The Last Romanov (Under Editing)

Prologue: The Return of the Grand Duchess

One Month Earlier-

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, the proper ruler of Russia, stared out over the landscape that stretched beneath her from her seat on the bridge of her airship, her gloved hand resting on the pommel of her sword. Of course, the thing was only decorative (she doubted it would last long in a real battle against men with guns and artillery, the sort that she would soon find herself in) but it still offered some small comfort. It was of the hussar variety, made for her by one of the finest sword smiths in Czechoslovakia; it could be argued that the man was one of the best in Europe, perhaps even the entire world. She'd commissioned it three months ago, on the day that she and the high command of the Czechoslovakian military decided to mount this offensive against these damned communists to take back the country she'd been forced to leave. After three years of preparing herself, trying to get the military of the newly formed country on her side, she was finally coming back out of hiding. She was going to rip her damned throne right out from under that damned traitor Lenin's feet, and she was going to have the biggest smile in Europe as she watched the firing squad fill that bastard with bullets. The way those bastards back in 1918 smiled as they shot at the rest of her family in that damned basement. And at her.

Her grip on the pommel tightened. She could still feel the numbness in her hand: the Czech doctors, the ones that found her stumbling through the snow with all sorts of injuries, told her that one of the bullets had seriously damaged the nerves in her hand. She should be thankful that she was even alive, they told her that day. A teenaged girl shouldn't have been able to survive so many bullet wounds, and if it hadn't been for the jewelry sewn into her coat (she and her sisters had been worried that the soldiers would take it if they had it out in the open) she probably would've died, right along with the rest of her family. That if it hadn't been for the fact that she was unconscious when they carried her out, she would've suffered the very same fate as the rest of her family.

Well, it was pretty damned hard to feel very grateful for her life when half of her hand was filled with brass parts just so she could move it, and what parts were still human were covered in pink scars that would never go away. And when her whole left arm from the shoulder didn't have a single part of it that was still human. And that the man that made all this happen was not only still alive, but was ruling her country.

Yes: if one didn't think about all that, she was very lucky, indeed.

"We'll be in Russian airspace in about five minutes, my lady," Air Marshall Novak, the newly appointed head of the Czechoslovakian Air Service, said. He was standing next to her, his white-gloved hands clasped behind his back. "I've just been informed that the regular army is currently engaged in battle in Smolensk, about twenty minutes away. Shall we engage, or shall we wait until the army has taken the city before we make an appearance?"

Anastasia stood up, the dual pistols at her sides suddenly growing heavy. She could hardly believe that this was a question.

"Engage," she ordered.

It was time to let the people know that their proper ruler had arrived.

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Well, everyone, it's finally here: "The Last Romanov" is up, after my bugging my followers about it for awhile. I'll be posting the real first chapter later on today, so stay tuned. 

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