Vicky Peterwald: Target (23 page)

V
ICKY
awoke to find the bed empty beside her, not an unusual circumstance. Gerrit’s clothes were in a heap on the floor, where he’d shed them before joining her in the shower. Apparently, the uniform of the day aboard the good ship
Spaceadler
would be scant.

Vicky could live with that.

Skimpy was better for Vicky than nothing as she discovered when she bounced out of bed and was reminded that the ship was at one and a quarter gees. Those girls bouncing about on her chest definitely needed support.

With the same sigh she’d given many years ago when they showed up in middle school, she went looking for a bra and panties set that would catch the boy’s eye while maintaining a touch of mystery. Fortunately, the young woman officer had put some truly evil thought into what Vicky might need if she was cooped up with one delicious officer for several long, tedious, or maybe not so tedious, days.

Considering the pull of gravity, Vicky rummaged around in her bag for a wee bit of nothing for her bottom and something more substantial and supportive for those two mountains on her chest.

The Marine had provided a rather sexy sports bra. Vicky pulled it on quickly.

The commander was where she expected to find him, at the conn.

“Anyone hot on our trail?” she asked him.

“Not that your system has reported. Do you normally sleep that soundly?”

“I’m a light sleeper,” Vicky insisted.

“Yes, and you never snore.”

Vicky did not honor that remark with an answer.

The commander went on. “If we can trust these instruments, we now have the place all to ourselves. Even the
Rostock
has jumped out.”

“Do you trust this set of gadgets?”

“I trust the men who said they’d put them here. You want to step outside and take a look around?”

“Not dressed the way I am.”

“I notice that you are overdressed.”

“Says the boy who enjoyed playing with what I have such an ample supply of. You want to play with them, you got to let a gal protect them from nasty gravity.”

“I never thought of that,” he said with a wicked grin.

“Men! If you ain’t enjoying them, you’re not thinking about them.”

“And I thought it was a well-established fact that men never went more than seven seconds without thinking of sex.”

“Sex, very likely. The problems we of the opposite sex have, not so much.”

“Likely you have a good point.”

“Do I notice your point rising?”

He glanced down but chose to deny the obvious. “No, ma’am. What I hear is my stomach rumbling. Will you be so kind as to take a watch in the worry seat while I cook breakfast?”

“You cook?”

“I do lots of amazing things, some of which you may have noticed. Others of which, I hope to surprise you with later.”

“Surprise me. I like what you’ve pulled out of your hat so far.”

Vicky took the pilot’s seat. He give her a quick rundown on what to watch. Everything being in the green, it didn’t take much instruction. She’d stood bridge watches on the battleship
Fury
. She knew what she was looking at. Still, several people’s watch stations had been abbreviated down into one board.

Once he was sure she could manage, he left her. Soon, delightful aromas began to emanate from somewhere below.

He must have done more than just kitchen duty, because when he returned with two plates of ham, scrambled eggs, and hash browns, he was also sporting a set of delightfully tight and scant undies that the Navy would never issue.

“So, supporting your fundamentals isn’t such a bad idea?” Vicky crowed.

“Admittedly, my need is a bit lower than yours, but the idea did strike me as worthy of seconding.”

“What do you know, an educable man. I might keep you around.”

“For my educability, not my other fine qualities?”

“I’ll have to see more of them before I’m sure they’re not just a flash in the pan.”

“You want these eggs in your lap, or on it?” he said threateningly.

“You can just hand me the plate.”

“I’d like to have my chair back,” he said.

“You one of those guys that always has to be in the driver’s seat?” she said, standing up and taking the offered plate.

“No, but until I see your qualifications to command a ship in space, I’ll stay as close to the panic button as I can.”

“I guess you have a point,” Vicky said, and managed to give said point a stroke as she transitioned from his station back to her own. Before digging into breakfast, she did a thorough eyeball of each readout. All were green. They were alone in this system if these sensors were to be believed.

“Now that the
Rostock
is gone, what jump are we headed for?” Vicky asked as she took a bite of eggs and ham.

The commander handed her his plate and then did several things with the controls. “Hold on tight, we’re going to one point five gees.”

“Thanks for the warning, and yes, my boobies thank you for not doing this sooner or they would not have been able to come out and play with you last night.”

“Why, thank you, ma’am. Now, can I have my breakfast back?”

“In your lap or on it?”

“Now, I was nice to you.”

“But you were not thinking nice thoughts.”

“Yes, but my nastiest thoughts are the most fun, aren’t they?”

Vicky made a point of thinking hard for a moment. “Yes, again, you have a point,” she said, and handed him back the requested plate.

She took another bite, this time of potatoes, and found she had to remark on them. “These are better than nice, Mister. A lot of times, hash browns seem to have been sliced apart and then glued back together. These taste like each individual one has been worshipped on the griddle and turned over lovingly.”

“My, you’ve said two nice things to me in a row. Are you turning over a new leaf?”

“And if I don’t, you’d likely turn me over yourself.”

“But then I’d do such nice things to you from end to end.”

“Now you’re the one doing all the promising.”

“Yes, but I have a proven record of fulfilling my promises.”

“And I don’t?”

“You didn’t at the time.”

Vicky made a face. “Okay, that may be the case. Now, turning to something important to my survival and ability to make and fulfill promises, when do we open my orders?”

“After the next jump.”

“And you’re holding out on my orders because?”

“Actually, I’m not holding your orders. I was just told you should open them after we jump. I assume you have them.”

Vicky chewed the bite in her mouth, swallowed, and dropped the bomb. “I don’t have any orders.”

He looked at her as he finished his own mouthful. Vicky took another bite.

“I don’t have your orders,” he said after he swallowed. “I assume that you have them and don’t know you have them.”

“That’s great. The Navy Way. Give a girl some orders but don’t tell her she has them.”

“Any papers?” the commander asked.

“A small slip of paper was all I was handed. The one that had the dock where the
Spaceadler
was.”

“Let’s look at it.”

Vicky found herself blushing. “I was supposed to put it in water. The pier number appeared. Then I swallowed it.”

“Oh,” was all the commander said.

“Well, it was wet, and I figured I wasn’t supposed to have it on me if I was caught.”

“Logical conclusion,” he said, then took another bite of breakfast and chewed it slowly, not taking his eyes off of her.

“Would you please quit staring at me?” Vicky said.

“It’s not you I’m staring at.”

“Yes, I know, it’s my boobs. Haven’t you played with them enough for one day?”

“Is that the only sports bra you were given?”

“Yes.”

“It’s got three snaps in front.”

“Yes,” Vicky said, glancing down.

“One of them has a smudge on it. Something black. Don’t touch it,” he snapped, as Vicky reached down.

“Don’t shout at me.”

“Ever heard of a microdot?” the commander asked.

“No.”

“We use them in the undercover service. Would you hand me your bra? Careful. Don’t touch the snap.”

“You talk about undercover, then want to uncover me. Guys,” Vicky said with a sigh, but she shimmied the bra up over her head.

“I’ve got some tools in my kit below, but how good is that computer you didn’t take off last night?”

“Computer,” Vicky said, “can you read anything in the smudge on my bra?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The two of them waited for the computer to read the dot.

The wait got long.

“Computer,” Vicky tried again, “can you read that dot on my bra?”

“Yes, ma’am,” it again replied.

The commander laughed, “Just like a lawyer, it answers your question accurately but tells you nothing you want to know.”

“Okay,” Vicky said, trying to control her exasperation. “Maybe Kris Longknife’s computer Nelly isn’t as bad as she thinks it is. Computer, please read me what is on the dot.”

“Yes, ma’am,” did not sound good, but it went on. “From Admiral Waller, to Grand Duchess Victoria Peterwald. I’m sorry this is so informal, and that I didn’t have time to have this fully staffed out and run by a dozen advisors to make it sound better, but here are your options. Notice I didn’t say orders. The situation is too fluid for me to hope to give you an order that won’t be horribly obsolete five minutes after I give it.

“Clearly, the palace is no place for you. As I see it, your only option is to run away, far and fast. The question is where?

“I see three options, and I can’t decide for you which one you take. Here goes.

“One, the boat you’re in can take you quite a ways. Do it. You should be able to reach some of the more far-flung planets of the U.S. Say Kaskatos, or better yet, Pandemonium. You can refuel and head further into U.S. territory. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t stop running until Wardhaven. There used to be an old custom of political asylum. It hasn’t been used much of late, but you could plead your case to King Raymond for asylum. It would be better to do it face-to-face.

“Once you do that, you become his problem. If he can’t protect you, no one can. I’m betting he would give you asylum and protect you. The only downside of asylum is that it’s a one-way street. You can’t come back. At least you likely couldn’t come back on your own. Ray might put you at the head of an invading army, but I don’t think he’d risk that.

“Your second option is to hide on an out-of-the-way planet like Kaskatos or Pandemonium and lie low until things sort themselves out here. Keeping you alive would be your problem and Commander Schlieffen’s.

“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.”

V
ICKY
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.”

“Honesty. 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.