Vicky Peterwald: Target (10 page)

Sadly for Vicky, those words drew an awful lot of nods around the table. Well, she meant to give on this. Now everything depended on what she said next.

“However, by whatever gracious God there is in heaven, I was sent to the Navy for an apprenticeship. And the Navy very wisely handed me over to Admiral Krätz’s tender mercies.”

Vicky risked a smile at that. There were plenty of smiles around the table. And plenty had doubting eyes as well.

“For the last two long years, I have lived with Admiral Krätz’s words ringing in my ears and his boot never far from my backside. He taught me what a junior officer needed to know. His discipline broke me of anything he found faulty and cured me of any defective habits I brought with me from the palace.

“It was a long, hard school.

“And every once in a while, he would turn to me, and say, ‘Watch that young man. He’s Navy through and through,’ or he’d point out another junior officer, and say, ‘Poor guy, born and raised Navy, but he’ll never
be
Navy.’ He never defined exactly what he meant by Navy, but he could point out its presence or lack easy enough. You know what I mean?”

That got nods even from her doubters.

“I’ve come to conclude that what you call ‘professionalism’ has something to do with it. It can be anything from the shine on your shoes even if there is no inspection today to the willingness to lay down your life without question when the commander says, ‘Take that hill so the rest of us can get out of this mess.’ And you do it, without question, without reservations. You do it because you’ve been squared-away Navy for so long, you can’t be anything but it.

“Am I getting close, Admirals, Captains, ladies?”

“Surprisingly close,” the old-woman inquisitor said.

“Not to argue, ma’am, but remember, I am both Her Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria Smythe-Peterwald and Lieutenant Vicky Peterwald, proudly serving in the Greenfeld Navy.”

“Can anyone be both?” was asked from somewhere near the head of the table.

“That is what we are here to find out,” the old man at the head said. “Assuming we can find anything out from a Peterwald.”

“Yes, sir, my family’s reputation for telling anything but the truth doesn’t help here, does it?” Vicky admitted.

That grew muttered agreement from the senior officers.

“So, that is your risk,” Vicky said. “But it is also mine. I’ve been played most of my life. I’ve been used in games that others were playing. I’ve never been an active pawn at anything because no one before trusted me to do anything but look good in a cute dress. The palace didn’t require more.” Vicky found herself almost spitting out the words.

“Admiral Krätz didn’t want a plaything. He wanted a good junior officer, able to stand her watch under light supervision. And he chewed me out and kicked my butt until I could.

“And I found out just how good it felt to do a job and do it well.

“I’m offering myself to you as a pawn to use in your game. No,” Vicky said, shaking her head. “‘Game’ is too cute a word. I’m offering myself to you as a resource to help you as you struggle to do your duty as you see it. As you would defend our beloved Greenfeld and not as some grasping civilian would use you to their ends. Have I got that right?”

“All too right,” came from the head of the table. He followed it with a loud sigh before he went on.

“Lieutenant, you present us with a problem. We need all the help we can beg, steal, or borrow, but we can’t afford a loose cannon on the gun deck. Times are coming when good men and women are going to die for no better reason other than that they stood in the way of some power-maddened maniac who had lots and wanted more. Do you know how disgusting that is to people like us?”

“I think I learned how disgusting it was to Admiral Krätz, sir. I think I’ve gained his distaste for it.”

“I hope so because, if you don’t end up dead, you’re likely to end up at the pinnacle of power for our beloved Greenfeld. I’d like to believe that what we in the Navy have given you might make you a better ruler than your father or father’s father. But we don’t know what you will be like. We don’t know whether or not you will survive the coming struggle for power. When we are honest with ourselves, there is too damn much we don’t know.”

“Gee,” Vicky said. “And I thought I was the only one like that.”

“Don’t be cute, young woman,” the man at the head of the table snapped, and went on. “When we learned that the battlecruiser fleet was to be scattered around to show the flag and possibly aid any survivors of BatRon 12, we wondered what was really up. Then the first report of a bribe to one of the captains surfaced, and we knew what the Navy was getting into. The second bribe arrived quickly on the heels of the first. That was when we met on the matter. There were some of us who liked the idea of removing one Peterwald from the competition.”

The man glanced around the table. No one met his eyes, everyone seemed intent on studying the table in front of them.

“But there were others who remembered Admiral Krätz’s last report on you. ‘She’s almost Navy,’ he said. And there were others who just balked at doing the will of that bitch your father married. If she offered anyone here so much as a glass of water, I doubt there’s a person at the table who’d take it.”

“Probably poisoned,” Vicky couldn’t help but mutter. Though that drew a few frowns, there were a lot more smiles or winks.

“About the other thing, you’re right. We don’t think now is the time to start a rebellion. Things are bad, but not
that
bad. Now if those two damn battleships building on High Anhalt do launch with foreign skippers, even I might be tempted to start sewing a rebel flag or two, but we don’t know yet. We don’t
know
what they can or will do.”

“And by the time we do, our options are likely to be nil, zip, and zero,” the woman at his elbow said.

“I know. I know,” the man at the head of the table said. “I know the risk we take. Maybe if we had
her
in the palace, she could find out more.”

“But she has no idea how to stay alive in that den of scum and villainy. She said so herself.”

“She still knows the place better than you and I do. Better than anyone Navy does. We go in the door, and if we’re lucky, we come back out the door a few hours later. She knows the staff. She’s been wheedling the cooks for sweets for twenty years. She knows the back ways and hiding places. Don’t you, Lieutenant?”

Vicky had never considered those real skills. But then, does a fish know much about water? “Yes, I do know a whole lot more about the palace, now that you mention it. I can swim its halls like a fish while you’d flop around in it like a fish tossed on the dock. I can be of help to you.”

Hey, I’m worth more alive to you than I am dead. Listen to the old guy.

“But what if they turn her?” the man at his other elbow asked. “Hell, what if she runs straight to them and tells them everything she knows?”

“Then I will not have a lot to tell them,” Vicky put in without waiting. “I noticed that there was no introduction before we started. No offense intended, but you all look like a lot of old men. Who can tell one old man from the next?”

“That’s what I always tell you,” her inquisitor said, elbowing the man next to her.

“And what have you told me?” Vicky quickly went on. “Forgive me if I sum up the total of what I’ve heard as zero, but that’s what it is. You don’t know any more about what to do next than I do. Yes, I’m getting to go home alive, but that was the official order, wasn’t it? Yes, my stepmommy dearest will be disappointed to see my smiling face, but she can hardly take a complaint to my father since he’s the one that ordered me home soonest and alive.

“As for the other bribe, all I really know is that it is reported that some captains were paid to deliver me to someone. We can only guess what would happen next, and since it hasn’t happened, we know less about it than any of the rest.

“Oh dear,” Vicky said, feigning innocence as best as she ever could, “I don’t know a thing. Not a thing.” She grew suddenly serious. “Now do I?”

“No question she’s good,” said the woman next to the head of the table.

“Krätz said she was,” the man across from her agreed.

The head of the table let out a huge sigh. But his eyes were roving the table, taking a silent vote. Done, he nodded at Vicky.

“Lieutenant, I think we will let you live. Please don’t make me regret this decision. If I do, it likely won’t be for long. My wife will kill me, likely just after your stepmother does. A man can hardly win with two women intent on killing him.”

That drew a chuckle from around the table and a swat from the woman at his elbow.

“Go with our blessing, for all that it’s worth. You will be taking your three assassins with you, him,” he said, nodding at Mr. Smith, “and the two lovely young ladies. You may also take the lieutenant and the chief. We will try to get you some other support. There are aides and other Navy types in the palace to serve hors d’oeuvres and otherwise make the Imperium look warlike and feared. We’ll see what we can do to help you stay alive.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Please let me know what I can do to further our own mutual interest in advancing the cause of our beloved Greenfeld.”

“I will, as soon as I figure it out,” he assured her.

The chief of staff took Vicky by the elbow and led her from the room.

As the door closed, Vicky could hear a loud debate break out.

No doubt, whether she got safely home to the palace was still open to discussion.

T
O
Vicky’s great surprise, she actually made it back to Greenfeld all in one piece.

The
Stalker
docked at High Anhalt, and Vicky quickly departed. She and her team were in dress whites since it was early summer at the capital. A squad of Marines in dress black and greens added gravitas to her passage down the elevator. They also pretty much filled up one end of the VIP bar. Thus, Vicky had a corner to herself. Likely any assassin waiting to earn Stepmommy dearest’s reward took one look at the situation and kept walking.

Or Vicky was moving too fast for Plan C or D to be put in play.

Either way, it wasn’t a bad approach.

A half dozen courtiers in getups that showed access to some bankrupt opera house’s wardrobe and a total lack of good taste met the Grand Duchess at the groundside station along with six palace guards in the new uniform, black on red on black, that the Emperor had recently established. With a smile, Vicky sent them to provide an outer perimeter for her dozen Marines.

Their lieutenant barely suppressed a scowl, but the Marines had a captain leading them who failed to hear the lieutenant’s claim that palace guards took precedence on Anhalt. The Marines took the inside while the palace guard scattered themselves around their perimeter, and Vicky, Mr. Smith, Doc Maggie, and the two women assassins formed the target in the center. The lieutenant and the chief with their black boxes took the lead with the courtiers.

It was quite a circus, but it served to warn normal travelers to stand clear, and they did. No one came anywhere close to Vicky and her entourage.

Which meant the assassin her dear stepmom had sent was very likely with either the guards or the courtiers. Wherever he or she was, the would-be assassin didn’t get close enough to risk the hit, and Vicky made it to a line of limos with no shots fired.

With hardly a shrug wasted, Vicky dragooned the limo in front of and behind hers into the Marine Corps. While one Marine held down each of the limos, the others secured the Grand Duchess’s own ride. Once she was seated with her closest team members, a nod from the captain sent the Marines racing for their rides. The three limos pulled away while the other courtiers and palace guards were still arguing about who got in what car.

The driver for Vicky’s limo seemed upset to be leaving without a certain Baron del Carter, but Kit slipped over the seat and settled between the driver and the chief. The driver glanced down at something . . . and drove without further complaints.

The limos entered the crosstown express and quickly sped past the industrial park and slums that surrounded the space-elevator station. Soon, they were among the army of tall high-rises that provided comfort to the white-collar workers that saw to the business of the Empire and its governance.

There was little traffic on the expressway. Most of the workers used the elevated rail or trolleys to get where they had to go. Trucks were forbidden in the city until after nine at night and had to be out by six in the morning.

Anhalt was a well-managed city. Just ask anyone who had violated any of the laws.

The drive was peaceful enough until an expensive black sedan passed them, then slowed and fell behind. Vicky checked it out for reporters and cameras, but saw only mirror black windows. After all, this was Greenfeld, not some Longknife planet.

When the big black sedan again sped up to pass, the Marines in the trailing limo decided they didn’t like the game and cut them off.

It started to get exciting as the two cars dodged each other, swinging from one lane to another and swerving around other traffic.

Then the black sedan suddenly gunned onto the left shoulder and shot up even with Vicky’s limo.

A window went down, and a machine pistol came out.

“Gun,” Mr. Smith shouted and threw himself on top of Vicky, forcing her from her seat and down to the floorboards. Above her, the bulletproof windows proved to be not quite as bulletproof as advertised. They shattered, spewing shards throughout the passenger compartment.

The driver stepped on the brakes. For his reward, bullets shattered his window and him as well.

“I’ve got the wheel,” Kit shouted, and the car stayed on a straight course as it slowed.

The staccato of the machine pistol was joined by the sharp barks of Marine automatic-weapons fire. But Vicky saw nothing. Her view was severely limited to the floorboards as Mr. Smith lay atop her and forced her to stay down.

The limo slowly came to a stop. Mr. Smith rose, gun in hand to examine the situation, but he kept a strong arm on Vicky’s neck.

She found she could do nothing but lie there.

Only when he relaxed his grip did she finally manage to get her head up.

The expensive black car was riddled with bullet holes. Its front end was smashed into the barrier dividing the expressway, with one wheel hanging over the divide. Hot water and radiator fluid spewed over the scene, almost washing away the blood dripping from the attack sedan.

Inside, Vicky could just make out four dead bodies.

The lead Marine limo was stopped ahead of Vicky’s car. Its Marines were fully deployed. Half studied the dead for any sign of movement. The others eyed the traffic that sped by them.

In Anhalt, no one slowed down to rubberneck at sights like this. No one wanted to be a witness to what decidedly
had not
happened . . . and would never make the night’s news.

Most certainly, no one wanted to be mistaken for someone involved in what had not happened.

Over the last hundred years, people had learned what was good for them,
Vicky thought, even as she was hustled from her own shot-up limo to the trailing limo that had come to a stop beside her own.

“What about the driver?” she asked.

“He’s dead,” Kit said as she slipped in next to the new driver.

Vicky found herself this time sharing her ride with three Marines, including the detachment’s skipper. The other Marines piled into the other limo, leaving the shot-up cars for the sirens only now screaming of the police’s approach.

This time both limos took off at speeds that no one passed.

Somewhere on their way to the palace, they picked up four police cars with blaring sirens. Two covered the front, seeing to it that traffic got out of the way. The other two trailed, assuring that no one would again try to catch up to them.

Even with the brief stop for the dead, Vicky could not remember a faster transit from the beanstalk to the palace.