Vicky Peterwald: Target

by Mike Shepherd

  “Or third, you can try to hide out in a Navy colony like Bayern or Port Royal. We could try to keep you safe, but if the word got out that we had you, the problems for both you and the Navy could escalate quickly.

  “I wish I could offer you a better set of choices. If you can think of a fourth, please feel free to take it. Good luck and Godspeed.”

  CHAPTER 40

  VICKY found herself staring at the forward screen as her mind spun through the admiral’s words. Her mind whirled on but could find no traction. The unblinking stars hung in the blackness of space. They would be here long after she was gone and what she did or didn’t do was forgotten.

  Vicky shook herself. Thoughts like that could end with her heading down to the air lock and taking a short stroll outside.

  Thoughtfully, she took a bite of her breakfast.

  “Hey, this hasn’t gotten any colder,” she noted in surprise.

  “This is a yacht. They’ve got plates that keep the food warm,” the commander said.

  “So you’re Gerrit von Schlieffen, huh?”

  “No ‘von,’” the commander said. “I come from the side of the family that missed out on that kind of stuff. I understand I come from a long line of horse thieves and preachers.”

  “Well, you keep me alive, you’ll have earned the ‘von’ for your whole family.”

  “Is the Empire going back to that kind of thing?”

  “If I have any say-so where you’re concerned, it is.”

  “Then I guess I have rendered exceptional service.”

  Vicky knew they were gabbing on to avoid looking at the hard choices the admiral had given her. She was fine with dodging the hard stuff for a while.

  “Which raises the question, are you one of those doggie kind of men.”

  “You mean about last night?”

  “Woof, woof, the bitch says.”

  “Well, aside from your bitchiness,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t be the first to make that observation,” the Grand Duchess admitted, dryly.

  “It seemed like a good idea for the time,” he said. “Remember, the last guy to let you on top kind of got interrupted.”

  “He certainly was,” Vicky admitted, and found she didn’t feel at all sorry for the guy.

  “So I kind of didn’t want to serve under you, if you get my drift.”

  “Kindly drift on, kind sir, but is there any chance I could have my bra back? These lovelies of mine are feeling the gravity.”

  He made a gallant display of returning her needed support and waited while she got it back on and the mountains back to a supported place.

  “As for me serving above you, I didn’t think you would find it all that much conducive to relaxation and passionate ecstasy.”

  “You got that one on the first guess,” Vicky said. “Both of those options need a rest. I see you are not only a stud but a thinking gentleman.”

  Again he made a scene of bowing to her. “If you ‘von’ me, I will most certainly see that those words are on my family shield. ‘A stud and a thinking gentleman.’”

  That was good for a laugh.

  Vicky couldn’t enjoy the laugh for very long. Whether she intended to or not, she’d used that word. Options. Which of the options the admiral had dropped in her lap should she take?

  “I wonder if the admiral had any idea that he was dropping his options into my near-naked lap?” she mused.

  “I doubt he would mind.” The commander leered.

  “So, what do we do with his options?” Vicky said.

  “I go where you tell me. I do what you tell me. To the maximum extent of my ability, I keep you alive.”

  “Thank you again, kind sir, but the question is, where do I tell you to go?”

  The commander was silent.

  “So it’s my problem?” Vicky said.

  “I’ll listen to you. I’ll call bullshit on anything I think fits the bill, but it’s your call, Your Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Commander Victoria Peterwald.”

  Vicky threw a bit of potato at him. The scoundrel caught it in his mouth.

  “That was luck. You couldn’t do it twice,” she said through a laugh.

  “Please don’t try it, but yes I can. At the academy, we used to do that for fun while in zero gee or high gee. It takes a good eye to predict how something will fall in anything other than one gee.”

  Vicky put the next bit of potato back on her plate and frowned.

  “I don’t want to ask for asylum. It might be the best way to keep me alive, but as much as I hate being a pawn in other people’s games, it would take me off the board and end any chance I ever have of being promoted to queen.”

  “An apt analogy,” the commander agreed.

  “But the chances of me hiding out on some out-of-the-way planet are slim to nil. My dearly beloved stepmom had a hit going down on me at Savannah before I’d been there three hours.”

  “Your stepmum, beloved or otherwise, does seem to have a long reach.”

  “That, or her money. Money talks. Lots of money screams.”

  “So I’m told. Never having anything but my service pay, all my money says is ‘good-bye.’”

  “That is an old and tired joke.”

  “I may be tired, but I am not old.”

  “From where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look like you’re that tired.”

  “I will not serve as a distraction, m’lady. You get nothing from there until I get my orders.”

  “Slave driver.”

  “If you want, I can play that game. Which one of us gets to be the slave?”

  “Neither,” Vicky growled. “Okay, you say you grew up Navy. What are the chances of me being able to hide out on a Navy colony? In plain sight or somewhere in the great outback?”

  Now it was his turn to stare at the unblinking stars. After a long moment, he shook his head. “I’d like to say that all of us, every man, woman, and child, would lay down our lives to protect you, but I can’t. We do our best to keep things on the up-and-up. Nice even. On the surface I know we do, but there are always things in the background, hidden in the shadows. A woman desperate to get away from the husband that beats her when no one is looking. A kid who’s had enough of the way the old man applies the same discipline ashore as he did in the fleet. We have enough of them that, what with the size of the price on your head, someone would try to collect it. Could we catch them before they spilled the beans?”

  The commander paused to consider his own question. “Maybe. Maybe not. I just don’t know.”

  “So the odds would be better than hiding out back on Pandemonium but not perfect.”

  “Very likely.”

  “So, do you see a fourth option?”

  Again the commander let his eyes gaze on the screen. His head was shaking even before he spoke. “I come up with a blank. Can you think of anything?”

  Vicky had no idea, either, but she did remember how Admiral Krätz would have her take apart her problems. She began slowly. “All the options don’t seem to offer me any lock on security, do they?”

  “Maybe if you threw yourself on King Raymond’s tender mercies,” the commander said.

  “Savannah is a U.S. planet, and Admiral Gort died from a bullet meant for me.”

  “You have a point there.”

  “We’ll ignore your point for a few more minutes,” she said, and gave him a leer.

  “What does that leave you?” the commander said, ignoring her pass.

  “Is there anyplace I could go, risky or not, that would allow me to stay in play?”

  “Not one of the Navy colonies,” the commander quickly put in. “If you go there, you have to hide. That is, until the Navy decides if it wants to make a play.”

  “And until then, I could easily become a liability that would have to be sacrificed, right?”

  “As much as I hate to say it, yes. If it would save the Navy, the admirals would sell you down the river, hog-tied and gagged.”

  “Hones
ty. Such a nice quality in an officer.”

  “Not all my qualities are so nice. I have some downright naughty ones if I may mention them.”

  “Down, boy, you’re the one that said I had to give you an order. Work before play, or something like that.”

  “But I see where this is leading, and maybe I want to play around a bit before it does.”

  “And where is this leading?”

  “Nowhere. None of Admiral Waller’s options are workable.”

  Vicky nodded. “Sadly, I have to agree with you. So, where could I go that is not totally Navy and might offer me someplace to hide in plain sight.”

  “Is there such a place?”

  “There just might be,” Vicky said slowly.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Well, yes, there is that.”

  “Down, boy, don’t you want to know what your orders are?”

  “I’m starting to be afraid of them. I’ve seen that look on your face, and it gives me a bad feeling in the pit of my now-full tummy.”

  “Can this rig reach St. Petersburg?”

  The commander didn’t answer the question right away but turned to his instruments. He asked the nav computer for a course to St. Petersburg and frowned at the results.

  “We should be able to. It will be close, but we can. Why St. Petersburg?”

  “It has a strong Navy presence,” Vicky said, ticking reasons off on her fingers. “It has a strong industrial base that is growing, and the Navy depends on. And it owes me a favor, thanks to Kris Longknife.”

  “I know about the Navy’s being there, and that it has one of the few growing economies in the Empire, but how does it owe you a favor?”

  “St. Petersburg owes the Navy a favor, and St. Petersburg owes me a favor,” Vicky said.

  “You’re getting like your computer,” the commander said. “I hear your answer, but it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  “I am nothing like my computer,” Vicky said, wiggling in her seat and enjoying the gleam that it brought to the male eyes across from her. “And the local there, what-was-his-name, the mayor of Sevastopol?

  “Mayor Manuel Artamus, Mannie to his friends,” her computer offered.

  “That is much better, Computer. Anyway, he wanted something like out of a mediaeval book, a city charter. That sounded like a good idea to that Longknife princess, and I let her talk me into it. Dad wasn’t so hot for the idea when he found out about it, but several of the other cities on St. Petersburg and a couple of other planets followed through on the idea, and it seems to be helping them all survive these times. At least the cities with the charters are up-to-date on their taxes and a lot of others aren’t.”

  “City charters, huh, and you think that this guy, Mannie, might take you in and cover for you?”

  “And if I, I mean the Navy, decide to raise the flag of rebellion, we could look a long ways for a better base than St. Petersburg and not find one.”

  “I or the Navy?” the commander asked, giving Vicky a sideways glance.

  “Slip of the lip. Me and the Navy, a team, right.”

  “Just so long as we’re a team, I’ll leave it to your fantasies as to who comes first.”

  “But it was so nice last night coming simultaneously,” Vicky cooed through veiled lashes.

  “Screwing you is delightful,” the commander said. “But getting screwed by you Peterwalds is a long tradition and major pain in the butt.”

  “Yes, there is my family baggage,” Vicky agreed.

  “We’re coming up on the next jump. Let me concentrate on making it.”

  Vicky did her best not to distract the man.

  “You’re still breathing,” he muttered, his eyes still on the board, his fingers working certain instruments.

  “Yes, I like breathing. It’s so invigorating.”

  “It’s also attractive and distracting.”

  “I thought you needed to concentrate on the jump.”

  “Buckle up, we’re about to go to zero gee.”

  Vicky buckled up, doing her best not to distract him.

  He leered at his board. Vicky assumed the leer was meant for her.

  They went to zero acceleration as the Spaceadler crept up on a tiny pinhole in space where there were no stars. The commander goosed the engine and a moment later, they were looking at a completely new alignment of stars.

  “Yep, I did it,” the commander crowed softly.

  Vicky studied her board. It showed green. Again, they had the system all to themselves. Once more, she seemed to have escaped her stepmother’s assassins.

  “We’re alone,” she reported. “Now, next jump, you must show me how it’s done.”

  He glanced over at her.

  “Us being on the run, we can never tell when you’ll be bleeding out from stopping a bullet meant for me, and I’ll have to take you to a doctor in another system.”

  “And you think it’s that easy, huh?”

  “With a great teacher like you?”

  “Flattery will get you everything,” the commander admitted.

  “I’ve noticed that weakness in men. Comes from a sadly dependent male ego.”

  “And flattery never works on a woman?”

  “Sadly, we seem to share the weakness with you guys, but it’s our vanity that is our weakness, not our need to have our ego stroked.”

  “You want other things stroked,” he said.

  Vicky refused to be so easily diverted. “What jump are we headed for?”

  “A close one; shouldn’t take more than half a day.”

  “That sounds like just enough time for one of your quickies,” Vicky said with a smile just this side of a leer. She did it to prove to him, and herself, that girls could leer, too.

  He got busy settling the ship on a course for the next jump and accelerating at 1.45 gees. “Now, about what you’ve been offering a poor, starving man.”

  Vicky released her seat belt, stood, did a little wiggle all over, and led him below. Sadly it would have to be a quick one, at least from the way he did things, if they were to have time to flip the ship in six hours and get in a meal as well.

  CHAPTER 41

  THE next jump took them into an occupied system, which was very welcome. The Spaceadler had developed a problem.

  As the commander took his seat to approach the next jump, he got a serious frown on his face as he studied his board. “We’ve used a lot more reaction mass than we should have,” he muttered.

  “We haven’t gone any farther,” Vicky pointed out unnecessarily.

  “I know. That means we’ve got a problem. One of our tanks is leaking to space.”

  “You want to get out and take a look?”

  “I may be your intrepid and overmasculine savior, but I’m not getting into space with the emergency suits they’ve got aboard this tub. Not unless I have to.”

  “You can seal the tanks off from each other, can’t you?”

  “No, Your Imperial Grace, I can’t. This is a private yacht and built on the cheap. It meets Greenfeld safety standards and not a penny more.”

  “Let me guess,” Vicky said. “It’s cheaper to build just one big tank.”

  “If they could get away with it, no doubt they would, however, the laws of physics decree that you keep the size of your tanks to a minimum to hold the pressure you need. We have six reaction tanks on this little tub, but plumbing is expensive. They’re all on one set of pipes. If one of them develops a leak, all six leak out through it.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “Do you mean can your intrepid and high-on-testosterone savior hop into one of those dangerous space suits, step outside, and stick a wad of chewing gum on the offending gasket or worn-through tank and save the day? No. Not unless you have a wad of chewing gum.”

  “I brought a lot of things with me when I ran, some of which I think you have come to value. But of chewing gum, not a stick.”

  “Darn,” her intrepid hero sa
id.

  “As much as I’m enjoying your humor in this mess we’re in, I must ask. What do we do next? Do you think someone sabotaged the boat to come up sick, lame, and lazy, as Admiral Krätz would say, at this particular system?”

  “About sabotage, I doubt it. Remember, this tub has been tied up to the pier for a year, just basking in the warmth of space. No use. No maintenance checks. My guess is that something that’s been going bad picked this moment to go all the way.”

  “Don’t you hate it when someone else does that? So, wise and dirty-minded pilot, what do we do about it?”

  “You got any money on you?”

  “I have most of the money my loving stepmom paid to have me kidnapped and held for torture. I haven’t counted it yet.”

  “I think you need to count it. I’m setting a fast course, one point five gees, for the planet down there. It has a basic space station, no elevator, but enough to handle a small ship of our size. We’ll have to hope we can find a mechanic who can do our work and stay bought.”

  “I’ll go count their ill-gotten gain,” Vicky said.

  CHAPTER 42

  POZNAN Station looked like it had seen better days. It also looked like it had been put together in stages, some of which were now holding on with little more than spit, glue, and baling wire. Those were the commander’s words, not Vicky’s, but she liked the phrase and put it away to remember and use later.

  Long before they got close to Poznan, the commander had pulled several tricks out of his bag, and the yacht was now squawking as the Happy Trails out of Badenburg. That had not involved a trip outside to change any name on the hull. It seems the external name had already been painted out. Someone had been thinking ahead, even if a complete overhaul of the ship’s tankage had not been in the cards.

  They also dressed for the occasion. The commander had clothes for Vicky.

  If you could call them clothes.

  The leggings were one-size-fits-all, which, for Vicky’s curves, meant a lot of thin spots. There was something that might pass for a skirt. Actually, it was just a thin bit of ruffle that wouldn’t hide anything if she got any bit of lighting behind her.