of Kuznyetz’s identity. He looked down at himself and realized what a mess his uniform was in; he’d attract too much attention like this. Just a quick trip to the B.O.Q. to change, and then he could escape unnoticed.

  The B.O.Q. was buzzing as he came in. He went to the small room he shared with another officer to get a fresh uniform. His roommate was there and looked at him excitedly. “Did you hear the news?”