>After reading this chapter I can't help but wonder if the Ladies
>Romanova are related.

If so, it's at a fairly considerable remove. Natalia (born around 2270) is from Novaya Rodina (the same colony as Maria Tachibana), and her family had been there for several generations; Nene's parents came directly to New Japan from Earth in the early 2200s. If they're related at all, they represent two quite divergent branches of the Romanov line (and belong to different generations).

Natalia can, however, trace her particular line back to Tatiana Romanova, who achieved a certain level of infamy as a KGB operative on Earth during the 20th-century Cold War. In espionage circles she is best known for her rather spectacular defection to the West in 1964, which left a trail of bodies scattered all across Europe, left SMERSH crippled for nearly a decade, and earned her the original nickname "the Black Widow". The Neo-Soviet spymasters of the Red Room thought they could do a better job, loyalty-wise, with Tatiana's descendent. They appear to have been wrong. Perhaps the code name really is cursed - but then, a Bolshevik should know better than to expect loyalty to a Marxist-Stalinist state from a Romanov...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/