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* * *
Russian Amerika-ARC
Advance Reader Copy
Unproofed
* * *
Liberty is Born in the Czar's American Lands
Fight for Free Amerika!
21st century Russian Amerika—a cold, hard land held in chains by a brutal police state. But now the Cossacks have met their match in a rebel army of Athabaskans and outcast creoles. New republic or slavery's chains?
It will all come down to a gritty and courageous rebel commander and a final courageous stand at the remote fortress known as the Chena Redoubt.
A debut alternate history of astonishing power and prescience from Alaskan native Stoney Compton!
"[T]his is a mordant, brilliant book."
—San Francisco Chronicle
Cover Art by Kurt Miller
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Hardcover
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
First printing, April 2007
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2116-7
ISBN-10: 1-4165-2116-X
Copyright© 2007 by Stoney Compton
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com
Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webscription.net
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Dedication
To my Mother, Maxine Irene Stout Compton, 1926-1998
She would have been proud of my accomplishment,
but embarassed by its content.
For Colette Marie, my magical and wonderful dancer wife,
with her, all things are possible.
For Jess and Mary Herring, finer in-laws are not to be found.
And for Eric Flint, whose friendship knows no bounds. Thank you.
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Table of Contents
A141652116X__c_.htm
Russian Amerika-ARC
Advance Reader CopyUnproofed
Liberty is Born in the Czar's American Lands Fight for Free Amerika!
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2116-7ISBN-10: 1-4165-2116-X
Dedication
- Chapter 1
1
Clarence Strait, Russian Amerika, July 1987
- Chapter 2
2
Four Days Earlier
- Chapter 3
3
Tolstoi Bay, Prince of Wales Island
- Chapter 4
4
Akku
- Chapter 5
5
Akku
- Chapter 6
6
Outside Construction Camp 4, Mid August, 1987
- Chapter 7
7
Construction Camp 4 on the Tanana River
- Chapter 8
8
Outside Construction Camp 4
- Chapter 9
9
Construction Camp 4
- Chapter 10
10
Construction Camp 4
- Chapter 11
11
On the Tanana River Trail
- Chapter 12
12
On the Tanana River Trail
- Chapter 13
13
On the Delta River Trail
- Chapter 14
14
- Chapter 15
15
On the Toklat River, October 1987
- Chapter 16
16
Tetlin Redoubt
- Chapter 17
17
Toklat, November 1987
- Chapter 18
18
Tetlin Redoubt
- Chapter 19
19
Toklat
- Chapter 20
20
Near the Toklat River
- Chapter 21
21
Near the East Fork of the Toklat River
- Chapter 22
22
Near the Toklat River
- Chapter 23
23
Near the Toklat River
- Chapter 24
24
Near the Toklat River
- Chapter 25
25
Toklat, December 1987
- Chapter 26
26
Minto, December 1987
- Chapter 27
27
Tetlin Redoubt, January 1988
- Chapter 28
28
Tetlin Imperial Aerodrome
- Chapter 29
29
Outside Chena Redoubt, January 1988
- Chapter 30
30
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 31
31
800 Meters Over the Tanana River
- Chapter 32
32
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 33
33
Outside the Walls of Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 34
34
On the Russian-Canada Highway,Near the Tanana River
- Chapter 35
35
Chena
- Chapter 36
36
On the Russia–Canada Highway
- Chapter 37
37
Tetlin Redoubt
- Chapter 38
38
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 39
39
A Kilometer From Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 40
40
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 41
41
- Chapter 42
42
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 43
43
Inside the Ruins of Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 44
43
In the Bowels of Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 45
45
- Chapter 46
46
- Chapter 47
47
- Chapter 48
48
- Chapter 49
49
West of Chena on the Russia-Canada Highway
- Chapter 50
50
- Chapter 51
51
Russia–Canada Highway, Near the Yukon River
- Chapter 52
52
Russia-Canada Highway, East of Tanana
- Chapter 53
53
Tanana on the Yukon, February 1988
- Chapter 54
54
Russia–Canada Highway East of Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 55
55
Russia–Canada Highway, East of Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 56
56
Chena Redoubt, March 1988
- Chapter 57
57
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 58
58
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 59
59
Klahotsa, on the Yukon River
- Chapter 60
60
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 61
61
Russia–Canada Highway
- Chapter 62
62
Columbia, Ohio, Capital of the U.S.A.
- Chapter 63
63
On the Yukon River, Between Old Crow and Tetlin
- Chapter 64
64
San Francisco, Republic of California
- Chapter 65
65
San Francisco, Republic of California
- Chapter 66
66
The Presidio, San Francisco, Republic of California
- Chapter 67
67
East of St. Anthony Redoubt,on the Russia–Canada Highway
- Chapter 68
68
Chena Redoubt, April 1988
- Chapter 69
69
Capitol Building, San Francisco, Republic of California
- Chapter 70
70
St. Anthony Redoubt
- Chapter 71
71
Russia–Canada Highway, East of Chena
- Chapter 72
72
Flight Delta, 5 Kilometers Above British Canada
- Chapter 73
73
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 74
74
Russia–Canada Highway, East of Chena
- Chapter 75
75
Four Miles from Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 76
76
Chena Redoubt
- Chapter 77
77
The Russian Front Line, in the 2nd Battle of Chena
- Chapter 78
78
117th Fighter Squadron Over Russian Amerika
- Chapter 79
79
Behind the Den Front Line
- Chapter 80
80
Rainbow Valley
- Chapter 81
81
Russian Front Line, Second Battle of Chena
- Chapter 82
82
3rd PIR over Russian Amerika
- Chapter 83
83
Rainbow Valley
- Chapter 84
84
Second Battle of Chena
- Chapter 85
85
Rainbow Valley
- Chapter 86
86
Second Battle of Chena
- Chapter 87
87
Rainbow Valley
- Chapter 88
88
Tanana, Den Republik
- Chapter 89
89
- Chapter 90
90
Rainbow Valley
- Chapter 91
91
- Chapter 92
92
Fort Chena, Den Republik
- Chapter 93
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Contents
1
Clarence Strait, Russian Amerika, July 1987
Etolin Island lay to starboard and Prince of Wales Island stood fine on the horizon to port. All thirty meters of Pravda tossed like a cork in a pond. The graying seas broke into spraying foam at two meters and the wind shrilled warning.
Charter Captain Grigoriy Grigorievich couldn't drop anchor here, nor could he just abandon the wheel and go below to mediate what was sure to turn into rape, at the very least. Both passengers were below in the main cabin. He popped open the hidden compartment on the console and poked the tiny phone into his ear so quickly he hurt himself.
"No!" Valari said.
"You will do this with me for two reasons," Karpov said, sounding like a schoolteacher. "First, it will give us both comfort in this storm. Secondly, if you don't do it willingly, I will beat you and take you by force. This is inevitable; besides, you used to enjoy me."
"I was lying, you swine!" she shrieked. An oddly familiar thonk came over the phone, and Grisha realized that someone had just been hit with a bottle. A large mass fell on the deck.
He smiled and put the earphone away. Valari was beginning to appeal to him. She raged up the steps, clutching the vodka bottle by its neck. Throwing it over the side, she grabbed the railing, braced herself on the heaving deck, and shouted at him.
"I wish to make a formal protest to be entered in the log!"
He gestured with his chin as he clutched the wheel with both hands. "It's right up there," he yelled over the building wind. "Make the entry yourself."
"But you're the captain."
"Do you want to take over?"
Hanging on to the railing with both hands she finally took in the sea around them. Huge swells of slate-colored water veined with submerged foam like fat in a rich man's steak roiled up around them, rising and dropping with unimaginable hydraulic force. Wind ripped loose foam off wave tops and hurled it at the boat where it smacked the hull and topsides like thrown sand.
Pravda rolled heavily from side to side and pitched up and down as she struggled from one wave to the next. Prince of Wales Island now lay behind a seamless wall of driving water and impenetrable cloud.
"By the saints, no," she said, nearly inaudible, swaying with the dance of the boat. She raised her voice. "Are we going to get out of this?" Water sluiced across the deck and gurgled into the scuppers as the boat labored through the shrieking elements.
"Of course!" He forced himself to smile and licked salt spray from his lips.
"You don't lie very well. Tell me the truth."
"We're not far from Fort Dionysus. If the storm doesn't get any worse we will make it easily."
"And if the storm gets worse?"
He shrugged. "Figure it out for yourself: we won't make it."
"Shit! This was such a stupid idea! Now we're all going to die. If I get out of this I'm going to get a new job."
"Why are you here?" Grisha shouted to be heard over the storm.
She gave him a level look and smiled. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it. The less you know the better off you'll be."
Grisha repressed the flare of anger.
Suddenly Karpov, blood streaming down the side of his head, erupted out of the companionway, slid across the soaking deck on his knees, and tackled Valari. She screamed and pounded his head with her fists.
"What are you doing, you ass?" she screamed at him. "Have you lost your mind?"
Still on his knees, the beefy man gripped her shirt with one hand, slapped her face with the other. Blood arced from her cut lip. The small sound from deep in her throat jerked open Grisha's gut anger.
Holding the wheel with one hand, he turned and snap-kicked Karpov as hard as he could in the side of the head. Still clutching Valari, Karpov flew backward and his head smashed into the fishing-gear compartment. The door to the locker swung open as he flopped on the deck, spasming as he tried to retain consciousness.
Valari squirmed out from under Karpov's twitching mass. "Thank you, Captain Grisha. I think he would have really hurt me this time." She staggered across the shifting deck and hugged him fiercely. He put one arm around her. "I owe you for that one," she said.
With a gasp she was wrenched out of his grasp and flung across the bridge deck by a seething Karpov. The large man didn't even look back at the woman. He stood glaring at Grisha, rain and blood running down his face as bruises and lumps purpled and thickened.
"I relieve you of command!" he said with a growl, and swung his massive fist at Grisha's face.
Grisha released the wheel, ducked under the swing and put all of his weight behind a two-fisted uppercut to Karpov's solar plexus. Air whoofed out of the larger man and he staggered back three steps. Grisha kicked him in the crotch as hard as he could. Karpov doubled over with a moan and fell heavily.
Grisha grabbed the spinning wheel and gave his attention to straightening the boat, which had immediately turned broadside to the wind. Pravda lurched sideways off a wave top and slid to the bottom of the trough with a crash. He felt thankful the boat hadn't rolled down the liquid incline.
Seawater cr
ashed into the open bridge, soaking it and everyone on it. Gear spilled out of the fishing locker and slid around the deck. On the other side of the bridge, Valari pulled herself to her feet and clung to the railing, shivering.
Karpov shook his head and swung from the deck to bury his fist in Grisha's stomach, smashing him against the bulkhead and knocking him breathless. Grisha slid down on the deck, gasping. The boat again put beam to the wind and rolled heavily to starboard, hanging for an impossibly long time before rolling back to port.
More seawater inundated them. The bridge deck swirled with the increasing water the scuppers couldn't handle.
"Wheel!" Grisha gasped. "Get the wheel!"
Karpov threw himself on Grisha and hit him with three hammering blows. The vessel lurched in the moaning gale and crunched into a trough. Crockery shattered in the galley and Grisha twisted his body and threw Karpov off him.
He rolled over and pushed himself up, tried to hit Karpov but couldn't find a target the few times he could put any strength behind his fist. Valari grabbed the wheel and turned it back and forth uselessly.
"Into the wind!" he screamed. "Turn into the wi—"
Karpov's fist drove the oxygen from his lungs again. Grisha crashed back on the deck. The heavy man straddled him and began choking him with both hands.