The hostile ship, no more than twenty thousand kilometers off their port quarter was quickly pinned by all four 8-inch lasers. For a long moment it just hung there in space.
Then it vanished.
Oh, there was a roiling cloud of hot dust and atoms where it had been, but of the ship, not a shred of evidence.
“What, in the name of all that’s holy, was that?” the skipper demanded.
A picture of the vaporized ship appeared again on the screen. Slowly, the sensor team replayed what had just happened, then provided in rapid fire, their analysis.
“It’s a small ship. No larger than a schooner or corvette.”
“Pirates use them a lot.”
“It’s got four 18-inch pulse lasers. You can see them firing.”
“It had no squawker. There’s no way to tell who it was or where it came from.”
Vicky scowled; she knew damn well where it came from.
She and the commander exchanged glances. Stepmom had struck again.
And the bitch is getting bigger and badder.
What wasn’t clear was whether or not she’d missed this time.
The Attacker had been hit aft and hit bad. Her reactors were damaged and going critical. If the snipes lost their battle with the superconductors, the demons that took ships between the stars would exact their price.
And their price was your life and soul.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Vicky asked.
“Keep your seat belt tight, Your Grace. There is nothing any of us up here on the bridge can do right now but pray. Are you good at that?”
“Not very.”
“You might get better.” Captain Bolesław’s suggestion was just short of an order.
Vicky remembered to breathe and look calm. That was what the captain was doing. Vicky glanced around the bridge. There were youthful seamen and ensigns struggling for the first time with the prospects that their young lives might be ephemeral.
Here and there, older chiefs and commanders went about their duties as calm as on any other day. That was the image Vicky must project. She wore the stripes of a lieutenant commander. She warned Admiral Waller when he had rushed her promotion that she didn’t think she was ready for the extra thin stripe.
Today, you show if you’ve earned it, little Victoria.
Vicky waited; others had things to do besides look calm. Calm was the only job for her at the moment.
On the board to her left, some of the flashing red went to yellow.
Then it got exciting.
The first freighter came through. It was almost on top of them and coming fast.
Captain Bolesław shouted orders and the Attacker used its maneuvering jets to zig right as the big freighter rolled left.
Just barely, the ships did not crash together. Even a kiss aft might have been the jar or knock that lost the fight the engineers were slowly winning.
Reminded of the tiny fleet behind them, Captain Bolesław used what little he could coax from his maneuvering rockets to increase the drift of his cruiser from the jump point.
When the next freighter came through, they had a less hairy time of it.
“Can we render assistance?” the skipper of the second freighter asked.
“Just stand clear,” was simple in its clarity. If the Attacker’s reactors blew, there was no need for two ships to go up with the one.
The freighter skipper remained on-screen for a few seconds longer, then he turned away, and the screen went blank. He had a second question. He had it but he didn’t ask it.
Does the Grand Duchess want to run away to someplace safe from harm?
Likely he would have worded it a bit differently. Maybe in some delicate way that would save her a shred of pride.
It would still have been . . . what?
An insult. Yes.
Just what her dad would have been screaming for. Oh, you bet.
Vicky didn’t like where these thoughts took her.
Her dad was her father, and she had to respect him.
Her dad was her Emperor, and she owed him her allegiance and her life.
Her dad was Greenfeld, and he was making a wreck of the place. Or at least he was letting his young bride make a wreck of the place, which was the same thing.
Now the target Stepmother had painted on Vicky’s back was huge enough to snuff out the lives of an entire heavy cruiser’s crew.
While others went about their duty to God and Country, trying to save their ship and their lives, Vicky Peterwald, Imperial Grand Duchess of Greenfeld, stayed calm and quietly contemplated treason.
CHAPTER 45
THE Attacker limped into High St. Petersburg station late and slow.
The last freighter, the Proud Hussy out of Port Royal, had stayed with her for the rest of the voyage, standing by in case the captain ordered the Attacker abandoned. That assumed that anything that went wrong in engineering did so slowly enough for the skipper to order his ship abandoned.
No one aboard really took a deep breath until the Attacker was along the pier and the reactors doused. Likely for good.
“She’s a good ship, but where will they find a pfennig to repair her these days?” Captain Bolesław almost moaned to Vicky as they shared wine during her last supper aboard. If it was possible for a hardheaded ship driver to be brokenhearted, he sure sounded the part.
Vicky loaded her computer with a copy of the brief battle and everything the sensors had picked up on the attacker during the fight. Her temper flaring, she marched for Admiral von Mittleburg’s station office.
“Would you care for a glass of wine?” the admiral said as she charged, unannounced, into his office.
Unannounced, but maybe not unexpected.
“No, thank you. I’d much more prefer to know who the hell let that ship get into our space and where it came from.”
“Sit down, Commander,” the admiral told Vicky’s trailing escort. “Take a load off your feet, if not your soul. Would you care for wine?”
The commander accepted the offered wine with a “Thank you, sir. I am told that your father keeps the best vineyard on Bayern.”
“As did his father and his father before him. Vines are delicate things. They grow better with age. Like Grand Duchesses, don’t you think?”
“I think this one is aging well, Admiral,” Vicky’s watchdog reported.
“I’m glad that I’m still aging, considering that the Navy can’t keep a pirate out of the commercial space ways,” Vicky spat. She hated to be ignored, and ignored she most definitely felt at the moment. Instead of taking the offered seat, she paced back and forth. She was a tiger looking for something to devour, and the admiral was at the top of her dinner list.
“We are patrolling the commercial lanes as best we can with the resources we have,” the admiral said, not at all defensively. “We just never expected a pirate to take on a cruiser.”
“Well, one just did. Can’t you protect my convoys any better than that?”
“We planned to protect you a whole lot better than that,” the admiral said, swirling his wine gently.
“I didn’t feel very protected.”
“We gave you two cruisers,” the admiral said, evenly. “Our plan was for the Biter to enter every jump ahead of the Attacker. Then you changed our plans.”
Vicky was working herself up into a really fun rage. The air went out of it in a breath. “Oh,” was all she got out.
She settled into the offered chair.
“I understand the urgency of your mission, Your Grace,” the admiral said, “and none of us expected the mess we found on Presov. By the way, the people you referred to us for trial?”
“Yes,” Vicky answered, expecting to lose more of her air.
“We’ve found out quite a lot about them as the prosecutors on
St. Petersburg dug into their transactions and bank accounts. Quite a lot. Their mail will be sent a long time in care of some jail dirtside. And there are stockholder suits coming in just about every week. One has to wonder where all the money went.”
“Are they talking?”
“Not yet. It seems they are expecting some pardon from the Imperial Palace.”
“That will tell us a lot if it comes,” Vicky said.
“Yes, but now, let us talk about how we keep one Grand Duchess alive. I apologize for sending you out with only two cruisers. We only had the two available. Admiral Waller sends his respects and informs me that the battleship Retribution has been ordered to St. Petersburg. It will always be available in the future for your use.”
Vicky found herself rather empty of rage and rapidly filling with amazement.
The Chief of the Naval Staff had sent his respects to her. Admirals sent a lieutenant commander compliments if they noticed them at all. Commanders sent their respects when admirals deigned to grant them any attention.
Kris Longknife used to laugh that no one knew what to make of her princess thing, so she was making all she could of it. Apparently, Vicky wasn’t doing too bad a job of making this Grand Duchess thing into something to be respected.
There was a lot she wanted to say. What she did say was, “A battleship?”
“For your exclusive use,” the admiral pointed out.
“Retribution, that’s quite a name,” Vicky said, puzzled.
“Yes, it’s one of the last produced before these troubled times. I’m told by Admiral Waller that your father, our Emperor, personally selected the name.”
“Retribution?” Vicky repeated.
“I think your father intended to use it to settle some old score.”
“Like the one he racked up with Wardhaven when he tried to level the place, and Kris Longknife blew away all six of his battleships.”
“That was never proven,” the admiral was quick to put in.
“I’ve talked with Kris and her staff. I know what they think. Oh, and I overheard Dad getting yelled at by Admiral Waller. Yelled at more than my father ever put up with from any man and let him live. I know where those battleships came from.”
“What battleship?” her commander asked.
“It’s way above your pay grade, Commander. You’ll have to drink poison after this meeting is over.”
“That’s fine, sir. Might I have another glass of this delicious wine before the poison?”
“I’ll take that as your last wish,” the admiral said ruefully as he refilled the glass.
“I was kind of hoping my last wish would be for a lovely maiden to beg tearfully for my life,” he said, casting gimlet eyes toward Vicky.
“I didn’t know there was a lovely maiden on this station,” the admiral said, but a smile was threatening to ruin any effect his words might have.
“Well, how about the supplications of a tired old lady?” Vicky offered.
“We don’t have any of them aboard either,” the admiral said, refilling his glass. “Sure you won’t have some?”
Robbed of her anger and seriously curious about the wine, this time Vicky took the offered glass.
“This is delicious. As good if not better than any served in the palace.”
“Don’t tell your father. He’ll confiscate it.”
“Or my stepmom. She’ll poison it,” Vicky said, enjoying another sip.
“So, now that we’ve let wine soften our hearts, if not our heads,” the admiral said, “what is your business on St. Petersburg?”
“I have a pile of orders from Poznan for everything from tractor carburetors to several types of specialty steels. I had no idea there were so many types of steel. It’s as bad as ice cream.”
“And likely as important to people of a certain age,” the admiral agreed.
“Anyway, along with the pile of orders, I have a pile of loan requests from just as many sources. The businessmen I talked to don’t want handouts, they just want a hand up. They all had good lines of credit with banks on Greenfeld before the banks suddenly quit lending. They’re grateful for what we’ve sent them for free. Now they want to pay for the next round, but they need loans to get them started. Do you think the local banks on St. Petersburg can step up and fill the hole left by the Imperial banks?”
“That will depend a lot on what your friend Mannie can do, and you, Your Grace.”
“How much can I push this Grand Duchess role?” Vicky asked, not expecting any answer.
“That is the question we’re all waiting to see, Your Grace. You talked a whole lot of people into loading a Fleet of Desperation full of lousy food to keep a planet alive. By the way, how bad was it?”
“Bad,” Vicky said, taking a sip of the wine. “A whole lot worse than we thought. I’ll admit to you, I came back as quickly as I did because I’m a coward. I couldn’t bear to be there when they started discovering all the children who didn’t make it. All the grandparents who were lost in the great runaway. I dealt with businessmen who were looking for their workforce.”
Again Vicky sipped the wine. “There were enough grown men missing. When they tally up all the wives and children who just disappeared . . .” She couldn’t finish that thought.
Vicky might have drained the glass right then and there. Instead, she set it down gently on the table beside her.
“I understand that your doctor didn’t come back with you,” the admiral said.
“No. Maggie is a gentle soul who is in her element. You wouldn’t believe what she’s finding, though. I thought she’d have her hands full with cuts, bruises, and infections. Broken bones that weren’t set right or not set at all. What acted as the local police were quite brutal. But she’s loaded down with beriberi, rickets, scurvy, and other diseases I didn’t even think existed anymore.”
“Famines will show you the things we thought the human race was done with,” the admiral replied thoughtfully. “I’m advised that the Navy’s colonies have had very good crops this year. We’ll be donating wheat, rice, beans, and other basic commodities by the shipload.”
“Will we need to escort them?”
“Likely not, unless you want to go with them.”
“Hmm, that is a thought,” Vicky admitted.
Again, the admiral twirled the stem of his wineglass. “Has this changed anything for you?”
“Has any of this changed anything for the Navy?” Vicky asked right back.
The admiral remained silent.
Vicky listened to the old-fashioned chronometer tick off the seconds for a restful while, then ventured into mined waters.
“I am told there is a flag somewhere, hidden under the bed or up in the attic. I’m told that no one can decide if it should be taken out and waved.”
The admiral pursed his lips but said nothing.
“I’m told there is a young woman somewhere that some people might want to wave that flag. Assuming they had it, of course.”
Again silence.
“I find that a certain young woman is getting less and less reluctant to wave that nonexistent rag if it should ever be taken out of the closet and handed to her.”
“But not eager yet,” the admiral said.
“Let’s say less reluctant,” Vicky said.
“I’ll keep that in mind and pass it along to anyone who might have that nonexistent heirloom in their closet.”
Vicky stood. “Admiral, do you think you could loan me a barge and bosun to fly it? I’m reluctant to fly with this lush at the controls, but I feel a strong need to go dirtside immediately.”
“I am not a lush,” the commander said, standing on an even keel. “I was just anesthetizing myself for the poison to follow.”
“Bad news, Commander,” the admiral said. “That nonexistent fair maiden has put in a good wo
rd for you. The poison is postponed.”
“Damn. I figured poison was the only way out of my present assignment.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Vicky said to her commander.
“But I haven’t been wicked. Not even evil, sir. Truly. Just ask this fair maiden.”
“It’s got to be the wine speaking,” Vicky said.
“Take him dirtside to sober up,” the admiral ordered. “I don’t want this lush befouling my station.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Vicky said.
“I think the Navy needs to thank you, Your Grace.”
“We shall see,” Vicky allowed.
CHAPTER 46
THE ride down was smooth. This trip, no one threatened to shoot Vicky out of the sky. She took it as a good omen and concentrated on organizing her thoughts.
The time she spent figuring out how to arrange a meeting with Mannie was a waste. He was waiting for her with a limo before the shuttle made it up the ramp from the bay to the spaceport’s apron.
“There’s a meeting scheduled for ten minutes from now,” the mayor of Sevastopol announced as he held the door open for her.
“Ten minutes?” Vicky said. “Isn’t this a bit tight since I didn’t radio ahead to tell anyone I was coming?”
“The business representatives from Poznan radioed in as soon as they entered the system. We know everything on their wish list and have copies of their loan applications.”
“No secrets here,” Vicky said.
“None needed. If you want to buy something, it’s kind of silly not to ask the seller if he has it in stock, don’t you think?”
“One might fear that they’d jack up the price if you let them know you want it.”
“One might on Greenfeld, but this is St. Petersburg. We have rather good records of what this item or that cost people yesterday and last week. We want to sell things today and next month. We don’t have time for silliness.”
Vicky mulled that over. The drive was short, and she was still thinking about it when they pulled up to the circle in front of a magnificent tower of steel, glass, and stone.
Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Page 18
