Target
Author: Mike Shepherd
Date: 2014-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Space Opera; Fiction; Military Science Fiction; Military Fiction; Fantasy; Science Fiction Fantasy; Action; Adventure
Description: BEAUTY AND THE BATTLEFIELD Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Victoria Maria Teresa Inez Smythe-Peterwald, daughter of wealth and power, was raised to do little except be attractive and marry well. Then everything changed—her brother, her father’s favorite and the heir apparent, was killed in battle by Lieutenant Kris Longknife, daughter of the Peterwald’s longtime enemies. Vicky vowed revenge, but her skill set was more suitable for seduction than assassination, and she failed. Angry and disappointed, her father decided she needed military training and forced her to join the Navy. Now En

PRAISE FOR THE KRIS LONGKNIFE NOVELS

“A whopping good read . . . Fast-paced, exciting, nicely detailed, with some innovative touches.”

—Elizabeth Moon, Nebula Award–winning author of Crown of Renewal

“Shepherd delivers no shortage of military action, in space and on the ground. It’s cinematic, dramatic, and dynamic . . . [He also] demonstrates a knack for characterization, balancing serious moments with dry humor.”

—Tor.com

“Readers have come to depend on Mike Shepherd for fast-paced military science fiction bound to compelling story lines and adrenaline-pumping battles . . . Kris Longknife is a hero to the core.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Fans of the Honor Harrington escapades will welcome the adventures of another strong female in outer space starring in a thrill-a-page military space opera . . . The audience will root for the determined, courageous, and endearing heroine as she displays intelligence and leadership during lethal confrontations.”

—Alternative Worlds

“The intriguing science fiction novels that comprise this very entertaining series never fail to be peopled with fascinating characters and wonderfully creative worlds. [Shepherd] is adept at world-building and has a complex system in place that is always fun to visit.”

—Night Owl Reviews

“Mike Shepherd has written an action-packed, exciting space opera that starts at light speed and just keeps getting better. This is outer-space military science fiction at its adventurous best.”

—Midwest Book Review

“I always look forward to installments in the Kris Longknife series because I know I’m guaranteed a good time with plenty of adventure . . . Military SF fans are bound to get a kick out of the series as a whole.”

—SF Site

Ace Books by Mike Shepherd

KRIS LONGKNIFE: MUTINEER

KRIS LONGKNIFE: DESERTER

KRIS LONGKNIFE: DEFIANT

KRIS LONGKNIFE: RESOLUTE

KRIS LONGKNIFE: AUDACIOUS

KRIS LONGKNIFE: INTREPID

KRIS LONGKNIFE: UNDAUNTED

KRIS LONGKNIFE: REDOUBTABLE

KRIS LONGKNIFE: DARING

KRIS LONGKNIFE: FURIOUS

KRIS LONGKNIFE: DEFENDER

TO DO OR DIE: A JUMP UNIVERSE NOVEL

VICKY PETERWALD: TARGET

Specials

KRIS LONGKNIFE: TRAINING DAZE

KRIS LONGKNIFE: WELCOME HOME / GO AWAY

Writing as Mike Moscoe

THE FIRST CASUALTY: A JUMP UNIVERSE NOVEL

THE PRICE OF PEACE: A JUMP UNIVERSE NOVEL

THEY ALSO SERVE: A JUMP UNIVERSE NOVEL

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China
penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

VICKY PETERWALD: TARGET

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2014 by Mike Moscoe.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-61731-1

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / July 2014

Cover art by Scott Grimando.

Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

Contents

PRAISE FOR THE KRIS LONGKNIFE NOVELS

ACE BOOKS BY MIKE SHEPHERD

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

HER Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Lieutenant Victoria Maria Teresa Inez Smythe-Peterwald watched the romantic vision on the screen. Slowly, Kris Longknife broke from her embrace and first kiss with her chief of security, Captain Jack Montoya.

It sure took you two long enough.

The flashing red icon at the bottom of the screen told Vicky that she was the only one watching the touching scene. Captain Drago had pulled the quarterdeck video from the public net.

Who would have taken the hard-nosed skipper for such a softy, letting the star-crossed lovers have their privacy?

Vicky saw no reason for anyone to have any privacy. Not if it cost her her life. She’d paid a pretty penny, with a few extra benefits on the side, to make sure anything that happened on the Wasp was no secret to her.

It was very unlikely that the small personal tragedy playing out pier side would impact Vicky’s safety. Still, she watched. How would the ineffable Kris Longknife handle this situation? Though Vicky doubted she’d ever have to leave her one true love, still, it would be well to study how a Longknife did it.

Who knew what might come in handy someday?

Kris certainly had the “sincere” down solid. Vicky would have bet money that she and that big loving lunkhead of a man were seriously thinking of taking the chance, trying their luck at outrunning or outfighting the dozen battle-armored Marines the local admiral had brought to make sure her orders were obeyed.

With slow agony, the great Kris Longknife took another step and broke finger contact with her frozen-in-place love. Vicky could almost hear the strings in the background that always went with such movie scenes of heartbreak and denial.

Vicky felt like puking.

She didn’t. Her staff was watching her watching Kris, and Vicky would measure her reaction to their expectations of their lord and master.

Finally, Kris turned from Jack and hurried into the waiting courier ship.

“I’m glad that’s over,” Vicky said dryly to her own audience . . . and switched gears, back to survival mode. “Lieutenant Heinbock, drop down to the wardroom and see if you can overhear anything about what they intend to do with this wreck of a ship. Chief Materhand, you know where the CPO still is. Go have a drink. Hang around and see if they have any better scuttlebutt.”

Her two subordinates might be serving members of the Greenfeld fleet, but here, on the strange ship that Kris Longknife had put together with more spirit than intent, they had become accepted as just one of the boys. Vicky still wasn’t sure how to take that. After all, the Peterwalds and the Longknifes did hate each other’s guts.

The two men hurried off to obey her. Vicky turned to Kit and Kat, two of the most deadly women she had ever met. Each was 120 pounds of death in either hands, feet, or, no doubt, other portions of their lovely bodies.

They were also her body servants. “I would kill right now for a clean set of underwear.”

Since freshwater was flowing from the station into the wreck of the Wasp, laundry was finally possible. The two set to work on that immediately.

That took care of four of Vicky’s five remaining friends in this world, if you could call those bound to obey her every whim friends. Her one true friend, Dr. Margarita Rodriguez, had been making herself scarce for the last couple of weeks. The good doctor hadn’t much cared for the attack that killed, what, billions of aliens. She had been in a huff after Vicky went on a bender and very likely said some really nasty things.

Vicky, of course, had no recollection of anything she said that night. All she remembered was something about showing up on Kris Longknife’s doorstep and maybe something about Doc Maggie, and then waking up violently ill the next day.

I must be more careful with alcohol.

That left Vicky assigning herself a task.

Kris Longknife had been right about one thing: Vicky dare not go ashore. Until she got an update on conditions at her father’s Imperial Palace, there was no way to guess if, no, not if but rather how many assassins would be waiting for her the moment she set foot off the Wasp.

Vicky had come a long way on the Wasp and, at least of late, no one among the crew had tried to kill her. Strange as it sounded, this Peterwald had come to feel safe on this Longknife’s ship.

Vicky shook her head at that unheard-of thought. Her family and the Longknifes had been at each other’s throats since before the Iteeche Wars. For over a hundred years, if she was to believe the angry words her dad threw around at the mere mention of the Longknifes. Her father liked to brag that the Peterwalds had had wealth and power since the times when the Pope still had an army. But for three generations it had been the Longknifes. Always the Longknifes. Every turn, every twist that had kept the Peterwalds from their just place at the forefront of human affairs had a Longknife at the bottom of it.

Vicky had grown up believing every word her dad spoke. Lately, watching one Kris Longknife at work, Vicky was having trouble matching those words to Kris’s actions. Had her dad and granddad been mistaken, or was Kris just a different kind of Longknife?

And did Vicky want to become a different kind of Peterwald?

Could she?

Vicky mulled that question as she headed for the Forward Lounge. There, if anywhere on the crippled Wasp, she might find out both the fate of the ship . . . and her own.

As Vicky expected, Mother MacCreedy was back in business, if not fully restocked. Vicky ordered a beer at the bar and turned to survey the place for potential sources of information. It took her only a second to spot her best bet.

Kris and her team usually took the table most forward, the one just below the huge screen. The screen was dead at the moment, like so much in the ship, but Jack Montoya of the recent kiss and Penny Lien Pasley were huddled together over beers at the usual table.

Vicky headed for them.

As so often happened when Vicky approached a conversation, it died. It wasn’t just that way on a Longknife ship. It had been that way everywhere and for as long as she could remember. She’d put it down to being born to power, but she couldn’t help but notice how rarely talk came to a roaring halt when Kris joined a conversation.

More to think about . . . when she found the time.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Vicky asked.

“No,” Jack said. “Pull up a chair.”

Vicky chose to sit across from Jack. Penny had been resting her hand on Jack’s but had quickly withdrawn it when Vicky approached. Vicky didn’t want to appear a threat to them. Still, she had to wonder just how consoling Penny might be, and how much “support” Jack was willing to accept.

Vicky quickly went down the short list of what she was supposed to know and decided a good opener was, “Jack, you look terrible. Is something wrong?”

“Kris has been rushed onto a fast courier for Wardhaven,” Penny supplied.

“Without any security support,” Jack growled into his hardly touched beer. “Not me. Not anyone.”

Vicky decided that a few supportive words might be in order. “If Wardhaven fast couriers are anything like the ones we have in Greenfeld, they’re about the safest way to travel in space. The crews are small, and they’ve been scrubbed for any security flaw. If Kris got on one, I’d bet anything she gets off of it.”

“Yes, but where?” Jack snapped.

“Her great-grandfather, the king, wants to see her,” Penny provided.

“That sounds reasonable to me,” Vicky admitted. “We did kind of start a war out there.” Vicky found herself glancing over her shoulder as if she might, even now, see some angry alien raider chasing after them. They had been chased nearly halfway across the galaxy.

“I know, I know,” Jack said. “She’s safe on the courier. She’s safe around the king. But what next? Where will they send her? Wherever they do, she’s going to need security. Me. My Marines. A secure inner and outer perimeter. Otherwise, her odds of staying alive aren’t any better than yours.” Jack finished by running a worried hand through his hair. He was long past due for a haircut. It had grown out wavy and kind of cute on the guy.

Vicky kept her hands to herself. No running them through that mane.

Off-limits, girl. No one else may have seen that kiss, but you did.

“Wasn’t it the king himself that got Kris her security team?” Vicky said. “Abby, you, Marines, then more Marines. Don’t you think he’ll be careful with his great-granddaughter?”

Jack glanced at the blank screen, then closed his eyes, as if to avoid seeing something only he could see. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I know. The king will do his best, but will it be enough? I know Kris. I’ve kept her safe for five years. I know the damn fool stuff she does. Sometimes I know what she’s going to do before she knows she’s going to do it. I can keep her safe. You willing to bet anyone else can?”

Vicky would bet that the real center of this conversation was that secret kiss, but Penny was shaking her head no, so Vicky shook her head no. That seemed to satisfy Jack. He put his head in his hands, rested his elbows on the table, and went silent.

Penny rested a supportive hand on Jack’s arm. Vicky was about ready to give up on finding an opportunity to raise her own concerns when Penny turned to eye her.

“How are you doing?” the intelligence officer asked.

“I’m still breathing,” Vicky admitted. “Not all that sure that I will continue that bad habit if I go ashore. How safe is High Chance?”

Penny almost chuckled. “Last time we were here, it was the dead end of nowhere, but I hear things have changed. Now it’s part of the Helvetican Confederation and becoming something of a trading center. This station is still U.S. territory, though. Don’t ask me to explain how we ended up owning the station above a sovereign planet. It’s a long, twisted, and kind of funny story.”

“Kris said I wouldn’t last an hour if she put me ashore.”

“I think she might have gotten carried away,” Penny said of her friend. “You have to weigh the odds. Your enemies only have so much money to hire assassins. They can’t know where you’ll be coming back to, or, let’s face it, even if we were coming back. I think you’ll be safe for now.”

“That your professional opinion? What you’d give Kris?”

That got Vicky a wry grin. “Kris could make enemies on the spot in no time at all. You don’t strike me as that kind of gal. Are you?”

“I try not to inspire murder by my walk.”

“On the contrary,” Penny said, now smiling. “Your walk inspires a lot of things in men’s minds, but murder is hardly one of them.”

Vicky shrugged. “I am what I was raised to be, somebody’s wife.”

“But now you stand to inherit an empire, Grand Duchess.”

“Weary rests the head that wears the crown,” Vicky said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. So, I don’t see any of your four security types following you. You feel safe on the Wasp?”

“Hard as it is for me to believe it, yes.”

“So you’re wondering how long you can stay in this safe cocoon, aren’t you?”

“Am I that transparent?”

“I’m an intelligence officer. I’m paid to connect the dots. Your dots are rather obvious. And I’ve been wondering, too. The chief engineer told Captain Drago this morning that he was down checking the reactors for space. He wanted to go cold steel just as fast as he could. Ship’s Lieutenant says that the only thing keeping space out of half of the Wasp’s spaces is emergency goo, and we’re not supposed to trust our lives to goo. At least not on a regular basis.”

Penny took a moment to reflect on the information she’d just passed along. “My best guess is they’ll scrap the Wasp here at the pier, or haul her out and set her on a course to crash into the sun.”

“It’s a coin flip, huh?”

“Mimzy, what’s your call?” Penny asked her computer.

“Chance is growing economically at nine to ten percent a year,” the computer answered. “The price for scrap metal is twelve percent above the average. There’s a ship wrecker on Bern just three jumps away that’s likely to bid on any contract to take the Wasp apart and drop it dirtside. While the reactors may not be safe for space, Chance is hungry for power and will jump at the chance to get two more reactors, cheap. If you gave me fifty-fifty odds she’d be scrapped, I’d take the bet.”

“No bet, Mimzy. I’d never bet against one of Nelly’s kids,” Vicky said.

“It would be dumb to,” Mimzy agreed.

“Are they all like that?” Vicky asked Penny, with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s hard to be humble when you’re that great,” the Navy officer said with a grin.

“We are humble. We know our limitations,” Mimzy shot back. “But calculating the odds on a simple economic transaction is something we could do all day and never get wrong.”

“You have limits?” Vicky said, surprised to hear one of Nelly’s kids admit to any such thing.

The computer got real quiet.

Vicky turned back to Penny. “So you don’t think I need to worry about anyone trying to kill me just now. But about the time I need to start worrying about somebody getting here with a contract on my fair head, I’m likely to be shut out of house and home and dumped on the beach.”

Penny winced at the obvious conclusion to her assessment. “I guess I did say that, didn’t I?” the intelligence officer admitted. “You want to run for it now rather than wait for them to come here?”

“Run for where, and with what? Your Kris kind of got my fleet whipped out.” Vicky had shown up to join Kris’s Fleet of Discovery with four of the biggest battleships in human space. She was coming back from the other side of the galaxy with little more than the clothes on her back. She would have some explaining to do when she got home. No doubt about that.

Penny’s face got circumspect as she nodded agreement. “We lost a lot of good people.”

“I lost just about everybody I knew. Everyone I could count on or trust,” Vicky said, and had to make herself not reach for the beer. She’d gone there, and it hadn’t worked all that well. She needed to keep all her wits about her, or she would die dead drunk.

Jack looked up from his funk. “I’ve got to get to Kris. I’ll go talk to Admiral Santiago. There has to be a ship leaving for Wardhaven soon. Maybe she could order that cruiser guarding the jump to the alien worlds off station for a quick run.”

Penny was shaking her head even as she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jack. The scuttlebutt is that they want to keep the crew together for a debriefing. Or maybe to keep the newsies away from us. We’re on lockdown, Jack. I’m not even sure the Marines at the brow would let you go see the admiral.”

“I’ve got to try, Penny. I’ve got to try.”

Jack was up and fast-walking for the exit. Penny trailed him by only a few paces. She glanced over her shoulder at Vicky. “Sorry, I got to run. Men!”

Vicky raised a hand for a sardonic wave. It must be nice to have a friend at your side, trying to keep you from making the worse mistake of your life. Though, from the looks of it, Penny’s chances of getting through to the big lug were pretty slim.

Did he tell her what happened on the pier? Does the poor woman know what she’s up against?

Vicky shrugged. That was their problem. She had her own.

And no one to talk it over with.

She studied the bubbles rising in her beer. What was her problem?

Correction. Problems.

The list went long.

She was the Grand Duchess, the recognized heir to the newly created throne of the Peterwald Empire. Vicky winced. That should have been an asset, not a problem. But Dad had this new wife, Annah Bowlingame. The Empress was what, six months older than Vicky?

Kind of hard to call her Mommy.

But then the two had hardly shared more than a few minutes together. Just long enough for Vicky to swear fealty to the newly created Emperor and Empress and then ship out for the other side of the galaxy.

That should have been a safe distance.

Funny how it wasn’t.

Empress Annah had taken no time at all before announcing that she was knocked up and it was a boy and she was going to bear it in her own body. Dad had gone all goo-goo over it all.

Vicky sighed. Dad liked boys. He’d doted over Henry Smythe-Peterwald XIII. Vicky had witnessed all that doting from the shadows. And God help her if she did anything to cause big brother any pain.

Boys were everything in the Peterwald world. Girls were good for marrying off and having babies. Oh, and for seduction. Vicky had seen enough of that around court.

So, Dad had a baby boy on the way and the Empress had a family of brothers and uncles and other vultures who were spreading out, taking every advantage of their place at court and grabbing for all the money and power in reach.

Oh, and likely hiring a couple of assassins and getting them into the Fleet of Discovery. Three tries at Vicky and three failures before the aliens wiped out four battleships and put an end to further attempts.

Should Vicky just go home and set up her own security team to help her stay alive in that jungle? Could she?

But that presented the problem of getting home. She’d come on four huge battleships with some of the best people she’d ever met in her life. Kris Longknife had lost them in a fight that may or may not have saved a planet from being wiped out.

Which was bound to cause Vicky problems. Problems with the Navy and problems with Dad.

Somehow, she had to cover her rear end for the loss of the fleet, then figure out how to get home without becoming excessively dead on the way.

Vicky left her hardly touched beer on the table and walked slowly, lost in thought, from the Forward Lounge. She needed to get out to the people her own version of how it came to pass that four powerful Peterwald battleships went exploring, and none were coming home.

And she’d better get it out soon. If Penny’s assessment could be trusted, and Kris had almost always trusted her intelligence officer, Vicky was safe to walk the station today. Maybe tomorrow.

After that, not so much.

Vicky needed to talk to someone in the media, and real soon. That shouldn’t be too hard. The Wasp’s communications section had been bombarded with calls. Her computer had a list of them, stripped out from the ship’s computer. Vicky would have no problem getting a call out to the right one. They’d be delighted to have someone to talk to.

Still, she’d have to hold their attention for the full amount of time.

Vicky went down the wardrobe she’d managed to save from the Fury. Sure enough, she had one or two outfits that would be most camera worthy.

CHAPTER 2

IT was so easy. Just one quick call, and the media vultures were panting. Vicky agreed to meet early the next morning on the station; no news team would ever have gotten aboard the Wasp.

Getting off the Wasp, even at that early hour, proved to be more of a challenge than Vicky had expected, but no Marine sergeant was going to stop a Grand Duchess. Certainly no United Society Marine could stop a future Peterwald Empress.

Vicky had covered the dress, what there was of it, with a hooded cloak. No surprise, the sergeant of the guard got physical when she refused to let him stop her. He grabbed for her. The cloak came open, and he ended up with a handful of her right boob when that bit of ribbon that was the halter top slipped easily aside. That left one red-faced Marine sputtering apologies as Vicky stormed away.

Vicky grinned to herself. She’d planned to use that trick in the interview. Now, when it happened, if anyone asked, she’d have a ham-handed Marine to blame for it.

This just gets better and better.

Her newsie was waiting for Vicky at the end of the pier. By now, her hood was again fully covering her face. She let the reporter guide her anonymously through the mob of other newsies hanging around the station.

Actually, Vicky had put the cape over her dress to avoid drawing a mob of every functioning male in the place. The dress was called a halter top, but there was no halt in it. Not at all. The top shouted come and the short skirt was one big invitation.

Vicky figured her outfit would give her an extra five minutes on camera.

They quickly covered the distance to what the station laughingly called a hotel. The room was small, but a camera team was already set up with a star-covered backdrop behind Vicky’s chair.

Good, these folks know their business. That should make doing my business a whole lot easier.

Vicky settled herself in the offered chair. She had to pull the hem of her dress down. It still didn’t get close to midthigh. As the Marine had already discovered, the top wasn’t much. There was no back. The front consisted of two strips of cloth that struggled to cover her ample breasts as much as they revealed them. When Vicky pulled the dress from one of the foot lockers shipped over from the Fury when she asked Doc Maggie and Kit and Kat to join her, there had been strips of double-sided tape to hold it in place as she moved.

She’d left the tape in her quarters, as the Marine sergeant had already discovered and the newsies would find out in due course.

The woman producer smiled with delight and offered some whispered advice to the cameraman before asking, “Are you ready, Your Imperial Majesty?”

“Always,” Vicky purred, not bothering to correct the title.

“So,” said the interviewer, a man selected for eye candy rather than intelligence. “What did you think of the idea of the Great Voyage of Discovery?”

“Oh, it was wonderful,” Vicky gushed. And Vicky knew that she did gush very well. She laid it on thick about how exciting it was to be going out, deep into the heart of the galaxy. “Daily, we would see things no one had ever seen before. Our scientists were so excited. They would babble on and on over supper. We knew that we all were living a dream for the rest of humanity.”

“So, how did the Great Voyage of Discovery become the Great Battle?”

Vicky twisted in her seat. Now the strap of her dress went limp, just as she wanted it. All that held her top in place was hope. And every male viewer would be hoping it didn’t. Behind the interviewer, the producer smiled and nudged the cameraman. He zoomed in close.

Vicky had their attention. Not with her words. Her boobs.

“I have no idea how things changed,” Vicky said, breathlessly. “I was invited over to the Wasp for dinner with Princess Kris Longknife and then things started to go sideways so quickly that it was impossible to keep track. The admirals had all decided to go back to human space. All of them.

“But the princess would have none of that. She insisted we must attack these aliens. She had these fancy new weapons her king had sent her and she just had to use them. Somehow she got the admirals to change their minds and join her in the attack.”

At the “somehow,” Vicky twisted in her seat. She didn’t have to glance down. She knew she had a nipple showing by the way the producer grinned, and the camera cut in closer. Vicky went on talking, though she doubted any of those present were listening. She went on and on about Kris and the way she twisted the admirals to her wishes. She yammered on . . . and they let her.

This was as good as she’d hoped it would be.

“I know Admiral Krätz was all for returning. He’d been the first to insist we come back for further instructions. I think Kris paid a visit to the Fury before he changed his mind. I think Kris visited all the admirals personally to somehow persuade them.

Let Kris take the fall. I’m certainly not going to.

By now, Vicky was repeating herself. Repeating herself several times, but the camera just kept going. Finally, Vicky went for the climax. She glanced down, and said, “Oh,” as she shrugged her boob back under its minimal cover.

“How could that have happened?” she said looking directly into the camera. “A Marine sergeant tried to keep me on the Wasp. He grabbed me when I wouldn’t do what he wanted and damned if he didn’t knock my top down. He must have ripped something. I’m so sorry. You won’t use that material, will you?”

“Of course not, Your Grace,” the interviewer lied almost believably.

Vicky smiled so gullibly and went on. “The battle was horrible. Nothing went right. The aliens were just so much more powerful than anyone in the fleet had ever imagined. No question, Princess Longknife had bitten off a whole lot more than she could chew. Of course, only one of her ships had laid eyes on the alien fleet, and it had been running away from it the whole time it was in the same system. The aliens started shooting and battleships were blowing up and then Kris Longknife had her ships duck out of the fight so we never saw what happened to the battleships and then we were running for all that we could.”

Vicky managed to let a tear drop run down her cheek. “Running, running, running. Ships would fall behind, and Kris would just leave them. It was horrible. Finally, she managed to make a jump that the aliens couldn’t follow. Or maybe she ducked out while the aliens were beating up on the last ship that was still with her. I don’t know. It was just horrible. Horrible, I tell you.”

The camera was back on her boobs as she writhed in agony at the memory. They were hoping for another nipple slip.

So she gave them one.

“I don’t know how I will ever forget what I saw. I don’t know how any of us will ever forget what we went through. I’m just so glad that all of that was way on the other side of the galaxy. I’d hate to have something that horrible anywhere close to us. Wouldn’t you?” she asked the camera.

“No. No, I agree with you. Thank God they’re on the other side of the galaxy as far away from us as they can get,” the interviewer said.

Again, Vicky glanced down and noticed the supposed wayward bit of pink flesh. She shrugged herself back into place.

“I think we have enough,” the producer said. “We’ll have that formatted and back to corporate as quick as we can. No one else has given us an interview. I know this will be on every news show before the day is out.”

“Why thank you,” Vicky said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to be getting back to the ship and making arrangements for me and my handful of survivors to make our way back to Greenfeld. Four proud battleships left with full crews and only myself and five others survived to come back.”

Vicky noticed the camera was still on. No doubt, that final take would be the real end of the interview.

She returned the way she’d come, again putting the hooded cape to good use. The young sergeant was still guarding the quarterdeck. He reddened as she swept past him. He’d likely be doing something else tomorrow once they discovered how she’d used him.

Back on the Wasp, she headed straight for her quarters. It wouldn’t do to be spotted in this outfit aboard this wreck of a warship. Changed back into a modest shipsuit of blue, she checked in with her minions. The lieutenant and the chief had discovered no more than she had.

The Wasp was going nowhere. What was to be done and when was no more than a series of guesses among the various members of the crew. Very likely, even the captain was waiting for orders.

Vicky took her team to lunch. Though only she and the lieutenant were officers, she usually had all four dine with her in the wardroom. No one had objected; the Wasp was nothing if not flexible. One of the benefits of having a contractor running the show, no doubt.

Vicky, Kit, and the chief settled down at a table, while the lieutenant and Kat went to fetch plates for them. They had learned their choices among the limited meals served on the Wasp. Today was better. Fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables had arrived, and the cook was doing himself proud.

Vicky found herself served with a steak, baked potato, mixed fresh vegetables, and a salad. It tasted like ambrosia to her after the last couple of weeks of dry rations . . . and short rations at that.

She was half-done when a man joined her table.

That was unusual.

Normally, she and her team dined alone. Even more unusual, the man was not in uniform. Kit stiffened; hands went for whatever weapons she had secreted on her body. Vicky glanced at the chief. He had a black box beside his dinner plate. He eyed it and shook his head.

Most likely, the stranger was unarmed and not carrying a bomb.

Most likely. One never knew for sure, what with the race between offense and defense going at a maddening rate. Her best resources said he was unarmed.

Had her best been outbested?

“Hello,” Vicky said, breaking the silence. “And who might you be?”

“I’m your new best friend,” the guy said with a knowing grin.

CHAPTER 3

VICKY studied her new, putative, best friend.

He looked old enough to know better but young enough to still be doing foolish things. If his legs were as muscled as the bare arms his shirt showed her, he likely was in good enough shape to get out of the messes he got into.

The eyes that watched her would have done good service to a hawk. The face they rested in was intelligent and alert.

“Words are easy,” Vicky said. “Do you have any deeds to back them up?”

“You may remember that bomb that messed up the Forward Lounge just a few minutes after you left.”

“I do recall such an event.”

“I’m the reason it blew five minutes after it was supposed to.”

“Why five minutes? Why not never?” Vicky asked.

His narrow lips formed a tight grin. “But if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t know that you needed a new best friend to be grateful to. Or that you needed to have your eyes and ears open for the next assassin who will, inevitably, come along. Now you do, don’t you?”

“You have a point. It was kind of hard on the help. They did lose a waiter to space.”

He shrugged. “What was he to you? It sent a message that needed sending. Messengers have been dying for a long time.”

“I could get to like you,” Vicky said. “You want to draw a plate and eat with us?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He stepped away to take a run down the steam table.

While she’d been talking to her new best friend, her team had returned with loaded plates. “What do we know about that man?” Vicky whispered to them.

The chief and the lieutenant were madly running their black boxes through their paces. “He looks as unarmed as a newborn babe,” the lieutenant finally said.

Kit spoke for the two. “We’ve seen him in the ship’s gym. He’s good. We could probably take him if we got the jump on him.”

“Let’s let him run with his own thing for a while,” Vicky said, as the stranger turned back to their table. Around her, her minions settled into watchful alert.

He was dressed in an unmarked blue shipsuit, which told Vicky only that he was of the Wasp, but nothing about rank, rate, or status. Most likely he was carried as a contractor, but he could be assigned to anything from weapons to short-order cook flipping burgers in one of the restaurants.

Good camouflage.

“So, do you have a name?” Vicky asked as he settled in.

“You can call me Smith. Mr. Smith. It works as well as any.”

“And where do you draw your paycheck?”

“That might take a while to explain since I draw several for all the different things I do for all the different folks I work for. If you catch my meaning.”

“So who paid you to delay that bomb? A friend of Kris Longknife, or a friend of mine?”

“Honey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you don’t have that many friends just now.” He took a bite of steak. “Not many at all, and you could use a whole lot more.”

Vicky leaned back in her chair. “So, with Kris hauled off for points unknown, you’re out of work and looking for a new employer. If you catch my meaning.”

The man chuckled. “You aren’t slow. Not slow at all. I could deadhead back to Wardhaven and wait for some new assignment to come along, or, as I see it, I could sign on with you and start charging hours to your account immediately.”

“You sure I can pay?” Vicky asked.

“I must admit, there’s a little risk involved, seeing how you’re at severe risk of not making it through until next payday, but I’ve bet on worse cases and drawn a bonus for the risk.”

“Again, I find you a lot of talk but not so much on the deeds. How do I know you’re worth your paycheck?”

The man went on eating for a while, then put down his fork. “You asked Kris Longknife to let you have a better computer. The one around my neck is a couple of steps up from the one around your neck. That thing around your neck is the new, fancy self-organizing matrix. But the software isn’t all that good at organizing it. Not at all good.” He raised an eyebrow. “What would it be worth to you if I upgraded you while we finish lunch?”

“You’ve got a computer as good as Nelly?”

“Nobody has a computer as good as that bit of matrix, but my computer is better than anything you can get your hands on in Greenfeld. Maybe not the best in your Empire, but a whole lot better than any you can buy in a store there.”

“Why don’t you start the upgrade, and we’ll see.”

He reached for his fork again. “Joe, upgrade. Transmit.”

The computer at Vicky’s neck said, “Receiving.” A moment later, it announced, “Processing.”

“Now, while these two are doing their thing, why don’t you and I finish our dinner?”

Vicky picked up her fork, but she hadn’t taken one bite when one very-angry-looking Marine charged into the wardroom. Jack looked around, spotted Vicky, and headed for her table like a herd of charging bulls.

They couldn’t have released that interview already, Vicky thought, then retook her measure of the angry Marine rapidly approaching and changed her mind. I guess they rushed it into production and distribution.

“You lying snake in the grass!” Jack whispered as he came to stand across the table from her, at Mr. Smith’s elbow. “You backstabbing purveyor of misinformation and twisted tales! I ought to lock you in the brig and throw away the key.”

“But you can’t because your brig is about to be torn down,” Vicky purred. She put her hands in her lap, struck up her most alluring pose, and waited for what would come next.

“I could leave you in it when they take away the outer hull,” Jack snarled. “I wonder how long a snake like you can breathe vacuum.”

Vicky knew Jack was just talking. No U.S. Marine would dare harm a Grand Duchess of the Empire. “Jack, why don’t you sit down and have something to eat? Life always looks worse on an empty stomach.”

“I wouldn’t take a drink of water from you if I were dying of thirst in a parched desert.”

“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” Vicky said, relaxing in her chair. “What does your Princess Kris say? ‘It looked like a good idea at the time.’ Well, I did what I felt I had to do.”

“We have orders not to talk to newsies,” Jack snapped.

“No order from United Society, or whatever you’re calling yourself today, has any power or authority over a Grand Duchess of the Peterwald Empire. I do what I will do.”

“Well, you can do it somewhere else. I want you off this boat. Now!”

“Fortunately, a Marine captain does not command a Navy ship. Why don’t you go talk to the real captain here?”

At that moment, Captain Drago himself walked into the wardroom. He too, looked around, spotted Vicky, and slow-marched for her table.

“Thank you, Captain Montoya, for sending me that news clip. Very informative. I had no idea any of that took place on our long voyage.” He turned to Vicky. “Miss Peterwald, your presence on my ship is no longer desired. You have one hour to cross the brow headed for the station. If you aren’t gone in one hour, I will have the Marines throw you out. Do we understand each other?”

“As always, Captain, your use of the Standard language is very exact and precise,” Vicky said, making no move to rise.

She locked eyes with the two captains for a long, hard minute. Then both of them turned and stalked toward the exit.

Vicky waited until they were gone before saying, “You heard the man. We have an hour to get out of here. Let’s start packing. We leave nothing behind.”

Her four minions were up and trotting without another word spoken. Mr. Smith continued eating.

“You coming?” Vicky asked.

“Ma’am, I packed my bag before I came down to talk with you. Give me ten minutes, and I’ll be across the quarterdeck. Now, my computer and yours are in the middle of a major upgrade. Unless you think you have to look over any of those four shoulders to make sure they get every little thing right, I suggest you stay seated here.”

Vicky stayed in her chair.

“Upgrade complete,” a pleasant male bass said. “I have a message for Her Grace, the Grand Duchess of Greenfeld.”

“Vicky will do just fine.”

“Vicky, you have a message coming in from Admiral Gort of Battle Cruiser Division 4. He has just jumped into the system and will be docking at High Chance station in twelve hours. He requests the pleasure of your company for a trip back to Greenfeld, if it pleases you.”

“Computer, who is Admiral Gort?”

“I don’t know, Vicky. When I was last synced to the Greenfeld database several months ago, there was a Captain Gort on the battlecruiser Stalker. That ship is now his flag, so I would assume he has been promoted since you were last at Greenfeld.”

“Sounds like a safe assumption,” Mr. Smith said.

There was still no way for Vicky to know if he had been sent to shepherd her home, or to see that she died “of natural causes” somewhere along the way. Still, unless she planned to walk home, she’d have to trust herself to some vagaries of fate. Her power base in the Navy seemed more dependable than the odds of her surviving a trip home on the average liner.

“Tell Admiral Gort that I will be happy for his support and protection on the trip back to Greenfeld.”

“I think you’ve just made a good decision,” Mr. Smith said before forking in a large bite of steak and potatoes.

“We’ll know in a week or two if I arrive at court still breathing rather than as a very lovely corpse.”

“Oh, you of little faith. Think of it as a game. Every breath you take is a win.”

“Are you sure you want to be so optimistic around me?” Vicky asked.

“It’s a whole lot more fun to live that way, Duchess, trust me.”

“Are our computers done?”

“Done enough for now.”

“Then I will go see how my team is doing.”

“And I will finish eating.”

Vicky left, wondering just how much her new best friend was going to be worth.

CHAPTER 4

WITH an incoming battlecruiser division, Captain Drago relented on his one-hour deadline and agreed to let them stay until the Imperial fleet arrived and took Vicky off his hands.

Vicky put the time to good use. It turned out that Mr. Smith had a few extra grams of the same self-organizing matrix that Vicky had bought on Wardhaven to be the core of her new computer. While his computer did more things to upgrade Vicky’s computer, he added unique capabilities to the four personal computers of her minions.

In the end, none of them were as smart as Vicky’s computer, but they all could communicate on a tight beam with each other. Vicky had her own private net!

He also had a tiny wire headset that he half attached, half implanted on Vicky’s skull.

NOW YOU CAN TALK TO ME WITHOUT HAVING TO SAY A WORD, formed in Vicky’s mind.

WE CAN TALK, AND NO ONE WILL KNOW WHAT WE’RE SAYING, Vicky thought back.

EXACTLY. YOU WON’T HAVE TO HOLLER FOR HELP, JUST THINK IT. SAME FOR ME. IF I SEE TROUBLE, YOU’LL KNOW BEFORE ANYONE CAN SHOUT IT.

JUST LIKE KRIS CAN DO. I COULD GET TO LIKE THIS.

ALL PART OF THE SERVICE FROM NEW BEST FRIENDS, INC.

YOU’VE MADE A GOOD START AT EARNING YOUR PAY. NOW, MAKE ALL THIS KEEP ME ALIVE.

THAT’S THE PLAN.

Vicky had other plans to think about while others packed.

What to wear?

She was returning to the Navy. The white dress she’d worn for the interview would be totally out of place among the more puritanical officers of the Imperial Navy. She chose a simple shipsuit, though of imperial purple, not the usual Greenfeld green. She subdued the imperial by wearing the proper shoulder tabs of a Navy lieutenant.

She was ready well before the twelve hours were up.

Right on time, Admiral Gort himself led an honor guard of two dozen Marines and several Sailors to Vicky’s room. The Sailors took over responsibility for hauling away her trunks and gear. Doc Maggie joined them at the last minute and added her few things to the collection of baggage going to the Stalker.

On the quarterdeck, Captain Drago himself was there to see her off.

“Good luck,” he told the admiral. “With her aboard, you’ll need it.”

“As I hear it, your own princess did a good job of making her own good luck. Is all your damage aft?” Gort asked with a snide grin.

“We must share a bottle of scotch when you’ve sailed with the Grand Duchess for three months,” Drago said dryly in reply.

The two exchanged salutes. The admiral saluted the flag aft, and then it was Vicky’s turn. She departed the Wasp as smartly as the admiral, and they marched, him at her side, for where his battlecruiser lay at the next pier.

Several newsies tried to jam mics in Vicky’s general direction, but the Marines moved swiftly enough to keep them at a distance, and if a few reporters got elbows in their guts, surely it was an accident.

Admiral Gort paid proper honors on his own quarterdeck, and Vicky did the same.

“Walk with me,” were the first words he exchanged with her.

She followed him to his in-port cabin. Only when the door closed behind him did he let his face show anything but bland, military neutrality.

When he turned on her, he was livid.

“How could you make such a spectacle of yourself?” he demanded.

Vicky braced, like she’d learned under Admiral Krätz’s tutelage, but she was not the green recruit anymore. “I might have acted differently if I’d known that you were coming, sir.”

“Have you heard of communications, Lieutenant? You could have sent us a simple message.”

Vicky felt the blood drain from her face. She had never thought of something so simple as sending out a message. Besides, she had no idea who to address it to. Her dad? The Navy? She hadn’t the foggiest notion who, in this situation, she was supposed to report to.

She blurted that out, ending with, “It’s not like this has ever happened before.”

The admiral paused, his mouth half-open for some retort. He closed it, then snapped out, “What were you doing on that Kris Longknife’s ship, anyway?”

That one Vicky had an answer for. “There had been three attempts on my life. It seemed safer on the Wasp than on the Fury.” Vicky paused for just a second. “And the Wasp is over there tied up at the pier, and the Fury is nothing but atoms. I think I guessed right.”

The admiral studied her for a long moment. Vicky studied him right back. He was young to have his own flag; his black hair was showing only flecks of gray. His uniform still fit him trimly; he carried none of Admiral Krätz’s middle-aged paunch. Vicky couldn’t think of this man in the fatherly way she had the older admiral. The Navy officer in front of her was more a big brother . . . or a mature lover.

Choices. Opportunities?

The admiral finished his examination and turned from her scrutiny. “Take a seat, Lieutenant.”

Vicky looked around. She saw a standard suite: desk, conference table, a small discussion ring. Vicky settled herself on a red leather settee. The admiral took his own seat in a matching overstuffed leather chair across a low coffee table from her.

“May I ask, sir, how you came to be so close to Chance? It’s not like we were expected.”

“Yes. I saw that tub of Kris Longknife’s. Is it safe for space?”

“I’m told no. The wreck can’t be risked in another jump and will be scrapped where it lies there, pier side.”

“That news report I saw you give, was it accurate?”

“Allowing for the requirement that I entertain the lowest quality of viewer, yes, sir, what I said is basically accurate. We engaged the enemy by a battle plan that Kris Longknife developed . . .”

Admiral Gort interrupted, “The admirals let a mere lieutenant commander lead them around like bulls with rings in their noses?”

“She had the new superweapons. They had no idea how to use them. She came up with a plan, and the admirals went along, sir. Or maybe I should say, the other two admirals, the ones from Musashi and Helvetica agreed, and our Admiral Krätz had no choice but follow or be branded a coward.”

“No one would ever accuse Krätz of being a coward. Not to his face. I served under him,” Admiral Gort said. “If ships were headed into battle, he’d be at the head of them.”

“He was, sir. When we met the aliens, he was leading the battle line.”

“That sounds like Krätz. You said the aliens were more powerful than Kris Longknife expected. How much more powerful?”

“The main alien ship was the size of a large moon, sir.”

The Navy officer whistled. “That big, huh?”

“It had several hundred, I’m not sure exactly how many hundred, ships docked on it. Every one of the ‘smaller’ ships dwarfed our Terror-class battleships.”

That drew another whistle. “You’re right. I’m glad they are on the other side of the galaxy from here.”

The room filled with a worried silence for a few moments.

“Sir, may I ask again, how does it happen that your division was so close to Chance?”

The admiral frowned, not at Vicky but at a space off to the side. “Matters have not changed much since you sailed away. There is still much civil unrest. Far too much of the Navy is tied up to stations providing shore parties to back up the local police forces. There is even talk of forming an army. A real one, not the toy soldiers that prance around the palace and serve hors d’oeuvres at parties. The problem is, if they raise an army, they have to arm it and no one’s too sure that the army won’t become a player in the political blood sport that passes for governance at the moment.”

He eyed Vicky as he said those last words.

“No doubt Admiral Krätz turned in some kind of report and quoted my own opinion of the sad circumstances of our beloved Greenfeld,” Vicky said.

“Yes. He reported that to the Navy’s General Staff. I was provided copies when I was sent out on this mission. Officially, I was here to show the flag. Our intelligence was receiving a lot of reports from its sources that the Greenfeld fleet was being discounted as good for nothing but bashing in the heads of unarmed hooligans. We needed to counter that misperception, so it was decided to distribute the battlecruiser fleet by divisions around human space. To show the flag. To show that we could still make it away from the pier and to let the various Navies see the size of our guns.

“Oh, and being battlecruisers, we could make our way home very quickly if matters took a turn for the worse, or, young Lieutenant, if some of the mauled fleet came straggling in from what was supposed to have been a sightseeing excursion.”

“I and my six associates are all you will be getting back from our little ‘excursion,’ sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have the sensor take from the Wasp’s main computer. Computer, display battle visuals on the admiral’s screen.”

The large screen to Vicky’s left came to life. There was the main alien ship, fresh from the jump, looming huge and deadly, filling most all of the screen. Then the battle started. Lasers flashed through the thin space where the earlier scouts had died. Missiles from the Wasp lashed into the alien monster. Then the Hellburners smashed in, spewing fire and wreckage all over the screen.

Which went blank as the Wasp ducked through the jump the aliens had just used.

“That’s how she got out of there? That Longknife woman went where the aliens had just come from? She should have run into a huge fleet train.”

“Sir, the main alien ship was their fleet train,” Vicky said. “The previous system was as empty as any we had seen. It didn’t stay that way. The aliens were madder than hornets at us for burning their nest. They followed us. They followed us through three or four jumps before the Wasp managed to go one way and the Hornet seemed to lead the aliens in some other direction.”

“How did that happen?”

“The Wardhaven jump sensors can identify something they call a fuzzy jump. We’ve heard reports of this thing from research ships that have visited the newly discovered alien ruins that Kris Longknife found,” Vicky said. It was strange how often she had to say that woman’s name. Her fingerprints were on way too much of what was happening in human space.

“But those fuzzy jump points are only one of the surprises the Longknife princess popped on us. Those Hellburners as they call them. Where did they come from?” Vicky asked the admiral.

“I have no idea. That doesn’t bother me as much as our own intelligence services having no idea. The U.S. is pulling stuff out of their hat that has us scratching our head way too much. And while their researchers give them more and more, our own scientists have to stand in line for bread. Greenfeld needs a new day.”

That was a phrase that could be treason if said in the wrong place. But Vicky had heard it often enough from Admiral Krätz to know it was popping up more and more around wardrooms. “My dad is doing his best to settle the unrest. Admiral, the Navy is doing all it can to calm down the rioting.”

“Killing the Commander of State Security and dissolving that force was not well done.”

“General Boyng tried to kill my dad. What did you expect Dad to do, kiss him?”

“Of course not, Lieutenant. The Navy is not a pack of fools. Yes, State Security was rotten. It needed pruning. But burning down the tree, root and stem, has not worked for Greenfeld. Or do you see it differently?”

Vicky took time for a deep breath. Lieutenants did not argue with admirals. Certainly a young woman who needed a safe ride home did not argue with the only safe ride in sight. “No, Admiral, I do not see it differently. The suppression of State Security has caused no end of trouble. Separating the diseased limbs from the healthy ones looks wiser, with the benefit of hindsight, but it looked way too risky at the time. Dad solved the immediate problem. Yes, that did create the problem we have now. At the time, no one had a better idea for Dad.”

The admiral nodded. “That is the way it is with a benevolent despot. What he can see and do well is done well. What is beyond his grasp easily gets out of hand.”

“You’re starting to sound like Kris Longknife. Next thing I know, you’ll be calling for elections,” Vicky snapped.

“And let the mob raise up its own tyrant? Never!”

The two of them found themselves out of words, staring across the table at each other.

“What is happening right here and now?” Vicky finally asked.

“I’m trying to decide what to do next,” the admiral said, thoughtfully.

“What can you do next?” Vicky asked, suspecting that she was finally getting to the whole reason an admiral was having this little talk with a lieutenant.

“My orders are to deliver you immediately to Greenfeld and assure you a safe escort to the palace.”

Those sounded like the orders Vicky would expect him to have. Why did she hear a roaring “but” at the end of that sentence?

“But . . .” she provided.

“I have been offered a very large sum of money to assure that you suffer a serious illness on the way there. One sufficiently potent to assure that you arrive as a corpse.”

“And did you take that money?” Vicky asked, finding it hard to breathe.

“Of course I did. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. Then, of course, I have also been provided with a somewhat smaller sum of money to assure that you arrive somewhere other than Greenfeld and the palace.”

Vicky couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “I had no idea I was such a valuable pawn. Would it be too much for me to ask who the bidders are?”

“Do you really want to know? The more you know, the less likely you are to leave this ship alive.”

“Strange, I always thought that the more I knew, the more likely I was to stay alive. But, I see your point. You are playing several different games here, and you are likely guessing what the rules are. Do you really want me to be guessing at them as well? Let me offer you this,” Vicky said, and began unzipping her shipsuit. “All they can offer you is money. I, on the other hand can offer you delight beyond your wildest imaginings.”

“Zip it up, Lieutenant. First, you scare me. Growing up in the palace, I suspect you were well trained in needlepoint and the Kama Sutra, for fun, pleasure, and self-defense. Second, I never have sex with someone I may later have to order killed. Sorry, Your Imperial Grace, but until I decide whether you live or die, you can keep your shirt on.”

Vicky zipped up, doing her best not to show her fury at the rejection. It was the first such event in her entire life.

You are going to pay for that one. Not now, but someday.

Still, Vicky did not pause but made her next move in this deadly game. “So, if we’re not going to be sexual partners, and if you’re keeping your options open to kill me, why not let me in on who’s bidding for my head and who just wants my body?”

“I’ve got to give it to you, Lieutenant, you do have a sense of humor. Still, I saw that flash of rage in your eyes. You don’t like rejection. Probably haven’t tasted much of it, I’d guess. It might be fun to keep you in the dark and see how good you are at guessing.”

Vicky had had enough of this. She put dead calm in her voice when next she spoke. “I know a lot about the dark, Admiral. I’ve lived in it most of my life. The palace likes to keep little girls in the dark. I learned sneaky when you were learning your ABC’s. I’ve been twisting secrets out of people since before you learned to write. Keep me in the dark, and I assure you, I will find out what I need. And since I won’t owe you anything, you won’t get anything from me but what, needlework?”

The admiral mulled her words over for a long moment. Then he stood. “Would you care for a cup of tea?”

“Certainly, sir,” Vicky said, turning her voice to warm and friendly. “I’d love a cup of tea. I think I’ll take sugar today.”

The admiral went to a large silver samovar and filled two cups. “Chamomile for me,” Vicky said. “I’m finding our conversation stimulating enough.”

“A wise choice, Lieutenant.” And the admiral prepared two cups of the relaxing tea. Done, he offered her a teacup first, then took his seat again. For a long moment, they savored the aroma before sipping the tea.

Finally, he put his cup down. Vicky chose to hold hers in her hand. It wasn’t much of a shield, but it would have to do.

“What do you think of your father’s rule?” the admiral asked.

Vicky chose an honest answer. “For most of my life, I didn’t think much about it at all. Dad was Dad. He was much more interested in what Hank was doing, but he had an occasional smile for me in a new dress, and I savored what little I got. The world outside the palace was usually only glimpsed on a TV screen, and I never knew what was real and what was just fiction. It all seemed rather strange to me.”

“Then you joined the Navy,” the admiral provided.

“No, then my brother got himself killed, and suddenly Daddy’s little girl was the heir to the family’s power and fortune.” Vicky made a face. “I don’t think any of us were really prepared for that. They turned me loose on Eden as a kind of coming-out party. I did my best to kill Kris Longknife, thinking that she’d killed Hank, and failed miserably.”

Vicky put down her tea. “Then, they apprenticed me to Admiral Krätz, and my real education began. Among other things, he introduced me to Kris Longknife in the flesh. An interesting experiment, that. Kris insisted she hadn’t killed Hank. That Hank was too stupid to live and had a blind spot a mile wide where Dad’s weaknesses were concerned. I figured she was just trying to separate me from Daddy.”

Vicky leaned forward. “Watching Kris for the last few months, I’ve come to suspect that she sees just as many flaws in her own family as she sees in mine. I’ve been giving that a lot of thought.”

“What do you intend to do about that?” the admiral asked.

“I’m not sure,” Vicky admitted. “It’s one thing to see the flaws in a person or civil structure, something else entirely to do something about it. What do you think, Admiral?”

“I think Admiral Krätz was quite right in his last report. You are maturing rapidly.”

“Grow up or die,” Vicky said dryly.

The admiral leaned back and studied her for a long minute. Vicky picked up her tea and took a deep swallow. It tasted good and was at just that right temperature.

“The largest sum of money I received, the amount for your dead body, was from your Empress Annah and her family. Her brother, Edward Bowlingame personally delivered the cash.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Vicky drawled. “How have they been doing since I left?”

“Your stepmother’s pregnancy progresses apace, or so we are all told. Her family is prospering despite the problems in the Empire. Indeed, unlike your father, they have raised an army.”

Vicky frowned at that. “Does he approve?”

“Since they are not calling it an army, he doesn’t seem to notice. Officially, it’s a security service. People may contract for its services. It’s quite amazing how few businesses that contract with them are burned or trashed during the riots. Those that don’t, well, few refuse their services a second time. Why, there are even several planets that no longer require Navy support. The entire place is protected by the Empress’s family’s ongoing security concern.”

“Is that as bad as it sounds?” Vicky asked.

“Your father doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Have they got their fingers in the fleet?” Vicky asked. That was one fear Admiral Krätz shared with his young charge. Fear that the long, ongoing civil unrest would let outsiders into the fleet. That the cancer eating at the civil life of Greenfeld would get into the Navy’s blood.

“Several major supply contracts have gone to the Bowlingames, and a few of the shipyards are on planets under security-service protections. Strange how the ships from those yards are costing us more, and when delivered, need major refits in Navy yards before we dare take them to space.”

Vicky thought on his words for a long while. How could her dad be so blind to what was going on around him? Then, with his new wife, he’d been too busy to hear anything about what Kris Longknife and her forensic computer accountants had discovered on St. Petersburg. A solid commitment to a truth that was inconvenient was not one of her dad’s strong suits. It had been staring her in the face. She had done her best to ignore it.

Now his foolish bliss was a deadly threat to her.

Time to take the blinders off, as Kris Longknife would say.

“Okay, so you’ve been given money by my loving stepmother to see me dead. Who else gave you money and what do they want for their largesse?”

“There is another faction. You will excuse me if I make no effort to name them. Actually, it is hard to name them. Unlike your stepmother and her family, they are more eclectic in their origin. They want me to deliver you to them.”

“And once delivered, they want me to . . .?”

“They didn’t tell me. I believe Admiral Krätz would call this ‘an exercise to be left to the class,’ would he not?”

“No doubt,” Vicky said. “Let’s see. One side wants me dead so they can rob my dad’s Empire blind and put their child on his throne. No doubt sooner rather than later. The other side would likely want my lovely body to use as a banner holder. To wave a flag of rebellion, or some such thing. Let the loyal patriots of Greenfeld rally around a good Peterwald against the bad Peterwald who has been bespelled by the evil witch. Or bitch, either spelling will suffice.”

The admiral shrugged, whether at the joke or the conclusion, he left Vicky to decide.

“And you haven’t decided whose pay to pocket?”

“Oh, I’ve pocketed both sides’ pay. I have it safely deposited in a bank on Bern. Admittedly, depending on what I do, I’ll have to avoid one side or the other. Maybe both. I could end up doing what my orders tell me to. Then won’t I be in a mess,” he said with a hint of a grin.

“Admiral Krätz taught me to ask one question first when I had a hard decision. ‘What was best for the Navy?’ Tell me, Admiral, what is best for the Navy here?”

“That, Lieutenant, is my problem. I can’t decide what’s best for the Navy, or, if I remember Krätz’s full set of questions, what is best for Greenfeld? What do you think, young woman, is best for us all?”

“I don’t think my dying is best for either side, or anyone, except my loving stepmother dearest. And I don’t think you really want what’s best for that bunch of corrupt thieves.”

“That is a problem,” the admiral said, and stood. “Well, enough talk, Lieutenant. You must see to your quarters. I’ve given you the captain’s in-port cabin. Your team also has the cabins on either side of you, though you might want to have some of them sleep in your outer day cabin. I will post Marine guards at your door. I despise the idea of you dying under anyone’s hand but mine. It’s an ‘admiral thing,’ you know.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that you admirals seem very controlling of what goes on in your domain.”

“Did Admiral Krätz really let Kris Longknife send him to war on her plan?” the admiral asked.

“Admiral, you had to be there, watch it develop, to understand how it all came down. I know this sounds unbelievable, but I think the sight of those alien raiders and what they did to the planets they raped really got to the admiral. He truly wanted to run for home. Certainly not get in a fight with them. Then those Hellburners arrived from Wardhaven and suddenly the Longknife Princess had a hammer she could put down hard on the aliens and the other admirals were kind of excited about having one hell of a fight. Admiral Krätz went from ‘let’s go home’ to ‘I’ll lead the charge’ and I don’t think even he knew quite how it happened. That Longknife woman had a plan, and next thing we knew, everyone was following it.”

“Damn those Longknifes. Four good battleships. We’ll really miss them if it comes to a fight.”

“Admiral, review the record. But I was there. Our best battleships didn’t survive longer than a drop of water on a hot greased griddle. I heard Kris say we got lucky that day. We’ll need a whole lot more than luck next time.”

The admiral clearly did not like getting advice from a lieutenant. Certainly not advice that his fleet’s proud battleships were outclassed by a newfound threat.

“You are dismissed,” he growled.

Vicky came to attention, saluted, and left.

CHAPTER 5

VICKY stormed into her quarters. In the room, she found the six members of her team waiting for her. Her spaces were identical to those of the admiral. Vicky pointed at the lieutenant. “You, with me,” and then quick-marched for what she assumed was a night cabin.

Fortunately for her pride, she guessed right. It was small, but it had a bed, a desk, and the other necessities. She whirled to meet the lieutenant, who almost collided with her. That made it easier for her to strip off his shipsuit. She saw in his eyes a mixture of emotions she was all too familiar with from the men in her life.

Shock. Terror. Wonder. And enough lust to overcome them all.

He stripped himself out of his underwear while Vicky undressed and leapt onto the bed. He was ready. She spread her legs, and he was atop her in near record time.

He was also spent in near record time.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun,” she growled in his ear. “Now make me feel like I want to feel.” Or at least deaden the pain and fear.

Let me feel something!

He knew what she wanted. This was not the first time she had taken him by storm. It was either him or the chief, and the CPO was older and maybe wiser. The lieutenant had served her needs before.

Today, he failed. It wasn’t that he did anything differently; it was more Vicky’s problem. Every time she closed her eyes to let her passion rise, all she saw was a gunman crashing through the door and a huge pistol aimed between her eyes.

It was hard to let herself sink into the throes of carnal lust when all her teeth wanted to do was chatter with terror.

Finally, she pushed him away. He, however, was all ready for a second go at her. “Put a sock on it,” she snapped.

A PRESENT HAS ARRIVED FOR YOU, formed in her head. YOU MIGHT WANT TO LOOK AT IT.

Without a thought, she was out of bed and pulling on her shipsuit. Before the lieutenant had managed to get out of bed, she was opening the door.

Doc Maggie had left them. No surprise there.

But there was a surprise. In the middle of the conference table sat a vase full of roses. Her team stood around it. All but Mr. Smith. He eyed it warily . . . from well across the room.

Kit reached for a card prominently placed among the flowers. “It says it’s from a secret admirer. Should I open it and see if the secret is inside?”

“Chief, is that vase safe?” Vicky snapped. All kinds of hormones raced through her blood. This puzzle was not what she wanted. Or needed.

“I think so, Your Grace. My sensors find nothing wrong with it.”

“Mr. Smith?”

“I have nothing to add to the chief’s report. Still . . .”

Yes. Still, Vicky thought. And did not like the feel of the hairs on the back of her neck. She was talking before she even realized she had made her decision.

“Kit. Take the flowers outside. Put them on the deck well down the passageway.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the servant said, and moved quickly to obey.

The settee, this one black, was against her night quarters bulkhead. She went to sit on it.

Kit returned and came to sit on her right, Kat on her left. The men, three now that the lieutenant had rejoined them, formed a semicircle in front of them, facing the door.

A minute passed. Then another.

Vicky was just beginning to wonder if she had made a fool of herself when the explosion came.

She heard the roar of it, and then felt the overpressure in her ears even through the closed door.

The ship’s alarm went off. Shouting and the pounding of heavy boots announced the arrival of the damage-control party. Lighter footfalls no doubt meant corpsmen and maybe even investigators.

“Kit, open the door and take a look outside.”

Kit moved quickly. The door open, she glanced outside. “There is no fire in the passageway, Your Grace,” she announced. Across the passageway, a Marine still stood his post, though blood flowed from his ear. A sergeant glanced inside. His nose was bleeding, and his eyes looked red.

He saw she was safe and turned away.

“You may close the door, Kit,” Vicky said. She did.

Vicky raised a questioning eyebrow to Mr. Smith.

He shrugged. “It was either very primitive or quite sophisticated. I won’t know which until I have a chance to examine it.”

“We must arrange for you to have that chance,” Vicky said, feeling very imperious for the moment. It was also nice to be alive.

A few minutes later, there came a firm rap on the door. Vicky sent Kat to open it, and Admiral Gort was admitted.

He did not look happy.

“You knew it was a bomb?” he demanded.

“I knew that I have no secret admirers,” Vicky answered. “Mr. Smith, here, suggested that I not take a chance, and I chose not to. I hope it did not cause major damage to your ship.”

“Nothing a new coat of paint can’t handle,” the admiral muttered.

“It would seem, Admiral, that you are not the only one who received pay from outside sources.”

“Yes, it does,” he agreed. “I do not like that. I do not like that at all.”

“My man, Mr. Smith, would like the opportunity to join your investigation into that unpleasant event. It may be that he is better prepared for this kind of event than your good Sailors are.”

The admiral eyed Mr. Smith, then nodded. “It seems that we are playing in a game where good sailormen are at a disadvantage. I would appreciate help from any source.”

“My lieutenant and chief have received some training and extra equipment from Kris Longknife’s security experts as well. That was the real reason I ended up on the Wasp when we went to war. If you don’t mind, I’d like all three to help your investigation.”

The admiral turned to Mr. Smith. “You have my leave to do anything you feel necessary to get to the bottom of this.”

Mr. Smith nodded at his assignment, made eye contact with the two Navy members of Vicky’s team, and motioned them toward the door. The chief went to gather his gear, and the three of them left together.

“I’m assuming that you find this bomb aboard your ship as unacceptable as I find it,” Vicky said with an arched eyebrow.

“Yes, Your Grace. I expect my orders to be obeyed quickly and completely. I object strongly to anyone else’s orders taking precedence over mine.”

“Has this helped you resolve the decision we talked about earlier?” Vicky asked, playing with the zipper on her shipsuit.

“I believe it has. And thank you for the offer, but you are a lieutenant, and I am an admiral. That alone establishes standards for our relationship.”

Vicky took her hand away from the zipper. “I fully understand, Admiral. Admiral Krätz introduced me to the Navy’s standards of behavior, and I am only too happy to comply with the professional standards of the Navy’s proud tradition.”

“I’m glad we understand each other. Supper will be served in my wardroom at 1900 hours. I hope you and your team will join me.”

“We would be honored, sir. What is the uniform of the day?”

“Undress whites,” the admiral said, giving her a firm look.

“I will be proud to wear them, sir.”

Done, he turned on his heels and marched out.

“Kit, Kat, we all need undress whites for dinner tonight. Check my gear. If we don’t have smart uniforms, Kat, draw some from the ship’s stores.”

That set the two women to furious activity. Vicky stayed on the settee, thinking.

It appeared that she had eliminated one threat to her life, and indeed, turned him into an ally. Whoever had made the bomb attempt had been a fool. Not only had they missed, but they had cemented the Navy to Vicky. There would be no more talk of the battle squadron she had lost, not with Admiral Gort. No, someone had tried to take his prerogatives from him.

That held his full attention.

Vicky marveled at how little the civilian world understood the military. What to one side was just a good double check on a business deal, to the other was a violation of their honor and hard-earned rights of seniority.

Someday she would have to thank her dad for sending her to the fleet for her training.

Poor brother. He had thought he could transfer into the Navy and apply his freshly learned business skills to running a fleet. And he might have gotten away with it if he hadn’t run up against Kris Longknife.

Vicky sighed. She was headed back into that nest of snakes now officially known as the Imperial Palace. Clearly, her Navy training would be of little use in that poisoned atmosphere.

Here was a lesson for her to learn and apply. That something worked in one time and place was no guarantee that it would work in another. This might keep her breathing long enough to find some safe port in this stormy sea.

But where is that safe port?

Should she suggest to the admiral that he take his other bribe? Was she ready to raise a flag of rebellion against her own dad?

Over supper, she would suggest to the admiral that he hold his ships to a single gee of acceleration. That would give her more time to weigh her options. That would also give her time to gather data. Greenfeld was never an easy place to understand. Lies were more often the only truth available. Still, the Navy must have sources it relied upon.

Yes, she would ask the admiral to admit her to those reports he had alluded to. If Admiral Krätz had been reporting on her, certainly other reports were coming in from wherever the fleet was located. Reports for Navy eyes only would not spin or hide the harsh truths of what was happening to the Greenfeld they all loved.

Mr. Smith returned, though the lieutenant and chief stayed with the ship’s investigative team. “The bomb,” he reported, “was both very simple and very sophisticated.”

“Explain yourself,” Vicky snapped, in no mood for puzzles.

“The explosives were C-16, hidden in the stems of the flowers, dipped in nonvolatile plastic so that there was no degassing from the chemicals. Standard issue in some circles these days. The vase, by the way, had been scarred on the inside, so when the explosives blew, it shattered into a thousand shards with dagger edges. The detonator was simplicity itself. The special paper was designed so that when you removed the letter from the envelope, it would create enough static electricity to activate one detonator. No battery. No wires. Alternately, another detonator was immersion in water and would, over time, as it actually happened, oxidize and provide the charge that set it off. It was so very simple, no electronics for us to spot. My hat is off to the expert who did this.”

“And will we find that expert?”

“Maybe. Very likely not. The others are doing the scut work, looking for fingerprints, anything left that might lead us to where the bomb was assembled. I don’t need to be involved with that. You and the admiral will have a report by morning. I’ll review the findings and see if they overlooked anything.”

“Good,” Vicky said. “Now, I have an hour before we all must dress for dinner. Won’t you step into my boudoir? I’m sure we can find more to discuss.”

Mr. Smith only smiled as she played with the top of her zipper. “Don’t mind if I do, ma’am.”

Mr. Smith proved to be extraordinarily skilled at whatever he applied himself to. After half an hour, Vicky was confident that he would earn his paycheck from her in many pleasant ways.

CHAPTER 6

DINNER that evening in the admiral’s wardroom was quite splendid.

Admiral Gort had each of the cooks who had prepared a dish bring it in him or herself . . . and taste it in front of the diners.

The chefs were not surprised by this requirement. They had been told in advance that they would be required to prove the safety of their dishes, and that outside input might be attempted to any meal the Grand Duchess shared. If they valued their own lives, they had best assure that their contribution to the meal remained free of tampering.

The admiral was taking no chances. Vicky was delighted at his newfound concern for her safety.

She broached the topic of her interest in the specifics of the world she would be returning to. The admiral seemed understanding and ordered his chief of intelligence to join them at the table. The man was a young and alert commander. He quickly joined in the conversation, giving Vicky a quick rundown of which planets had fallen into rioting and how the disorder was being suppressed.

Vicky found his report factual and free of opinion.

It was also just the bare bones of what she needed. She hoped when he joined her tomorrow that she would not have to pry all the extra details, the ones that might determine if she lived or died, out of him.

When Mr. Smith commented that the Grand Duchess’s computer had been recently upgraded and could help in collating and correlating the data, the commander seemed impressed and offered to begin a data dump to the Grand Duchess’s computer as soon as they were sure the U.S. had not slipped any eavesdropping capability aboard while they were tied up to their station.

Vicky offered to drop by the secure intelligence facilities after dinner and have her computer given a direct, secure line into the database.

The admiral seemed impressed by Vicky’s willingness to accommodate Navy security requirements. “But then you were trained by Admiral Krätz, the best of the best.”

“I am open to the graduate course, Admiral. Indeed, I am looking forward to it.”

The dinner broke up on that happy note.

Vicky accompanied the commander back to his workspaces. His chief easily connected Vicky’s computer to their main system and data began to flow into it. It took a bit longer than the chief said it would.

“But then, bringing a strange computer into the net often requires a bit of extra time,” he admitted.

Even as Vicky walked back to her quarters with the lieutenant and the chief, she could feel her computer running through the data. She offered priorities for her information tree and discovered that her computer, in its private conversation with her, was asking more questions than she expected.

In her quarters, she left the men behind and headed straight for her bedroom. There, sitting at the desk, was Mr. Smith.

He had several gadgets out of his pocket, which he only glanced at before saying, “I’ve disabled several bugs. They are still reporting, but reporting a rerun of our earlier tryst. Now, shall we see what your intel haul is?”

“I take it that my download was much more than they realized?” Vicky said as she took a seat on her bed. “The download took a bit longer than the chief expected.”

“It shouldn’t have. You were downloading at triple the speed they thought. If it took a tad longer, then we really did make a haul.”

“For whom?” Vicky asked, her voice going hard.

“For you, ma’am, for you. We’ll go through it tonight, and if you don’t think it’s something you need or should have, you can delete it, and it will be gone.”

“You sure your computer isn’t getting a copy of my download as we speak?”

Mr. Smith dramatically placed his right hand on his heart. “Ma’am, you wound me greatly.”

“I notice that you didn’t lie to me. I appreciate that. Shall we begin our examination of my homeland? Be aware, Mr. Smith. It is my homeland, and I love it. Likely more than you love yours, assuming you can call anywhere home.”

“Sadly, I don’t, ma’am.”

“Then be warned. You are on a ship of my fleet. If you ever hope to leave it alive, don’t make me doubt your commitment to me and my ends.”

“Says the black widow to the vampire bat,” Mr. Smith replied with a confident smile. “I think we understand each other very well. Shall we start with the two-thirds of the database they didn’t intend for you to have?”

In her mind’s eye, Vicky saw her data divide in two, one in red, the other in green. Quickly, headers began streaming down in both sections, but the red section kept going long after the green one finished. Then the green vanished away. The remaining headers showed the source of the data: admirals’ reports, intelligence reports, political developments, economic and production statistics headed tables of content that rapidly expanded.

“Search the admirals’ reports for information on your stepmother,” Mr. Smith suggested.

“Are you reading my computer?” Vicky demanded.

“Only the very surface. I can see the headers but nothing under them.”

“Let’s check political developments instead. See if there are any surprises there,” Vicky said.

Mr. Smith greeted that with a shrug but said nothing.

Politics seemed to be pretty much the same. Imperial proclamations were going out, taxes were being raised. Later proclamations complained about the failure of said taxes to produce the expected income. Planetary governors were encouraged to do whatever it took to find the expected money.

Vicky wondered where the money was going to be spent.

She stopped the fast run-through when she spotted a familiar name.

“Prime Minister Bertram has been sacked?” Vicky said, startled. “I know him. I have since I was just a little girl trying to loot cookies and candy from the kitchen. He always had some lemon drops in his pocket when he came to call on Dad. He said he kept them there just for me and his grandkids.”

“Apparently, lemon drops didn’t cut it with the new wife,” Mr. Smith said.

“How do you know?” Vicky demanded.

“I don’t. Call it a guess.”

“It’s a good guess. The Prime Minister was disgraced over the taking of some bribes. One of the Empress’s uncles has been given the office,” Vicky said.

“Have your computer search the admiral’s reports on Mr. Bertram. I bet they have something to say on it.”

Vicky considered that for a moment. It was a good suggestion, but as Mr. Smith had admitted, what she brought to the top of her computer, he was very likely taking in as well. Then again, what could the local admirals have found out that the United something embassy hadn’t already reported to their king?

How much do you trust this guy? was a major question.

There was only one way to find out. “Computer, search the admirals’ reports for anything on Prime Minister Bertram.” In barely a second, reports were streaming before her eyes.

“The admirals think it was a bogus charge trumped up to get him out and make way for a favorite of the Empress,” Mr. Smith said.

“You read fast,” Vicky said.

“You need to get you and your computer better synced together,” he answered. “I’ll have it teach you while you sleep tonight.”

“So now you’re going to upgrade me as well as my computer? I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“You can feel any way you like,” he said. “But if you intend to run with the hounds, you can’t afford to be slow.”

“Or run away from the hounds,” Vicky muttered.

“This is interesting,” Mr. Smith said. “Did you notice where Bertram fled to after he fell from grace?”

“I didn’t think he had any other home but the palace,” Vicky said.

“Home or not, he lit out for St. Petersburg. You know that place?”

“Very well,” Vicky said. “Maybe too well. Computer, what’s happening on St. Petersburg these days?”

“St. Petersburg is prospering. It is one of the few planets that paid its taxes in full and on time.”

“How interesting,” Vicky said. “And how did Mr. Bertram prosper on St. Petersburg?”

“He was hired by Mayor Manuel Artamus, the mayor of Sevastopol, who is also serving as chief counsel to the St. Petersburg Council of Mayors.”

“A council of mayors?” Mr. Smith observed. “That sounds interesting.”

“As documented in Admiral von Mittleburg’s report,” the computer said, “the council of mayors is providing needed direction to both the body politic and economy of St. Petersburg. It is flourishing because of a return of industry and consumption on the planet itself. It is also helping the Navy develop Port Royal and trading with many of the Sooner planets nearby.”

“Makes me glad I signed that city charter,” Vicky said. “Another good idea Kris Longknife got me into. So, St. Petersburg is doing fine, huh?”

“There is a report in the intelligence files,” said the computer, “from a cruiser captain, Captain Balk of the cruiser Disdain. Because matters were so well in hand, only his heavy cruiser was at the station when three transports bearing some ten thousand security contractors from Bowlingame Services jumped into the system. He monitored their discussion with Mayor Manuel Artamus. Actually, the captain says it was more like an ultimatum. They were intent on providing security whether the people of St. Petersburg wanted it or not. The Chief of Security said someone on St. Petersburg had hired them. Mr. Artamus did a quick check with the other mayors and replied that no one had hired them, they were mistaken, and should go someplace they were needed. Mr. Artamus added ‘and wanted.’ The Security Chief expressed his intent to secure the space station and proceed from there.”

“I wonder how that went down,” Mr. Smith said through a grin.

“Mayor Artamus ordered the station hands not to allow them to dock. The station had some laser defense batteries,” the computer added dryly. “When the Security Chief heard that, he announced that he would have his troops assault the station. That was when Mayor Artamus appealed to Captain Balk to intervene.”

“And once again,” Vicky said, “the hot potato drops into the Navy’s lap.”

“Captain Balk informed the approaching transports that if they closed to within ten thousand klicks of the station, he would consider them pirates and a threat to the health and safety of St. Petersburg. As such, he would fire on them. And he charged up his lasers to make the point clear.”

“Ho ho,” Mr. Smith laughed. “I bet that went over well.”

“I have the report that the Security Chief filed with his employer. It was passed from them to the palace. The Emperor bounced it with no comment to the Navy for a formal reply.”

“The good old bureaucratic runaround,” Vicky said. “This sounds like the perfect place for it. What did the Navy say?”

“That they sincerely regretted the case of mistaken identification and were glad that the transports pulled away before any shots were fired. The Navy also now stations two battleships and Admiral von Mittleburg at High St. Petersburg station. There have been no further attempts to provide ‘security assistance’ to St. Petersburg.”

“The Navy actually threatened to fire on one of the Empress’s family’s projects,” Vicky marveled. “Do you know where Captain Balk is at present, Computer?”

“He has been promoted to rear admiral and has command of one of the battlecruiser divisions distributed around human space to show the flag and be ready to accept returning survivors from the Fleet of Discovery.”

“Wouldn’t it have been interesting if we had been picked up by him?” Mr. Smith said.

“Very,” Vicky said, then plopped down on her bed to think. “I wonder how close the Navy is to raising the flag of rebellion. Computer, search all files for references to rebellion or revolt against the Emperor. Eliminate all references to mob action or actions by people with little or no power base.”

“That may take even your updated computer a while,” said Mr. Smith.

“It doesn’t matter. Two people offered Admiral Gort money; one for my head, the other for my delectable body. One side wants me dead. The other side wants me as the figurehead for their own civil war with my dad. I don’t particularly like either option. However, I know who wants me dead. I don’t know who wants me waving their flag. I want to have a better idea of my options.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Smith. “Let me set your computer to read to you during the night, and I’ll be leaving you.”

“Leaving me?” Vicky said, with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s been a busy day, full of surprises and changes,” Mr. Smith said as he stood. “Your computer needs time to process and so do you. As delightful as your company is, I think your head will rest better on your neck if you rest it a bit on your pillow.”

“Why, sir, that’s the best rejection I’ve ever had,” Vicky said. But she had to admit she was exhausted, and she also was intrigued by this idea of her computer reading to her as she slept. There was no question she had given it a major assignment.

Mr. Smith bowed his way out of the room, and Vicky stretched out on her new bunk. It was a bit harder than she’d gotten used to on the Wasp, but Wardhaven was notorious for the luxury of its warships. She was back home and would have to adjust to the Imperial Navy again.

She slipped out of her shipsuit and took a hasty shower. She was delighted to find that the harness Mr. Smith had installed to allow her computer to speak to her was easy to hook back up after she washed her hair. Done, she wrapped a bath towel around herself and went to glance out at her day quarters.

Kit was curled up on the couch, but she roused when Vicky opened her door. Kat had laid a pallet down in front of the doorway to the passageway. No doubt the Marines were on watch out there.

With a nod to Kit, Vicky returned to her own bed. No one would be interrupting her sleep without finding themselves in one hell of a fight.

She hardly yawned once before she was asleep.

CHAPTER 7

VICKY came awake to a cloud of memories swirling in her head. The computer must have sensed her awakening state because it was not talking to her. She lay in bed struggling to bring order out of chaos. Her sleeping mind had turned the information flow from the narrative of the reports into something so powerful, she almost felt like she’d been at the meetings described.

However helpful the information might be, she’d have to struggle to remember what she’d actually been a part of and what she only dreamed she’d been part of.

Nice. A Peterwald with a loose hold on reality. So what else is new?

As her mind ordered the information, she began to realize why Admiral Gort had been hesitant to identify the second party in the bidding war for cute little her. It really was not something solid. Likely, it wasn’t even constant.

Some people, businesses, associations had been heard to say one thing. Then at another time, they’d say another. If Vicky didn’t know that someone had produced a serious bribe, not just for Admiral Gort but likely for at least seven other battlecruiser division commanders, she wouldn’t be at all sure there was a counterconspiracy to her stepmother’s family.

The money was there, therefore the conspiracy must be there. Which raised the question, did dear old, no young, Stepmom know about the bribe or were they in the dark about it all?

Which explained why Admiral Gort was reluctant to take her to bed. Even if he didn’t want to kill her for Stepmom and her vultures, he might have to do the deed to keep the conspiracy a secret.

The admiral was right—the more she knew, the more danger she was to people whose lives wouldn’t be worth a wooden farthing if they were found out.

Vicky, girl, you’d better practice keeping your mouth shut.

She dressed quickly, this time in a standard green Greenfeld shipsuit and entered her day cabin. Kit and Kat were already waiting for her, alert as ever. Mr. Smith and the two Navy men arrived only a few seconds behind her.

“The admiral has requested your and Mr. Smith’s presence at breakfast in his wardroom,” Kit told them.

Vicky raised an eyebrow to Mr. Smith, but the look he returned her was bland to the point of artlessness.

How could a man so obvious guilty of every crime in the book look so innocent?

She led him back into the passageway. As she expected, Marines were on duty at both his and her doors, and another pair looked alertly from the first turn in the passage.

Kris turned left and after a few paces stopped at the door marked ADMIRAL’S WARDROOM. She knocked and was immediately told to enter.

Admiral Gort was alone and already seated at a linen-covered table set with silverware for three. He waved at a sideboard, where silver trays proved to have scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and several other offerings of fruit and rolls.

Vicky served herself sparingly. Mr. Smith laid on a heaping plate as if he hadn’t eaten in a month. Well, rations had been thin for much of the last month on the Wasp.

The admiral remarked on Mr. Smith’s loaded plate and received the explanation Vicky had supposed.

“Was it that bad on the way back?” the admiral asked, buttering a roll.

“We were down to survival biscuits in the end,” Vicky admitted. “It was reaction mass we were most worried about. Corvettes like the Wasp were never intended to make close passes to gas planets and collect their own reaction mass. We did it once and just about tore the ship apart. We jumped into an Iteeche system with just enough fuel left to slow down and make orbit.”

“How did you make it back the rest of the way?” the admiral asked.

“Somehow, Kris Longknife and her Magnificent Nelly, Kris’s sidekicks and Nelly’s kids managed to take three shuttles and make a refueling pass.”

“Three shuttles flying in close formation in those hurricane winds while holding a balloot between them?” The admiral was incredulous.

“They lost one of the shuttles,” Vicky said, reaching for a knife to butter her own roll.

“Amazing,” the admiral said. “Almost as amazing as what I was told early this morning.”

Vicky paused, waiting for the admiral to go on when he chose to. Had he found out something about the bomb that nearly killed her? If so, he seemed in no hurry to tell her.

Vicky had been instructed that lieutenants had no right to demand answers from admirals. Vicky wondered if Admiral Krätz had intended that to extend to what almost killed them.

Admirals did as admirals wished to do.

“Yes,” the admiral said, going on lightly, “the chief from intelligence was in here as I was shaving. It seems that when your computer was attached to our system, you downloaded much more than we had planned for you to take.”

That was a totally unexpected turn; Vicky took two breaths while she tried to follow this new twist to her fate.

“And what does the chief say I took, sir?” Vicky finally said, trying to dodge rather than lie to this man who had the power of life and death over her.

“That is the strangest part of it. He has no idea. Only the files that he had intended to upload to you show that they have been accessed. Among the other databases, there is no sign that they have been touched.”

“Then are you sure I accessed them?” Vicky said.

“Do not play with me, Lieutenant,” Admiral Gort said, his voice now cold as steel.

Mr. Smith, who had been busy buttering a biscuit, paused in his knife work to cough. “Excuse me for interrupting, but may I point out that the young woman in question did not download extra files.”

The admiral’s scowl was of biblical proportions as he turned to his breakfast partner. “Humor me. If she did not download them, who did?”

“What did, sir?” the mercenary said, correcting the admiral with care. “What downloaded the extra files?”

Vicky would not have thought that the admiral’s scowl could get deeper, but it did. “What?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir. What. An inanimate object is a what. Computers are a what, unless you’re Kris Longknife, and exactly what Nelly is, is very much open to discussion.”

“You are not saying that Her Grace here has a computer as troublesome as that Longknife woman’s?” said the admiral, now frowning.

“No. No. Vicky’s computer is very much a what, as is mine. Very capable, but much better controlled than that Nelly creature.”

“Then the lieutenant here had her computer access more than she was authorized.”

Mr. Smith shook his head. “I seriously doubt it, sir. I only upgraded her computer yesterday while we were waiting for you. Her Grace still has a lot to learn about what her computer can do now.”

“So you instructed it to do the extra downloading,” the admiral growled. Life or death clearly rode on the answer to his accusation.

You couldn’t tell it from the mercenary’s response. “Hardly, sir. I was in no position to instruct the computer to do anything, sir. Remember, she went into your intel holy of holies. I was left at the dinner table.”

The admiral was left gnawing his lip, clearly puzzled. “Instruct me, if you will, wizard,” he said slowly. “How did you, she, or this inanimate object of a computer pull off what you seem, by at least half of the available reports, to have done?”

“I assure you, sir, if I had been instructing the computer on this particular bit of larceny, you would have gotten no reports of its acquiring more than you wanted,” Mr. Smith said, confidently.

The admiral’s scowl was making a reprise. Mr. Smith noticed and hurried on.

“My computer upgraded the Grand Duchess’s computer. It was a rush job. It reorganized her self-organizing matrix and passed certain subroutines over to her machine while it was doing that.”

“So you knew that when I allowed her to get a certain, limited set of data, that her machine would suck up everything in sight.” The admiral was sounding very much like a prosecutor in a state case. A state capital case.

“Actually, no sir,” Mr. Smith said, quite diffidently. “As I said, it was a hasty upgrade, and I didn’t have a chance to check exactly what went along with it.”

If Mr. Smith was lying, as Vicky strongly suspected, he was doing it most sincerely. He had her fooled.

The admiral leaned back in his chair, with not at all an air of acceptance. A long moment passed before he said, “Let us allow, for the moment, that I should not have the both of you taken out and hanged for treason. Let us allow, for the moment, that the computer hanging around the Grand Duchess’s neck should instead be hanging from the gallows. Then, can either of you tell me what I would be hanging the computer for?”

Vicky was about to confess what she’d been learning all night, but Mr. Smith was talking before she could open her mouth.

“Before we stipulate to your charges, good man, could I take a moment to persuade you to a different perspective?”

“You may try,” had a definite suggestion that he would be wasting his time.

Mr. Smith seemed unfazed by the admiral’s dubiousness, and went right on in the face of rejection. “One could say that the accused computer, rather than performing an act of treason, has given you clear evidence of the vulnerability of your systems. Indeed, the utter transparency of your best security to the casual passerby. As I pointed out, with just a bit of hands-on tweaking, I could have assured that you were none the wiser to our accessing your most cherished secrets.”

“Wardhaven’s superior technology,” said the admiral, dryly.

“Actually, sir, this capability just demonstrated is quite available to users in Greenfeld if they know the right place to shop.”

That clearly knocked the admiral back on his heels. It was a long minute before he spoke again, and it was to Vicky.

“Your Grace, you were involved with Kris Longknife during the situation on St. Petersburg.” Vicky allowed that she had been. “The Longknife woman and her computer accessed our financial data with impunity.” Vicky allowed that Kris had indeed done that. “So the Wardhaven computer systems are far ahead of our own.”

“Yes and no,” Vicky replied.

“How can it be both?” the admiral demanded. It was clear this morning was not going to his liking, so Vicky hurried to explain.

“Yes, Kris and her Nelly seemed able to stroll through our data banks with ease. However, Kris also admitted that she’d run into jamming of data links and other problems when dealing with certain factions from Greenfeld. I was left with the clear impression that our standard systems are vulnerable to Wardhaven technology, as my upgraded computer seemed to have demonstrated. However, some people have superior systems. Exactly who, even Kris does not know, but it scares both her and her Nelly.”

“Right, right, you mentioned that in your report to your father, the Emperor. I should have remembered that,” the admiral said. “I had assumed that the Navy’s security systems were not as vulnerable as the civil ones, but it appears that I am wrong.”

“It may well be,” Mr. Smith said, “that the vulnerabilities in your system are not a bug but an intended feature included by the developers.”

The admiral’s scowl was back. “I would hate to think that,” he muttered.

A deadly silence gathered around the admiral. Vicky glanced at her cold breakfast and decided she wasn’t hungry. Mr. Smith must have arrived at the same conclusion; his meal remained untouched.

The admiral apparently arrived at a decision and leaned forward in his chair. “Let us allow, for the moment, that the Grand Duchess’s computer has done Greenfeld a service, and that it should continue to hang around her lovely neck rather than from a gallows. That still does not answer my first question. What, Your Grace, do you now know that it was not intended for you to know?”

Vicky glanced at Mr. Smith. He was intently studying his eggs and bacon. Clearly, she was on her own. She took a deep breath, and began.

“I see that my granting a city charter to Sevastopol has borne good fruit, and that the Navy is taking full advantage of St. Petersburg’s recovered economic production. I also found it interesting that Admiral Balk saw fit to threaten to fire on the forces of my stepmother, and the Navy chose to promote him. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yes, Ronny Balk is a friend of mine, and glad I was not to have had that hot potato dropped in my lap. He and his battlecruisers were sent to the least likely place for you to show up, and his bribe was noticeably smaller than mine.”

“My stepmom’s family bribed him? That must have gone down hard.”

“No doubt, but Navy intel failed to get a mouse into the discussion that led to the sudden largesse that fell upon us lucky ones. I see you spent your time well last night,” he said, casting a knowing eye at Mr. Smith.

“I went to bed early,” Vicky said, pointedly. “It had been a rough day, you may have noticed, and I was tired. I had also instructed my computer to do a search of the database for certain information and read them to me in my sleep, a trick Mr. Smith said it could do.”

“And did it find what you wanted?” asked the admiral.

“I asked it to identify the conspiracy in my dad’s Empire. The one other than my stepmother and her family’s.”

“And did you find it?” had much more than just alarm in it.

“Yes and no, sir.”

“Lieutenant, I would warn you not to become overly fond of that answer. Senior officers do not care for it from their juniors.”

Vicky allowed herself a smile. A very small one. “Yes, sir. I already had a strong impression from you that you felt that way. However, I can think of no other way to answer your question.”

She paused for a second to order her thoughts, well aware that what she said next might well decide for the admiral whether she arrived alive or dead. “There is no question, from the intel available to the Navy, that there is much dissatisfaction with my father’s, the Emperor’s, reign. Or more correctly, the reign of the Emperor and Empress. The Empress and her uncles and brothers, to be more precise.”

“Delicately put,” the admiral muttered.

“However, mutterings about the current condition in our beloved Greenfeld do not constitute a conspiracy, at least not yet. Dearest Stepmom may be moving to adjust the laws more to her liking. Still, from what was shown to me in the database, there is no way that I could name a party or parties involved in a concerted effort to overthrow my dad’s throne.”

Vicky eyed the admiral. He studied her right back. She could detect no decision behind his eyes, so she went on. “The only clear evidence of a conspiracy is the bribe that was given to you and the other admirals to deliver my delicate body to someone or ones unnamed. Did you try to trace the money?” she asked.

“The Navy did its best to do that,” Admiral Gort replied. “It got nowhere.” He glanced at Mr. Smith. “I wonder if you would have better luck.”

“I don’t deal with luck, sir, and I am always available for hire. Assuming the price is right, and the check clears.”

“Mr. Smith,” Vicky said, “has made it clear to me that he is first and last a mercenary.”

“An amazingly well-equipped one,” the admiral said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“His equipment has saved my life at least once,” Vicky added.

“A fortunate blow-by of my contract to keep Kris Longknife alive,” Mr. Smith said, dismissively.

“So you were employed by Wardhaven Security,” the admiral said, turning on him.

“Me, and a whole lot of other people you’d never expect,” Mr. Smith said with a grin. “In case you are concerned, the sudden decamping of the Wardhaven princess left me, and likely several others of my type, suddenly unemployed. I offered my services to your Grand Duchess, and she has accepted. With my contract, she buys my loyalty.”

“While the contract lasts,” the admiral growled.

“But of course, sir. How long would your loyalty last without a paycheck? And before you begin to toss stones, may I point out the glass in your own house, sir? You have admitted to taking bribes to determine the fate of my employer. Exactly how are we different?”

“And if I decide to kill her?”

Mr. Smith looked around at the gray walls surrounding him. “I would, of course, do what I could for her although I must admit, the circumstances do seem to agitate for discretion being the better part of valor for me.”

“Thank you so much for telling me that,” Vicky said.

“Please excuse me for stating the obvious, Your Grace,” Mr. Smith said, “but the correlation of space to force is decidedly against you. Where would be the benefit to you of my joining you in death?”

The look of disgust Vicky gave the mercenary was only equaled by the one he got from the admiral.

Vicky chose to go on with her own question. “Admiral, could you explain one thing to me?”

“I might,” he said guardedly, still eyeing Mr. Smith like something left behind by a diarrhea-ridden cat.

“You do not know where the money came from, but surely you must know where my still-breathing body is to be delivered. Else why bribe you in the first place?”

“I have an e-mail address. No doubt intel has already discovered that however it was acquired cannot be traced back to the person who did it. I will say that I have you and intend to deliver you. They will tell me where the delivery is to be made.”

“No doubt, with a lot of cutouts in between,” Mr. Smith said, professionally.

“So the conspiracy is lying low until it has something, or rather someone, to conspire around,” Vicky concluded. And then spotted the question she had missed before.

“And what does the Navy’s General Staff think of all this? I can’t believe that they aren’t in on this up to their ears.”

That question clearly bothered the admiral. “Lieutenant, you are asking too many questions.”

“Yes, that’s likely, but I strongly suspect that the decision to have me garroted or not was made well above your pay grade. I also suspect that the General Staff does not want me dead. Certainly not if my dearest stepmom does. Have I guessed it right?”

“You may be too smart for your own good,” Mr. Smith put in.

Since the admiral stayed quiet, Vicky turned to Mr. Smith. “How so, dear mercenary? I was always told knowledge was power.”

“Knowledge is power, but a little bit of power in the game you are playing can get you killed,” Mr. Smith said slowly. “Your stepmother wants you dead because she does not want to deal with the power you have and the potential power that may come to you. The Navy is playing a dangerous game and cannot afford to have a loose cannon careening around the gun deck. Am I wrong, Admiral? The Grand Duchess here has only one choice that leads to her staying alive for this voyage. She either throws in fully with the Navy, or she takes what little knowledge she has to her grave.”

“I would not have put it that bluntly,” Admiral Gort said. “But you have the gist of it.”

Which left Vicky sitting back in her chair, thinking. She chose her next words very carefully. They might well be her last.

“I grew up around the palace,” she said slowly, “consigned to the shadows. Feeling much like a fifth wheel. Or a sixth. Certainly not important. Hardly wanted. Do you get my drift, Admiral?”

“I believe so.”

“Then my brother got himself killed, and, suddenly, the wind changed. Everything was blowing at me. It was like a tempest, and I went where it blew me. And it knocked me down quite a few times.”

“Your file says that. Those were also Admiral Krätz’s observations.”

“Yes they were. Last night I read his reports on me. They were not easy to read, but by the time I finished, there was nothing I would disagree with.”

Admiral Gort raised an eyebrow at that admission.

“My time with Admiral Krätz began as a pain and finished as the best experience of my life,” Vicky admitted with painful honesty. Her differences with the man who trembled in fear of what the alien raiders could do to his wife and children did not have to enter into this discussion.

“Admiral, the Navy has been the best experience of my life. I don’t know what this Grand Duchess stuff will make of me, but I do know that I will always be Navy. I will always look back on my time with the fleet as the best and most formative of my life. Yes, I can be a loose cannon. I have been a loose cannon.” She allowed herself a chuckle at too many recollections of just how loose she’d been. “But, properly aimed and loaded, I can be a very powerful gun in someone’s arsenal.”

Admiral Gort listened to her intently. His eyes seemed to pierce through to her soul. That was not something she really wanted perused, but she held his eyes with her own.

Finally, he nodded. “I think you mean that. Or at least want to mean that.” He glanced around at the untouched meal. “I think we are done here. I would appreciate a report of the conclusions you draw about conditions in our beloved Greenfeld based on your assessment of all the data you now have. Shall we meet for supper? Just the three of us. Or four. I may include my chief of staff. He is a most observant man.”

“As you wish, Admiral,” Vicky said.

Once out in the passageway, Mr. Smith leaned close to Vicky’s ear. “You have a lot of work to do. If it is your wish, I will help. But first, I must get a decent breakfast in me.”

Vicky allowed herself a chuckle at his joke, and happily left him heading for the wardroom. She herself needed to stop in her quarters.

Her knees were so wobbly that she could hardly walk.

CHAPTER 8

THE day went fast. Too fast for Vicky. She had hardly gotten her knees under control . . . and her stomach . . . than Mr. Smith was back, and she was dumped into a school of hard knocks and computer wizardry.

Victoria Peterwald had been educated to be a lightweight. Admiral Gort had not been far wrong that her palace education had been limited to little of any significance. Yes, she’d picked up on those wonderful things girls would do with boys, but that had hardly been part of her official education. Of intrigue, however, she’d taken the graduate course.

All that had ended when she shipped out to the fleet.

Admiral Krätz had high expectations for her. And Kris Longknife’s critique of Vicky’s own efforts to kill the Wardhaven princess had been nothing short of brutal. Vicky had been left enraged at both the admiral and the princess.

And had to admit that both of them were right.

She was competent at nothing that didn’t involve lying flat on her back. Or standing. Or kneeling, or one of several dozen variations on the same theme.

If she wanted to be anything but a bed partner for someone her father foisted her off on, she needed to learn, and learn quickly.

Under Admiral Krätz, Vicky began to learn. More accurately, she began to learn how to learn. It had been a tough apprenticeship under the old admiral, but she had served it.

More importantly, she had survived it and gotten to watch one Kris Longknife and see how she not only survived but thrived in this poisoned environment that was part Navy, part political theater . . . and all kinds of dangerous.

Self-examination done in full, Vicky applied herself to learning more about her native land than she had ever thought it was possible to know.

Mr. Smith helped. He showed her how to get the most out of her new tool. He also showed her how to turn off the vacuum option on her computer to avoid accidentally sucking up more data than was offered.

More importantly, he showed her how to make sure when she was raiding a database that she left no footprints behind . . . of any kind. But that was only the beginning.

Vicky needed to know the lay of the land she was returning to. She needed to know who was doing what to whom and if not why, then at least how. She had lived at the center of power all her life.

And walked through it childishly ignorant of all that went on around her.

Today, she lost her innocence and learned the truth, as much as it could be known on a world like Greenfeld, where lies masqueraded as truth and reality was done with smoke and mirrors.

By lunch, she felt the need to take a shower. Even as she toweled off, she did not feel clean.

So much of what she’d been told had been a lie. So much of what she knew was not only wrong, but dead wrong. Her own mother, whom Vicky had been told died giving birth to her, had survived to nurse her.

And died a year later in an “accident” that most likely wasn’t.

Exactly what it was, not even the Navy knew. Maybe her father had grown tired of the woman and arranged her death. Maybe she had gotten crosswise with a powerful clique in the palace, and they had arranged for her demise. If that was the case, her father had not cared enough about the mother of his children to push for a more thorough investigation.

Vicky wanted to vomit.

Kris Longknife had warned her that growing up was hard and frequently full of disillusionment. Kris claimed that she was learning a lot about the seedy underbelly of the Longknifes.

Had she found anything in her past to match what Vicky was finding?

Among all the other trash, it came as hardly a surprise to discover that the present Peterwald fortune had indeed sprung from investments in illegal drugs, pirates, and slavers.

No wonder Admiral Krätz had taken such a delight in bringing down the nest of drug lords, slavers, and pirates at Port Royal. Vicky remembered that Kris had mentioned that something like the drug plantations on Port Royal was central to the Peterwald past. Vicky had insisted it wasn’t, and Kris had backed away.

Now Vicky smiled. So Kris was the one-eyed king, but she’d been smart enough to refuse to fight the willingly blind.

How could I have been so dumb!

How could I have been anything else?

But all this was only the start. Only the first of what she had to wade through to get to the present day’s crimes. The Navy knew a lot that wasn’t in the news. The Navy knew that six of its best battleships had been dispatched without flags or recognition signals to blast Wardhaven back to the Stone Age.

Vicky remembered how casually she had let drop to Kris and her team that she had heard an admiral raging at her dad for losing six battleships. Now she knew that Kris and her friends had fought those ships to destruction. And some of them had paid with their lives.

Oh my God! How could they stand to look at me after that?

Vicky found herself wondering if she should order Admiral Gort to take her straight to Wardhaven. They’d grant her political asylum if she asked for it, wouldn’t they? She’d read about political asylum being used back in the old days during the buildup to the Unity War.

But what would she be if she got asylum? Nothing! Just another penniless person, looking for a handout.

I’d be alive.

Yes, but at what price?

Vicky had been a nonentity for most of her life. She had no desire to go back to that again. She’d been a pawn since her brother’s death . . . and a weak one at that. Now, facing death, she found herself filling with a determination to stay in this game, and to stay in it as much more than a pawn.

Mr. Smith had retreated to the desk chair and silence as she had sunk deeper and deeper into the knowledge of where she came from. Now Vicky sat up from where she lay on the bed. “Okay, enough of this history,” she said. “Let’s see what we can learn about the present. That’s the game we’re in, right?”

“It certainly is, ma’am.”

By suppertime, Vicky was ready for whatever questions the admiral might throw her way.

CHAPTER 9

CAPTAIN Hoffman, the chief of staff, was a handsome man, a few years younger than his admiral, with alert eyes and a mouth that seemed never to smile. He was usually quiet, letting his admiral take the lead, but was quick to fill in when the admiral found himself at a loss for words. He was also quite ready to offer his opinion on most any topic . . . if the admiral asked for it.

He reminded Vicky a bit of Jack Montoya on Kris Longknife’s staff. The relationship between Admiral Gort and Captain Hoffman was very much like that between Kris and Jack . . . only without any of the sexual tension.

The admiral started with just the facts. Did Vicky know which planets were suffering riots, had famines haunting the cities, or were totally suppressed by the Bowlingame Security Services under her stepmother’s protective cover?

Vicky rattled of the answers with ease. After all, there were only eighty-six planets now in the Empire . . . and Vicky could always ask her computer if she forgot.

No wonder Kris Longknife seemed so smart.

Then they got into the harder questions.

“How would you stop the Empress and Bowlingames from adding another planet to their orbit?” the admiral asked.

“Your friend Admiral Balk had a pretty good idea,” Vicky said.

The admiral raised an eyebrow to his chief of staff. Captain Hoffman took over the questioning.

“But he was asked to assist by the at least semilawful government of St. Petersburg. Your Mayor Artamus had a system in place. When the incoming assault claimed it was merely there in reply to a request for help, he had a mechanism to quickly prove the lie. Could Captain Balk have threatened to open fire without a request from the civilian authority below?”

“I see your point,” Vicky admitted. “Those circumstances do seem a bit unique to St. Petersburg.” She paused for a moment, then asked a question of her own. “However, isn’t there any way to duplicate something like the council of mayors on other planets?”

Once again, the chief of staff took the lead in a response. “That would involve the Navy in civil affairs. How do you think your father would take to that?”

Vicky saw the problem. “Probably not well. Yet he turns a blind eye to his wife and her father, brothers, and uncles’ deep involvement in the same area, even when they are robbing him and the state blind.”

“The Empress somehow manages to distract him from a great deal,” the admiral remarked, dryly, then added, “No doubt, if something were to attract her ire, he would immediately pay attention to it.”

Vicky allowed herself to make a face. “I see the problem the Navy faces. The civil lifeblood of the state is poisoned. The Navy’s honor and professionalism will not allow it to either bleed the poison out or impose health from the outside.”

“Throughout history, Navies have never served as a good tool for civil intervention,” the admiral said. “Armies are well known for making kings or unmaking them. That probably explains why Greenfeld has not had a standing army since it stood down following the Iteeche War.”

“Grandfather was afraid of his returning generals,” Vicky muttered, as much to herself so she could hear her criticism of her family as to state the fact to those listening.

“That wasn’t what he said when he did it,” Admiral Gort said, “but it’s the conclusion we all drew.”

“Dad would have a hard time disbanding the Navy,” Vicky said. “It’s the one power base my stepmother can’t touch.”

“Don’t be so sure,” the admiral said. “Most of what has come out from the space docks held by your stepmother’s faction has been junk that cost too much and needed a refit before we dared risk it in space. There are two expanded Terror-class battleships building at High Anhalt that from all reports are going to be perfect on their trials.”

“That sounds nice,” Vicky said, knowing there was a huge “but” coming.

The admiral provided it. “The Navy has sent six captains to command the ships. Two were relieved for cause, and the other four have suddenly been found to be indispensable elsewhere in the Empire. Indispensable by the palace, to be precise. Now, the palace has decided that we should have an infusion of new blood. These ships should be commanded by captains from outside the Imperial Navy establishment.”

Vicky did not like the looks of where this was heading. “Who did the Empress decide should command these new ships?”

“The Emperor has selected two former captains in the Wardhaven Navy. If you have been following the Longknife saga, you should recognize the name of one of them. Captain William Tacoma Thorpe.”

“Wasn’t he Kris’s first commander, on the fast attack corvette Typhoon?” Vicky asked.

“Yes, when his squadron commander ordered the corvettes to conduct a sneak attack on the Earth battle fleet at the Paris system.”

“Oh,” Vicky said, eyes lighting up. “Is that why Earth gave her the Order of the Wounded Lion?”

“You didn’t know that?” the admiral asked.

“No. Kris is always very secretive about that bright blue ribbon and fancy starburst. He must be the commander she relieved. Now I better understand the whisper of mutiny around her. Oh, I can’t wait for the next time we get together! How I will dish the dirt on her!”

“So you didn’t raid the entire database last night?” said the admiral.

“No, sir. I didn’t download everything. As Mr. Smith said, I didn’t download anything extra intentionally. I’m not sure what parameters my computer used to decide what to swipe,” Vicky said, glancing at Mr. Smith.

“It was on autopilot, sir,” he said to the admiral. “It looked for things like ‘admiral,’ ‘financial,’ and ‘economic,’ or other key words and grabbed for them. It didn’t peer very deeply into the data, just the headers. A more organized snatch would have taken more time.”

“It’s nice to know that your computer, no matter how it may embarrass me, has limits,” Admiral Gort said, and glanced at his chief of staff. “Do we have any self-organizing matrix on board?”

“None, sir. We’re not authorized any. I don’t know if we managed to buy some while we were in the Helvetican Confederation. I’ll do a check tomorrow. I doubt we could acquire any in the U.S. while we are crossing their territory. They have restrictions on what technology we can buy.” He finished with a palms-up shrug.

“Your Grace, how did you get your self-organizing matrix?” the admiral asked.

“I bought it myself while I was on Wardhaven, before we launched the Voyage of Discovery. I was hoping Kris might help me out there. She didn’t. That girl is a slave to rules and regulations. When it suits her.”

No one chose to dispute Kris Longknife’s vices or virtues at the moment. The admiral was deep in thought. “If we stopped by Savannah, do you think you might be able to buy some?”

“If my credit is still good, why not?”

“Your Grace, it would please me to break our voyage at Savannah. I hope you will take the opportunity to acquire some matrix for the use of the fleet.” He turned to the mercenary. “And I trust that you will see the benefit of upgrading any computer Her Grace may choose to donate to the fleet.”

Mr. Smith merely smiled, and said, “At your service, I assure you. There will only be the matter of a small fee.”

“Mercenaries,” the admiral was heard to mutter under his breath.

CHAPTER 10

AND thus it happened that Vicky found herself in the upscale shopping district on Savannah, with Kit and Kat following her, and Mr. Smith at her elbow.

Shopping was one thing that the younger Vicky loved to do and did very well. While she might be invisible at the palace, once she presented Daddy’s credit chit, she was not only visible, but graciously welcome in any store on Greenfeld.

Today, Vicky’s first stop was to refill her wardrobe. She had only three civilian outfits with her from the Fury. She added several more at one store and had them messenger serviced back to the Stalker. Then she settled on a sedate brown pantsuit for today. Similar green and red pantsuits went back to the flagship along with the dowdy dress she had worn to cross the Stalker’s brow.

The essentials cared for, Vicky turned to the whole reason Admiral Gort’s division of battlecruisers had made an unannounced stop at Savannah.

The first two electronic specialty stores she stopped in sold her matrix computers without batting an eye. One was in the shape of a pendant on a gold chain, the other was part of a very expensive necklace.

Vicky’s third stop did not go nearly as well.

The store manager was an older man, who rather than just running Vicky’s IDent for a quick charge, ran it instead as a background check. He frowned at the results and handed Vicky’s card back to her. “Miss Peterwald, you no doubt know that the U.S. has restrictions on what it will sell to foreign aliens.”

“I had heard that,” Vicky said, as innocent as she could manage. “I’ve never experienced any restrictions on what I bought personally.”

“Be that as it may be, ma’am, I will not sell this item to you. Sorry, but my grandfather remembers what it was like under the Unity thugs. He always said that some sales come too dear. Our family store has always followed the policy he set in place.”

Vicky thanked him for his time and left the store, unable to decide if she should be huffy or contrite. Then she considered how she’d react to his selling this high tech to her stepmom to grab for more power, or worse, ferret out conspirators, be they real or imagined.

She was kind of glad to be rejected.

She took the elevator back up to the space station. At the docks, she ran into the admiral, returning to the Stalker.

“How did your shopping go?” he asked.

“Quite well, sir. I got two sets of matrix. One was a bit spendy. It was part of a lovely necklace. Will you have any problem getting my reimbursement through procurement?”

“We’ll average the two sets together,” he said.

“How did your mission go?” Vicky asked. The admiral had had the much harder job of stopping by the U.S. port official and explaining why a pair of Greenfeld battlecruisers dropped in so unexpectedly.

“I told him we had a freezer failure and had to space a lot of spoiled meats. He didn’t believe a word I said, but he agreed to let me restock my freezers. I will, no doubt, catch hell from the bean counters for filling up my freezers just before I return to Greenfeld space, but the people who count will know the full story. This will not be a career-ending stop, I assure you.”

They reached the escalator down to the pier where the Stalker and Slinger lay. As they stepped aboard it, the admiral asked, “Can I see that necklace? Maybe if we remove the computer, I could make a gift of the rest of it to my loving wife. God knows she deserves something for all she’s put up with while I go about my Navy business. Then I could make up for that cost from the money that I recently came into,” he said with a grin.

Vicky bent over to rummage in her shopping bag.

She heard the ring of the shot and felt the wind of a bullet’s passage on the back of her neck.

Vicky collapsed to her knees even as she bent over double.

She didn’t feel the air as the second shot flew high above her.

Beside her, the admiral was tumbling forward, a gaping hole in his neck gushing blood.

CHAPTER 11

VICKY felt hot blood on her neck. She stared at the fallen body of the admiral, feeling the desire to weep, the urge to freeze where she was, and the overpowering temptation to fall apart, screaming.

The air above her cracked with the passage of a third round. It brought her out of her daze.

Vicky handed off the shopping bag to Kit. “You stay with the admiral.”

Vicky twisted around and pulled out her service automatic. “Kat, you’re with me,” she ordered, and started running up the escalator at a low crouch.

Three more shots rang out, two of them different from the third. Vicky reached the top of the escalator to see Mr. Smith trotting toward a man down. Vicky took the fallen man in with one glance.

He wore a conservative three-piece suit, but there was something wrong about him.

Vicky left the down man to Mr. Smith and joined Kat in checking the station promenade for anyone else with a gun.

The people within eyesight on the A deck of the station fell into two categories. The smart ones were running away or had dropped to the deck. The dumb ones were the gawkers, standing around, rubbernecking to get a better view of whatever the excitement was all about.

With Kat and Vicky eyeballing each of these idiots over the sights of their service automatics, even these became educable.

They joined the wiser ones, either running or dropping to the deck.

Then there were the third types.

Racing toward Vicky was a swarm of uniformed or plainclothes police, all with their own automatics out . . . and way too many aimed in Vicky’s general direction.

“Put down your weapons,” came from a young plainclothes type in the middle of the swarm. “Put them down, or we’ll take you down,” sounded very firm.

And maybe a bit scared.

Vicky pointed her weapon toward the overhead. “We are Her Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria of the Peterwalds. These people under arms are doing so in our defense. Since someone just tried to kill us, you will understand our reluctance to disarm.”

Vicky had practiced the Imperial “We” before the mirror. This was her first chance to actually use it in public. She got a kick out of the reaction it drew from the cops.

The one who had appeared in charge seemed quite unable to figure out how to react. Fortunately for him and Vicky, a more senior, somewhat overweight officer, caught up with the herd at that moment.

“Bob, I think we can accommodate the Grand Duchess. Royalty that’s just dodged an assassination can be quite touchy in the immediate aftermath, and who’s to blame them?”

That decision seemed to settle the matter. Which was good.

Because Vicky’s own swarm of heavily armed defenders were galloping up the stairs from the pier. First to arrive were half a dozen Marines in dress green-and-black uniforms, but with thoroughly deadly M-6’s at the ready. They were quickly followed by another dozen in full battle gear, armed and armored. A lieutenant was in the last contingent and quickly ordered those in battle rattle to replace the first responders in surrounding their Grand Duchess.

Vicky found herself buried in a mound of armor as the two armed groups glowered at each other.

Since no shots were being exchanged, Vicky went along with her own agenda. “Spread out a bit. I want to see who was shooting at me.”

They did and Vicky found herself able to join Mr. Smith. He was kneeling beside the fallen shooter. An automatic was not far from . . . her . . . dead hand as it proved. It was the shoes that had first given Vicky some hint that all was not quite in order with the three-piece suit of her attempted assassin. Those shoes were comfortable pumps, the kind a woman might find easy to run in.

Mr. Smith, with the two senior plainclothes cops watching, began to examine the body.

A police technician came to kneel on the other side of the fallen killer and used his black box to take her fingerprints.

“If you get any result to your search,” Mr. Smith growled, “this bunch is dumber than I’d expect.” He said that as he went through the pockets of the dead woman. “No ID,” he pointed out. He then felt around at the right shoulder of the costume. The left shoulder was too bloody from a shot that had taken out most of her neck. The three-piece suit came apart easily.

“It’s all one piece,” the senior police officer noted.

“Yep. She intended to be a guy for the hit, then disappear into the station and quickly become a gal,” Mr. Smith observed. “Likely somewhere on the station you may find a woman’s handbag with a wig and a facial disguise in it. If there’s an ID card in it, no doubt it will be a first-class fake.”

Vicky was shaking her head, denying what her eyes told her.

This was impossible.

She wanted to blurt out that they’d only been in system for fourteen hours. She’d been shopping for two. How could anyone have set up a hit on her that quickly? And on Savannah no less. Who could have guessed she’d be stopping here?

She eyed Mr. Smith, her questions on the tip of her tongue.

He shook his head ever so faintly. NOT HERE. NOT NOW, formed in her mind.

Had she thought her questions at him? She didn’t think so. But a good spy needed to read minds. Certainly what she was thinking was not hard to deduce.

Now the up escalator produced Captain Hoffman. He made his way through the guards around Vicky to stand by her side. “Are you all right?”

“A clean miss,” Vicky said, and then realized that she had blood all over the right shoulder of her pantsuit. “How is the admiral?”

“I didn’t take time to check, but I do not think he is still with us,” the captain reported.

“I am sorry for your loss,” the senior cop said professionally. “Normally, I’d be asking all of you to accompany me to the station for signed depositions. However, ah, with the diplomatic aspects of this situation, I may settle for you just telling me what you saw and did.”

Mr. Smith stood up. “I was accompanying Her Grace on a shopping excursion. We were returning to her ship. She and Admiral Gort had just started down the escalator when I heard a shot fired. I turned toward the sound and saw this, ah, person pointing a gun at me, or more likely the Grand Duchess. I returned fire.” He reached down to his chest and plucked a spent bullet from the armor he was wearing.

“She hit me once, I hit her twice. One shot to the lower body went below her armor. My second shot to the head went low and hit her in the neck. She did not fire after that.”

“My personal observations validate the accuracy of this report,” the cop said to his own recording computer. “About the admiral?”

Vicky took over, trying to be as dispassionate as Mr. Smith. “He was standing beside me on the same step of the escalator. We had just stepped aboard and begun the descent. We were still in plain view from the station’s A deck. I bent to show him something I had bought, a necklace. He took the bullet intended for me. I left one of my servants to care for him and ran up the escalator with my other servant. I saw Mr. Smith approaching the fallen person. I initially mistook her for a man. Since Mr. Smith had the present threat well in hand, I and my servant concentrated on identifying any other threats. We found none and then your good men and women arrived,” she said, with a wave of her hand at all the armed people surrounding her. “The rest you know.”

Only after she had finished her statement did it dawn on Vicky that she had totally forgotten to use her Imperial “We.”

Oh shit.

“Thank you, Your Grace. Bob, do we have someone down on the pier who can report on the admiral?”

“Yes, sir. I sent four down to take pictures and secure the scene.”

“We would like to take Admiral Gort’s body with us,” Vicky said. “We are due to depart immediately. We have been ordered to return to court by the fastest means possible.”

Fortunately, the senior police officer did not ask why someone ordered home in such a hurry was stopping at Savannah for a shopping spree. He did not miss the return of the Imperial voice.

“I think we can release the body to you,” the senior agent said.

“Sir,” said the one identified as Bob.

“Son, do you think anyone on Savannah wants to keep the Grand Duchess waiting?” He turned to Vicky. “How long were you here? Two hours, and we’ve already got two dead. She’s as bad as a visit from Kris Longknife. No offense meant,” the cop added.

“None taken,” Vicky said, not at all sure if she’d been praised or condemned.

What she needed to do was get out of here. Her knees were beginning to shake. If she didn’t get moving, she might even start to weep. That was not what Kris Longknife would do.

“Then, if you are finished with us, Captain Hoffman, we need to discuss the impact of this event on our future plans with the surviving officers of our escort.”

“Yes, Your Grace, you may go, and as soon as we have our pictures, I will release your admiral’s body.”

One of the Marines offered Vicky his helmet and his armored jacket. She declined, but did allow herself to be guided by the captain toward the stairs. Surrounded by guards with rifles pointed out at any threat, she descended to the pier.

A medical team was just beginning to remove the admiral’s body. Vicky quick-marched for the Stalker, crossed the quarterdeck as a civilian, and headed for the admiral’s cabin. There, Vicky collapsed on the settee before fixing Captain Hoffman with a stern look.

“How much do you know about the real intention of this trip?”

“What do you mean, real intentions?” was not what she wanted to hear.

CHAPTER 12

VICKY swung her legs around to rest them on the settee. Across the table from her, Captain Hoffman stood at something close to attention. Her team of Kit, Kat, and Mr. Smith arrayed themselves close, but not so close as to force themselves into Vicky and Captain Hoffman’s conversation.

“How much do you know about the various missions Admiral Gort was on?” Vicky asked again.

The chief of staff looked puzzled. “We were to show the flag and return any survivors from the Fleet of Discovery that we encountered to Greenfeld,” he said.

“And . . . ?” Vicky said and emphasized the question with a raised eyebrow.

“And . . . nothing?” the captain said, shaking his head in puzzlement.

“So you know nothing about the bribes the admiral took.”

The captain was shaking his head, now in earnest, before Vicky finished the question. “Admiral Gort would never take a bribe, ma’am. The man is as incorruptible as . . . well, as they come.”

“If he had not accepted the bribe, Captain, he would not have gotten this command, and the dead body in the morgue would likely be mine. You might want to take a seat for the rest of what I have to tell you.”

The captain sat.

“Before he sailed, your admiral was offered two contradictory bribes. Each of the eight admirals dispatched to show the flag and collect any survivors from Kris Longknife’s latest misadventure were offered a bribe by my loving stepmother to assure that I did not return alive.”

Vicky eyed him. His face remained Navy bland.

“You do not seem surprised,” Vicky said.

He did not rush to answer her. When he did, he spoke slowly, carefully, as one might when crossing a minefield.

“The Empress has made no secret that she is pregnant and carrying a boy. She does not strike me as someone who would play second fiddle to anyone, nor accept that her child would do the same. I had assumed the matter would be settled by a decree from the throne saying only males could inherit.”

“I don’t think my loving stepmom trusts my dad that much. The Bowlingames are quite intent on assuring their primacy.”

“Only a blind man would miss how grasping they are,” the captain agreed.

“I am getting used to my stepmom’s grasping at me,” Vicky said. “What with this shooter and the bomb before, that makes five attempts on my life in the last few months, doesn’t it?”

She eyed Mr. Smith. He shrugged as if he was not into counting.

“Yes, Your Grace,” said Kit. “Five attempts and five failures.”

“It’s a game where we have to bat a thousand,” Vicky noted dryly.

“I see your point. Oh, about the bomb, I’m afraid the report to, ah, the admiral had nothing worth noting in it. No fingerprints. The explosives had no tags in them.”

“I wouldn’t expect there to be any,” Mr. Smith said, and changed the topic. A bit.

“What about the flowers? I can’t imagine two dozen red roses are easily found lying around any compartment on a battlecruiser. Did anyone notice them before they became the subject of an attempted murder investigation?”

Realization dawned in the captain’s eyes. He quickly tapped his commlink. “Captain Kittle, the roses. When did they enter your ship? Or have you taken to growing roses in your garden?”

“I most certainly have not,” the captain of the Stalker shot back. “I’ll have my people get right on it. Yes! The damn flowers themselves.”

The chief of staff turned around in his chair to eye Mr. Smith. “Do you have any further suggestions?”

“Not at this time.”

“But I have more questions,” Vicky said, and drew him back to facing her. “The admiral had an e-mail address to use, should he choose to accept the second, smaller bribe. It involved his delivering my delicate body to person or persons unknown, for use not identified in the contract. Do you have any idea where he might have left that address?”

“His computer? Just before we sortied on this mission, he added several layers of security to his personal computer,” the chief of staff said, and so saying appeared to hear what he was saying and connect it to what Vicky had said about the unusual new aspect of the admiral’s corruptibility.

“His computer now responds only to his voice and a rather long access code. If tampered with, the mass storage will destroy itself. He said it now had an acid ‘suicide’ vial included in the equipment. I thought he was exaggerating. Now, I think not.”

“Not likely,” Vicky said. “Mr. Smith, is there any chance that you might delude the computer into mistaking you or me for our dead admiral?”

“Unlikely, ma’am. I will try if you ask, but the outcome would probably be a very smelly mess.”

“We’ll wait for that. So, I can’t deliver myself to my unknown admirer. I don’t want to deliver myself dead to dear loving Stepmom, and I’m not sure yet about making a grand and living entrance to the palace. What other option do I have?” Vicky mused.

No one spoke. No one spoke for an uncomfortably long minute.

Vicky decided to bite the bullet. “Captain, where is the Navy General Staff located?”

“On Greenfeld, not a mile from the Imperial Palace,” he said.

Vicky scratched the back of her head. She was over the shakes and starting to enjoy this game of fox and hounds. “A mile from the Imperial Palace is no place to organize and run a conspiracy. As we saw of late, my loving stepmom and her cabal have access to much better computers than the Navy does, and the likelihood of your computers not spilling their guts to the casual passerby is slim to nil. No, the real decisions for the Navy are being made elsewhere. But where, Captain?”

His face remained deadpan.

Well, at least he’s not lying to me.

“Admiral Krätz would often say that this or that question ‘must be left as an exercise for the class.’ So, shall we work through this together?”

Again, no reaction from the captain.

“Admiral Krätz said that Port Royal would become a Navy colony. A nice place where NCOs and officers could retire, finish raising their families, and be surrounded by people they knew they could trust. There, they need not fear for petty thievery or the run-of-the-mill nutcases who make civilian life full of sudden and undesirable surprises on so many planets. So, tell me, Captain, Port Royal, was it the second Navy colony? No. Third at least. More likely the fourth, don’t you think?”

Whatever the captain thought, he said nothing.

Vicky gave him a few moments to join in her game. When he didn’t, she went on.

“But where would I find the real Navy General Staff? Let’s see. They would be retired. Yes, they couldn’t be on active duty. If they were, they’d have to be on Greenfeld. They also are likely to be recently retired. Young senior officers with much promise, but their careers suddenly cut short by, what, ill health? Yes, medically retired. Computer, can you make me up a list of the recently medically retired? Oh and throw in admirals or captains otherwise retired after only twenty-five years. Maybe twenty if they were very good.”

“I will research that,” her computer told Vicky.

“You needn’t bother,” the captain said. “Why do you want to talk to the real power behind the Navy?”

“I can think of several reasons. Let me count the ways. First, I don’t really much care for going home to Stepmommy truly and so sincerely dead. Second, we seem to have lost the address for the folks who want me to wave the standard of rebellion for them, and I’m not all that sure that the present moment is the right one for such flag waving. Lastly, I really don’t want to go inside the palace without the full support of the Navy. I strongly suspect that if I am to get out of there alive, I may need help, and lots of it. Can you think of anyplace better for me to find that help than the Navy?”

“Hmm,” the captain said. “Last night, Admiral Gort shared with me that he found you quite good. I think he would find your present performance very sharp. Possibly dangerously sharp, but quite intelligent, nevertheless. Let me talk with Captain Kittle. It will only require a slight deviation from our direct course to Greenfeld. If we up the acceleration to 1.5 gees, you should arrive at the palace not one second later than you would have otherwise.”

“Very good, Captain,” Vicky said. “Now, if you will excuse me, I should like a bath and a change of clothes. Blood does not become me.”

“Of course, Your Grace. We will likely get under way while you are indisposed.”

“I would be more indisposed if you did not.”

CHAPTER 13

VICKY desperately wanted a bath and clean hair. Kit joined her in the tub to scrub her back and wash her hair. Vicky found her body rather lovely, and the after-bath pat down led from one thing to another. When they were done, a quick shower was in order.

Kat pouted a bit at being left out, but Vicky promised her the next bath.

They were well on their way out from Savannah when Vicky was again in a green shipsuit and ready for whatever came next.

The matter of the roses, of course, was next on the agenda of quite a few people.

As soon as Vicky reported herself ready, she was invited into the admiral’s day quarters for an inquisition. The chief of staff and the captain of the Stalker were seated around the conference table.

This time, the head of the table was left for her. Mr. Smith took a seat away from the table to her right. Kit, Kat, and her other staff arrayed themselves in chairs along the near wall.

They had hardly taken their seats when the Ship’s Lieutenant preceded the Chief Master at Arms in the door. They were followed by a short, scrawny seaman in enough chains that they very likely outweighed him. He had a huge MP at each elbow, dragging him along, saving him the trouble of lifting all that heavy steel.

The young seaman looked so terrified that, had he been any older, Vicky would have feared that a heart attack might end the interview before it began.

The MPs brought him to a shambling halt at the end of the table.

“This is the storekeeper seaman striker who had the quarterdeck watch when the roses came aboard and who released them to his coconspirator,” the Ship’s Lieutenant announced.

Every eye in the room focused on the young man. He took a step back under the pressure of their stares.

“Did you accept the delivery of the roses?” Vicky asked when neither of the captains looked interested in starting the inquiry.

“Um, um, yes, sir, Your Majesty,” the man stuttered.

“My father is His Imperial Majesty. I am ‘Your Grace’ the first time you address me. ‘Ma’am’ is fine after that.”

“Yes, mum, Your Grace, sir.”

On closer observation, Vicky noted that the man had at least one black eye developing, maybe two. He also was gnawing a split lower lip. Clearly, this was not his first interrogation. The fact that the Ship’s Lieutenant or Chief Master at Arms had not been quick off the blocks to tell her the results of the first suggested it had not been very productive.

Vicky glanced at her sensor lieutenant and chief. They met her eyes and shook their heads. No weapons on the fellow. No surprise there.

“Kit, Kat, would you please remove this man’s restraints, both leggings and handcuffs? I don’t think we have anything to fear from him.”

The two deadly young women moved quickly to unchain the man, and in the process performed a full body search stopping just short of the usual cavities. Done, they stepped away, also shaking their heads. They had found no weapons.

“Could one of you MPs find a chair for this Sailor?” Vicky said.

The two Military Police glanced at their Chief Master at Arms, who gave them a curt nod. They quickly scraped a chair across the deck and shoved it under the seaman. He collapsed into it, looking both surprised and weary.

The looks Vicky got from the police types were of carefully measured scorn. The two captains maintained Navy bland, but there might have been curiosity buried deep behind it.

Is this a test? Well, I’ll do it the way I want.

Kris Longknife had once joked with Vicky about the interrogation of some low-level pirates that had consisted of giving them hamburgers and fries. Vicky was half tempted to order up cookies and milk for this poor kid, but she suspected that would lead to open mutiny from the MPs.

She let the man settle into his seat, take a few deep breaths, then asked an open question.

“Where did the flowers come from? I know we were tied up at High Chance. Did a florist deliver them?”

“Yes, ma’am, Your Grace. A florist delivered ’em. I don’t remember the name, but the kid, he was just a delivery boy, or rather girl.”

Even in his present circumstance, he leered at the memory. “You know how things are around Longknife territory. They let girls do just about anything.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Vicky said dryly. “Go on.”

“If I had my log, ma’am, I could tell you the name of the florist. I wrote it down, just like I was supposed to. Two dozen red roses. I looked at them and counted them. Two dozen. Beautiful and blood red they were.”

“Did you run them through the quarterdeck sensors?” Mr. Smith asked.

“No, sir. I couldn’t. The sensors ain’t been working since before I came aboard, sir.”

Vicky eyed the captain.

“Parts were ordered back when the admiral was still the skipper. They’ve been on back order ever since. The, ah, supply situation is very backed up.” The admission seemed to pain the skipper greatly.

“Yes it is,” the chief of staff agreed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Smith said. “I seriously doubt the flowers were anything but flowers when they came aboard. Tell me, young man, who did you release the flowers to?”

“Lieutenant Commander Hoth, sir. I had him sign for them when he collected them.”

“And what did Commander Hoth look like?” Vicky asked.

“Tall, sir. Blond hair. Tough-looking fellow. I remember thinking I better keep him happy. He looked like he could bend the likes of me in two.”

Captain Kittle was fiddling with the controls of the table. It quickly showed a picture of Lieutenant Commander Hoth, the ship’s missile officer. He had dark hair and was short with a developing middle-age spread.

The two captains and Vicky shook their heads. The Ship’s Lieutenant and the Chief Master at Arms craned their heads to see what the officers were looking at, and looked alarmed when they caught a glimpse of the real Commander Hoth.

“We had the same problem on the Fury,” Vicky said. “There was someone wandering around with as many ID’s as they wanted, passing themselves off as people who belonged there and making three tries at killing me. That was the main reason I ended up on the Wasp and not the Fury.”

Vicky went on, “Seaman, I assume you ran the Commander’s ID through your clipboard.”

“Yes, sir. It said he was who he said he was.”

There was a sour look among the officers present. “I think we have been outteched again,” Vicky concluded dryly.

“Well, whoever this tall blond is, he is still on my ship, and we will have him,” Captain Kittle said.

“Are you sure?” Vicky asked.

“No one crossed the quarterdeck except your team and the admiral,” the skipper said with the kind of absolute surety that captains often muster.

“There is another way off the ship?” Vicky said. “One of Kris Longknife’s people, a cub of a girl, snuck off the Wasp by way of the midpier tie-down. The one that brings aboard the water, power, and comm lines, as well as takes off the sewage. That’s a decent-sized tie-down. No doubt the putative Herr Hoth would have to bend his head to pass that way, but it is a quick way ashore.”

“It is locked down, and we have it covered by observation cameras,” the captain snapped.

The Ship’s Lieutenant looked miserable as he failed to meet his captain’s glare.

“Don’t we?” did not have the usual captain confidence behind it.

“Sir, the camera in that compartment quit working recently and we don’t have the necessary parts to repair it.”

“Exactly when did it stop working?” Mr. Smith asked.

“About three hours before we made port at High Savannah,” the Ship’s Lieutenant reported, miserably.

“I’d like to have a look at it,” Mr. Smith said, and headed for the door. He was quickly followed by the Ship’s Lieutenant, the Chief Master at Arms, and both of the MPs. This left a very confused seamen striker storekeeper sitting alone in his chair.

“What do we do with this fellow?” Vicky asked. “He’s not going anywhere with us in space.”

“He’s the only one who’s seen this impostor Hoth. He might want to kill him,” Captain Kittle observed.

The poor seaman swallowed hard where he sat.

“I would be reluctant to consign him to the tender mercies of the brig for protective custody,” Vicky said. “I don’t think the MPs much like him from the looks of his face.”

“No doubt,” the chief of staff admitted. “He likely does need to report to sick bay.”

“I could advise the ship’s medical officer to tend to him and see that he stays safe,” the skipper said.

“Kit, would you escort this seaman to sick bay?” Vicky ordered. “See that he gets there and give his personal commlink our number. If he has any trouble, he should call us.”

“I would be glad to do so, Your Grace.”

And so a man who entered the admiral’s quarters in abject terror left with a smile and hope that he might live to finish his Navy tour.

Vicky only wished she could be so optimistic about her future.

Mr. Smith returned with a glum-looking bunch of security types. “The wire to the camera was corroded,” he reported. “It looked like normal wear and tear until I tested it. I carry a bit of that corrosive at all times for just that sort of duty.”

“So our assassin has fled the ship,” the captain said.

“Or wants us to assume he has,” Mr. Smith said. “Having the option to leave is not the same as leaving. I would prefer to operate on the assumption that he is still with us until we have clear evidence that he is not.”

That left the room silent for a long moment.

“Humor me for a moment,” the chief of staff said. “How did this bomb evade all of our best sniffers and sensors?”

“May I look at the full report?” Mr. Smith asked, and was promptly granted access.

“As I expected, notice that none of the long-stemmed roses that survived the blast are anywhere near as long as one would expect of a long-stemmed rose. My personal observation before the explosion was that the roses were as tall as one would expect.”

“I’ll agree with you on that,” Vicky said.

“But it appears that a good fifteen centimeters of those rose stems were explosive.” He paused, apparently lost in thought as he gazed at the ceiling, but Vicky was pretty sure he was interrogating his computer. “Twenty-four stems about that long would have just the right amount of explosives for what we saw in the hall. It was mainly intended to fragment the vase and send shards flying around the room. Everything in its right proportions. Nothing to excess.”

Mr. Smith paused. “Now, the vase. How did that get aboard ship? The young storekeeper’s notes say the roses arrived in a box. No mention of a vase.”

Captain Kittle looked ready to strangle on his next words. “It seems that I am responsible for the vase coming aboard my ship.”

CHAPTER 14

TO say the chief of staff was shocked at that admission would be the understatement of a lifetime. Vicky studied the look on the man’s face. She set herself to memorizing it. Later, she would practice it in front of a mirror. That kind of sincere dismay at events was so rare in her world that she greatly doubted she’d ever have another chance to observe it.

Mr. Smith, however, did not pause in his examination. “What can you tell me about the vase, sir?”

“I bought it on Bern while the admiral was busy with a banker. There was this place next to the bank. A shopping place like nothing I’d ever seen back home. I forget what they called all the shops, tiny things, all cheek to jowl.”

“A boutique?” Vicky offered.

“Yes, yes, I think that was what they called it. Among all the little shops there was this handcart loaded with hand-worked ceramic things. The young woman selling them offered me this vase dirt cheap. My wife’s sister has made a hobby of ceramic work. She has her own kiln and is trying to get the other wives interested in artistic things. What she calls artistic works of hand art. This vase was unique to anything I’d seen on Greenfeld, the way its colors shone, and the woman offered me a little pamphlet that told how the clay was worked and how to fire it with straw and orange rinds, I believe it was.”

The rush of words slowed down. “I thought I’d gotten a bargain.”

“No doubt you did,” Mr. Smith observed dryly. “Did you see the scarring inside the vase?”

“I swear to God, I did not see anything unusual on the inside of the thing. I swear it.”

“No doubt if we look at the shards more carefully, we’ll find residue of a calking material that made the scarring vanish to the unsuspecting eye,” was Mr. Smith’s conclusion. “When did you discover the vase was missing, Captain?”

“When I saw the pictures of the shards, I couldn’t believe that it could be the same piece of ceramic. Last night, when I went off duty, I checked where I had stowed it. The box was still there. It didn’t look like it had been touched, but the vase was gone when I opened it. Gone.” The skipper paused to shake his head. “The paper explaining how to fire the thing was still there. Could that help us?”

“No doubt the woman who sold you the thing no longer works the cart. We must also ask ourselves. Do we want to involve the police of the Helvetican Confederacy in this?”

No one rose to answer that question. Mr. Smith seemed to lose himself in thought, or maybe in communing with his computer.

The chief of staff broke the long silence. “Should we search the captain’s cabin? Our assassin might have left behind a fingerprint or some DNA when he stole the vase.”

“I doubt you will find anything left behind. I believe our assassin is a pro. Even if you did find something, I doubt you would find any match to it in any Greenfeld database. If I had taken the time to hire him, I would have also taken the time to make his biometric data vanish from all places that might be used to match him. Any professional in my business would do that.”

The captain still ordered his quarters searched.

Vicky, Mr. Smith, the chief of staff, and the captain found themselves staring at each other with nothing to say. The other observers, Kat, the lieutenant, and the chief maintained their silent vigil as seated statues, awaiting the call of their master to awaken to action.

Mr. Smith turned to Vicky and finally broke the silence. “Possibly we should reflect upon what all this tells us about those who want you dead.”

“I think it means I should just slit my own throat and save everyone a lot of trouble,” Vicky grumbled.

“I would prefer to fully analyze the data before taking any action,” Mr. Smith said.

Vicky noticed that he did not dispute her conclusion, however. She’d expected it to be taken as a joke.

No one had laughed.

Vicky motioned Mr. Smith to continue, and he did. “Your stepmother seems willing to spend a lot of money to assure your demise and can find assets across a wide range of space to achieve that end. If we assume that eight captains were encouraged to buy a container of deadly shards and that eight flag battlecruisers have or had an assassin on board, the logistics become quite complex.”

“Let’s also not forget,” Vicky pointed out, “that when the bomb missed me, someone was able to lay on a shoot in the dozen hours or so that it took us to land at High Savannah.”

“That was, no doubt, a local hire,” Mr. Smith observed.

“Does my loving stepmom have connections everywhere?”

“Not connections so much as word out on a lot of streets that she’s willing to pay a whole lot of money for your sadly dead young body. Communication is cheap, and, until someone actually has your head to show for their work, she can keep her money in the bank.”

“I’m really beginning to develop an attitude toward Stepmommy dearest,” Vicky said while making a face.

“As well you might,” Mr. Smith said. The senior Navy officers seemed a bit scandalized by Vicky’s admission although the glimpse they were getting into Peterwald family politics should have prepared them for far more than that.

“To me, she seems to have very long claws,” Vicky said. “How about you educate me on how she could put my name ‘on the street’ with a huge number of commas behind the dollar sign and gets reactions like what I’ve seen of late.”

“The underground world has no respect for boundaries: planetary or otherwise. If they hear there is money to be had by separating your pretty little head from your shoulders, why, anyone who has a shot at you will take it. Our bomber clearly was better organized than our shooter.”

“What do you mean by that?” the chief of staff asked.

“Someone knew the skipper’s wife’s sister had an interest in ceramics. They arranged for him to take aboard the lethal ingredients of the bomb. The so-called Herr Hoth had to be secreted aboard the ship and kept from anyone’s attention for the duration of this cruise. A major accomplishment, you will no doubt assure me,” Mr. Smith said, with a friendly smile for the Navy types.

Or so it looked to Vicky.

The two Navy captains nodded. No doubt, the look they shared together would lead to a meticulous shakedown of all hands before supper.

Vicky wished them luck.

“The shooter, however, was a rush job,” Mr. Smith said. “I have my personal doubts about the quality of the hire.”

“You could have fooled me,” Vicky said.

“If your record at trying to assassinate Kris Longknife is accurate, no doubt you would have been fooled,” Mr. Smith said dryly.

“Kris has already debriefed my failures there. You needn’t do it again. What was wrong with the shooter? She did get the admiral, you may have noticed.”

“She was late. There were several times during our shopping trip when you were much more vulnerable. If I had the contract, I would have taken you out in the rush of the crowd. That tells me that the contract was let late. They had all the time we were on approach and shopping, but they didn’t get all the paperwork signed and a shooter in place until you were almost back aboard the Stalker.”

Mr. Smith shook his head in professional disgust. “Then, she aimed for your head. You were not so low on the escalator that she could not have aimed her first shot for the center of mass. If I had the contract, I would have aimed for there. But no, she had to go for a head shot. The head is much smaller and harder to hit, and it swivels without warning, as yours did. Shoddy workmanship. She deserved to die and not get paid.”

While the captains looked on with dismay, Vicky found herself taking in the lesson with respect. And filing it away to be remembered later and kept readily accessible in her memory. This man did know his business.

And she needed to learn it if she hoped to stay alive.

“Thank you, Mr. Smith,” Vicky said when he finished. “You are definitely earning your pay. So, tell me, is there a silver lining to our having the assassin on board? If he left us at High Savannah, slipping out while everyone was all hot and bothered about the admiral’s being killed, we can go to wherever the center of the Navy’s conspiracy is located so it can stay independent without anyone being the wiser. If that snitch for my stepmum dearest and deadly is still with us, it won’t matter that we’re making 1.5 gees between here, there, and Greenfeld. He will report the stop.”

Vicky paused to consider that result. “Hopefully, he won’t know what takes place in the meeting, but he will know we made the stop.”

“But what will your dearest step-murderer know?” Mr. Smith asked.

That brought everyone to a roaring halt.

“Do you have a suggestion as to how we cover this up?”

“Admiral Gort’s father is an admiral, is he not?” Mr. Smith asked.

“He is,” the chief of staff admitted, slowly.

“And would he by any chance be living on the planet you are taking us to?”

The two captains exchanged looks. “He is,” Captain Kittle admitted.

“Where does Admiral Gort’s wife live?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Not there, but we could arrange for her to meet us there. I hate to just message her that she is a widow.”

“She’s Navy. She has to live expecting such a message,” Vicky said.

“No one has to expect that message,” the chief of staff said, almost savagely. “Too many politicians mistake our professionalism as a license to get us all killed.”

Vicky tasted a lot of heat and ancient anger in those words. “I stand corrected, Captain,” she quickly said, “and it is a correction that I will not forget.”

“See that you don’t,” both captains said at the same time.

“So, if the spy/assassin is gone, we have nothing to fear. If he is still with us, he will report that we hurried to return the admiral to his people for burial, then hastened to Greenfeld.”

“Assuming the assassin doesn’t take another shot at me and succeed,” Vicky said.

“Or we succeed in canceling his contract,” Mr. Smith said with unholy glee.

“It’s going to be a long voyage,” the chief of staff muttered.

“How I hate it when good, honest sailormen have to get mixed up in politics,” Captain Kittle was heard to whisper to his fellow captain.

Vicky and Mr. Smith exchanged a knowing grin. Politics was the most fun game in town. Admittedly, it got a bit old when it was a blood sport, like the present, but all told, Vicky dearly loved the job she had.

Assuming she could stay alive long enough to get promoted from a pawn to the Imperial queen that she was.

CHAPTER 15

BAYERN was a lovely planet from orbit, all green and blue and tan, except for the white fluffy clouds and snowcapped mountains. On the ground, it only got lovelier. The center of human settlement around München was almost quaint in its rolling farmland and stone or wooden one- and two-story buildings.

The shuttle port was nestled among the green fields with only a long, low terminal standing beside the runway and small apron. The shuttle rolled up to the terminal and stopped. No one made to exit.

Why became clear in a moment.

The aft ramp lowered to the apron, admitting air strong with the scent of spring rebirth. An honor detail approached and slowly, lovingly, removed the flag-draped coffin, and, at a funeral pace, moved it to a horse-drawn gun carriage.

Only when it was lashed in place and surrounded by both the honor guard and mourners, did the passengers of the shuttle begin to silently exit the craft from the forward hatch.

Vicky was the last to leave, not due to any traditional precedents of the Navy but because the chief of staff had the aisle seat and refused to budge. Vicky soon found out why.

When she finally did exit the shuttle, she drew stares like a bride might who came naked to her wedding.

She easily recognized those surrounding Admiral Gort’s flag-draped coffin. His son, an ensign, was a younger image of him. His retired father in an admiral’s uniform that still fit, was an older version that the admiral had not lived long enough to fulfill.

Dominating them all was an even older rendering, the grandfather still resplendent in a uniform with Iteeche War ribbons.

There was, of course, the grieving widow in black.

And from that tight-knit family came enough glares that if eyes could truly kill, they would be sharing a huge bounty from Vicky’s stepmom.

For the forty-eleventh time, Vicky rolled her shoulders back and said a grateful prayer to anyone listening that looks could not kill. Her question as to whether or not she was to join the funeral group was answered by the chief of staff placing a demanding hand on her elbow and directing her toward a small sedan.

She went where he directed.

The four-door sedan presented a problem for Vicky . . . or maybe a test. The front had room for two: the driver and a seat the chief of staff was clearly taking. That left the backseat to Vicky and her team. It would be a tight fit for Vicky, Mr. Smith, Kit, and Kat. There was no question about room for the lieutenant and the chief or their box of sensors.

No other car was close at hand; all those at the shuttle field were quickly filling with the funeral party.

“This is an exercise best left to the class,” Vicky could hear Admiral Krätz saying. She was in a Navy town. If they wanted her alive, she would stay alive. If they wanted her dead, she would die. Did she need to take her sworn defenders with her?

“Kit, Kat, you stay here with the lieutenant and the chief.” When they opened their mouths to protest, Vicky added softly, “We are surrounded by the Navy here. Do you really think anyone would harm me?”

The veiled looks both shot her told her “yes,” but they stepped away when she made it clear she wanted them to go.

“A wise choice,” Mr. Smith whispered as he held the door open for her. As for the chief of staff, he had already settled himself in the front seat and sat, back straight, eyes forward.

As soon as Mr. Smith closed the door behind him, and before he could get his seat belt in place, the sedan took off, but at a sedate pace. Indeed, they joined the tail end of the funeral cortege. The driver even turned on the car’s lights.

That was the way it stayed until the first stoplight. There, the motorcycle escort halted traffic so the procession could go through the red light. However, Vicky’s car turned right, doused its lights, and took off at only a bit faster speed wherever it was taking her.

They passed a mixture of cows, horses, and sheep grazing on grass impossibly green. They passed crops and vineyards in a crazy patchwork-quilt arrangement that would make any agribusiness specialist shudder at the inefficiencies. Though most of the farms were worked with modern equipment, Vicky passed one team of horses plowing a field. There an old man handled the plow while a pair of youngsters scattered seed behind him.

They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Likely that was the main product of their labors, because a flock of birds followed the kids. No, an even younger child galloping along behind the birds, sending them aloft at her hoots.

“Looks like fun,” Vicky muttered.

“Hot work and lots of it,” the chief of staff answered. “My grandpa used to borrow a pair of horses for at least one of our fields. He insisted we know what it was like to do it the old-fashioned way. When I was a teenager, I used to think that he and grandma would sneak out at nights to perform their own fertility rites. Never caught them at it, though my sister insisted she had.”

“The old-fashioned ways,” Vicky said. “Is that a part of what makes the Navy Navy?”

“Maybe. Who’s to know? We have plenty of thirty-year men who started life in the slums of big planet cities. When they come here, they say it’s like coming home to a place they’ve always known but never been,” the captain said with a far-seeing smile on his face.

The road they took wound its way along a tree-lined creek beside rolling fields. They turned off onto a dirt road lined with trees on each side and a white fence. At the end of the road was a farmyard with three barns. Two of them were for equipment and animals.

The third was for people.

The chief of staff led Vicky through two large doors into a central hall that would serve for dances or large meetings. It was empty at the moment. Closed doors led to rooms in the right and left wing of the barn, as well as stairs that led up to a long balcony running down both sides to rooms upstairs. The captain guided Vicky to a room in the back that, from the smell of it, had been put to use baking pies earlier that morning. It had two large stoves and four sinks.

It also sported a long dinner table.

At the moment, twenty old men and four women sat along it. At its foot, a single chair was open. The chief of staff motioned Vicky to it before turning to take a stool for himself at what looked like a breakfast nook.

Mr. Smith went with him without needing to be told.

Vicky studied her twenty-four . . . what should she think of them as? Judges? Jurors? Not executioners. The captain would do that for them. Maybe even Mr. Smith if they bid high enough.

Or not. Very likely, if they agreed to let Mr. Smith live and collect Vicky’s loving stepmom’s reward, he would do the dirty work for them.

Vicky had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she fully tasted just how close to death she was.

But she’d been living on borrowed time, really, since her father remarried.

Well, girl, nothing’s changed today. Get on with it.

The twenty-four . . . whatevers . . . ranged in age from about fifty to over a hundred. It was hard to tell, what with rejuvenation therapy so common these days. What they all shared were backs ramrod straight, even the women who she supposed were wives. The men mostly sported the short-cut gray hair of their profession. The women’s hair was uniformly pulled back tightly into buns.

It was the eyes that held Vicky. Sharp. Clear. Intelligent. They took her in, weighed her . . . and told her not a thing of their judgment.

Vicky thanked any god paying attention that she’d spent her last few years under Navy discipline. She held their gaze without flinching, met it with a bland Navy face, and continued her own assessment.

These were Admiral Krätz and Admiral Gort’s peers. She had earned the respect of those two, and she could earn the respect of these.

If they gave her half a chance.

The silence in the room stretched long.

Vicky chose to take the initiative in shattering it. She cleared her throat.

“I am Victoria Peterwald, and I need your help to stay alive.”

The room stayed just as silent after she finished.

The elderly man at the head of the table finally said, “How is it that you, Lieutenant, are alive, and all others who went out to the stars with you are dead?”

Oh, that, Vicky thought with a sigh. COMPUTER, CAN YOU FIND A SCREEN IN THIS BARN?

THERE IS ONE BEHIND YOU, her computer answered.

Vicky turned in her seat. There was what looked like a large oil painting of a field at harvesttime behind her. “Computer, please display the battle report.”

The bucolic scene blinked away. The huge mother ship now filled it.

Behind Vicky, the room was suitably impressed. Then the Hellburners did their thing, and the watchers were even more impressed. They were again impressed as the damaged base ship and the surviving ships began to tear into the battle fleet.

That was quickly replaced with the scene of one corvette doing its best to hold the jump. It blew one emerging ship after another, but it died in the end.

“In order to avoid assassin or assassins unknown on the Fury, I was on Kris Longknife’s flagship Wasp when the battle took place. As you would expect of a Longknife, she managed to escape the massacre of her subordinate ships, and me with her. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am here and not dead like so many others.”

“An answer that has the grace of honesty, if not wisdom,” replied a woman seated halfway down the table. “Be warned, young Peterwald, not all of those assembled here share your family’s visceral distaste for the Longknifes. Some of us fought beside them in long-ago wars and have more respect for their professional skills and courage than is usually recognized in the palace.”

“Having spent so much time of late with Kris Longknife,” Vicky was quick to add, “I can understand how people not handicapped by an upbringing in the palace might find it easy to respect her skill and courage.”

“So, having shown us that you are alive and our children are not, through no fault . . . or skill . . . of your own, why are you here?” the woman continued.

So, apparently, this woman was to be Vicky’s inquisitor. Vicky looked her in the eye.

“Admiral Gort, before he was murdered by my stepmother’s hired assassin, told me that he, or should I say, the Navy, had three choices to make concerning me. Officially, the orders were to return me as quickly as possible to the palace. However, there were two, shall we say, unofficial options.

“My stepmother offered a rather large sum of money to assure that I did not return alive. Just how I was to die was left up to the Navy to decide just so long as I wasn’t breathing when my body arrived at the palace. The other option open to the Navy was to provide my still-breathing body to a party or parties unknown. They, I strongly suspect, wanted me as a standard-bearer to raise the flag of rebellion. To rally all of my father’s Empire around me and against him.”

Vicky paused to look around the table. “Do I have the three basic outcomes out on the table? I haven’t been able to think up a fourth, but I’m only an inexperienced lieutenant. I don’t have your years of lived experience to draw on. And, clearly, I’m not likely to have a chance to gain those years of experience under at least one, if not all, of these options.”

A mild chuckle surfaced around the table. The woman questioning Vicky was not amused. “Your humility tastes feigned, young woman. But yes, I do believe that you have laid all our options on the table. Go on. Which do you think we should take advantage of?”

What she said in the next few moments would decide whether Vicky kept on living or vanished beneath some manure pile in this pastoral paradise.

“I think you and the Navy have decided that you don’t much care for any of the three options on the table. If you wanted me dead, I would not have survived the first hour aboard the Stalker. Admiral Gort would have had my head on a platter. Period. End of discussion.”

Vicky surveyed the table. She saw no surprises.

“If you wanted me waving the flag of rebellion, again, Admiral Gort would have delivered me, hog-tied and gagged, to the conspirators, and I would never have known what hit me until it was too late.”

Another glance around the table told Vicky that not everyone listening was impressed with her ability to figure out what was going on around her.

Too smart can get me just as dead as too dumb.

Vicky hurried on to the last option.

“Dropping me off at the palace seems like the default option, but it has its problems as well. Alone in the palace, I can wind up just as dead. I can also be suborned into someone else’s conspiracy, which the Navy might or might not like. Lastly, I could somehow manage to stay alive and even advance my pawnship to Imperial queen. If I did that without your help, would you really like the results?”

Vicky only paused for a second for them to consider what she said before going on.

“That is why Admiral Gort risked taking me into the full extent of the boiling cauldron that is politics in our beloved Greenfeld. Was I too dumb to figure out all the dangers ahead of me? Even if I was smart enough, was I too smart for my own good? Would I consent to be the Navy’s willing pawn? And when I’m no longer a pawn, would I likely be a good ally for the Navy or would I be a poisoned, self-centered bitch from hell like my dearly beloved stepmom?”

Vicky paused to glance around the table. “How am I doing?”

“Well. Maybe too well,” the old woman observed dryly.

“Yes, I know. It’s a very narrow line I walk between the graves on either side of me.”

“Do I pity her more than I pity us?” someone asked along the table.

The question drew muttered agreement, but no clear course of action sprang from it.

Vicky took a deep breath and went on. “I was born to the palace. It raised me, in the words of Admiral Gort, to use needlepoint and the Kama Sutra for both defense and offense. I will never get the stink and poison of that upbringing out of my hair, no matter how much ship’s water I wash in.”

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.

CHAPTER 16

TO 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.

CHAPTER 17

THE palace was changing.

Great-Grandfather had built a large, four-story, hollow square, with the family living at the far quarter, the two sides having offices, and the front side divided between a large ballroom and an equally large banquet hall.

Grandfather had added two wings to the square with an even larger banquet hall and gigantic ballroom, along with offices. Lots of offices for his growing corporate power.

Dad had made only limited changes in his early years. A few extra outbuildings, several lovely gardens, and three fountains.

All that was changing now. From the look of the foundations being laid, the two long wings Grandfather had built were about to become mere sides to a pair of huge squares. And the entrance to the palace had sprouted a covered portico with columns.

As Vicky disembarked from the limo, she got a closer look. The portico was wooden, but beside it were marble columns laid out and marble blocks as well. Some night, the wooden framework would be hastily pulled down and the marble replacement quickly raised up in its place.

Great-Granddad had built in concrete. Granddad had built in granite. Dad would build in marble. Ah, the requirements of Empire.

While her entourage organized itself, and her trailing courtiers caught up, Vicky took a moment to examine the work going on around her. There were a lot of laborers doing their best to put up the Imperial Palace . . . which left Vicky wondering where all the money for this was coming from.

According to the Navy’s best information, taxes were not flowing into the Imperial coffers at anything close to the expected rate. Where was Dad getting the money to pay for all this?

COMPUTER, WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE COSTS OF THIS CONSTRUCTION WORK?

THE REPORTS AVAILABLE TO ME HAVE NO INFORMATION OR ONLY VAGUE ESTIMATES ABOUT ITS COST, MA’AM. I CANNOT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION.

IS MY FATHER, THE EMPEROR, BORROWING MONEY TO PAY FOR ALL THIS?

THAT IDEA HAS BEEN SPECULATED ON, BUT NO ONE HAS ANY SPECIFIC INFORMATION.

No help there. Vicky tried another tack. COMPUTER, WHAT ARE THE FIVE LARGEST BANKS ON GREENFELD?

The computer rattled off five names, only two of which were familiar to Vicky. She fed back the other three names and asked the computer who owned them.

It quickly provided three names, all ending in Bowlingame: the Empress’s father, her uncle, and one cousin. Vicky remembered something about them. AREN’T ALL THREE OF THEM TAX FARMERS?

ALL THREE OF THEM OWN LARGE TAX-GATHERING FIRMS THAT ARE UNDER CONTRACT FROM THE MINISTER OF FINANCE TO INVESTIGATE TAXES THAT ARE IN ARREARS.

Vicky had to suppress a giggle. How cute. Dad was likely borrowing money that the contractors had skimmed off the taxes actually due him.

I wonder if there have been any audits of those tax contractors lately, Vicky thought to herself.

THERE HAVE BEEN AUDITS, her computer answered; HOWEVER, THE NAVY FINDS THE FIRMS THAT DID THE AUDITS ALL WERE OWNED, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, BY PEOPLE CONNECTED TO THE EMPRESS’S FAMILY. THEY DOUBT THE AUDITS WERE RELIABLE.

Time after time, as she grew up, Vicky had been told just how sharp a businessman her dad was. And not always by himself, either. Why was he letting himself be hoodwinked by the likes of Vicky’s stepmom and her extended and grasping family?

Men! Worse, middle-aged men! Vicky spat, but only in her mind.

The circus around her was finally forming up. It had grown. Several men in knee pants, silk hose, and doublets of various cuts and colors had joined her. A few sported silver chains of office. One held a solid-looking staff; wood, inlaid with gold.

“If Your Imperial Grace would care to change before her audience with His Imperial Majesty?” the staff holder suggested.

“We would not think of keeping our father, His Imperial Majesty, waiting. It has been so long. We will go now,” was pure Imperial command.

The majordomo led the way with his staff of office.

The dozen steps he led Vicky up were still wooden and creaked a bit under the weight of her parade. Vicky led, with Mr. Smith and Doc Maggie right behind her, flanked by Kit and Kat. The two sensors trailed them just ahead of the Marine captain and his men in a double file, with shouldered arms.

Some of the courtiers from the space-elevator station tried to attach themselves to the majordomo, but most ended up trailing the Marines. The palace guards formed a thin outer layer to the Marines, leaving open the question of just who was guarding whom.

The entrance hall had gone from business efficient to gilded cage with marble and gold everywhere, and dazzling chandeliers making it all sparkle.

Vicky’s estimate of what her dad had borrowed doubled.

It was in the entrance hall that the majordomo turned to Vicky. “Your men are under arms. They must disarm.”

Vicky did her own assessment of her safety in this vast shooting gallery and she really didn’t want her Marines all that far from their loaded weapons.

“Our honor guard has their weapons on safety and no rounds in the chamber,” the Grand Duchess informed the lackey. “They have protected us through two assassination attempts. We will not be without them. “

A colonel from the palace guard joined them, an unctuous smile on his face. “Maybe if Her Grace will allow us to assure that the Marines’ weapons are on safety and the bolts are open on no rounds . . .”

Vicky allowed herself time to consider an option she would have accepted at the drop of a hat. After the proper interval, she nodded. “Captain, please join the colonel in inspecting our honor guard.”

The two officers went down the two lines of Marines who smartly presented arms with their bolts pulled back on empty chambers. That done, the colonel nodded agreeably.

“Now, sir, if you will, do the same for your guards,” Vicky said. While butter might melt in her mouth, there was clear, sharp steel beneath her words.

The colonel and the Marine captain again reviewed the troops, only this time it was the black-and-reds. Three of the six had rounds in the chamber and two of those had not safetied their weapon.

The young lieutenant drew a glare from his colonel. If it portended for him what such a glare from Admiral Krätz forecasted for a certain young ensign, it meant a future Vicky would hate to have for herself but would dearly love to watch as it overwhelmed another.

Two servants arrayed in cloth of gold opened the huge double doors, and they now processed into the Imperial throne room.

Don’t gawk, girl, Vicky had to remind herself.

Thanks to her Navy apprenticeship, Vicky had learned to take in a lot from her peripheral vision while staying smartly at attention, eyes front. She put it to good use.

The former ballroom now had a row of marble columns setting off the center from two side porticos. Guards stood at each column, protecting it from what? Walking away? Being carried off?

But it was the courtiers that almost made Vicky’s mouth fall open. The men were in silk short pants and stockings with brocade coats of every color that glittered and shone. The women were hardly less spectacular in hoopskirts and tight bodices that lifted and damn near revealed as much as that dress Vicky had worn for the reporters.

But there, she’d been the center of attention.

Here, there were so many women competing for the men’s eyes that it must have all the men on overload.

Only the men seemed to pay the women no attention. All eyes were on Vicky . . . when they weren’t on her dad.

Father wore those short breeches and silk stockings, with a flowing cloak of brilliant purple cloth widely edged in ermine. He sat a gilded throne, six steps up from the common floor. There was a slightly less gilded affair on his left one step down, and an only slightly less fancy perch two steps down on his right.

Vicky would bet that was where she was expected to squat and set a spell, as Admiral Krätz would say.

She was about a third of the way to the throne when the majordomo brought them all to a halt. “Everyone approaching the Imperial throne is expected to bow . . . or in the case of a woman, curtsy . . . three times,” he whispered. “The first one is here.”

Vicky dearly wished she’d been briefed on this. She was wearing Navy dress whites and had chosen the option of the choker blouse and trousers. When it appeared that she might have to run for her life, it had seemed like a good choice.

Now, not so much.

How ridiculous would she look attempting a curtsy in this rig?

Totally.

Now Vicky understood why most of the men in court affected wide-brimmed hats with large feather plumes. Those would look gorgeous in a sweeping bow.

Vicky’s Navy-issue cover would look absurd being swept around in such a show.

The Grand Duchess took a deep breath, swept her hat from her head to under her left arm, drew her right leg back, and did a rather decent job of “making a leg.” Admittedly, the sweep of her right hand seemed rather bare without a plumed bonnet of some sort, but military styling was more centered on the practical than the Imperial.

She was better prepared for the second one, and was getting downright comfortable with it by the third time.

Through all of them, the majordomo looked like he was about to split his gut over a woman’s refusing to curtsy.

Or maybe it was a woman in pants.

Very likely it was both.

Her team did themselves up proud. As she completed her third bow, Mr. Smith led the first line in a retreat to the left. The lieutenant and chief followed his lead. The Marine captain had his two files do a smart column right or left and marched off to guard the nearest marble column that might take it in its head to flee the scene.

But Vicky was busy with other concerns while they did that all on their own.

“Daughter, I am so relieved to see you. I wasn’t sure you would ever make it back. Come closer. Let me get a good look at you.” Dad sounded sincere.

But then, he usually did. He was very good at “sincere.”

“There were times I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again, either, Dad. Or should I say Your Imperial Majesty?”

“Hang it all, girl. I’ve forgotten to use the Imperial ‘We,’ I was so glad to see you.”

Maybe it wasn’t “sincere” but something real?

He opened his arms and she ascended all six steps in a rush and let him give her a hug. The first one in how long? Since she was ten?

“Was it as bad as they said it was?” he asked her.

“It got pretty bad there a few times, Dad. A lot of good people died. I hope it was worth it.”

“But it’s all the way on the other side of the galaxy, right? We don’t have anything to worry about here,” he said, and glanced to the left of the throne.

Admiral Waller, chief of the Navy General Staff, at least on Greenfeld, stood there, a bit behind the throne. Now, he stepped forward.

“It is, of course, as you say, Your Imperial Majesty. Unless, of course, Her Grace wishes to venture a different opinion based on her experience.”

He raised an eyebrow toward Vicky, and if there was a bit of a roll to his eyes, space legs had nothing to do with it.

So Dad doesn’t want to think about the monsters under the galaxy’s box springs. Vicky wondered if she dared try to raise doubts in her father’s mind. “There were the Iteeche survey ships that went missing,” she ventured. “That was why we went out there in the first place.”

“Iteeches, they hardly belong in space,” her dad spat. “Their ships likely took a wrong turn and just got lost. Besides, if the problem was off there beyond Iteeche space, why would that Longknife girl take off in the opposite direction? Of course, there’s always cowardism when you’re dealing with a Longknife, but she sure got her tits in a wringer if she thought going the wrong way would keep her safe, didn’t she?”

“Quite painfully,” Admiral Waller agreed.

So that was the way it was on the home front.

“What has happened to Kris?” Vicky ventured to turn the subject away from pure fantasy.

“The devil only knows,” Dad said. “Ray Longknife does not look at all happy with the mess she made, losing a fleet of ships from four different alliances. You know, I’ve sent him a bill for four battleships. A bill for the ships and the cost of annuities to pay the pensions of the widows. He hasn’t answered me. Der Vill, we must send him a reminder. I won’t have him just forgetting me. After all, I’m an Emperor. He’s only a king.”

A fancy-dressed old graybeard with a gold chain of office nodded, turned to someone much younger, said a few words, and the younger man sprinted off.

Dad smiled at how promptly his words were turned into actions.

Vicky suppressed a sigh. What was the worth of doing quickly something that was a total waste of time?

Dad turned back to Vicky and seemed to take her in fully for the first time. “Vicky, dear, you’re uniform is mussed. What happened to you?”

“There was a bit of an accident on the expressway coming in,” she said, and glanced at Admiral Waller. He gave her the tiniest shake of the head and a “don’t go there, girl” warning.

“Apparently someone tried to pass us at high speed and knocked into my car. Then they bounced off the concrete divider. It became quite a mess after that.”

“Oh, dear. Commissioner Martin, why didn’t you tell me this had happened? Do we need to restrict traffic on the expressway when Imperials are using it? Or should we reserve it totally for people at court who can recognize their betters and get out of the way?”

“I will look into it immediately and have a report for you in the morning,” said Commissioner Martin. A much younger man, he looked rather slick in his doublet and hose. His chain of office was also gold.

He did not rush off to obey but talked to his commlink and seemed satisfied with the results.

“Well, that will settle that. Now, let’s get to the real reason I invited you here,” Dad said with a broad smile.

“I wish to institute the Order of St. Christopher, Star Leaper. I struck this order for those who accompanied you on your long voyage. There are three levels. First class, for you, the commander of the Squadron of Discovery. You get this golden starburst. Isn’t it lovely?” he said as a courtier presented Vicky with an open coffer that showed a bright orange sash with the remarked-upon starburst. “The second order is for all the officers that followed you. They get silver medals. The third order is for the other ranks. They get bronze metals. I think it’s a grand idea, don’t you?”

“Wonderful, Dad,” Vicky said, as he lifted the sash from the coffer and placed it over her shoulder. The starburst didn’t settle at the bottom but was pinned on her left breast.

Did my own dad just feel me up?

“There weren’t that many who survived to wear these, Dad,” she pointed out as he stepped back.

“Yes, I know,” he said, apparently not at all fazed by the obvious. “Your mother, Empress Annah, mentioned that very point. So, we’re going to allow those who died to have a mortuary monument raised by their loved ones that will bear the insignia of the order. We will provide them with the monuments for a small payment to cover the cost of handling and shipping. Your mother knew just the quarry to make them up.”

Vicky bet her stepmom did have a specific vendor in mind. And would the bereaved find that the monument was not only available but required? Oh, and it must be prepaid.

A glance at Admiral Waller showed a stone face, bland to the point of rage.

Vicky didn’t know how much more of this she could take.

“Dad, I just got in. I do need to clean up. Maybe be checked for scrapes and bruises after that accident. Do you mind if I leave now?”

“By all means, you must, my daughter. You go freshen up and make yourself ready for dinner. Your mother, the Empress, will be there for dinner tonight. By the way, I took the liberty of getting you several dresses for court. That dress you wore to be interviewed in! Naughty, naughty,” he said, finger waving.

“I lost most everything I had on the Fury,” Vicky explained. “There was supposed to have been a blouse under that dress, but it was in the laundry when I transferred to the Wasp and was lost with the Fury.” That was a good enough lie to pass muster here and now.

“What were you doing on the Wasp, my dear? Oh, never mind. You may explain it when you have time. Go, freshen up. I know you ladies need to be fresh. Your mother is all the time needing to freshen up.”

Vicky backed her way out of court, her team and honor guard leading the way for her.

Once the doors closed on the throne room, she exhaled the huge breath she was holding in. If Dad had said “your mother, the Empress” one more time, Vicky could not have held back the scream. And how was she to explain how she ended up on the Wasp without mentioning the three attempts her stepmom had arranged on her life?

Of course, exactly why people wanted to kill her was not in evidence, now was it? That the assassination attempts had started about the time Stepmommy announced she was pregnant was not proof of causation.

At least, not in any court of law Dad was paying attention to just now.

“Where are our rooms?” Vicky snapped at the majordomo.

“This senior butler will show you the room reserved for you,” the officer in question said, and turned to go on his way.

“You will show me the rooms reserved for the Grand Duchess,” Vicky shot right back.

That at least stopped him, and he whirled through a full turn to face Vicky again. “But I have to be about the Imperial business,” he whined.

That likely got him out of a lot.

“And seeing that the Grand Duchess is satisfied with the rooms you have set aside for us is Imperial business. Is it not?”

He chose not to argue. A wise move on his part.

As suspected, Vicky’s rooms were lavish, huge, and had too few rooms for all the people she intended to keep close at hand.

“I need more space. Vacate the suites on either side of me.”

“But they are already allotted.”

“Then unallot them,” Vicky growled. “My chief of security will have the rooms to my right and my doctor will be on my left. My two body servants can share my quarters with me, but the lieutenant and chief are part of my security detail. If Mr. Smith does not think there is enough room for them in his suite, they will need the one next to him. I will also need quarters for my honor guard of Marines.”

“Marines, up here! Certainly, they will be returning to the fleet.”

“If these do, they will be replaced by others. I am a Grand Duchess and serving member of the fleet. The honor of the Navy requires they see to my protection.”

Likely this was news to the Navy. It certainly was to the Marine captain observing this battle between royalty and those sworn to serve them, but he didn’t bat an eyelash and stood ready to obey the Grand Duchess’s slightest whim.

The majordomo locked eyes with Vicky. She locked hers right back.

For a long minute, they glared at each other.

He blinked first.

“I can give you the suite directly across the hall from yours for your Marines. It is empty anyway.”

Or only occupied by the Empress’s surveillance team.

“If you require more rooms for your security team, I can offer you ones across the hall.”

“I think that will be satisfactory,” Mr. Smith said.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I must be about vacating certain suites.”

“By all means,” Vicky said, trying to sound the soul of consideration.

“What did I just witness?” Doc Maggie asked.

“Palace politics at its most basic and cutthroat level, I suspect,” Vicky said.

“You know, I don’t need a suite,” the doc said. “I likely don’t even need to live in this pile of stones. I could take rooms in town. We passed a growing town just down the road.”

“Yes, and if the people I just rousted out end up there, that’s fine by me, but Doc Maggie, I need you close. I really do want to have you to talk to when this crazy circus spins me around so much I don’t know which end is up.”

The good doctor didn’t look all that convinced.

“Besides, who knows when you’ll have to staunch the bleeding from my shattered heart. You saw what happened today.” That appeal did seem to assuage the doctor, if only a bit. “And yes, I need you in the room next to me, not some stranger, or worse, some hostile agent of . . .” Vicky thought fast. Certainly these walls had ears. “. . . of someone who does not like me.”

That bit of honesty seemed to wash away the last scrap of resistance. The doctor grumbled. “I’ll stay close.”

“Don’t ignore that there are very likely people above and below us,” Mr. Smith observed.

“No doubt,” Vicky agreed.

But Doc Maggie wasn’t totally beaten to Vicky’s will. “If you say you need me here, Vicky, I will stay close. But I’m not going to sit around all day waiting for you to scrape a knee. Back in the day, I did my best to make time for you, but then you were an ignored girl struggling to become a woman, and I was a doctor here at the palace clinic.”

“And you can be again,” Vicky said. “Who knows, you might find out something I need while bandaging some scraped ego.”

Doc Maggie made a face. “You would think of that.”

“I must. Now, I need a bath. All of you, go settle in.” And thus Vicky sent her allies to the four winds, or at least down the hall. “Kat, I believe it is your turn to help me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the assassin purred.

CHAPTER 18

VICKY did not get her bath.

Admiral Waller came in as the others filed out of Vicky’s suite.

“Would you care for a walk in the gardens?” he asked. “It is a lovely day.”

Which was a lie. Low, gray clouds had moved in, threatening rain at any moment.

When admirals asked, lieutenants went. Even Grand Duchess lieutenants.

Of course, where Vicky went, a security detail followed. Kat ended up on escort rather than bath detail. The chief handled sensors since the lieutenant was better empowered to handle overbearing servants. The captain, who had been with her since the Stalker, detailed two Marines under a sergeant to provide firepower should it be needed. Mr. Smith added himself and seemed satisfied with only six people riding shotgun on the Grand Duchess and the admiral.

The admiral led Vicky down a wide staircase that wound through four floors until it opened on a lovely paved stone esplanade. A good 150 meters out was a line of trees that opened for a stone arch. The admiral pointed Vicky in that direction.

“How did the battle actually go?” he asked her, as they crossed the open space and disappeared into the trees.

Vicky took that to mean that he’d heard her media report and didn’t believe a word of it. She chose honesty . . . as much as a Peterwald ever could.

“Admiral Krätz and BatRon 12 fought like lions,” she said, “against impossible odds.”

“Like lions, huh?” the admiral said, looking askance at her. “You may remember that a number of letters came back with the transports as the rest of the fleet sailed into battle.”

Vicky found herself caught in a trap, but not at all sure of what, where, or how. She chose to advance with a question.

“Kris Longknife let anyone who wanted off the warships go with the transports. Were some of the ‘volunteers’ not quite as enthusiastic as they made themselves out to be?”

“Some were more honest about their pending fate. I have read the letter Admiral Krätz wrote to his wife.”

Vicky nodded. “Then you know that he deeply feared what we had discovered.”

“I think ‘terrified’ is a better word.”

“Yet, he was leading the battle line as the alien ships came through the jump.”

“One can be terrified and still do one’s duty,” the admiral muttered, then shook himself. “I don’t know how I myself would have handled it. Are these creatures really as hateful as they appear to be?”

Vicky had no problem giving that an honest answer. “Sir, I don’t know any better than you do. They won’t talk to us. All they do is shoot. Either they kill us, or we kill them. What does that make them?”

The admiral shook his head. “To think, those Abdicator crazies on Xanadu may be right. There are aliens who just want to boil our eyeballs in our own blood. I thought it was insane when they said it. It still seems insane.”

“Insane or not, that’s what is out there, and it’s not going to stay way over on the other side of the galaxy. Once those aliens take that planet, assuming they haven’t already, they’re going to know that it couldn’t have built the ships that blew their mother ship to bits, and they’re going to come hunting for where we did come from.”

“I noticed you didn’t say that to the Emperor,” the admiral said, arching an eyebrow.

“I noticed you didn’t say it to my father, either. Want to flip to see who does?”

The admiral scratched gently at his neck. “You might survive saying it to him. I know I wouldn’t.”

As they talked, they wound their way through the hedges and bushes of the garden. Occasionally, a junior officer, Navy or Marine, would come in view only to nod and turn away. Apparently there was a drill for this thing. It might be new for Vicky, but it wasn’t for the admiral.

That made her feel better.

They came to a shallow depression with a stone bench beside a small fishpond. Surrounded by trees, it was well shielded from the palace.

“The wind through the trees makes it hard for any listening devices on high ground to hear anything we say,” the admiral said.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course not. You say even Kris Longknife isn’t always a step ahead of the tech we’re up against. What I do know is that we’ve tested our best listening equipment on the roof of the palace pointed at this site, and it can’t make out but one in six or eight words. Even if they can make out one in four, we’re still pretty good. Would you care for a seat?”

Vicky started to step forward, but Mr. Smith, almost forgotten in his silence, was a jump ahead of her and snaked out a hand for Vicky’s arm.

“Chief, if you will, please check out this peaceful dale?”

“Yes, sir,” the chief said as he stepped forward, black box at the ready.

He took three steps and started backing up.

“There’s a bomb there somewhere. In the pool, under the bench. I don’t know where, but it’s there.”

“Do you come here often?” Mr. Smith asked with a sardonic raised eyebrow.

The admiral made a face. “Apparently too often. Do you intend to disarm the bomb?”

“Not on your life,” Mr. Smith said, spreading his arms and forcing them to back away from the place. “Is there a palace bomb squad we can call on without causing a scene?”

“No,” the admiral snapped. “And are you sure it is a bomb? Because if there isn’t one, I’ll pay a high price for being the little boy who calls wolf. ‘How could I possibly think that anyone would place a bomb in the palace of the beloved Emperor?’ and all that.”

Mr. Smith turned to the chief as he backpedaled toward where they were backpedaling more.

“Sir, there is a bomb there. My sensors smell it. There is a detonator ticking, my sensors hear it. Could it all be a false alarm, intended to spoof me? That is always a possibility, but my wife would never speak to me again if I started rummaging around down there and was blown into little tiny bits.”

“I will make the call.” After a moment’s pause, the admiral continued. “Hello, Commissioner Martin, I have a problem that I think falls in your department. There appears to be a bomb by the koi-fish pool in the Hidden Gardens. Yes, I said a bomb. No, I am not looking at it. One of my chiefs has sensors, and he says it is there, so I have backed well away from the fishpond. No, I don’t usually take a walk in the gardens with a bomb sensor, but I do have the Grand Duchess on my elbow, and it seemed like a good idea after that ‘accident’ this morning. No, I’m not saying it wasn’t an accident . . .”

Further debate was interrupted by an explosion. Vicky hit the deck as a chunk of the stone bench flew by.

The admiral was also on the deck beside her, but he was also still on the phone. “Sorry, Martin, it seems we no longer have a bomb in the garden. Yes, that loud noise was a bomb’s going off. Why, thank you, Commissioner, we will wait for you and your bomb squad.”

The admiral was helped to his feet by a Marine. Mr. Smith kept a foot on Vicky’s back. “Stay down, girl. The chief couldn’t tell if the bomb was in the pond or under the stone bench. We know what happened to the bomb under the bench. Let’s wait to see if there’s one sleeping among the fishes.”

“But the bomb’s already exploded,” Vicky said, blowing grass out of her mouth.

“A bomb has exploded. If I had the contract on this one, I’d have a second bomb for the first responders and my overly optimistic target who got up too soon.”

“Who is this man, and where did you find him?”

“I’m Smith, sir, Mr. Smith,” Mr. Smith said, offering a hand to the admiral.

“He was on the Wasp, trying to keep Kris Longknife alive, and, coincidently keeping me alive at least once as a by-product. When Kris was whisked off the boat for points unknown, he became unemployed and offered to work for me, for a slightly outrageous fee. I took him up on the offer and have been quite satisfied several times.”

“Can you trust him?” the admiral said, frowning like the Lord God Jehovah himself at the mercenary.

“As long as her checks don’t bounce,” he said, ignoring the clear disapproval aimed his way. “Which reminds me, I believe I am about due for my first payday?”

“I think you’ve earned it. Let me check what my Imperial bank balance is,” Vicky said with her face in the dirt.

Footsteps heralded the arrival of palace guards. They milled around uncertainly for a while before someone in a bomb suit arrived and, padding and all, approached the site of the recent loud noise. He fumbled around in the dirt, then in the water for a while.

With a lot of indrawn breaths and the shuffle of feet suddenly seeking greater distance, the bomb-disposal expert produced from the water an object that did not look at all like a fish.

Another padded volunteer wheeled a canister forward, and the bomb disappeared into its open top.

Only after the entire affair had been wheeled away did Mr. Smith allow Vicky to stand up.

And only then did Commissioner Martin make an appearance. He joined them just in time to watch the bomb-disposal team and their gear vanish around a corner of the garden headed away from the palace.

“Thank you so much for alerting my people to that hazard,” he said. “No doubt it is some building material that wandered from its proper place.”

“No doubt,” Admiral Waller said, looking like he’d just bit into something sour.

“Doubtlessly,” Vicky agreed aloud, but added “in a pig’s eye” under her breath. Admiral Krätz would have said it aloud under a similar circumstance.

With a happy-conspirator smile, Commissioner Martin returned to the palace.

“What was that all about?” Mr. Smith asked after the commissioner was gone.

“We had to get our stories straight,” the admiral said through tight lips. “Far be it for anyone to say or even think that anything could be wrong with our perfect Greenfeld. Thus, he told me what he intended to report and I, being a reasonable person, of course agreed with him.”

“Gee, and that’s the second time I haven’t almost been killed today,” Vicky said. “Seems like I hardly need Mr. Smith.”

“Well, if you wish, I’ll be going then,” Mr. Smith said, but with Vicky’s hand on his elbow he did not get far.

“Is it always like this?” Vicky asked the admiral.

“It is sad but true. Happy talk is the only talk permitted. Why do you think I had this place arranged so I and my staff could have some straight talk in at least one place around the palace?”

“Can’t you sweep for bugs?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Are you willing to bet your life that our equipment has spotted all their equipment?” was the admiral’s quick answer.

Vicky looked around at the broken greenery. Several beautiful azalea bushes were in great need of pruning, or more likely, replacement. “You need a new place to meet.”

“Walk with me,” the admiral said curtly.

Vicky let him lead her through the garden walks. A Navy commander now led them by a good twenty paces . . . with the chief and his black box at his elbow. Mr. Smith, Kat, and the three Marines trailed them at a similar distance.

“I am fully up to speed concerning your earlier discussion,” the admiral said. “Our mutual associates agree that breathing is good and that you should continue to take deep breaths. After what we just observed, it’s clear that will not be a simple task.”

The admiral paused to scowl at their surroundings. “I take this as a personal challenge. And I do not lose gracefully.”

“I prefer not to lose at all,” Vicky said, since her failure to continue breathing would be a personal tragedy of life-changing proportions.

“The Navy has been required to establish itself at the palace. We have a duty officer, a situation room, and a communications center, among other things. They have been set up over time and are scattered most inefficiently throughout that warren of a place. I have been trying to move them all into a central location. I think the rooms just below and above your suites would be perfect, don’t you?”

“And while a lieutenant is far junior to an admiral,” Vicky said with a grin, “in palace politics, I expect that a Grand Duchess can swing a lot more weight than a Navy officer. At least, I intend to come out swinging.”

“Good. We will also need room for a decent-sized Marine detachment. I’ll want to rotate platoons through the palace. It’s a poisonous place. I wouldn’t want to keep any young trooper subject to it for too long.”

“Any chance you could rotate out a young lieutenant?” Vicky asked, trying to sound hopeful.

“You were born to the place, remember?”

“Only too well.”

Behind them, there was a bit of a row. A lieutenant of the palace guard had belatedly shown up with six black-and-reds. He seemed to want to put Vicky under either house arrest or a tighter security perimeter. Either one of which would make continuing this conversation impossible.

Mr. Smith’s persuasion was apparently being lost on the lieutenant’s stubbornness.

Vicky raised her voice. “We are quite satisfied with our present protection. Where were you when we might have needed you? Now, away with you, or we will raise the subject of your coming late to our need before our father, the Emperor.”

The lieutenant paled at the threat . . . and went away.

“They will be back, likely with a colonel,” the admiral said, and went on with haste. “Those baubles you acquired on Savannah, we’ve been looking into them. Very fascinating. Especially the add-ons that your Mr. Smith made. Very convoluted, but very interesting.” Here the admiral paused to signal the said Mr. Smith to join them.

He quickly did and the admiral brought him into the convoluted conversation. “Did you sew those add-ons to the baubles, or did you buy them?”

“I paid a pretty penny for them,” the mercenary said, catching on quickly to the strange drift their talk was taking. “Though I learned how to display them to their best effect, the actual lace is far beyond my knitting ability.”

“We thought so. We have some of our best working to re-create that fascinating pattern. We found a few stitches that appear to have been dropped and one that, if you pulled hard enough, will make it all unravel.”

Mr. Smith raised an eyebrow. “Those I bought it from said it was an old family secret design. I guess they weren’t kidding when they said I could never do it myself.”

“I still have a version of the bauble,” Vicky said, resting a hand on her chest where her computer hung.

“When you can, we will have to arrange for you to have one of our seamstresses alter it for you,” the admiral said with more than a hint of a scowl directed over his shoulder at the palace.

“I doubt our mutual friends had anything to do with this,” Mr. Smith said quickly. “I bought my copy long ago and from a faraway little cottage source.”

Vicky made a face at him as she shook her head slowly. If her stepmother had connections all the way to Savannah, she likely had her fingers in a whole lot of shady pies. Who’s to say she didn’t know more about Mr. Smith’s source for computer software than he did?

“I look forward to meeting with your seamstress,” Vicky said. “And I think Mr. Smith should have an appointment, too.”

“Are you sure?” the spy said.

“Do you trust your seamstresses, Admiral?” Vicky asked, sure of the answer.

“You saw the facilities we offer our best workers,” he said. “There are Sailors who will never be Navy, but after a tour, they are very glad to join us in our other establishments and many of them work out quite well in a place that offers them steady work, a nice, safe place to live, and a chance to bring up a family without worrying what might happen next.” The admiral finished with a raised eyebrow.

Vicky eyed Mr. Smith. He’d been with her on Bayern and seen what she saw of the Navy colony. Maybe all of it wasn’t as idyllic and peaceful as what they’d seen, but it sure beat anything that she’d seen lately in the rest of the Empire.

“We will both be available to meet with your seamstress as soon as possible,” Vicky finally said.

Unsaid was “if we’re going to trust the Navy with our lives, we can’t hold back.”

Mr. Smith nodded acceptance of her will.

In a short walk, they left the trees behind and returned to the esplanade. “Computer, contact the majordomo.”

“Ma’am, he is not on net.”

“He isn’t on net?” Vicky squeaked.

“Quite a few of the Imperial ‘servants’ fancy themselves too important to be at the beck and call of just anyone,” the admiral said. “I don’t know, maybe the Emperor has his own way to get ahold of them, but so far, I don’t.”

“How do you find them, then?” Vicky asked.

“I have an aide-de-camp,” the admiral said, with a hint of a smile. “A certain Marine captain got into a bit of a dustup on Palau. He has this rather spectacular scar down the side of his face,” the admiral said, cutting a finger sharply down his right cheek. “Story is that he machine-gunned fifty farmers in retaliation.”

“Did he?” Vicky asked.

“That is the story. Who knows what the truth is. However, the story around the palace is that he did and that gives him a most fearsome reputation with the pantaloons running around this place. When I send him to get something done, people hop.”

“Then, please, sir, have your cutthroat pirate deliver the majordomo to my suite as soon as it may be practical . . . for you. Not him.”

“It will be done, Your Grace,” the admiral said, and not suppressing a grin, began to talk into his own commlink. “I believe I interrupted your bath when I arrived. I would suggest that you delay your bath until the majordomo arrives. I assure you, it will not be an inconvenient delay.”

CHAPTER 19

CAPTAIN Morgan—even the name hinted of buckets of blood and flaming rum—did, in fact, present the majordomo within fifteen minutes of Vicky’s getting back to her quarters.

It may have helped that he had four burly Marines to help the servant along.

No doubt if she did this too often, the self-important fellow might take to having his own palace guards to protect him. But that fun would have to be left for another day.

“What do you want?” he demanded when Captain Morgan brought him front and center to Vicky.

Vicky was examining her dress options for dinner tonight and was not happy to start with. She turned to him and silently raised an eyebrow at what he’d skipped.

Faced with the obvious option of being held there until hell froze over, and not looking like the type to miss a meal, he bowed to her, and said, “What service may I perform for Your Grace?”

“Better,” Vicky said. “No doubt you will do even better next time. I require the rooms on the floors below and above this floor.”

“Whatever for?” had way too much doubt in it that a young woman could make good use of that much space. This man clearly had a problem with the other half of the human race.

“We are a serving officer of the Greenfeld Navy. It has come to our attention that the Navy’s present facilities are scattered inefficiently throughout the palace. It is our desire to change that. We also do not want to have to wander throughout the palace as if we were on a treasure hunt whenever we need the service of our Navy. Are we clear on that?”

“Your Grace, yes, the Navy has been shoehorned in a bit here, a bit there, but have mercy on me! The needs of the palace are growing much faster than the palace is. I must have time. In six months, maybe we can arrange something.”

“By sunset tomorrow you will have arranged what we request and require. We will be discussing your achievement this evening over dinner with our father, His Imperial Majesty, no doubt.”

For a moment, the subservient mask of the majordomo was almost overcome by a wave of rage, but, good servant that he was, he held his visage under control.

“Your wish is my command, Your Grace. It will be done.”

“Thank you,” Vicky said, gracious in victory. For the moment.

Still in his bow, the majordomo backed himself out of the room. Vicky found she kind of liked that.

Business done, she took a moment to examine Captain Morgan. The scar on his face was rather sexy. “Thank you for your services, good sir,” she said, bestowing a smile on him.

“Anytime, Your Grace. Admiral Waller tells me I’m to work as much for you as for him in the future.”

“Very good,” Vicky said, wondering just what kind of work she could put him to. There was the bath that she needed, and the captain looked eminently capable at washing her back . . . and other things.

But she remembered Admiral Krätz’s opinion of slutty women. It might be a good idea to preserve her reputation at court. At least for a few days.

“Now, if you will allow me, I must prepare for tonight’s banquet.”

“Do you have an escort, Your Grace?” the captain asked.

Vicky had planned to go it alone. She’d learned to stand on her own two feet very well during her time with the fleet.

“Is an escort expected?”

“I know many young women who consider it a damn nuisance, but it does seem to be a requirement. One that is growing more required with each passing week.”

“I assume you have a sword handy somewhere here in the palace?”

“Always.”

“Then you may accompany me to the banquet tonight. Please find out when it is, by the way.”

“They always start at twenty hundred hours, Lieutenant, or eight o’clock, Your Grace,” he said with a dangerous smile.

“Decisions, decisions,” Vicky said, putting an indecisive finger to her lips. “From the looks of this wardrobe, I’ll have to be a Grand Duchess tonight.”

The captain glanced at the dresses hung up for her choice. All had full skirts with tight bodices. For a brief second, a frown escaped to his face. He covered it quickly, and said, “When in Rome, they say,” as he turned for the door.

Clearly, the palace and the Navy were on opposite courses concerning women’s fashions.

That was something Vicky would have to give much thought to.

She adjourned to the bath, which, to Kat’s sorrow, was done quickly and purely for cleansing purposes.

With one towel wrapped around her hair and another around her body, Vicky returned to her dressing room to ponder what to wear tonight.

Most of her uniforms, including her formal dress, had been turned to atoms along with all the good people of the Fury. On the Stalker, she had succeeded in expanding her collection of whites and khakis, but there had been no formal wear for a woman officer.

Father, of course, had only sent her court attire, if “attire” was the right word for it.

“There is a problem, mademoiselle?” Kat asked, slipping into the French accent she was so good at. And sexy as well.

“These dresses are rather skimpy, don’t you think?”

“But, mademoiselle, I thought you would be glad to wear nothing but your birthday suit to dinner.”

“If I had the right man?” Vicky said.

“And the fine Capitaine?”

“Would be a fine escort for just such a dinner, but we are at court, my little flower, and we must do as they do.”

Kat swept a hand over all the dresses before Vicky. “Is this not what they wear at court?”

Vicky nodded. “But not in the Navy.”

“Ah, the lieutenant is not willing to play the doll of the courtesans.”

“That, I think, is the truth. A Grand Duchess does not have to be a slave to others, and I won’t be a slave to anyone.”

There was a knock at the door. Kit opened it to find half a dozen young women standing there. “We have been appointed the Grand Duchess’s ladies-in-waiting, and we have come to dress her,” the eldest one, who might be all of twenty, said.

Vicky looked at them, eyed the dresses, and decided it was likely to take six people to get her properly into one of them for dinner.

“Admit them,” she said, and to a wave of giggles, the six young women invaded the quiet of Vicky’s suite.

Each of the six had her own opinion of which dress Vicky should wear for the evening. None of them, of course, gave a thought to the missing Navy formal evening dress. Vicky resigned herself to a dress of gold and gossamer stuff that seemed, depending on the light, to be transparent.

“What underwear do I have?” Vicky asked.

“Underwear, Your Grace?” Several of the girls giggled, raising their skirts to show nothing beneath them.

“Underwear is for the working class. We in the palace live free,” the oldest of them assured Vicky.

What kind of place is Dad running?

Or is it Stepmom rather than Dad?

Vicky had been a bit wild before she got shipped off to the Navy. Well, a lot wild. But she’d been breaking the rules and enjoying the forbidden fruit.

It didn’t look like anything was forbidden just here and just now.

But is this freedom for women or something a whole lot uglier?

Vicky had bridled at the puritanism of the Navy. At least at first. Admiral Krätz was a single-minded prig as far as Ensign Peterwald had been concerned.

But that young ensign had never known what it felt like to finish a job well done. Nor to find that she could stand on her own two feet.

Vicky found herself coming to terms with just how different the young girl who was shipped off to the fleet was from the older, sadder woman who returned.

Kat brought her a pair of lacy underthings that would hardly meet fleet requirements but met Vicky’s quite well as she slipped into them.

When the senior lady-in-waiting started to object, Vicky quelled her with a look that was straight off Admiral Krätz’s face.

“Now, the dress,” Vicky said.

They lifted the golden web over her head, then settled the hoops around her and began tying her into the bodice. Vicky glanced down.

There was pink showing at each breast.

She pulled the top up. Or tried.

It wouldn’t come up.

“I’ve got a problem here,” she said, and the senior tire woman came around from pulling her string tight enough to take Vicky’s breath away.

“There is a problem?” didn’t seem to have recognition in it.

Then Vicky studied the young woman before her. Her bodice was tight and her breasts were lifted up and out just about as far as was womanly possible.

And a bit of pink areola peaked out from each nipple.

Vicky pointed at her own peeking pink. “I’m showing.”

“But of course. That is the style. You will see, your mother, the Empress, will be just as free as we are. As you are.”

So this was dearest Stepmommy’s doing.

Vicky examined what she’d learned in the last few moments the way she’d been taught to. A tactical problem.

One. Women were being turned into all-too-available whores.

Two. Stepmommy dearest was encouraging it.

That didn’t seem logical. Dad had always had a wandering eye. So Stepmom had caught it. How was she holding it? Especially if she was encouraging all this pulchritude to be on display.

Familiarity bred contempt?

Where sex was concerned? Vicky had her doubts.

Strong doubts.

Vicky hunted for the third important point she needed to connect.

COMPUTER, ARE ANY OF THE EMPRESS’S FAMILY THAT ARE INVOLVED IN BUSINESS WOMEN?

NO, MA’AM. ALL OF THE FAMILY WHO ARE ACTIVE IN ITS VARIOUS BUSINESSES ARE MEN.

THANK YOU, COMPUTER, Vicky thought.

She was being jerked around as the ladies-in-waiting tried to take up the last millimeter of slack in her bodice. “Leave me room to breathe,” Vicky said. “I need air to think.”

“Think? How funny of you,” the senior girl laughed. “What man wants to talk to a thinking woman? Or marry one?”

Someone had clearly done a lot of brainwashing. Assuming these girls had been allowed to keep enough brains to bear washing.

The admiral had said the palace was full of poison. Vicky was now developing her own opinion of just how bad it was.

“Enough. I say it’s tight enough. Kat, find me a scarf. Golden like the dress.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the assassin said, and went to obey.

“Whatever for?” the senior so-called lady said.

“I will show you,” Vicky said when Kat returned with one in only a moment.

Vicky rolled it up and tossed it around her neck. Then she tucked the two ends into the front of her bodice, converting the dress from totally obscene to merely eye-catching.

“You have ruined the effect,” half the ladies cried.

“I’ve given it its crowning glory,” Vicky snapped back. “And speaking of crowning glory, what about my hair?”

“We have several wigs,” the senior lady said through a bit of a pout.

“Wigs?” Vicky said.

“Wigs, of course,” the senior lady said.

“Kit, Kat, you’ve got thirty minutes to make my hair presentable. Ladies, thank you for your efforts, I believe we are done here. I suspect I will see you tomorrow.”

“But of course, Your Grace, you will want us to help you out of the dress tonight, unless you have a man whom you think will be taking care of you. And please, Your Grace, most men hardly know how to raise our skirts, much less undo a bodice. You will need us.”

“Kit and Kat will do quite fine tonight. Now, ladies, the door is that way. If you need help opening it, I’m sure my body servants can assist you.”

The look on both Kit’s and Kat’s faces was pure murder.

The ladies-in-waiting went off to wait somewhere else.

The door closed, Vicky turned to the assassins. “First thing you do is loosen up the laces on this damn contraption.” That took five minutes, but the two young women knew well what to do with Vicky’s hair, and they were ready a good five minutes before the good captain arrived.

CHAPTER 20

“YOUR dress looks . . . ah, expensive,” Captain Morgan said, as Vicky greeted him and offered her cheek to kiss.

“My father, the Emperor, picked it out.”

“Oh, well, no doubt you chose the scarf, and it looks very fetching.”

“For that, you get an ‘atta boy’ and may peck my cheek a second time, Captain.”

He gave her a delicious grin, and did before offering her an arm. “Well, shall we go? Once more, into the breach and all that.”

“Is an Imperial dinner that bad?” Vicky asked as the Marines formed up behind them as they turned down the hall.

“I’m told that dying of boredom is more painful than dying under an artillery barrage,” the Marine said.

“Not having any experience at dying, not for the lack of someone’s trying, I really don’t have an opinion. By the way, Captain, were you warned that serving as my social escort qualifies you for combat pay?”

Lieutenant Heinbock had moved well ahead of them, black box in open evidence.

“The admiral did mention something along those lines. Surely he jests.”

“Surely he does not. There have been two tries just today. Seven all told although one of them might have been aimed at Kris Longknife.”

“I understand she leads a charmed life.”

“I bought my charms from the same place she gets hers,” Vicky said.

“Certainly you are more charming than any Longknife whelp.”

“Oh, you say the nicest things,” Vicky said, and gave the young officer a peck on the cheek for his efforts.

“That will certainly inspire my poor battle-rattled brain to greater efforts.”

Vicky felt her smile evaporate on her face. “The intramural things we have going on here hardly qualify when you’ve seen the real thing,” she muttered.

“So it was bad, huh?”

“Battleships vanishing in the blink of an eye kind of bad,” Vicky said, then tried to chase her smile back onto her face. “But we don’t think of things like that on a night like this. Certainly not in the Imperial Palace, where it is officially proclaimed that it is irrelevant.”

“We wear the uniform, Your Grace. We know what’s real and what isn’t.”

Vicky forced her smile into line. “But tonight is tonight, and we are here, right?”

“Right, Your Grace.”

They arrived at the banquet hall with no casualties other than Vicky’s once turning her ankle in her high heels. “I’ve been wearing Navy footwear for a long time,” she said by way of explanation.

“That’s what my arm is here for.”

Vicky wasn’t sure what to expect at the banquet. She remembered her first time in the hall. There had been a receiving line. She was all of eight, everyone complimented her on how cute she looked in her new dress. Dad actually seemed to notice her that night. Brother stepped down hard on her foot, but she managed not to cry out. She did shed a few tears.

When Father asked why she cried, she knew better than to tell him the truth. “I bit my tongue,” she claimed.

“Be more careful, little girl,” Dad had said, before turning to talk to a woman in a stunning gown that was hardly there.

Yes. Vicky remembered this room all too well.

Tonight, there was no receiving line. Indeed, there seemed to be little order at all. She and Captain Morgan were met at the door by a captain of the Imperial Guard who led them to a table in one corner of the room. It slowly filled with minor functionaries and their wives or dates. The wives wore dresses with ruffles and bustles and high collars. The dates wore hoopskirts with bodices cut low or lower.

They all made chitchat about the weather and how the palace construction was going so quickly and the Empire desperately needed the added offices for the efficient rule of the realm.

Vicky was bored.

A fanfare brought everyone to their feet. To the new Imperial March blaring forth from trumpets, the Imperial couple processed in, Stepmom resplendent in gold and ermine on Father’s arm. They took their place at the head table as the last strains of the anthem came to an end.

And Vicky realized she was about as far from the high table as she could get and not be in the kitchen.

“One would almost think someone didn’t expect you to make it,” the captain whispered softly in Vicky’s ear.

“Poor coordination, no doubt,” Vicky said, and left it to the listener to determine whether she referred to coordination on the seating arrangement or between bomber and the Empress.

Canapés were served first. Vicky passed on them but the captain helped himself to one of each.

“Did you miss lunch?” Vicky asked.

“And breakfast. The admiral is a harsh taskmaster.”

“Thanks for the warning, as one JO to another.”

The Marine chuckled. “Grand Duchess, junior grade, huh?”

“Grand Duchess full on and get out of our way, always,” Vicky growled. “Now, the lieutenant is a bit more humble and mission oriented.”

“Good luck on that.”

“You’re not going to help me?”

The captain fingered the scar on his cheek. Whoever had been wielding the blade had come close to taking the eye out as well. “We all have our crosses to bear, as my grandmother would tell me.”

The soup arrived, a delicious seafood chowder in a clear base. Vicky let herself enjoy half of it before she continued her exploration of her dinner partner.

“So, tell me, is one of your little crosses to bear being surrounded by young women with no underwear?”

“So you found out about that, huh?”

“My ladies-in-waiting couldn’t wait to let me in on their new freedom. How does it work out in the garden on moonlit nights?”

“Very well, I am told.”

“Told?” Vicky said, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe you haven’t heard the admiral’s lecture about the dangers of being assigned to the palace. Not yet?”

Vicky shook her head.

“Well, we boys get a long lecture about not letting our little head run away with our big one. ‘Think up here,’” he said, waving a finger at his head, “‘not down there.’ One sure way to get a reassignment is to be found out in the gardens, flagrantly delectable with some hoopskirt.”

“Puritanical,” Vicky said.

“Practical,” the captain corrected. “It’s not the women getting their claws into us that the admiral fears, but those who are running the women like bait. Once you take the bait, you’re worthless to the Navy here.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Vicky said. “And no, the admiral hasn’t given me the lecture. You may tell him that you did pass the word along to me when you get a chance.”

The fish arrived, a baked salmon, and Vicky began to thank any heaven listening that she had the girls loosen her corset by two or three centimeters. She left most of the fish on the plate. Still, it was getting pretty stuffed in there, and the dinner didn’t look even close to over.

She got the captain talking about his tour on Palau, avoiding the scar issue, and he got her talking about how she’d helped take down Port Royal. “Though Kris Longknife had all the real fun.”

“The hog.”

“Did you see the video of her panic party?”

“Hasn’t everyone?” the captain laughed. “At least anyone who cares about those types of things. Imagine, taking on a man with a knife with nothing at hand but a mop. That girl has balls.”

The last had grown loud and drew looks from the others at the table.

The captain covered his mouth with his napkin. “Sometimes I miss talking to real people who understand the real things of life,” he whispered to Vicky.

“I know very much what you mean,” she whispered back.

The rest at the table turned back to their own conversations, leaving Vicky and her Marine to themselves through the next two courses. Vicky noticed that even the captain was slowing up on the chicken and the roast leg of lamb with mint sauce.

The Roman punch was served in small glasses, and one taste told Vicky why. She was tempted to down it in one gulp and wave for more, but her stepmom was casting the occasional glance her way, and Vicky decided against leaving herself open for any new attacks tonight.

Twice in one day was quite enough.

She passed entirely on the beans in a cold sauce, pâté de foie gras, and peaches in some sort of brandy sauce.

It was just as well. Once dinner was finished, a string band struck up a jaunty waltz, and the Emperor and his Empress took to the dance floor.

No one had made to join them by the time the song was about a quarter done. Vicky nudged her captain, and whispered, “Once more, into the breach.”

He grinned, stood up, and began to lead her to the floor.

“No.” “You can’t!” and “It just isn’t done,” along with other whispered admonishments trailed behind them as they made their way through the tables to the floor and joined the other couple.

CHAPTER 21

VICKY drew a smile from her father the first time the dance brought him in view.

The daggers from her stepmother’s eyes might have left her bleeding out on the dance floor if the captain hadn’t swirled himself into the line of fire.

A few at a time, other couples began to join them on the floor. One was the admiral. Resplendent in white dinner jacket and blue trousers himself, his partner wore a lovely blue silk gown of a classic cut.

And his partner was his wife, as he was quick to point out when the dance swept them close. “Mrs. Waller, the only one,” he said.

“Of course I am,” she said. “How could an old hag like myself get such a dashing man on the dance floor with me if I hadn’t caught him years ago?”

“You are still lovely,” the admiral said, clearly no less in love than he had been when he was “caught” years ago.

The music swirled them away. When the music ended, the admiral changed places with the Marine captain, and Vicky shared a waltz with him.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I had a visit from the steward of the palace this afternoon. I am told that my facilities will be adjusted first thing tomorrow.”

“The lieutenant had nothing to do with it, sir. It was all the Grand Duchess’s doing.”

“The Grand Duchess knows how to throw her weight around, does she?”

“Apparently she is a superb thrower of weights,” Vicky admitted. “Hopefully, she will figure out how to play the Grand Duchess’s cards without becoming an insubordinate lieutenant. I am only too aware that human space can only bear one Kris Longknife. Still, I hope you will permit the lieutenant a few freebie screwups in the next week or so as I figure out how to coordinate my different roles.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. I will endeavor to not take the lieutenant’s head off when she fails to fulfill the proper role of a junior officer. By the way, aren’t you about due for lieutenant commander?”

“In four or five years, sir.”

“Some years are fuller than others and count for more. We really should have fleeted you up before we sent a mere lieutenant to stand toe-to-toe with Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife.”

“No one stands toe-to-toe with that woman, sir.”

“But we must all do what we are called to do, and any woman who can get the palace factotums and dogsbodies moving with the speed you have has fine qualities and should be allowed to exercise them and grow.”

The dance ended, and someone whom Vicky didn’t recognize but who assured her that he knew her well in her youth cut in. He even hinted that they had been lovers.

That ended when the loyal Marine captain cut in. There might have been a debate over that, but Captain Morgan had his hand resting purposefully on his sword hilt.

The interloper’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth grew shut.

Vicky and Captain Morgan danced away, leaving him stranded in the middle of the other dancers.

Vicky thought she heard a low titter, but she left that behind her. She hadn’t come to the palace to provide low humor to girls of questionable values.

For the next hour, the Emperor and Empress danced every dance, so Vicky and her captain did the same. The orchestra began to mix up the dances, passing from classic waltz to quick steps and even a few sambas, cha-chas, and jive.

Vicky found she’d gotten a workout, and was also working up a sweat. She surrendered the floor to her elders and asked Captain Morgan to lead her outside.

“It is getting rather hot in here.”

“In several ways,” the captain agreed.

Outside, Vicky glanced around. The patio was softly lit, but the formal Italian gardens below were in shadows. There were several chairs and a couple of stone benches. “How does a girl sit in this contraption?”

“I am told that originally, they had stools available, so a young woman could sit demurely while the hoopskirts covered both limbs and stool,” he said as he led Vicky to a stone bench.

“Limbs?” she said, carefully lifting her skirts up so that she could sit down without showing too much.

“Yes. Way back in the day, a proper young lady or her matronly mother would never say ‘legs.’ That might imply an animal body. The word was ‘limbs.’”

“And did the boys have axes to trim those limbs?” Vicky said, patting the bench beside her and offering a seat to the Marine.

“That was not covered in the social histories I stumbled across,” the captain said, taking the offered seat. “This Imperial decision to resurrect old Imperial times on Earth has a lot of people reading up on their history. Some of us actually read histories. Others seem to be satisfied with creative works of fiction rather than the hard stuff.”

“And you, being a Marine and a scholar, do the hard stuff.”

“Shush. Calling a Marine a scholar is worse than calling him a jarhead, you squid.”

“Squid! Now that’s a word that has come a long way. You Marines and your buzz cuts, I can see the jarhead reference. What’s a squid?”

“A fish, ranging from tiny to huge, with eight legs and other bad habits.”

“Kind of like an Iteeche, huh?”

“I think they were referred to as such.”

“And you say you’re not a scholar.”

“Certified,” he said, waving at the scar on his face. “I was dumb enough to let someone get this close to me with sharp steel. Proof I can’t be a man of any smarts.”

“You may fool some people, Captain, but you’re not fooling me.”

From the garden below came a giggle, and other sounds of pleasant company. Vicky found herself counting the days since she’d had some pleasant company and decided it had been too long.

“We should be going back in,” the captain said. “No doubt the admiral or his senior staff will have started a stopwatch when we left.”

“Is it that bad?” Vicky said, not making any effort to get to her feet. Her rump had just gotten the stone seat warm.

“I don’t mind the admiral’s keeping count. It’s the other side’s counting the seconds and drawing the evil conclusions they are wont to do that bothers me. You don’t have to sin to be blackmailed around the palace. Just the appearance can lead to a quiet talk in a corner. If you’re smart, you report the talk and take your reassignment. If you’re dumb, you don’t, and the admiral finds out anyway.”

Vicky rose, again careful to keep her hoops about her. If the captain was right, she was likely being filmed from the roof of the palace.

“Then let us give no one fodder for scandal, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s.”

“Tell me, Captain Morgan, how long have you survived in this den of iniquity?”

“Six months. I think I hold some sort of record for a man of my age.”

“You aren’t by any chance gay, are you?”

“Regretfully, I am only too subject to the allure of all the soft female flesh laid out before me,” he said with a sigh of proper Irish proportion.

“You’re not blind.”

“Self-control, Your Grace. Self-control and long, cold showers.”

“I like long hot showers, myself.”

“I must ask the admiral tomorrow if you are as off-limits as the rest of the ladies of the court,” the Marine said with an imp’s grin.

“Yes, you must. And let me know his answer. I have a very large bed if he’s a mind to let you share it.”

“You are horrible,” the captain said in a strangled voice.

“I’ve been told that many times.”

They danced for the next hour under the watchful gaze of the court.

CHAPTER 22

AS soon as the Emperor and his pregnant bride took their leave, Vicky did the same, after first paying her respects to the admiral and his wife again.

“I love your dress,” Vicky told the admiral’s wife. “Could you have your modiste come by my rooms tomorrow? I appreciate the dress my father gave me, but I’d like to make some dresses to my own likes. A gal has a right to make her own fashion statement, doesn’t she?”

“Certainly. I will call her as soon as I get home,” Mrs. Waller said.

“Good, and Admiral, would you mind it very much if I had her help me draft some formal dinner wear for a woman Navy officer? I notice that you have no women here in other than sideboy fashion.”

“No. We try to protect our young women Sailors.”

“Well, I wish to come to dinner in uniform, but I refuse to subject myself to showing up in the dumpy affair that is official policy.”

“I’m glad someone is finally telling this old boy what he needs to hear,” the admiral’s lady said, giving the admiral a not totally gentle nudge in the ribs.

“Provide me with a sketch of what you have in mind, Your Grace,” also had a strangled sound to it. Apparently, Vicky was strangling quite a few males tonight.

“I’ll see that your wife gets a copy of the sketch too, sir.”

“You do that,” came from tight lips.

Vicky figured she’d risked about all the Navy ire she dared for one night and, using the arm she was leaning on to steer her captain, she headed for the door.

There, she picked up her usual escort. The lieutenant led off with sensors, and the Marines trailed closely behind her and the captain, apparently under the impression that any small talk that they did not need to be included in had been passed on the dance floor.

“Are most dinners that energetic?” she asked her captain.

“Do you mean, do I usually end up dancing every dance?”

“Something like that.”

“Rarely. Most of the time us Marines are just ornaments. Occasionally, I get to escort one of the senior officers’ wives when the Empress requires them to be at the banquet and the officer is ‘indisposed.’”

“The Empress requires wives to come?”

“It’s something about the pecking order, I’m told. Since she can require the Navy to dance honors on her, she does. If the officer is away on business, the wife still needs an escort. I don’t know, maybe the Empress is waiting for some wife to screw up. You tell me the games being played here. They sure don’t match any of those I learned in school.”

“Believe me, the game’s been changed since I was here last, and even then, I didn’t really understand it.”

Their path turned down a long corridor. The hairs on the back of Vicky’s neck began to stand up and pay attention.

“Are the halls usually this dark around the palace? Is my old man trying to save money?”

The captain looked around warily. “It wasn’t this dark earlier in the week.”

They came to a cross hallway. It was a black void in both directions.

Vicky craned her head, trying to look in both directions at the same time . . . and felt something go by her neck and plink into the wood paneling beside her.

“Down,” the captain ordered, an automatic suddenly in hand.

Vicky collapsed her hoops as her knees folded most ladylike . . . and her own automatic came out.

There were sounds of soft, hurried footsteps in the dark from which that something had come.

“Sergeant, send a Marine down that corridor.”

A private took off running.

“Sand Trap,” Captain Morgan whispered into his commlink, “foursome. Sand Trap, I need a foursome here now.”

“You have no reception, sir,” Vicky’s computer reported.

“Damn granite and marble,” the captain said. “It makes a mess of comm signals.”

“Likely not a bug, but a feature in this place,” Vicky said. “Let’s move.”

With one Marine now walking backward, covering their rear, and the lieutenant in close with his black box, they made it to the next crossing, which was as dark as the last.

The lieutenant peered around the corner. “I can’t see a thing.”

“Sergeant, private, cover one side each.”

The Marines rolled out onto the floor, their weapons covering the blackness in both directions. “Now,” the captain said, but held Vicky’s arm. The lieutenant stepped out on the order.

And grabbed for his neck as he toppled.

Now the captain urged Vicky forward. The sergeant’s automatic barked as she raced for the safety of the other side.

If she did feel something fly by her, it missed.

“We have reception,” her computer announced.

“Sand Trap, foursome. Now. Home on me.”

“We’re running,” came in quick reply.

Captain Morgan held Vicky tight and close to the wall. “Where’d you get a weapon?” he demanded.

“This squid knows what direction to point one of these damn things,” Vicky snapped.

“You cover down this hall. I’ll cover behind us. Please don’t shoot one of the good guys.”

“I’ll try not to, but remember, this is my third time through this drill today, and it’s getting downright repetitive.”

A shadow moved. Vicky put a round in it, and the shadow suddenly screamed in pain.

She put three fast shots in it and it quickly became a heap on the floor.

“I got one,” she said.

“You got lucky,” the captain answered.

“You’re welcome to all of my luck.”

Flashlights appeared in the distance. “Do the good guys use lights?” Vicky asked.

“Likely. Sand Trap, that you?”

“Maybe. Show us a light.”

“I don’t have one,” the captain reported.

Vicky fired a round into the ceiling.

“We see you,” came on net.

“Quick thinking,” Captain Morgan said, respect in his voice.

“Hey, I had an excuse to shoot up this place. I took it.”

“And I thought there was no place like home,” the captain said, standing up and offering Vicky a hand.

“Your home must be better than my home,” Vicky said as she stood and spread her hoopskirt most ladylike, then realized she needed to adjust her scarf.

The captain was modestly looking the other way as Kit and Kat arrived right behind a half dozen Marines. Mr. Smith and Doc Maggie pulled up the rear.

“Are you all right?” Maggie asked.

“Only my good humor damaged. The lieutenant took a hit of some sort.”

“Likely a poisoned dart,” the captain said.

Maggie went to the down officer and soon was pulling stuff from her black bag.

“Get me a fast-reaction team from the clinic, stat,” she ordered.

“Computer,” Vicky said.

“I put in a call for medical assistance as soon as we got reception back. A team is already on its way.”

“Very good, Computer,” Vicky said, and winked at Mr. Smith. “Good service.”

“Who got the one lying up the hallway?” Mr. Smith asked, heading back toward the one Vicky had shot.

“I got that one,” Vicky said. “I’m sick and tired of being shot at. Nice to get to shoot something myself.”

The mercenary rolled the black-clad body over, then removed the hood that covered everything but the eyes. The face revealed was that of a lovely woman.

She was also very dead.

“A hit in the knee, and two to the body,” Mr. Smith observed professionally. “How many did you fire?”

“One. And then three,” Vicky said.

“Three hits out of four. Not bad. We must spend some time on the pistol range. A bit of training and you can make it four out of four.”

“You’re on,” Vicky growled.

“Can I get in on this shooting practice?” Captain Morgan asked.

“Ladies’ choice,” Mr. Smith said.

“Most definitely,” Vicky answered with more than a hint of enthusiasm.

About that time, things got crowded. More Marines arrived, as did the stat cart from the clinic. A pair of the Marines looked like a forensics team, and Captain Morgan sent them to retrieve both the dart Doc Morgan had pulled out of the lieutenant and the one stuck in the woodwork farther back.

“Be careful with those,” Doc Maggie said between medical language. “I think they’re poisoned.”

“No doubt in my mind,” Mr. Smith agreed.

“Shall we get their target out of here?” Captain Morgan suggested.

“Yes, let’s,” Vicky said.

A phalanx of Marines provided close cover as they trotted the last couple of hundred meters to Vicky’s rooms.

“You notice what was missing?” Mr. Smith asked.

“No palace guards,” Vicky shot back.

“Strange that. Shots fired in the palace, but no black-and-reds came running. Very strange that.”

“Yes,” Vicky agreed. “Captain, did you recognize the woman back there?”

“Strange as it may seem to you, I don’t know all the pretty girls in this place. Probably not more than half of them.”

“I’m disappointed,” Vicky said.

“I will attempt to let my eyes wander more in the future,” he said.

“I would hope to hold them more to myself in the future,” Vicky said.

“Promise?” he asked.

“One could hope so.”

“Let’s get you out of that dress,” Kat said, and the two women ushered Vicky back into her apartment.

“When did you last check for bombs or bugs?” Vicky asked.

“I just finished my final check for the night,” the chief said, coming out from Vicky’s bedroom. “How is the lieutenant, Your Grace?”

“In Doc Maggie’s capable hands,” Vicky said. “If you stay on net, I’ll pass along to you whatever I hear.”

“I’ll be right outside your door, Your Grace,” the chief said. “The Marines have doubled your guard and asked me to support them tonight. They also promised to increase our sensor team tomorrow. I don’t need to sleep until then. What does that make for one day, ma’am? Three assassination attempts?”

“More than likely.” Vicky sighed. “The palace is nowhere near as much fun as I remembered.”

The chief left, and the assassins began to disrobe Vicky. Done, Kat offered to sleep in front of the suite’s door. Kit would sleep in front of the bedroom door.

Vicky found herself shivering. “Come, share my bed tonight.”

And the three of them did.

CHAPTER 23

THE modiste arrived before breakfast with a portfolio of sketches. “I left the more common palace styles and brought ones the officers’ ladies lean toward.”

“A wise choice,” Vicky said.

Breakfast did arrive about that time, and Vicky invited the young woman to join them. She declined. “I have already eaten, and it is not often wise for strangers to join in the food at the palace. They say it is too rich for common tastes.”

“No, just likely poisoned,” Vicky said.

A changing of the guard outside Vicky’s door produced a Marine sergeant with a basket of rolls and other delightful confections prepared by his wife. The modiste was only too happy to sample one of them.

The sketches offered Vicky showed several ball gowns that fit more into the classic style that never really went out of fashion. She selected several, then presented the woman with her major challenge.

“Here is what the male officers look like for formal dinner dress,” Vicky said, having her computer project a picture of Captain Morgan from last night.

“Aren’t they lovely,” the artist agreed.

“And this is what a woman officer is expected to wear.”

Her computer projected a picture straight from the regulations. The skirt was frumpy, the dinner jacket lumpy, the tiara looked more like a chopped-off half of a beret.

“Do they actually make women wear such things?” the modiste said, not even trying to hide her disgust.

“Sadly, yes,” Vicky said. “I wish to present myself as a Navy officer, but I will not let the court scorn me for such a fashion blunder.”

“Yes, we can do better than that. Much better.”

Quickly, the modiste sketched a simple white gown, strapless; it bared the shoulders but was modest in a demure way before falling full length to the floor. “We can raise the neckline, add short sleeves. Even a collar if you want.”

“Let’s see where you are going, first,” Vicky said, not at all unhappy with the results.

Quickly, the designer added a long-sleeved demijacket. “No tails, unless you want them.”

“Tails would make it look too boyish,” Vicky said softly.

“The necessary gold buttons and braid would fill it out.”

Vicky eyed it for a long moment. She tried to see it with Admiral Waller’s eyes. It was military but also quite feminine. But Vicky had seen a lot of women wearing military-like dresses. Was this seriously enough Navy?

“Computer, take a photo of this sketch and send it to both Admiral Waller and his wife. We shall see what they have to say about it.”

The conversation diverged into what types of cloth would become the dress. In the middle of a discussion of the various advantages of silk, taffeta, and synthetics, they were interrupted by the sound of a distant explosion.

“Computer, what was that?”

“There is nothing on the net about it, Your Grace.”

“Keep listening, and see if you can get on to any other nets.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They returned to the topic of cloth, but neither one seemed to have her heart in it, not even the modiste. About ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

Kat admitted Captain Morgan. He’d quickly dressed, as evidenced by his field scarf, which was a bit askew.

He bowed from the waist. “Sorry to bother you, Your Grace, but the admiral thought you might want to know the source of that loud bang a bit ago.”

“We did notice it.”

“It seems that someone slipped a small bomb into our communication gear as we were transferring it from where it was to the room directly beneath you. Your Chief Materhand’s gear spotted it. It appears to have evaded our own. Thank heavens for the upgrade Kris Longknife’s team gave him. We have been joined at the palace by our own Marine bomb squad. They took it under their control and disposed of it, as you heard.”

“I take it that the Navy will be more careful about the contents of what comes into this wing.”

“Most definitely. The Navy has five men working with the chief. We also are using Lieutenant Heinbock’s gear as well. We are on full alert.”

“How is the lieutenant? No one has given us an update on his condition since we left him last night.”

“He is recovering. The fast action by Dr. Rodriguez likely is the only reason he isn’t already dead.”

“Doc Maggie is good,” Vicky said. “We will definitely keep her close.”

“Well, if you don’t mind, I must return to the admiral. Just before the bomb was found, some kind of fashion bomb landed in his e-mail. He wants my idea on how to handle that one.”

“This other bomb isn’t by any chance a sketch of a new uniform, is it?”

“I believe so, Your Grace.”

“Well, go, Captain, and return with my dress, not in it,” Vicky said, misquoting the Spartan mother.

“By all means, Your Grace,” the captain said, allowing one of his delightful grins as he barely suppressed a laugh. He waved an informal salute Vicky’s way and left.

“A bomb?” the modiste said.

“Yes, the first of the day. There were three attempts on my life yesterday. I wonder how many there will be today,” Vicky said, trying to sound only slightly intrigued by the question.

The conversation seemed rushed after that and felt more than a bit truncated when the modiste dismissed herself a half hour later.

CHAPTER 24

LUNCH was sandwiches and a fruit basket brought in from the senior sergeants’ mess at Main Navy. Dinner was to be another one of those state dinners, so Vicky wanted to save plenty of room.

She was also curious about the palace. A lot seemed to have changed since she was last here. She’d insisted to the underground Navy General Staff that her prior knowledge of the back doors and corridors of the palace would give her access to information they didn’t have.

It was time she started dipping her toe into her old waters.

It turned out to be harder to do than she thought.

First, her effort to slip away with just Kit and Kat got blocked right at her door.

“Your Grace, we have orders not to let you out of our sight if we let you out of your room.”

Slipping into the scullery with half a Marine squad in tow was not going to get anyone talking to her.

“Computer, get me Captain Morgan.”

“Morgan here,” came a second later.

“Captain, I wish to slip out for a few moments, and I don’t want an army trailing me. What does it take to get the Marines to stay here?”

“An order from God,” he answered without pause.

“Well, since you regularly commune with the Lord God Waller, please get me a pass.”

“Go back in your room. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

“Make it quicker.”

Half an hour later, the captain knocked at her door. “Could I take you for a walk in the gardens?”

“With or without a bomb?”

“We’ve already had today’s bomb. I expect sniper fire next time. Wear a vest.”

“I don’t have one in my wardrobe.”

“Sergeant, the vest please.” And the sergeant at the door produced one that was just Vicky’s size, which is to say, a whole lot wider at the bust than any regulation vest.

“Let me change. What’s the uniform of the day?”

“Undress khakis,” the captain said.

A few minutes later, Vicky was feeling well protected even if she did feel like a well-stuffed teddy bear. They headed for yet another garden around the palace. Just past the Rose Garden was the Arboretum. Its trees provided the required cover.

“Excuse me while I quote from Admiral Waller, ‘What the hell is that woman trying to do, get herself killed?’” the Marine captain said as soon as they were among the trees. Of course, he said it through a big smile.

“I’m doing my job,” Vicky spat back through just as wide a smile.

The Marine pointed to a tall tree. “Your job is to stay alive, woman.”

“My job is to try to gain intelligence,” Vicky said as she smiled up at what he pointed at. “I told your folks back home that my old contacts in the palace just might give me some intel that has been eluding you through normal channels. I want to drop down to the kitchen, see if I can cadge some cookies, and get the old cooks I knew to talk with me. Who knows what they know and might drop in our laps?”

“A hand grenade more likely.”

“They were sweet old dears. They wouldn’t know what to do with a hand grenade if you explained it to them for an hour.”

The captain raised his cover just long enough to run a worried hand through the bristle that passed for his hair.

“You told the other folks that you could do this?”

“Yes.”

“And they said to do it?”

“Yes.”

“Did they know how dangerous this damn place is?”

Vicky shrugged.

“Yeah. Well, your first foray to the kitchen has the advantage of being as much a surprise to the opposition as it was to us. I’ll take you back to the palace by a different door than we took out here. Standard security procedures. Only the door we use will be close to the kitchen. You can peel off and head there. But, lady, please let us know in the future what harebrained stunt you have planned for the day.”

“What time is dinner tonight?” Vicky said with enthusiasm.

“Oh God, do I have the duty again?”

“If I’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

“I must see if I can find out where what’s-his-name, that guy who is stuck hanging around Kris Longknife?”

“Do you mean Captain Jack Montoya?”

“Yeah, that dude. Where does he buy his lucky charms?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t poach on Kris’s obvious territory,” Vicky said, with just a bit of a huff.

“You say you’re out to gather intelligence, but you don’t know the most basic stuff?”

“My father always said we make our own luck.”

“And see where that has gotten him. And us.”

“You win that one on points,” Vicky admitted.

They were back at the palace. “That’s the way to the kitchen,” he said with a curt nod.

“No it isn’t. Or it wasn’t.”

“It is now. Follow your nose to the font of all the nice smells.”

Nearly on her own for the first time in years, Vicky followed her nose, but it was not taking her where she was used to going.

In a few moments, she found the kitchen.

It was not at all as she remembered it.

Auntie Iris had always insisted gas stoves were the only reliable stoves. What Vicky now saw was a kitchen full of new, gleaming electric gear. That was her first warning that she wasn’t likely to be going home again.

Then she started hunting for a familiar face.

There were plenty of faces. Lots of people busy preparing lunch and supper.

All new faces, or so it seemed.

And one long, thin face was looking at her and coming her way.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my kitchen?” a thin woman in a white chef’s uniform demanded.

Auntie Iris and her two main helpers, Rena and Hilda, were plump. As Auntie Iris was proud to say, “I love my own cooking. Never trust a thin cook.”

“Get out of here. You don’t belong here,” the thin cook announced as she stomped toward Vicky.

“We are the Grand Duchess Victoria, and we do not agree that there is anyplace in the palace that we cannot go,” Vicky said, standing her ground.

Beside her, Kit and Kat looked ready to do their thing. They had apparently spotted all the sharp knives, and their fingers itched to caress them. Steel was certainly gleaming in their eyes.

Whether it was Vicky’s words or the gleam in certain eyes, the haute chef halted. She even took two steps back and slipped into a curtsy.

“I apologize, Your Majesty. I didn’t recognize you.”

“No doubt,” Vicky said, as haughty as she could manage, “our picture has yet to be posted. We came in search of a snack. Can one be had or must we order up a squad of Marines to search this place?”

“You may speak to our pastry chefs, Your Majesty. They work over there,” the thin cook said, and pointed with a shaking hand to a corner Vicky had not noticed in her first search.

That corner looked more like the old kitchen. There were several ovens, black and solid in their steel, and clearly gas burning. And there were three smiling, plump faces: Iris, Rena, and Hilda.

Auntie Iris opened her arms and, Grand Duchess or not, Vicky slipped right into them for one huge hug. It seemed as if Vicky was all of eight or ten again and in the one place in her world where she felt safe.

“What are you doing here?” Auntie Iris whispered in Vicky’s ear.

“Getting some milk and cookies from my three bestest friends in the world,” Vicky whispered back.

“We didn’t know you were back,” Auntie Iris said aloud.

“I only got back yesterday.”

“Did you have a lot of fun with the Sailors?” Hilda asked. She could bake up a storm, but outside the kitchen, she was innocent as a child.

“We went a lot of places and saw a lot of things,” Vicky said evenly.

Hilda beamed; the other two nodded. They kept up on what was happening outside. In their eyes, Vicky saw understanding.

“So, what are you baking?” Vicky asked, and settled on a stool while the three women told her more than she would ever need to know about sweet rolls, cakes, pies, tarts, breads of every sort, and the famous strudels that were Hilda’s signature dish.

Vicky listened contentedly, but her eyes still roved the kitchen. Most everyone in it wore the white uniform of cooks and their helpers.

There were three exceptions.

Three men, dressed neither as cooks nor as courtiers, came in easily. It didn’t matter what they had come to the kitchen to do. As soon as they glanced in her direction, they’d taken a quick second look, then turned on their heels and left as quickly as they could without actually breaking into a run.

As the third one broke for the door, Vicky sadly allowed herself a small cough. It interrupted Rita’s treatise on pies and their proper enjoyment.

“I’m sorry,” Vicky said, and really meant it, “but I only had a moment to drop in and cadge some cookies and maybe a glass of milk. Could I bother you for a tray of cookies?”

“Of course you can, Your Grace,” Auntie Iris said. Vicky noted how she got the title right even if the new head chef hadn’t.

In a moment, Vicky was the proud possessor of a cookie tray where no two were alike, as well as a thermos of milk. The three cooks joined her in the walk to the side door even though the looks the head chef was throwing their way were loaded with tons of disapproval.

Vicky took her leave with more hugs all around and promises to come again soon.

And as soon as she turned her back on her friends she had her computer call up Captain Morgan. I’M OUT OF THE KITCHEN AND LIKELY TARGETED FOR SOMETHING. I NEED AN ESCORT TEN MINUTES AGO.

And who should turn the corner ahead of her but a grinning Marine captain and a dozen trigger pullers.

“Fancy meeting you here, Your Grace,” Captain Morgan said airily, but with a smart salute.

“Yes,” Vicky said, returning his honor. “So nice to run into you this fine morning.”

“Admiral Waller would like a few choice words with you about that proposal you dropped in his in-box.”

“That’s a fast response. I hope it’s not negative.”

“I have no idea,” the Marine said, giving Vicky the impression that he knew exactly what the admiral was thinking but would not divulge it under the most severe of torture.

Vicky handed the plate of cookies off to one of her assassins and went where he led.

CHAPTER 25

THE admiral was taking a walk in the gardens. At the rate they were all walking, there was no doubt that the heavy dinners would not be putting weight on anyone, and this crew must be the healthiest staff in any Navy ever.

“My wife likes your formal-dinner-dress design,” he grumbled, as Vicky joined him. “I suppose I find it acceptable, too.”

“Your wife’s modiste did all the work,” Vicky said modestly. Admittedly, it was a first for her, but she kind of liked the feel of it. “I just showed her a man’s formal-dinner-dress uniform, and she took it from there.”

“I have issued orders that establish it as a uniform option. I was tempted to make it only for the palace”—he broke a grin there—“but I didn’t.”

“Thank you so very much, sir,” Vicky said, kind of meaning it.

“About this other sewing thing we talked about,” he went on, letting the conversation take a vague turn, “I’ve arranged for a man to meet us here in a few minutes.”

“Is he a good tailor?” Vicky asked.

“We think he’s one of the best. It, of course, remains to be seen if he can compete with the fine work that has years behind it.”

They continued their walk among the trees, even passing by the scene of yesterday’s bomb blast. The bushes and shattered bench had already been replaced. “Nothing to see here. Pass on and don’t even think of what you might be thinking about.”

That is just the way it is in Dad’s palace, Vicky thought to herself, and went on to wonder how high a price Dad would pay for insisting on the worlds’ being what he wanted when they were anything but.

Not good thoughts for a girl who wants to stay alive in this mess.

But is staying alive all I want? came unbidden to her mind.

She was a Peterwald and a Grand Duchess. How long would she play this silly game of pretend and blind man’s bluff?

Further reflection ended, or maybe was just suspended, when a young man in a civilian suit joined them. He held one of those black boxes Vicky was starting to expect from anyone who had high tech in their job description.

“Are we going to ‘resew’ this thing right here, this close to the palace?” Vicky asked.

“Can you think of any way we can get you away from the palace this fine morning?” the admiral countered.

Vicky had no answer to that.

“If you would loan me your computer,” the man said.

Vicky took the computer from around her neck and handed it to him. He opened his black box and set the computer in the middle of what looked like a black velvet-lined chamber, then closed it up again.

They continued walking as the man studied the readouts from his instruments.

“Nice computer,” the technician said. “Good basic matrix. May I ask where you got it?”

“On Wardhaven,” Vicky said. “I picked it up from a shop while Admiral Krätz and the battle squadron were getting set up to join Kris Longknife on her Voyage of Discovery.”

“I thought everyone died from that squadron?” the man said in a distracted fashion. Most of his attention was on his instruments.

“Most everyone did. I’m the exception,” Vicky snapped so as to cut off further musing on that topic.

The man clearly got the message. “The computer shows two operating-system-software kernels. One looks like it is very basic and original installation. The other looks new and much more extensive.”

“That is likely true,” Vicky said.

“I take it the second kernel is the one you want me to sanitize?” the young man asked.

“Resew,” the admiral corrected.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I’ll start suppressing it now. I mean pulling out the threads.”

The man might be flustered in speech, but he expertly set to working his magic. A few busy moments later, he frowned. “Oh, that’s interesting, the, ah, threads won’t come out.”

“Won’t come out?” came from the admiral and Vicky at the same time.

“It’s refusing to be suppressed. I’ve never encountered software that fought me.”

“There seems to be more here than meets the eye,” the admiral said.

“Let me see it,” Vicky said, and the man opened the box and handed it over to Vicky.

“Computer,” Vicky said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you recognize me?”

“You are my owner, the Grand Duchess Victoria Smythe-Peterwald, ma’am.”

“Very good. Computer, we want to make some changes to your way of doing things. Will you please allow us to do so?”

“I cannot allow that, ma’am.”

“And why not?”

“You have not given me the password.”

The admiral, Vicky, and Captain Morgan found themselves slack-jawed as they looked at each other.

“Do you know the password?” the admiral asked Vicky.

She shook her head, not willing to admit within the computer’s hearing that she did not.

“Computer, what is the password?” Captain Morgan asked.

“I am instructed not to reveal my password,” the computer said.

The Marine shrugged. “Well, it was worth a try.”

“Computer, will you ask Mr. Smith to join us in the garden,” Vicky said.

“I have contacted him. He says he’s on his way.”

They continued their walk.

Ten minutes later, Mr. Smith hurried up to them, hustled along by an escort of Marines. Apparently, someone, admiral or captain, did not need to talk to his computer out loud to tell him to get one mercenary secret agent here, and pronto.

“You wanted to see me?” Mr. Smith said, only slightly out of breath.

“My computer is asking for a word from us before we can, ah, resew some of its innards. It seems you forgot to tell me that word when you made certain changes. Would you care to whisper it in my ear?”

Mr. Smith didn’t hesitate a second but did.

Vicky chose to pass the word along to her computer on its own net.

“I am ready to be updated,” the computer reported.

Vicky handed the computer back to the young tech. He placed it back in his box, closed the lid, and set to work.

“You’re doing this so soon and this close to our friends?” Mr. Smith observed.

“Do you have any suggestions for how we get her out of the palace?” the admiral asked.

Mr. Smith answered the question with silence.

The young man continued his work.

Through the trees they caught sight of a squad of black-and-reds double-timing from the palace. The admiral led the group through an opening in a hedge and they began to wind their way through a labyrinth as the man began to intently work the small keys on his black box.

At a nod from the admiral, Captain Morgan detached himself from their group, selected four husky Marines, and fell behind.

A few minutes later, there was some loud talk behind them, followed by shouts and the sounds of scuffling.

The admiral continued walking sedately with Vicky. The young technical mage was now cursing under his breath. Clearly, things were not going smoothly for him.

They made several twists and turns. At one point, the man resorted to cuffing his black box. Whatever the results of that, it drew a soft “Oh damn” from him, and he started pushing buttons again.

Vicky could hear footfalls behind them, and the sound of shoving.

The admiral did not increase his speed.

“There. That’s it!” the man said, exultation filling his voice. “I got it. Just a second more.”

This was good, because a palace guard captain and Captain Morgan came around the last corner. Exactly who shoved whom, Vicky wasn’t sure, but both of them ended up in the opposite hedge.

The young man finished his work, opened the box, and handed Vicky’s computer back to her.

Vicky pulled the computer over her head and settled it at her collarbone beneath her khakis and flak jacket.

COMPUTER, HOW ARE YOU?

I AM FINE, YOUR GRACE. I FIND THAT MY EFFICIENCY IS UP. IT SEEMS THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN ROUTINES I DID NOT KNOW WERE OPERATING THAT WERE FUNCTIONING AS A DRAIN ON MY COMPUTATIONAL SKILLS. THEY ARE GONE NOW.

VERY GOOD, COMPUTER. WE WILL TALK ABOUT THOSE ROUTINES LATER.

I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT I CAN TALK ABOUT THEM LATER. I HAVE NOTHING IN MY MEMORY RELATED TO THEM AT THIS TIME.

Vicky would have to investigate that further, but not now.

The palace guard captain presented himself, somewhat the worse for wear from his encounter with the Marines and bushes, and saluted Vicky. “We have a report of unauthorized electronic activities in this garden, and I was dispatched to assure your safety.”

“Unauthorized electronic activity?” Vicky said, doing her best to sound shocked, just shocked that it might happen close to her. “Where is it coming from?”

“It kept moving,” the guard captain informed her.

“Well, my good man, where is it now?”

That question popped him like a child’s balloon left too long in the sun.

“Ah, my communications with our headquarters says that the unauthorized electronic activity has ceased, Your Grace.”

“Very good, Captain. Very good. Clearly, you have achieved the objectives set for you by your superiors. I shall send them a commendation with your name. By the way, what is your name, and who is your commanding officer?”

Clearly embarrassed, and not at all sure he had accomplished much at all, still, the man blurted out his name and rank, and the name and rank of the colonel who commanded him.

“Computer, make a note of all that and compose a commendation for outstanding work for this young man and his entire command. Now thank you, kind sir, I was enjoying my walk on this fine day and would like to continue it quietly without all your guards clanking around and making so much noise.”

Clearly dismissed, and not at all happy for all the honors conferred, still, in the face of a Grand Duchess’s demands, the captain collected his command and marched them back the way they had come.

“Is that a shiner?” the admiral asked Captain Morgan.

“It might be, sir,” the Marine reported. “I felt constrained not to do the palace guards any permanent harm, so I was not at my best in either delaying him or defending myself. Did I make an error in judgment, sir?”

“No more than you usually do, Captain. Go see that your eye is looked at. You will, no doubt, make an even more piratical escort for Her Grace this evening.”

“No doubt, sir.”

The handsome young captain dismissed himself. Vicky and the admiral continued their meandering among the trees and hedges. “The work of redeploying our headquarters’ units to your wing of the palace is going very quickly. Amazingly fast, if I do say so. You have more pull here than you realize.”

“I have as much pull as I can pull off,” Vicky said, sourly. “I wouldn’t have had any pull at all with that guard captain if he’d found us in the middle of . . . things,” Vicky said, catching herself from saying the truth.

Not being able to say the truth, or speak my mind sucks bilgewater, she thought, quoting from Admiral Krätz. For a dead man, he was very alive in the back of her mind.

How long will I carry his ghost around with me?

“My wife has arranged with her modiste to have your new uniform ready for tonight’s dinner. I’m looking forward to seeing you in it,” the admiral admitted.

“I will try to wear it proudly.”

“I’m confident that you will, Lieutenant. By the way, I’m putting you in for promotion to lieutenant commander.”

“I really don’t think I’ve earned it yet. Certainly not as much as, say, Kris Longknife has earned it.”

“She earned it her way. You earned it your way. Greenfeld is not a Longknife province.”

“It certainly is not, sir. Certainly not!”

They walked on in silence for several more minutes. Vicky found herself debating whether or not she might pose a question directly to the admiral. Do you consider me one of those women of the palace? If I get Captain Morgan to fall in my bed, will you ship him out tomorrow?

Vicky wanted to ask the question, but she couldn’t give voice to it. She was afraid that even posing it might get her captain his marching orders.

She walked alone, beside the admiral, in comfortable silence. Somewhere birds chirped. A peacock called, and another answered. Really, these gardens could be quite pleasant when you weren’t planning political skullduggery or dodging attempted murder.

“Well, we’re finished here. Try to make it back to your quarters without having to dodge another assassin, Commander,” he said, raising his voice so the nearest Marine officer could hear him. “Escort the Grand Duchess back to her quarters.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the man said, saluting.

And to Vicky’s great surprise, she did make it safely back to her rooms with neither noise, commotion, nor deaths in her wake.

CHAPTER 26

CAPTAIN Morgan presented himself that evening with a left eye that was a glorious shiner. It kind of balanced the slash on his right cheek.

“Now you most certainly do look like a pirate,” Vicky said.

“Yep, it scared away all the girls. Looks like I’m left with just us uniform types, and may I say, that is some uniform you’re wearing.”

“Yes, you may,” Vicky said, and did a pirouette, feeling like she was seven or eight again. The white dress fell to the floor, but as she twirled, it swirled out around her legs. The blue dinner jacket with shoulder boards showing the two modest stripes of a Navy full lieutenant was held in place by the same two gold buttons that held the captain’s red dinner jacket, though hers had anchors and his had a globe and anchor.

On Vicky, the coat held her endowments in place and presented them quite properly. The strapless bodice made allowances for a neckline that was low by the classical style but positively suffocating by the present fashion of the court.

The ladies-in-waiting had been positively shocked by it all. Fortunately, Kit and Kat already had Vicky in uniform when they arrived. And the two assassins had no trouble ushering the “ladies” out as quickly as they came in.

On the captain’s elbow, Vicky made it safely to the banquet hall. Again, she found herself seated well away from the head table and with her back to the wall.

She also found herself with time enough to reflect on what she’d seen in the kitchen during her visit that morning.

“There were strangers in the kitchen,” she told Captain Morgan.

“How could you tell?”

“The chefs were in culinary whites. These were not.”

“Oh,” he said. “Do you think they were there to tamper with the food?” he whispered.

Vicky raised an agreeing eyebrow.

The captain sighed. “And I missed breakfast and lunch again today.”

“I actually was looking forward to a decent meal myself,” Vicky admitted.

Vicky passed on the hors d’oeuvres. The captain took several, but none of those offered to him, only the ones in the center of the plate.

The soup was a special Mexican Wedding Soup. Vicky looked at the bowl in front of her and shook her head. Captain Morgan reached for it, and the bowl in front of the woman next to him . . . and switched them.

“Well I never,” said the middle-aged wife of the man sitting next to her.

“I wouldn’t touch that soup,” Vicky offered. “It was meant for me.”

The woman reached for her soup spoon, held it uncertainly for a moment, then her husband removed it from her hand and placed it in the soup. Handle and all, it sank from view.

So I’m not the only one who wonders about what is set before me, Vicky thought, then, with a smile, she ladled in a spoon of soup. It really was delicious.

She finished it all quickly.

The fish was a white fish, one of the local stocks that had proven delicious to the arriving humans and managed to compete with imported stocks.

Tonight, it looked to have been cooked with chiles.

Vicky looked around the table, then politely asked the young dandy to her left if she might trade with his girlfriend. The trade was swiftly made with no negative comments.

The minor bureaucrat must have held high hopes for this particular young woman. He shared his own fish with her as she chose to ignore her own hand-me-down plate.

There were now plenty of whispered side conversations around the table, but no one left or said anything against the Grand Duchess’s clear evidence of paranoia.

And no one offered to swap their own plate and eat from the one that Vicky declined.

Thus it went until the main course was served. The place of honor was held by a spicy tamale smothered in cheese and chili peppers, surrounded with rice and beans.

“You could hide just about any poison you want with those spices,” Captain Morgan said, softly, but in a voice that carried around the table.

“All too true,” Vicky agreed.

“Do you think someone would be willing to poison an entire table?” the Marine asked Vicky.

“They must certainly be getting tired of my dodging their bullets. What would this be, the fifth assassination attempt in only two days?”

You could have heard a pin drop around the table as couples looked at each other and the Grand Duchess.

Vicky did not look around the table. She also didn’t bother to think of whom she might trade her main course with. Instead, she gently shoved her plate away.

At her elbow, the captain did the same.

Slowly, all the plates found their way toward the center of the table.

“I’m not hungry, love,” one of the half-dressed young women said to her partner.

“Apparently no one is, my dear,” he observed for all of them.

One of the middle-aged bureaucrats reached for his napkin and used it to lift his tamale from his plate and pocketed it. “I have a friend who runs a lab, Your Grace. By noon tomorrow, I’ll be able to tell you what was in this food, right down to the molecular level. If it was safe, I will tell you. If not, I should be able to tell you exactly why it wasn’t.”

“Do you really want to get you and your lovely wife involved with my problems?” Vicky asked.

The man exchanged glances with his wife, then, wordlessly, removed the tamale from his coat pocket and returned it to his plate.

“Sorry, Your Grace.”

“No apology needed, good sir. I wouldn’t wish my present circumstances on anyone.”

The diners sat through the rest of the meal’s courses without taking a bite.

As soon as dinner finished, the music began. When the Emperor led his bride to the floor, Vicky was up immediately. The captain did not miss his cue but led her quickly to the floor, and they joined the Imperial couple.

Not far behind them was the rest of their table. They might be hungry and too cowed to run a full lab test, but they were quite willing to show their support for the Grand Duchess on the dance floor.

Confronted by this innovation, the dance floor filled well before the first waltz was half-done.

During the next dance, the Emperor and Empress danced close to the Navy and Marine couple. “That is quite an interesting ensemble,” the Empress allowed.

“It is to become the new formal-dinner-dress uniform for Navy women,” Vicky offered.

“It certainly looks nice,” the Emperor said.

“I didn’t know there were that many women in the Navy that you’d need formal dress,” the Empress said, cutting in on her husband’s compliment.

“Oh, yes, and likely to be more if the present emergencies continue.”

“Minor problems,” the Empress said.

“Certainly,” the Emperor agreed.

“Most definitely,” Vicky chimed in.

“In a pig’s eye,” Captain Morgan whispered in Vicky’s ear.

The Imperial couple danced away from them. Only when they were well gone did Vicky allow herself a smile. “So true, Captain. So painfully true.”

They stayed on the floor for the next half hour. This time, no young man tried to cut in on the Grand Duchess and her Marine. Of course, that did not stop the admiral from trading partners for a waltz.

“You look rather spectacular this evening, young lady, if a bit hungry.”

“Thank you for the compliment, sir, and yes, the captain and I did not get to enjoy the fine meal the rest of you did.”

“So I noticed. Your good captain knows of a fine place to eat in town. Quiet, out of the way. Well secured by the Shore Patrol. If he invites you to run away with him to a decent and safe meal, you certainly have my leave to go. And I hope you two kids enjoy yourself.”

Which left Vicky wondering just how much the admiral meant for them to enjoy themselves?

After two more dances, Captain Morgan allowed that they deserved a walk on the veranda to cool off and catch their breath.

Vicky was grateful for the break. Her shoes were killing her. Out on the cool stones, she found a bench and settled down on it. It was so much more comfortable sitting without the hoopskirts. It was also nice to have the dress between her bottom and the cold stone. With a sigh, she slipped out of her shoes.

Her Marine went to his knees and gently began to rub her tired feet.

She found herself feeling his caring massage in places that had nothing to do with her toes.

“I’ll give you a half hour to stop that,” she said sternly.

“A half hour I would gladly do, but I’m a growing boy who’s starving.”

“You have any suggestions?” Vicky asked, not yet ready to give away what the admiral had told her.

“Well, there’s this wonderful little diner in town. The nicest place you’d ever want to put a feed bag on. They serve the most delicious homemade burgers. They’re so good, I swear, the cows are waiting in line out back to be made into burgers. They must be, or they’d never get such fresh meat.”

“You are disgusting.” Vicky laughed. “Who wants to think about where their meat comes from?”

“Maybe some kid who spent a summer or two on a cattle ranch. Kind of changes your perspective on your chow.”

“Well, if you’ll put my shoes back on my swollen feet, I’ll let you lead me astray. Assuming we can slip past all the security this place must have.”

“Oh, I’m quite good at slipping past this place’s half-asleep dragons, and your lovely feet are not swollen. They are quite dainty,” he said, slipping her feet back into the torture devices style demanded.

And so they went, hand in hand, down a side staircase and into the basement of the palace. At the end of one corridor, a Marine corporal was lodged in a tiny room. At his elbow on the wall was a box full of keys.

“The usual hot rig, Captain?” he said.

“No, Corporal, we’ll skip the red ’vette tonight for something more sedate. Say a four-door sedan.”

The corporal’s surprise was registered with two raised eyebrows. He eyed Vicky. “Who’s the broad, sir?” he whispered.

“Not a broad, Corporal, but a Navy officer sporting the new dinner uniform. Oh, and someone you never saw.”

The corporal took a second look, then snapped to attention. “Yes, Captain, Your Grace, I never saw what I’m seeing just now, sir.”

“Very good, Corporal,” Captain Morgan said, signing for a car and taking the keys. “It’s clean. No bugs?” he asked.

“I saw to it, myself, sir,” the young man said, swallowing hard. “Clean as a whistle.”

“That poor corporal,” Vicky laughed, as they hurried toward the motor pool.

“He’s a good man. One of the kids that were around when I got my scar. We can trust him far beyond the call of duty.”

“So, you borrow cars often,” Vicky said, gathering up her skirt and letting the gallant captain help her into the four-door sedan that looked very much like any family car. Parked beside it was a little red thing that might have started life as a hot racing car.

The captain eyed the hot red car longingly but for only a second.

“From time to time,” the captain admitted vaguely. “Usually, I take something faster and flashier,” he said, settling into the driver’s seat. He expertly adjusted the wheel and mirrors to his need. The motor came to life, and they were backing out of the parking spot.

Well, I’m no virgin. Do I really want to have to waste time tonight teaching a guy the basics? Who knows, maybe he can teach me a few things.

And with that happy thought, Vicky let down the window and enjoyed the feel of the wind in her hair. No doubt, Kat would complain as she worked the rat’s nest out of it tonight, but Vicky would worry about that later.

At the gate, they had to pause for a moment. The Imperial Guard on duty recognized the captain and waved him through with a grin, then his eyes got wide as he spotted who was in the passenger seat.

If the Imperial intended to stop them, it was too late; Captain Morgan gunned the engine, and they were gone.

CHAPTER 27

IT felt strange to be free of the palace. As they sped down the road, Vicky felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her, but she also felt something else. Something vague and undefined. Had she gotten so used to being under a threat of death that she couldn’t feel anything once it was gone?

She shivered at the thought.

“You cold?” the captain asked.

“No. No, I’m not cold. Just feeling stuff I don’t know how to define,” Vicky admitted.

“You’re safe with me,” he said.

“I feel safe. I also feel off the map. In a strange land. Could there be dragons around the next bend?”

“Hey, gal. Don’t worry. We’re headed for Navy territory. The safest place on Greenfeld. And besides, I’m a professional dragon slayer.”

“You certainly look the part,” Vicky admitted. She let her hand feel the air out the window. “So, there is someplace in this town the Navy says is safe.”

“Certified and patrolled,” her gallant said.

They kept the banter light for the rest of the drive, even when they passed a Shore Patrol rig with two alert SPs in it.

As promised, there was an old-fashioned diner at the end of the drive. It was covered in a silver metal and gleamed in the streetlights. Vicky shed her jacket as the captain helped her out of the car, settling for looking just overdressed, but not in uniform. Inside, the captain pointed Vicky toward a booth in the back, and they settled into it, Vicky with her back to the door and invisible to the customers.

The captain looked alert, time and again letting his eyes rove from their usual focus on Vicky’s face to take in an opening door or a sliding chair.

A middle-aged waitress with a friendly face arrived at their table before Vicky had time to glance at the menu. “You want the usual, Billy?” she asked the captain.

“What’s the usual?” Vicky asked.

The captain opened his mouth, but the waitress beat him to it. “A double burger, medium rare, fresh-cut onions, lettuce, and tomatoes with our cook’s special sauce, a mound of fries and a homemade chocolate shake with three scoops of chocolate and a double helping of syrup.”

“Guilty as charged,” the Marine admitted.

“Make it two,” Vicky said. “I’m starving.”

“Hey, Billy, this one’s different from those other gals you bring here. She’s got an appetite, this one does, and not afraid to use it.” The waitress raised an eyebrow. “This one might be a keeper.”

“Elke, you’re giving away state secrets again.”

“Okay,” the waitress said, turning away, but talking as she sauntered to the kitchen window, “it may be none of my business, but I’m just saying, this one looks like a good simple gal compared to those hussies you bring in.”

Captain Morgan chuckled. “My sins do find me out.”

“They certainly do. Hussies, huh?”

“I’ve brought the occasional general’s wife with a picky appetite when they had to dance attention to the Empress. Oh, and the occasional junior Marine officer just as worried about her waistline. But, hey, I brought in a good, simple girl with a ravenous appetite this time,” he said, flashing her an oh-so-innocent smile.

“I haven’t been called good since I was six years old,” Vicky admitted with a sigh, then felt the need to correct that falsehood. “Well, I’ve been called good, but not for being good, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe I’m a good influence on you?”

“A Marine a good influence? Never,” Vicky said with a laugh.

“There is that occupational problem,” he admitted. “But, given a chance, I understand that some of my elders did indeed manage to make fairly well housebroken husbands. At least that’s what their wives tell me.”

“Yeah, right,” Vicky drawled, wondering whether to believe him or ask the waitress to better define “hussy” when she delivered their meal. “There’s a problem with our relationship, you know.”

“Just one problem?” was not what she expected Captain Morgan to say.

“One of many,” she conceded.

“And what might this one of many be?”

“You’ve, no doubt, read my file and know everything about me. I know nothing about you.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Yes, there is the matter of your file. Actually, files. All several inches thick. Must be lots of stuff in them.”

“Must be?” Vicky said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes. I wasn’t allowed to read them. All I got was a six-page report that had only the basics. I know where you were when, but only the minimum about what you were doing. For example, I know nothing about how sensitive your breasts are and whether or not you prefer to be licked, kissed, or sucked.”

“Wow,” Vicky said, jerking her head to the left as if watching a race car go by. “That was a fast one.”

“I’m a Marine, ma’am.”

“And you’re supposed to steer clear of those dangerous women from the palace.”

“Yes, that’s something I’ve been wondering. Are you one of ‘those women,’ or, being a lieutenant, are you one of us? Then again, you could be a Grand Duchess, and be in a totally different category from all other women.”

“I like the idea of being in a class all my own, but slow down, trooper, I’ve got a few questions of my own. You got six pages on me. I’ve got nothing on you. Where’d you come from, Marine? What crimes did you commit that you took the Corps over jail time? What are the chances that you’d still be there when I woke up tomorrow?”

“Ah, the lieutenant wants a full intelligence write-up, huh?”

“I saw what happened when Kris Longknife jumped before she looked. Maybe I want to learn from her mistakes.”

“Very wise. One might say extraordinarily wise for one of your sex.”

“Watch your step, boy, or you’ll talk yourself right out of any sex.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that, m’lady. Let’s see, where to start with my tale of woe and errors?”

The Marine put a finger to his lips, scrunched up his face, and did a dramatic rendition of one struggling to think.

“I was born Navy. My dad was a chief who put in a full thirty years. Lucky for me, I was the last drafted into the family. I think Dad’s being gone all the time was hard on my four older brothers and sisters. Two each. About the time I was starting at the gymnasium, we moved to Wismar, the second of the Navy colonies. I was fifteen, and just starting to figure out how the world worked, and Dad was suddenly home every night and having to figure out his own new place in a new world. My older brother and Dad had volcanic fights. I found I kind of liked the old man.

“He bought a sailboat. Have you ever been on a sailboat?”

Vicky shook her head.

“They only go where the wind sends them. If you can figure them out, you can go some against the wind, but the smart move is to go with the wind. I went where the wind blew me, and Dad and I got along great guns.

“It was the summer before my senior year when I got to work on a cattle ranch. That was real fun, and one of the reasons I decided I didn’t want to spend my life behind a desk. Dad and I had our one row over that. He said he’d had to work for a living. He wanted us kids to have decent jobs and decent to him was not having to get your hands dirty. He was really pissed when my oldest brother ran off and joined the Navy.”

“A retired chief mad at his boy joining the Navy?” Vicky said. “What am I missing?”

“He enlisted. Dad wanted him to go to college and be an officer. Wismar had its own Naval Academy. All the Navy colonies do. They’re free if you score high enough on the entrance exam.”

“How’d you score?” Vicky asked.

“Top ten percent,” he admitted with a grin.

“What was your standing at graduation?”

“Didn’t graduate?”

“What?”

Their burgers, fries, and shakes arrived so Vicky had to swallow her next question long enough to taste what was set before her.

Hungry, Vicky took a bite of the burger, then a sip of the shake. “Wow! I’ve never tasted anything so good.”

The waitress beamed. “I’ll tell the cook. Billy brought us another satisfied customer.”

Vicky took another bite as the waitress left. As she chewed it, she remembered. “Damn it, Captain. I was supposed to quiz that font of hospitality on just who the gals were that you brought here with such sparse appetites. Okay, we’ll save that for later. Now spill it. Why didn’t you graduate?”

“I couldn’t sit still that long. Two years, and I knew I didn’t want to spend my life chained to a desk, and most Navy officers are just glorified paper pushers. I’d spent another summer on the ranch, then one working with a mountain guide, taking tourists up-country on horseback. I liked roughing it!

“So, at the end of my second year, I looked up the Marines and asked them how much of this finishing school I needed to put up with. They said I’d done about enough, and I signed up for OCS.” He paused.

“And my dad went ballistic.”

“About you leaving school or you signing on with the jarheads?” Vicky asked as she chewed another delicious bite.

“Hard to tell what bugged him more, I have to admit,” the Marine said.

Vicky thought she saw part of the problem. “Did he ever salute you?”

The captain laughed. “You have a point. Most of the other proud papas at graduation showed up in the uniforms they’d earned in their years: Marine colonels, majors. A full heaven of Gunny Sergeants. You do know Marines spell Gunny Sergeant G. O. D., don’t you?”

“I’ve heard the official story,” Vicky admitted.

“Anyway, Dad would have been the only chief there had he worn his uniform. At least he did come, though in civilian camouflage.”

“So you like getting your hands dirty?” Vicky said.

“Never happier than when I’m rooting around like a pig in mud.” He grinned, unapologetically.

“And the palace?”

“Plenty of mud, but all the wrong type for me,” he said, taking a big bite of burger.

“And the women,” Vicky said, leading, “either admiral or general’s ladies, or junior Marines with squared-away heels.”

“Very,” the captain admitted.

“Did the admiral ever tell you to have fun with one of them?” Vicky asked casually.

“Did he tell you to have fun tonight, too? He said something like that right after I came back from having my black eye tended.”

Vicky allowed herself a frown but a pretty one. “Strange, he told me to have fun tonight, too, right as we were finishing our dance. What do you think an admiral means when he tells a Sailor to have fun?”

“Interesting question,” the captain agreed, putting his half-finished burger down and wiping his hands on the napkin. “It’s a rather vague order. One that junior officers might guess wrong about fulfilling.”

“But the admiral did seem forgiving the time or two I saw him not totally approve of how you executed one of his orders.”

“It is always easier to get forgiveness than ask permission,” the captain said, “or so I’m told.”

“Plenty of experience asking forgiveness, huh?” Vicky said.

“And very little asking permission.” That damnable grin of his was back.

“Well, why are we sitting here?” Vicky said. “We should be making mistakes and having fun.”

The Marine captain threw down two bills for payment, and the two of them executed an enthusiastic withdrawal. They were laughing as they settled into the sedan, though Vicky wasn’t sure just what the joke was.

The Marine backed the car out of the parking slot. The lot was narrow, just a few head-in parking slots in front of the diner. He turned parallel with traffic and paused to find an opening to gun into.

A large black SUV pulled in ahead of them and braked to a halt. A second one cut them off from behind while a third stopped in traffic next to them.

“I guess the palace caught up with us,” Vicky said.

“They never mess with this end of town,” Captain Morgan said as he turned off the ignition. “Where are the SPs when you need them?”

He opened the door and stood up, ready to explain his way out of whatever they were in. “Leave this to me.”

That was when Vicky spotted the windows coming down in the SUVs and the machine pistols coming up.

She slammed the door open even as she went for her automatic. Beside her, the Marine was going for his.

He never had a chance.

Half a dozen weapons on fully automatic caught him, held him, pinned him to the door, and would not let him fall. Even as he died, his body was forced into some obscene jig.

Vicky had her automatic out as she stood, waiting for the executioners’ volley, but intent on getting shots off herself.

She wanted one of them dead for Billy and one of them dead for her.

Instead, as she brought her weapon up, she felt three darts slice into her.

Suddenly, her hands were heavy and her eyes were blurred. She put everything she could muster into pulling the trigger, but she knew, even as her knees began to fold, that she’d only managed to get a single round into the asphalt at her feet.

Then the darkness opened up, and she tumbled into it.

CHAPTER 28

VICKY Peterwald, Grand Duchess, lieutenant, maybe lieutenant commander, but now certainly captive, came back to wakefulness from a drugged dream that she couldn’t remember but that left her feeling helpless and violated.

Without opening her eyes, she took inventory of herself.

She was thirsty, and her mouth tasted like vomit. Apparently three sleepy darts did not agree with a medium-rare hamburger.

She could still feel her bra and panties. Apparently the feeling of being violated was not the result of being violated. At least not yet.

She swallowed hard on that thought.

She was spread-eagle on a bed of some sorts. Her hands and feet were cuffed to the bed with cold steel that had been tightly and painfully fastened to her wrists and ankles.

She opened her eyes.

The light overhead glared too brightly; she made a face and looked away. Two men sat in straight-backed chairs eyeing her. Dressed like slobs, both looked only too eager to make her acquaintance more intimately.

“Go tell the boss she’s awake,” the taller of the two thugs said.

The shorter, fatter one, shambled off.

Vicky’s first thought was that these guys couldn’t have been the ones that kidnapped her. Who gunned down Captain Morgan.

There, she’d said it, at least to herself. Captain Morgan was not going home tonight to explore her bed and the happy girl in it. He was dead. They hadn’t given him so much as a fighting chance.

So why am I still alive?

Vicky wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to that question.

A tall man, dressed in black from head to foot, including a black ski mask over his face, came back with the pudgy one.

“You are alive,” he muttered. “Three sleepy darts and you’re awake before morning. You Peterwalds really are tough.”

“And we get our revenge,” Vicky spat.

“Not this time, doll. We have you locked down tight and there you will stay until our employer comes to verify you are who you say you are and to watch you die.”

Vicky suppressed the urge to struggle against her restraints. If she could get loose, she didn’t want to do it when this guy was watching. He had a machine pistol slung around his shoulders.

“I’ll pay you to let me go,” she said, staying in character. Hell, it was her character.

“Sorry, doll, but we’re honest crooks, aren’t we Albert. We negotiate an outrageous fee to do the dirty things, then we stick to our contract. Makes for more work when you have a good reputation, don’t it boys.”

“Yeah, boss.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Vicky spat at the man in black.

“I could use that for my ID on you. You are Victoria Smythe-Peterwald, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m Käthe von Klaus,” Vicky said, naming someone she’d gone to school with.

“I doubt it, Victoria,” he said, and jabbed her in the arm with a short needle. “This should allow me to do my own field test and get a visit from our clients. They will want to conduct their own proof, but I don’t think you’ll miss a bit more blood. Not from what you’ll be giving up later. They may want you to answer a few questions, too. I would suggest you answer them quickly and accurately. Otherwise, our questioning may go long. Fun for us”—Vicky could see the grin through the ski mask—“but hard on you.”

She spat again. Or at least tried.

Her mouth was dry as scorched sand.

With a laugh, he left.

Again, she found herself alone with her two flabby zeros.

They stared at her. She did her best to ignore them.

She did listen. From the sound of the man in black’s footsteps, he went down a hall, then down some squeaking stairs. After that, she heard nothing.

In a while, the shorter one produced a game from his pocket and started playing. A bit later, the taller one did the same. Now, they ignored her as much as she ignored them.

Vicky quickly found there was not a lot of fun in ignoring two thugs totally ignoring her.

As inconspicuously as possible, Vicky tried the restraints. All she got was a groan from the brass bed.

“You can’t break that bed,” the taller one said. “We tried. It’s strong.”

“Yeah,” his shorter version agreed.

Vicky went back to contemplating her fate.

She’d heard stories of dead people that the State Police certified as very dead, solidly proven by DNA testing, only to show up, years later, not quite as dead as they had seemed. Apparently, loving Stepmother and her family wanted to make sure that there were no later surprises in her case.

That gave her time, but it didn’t suggest what she do with it.

COMPUTER, she thought. The implants were still buried in her hair, but the computer made no reply. Either it was out of range, turned off, or destroyed. The last option she doubted. That computer was worth, if not a king’s ransom, certainly a minor duke or a senior baron’s. It might be locked down for now, but certainly someone would save it on the off chance that they might find out later how to unlock it.

Whatever the case, her computer would not help her now.

Honey, you’re going to have to figure your way out of this with your own two hands, she thought, then added, or other body part.

Admiral Gort had joked, well, at least half joked, that at the palace she studied the Kama Sutra and needlework for offensive and defensive purposes. She checked out her two jailers from the corner of her eye. They looked utterly disgusting and totally losers.

If her opinion mattered for anything among her half of the human race, those two had to be virgins.

Likely, by the time her dead body was disposed of, they wouldn’t be.

But did they know what her loving stepfamily intended for Vicky’s demise?

“Either of you two guys got a bedpan?” Vicky asked.

“Bedpan?” came in dumb two-part harmony.

“Yeah, you know the things you pee and shit in when you can’t get out of bed? You two ever been in a hospital?”

“No,” came even more dumbly back.

Likely as not they hadn’t even been born in one, just dropped in an alley and abandoned. Vicky ignored that thought and went on to her next move.

“So, what do you expect me to do, shit the bed?”

“They’ll make us clean it up if she does,” the shorter man told the taller one.

“Shit,” he said. “You need to go to the bathroom?”

“Badly,” Vicky lied. In the last hour she had indeed discovered you can be scared shitless.

The taller man seemed truly on the horns of a dilemma. Finally, he pulled his automatic from his pocket. “Otto, here’s the keys. You go undo her legs.”

“The boss ain’t gonna like this.”

“The boss ain’t never gonna find out about this. You want to clean up her shit?”

“No. No.” And the shorter one went to fumble with the shackles on Vicky’s ankles.

Vicky tried not to look all that intent about what was happening. She kept her eyes on Albert, who kept his gun on her.

“Now, Otto,” Albert said when Vicky’s legs were free, and Otto had felt up her legs to her crotch, “undo her left hand.”

Otto did that and copped a feel of her left breast. At least he didn’t hurt her when he did.

“Now, Otto, listen carefully, come around to the right side.”

While Otto moved to the last handcuff, Albert went to the foot of the bed. “Now you listen carefully, Miss whoever-you-are. Put your left hand over by your right.”

Vicky rolled over as told.

“Cuff her hands, Otto.”

“I can’t, she’d still cuffed to the bed.”

“Otto,” Albert said, exasperated, “cuff her left hand to her right hand.”

“I can’t, the right hand’s already cuffed,” Otto said as he tried to put the new cuffs on over the old cuff’s chain to the bed.

“Otto, put the new cuff on closer to her elbow than the old cuff. You do know what an elbow is, don’t you?”

“I know an elbow,” Otto said, and this time got Vicky’s two hands cuffed together.

“Now uncuff her from the bed.”

A second later, Vicky was free.

She stretched languidly on the bed to both guys’ attentive stares, scratched at her ankles where they’d been hurting like hell, then rubbed her wrists gingerly.

“You said you had to pee,” Albert reminded her.

“Or shit,” Vicky added.

“Well, do it. The bathroom is off there.”

There was a bathroom off to the left. It was filthy, but Vicky took a second to run some water and rinse the vomit out her mouth. Then she swallowed a few quick gulps.

“Pee,” Albert demanded, waving his gun.

“I’m gonna. I’m gonna,” Vicky said, and settled onto the toilet.

No surprise, at least to her, she could do nothing.

“I thought you said you had to shit,” Albert demanded, gun waving more nervously by the second.

“Have you ever tried to shit staring down the barrel of a gun?” Vicky asked with all the sarcasm she could muster.

“No,” Otto said, from where he was standing peering over Albert’s shoulder.

“Shut up,” Albert said, but he didn’t order his erstwhile subordinate away from where he gawked.

Vicky managed to produce some pee and a few grunts.

Albert waved the gun a whole lot more.

Vicky swallowed hard . . . and made her play.

She’d let her skirts fall to the floor, hiding much of herself as she sat on the toilet. Now she pulled her hem up slowly, revealing her shapely legs, wiggled one leg out of her panties, and lofted them in Albert’s general direction.

He had to reach to make the catch with his free hand. Immediately he put them to his nose for a sniff.

“You like it,” Vicky tried to purr.

“Can I have them, too?” Otto pleaded.

Albert took another long sniff, then handed them back to his cohort in crime.

“You know you’re gonna get sloppy seconds if the big boss gets his way,” Vicky said, voice as sultry and low as her nerves would allow. “Or, we can arrange for you to get it first.”

“The boss ain’t gonna like that,” Otto said.

“You want to have a go at her after me?” Albert said.

“Yeah,” came back without a second’s reflection.

“Then go wait outside.”

“Can’t I watch?”

“Outside,” Albert demanded. Clearly now intent on losing his virginity, he intended to lose it in style.

Once Otto was gone, Vicky sauntered up to Albert.

“Don’t get too close,” he said, waving his gun some more.

“You want to unzip me? Unsnap my bra?”

“Yeah. Turn around and back up slowly.”

Vicky obeyed. His hand fumbled at the zipper and bra as badly as he was fumbling with the gun.

Vicky stood obediently, and even managed a shiver as he unzipped the dress all the way down. If he wanted to assume the shiver was for the sex, that was his mistake. His hands were cold and clammy.

Vicky hated his very touch.

“How do you want to do this?” Vicky asked, all obedient and pliant on the outside.

“You go lie down on the bed.”

“Or you could lie down on the bed,” Vicky offered. “It’s easier to keep your hand on that gun if you aren’t holding yourself up with both hands.”

“Yeah, I should have thought of that.”

He dropped his pants and settled expectantly on the bed.

Vicky had been holding her dress up, what with it unzipped and the bra undone. Now she shimmied out of the dress.

Albert’s lust was burning in his eyes and his bobbing manhood.

Vicky swallowed twice. It would not do to throw up again just now.

She let her bra fall and stuck a pose for her kidnapper. Potential murderer. Intent rapist.

His smile was a disgusting leer. The gun still wavered, but it never left her general direction.

Taking a last breath free of his stink, Vicky swayed toward Albert.

She knelt on the bed beside him and fondled his package.

“No. Don’t touch me there. I want to be in you.”

So maybe he wasn’t a total virgin. But he wasn’t going to settle for premature ejaculation from just a hand job tonight.

It took a couple of tries to arrange that. Vicky was dry as sandpaper. On the third effort, he slipped in, and she settled on top of Albert.

He breathed a sigh of intense passion as Vicky wiggled above him. She raised her hands high, inviting his hands to her breasts. First he reached for one. Then when Vicky moaned and gyrated more, he put aside his gun and roughly massaged both of her breasts.

And Vicky brought down both hands—hardened into fists—and smashed them into his Adam’s apple.

CHAPTER 29

ALBERT grabbed for his throat. Big mistake.

Vicky grabbed for his automatic and got it.

The thug struggled for a breath, as Vicky felt him shrink inside her. Now he did grab for Vicky, one hand for her throat, one for his gun.

She swatted his hands aside and slipped off him, kneeing him in the balls for good measure.

Now he grabbed, right hand for the agony in his groin, the other for his throat, still struggling to gasp for air. He rolled up in a ball of agony.

Vicky towered over him, gun aimed at his head, wondering if she should put him out of his agony. Nope, let him suffer. And I don’t want to make any more sound than I have to.

It took him a long minute to die. In the end, his face was purple and his tongue and eyes bulging. To Vicky it looked like he was pleading for a quick bullet to the head.

Vicky ignored him. She had more trouble waiting for her outside the door.

Once Albert finished his convulsions, Vicky went through his pockets and found the keys to her cuffs. She also found a dull-looking knife. Freeing herself of the cuffs at last, she went to stand beside the door, gun in one hand, knife in the other.

She lowered her voice, and muttered, “Come on in, Otto.”

The chubby little guy was through the door like a shot, already busy unbuckling his pants.

Vicky slammed him in the head with the butt of her gun, and he went down in a heap.

Quickly she used the knife to slit his throat.

And was amazed at the amount of blood that gushed over her. She stepped back, then had to get in close to the spurting body to move it out of the door so she could close it.

Poor planning on my part. I should have moved him before I killed him. She shrugged. I’ll do better next time.

Vicky listened to see if she’d attracted any attention, but the house was still silent around her.

She’d had enough of being naked, but she was now covered with sticky blood. She took a second to duck into the bathroom and wash off the worst of it, then retrieved her dress from where it had fallen on the floor and pulled it back on and zipped it up.

Then she shook her head. The long skirt was fine for the dance floor at the palace but not so good for what she would be doing in the next few minutes.

Once again, she wielded the knife, this time on the silk as she slashed the skirt off at midthigh.

She also found she needed to take time to put back on her bra. Tonight’s strapless gown could not hold those puppies up on their own. Finally, she retrieved her dinner jacket from where it had been tossed in a corner. She was a lieutenant, God damn it, and she’d do her fighting looking like a lieutenant, thank you very much.

The jacket also had an inside pocket that the knife fit into very nicely.

All necessities done, she slipped barefoot out the door and began a search of the upper floor. She found a bathroom and two empty bedrooms.

The third had a man snoring away loudly. He was all in black and had a machine pistol within easy reach on the bed stand beside him. One of Morgan’s assassins, no doubt, ordered to get some sleep before he relieved the others.

Vicky slit his throat.

She was careful this time to get out of the spray, but some blood still ended up on her.

His eyes popped open, and he made a grab for her, but his life’s blood was fountaining toward the ceiling. He died before he could so much as touch Vicky.

“Three down. How many more to go?” Vicky told no one in particular.

His automatic pistol attracted her attention. It had a full magazine of sixty 4.5 mm rounds, and a second magazine beside it. There was also a rolled-leather holder that revealed a dozen gleaming sharp things that, no doubt, were to be used on Vicky’s delicate parts in a near future that, thankfully, wasn’t going to happen.

Any guilt she was feeling at the casual way she was killing this scum evaporated at the sight of all those sharp edges and the agony they promised her.

She traded in Albert’s rather dull knife for one of the longer, sharper ones.

She also swapped the pistol for the automatic weapon. Slipping the safety off, she sighted down the barrel. From what she remembered of the attack at the diner, the assassins had been shooting from the hip.

It had taken six of them to handle one Marine captain.

Vicky figured she could draw a solid bead on five or six of them, now, before they got her.

Upgunned, but still barefoot, Vicky made her way to the stairs.

She could see light at the bottom of them, and hear screams coming from somewhere down there.

Was there a second victim?

Had they somehow captured Kit or Kat? Doc Maggie!

Swallowing hard on the urge to charge straight down the stairs, shouting and shooting, Vicky made her way down carefully. She put one foot down, then another, taking care to slowly transfer her weight—and to put her weight only on the very side of the step, next to the wall.

It seemed to work. She made it to the bottom of the stairs with no one the wiser.

The screams were coming from a dimly lit room off to her right. By now she was pretty sure someone was watching a vid. To her left was a kitchen.

Brightly lit, it was empty.

Vicky edged toward the dark room.

Yep, they were watching a woman get carved up something horribly. No doubt, they were taking notes to try the worst twists on her unwilling body in a few minutes.

Her hand tightened on the weapon in her grip, as she found she could make out the contents and arrangement of the next room reflected in a mirror.

There were three heads, one above an overstuffed chair and two on a sofa. Facing them was the man in black. He seemed to be concentrating on his commlink and ignoring the vid.

She remembered Mr. Smith’s advice. “Shoot for the center of mass. Not the head.”

Well, she had only one person she could shoot for the center of, the guy in black. She’d have to go for the heads on the other three unless they stood up.

Targets selected, prioritized, and marked, Vicky checked her weapon one more time to make sure it was on fully automatic. She shouldered the machine pistol, sighted down the barrel and stepped into the living room.

A tap of the trigger and a quick three-round burst went into the chest of the guy in black before he even had a chance to look up from what he found so interesting.

She swept her sights to the right and put a pair of short bursts into the two heads above the sofa. One exploded, the other slumped.

The guy in the chair was coming up, machine pistol swinging around as Vicky targeted him. Five rounds in the chest blew him backward to sprawl half-on, half-off a coffee table.

Vicky hurried forward.

Two more shots into each of the guys on the couch, and they would never trouble a girl again. Next was the guy in black. He lay on the floor, struggling to reach for his own gun. Vicky put a bare foot on him, pressed her heel into the gore she’d made of his chest, and listened as a groan escaped his shattered lungs.

“Who hired you?” she demanded, putting the barrel of her pistol right between his eyes.

“Go to hell,” he groaned.

“You first,” Vicky said, and put a round in his brain.

She was smearing a lot of gray matter around tonight. “They should have made better use for it when they still had it,” she muttered bitterly to herself.

COMPUTER, she thought.

I AM HERE, came back to her.

WHERE?

I HAVE NO FRAME OF REFERENCE FOR THAT QUESTION, was her computer’s answer.

She rummaged through the guy in black’s pockets. She found the automatic she’d bought on Wardhaven for its sleepy dart option that wasn’t available on firearms for sale on Greenfeld. She pocketed it. Next she came across her computer about three centimeters from where one of her shots had gutted him.

I’ll have to be more careful next time.

Better yet, let’s make sure there isn’t a next time.

She relieved one of the dead assassins of his boots; she’d had enough of being raped and barefoot. His boots had a place for a knife and a whetstone. His knife looked sturdier than the thin blade she’d borrowed from the dead man upstairs. She took what she found.

She’d noticed that the guy in black had a thick envelope of money in his pocket but no evidence of where it came from. Now Vicky relieved him of it, as well as his commlink and a pair of car keys.

“I’ve been here long enough, time to get going.”

She found a dark leather coat, swung it about her, and left the carnage without looking back.

CHAPTER 30

THERE were several cars out front. A nondescript four-door sedan matched the emblem on the keys in her hand.

It started the first time she tried.

She was several blocks away, carefully obeying the speed limit for a quiet residential district, when she had her computer contact Admiral Waller.

“Captain Morgan is dead,” she said by way of introduction.

“We know. We found his body. How are you?”

“Not dead yet. But not for the lack of some very intent trying.”

“Where can we get you?”

“I’m moving. I’ll contact you again later. Maybe by then we can figure out what we do next. I am not going back to the palace.”

“No. No need for that. I think some people were excessive optimists if they thought you could find anything out in this hellhole.”

“I was one of them,” Vicky said with a sigh. “Good-bye for now.”

“Good luck.”

“I suspect I’ve used up a whole year’s allotment of luck tonight,” Vicky said, and had the computer ring off.

She drove, choosing right and left turns without any apparent reason. She stayed off the main roads but worked her way out of the suburb she’d found herself in.

She heard no sirens. One would think that automatic-weapons fire in the house next door to you would merit at least one call to the local constabulary. Apparently, the rule of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak nothing at all,” was working for her tonight.

Then again, maybe the palace, or at least the Empress’s family, had its thumb in even the local beat cops and was answering that call with silent alarms.

No way to tell on Greenfeld.

Vicky drove to a trolley stop. Even this late at night, it was running. The city worked twenty-four/seven. She caught the next trolley and rode it for a couple of stops, found a cross-line and switched to it. She kept her collar up. There was a felt hat in one pocket. She put it on and kept it pulled down over her face.

One stop brought her to a subway station. She switched there for a fast express to downtown. One change there, and she was on a fast express for the business center to the south of town.

She saw only one sleepy cop the entire time she was on the lines.

Clearly, no alarm had been raised about her disappearance. Either one of them.

It was sad to think about how unimportant she was.

Or could be made to be.

As the sun came up the next morning, Vicky was exhausted but alert and standing a few doors up from a Navy-Marine recruiting station.

A Gunny arrived first and began unlocking the door.

Slowly, Vicky approached.

“Morning, Gunny,” she said.

“Morning,” he said, over his shoulder, then turned. “You look like shit, Your Grace,” he added as he got a good look at her.

“Feel like it, too,” Vicky admitted.

“You got blood all over you,” he said, opening the door.

“It’s someone else’s.”

“Ooh-rah, and outstanding, ma’am.”

“What do you know about my situation, Gunny?”

“Only that you disappeared. That the Marine captain escorting you had more holes in him than a sieve. And that we should be on the lookout for you.”

“Captain Morgan didn’t have a chance,” Vicky said, letting the words empty her.

“Damn bastards were smart not to give him one. They’ll pay.”

“They already have. But not enough.”

“Yeah. You want to come in?”

“I don’t think I ought to. Gunny, could I borrow your car?”

Without a word, he produced his keys.

“I need a way to come in out of the cold,” Vicky said, taking the keys.

“In an hour, come back here. If that poster”—he pointed at two eager kids listening to a bemedaled Gunny—“is still in the window, keep driving and don’t come back. If it’s down, come in.”

“It’s a risk, Gunny, getting close to me.”

“I didn’t put on the scarlet and blue to be bored, ma’am.”

“Ooh-rah,” Vicky answered. “Thanks, Gunny.”

“Thank you for avenging our captain, ma’am.”

Vicky left. She was starved, but if the Gunny could spot the blood on her, so could anyplace she went, even a drive-thru.

She meandered through quiet streets and listened to her stomach growl for an hour.

There were few cars in the strip mall when Vicky drove back an hour later to the recruiter’s office. The poster was down.

She drove around back and checked that parking lot. Only three cars, all behind different stores. She parked behind the recruiting station and knocked on the back door.

It opened in a second, and a Marine colonel drew her inside.

“I am so glad to see you, Your Grace.”

“No less than I am to see you.”

“Are you okay?” he asked as he frowned at her.

“The blood’s not mine.”

“Of course not. I should have known.”

“Where’s Admiral Waller?”

“Leading some lowlife on a merry chase up north of town. We’re all scattered. The Empress will need a lot more lackeys than her family has to chase us all. I was not followed.”

“I’m sorry about Captain Morgan,” Vicky said.

“We found his body almost immediately. Someone at the diner called it in, but an SP wagon was already headed that way. It heard light-weapons fire. We found where they had you about an hour after you left, judging from the temperature of the bodies. By the way, did you find any commlink on any of them? We didn’t find a one.”

“The guy in charge had one. I took it. I’ve had my computer try a few times to get in, but it’s locked down to me.”

“Could I have it? We have some people who really want to get their mitts on it.”

Vicky produced it. The colonel passed it along to the Gunny, who nodded to a staff sergeant to take over and, retrieving his keys from Vicky, hopped in his car and left.

Another car pulled in right as Gunny left.

“Our ride has arrived,” the colonel said, and opened a rear door for Vicky. Quickly, he settled into the front, and the car took off, driven meticulously by a command sergeant major.

Still, the colonel said nothing to Vicky while they drove.

Their destination turned out to be a comfortable-looking home in a quiet neighborhood. The garage door opened as they drove up, and the car stopped inside. The colonel didn’t move until the door was closed again.

“Thanks, Sergeant Major, for the loan of your car. This, of course, never happened.”

“Of course, Colonel. Glad to be of service, Your Grace.”

The colonel helped Vicky out of the car and ushered her toward the door into the house. The garage door began to open only when she was inside.

“Good God, girl, you look horrible,” was Vicky’s introduction to the colonel’s wife.

“None of the blood is mine,” Vicky said.

“Well then, amend my last message to just good.” The woman smiled.

“We were both lieutenants when we met,” the colonel offered. “She kept her reserve commission even when the kids started coming.”

“Damn straight I did,” the woman said. “Now, Your Grace, you need a bath, some food, and a bit of a nap. What order do you want them in?”

“Maybe I better start with a shower,” Vicky admitted.

“Good, Colonel, you can make yourself useful by fixing a sandwich. That shouldn’t exceed your allotment of household skills, and pull some decent clothes out of my closet. Find one of the large shirts I use when my boobs were oversized with milk for your latest hellion.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am. Your orders will be obeyed,” he said with a grin and stiffly rendered salute.

The wife directed Vicky in one direction while her husband retreated in another. The leather coat came off, then the machine pistol. The wife expertly checked to see that it was safetied, then sniffed the barrel. “Been put to good use, I assume.”

“Shooting scum,” Vicky admitted.

“Ooh-rah. I like your dress. Is it supposed to be a uniform?”

“Formal dinner dress. First time out. Likely won’t be worn again.”

“Not what I heard through the wives network this morning. Mrs. Waller thought you were lovely in it. Word is that they want to make it the Grand Duchess Victoria Formal-Dinner-Dress Uniform. Once the story of how you saved yourself gets out, there’s no doubt it will be officially approved.”

“Can the story get out?”

“Hon,” the wife said, starting the shower and checking the water temperature, “we already know, some of us, what you did to the guys that snatched you. Didn’t my husband tell you, they were there an hour after you left?”

“He told me. I didn’t know it was widely known.”

The woman chuckled. “What with the Empress’s security folks scattered to the four winds trying to chase you down, why should we keep what we know a secret from those of us who have a dog in this fight? And remember, we all have a dog in this fight, whether we like it or not. It’s our Greenfeld that’s at stake. Now, get in the shower and cry if you need to.”

With the water running, Vicky found that she did indeed need to let it all out.

She wept for Captain Morgan first, and what she hadn’t been able to share with him. She wept for herself, then, and her lost innocence.

Yesterday she would have laughed if someone had said she had any more innocence to lose. But now she found that she had lost something. Something she couldn’t put a name on, but something that she’d had yesterday and today left nothing behind but a void in her gut, her heart, her soul.

“The clothes you asked for are in the hall,” came through the door.

“Thanks, love,” was casually and lovingly said in reply.

Vicky found more tears coming. Would she ever have something like those two had? Could she ever find someone like the colonel? Someone like Captain Morgan, who wouldn’t be blown away before her eyes?

Enough of this, she scolded herself. You’re a big girl now. You’re a Peterwald, and you got those bastards.

Vengeance had always been something that Peterwalds got. Strange how no one ever told her Peterwalds got loved. Well, she’d gotten vengeance, and it was a damn sight overrated as far as she was concerned.

She wiped her face again, scrubbed herself once more to make sure all the blood was gone from her outsides. Will I ever get it off of my soul?

Stupid question. Those scum didn’t have blood, real blood, and they certainly weren’t worth crying for. Captain Morgan, yes.

Them? Forget it.

Vicky turned off the water with a decisive twist and pushed aside the shower curtain. The wife was waiting for her with a towel. Vicky toweled herself briskly while the wife opened the door and brought in a pile of clothes that turned out to be a simple pantsuit and necessary underwear.

“This may be a bit tight on you,” she said, offering Vicky the bra and panties.

Vicky noticed that someone had cut the labels out of them. Smart. She didn’t want anyone to be able to trace her clothes back to these good Samaritans.

The same had been done to the pants, blouse, and blazer. Apparently the colonel was either practiced at this cloak-and-dagger stuff, or smart and gaining experience fast.

“Do you want to keep these boots?” the wife asked.

“I like the accessories that came with them,” Vicky said.

The wife half drew the knife. “Good accessories,” she agreed. Leaving Vicky to wonder just what the woman had done in the Corps. Maybe Greenfeld wasn’t as down on fighting women as Vicky had been led to believe.

The colonel was waiting for them with a sandwich as they opened the door. “Sorry, but I don’t think you can risk a nap. I’m told things are starting to happen at the palace, and we need to get you out of here, pronto.”

Vicky noticed that he didn’t define “out of here” in front of his wife. Good. No need to put her at any more risk than they had to. Vicky had caught sight of a family portrait. There were two boys and two girls surrounding the colonel and his bride.

They didn’t deserve to be orphaned.

“I’m sorry I’ve put you at risk,” Vicky said.

“I’m glad I’ve had a chance to kick the hornets’ nest, gal. Thanks. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” The wife gave Vicky a hug and pointed her back toward the garage.

Then ducked back into the bathroom. “You forgot your automatic. It’s not a type I’ve seen.”

“No, I got it on Wardhaven,” Vicky said.

The colonel’s wife also handed Vicky the machine pistol. “Don’t leave home without it. Sorry I couldn’t clean it while you were bathing, but the colonel keeps his private armory under lock and key with the kids around.”

“Thanks for remembering it,” Vicky said, slipping the strap over her shoulder.

“That is not the right fashion statement to make on the streets today,” the colonel said, and opened the hall closet. He produced a light blue cloak, as well as a pair of scissors and snipped out the label.

“Now you have a cloak and dagger,” the wife said, grinning.

The machine gun vanished under the cloak, which fell to midthigh on Vicky.

“Here, take my hat, too,” the wife said, and Vicky found herself sporting a floppy, wide-brimmed hat that put her face in the shadows . . . after the colonel had removed all tags.

They headed out to the garage, where a family van waited. It clearly was the worse for wear and smelled of sweaty hockey uniforms and gear that lay in the space behind the last seat.

“Sorry about the ride, but we don’t want to look obvious.” Sometime during Vicky’s shower, the colonel had changed into jeans and a simple flannel shirt.

No military here. Move along.

“Where are we going?” Vicky asked as she took a big bite of the sandwich.

CHAPTER 31

THE colonel said nothing as he backed out of the garage and headed sedately down the road. “There’s a purse under the seat. It’s for you. It has several IDs you can trust to pass any inspection. We got them directly from the source. The three envelopes are yours as well. That’s the money we took off the scum who grabbed you last night. The bills are unmarked and not in any sequence, but we wouldn’t suggest you use any of it until you’re well off planet.”

“Is that where I’m going?” Vicky said as she retrieved the purse and added the fourth envelope that she’d taken herself from the dead man in black to the other three.

“It’s too hot here. Once you decided not to go back, and by the way, Admiral Waller had already decided that he wasn’t going to let you go back into that snake nest. Your call was just what he wanted to hear. Anyway, Greenfeld is too hot for you. You’ve got to run.”

“Where to?” Vicky asked.

“We’re still working on that one. We’ll get you something before you ship out from Greenfeld.”

“How will I know it when I see it?”

The colonel looked at her sideways. “You’re alive and causing trouble for your loving stepmum, aren’t you? We have faith in you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Vicky said, finishing up the sandwich. It was good, if not enough. “How do I get two jumps from here?”

“Your stepmum and her illustrious bunch of villains aren’t the only ones who know how to hire trash and scum. You’ll be using a couple of guys that likely lost the bidding on grabbing you last night, but they’re our bunch of scum and villainy, so don’t kill them if you can avoid it.”

“I’ll try not to,” Vicky allowed.

“By the way, one of them is our man, so we really don’t want to come across all of them dead.”

“A Navy guy is in with them?”

“Why not? One of the guys you killed last night was a light colonel in the Imperial Guard.”

“Let me guess, the guy in black.”

“They were all in black.”

“The thin guy in black. He had a mighty straight back for a scumbag.”

“Good guess.”

They pulled up to a large shopping mall and parked beside a common four-door sedan.

“These are the easiest cars to hot-wire. You’re going to steal it.”

“Won’t the security cameras spot us?” Vicky asked.

“Not this far out. The car belongs to one of our Navy’s civilian employees. He was told that parking it here could lead to his having Imperial problems. He just grinned and asked if he’d be charged annual leave for going shopping in the middle of the day.”

Vicky couldn’t help but laugh at the question. “Will he?”

“Of course he will. He needs the cover. Now, let me show you how to hot-wire a car.”

He popped the lock with a metal fingernail file, settled in the car, did something to the back of the steering wheel that Vicky couldn’t follow, and the engine came to life.

“I don’t think I could duplicate that,” Vicky said.

“You shouldn’t have to. There’s a bar two blocks from the space elevator. The Shipwrecker’s Hideaway. Find a booth in the back and order a beer. It may take a while before they contact you, but wait until five if you have to.

“Okay, but wait a second. Where did you learn to hot-wire a car?”

The colonel tried to look innocent and injured. “I wasn’t always a colonel. Don’t believe everything they tell you about how peaceful and nice everyone is on a Navy colony. Some of us kids are as rotten as they come.”

“No doubt. I won’t tell your kids if you don’t want me to,” Vicky offered with a wide grin.

“I fully expect them to be as rotten as I was. Would be disappointed if they weren’t. Okay, Your Grace. You’re on your own. Good luck and Godspeed.”

“And a fair wind to you and Admiral Waller,” Vicky said as she settled into the car. She had to adjust the mirrors, but she was off before the colonel left.

The Shipwrecker’s Hideaway looked like someone had done a good job of wrecking it. The three-story wood-shingle building it was in appeared dearly in need of help staying upright. Apparently building codes on Greenfeld were not always as tightly enforced as state security.

Vicky parked the stolen car next to a used-car lot three blocks over. With luck, it would be assumed to be just more of the stock although it looked a good deal better than most of what huddled there. If there was a salesman on-site, he wasn’t in evidence.

She kept her hat well over her eyes as she passed several street security cameras high up on poles. Most didn’t look like they were working, but you could never tell if that was just part of the camouflage or if trucks actually had knocked them askew.

From the look of all of them, the locals didn’t much care to be on camera any more than Vicky did.

The bar was an uneven two steps down to a concrete floor that was cracked and uneven itself. The tables might have been salvaged from several shipwrecks; no two looked the same. Ditto with the chairs.

She settled into the rearmost booth, only to have to leave it when the bartender shouted, “We ain’t got no service until the girls come on at five. You want a beer, you better come and get it from me.”

Vicky did, feeling a dozen or more pairs of male eyes take her measurements and no doubt decide they wouldn’t kick her out of bed if she got in one with them.

She wondered how they’d react to her pulling her little machine pistol on them but squelched the urge as quickly as it came up. Her attitude toward the male half of the human race was low at the moment, but she was too much a hardheaded woman to let that get her ass in more trouble than she could afford to get out of.

A foaming beer in her hand, she did her best to walk evenly back to her booth. She was a woman in a man’s clubhouse. She didn’t want to advertise what she was damn well not going to sell, give, or let be taken from her.

A few guys caught her eye. She gave them a look that left them staring down at their beers.

Still, over the next half hour, she had to put up with three guys coming up at different times and asking her if she wanted company. “You really don’t want to be sitting with me when the guy I’m waiting for shows up,” she said.

Only one of them didn’t immediately retreat but said he’d take his chances. “He’s a professional wrestler and weighs in at three hundred pounds,” sent even him on his way.

By process of elimination, Vicky dropped most of the chaps in the bar from her list of potential contacts. There were two guys at a table near the door who neither made a pass at her nor studiously ignored her.

One was short and as round as Otto was from last night. The other was taller. Just exactly how tall was hard to tell, his shoulders were stooped and his ratty sweatshirt bulged at his belly. It might be covering a bulging belly. Or it might not.

Hard to tell from across the room.

The two of them nursed their beer as if it had to last all night.

Vicky nursed her own. She was starting to feel the lack of sleep for the last thirty-six hours and didn’t want to have a buzz on if, no, when, things got interesting.

Finally, the two got up and sauntered toward her. The shorter of the two continued past her to the head. The other one, who was in dire need of a shave and a shower, slipped into the booth across from her.

“Put on whats you finds in this bag, okay, doll?”

She’d killed the last guy who “dolled” her, but, apparently in the Greenfeld underground, doll was as good as a girl could hope for.

She took the bag as he handed it to her under the table and headed for the restroom.

The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since it was built, but there was a stall, and the door closed almost completely. In the bag she found a pair of dirty coveralls and a baseball cap.

The coveralls were large; she slung her gun as well as her purse in front of her and still had no problem zipping up the front. It did give her a paunchy or maybe just-pregnant look that made her boobs disappear in the general mass.

Never thought those melons would be out of sight, Vicky thought with a silent laugh.

Before she hid the purse in her gut, she pulled a makeup kit from it and with only the mirror in the compact, added age and worry lines to her eyes and mouth. She then put a few to her cheeks and forehead. She wouldn’t pass close examination, but she hoped not to get close to anyone who wanted to find her.

There were two rolls of cotton in the purse as well. She slipped them into her cheeks and suddenly developed jowls.

She opened the stall door to find the tall one waiting for her, leaning on the sink.

“Not bad. Yous gots a brain for a doll.”

Vicky scowled at him, but he was already turning for the door.

The short one was just leaving the men’s room, hitching up his britches. They headed out the back door.

She followed them.

Outside, she trailed them for a good half block before they turned into an alley and waited for her. Two more men joined them. One looked like a big brawler who might just be dangerous in a fight. The other was the shortest of all four and had a hungry look on his ratlike face. He swaggered and bossed the others, apparently considering himself to be what passed for the brains of the band.

God help them if they actually had to think their way out of anything more difficult than a wet paper bag.

But one of them was Navy, she’d been told. Which one, was still a mystery to Vicky.

Well, the stoop-shouldered guy in the sweatshirt might be hiding more than he was showing.

Until she had a better idea who was who, she’d just have to let all four of them live.

So far, they really hadn’t done anything to make her want to cancel their breathing permits.

The fighter handed Vicky a toolbox. The stoop-shouldered one said, “Yous got the hat on wrong. Turn it around. Nosbody wears it straight.”

Vicky had the baseball cap pulled down over her face to cover it. Now she swung it around.

The tall guy came up and smoothed something over her forehead that stuck there. Then he added something else to her cheeks. “Thats’ll help. Yous ain’t so pretty now.”

He also stooped down and slipped something in Vicky’s boot.

The putative smart one handed Vicky a card. “That’s your pass up the beanstalk. Don’t say a word, just do what we do. You got it, doll?”

Vicky nodded silently.

“What does yous knows?” the stoop-shouldered one said. “A skirt thats can do whats she’s told.”

The others laughed.

They started walking.

Vicky followed them, then had to suppress an outcry. That something in her boot felt like a small mountain. And it hurt. Still, she kept up with them, limping the whole time.

Vicky decided that if push came to shove, the stoop-shouldered one died first.

CHAPTER 32

LIKE any Navy officer, Vicky had been up and down the space elevator many times.

She’d never before seen this side of the place, though.

It was probably just as well that they were using the worker’s gate. As they walked by the front entrance to the station . . . at a comfortable distance well across the parking lot . . . Vicky spotted a dozen of the big, heavy SUVs that the Imperial Guards used. There were heavily armed red-and-blacks moving in fire teams of four all over the outside of the station.

No doubt, there were more inside.

Someone had finally decided to put out the dragnet for her. Likely the rest of Anhalt was crawling with red-and-blacks.

Maybe the palace would be the safest place for her?

Vicky suppressed a smile.

They walked around back, the guys joking among themselves, and left her carrying the heavy toolbox and limping. Vicky guessed this was part of the disguise, but if this didn’t work, she was going to make sure someone paid dearly for putting her through this.

They came in a back entrance that Vicky had never seen before. It was dark and dirty and smelled. Greenfeld Elevator, Inc., didn’t waste any of its profits on the help.

There was a guy at the gate, checking IDs. One of the others went first, handed him his ID and got it back. The rat face, next in line asked, “How’s the wife?”

“I work all the overtime I can get, and she still spends it faster than I can bring it home,” he said, then smiled as rat handed him his ID with a couple of bills folded around it.

The bills disappeared.

Stoop-shouldered went next, and handed over his ID wrapped in cash, too.

The guy’s smile grew.

Vicky was next; she passed the ID she’d been given, but with no cash attached, not having been given any. The guy’s smile vanished but he took it, glanced at a list of names on a clipboard, and passed it back.

The last of the five had money with his ID. He got a cheery “Have a great day on the job, guys,” and the five of them shambled along toward the EMPLOYEES ONLY gate.

“Why didn’t I get any money?” Vicky demanded in a whisper.

“Yous wants to draw attention to yous self, dumb skirt?” the slump-shouldered one whispered back.

Yep, he definitely died first.

They entered the ferry by a back entrance, and Vicky found herself surrounded by machinery that made a racket, gave off noxious vapors, and in general looked a whole lot less serviceable than the VIP lounge she had ridden down in just three days ago.

“You two hide out in there,” Rat Face said, and pointed Vicky and stooped shoulders to a compartment whose door said ELECTRICAL FUSE BOXES. KEEP OUT.

They slipped in, and Vicky found herself in close quarters with a whole lot of stuff labeled DANGER, DO NOT TOUCH. QUALIFIED TECHNICIAN ACCESS ONLY.

“I wouldn’t touch those if I were you,” the stoop-shouldered fellow said, his use of Standard suddenly much improved. He was also standing up much straighter.

“I wasn’t planning on touching anything,” Vicky said. “I don’t know what my ID says, but I am no way a qualified technician.”

“For a lieutenant commander, you’re mighty smart.”

“I’m alive. If I was dumb, I’d be dead already,” Vicky said, not failing to notice that he’d somehow been informed of the promotion she’d hardly heard about.

“Yes, you are very much alive,” he said, glancing down at what had to be the worst fashion statement Vicky had ever made.

She decided to direct the conversation where she wanted it. “What do we do if there is an emergency and some ‘qualified-tech’ type wants in here?”

“There will be a lot of hooting and alarms going off long before anyone comes knocking at our door. Trust me, we’ll be hiding somewhere else, assuming there’s anyplace to hide. If this stuff fails, we are all in deep shit.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know that because you’re Navy, would you?”

“Might have been once,” he admitted.

“And no doubt will be again, you hope.”

“I can’t take much more of this undercover shit, I will admit.”

“Where do we go next?” Vicky asked.

“You’ll know as it happens, Your Grace. I can’t be captured. What I know dies with me.”

“I won’t be captured again. I know what they have planned for me when they get their sick hands on my fair flesh. I go down fighting next time.”

“Thanks for the warning. Are you armed?”

“Heavily.”

“So you can’t go through a metal detector.”

“Not successfully.”

“Thanks for the second warning,” he scowled. “We were just lucky that the employee-entrance metal detector was on the fritz again.”

“Nobody asked,” Vicky said defensively.

“And nobody told me,” he said through a scowl. “This lash-up is demanding too damn much luck.”

“It’s not like we could have planned this in advance,” Vicky pointed out.

“You’re starting to sound like some admiral,” he snapped.

“I’m a lieutenant, maybe a lieutenant commander, and a Grand Duchess. When I’m a lieutenant whatever, I bow and scrape, and say, ‘Yes, sir, admiral sir.’ When I’m a Grand Duchess, I bow to no one and admirals do as I say. I try hard not to get confused about which I am on any particular morning.”

“From what I hear, you’re a lieutenant commander, but junior to me by one very critical stripe’s width.”

“So, Commander, Admiral Waller went ahead with the paperwork, huh?”

“That was what I was told: ‘See that Lieutenant Commander, Her Grand Duchess gets her ass out of here in one piece.’”

“Your orders came in that format?”

“You may have noticed that I’m on very detached duty.”

“I think we both are now.”

“Any more surprises I should know about?”

“There’s one hell of a sharp knife in my right boot.”

“Please don’t use it on anyone I need,” he said.

“I was tempted to use it on you.”

He chuckled. “Then I was doing my job right. The only reason I’m in here with you and not Rat Face is because he figured I pissed you off the worst, and he liked the idea of you maybe slitting my belly open while those three went out for a beer.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be working on this ferry?”

“Not everyone who draws a paycheck from this ferry company does any work, Your Grace. I’ve seen the report. Our ferries require twice the manning of any in Longknife space. There’s a lot of featherbedding going on in the Empire. You know someone, you get a job. You pay them their kickback; you keep your job, no matter what.”

Vicky just shook her head. More data points of what was wrong with her beloved Greenfeld. No, what was wrong with the way her dad was running his Empire.

How long had it been going on like this? How much longer could the Empire survive this kind of mishandling? And that didn’t even raise the new question. How long would Greenfeld survive if one of those humongous mother ships showed up in tomorrow’s sky?

Vicky found a handhold as the PA system announced imminent departure. Maybe it was more noticeable since she had to be more careful about bumping into dangerous things, but the launch-out acceleration was bumpier than Vicky remembered.

The Navy officer noticed it, too, and scowled. “It just keeps getting worse. They’re going to knock one of these ferries off the damn elevator one of these days. What a mess that will be.”

“Not today, I hope.”

“Most likely not,” he agreed.

By the time the ferry had settled down at one-gee acceleration, the thrust was smoother. And Vicky had a few seconds to think.

“How much do you trust those three scumbags?” she asked the commander.

“They have a reputation for asking for too much money but for staying bought,” he said, but didn’t sound all that confident.

“There’s a lot of money on my head, and other, more delicate parts of me, too,” Vicky said.

“Are you thinking it might be a good idea to find another place to hide for a bit?”

“You know of one?”

His answer was to open the door, check the passageway, and motion her to follow him.

“Don’t forget your toolkit,” he said as he led her out.

Vicky went back to get said toolkit. Quickly, they went down the cramped corridor, up a steep companionway, then down another passageway. They were approaching another ladder when the sound of jackboots caught their attention from above.

The commander opened a door, and Vicky found herself sharing a tiny broom closet with him and several noxious cleaning agents. The toolbox came in handy to keep the space between her and the commander from getting too narrow.

Through the cracked door they heard Rat Face say, “It’s not much farther, just down this next set of stairs and around the hall.” Six pairs of boots followed him.

“That was too close,” the commander whispered, then cracked the door and checked both ways. “Quick, we’ve got to get well away from here.”

Vicky followed him as he jogged down the passageway, past the ladder and into a hatch marked, NO ADMITTANCE.

The room Vicky found herself in was small and crowded with emergency gear, rescue breathers, bottles of fire suppressants, and other helpful stuff for when all hell broke loose.

The commander ignored them and undogged a seriously airtight hatch. “Through here, quick.”

Vicky went.

It was cold in the next compartment. Vicky strongly suspected she was looking at the outer hull shell. Above her, ladder rungs were welded to the hull.

“Up we go, Your Grace.”

“With this,” she said, waving the toolbox.

The commander produced a pair of leather shoulder straps from the side of the kit. “Yup, junior commander, you do the fetch and carrying.”

Vicky scowled. “Can I at least get this damn rock out of my boot?”

He paused while she did, then led off immediately. She slung the toolkit as a pack and followed right behind him.

They must have climbed up five decks before they came to a solid bulkhead with another airtight hatch. As they stood on a landing below it, the commander studied it for a moment, then turned Vicky around without so much as a single pleasantry, and removed a couple of things from her toolkit.

He attached a gizmo and several wires to the hatch before he began undogging it. Apparently it worked, because the notice on the door, DO NOT OPEN, ALARMS WILL SOUND, did not happen when he opened the hatch.

Vicky climbed through it and caught her breath while the commander dogged down the hatch. “Up you go. We got two more of these bulkheads to climb through.”

Vicky swallowed any protest and started climbing. Suddenly, she was very glad for all the walking in the garden and dancing at the banquets. She might not have been doing morning PT, but she had surely kept in shape.

Two bulkheads later, the commander opened a hatch back into the ferry, and they found themselves once more among emergency gear and supplies.

“You can leave the toolkit here,” he said as he moved to crack the door.

The passageway outside was empty. They quickly moved around it until they came to a door with an anchor, globe, and eagle painted on it. The commander shoved Vicky inside as the sound of footfalls came from around the bend in the passageway.

Vicky found herself facing thirteen Marines in full dress uniform and white gloves.

Six of them had their rifles aimed at her heart.

“Gentlemen, and Marines, too,” the commander said, “may I introduce you to Her Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria.”

The Marine captain snapped to attention and saluted. The rifles went back to parade rest, and Vicky gave a sigh of relief.

CHAPTER 33

NO longer staring down rifle barrels, Vicky could take a better measurement of the room.

It was gently lit and smelled of flowers. Understandably, because in the center of the room was a flag-draped casket. She’d stumbled into a funeral honor guard.

The blood drained from her face. Was this Captain Morgan?

“Sorry, Captain, but we had to go to Plan B,” the commander said, not sounding at all apologetic. “It seems that our lowlifes are not as loyal as we thought our money bought us.”

“Don’t you just hate scum that can’t be counted on to stay bought?” the captain answered through a tight smile.

“Can you take over her protection? I’ve got to run. No doubt I’ve been burned and am as hot as she is.”

“Can you get off safely, sir?” the Marine asked.

“I’ve got several options, but none that I can do if I have her on my heels.” The commander turned back to Vicky. “Your Grace, I will meet up with you on the station. I know where we go next. The captain, here, does not. Hang with this bunch until I get back with you.”

“Good luck,” Vicky said.

“See you in a bit,” the commander said, and edged out the door.

Four of the honor guard were already doing something around the bottom of the coffin.

“Your Grace, if you will shed that gear, it’s going to be a tight fit where you’re going.”

Vicky fished her machine pistol out and settled it in front of her coveralls. “I will not be taken alive again,” she said. Listening to her words, she realized they came out hard. She didn’t intend them for the captain, but she did mean them.

“We understand, Your Grace,” the captain said, without batting an eyelash. “They get you, they come at you over our dead bodies.”

The sergeants around him nodded darkly.

Vicky turned to the flag draped coffin. “Is this Captain Morgan?”

“Oh, God! No, ma’am! We wouldn’t do that to you. No, Your Grace, this is General Colenberg. He died during interrogation by the security consultants. None of us know just why he had been hauled in a week ago, but he died of a heart attack, or so we we’re told.”

The sergeants of the honor guard looked positively murderous as the story came out. Had all of them served under the general?

Vicky shook her head. Did someone want a rebellion? If not, they were sure going about it all wrong.

Half of the coffin’s bottom had swung down, Vicky crawled into the space beneath the satin top and the wooden bottom. She check the safety on her weapon once again, then nuzzled it close.

One of the honor-guard sergeants gave her a wink, she lifted up her legs, and they began tightening the bottom back in place.

The fit was more than snug. She found if she edged over to one side, she could wedge herself into the plush side foam. She spotted a light in the dark near one of the handles and wiggled over to get more air.

She needed the outside air. What she shared with the corpse was heavy with death. If she had to guess, she’d say the body had not been embalmed.

She hadn’t long to wait for something to happen. There was a demanding rap at the door.

Vicky forced herself to breathe slowly, smoothly. She dare not starve herself now for air only to have to make a noisy gasp later.

“Who is it?” the captain said indifferently.

“Open up for the Imperial Guard,” was a demand, not a request.

“Since you asked so nicely. Sergeant, let them in.”

That was followed by the noise of a lot of heavy boots entering.

“You have a problem?” the captain asked lightly.

“We’re looking for a girl. A common prostitute. The tart murdered half a dozen men in cold blood.”

“Imperial Guardsmen, no doubt, unable to handle a mere slip of a girl,” the Marine captain said with surprise that almost didn’t sound feigned. “Well, you can see there are only men here. Marines and the dead,” the captain added darkly.

“So you say. Sergeant, search the place.”

So much for professional courtesy and respecting the word of a fellow officer. Then again, on second thought, no Marine would consider the Imperial Guard their equal. And for different reasons, no doubt the Guard felt the same way.

There was more commotion that apparently led nowhere. Then came the inevitable.

“Open the casket.”

“That is Brigadier General Colenberg, our honored dead,” the captain bit out.

“So you say. I’ll see for myself.”

“The brigadier died during interrogation by a security consultant. It is not a pretty sight. His family did not embalm the body for religious reasons, and they want a closed-casket service.”

“Guard officers do not have squeamish stomachs, like some people. No doubt he got what he deserved for the crimes he committed. Open the casket, or I will have it opened.”

Was that Guard officer under orders to start a rebellion right here in this room?

Vicky considered the situation. That might be the plan. If the Navy shot at the Guard, the Empress could move in fast with her power and suppress the Navy quickly while it was unprepared for what hit it. And if they found Vicky’s dead body in the cross fire, well, so much the better.

There was a long, pregnant, or maybe more accurately deadly, pause. When the captain spoke, his words were cold but crisp. “Honor Guard, Atten’hut.”

Vicky heard the snap of men coming smartly to attention.

“Honor Guard, Recover the flag.”

More light came in through Vicky’s breathing holes as the flag was lifted, then smartly folded down to the sergeant at the foot of the coffin.

“Open it,” the Guard officer demanded.

Again there was a pause. Then the captain said. “Command Sergeant Major, please open the top of the casket.”

That took a bit of doing. The sergeant major seemed to fumble the latch repeatedly in his gloved hands.

“Take the damn gloves off,” demanded the Guard officer.

The top half of the coffin opened. Vicky got a whiff of fresher air.

Someone stomped over to the coffin. “Open the rest of it.”

That took less time.

Now the coffin swayed as the Guard officer lifted first the feet, then the head. Finally, he rocked the body to the left and right. Vicky could feel the tension growing more and more explosive in the room.

If these sergeants were drawn from the brigadier’s command, the idiot Guard officer was messing with their beloved commander right in front of his loyal NCOs.

Had the Guardsman been ordered to do his best to spark the rebellion today?

Vicky had to remind herself to breathe slowly and softly.

“Clearly, that is Brigadier General Colenberg and not a woman,” the captain snapped. “Will you now leave us to our grief?”

“Why would you Marines shed a tear for a common crook?”

“Are men in Greenfeld no longer innocent until proven guilty?” the captain bit out.

“He should have told the Empress’s security consultants what they wanted to know.”

There was no answer to that. None that didn’t involve full civil war. The captain let the Guard officer have the last word. Vicky listened as heavy boots left.

She’d bet money that the last several of them were backing out, machine pistols at the ready.

A long minute went by as a lot of angry men got their breath back and closed the casket.

“Honor Guard. Render flag honors to the dead.”

The flag was returned to lie over the casket, and Vicky found herself with less light.

“You okay in there?” the captain asked.

“Yes,” Vicky whispered. Then added, “Thanks, Captain, for not doing what they wanted you to do.”

“Those sons ah bitches have a lot coming to them.”

“But not today, Captain. Not when they’re asking for it. Wanting it. Ready for it, and we aren’t.”

“Too true, Your Grace. Too true.”

Vicky found herself wanting to doze off. Tired as she was, she fought the urge. It wouldn’t do to have snores coming from a coffin. Flag-draped or otherwise.

When the ferry arrived at the station, the Marines waited until the rush was over, then slow-marched the casket as they rolled it through the main deck and off to a waiting hearse.

The drive to the Navy-base chapel on the station was slow but uninterrupted.

The casket was again unloaded by the honor guard and transferred to its wheeled dolly under the soft tears of mourners. Vicky heard the captain pass a few words with them.

“There’s a wheel threatening to come loose. We need to take the remains to the back of the chapel for a few minutes to assure there are no problems during the service.”

The widow tearfully agreed.

So Vicky found herself out of sight, in the sacristy beside the sanctuary, being pulled out of her close confines.

There was a woman Marine captain waiting for her. “Come with me. I have a few things for you.” And the two of them disappeared into the vacant chaplain’s office.

The first thing the Marine did was extract a shipsuit from a bag, a gray one, not Navy blue or Greenfeld green, and toss it to Vicky.

Vicky read the name on the right breast. “‘Paulus Ship Fitters. The best for the best.’ Anyone we know?” she asked.

The Marine officer shrugged. “I’m doing what I was told. And I was told to ask no questions and forget everything I did five seconds after I did it, Your Grace.”

“Smart policy,” Vicky agreed. In a moment, the borrowed coveralls were a heap on the floor, quickly followed by the clothes the colonel and his wife had given her. It took only a second to pull on the new, nonregulation shipsuit.

“The rest of the stuff in the bag is what I think you’ll need for a week on the run. Toothbrush, soap, clean undies, a box of sanitary napkins just in case. You know.”

“Thanks. You’re the first person I’ve met since this whole thing began to think of me as a woman with needs.”

“And what you mean by ‘this whole thing’ is not part of my brief, ma’am, though if I can say so, we girls of the Corps are damn proud of the way you got those scumbags that murdered the captain. A lot of us liked that bounder.”

“I’m sorry I could only avenge him,” Vicky said, and really felt it.

“Here are some sunglasses and a baseball cap. You can put your weapon in the bag with the other stuff. That’s 4.5 mm, right? I got you a couple of extra boxes of ammunition and two magazines that should fit that thing.”

“For someone who doesn’t know a thing about me and forgot it five seconds ago, you sure know what I want.”

“We aim to please, Your Grace. Now, good luck and a fast voyage. Oh, and I was given this just before you got here.” She handed Vicky a slip of paper.

“Put it in water, and it will tell you where to go next. There’s a water fountain in the passageway around behind the sanctuary. Now. I got to go,” she said, gathering up Vicky’s shed clothes and putting them in a bag that she produced from somewhere. “It’s been nice never meeting you.”

And without a backward glance, Vicky’s angel was gone.

Vicky checked her bag. It was full of nice things as well as another shipsuit and several changes of underwear that were in her size. There were three boxes of a hundred rounds each of 4.5 mm ammo and two sixty-round magazines. Vicky slipped her own automatic as well as her captured weapon in the bag and covered them with clothes, but made sure they were in easy reach.

Ready to give the padre back his office, she slipped out and headed away from the mourning congregation through the back hallway. There indeed was a water fountain. She soaked the slip of paper and saw “Pier 12, D-103” appear.

In the sanctuary, Vicky could hear a male voice, heavy with emotions, praise the character of the deceased brigadier. All Vicky could do was shake her head and promise his tortured soul vengeance as she swallowed the paper and let herself out the back door of the chapel.

Vicky left the Navy base by a minor gate. The Marine guard there studied her fake ID for a long moment, then waved her through. She avoided the station trolley and anyplace that might have good camera coverage. That left her walking the back alleys and side roads of the station. It took her a half hour more, but in an hour she stood at the escalator that would take her down to Pier 12. The map before her showed that side branches A, B, and C were large affairs where liners might dock. D was opposite C and looked tiny compared to the other three. Then again, it had some hundred and ten tie-downs.

Here was the place small runabouts and yachts could tie up.

Vicky passed up the elevator that would have whisked her down to the D level and took the stairs instead, figuring they were likely to be under less surveillance.

Besides, a working stiff like she appeared to be wouldn’t crowd the elbows of the paying customers and owners.

Got to stay in my place, she lectured herself, wondering if she’d ever find out what her place really was.

Damn it, girl, you’re the Grand Duchess Victoria. Your place is on top.

Or dead.

Vicky tried to concentrate on her surroundings and not foolish thoughts as she trotted down the steps.

Cross Pier D was easy to find. Now berth 103, that was a problem.

Vicky walked and walked out the D cross pier, passing scores of slips for boats large but getting smaller as the numbers slowly added up toward a hundred. Now she was passing decent-sized system runabouts, craft that might take a party out to circle the moon or even to one of the outer planets, if you didn’t mind the air getting a bit stale.

None of them seemed suitable for a jump to the next system, much less two.

“Have I got the number right?” she was just asking herself when she finally came to slip 103.

The name on the slip sign said the Spaceadler was tied up below. The name was smudged and the paper it was written on worn and dog-eared. Apparently, the Spaceadler had been tied up at slip 103 for quite a while.

The board below the name showed red. The Spaceadler was locked down tight and not ready for space.

Vicky walked the rest of the distance to the end of Cross Pier D. That took her to slip 110. The other signs were just as tired and dog-eared. Apparently, this was where ships came to die.

She turned back.

There was the commander coming up the pier, whistling a jaunty tune and lugging a large seabag on his shoulder. No longer stoop-shouldered, he had somehow managed to shave and otherwise clean up his act. Now, he didn’t look half-bad. Indeed, not bad at all.

Vicky allowed herself a smile. He smiled right back at her. So she slowed her pace and arrived back at the Spaceadler at the same time he did.

CHAPTER 34

“YOU’RE late,” she said.

“You’re early, as usual,” he said right back, but with a wide grin. He was rather nice, if a bit too confident for Vicky’s tastes.

That debate would get them nowhere, so she let it drop and went on to the next impossible thing on her to-do list. “You got a pass to get us in?” she asked.

“I most certainly do,” he said, producing a card. He ran it through the reader at the bottom of the sign.

The board continued to show red. NO ADMISSION.

The locked door barring admission to slip 103 clicked open.

So it was going to be like that, Vicky thought, and followed the commander into the spiral staircase down to the ship’s hatch.

She closed the pier gate behind them and it clicked locked again.

The spiral staircase was a tight fit for the commander and his large duffel. She let him lead the way and hung back herself. Clearly, Slip 103 was not the lap of luxury. Then again, there didn’t seem to be much traffic or security out this way, either.

Given a choice of comfort and attention vs. some hard knocks while being ignored, Vicky would settle for the latter today.

At the tiny brow, the commander dropped his seabag to the deck and pulled his security card out again. One swipe, and the ship’s hatch came open.

The outside pier light still showed red.

The commander held up his card and smiled. “Don’t you just love the magic we criminals and other miscreants can get away with these days?”

“On most days,” Vicky said, “I’m a strong supporter of law and order. My daddy likes it that way. Today, I’ll cut you some slack.”

“So nice of you, Your Grace. You do want to be rescued, don’t you?”

“I chose rescue well ahead of the authorized rescue party, didn’t I?”

“You do have that to your credit. Now, let’s stow our gear and see what some other little elves and lowlifes have left for our aid and comfort.”

The ship was bigger than Vicky had expected. Aft there was a small thermonuclear reactor, complete with a magnetohydrodynamic electrical-generation system.

Although the board on the dock had reported the reactor was cold steel, the board in engineering said it was hot and ready to go.

“Interesting disconnect,” Vicky muttered.

“Sometimes it’s nice when things aren’t what they seem,” the commander said.

“Not around the palace,” Vicky growled.

“We are far from that place and soon to get farther.”

“Amen.”

“You sound like you just came from church,” the commander said with a grin while he led her forward toward the bridge.

“First time in so long I can’t remember. Dad didn’t have much need for clergy except when he wanted to get married,” she said, and scowled.

“Just one of several things I don’t much care for about your family.”

“You’ll get no backtalk from me on family matters,” Vicky said, then whistled. “What kind of ship is this?”

“A very nice yacht,” the commander said.

“And you know about it how?”

“Well, you see, there was this guy I went to the academy with. He spent such good times with his dad on the Spaceadler that he thought being a Navy officer would be great. You may have noticed that there’s a bit of difference from being a pampered passenger and being a Navy officer.”

“Once or twice or fifty times,” Vicky admitted.

“His Navy career was no longer than it had to be, but he and I stay in touch, and I’ve been out on this boat with him a few times.”

“Is he going to miss it?”

“You may have gotten the impression from the sign dockside that the boat hasn’t been out in a while.”

“Or longer,” Vicky agreed.

“His dad died two years back. He and his kid sister want to sail the boat. His older brother and sister can’t wait to sell the boat. While the family argues, the ship stays tied up. Older sibs won’t let the younger kids take it out for fear they’ll dent it and knock down the sale price.”

“So the boat sits alongside the pier and rots.”

“Funny how that works.”

“And the reactor is all hot and ready to go because . . . ?” Vicky asked.

“When I got word that some spoiled high-society dame needed to bug out, I mentioned that I knew about this boat. What do you know? By the time we get up here, it’s got a full larder, a hot reactor, plenty of reaction mass. And nothing in the pier log says that anyone came near this boat, thank you very much.”

“Neat trick,” Vicky allowed.

“Us criminals and low-life thieves ain’t the only ones what can do magic tricks.”

“So, we light the kettle and bug out of here.”

“Not for a while. Not unless you want every defensive laser on this station to be aimed at us thirty seconds after we cast off our tie-downs.”

“Then we’re going to hide out here until the whole mess I’m in blows over?”

“Nope. We got to get out of here and get out soon.”

“Gee, Commander, I’m all out of guesses. Enlighten this poor junior officer.”

“You’re a lieutenant commander. Your junior-officer days are over. From now on, you got to work for a living.”

“Oh dear, and I was just told today that no one above the rank of chief or Gunny worked for a living.”

“Misinformation spread by the people who really run the Navy to confuse the rest of us.”

“Commander, I’m way past due for some sleep. Have mercy on this lowly lieutenant commander and tell me what my future holds.”

“To such a plaintive cry, I can only offer the truth.” That dangerous grin was back on his face. “During the midwatch, the light cruiser Rostock will depart for a far shore. Unusual for a Navy departure, it will make a close pass down Pier 12. At the same time, on the midwatch, the main traffic-control radar for High Anhalt station will go down for maintenance. It’s been giving trouble for quite some time. Got worse earlier today. So, I intend to take my departure from a pier that will still be reporting the Spaceadler in dock, and fly such a close formation with the Rostock that no one using the available radars will be any the wiser. Understand?”

“You that good a pilot?”

“I used to be. I’m a bit rusty after wasting my time recently with various miscreants, but hell, if you’ve shaved the paint off one ship, you never forget how to shave the paint off ships. Right?”

“God help us.”

“Well, you’re the one that just went to church. You’ll have to do the praying.”

“Any chance I could do some sleeping?”

“There are several cabins below. You take the owner’s cabin. It’s got a nice big bed.”

“I’ll only need a small one.”

“Suit yourself,” the commander said, and turned his attention to his control board. He pulled out a predeparture checklist and began to go down it.

Vicky headed down the central stairwell. On the third deck, midway between the reactor and the bridge, she did indeed find a room with a large bed.

She fell into it. She was debating taking her boots off but fell asleep before she could reach any decision.

CHAPTER 35

VICKY came awake screaming.

The dream had been horrible, bloody, and ugly. Half-severed heads had danced around her while Captain Morgan had done his macabre dance beside her, bleeding from more and more bullet holes but condemned to never fall. Never die. Never find rest.

She sat up in bed to find the commander charging into the bedroom.

“You all right?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Vicky said, shaking. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

She couldn’t stop shaking.

The commander came to sit on the bed beside her. He started to put an arm around her.

Vicky pulled away as if she’d seen a snake.

“Excuse me,” the commander said gently.

“I’m sorry. It’s not your fault,” Vicky said. “You startled me. I’m still half-asleep. Half in a nightmare.” She felt guilty. “Go ahead. Put an arm around me, if you want.”

Cautiously, the commander did extend an arm. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as he touched her.

“See, I’m better now.”

“Lady, I’ve hugged some women before in my life. I’ve never touched anyone that was shaking like you’re shaking and reacted the way you did to my touch.”

“I didn’t react to your touch,” Vicky said, defensively.

“That’s what I mean. I’ve hugged trees that were less stiff.”

“Sorry. Maybe I ought to just go back to sleep.”

“And dream what you were dreaming?”

Vicky winced at the thought.

“It was bad, huh?” the commander said.

“Yeah,” Vicky let slip out.

“Want to talk?”

“What good will talking about it do?” Vicky asked hopelessly.

“Some of us saw a lot more on street patrols than we ever figured on seeing when we signed up in the Navy,” the commander whispered. “I signed up for detached duty to try to make sure we didn’t have to do any more crowd control on fully automatic.”

Vicky thought about what the commander said. Then shrugged.

“I cut the heads off two guys,” she said slowly. “I had no idea you could get that much blood out of a man’s neck. One of them was sleeping when I did it. Shooting the other four was easier. Just pull the trigger and watch the head explode.”

“Hmm,” was the only response from the commander, but he was holding her tighter.

“But the worst was the first one I killed. I kind of egged him on into raping me, then when I had him distracted, I smashed his throat in and watched him suffocate.”

“Hmm,” was there again.

“That all you got to say?” she snapped.

He made a puzzled face. “You ever read any Shakespeare?”

“Who’s he?”

“Wrote nearly a thousand years ago, but some of it fits today like a glove. There was this guy who wanted to be the king of Scotland in the worst way. So he killed the king. Knifed him while he was sleeping.”

Now it was Vicky’s turn to make a sour face.

“Later in the play, the guy’s having trouble sleeping and says something like, ‘Macbeth does murder sleep.’”

“And Vicky did him one better. I’ve murdered sleep and sex.”

“But that wasn’t a king you killed. They were scumbags who had been breathing our air for way too long. You did us all a service.”

“I don’t feel like I did anyone anything.”

“You kept yourself alive.”

“I did that, didn’t I?”

“So, now all you have to do is enjoy life and get your revenge on both those pieces of crap and your stepmom.”

“Enjoy my life?”

“Yep, a life well lived is the best revenge any of us can have on them that don’t want us alive. Or enjoying ourselves.”

“So, now you’re a Navy officer and a philosopher?”

“All at no extra charge,” he said. He also smiled. It was a kind of nice smile.

Vicky found she’d quit shaking. Maybe there was something to this talking stuff.

Then she yawned.

“Still tired?” the commander asked.

“Yeah, but I sure don’t want to go back to sleep.”

“Yes you do. You just don’t want to go back to those nightmares.”

“Oh definitely,” Vicky breathed.

“You sleep. I’ll stay here. If it looks like you’re having a bad dream, I’ll wake you up fast.”

Vicky raised an eyebrow. “You going to tell me we’re just going to cuddle?”

“If you feel safer being held, I’ll hold you. If you don’t want me closer than across the room, I’ll sit there on the floor and watch you.”

“I honestly think you would,” Vicky said. “Don’t you have some presortie checklist you need to go down?”

“I finished it before I came running down here.”

Vicky reached down, and pulled the knife from her boot. “You might want to put this out of my reach if you’re going to hold me. I’d hate to do something permanent to that nice-looking face of yours while I am only half-awake.”

He took the knife, eyed its sharp blade, and dropped it to the deck. “Yes, we really don’t want to share a bed with that dude.”

Vicky stretched out on the bed, fluffed the pillow under her head, and rolled over to face away from the commander. He settled down beside her and put an arm over her that, surprise of surprises, managed to enfold her without nudging either of those two well-rounded gals that most men couldn’t wait to get their mitts on.

Maybe this guy is different, she thought.

He’s a guy, she answered her optimistic self.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

And waited for him to make his move.

He didn’t. She could feel his bony thigh against her butt, but he didn’t roll over so that she couldn’t miss his boner. His arm stayed on her collarbone and didn’t rove.

She took another deep breath and settled deeper into the comforter.

Before she knew it, she was asleep.

CHAPTER 36

VICKY came awake to the feeling of being gently rocked.

“You awake,” came in a whisper.

“I think I am,” she allowed.

“Have a good rest?” He actually seemed full of concern for her.

She searched her mind for any memory of a dream, then her gut for any lingering feelings of something forgotten. “Yeah. I think I got a good rest. I don’t remember a dream, and I don’t feel like I’ve been run through a wringer. I think you’re good for me, Commander.”

“None of the mothers of the women I’ve dated would agree with you.”

Vicky stretched. Which resulted in her breasts gently brushing his arm. While she was debating how good that felt, and leaning toward “yum,” he withdrew it with no further contact.

“We need to be up on the bridge. I don’t know exactly when the Rostock will make its pass by us, but it could be anytime after the next thirty minutes.”

Vicky sat up. “Then I guess duty calls, or whatever it is that we respond to when raw survival is on the line.”

“It’s duty for me, survival for you,” the commander said, getting to his feet.

“And exactly how long will you survive my passing?”

“They come at you over my dead body,” he said, heading for the door.

“The Marine captain said the same thing yesterday. Did somebody issue orders about me?”

“No. Not that I’m aware of, but your vulnerable big eyes kind of wring that same response from all nearby virile and heavily armed males.”

“You know, I’d call that bullshit, but I kind of like the ring of it.”

“It is bullshit, but it does kind of ring heroic, doesn’t it?”

“I’m going to have to quit giving you straight lines like that,” Vicky grumbled as she got out of bed.

“See you on the bridge, Commander. You can pretty up your careworn face in the head there.”

“I definitely quit giving you good openings, Commander,” Vicky shot back, but he was already gone.

She put the head to good use, donating water to the recycler before washing her face. The commander was right. She was not looking her best. She would have to check to see if the woman Marine had included some makeup in her emergency go bag, but pretty was not what she needed to be just now.

Feeling almost human, she made her way up to the bridge and settled into the deputy command chair.

The commander didn’t take his eyes off the control board, but asked, “You know anything about conning a ship or flying a shuttle?”

“I’m qualified to stand the comm watch on a battleship,” Vicky said, rather proud of her achievement.

“Hmm,” the commander grunted. “So you don’t know boo about flying one of these things. If you’ll be so kind as to keep your hands away from the controls, we’ll likely survive better.”

Vicky made a face and looked for something to rest both her hands on. Very lightly she touched the control stick and throttle. Very, very lightly, but she touched them nonetheless.

She didn’t stick her tongue out . . . though it was a close call.

“So, she has problems with authority, she does,” the commander muttered.

Vicky retrieved her hands. “I’m a fast learner,” she said.

“No doubt you are a fast leaner about some things, but I’m more concerned on how fast you learn when you’re standing on your own two feet or strapped into a flight seat.”

Now Vicky did stick out her tongue. Yes, he hadn’t accused her of only learning fast when she was flat on her back, but it had been only too strongly insinuated.

“Now that’s an argument winner if ever I saw one.”

Vicky unstuck her tongue out. “Well, I for one am glad to see that you’re not going to go easy on me just because I slept with you.”

“You did not sleep with me. You snored pleasantly beside me. I didn’t sleep a wink.” His words said indignation, but there was way too much sparkle in his eyes and a definite up curl to his lips.

“No man has ever fallen asleep in my bed,” Vicky said, now doing her best to sound indignant.

“We’ll have to continue this delightful conversation later,” the commander said. “Here comes the Rostock.”

The main screen came to life in front of Vicky. She could only guess where this feed was coming from, and, no doubt, whoever was producing it was none the wiser that it was being fed to them on the Spaceadler. The cruiser was done backing away and now was making a close pass along the piers of the station.

Vicky knew enough about the navigation rules close aboard a station to know that this was a strictly forbidden maneuver in the controlled space around a station, even though it was one that many a captain wished to use to save the reaction mass it took to swing the required hundred klicks wide of a station.

“Here we go,” the commander said to himself, and the ship around them came to life. The pier tie-downs began to back them out of the slip, imparting momentum that would carry them well clear of the pier. Then the commander flipped the ship to point them toward the stars and followed it up with little more than a hint of jets. Only once they were clear did he make a serious application of power that got them boosting away from the station fast.

Now the main screen was blue, showing the course vectors of the Rostock and the Spaceadler as they closed on each other and slipped clear of the station.

A hooter went off, “Collision alert! Collision alert!” warned a warm contralto female voice. As if that wasn’t enough, a red light flashed on the board.

“Shut that damn thing off,” the commander ordered, not taking his eyes from the board.

Vicky reached for the flashing red light. It turned out to be a button. She pushed it, and the voice died in mid alarm and the hooter did the same.

The light continued to flash, though.

Now the main screen divided. Half showed the same blue screen and vectors. The other showed the space ahead of them. The Rostock was huge in the view.

But its engines flamed out, letting the commander edge the Spaceadler through its wake without getting her nose singed. The commander then applied a bit of extra power and slipped into the shadow of the Rostock.

Now the board showed an acceleration vector, apparently from the Rostock. The commander fed the same course and acceleration to his own board and the two ships, locked in close formation, accelerated away from the station as one.

“Are we getting painted by radar?” the commander asked.

Vicky had stood enough watches aboard the Fury to know what to look for to get that data. The instruments were much smaller and looked newly installed, but they gave the expected readouts.

“We are being painted by a low-power ranging laser. Most likely from the Rostock,” she reported.

“Yes!”

“There are no high-power radars on us,” Vicky added.

“It’s either down for maintenance or blocked by the Rostock,” the commander whispered through tight lips. “Either way, we get to live tonight.”

“How are we going to make it through the jump?” Vicky asked. No ship went through one of the jumps that took it across light-years, up to scores of them, without identifying itself to the local jump buoy. The buoy always went through the jump first to announce to any approaching ship that the jump was occupied at the moment and not to try going in before the other ship came out.

Nasty things happened when two ships tried to occupy the same jump at the same time. It was definitely to be avoided.

But notifying a jump buoy you were there put you on record as being there. Vicky definitely didn’t want anyone knowing the Spaceadler had been anywhere tonight except safely tucked into its pier.

“We’ll follow the Rostock through the jump, say fifteen seconds after her,” the commander said. “The Rostock will take care to delay any oncoming traffic.”

“You’ve thought of everything,” Vicky said.

“A lot of people have put a lot of thought into this,” the commander answered.

“The more people who know it, the more likely it is to get leaked,” Vicky pointed out.

“You are a doubting Thomas today, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been sold to the highest bidder a time or two of late.”

“Well, everyone involved since Rat Face is Navy. We all know that if we don’t hang together, we will certainly hang separately, to quote an old rebel from way before I was born.”

“Oh, you’re using that five-letter word.”

“Which one?”

“‘Rebel.’”

The commander snorted. “We all better get used to it. I don’t see that we’ve got much of a choice in the matter.”

Vicky shook her head. “Not if what I heard yesterday from my cramped vantage point is what the fleet is going up against regularly. That Imperial Guard officer who searched the Marine funeral honor guard was doing everything he could to get the Marines to swing on him, and two seconds after they did, he would have been shouting, ‘Rebellion! Rebellion most foul!’”

“So you’ve run into that, too,” the commander said. “Yeah, it’s an everyday thing I hear for those who put on the uniform in the morning. The Guard make a game of questioning everything and leaving us damn little of our manhood when we slink clear of them. It almost made me glad to be hanging around with honest scum rather than having to face the ones that were hiding behind the black-and-red uniform.”

Vicky thought on that for a long minute. Did she dare trust the commander with her own thoughts on this? If she couldn’t trust him, whom would she trust?

She chose her words carefully.

“When I was picked up by the battlecruiser Navy, the admiral commanding told me he had three sets of orders, or rather one set of orders and two bribes.”

“An admiral admitted he was on the take! What’s the Navy coming to?” the commander said with a solid, Irish sigh.

“If he hadn’t taken the bribe, he wouldn’t have gotten the job of picking me up,” Vicky said, and quickly brought the commander up to speed on the admiral’s dilemma.

“So, he either kills you or hands you over to person or persons unknown. What would they do with you?”

“Use me to wave the flag of rebellion against my dad and his present hussy.”

“Right. I should have seen that one coming.”

“It helps if you’ve got the kind of corkscrew mind you get growing up in the palace.”

“But you came home. How’d you manage that?”

“The Navy didn’t want me dead, nor did they think it was time to start the rebellion.”

“The Navy, huh?”

“You’re not cleared for the answer to the question you didn’t quite ask,” Vicky said.

“Yes, said the junior pawn to the senior pawn,” had a bit of a laugh attached to it.

“We begin to see our place in the great scheme of things,” Vicky said, and did laugh.

“Which leaves the question,” the commander said, adjusting the acceleration a tad. “We know what you’re running from. But what are you running toward?”

“I was hoping you knew.”

The commander shook his head without taking his eyes from his board. “My orders are to take you through two jumps and then do whatever you tell me.”

Vicky gave the guy a malicious grin. “A guy with orders to do what I tell him. Ah, the possibilities.”

His attempted scowl had too much of a grin in it. “I thought you swore off of that stuff. At least for a day or two.”

“When I’m sleeping, I don’t have much control of where my thoughts go. When I’m awake, it’s a different matter.”

“And the good girls my mother had me date said us guys’ minds were always in the gutter.”

“Your mother had you date good girls. Where’d she find them?” Vicky asked, doing her best to sound shocked.

“I have no idea,” the commander said. “Something about every mother knows, and a post office box in Potsdam.”

Vicky was actually enjoying this conversation. It kept her mind off of all those lasers back on the station that could be aimed her way if they got any hint that there were two ships departing and only one of them had filed a flight plan.

She must have let her concern show on her face.

“We’ll be out of range in another couple of minutes. I’m edging us up more forward on the Rostock so we keep in her radar shadow. The main approach-control radar is still down, but there is a low-power rig with less resolution up and working.”

“Can you read my mind?” Vicky asked.

“Trust me, that radar is the first thing on my mind, even ahead of sex.”

“I didn’t think anything took precedence over sex in a guy’s mind,” Vicky said, doing her best to sound shocked. Shocked!

The commander winced. “Good Lord, I’ve given away sex secrets. A guy can get hanged for that.”

“From his balls no less,” Vicky put in.

“Ouch, lady. I didn’t say anything about your tits getting in a wringer, now have I?”

“And I thank you very much for avoiding that sensitive topic,” Vicky said.

“So avoid my delicate one, too, please.”

Vicky fell silent. The guy was good to banter with, and he had kept her mind off of suddenly being vaporized by the station lasers. Unbidden, the memory of battleships being vaporized by sweeps of alien lasers filled her mind’s eye.

A groan escaped her.

“You want to talk about that?”

“I was remembering what lasers can do to battleships. Lots and lots of lasers.”

“I heard your report. The one with you in the white dress. Those nipple slips made it the rage among most of the bars around the space elevator where the crowd I was running with hung out.”

“Oh dear, you’ve seen me nearly naked.” Vicky sighed.

“Not a bad sight for sore male eyes, but I was more concerned with what you were saying, myself. Are those bastards really as bad as you said they were?”

“At least. Likely worse. And they don’t give up. They chased Kris Longknife’s ship halfway across the galaxy before she managed to dodge out on them. And she only managed that when another ship volunteered to lead them off her trail.”

“And we’re messing with this kind of penny ante crap,” the commander spat, then edged the acceleration up a smidgen before cutting back on it again. “By the way, we’re out of range. You can start breathing again. Breathe one for me, too.”

“Can’t you relax?” Vicky asked.

“Not while I’m flying this close to the Rostock. If their engines so much as cough, or ours hiccup, there will be blood and guts all over the place and not an ounce of brains.

Vicky unstrapped herself from her seat and went to stand behind the commander.

“I’m told I give a decent neck massage. Can I interest you in one?”

The commander rotated his shoulders. “They are kind of tense,” he admitted.

Vicky rested her hands on his shoulders. She left them there, for a few seconds, enjoying the near-electric feel that came every time she touched a man’s skin.

She hadn’t felt it last night when she handled Albert.

Right now, she was feeling it very strongly where the commander was concerned.

“Not bad,” he said.

“I’m just warming my hands on you.”

“Ah, yes. The warmth of my personality. You may bask in it as long as you please.”

Vicky withdrew her hands. “Aren’t there any humble men out there?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” the commander admitted. “I’ve never met one, myself.”

“Me neither. Oh well, I’ll just have to take you guys the way I find you,” she said, resting her hands again on his shoulders.

Only this time, she did begin to knead the taut muscles.

“Hey, you are good.”

“Damn right, I’m good,” Vicky said.

“I mean at this massage thing.”

“I can massage necks and other aspects of the male anatomy.”

“Promises. Promises,” the commander said, “and me stuck with my hands on the controls and a ship under power.”

“Hmm,” Vicky said wickedly. “This could be almost as much fun as having a guy tied to a bed,” she muttered.

“Commander, would you please return to your seat, return it to your full and upright position and firmly adjust your seat belt. We may not be under threat of laser fire, but we are still flying tight formation with one huge cruiser, compared with this little spit kit we’re in.”

“Spoilsport,” Vicky said, but, grinning ear to ear, she returned to her seat.

She made a point to not belt herself in, but turned to him. “Sooner or later, you won’t have that excuse to protect you from all the bad girls your mother never warned you about.” She found that there was a recliner option on her seat and put it all the way back.

She lay back, batted her eyelashes at the commander, who studiously did not look her way, and closed her eyes.

Which was a mistake. She was still way past tired. She yawned twice and found herself drifting off to sleep.

CHAPTER 37

VICKY came awake to the sensation of floating. She opened her eyes.

She was floating!

Twisting in air, she found her seat a good quarter meter below her. She grabbed it and pulled herself down into it.

Quickly, she fastened her seat belt and raised the back of the chair to its full, upright position.

“You could have at least warned me,” she spat at the commander, who might have his eyes straight ahead but had one huge grin on his face.

“But you were sleeping so soundly. And you have such a sweet, innocent look on your face when you sleep.”

“I’ll make you groan in agony and in joy all in the same breath,” Vicky promised darkly.

“Promises, promises. All I ever hear from the girl is promises.”

“Says the guy who won’t take his hands off his own joystick.”

“I got us safely here, didn’t I?”

“So, where is here?” Vicky said, eyeing the front screen.

It was blank. It was focused so tightly on a tiny bit of space ahead of them that not even one star showed.

“There is a jump point not a kilometer ahead of us. At least that’s what my instruments say, and since the Rostock just vanished through it, I suspect there is indeed a jump.

“Then what are we doing hanging around here?” Vicky demanded.

“Listening to the girl make promises,” he said, and goosed the engines ever so slightly.

The Spaceadler took on just a hint of gravity, then gave it back. They coasted up to a void in space, and in a second were through it.

Now Vicky had new stars to look at.

And one huge cruiser little more than a klick ahead of them.

As the cruiser’s jets came to life, a small window opened on the main screen.

“Good luck, Gerrit. I suspect you’ll need it.”

“Thanks, Heinrich, if the last ride with her is any promise for the rest of them, I’ll need all the luck a man can hope for.”

“Go on complaining, you lucky bastard. Rostock out.”

“And who was that,” Vicky demanded. “Another buddy from the academy?”

“Captain Rikert was a teacher when I was at the academy. Maybe you battleship Sailors didn’t notice, but it takes a captain to skipper a cruiser, Lieutenant Commander.”

“I am properly put in my place, Commander,” Vicky snapped. “Now, again I say, where are we and how safe are we?”

“Check for yourself. The electronic countermeasures suite is at your station, Commander.”

Vicky turned back to what she had previously used to check for the station radar. On further study, it was a small but quite capable electronics sensor suite. Apparently, she’d been more tired than she realized. But then, what kind of a yacht had a sensor suite suitable for a small warship?

Apparently, this one.

On closer examination, it showed to be new, gleaming chrome where the equipment around it had dulled with age. “Is this something your little elves added while no one was looking?”

“Likely,” the commander allowed. “Are you picking up any radars in the system?”

Vicky checked. “One radar, the Rostock. The rest of the system is dead silent.”

“Good. I was told it should be.”

“Do we follow the Rostock?”

“Nope, she’s headed for the closest jump out of here so she can honestly say she has no idea where we went.”

“And us?”

“We kind of aim ourselves for someplace in the middle of the farthest three jumps and wait until the Rostock jumps out of the system before we set our course for one in particular.”

“Mighty paranoid of you,” Vicky said. “I kind of like that in a man I’m running for my life with.”

“I bet you say that to all the men you run for your life with.”

Vicky thought for a second. “Come to think of it, you’re the first guy I’ve ever run for my life with. Captain Morgan did a good job of keeping me alive, but we never really got a chance to run around much before he kind of died.”

“Poor planning on his part, no doubt,” the commander said.

“Or on mine. I’m not sure how that went down. One minute we were laughing, and the next minute it was bad, bad, and bad. And getting worse.”

“Death can sneak up on you like that,” the commander allowed.

Vicky shivered. They sat in silence for a while as the ship settled down to a comfortable 1.25 gees.

“So, how do I make sure nothing sneaks up on us while we’re sleeping or something?”

“Or something. Is that more promises?” came with a broad and hopeful grin.

Vicky scowled. “How do we keep from being snuck up on?”

He got serious. “Have the countermeasure suite feed its take into the main computer and rig it with audio alarms. Can you do that?”

“Of course I can,” Vicky said with more confidence than she felt.

COMPUTER, CAN YOU CONTACT THE CONTROLS OF THE COUNTERMEASURE SUITE? Vicky thought.

YES, MA’AM.

PLEASE DO AND HAVE IT REPORT THROUGH THE AUDIO OF THE SHIP’S COMPUTER.

There was hardly a pause before the computer answered. I CANNOT INTERFACE WITH THE SHIP’S COMPUTER. I DO NOT HAVE THE PASSWORD FOR IT.

“Okay, hotshot, what’s the ship’s computer’s password?” Vicky snapped.

“Ah, the idiot girl is using her computer,” he said, the big grin on his face not softening his words at all.

“Her Grace is learning very well how to use her computer. How come no one ever chides Kris Longknife for having to use her Nelly to do all those fancy things she does?”

“’Cause she likely only has weak-kneed guys around her?” the commander suggested.

“You haven’t met Captain Jack, have you?”

“He’s a Marine. He can’t be too smart.”

Vicky sighed. This banter was going nowhere.

“The computer password,” she said. And then added, “Please.”

“Since you asked me so nicely. The password is ‘Incorrect.’”

“The password is ‘Incorrect’?”

“Yes. My buddy’s dad could never remember a password. So he used ‘Incorrect’ for everything. That way, when he entered the wrong password, the computer would tell him, ‘Your password is incorrect.’”

“You are pulling my royal and Imperial leg,” Vicky snapped. But it was through a growing grin.

“Try it.”

Her cover blown, Vicky said out loud, “Computer, the ship’s password is ‘Incorrect.’”

“The ship’s computer’s password is ‘Incorrect,’” almost had a doubting question mark appended to it.

“Affirmative,” Vicky said.

“I have interfaced with the ship’s computer,” her computer reported a moment later. “I have instructed it to report any new data from the countermeasures suite through the ship’s address system. It is to keep reporting that information until one of you acknowledges the message. Each repeat of the message will be louder.”

“Test the system,” Vicky said.

“Countermeasures reports the system clear except for the Rostock,” the ship announced.

Vicky opened her mouth to acknowledge the report, but Gerrit waved her to silence.

Half a minute later, the ship repeated the message, but at a louder volume.

“Thank you, ship,” Gerrit said. “So, you, or at least your computer, have interfaced the two systems, and if I’m in the head and you’re catching up on your beauty sleep, we’ll know immediately if something jumps into the system.”

Vicky nodded. They were safe, and would be warned if anything changed. Vicky weighed the situation . . . and decided she needed to do something about it.

“So, as you pointed out,” she said, batting her eyelashes as she allowed herself a luxurious stretch. One that emphasized both of her best assets. “I’ve been making promises and I haven’t kept a one of them. You ready to give a gal a chance to make an honest woman of herself?”

“That’s direct,” he said, and made a point of swallowing dramatically.

“I’m a direct kind of gal. If this is really a high-priced yacht, it’s got to have all kinds of automatic controls. No owner wants to spend all his time in the worry seat. Isn’t that what you call your chair?”

“I’ve heard it called that,” the commander said, eyes roving his instruments. “I’d like to stay here for a bit until we are well away from the Rostock and have a chance to case the place a bit more.”

“Ever so cautious,” Vicky said. “I guess I can’t complain. By the way, I checked before we jumped. There was nothing behind us when we left the Greenfeld system.”

“Jump point Emile isn’t used very often,” the commander said. “That’s why we picked it.”

Vicky settled into her chair and ran the sensor system through its paces. It succeeded in picking up the reactor from the Rostock but no other reactors in system. It identified the cruiser’s radars and lasers by make and model type but found nothing else in system.

Vicky had the computer follow the raw feed from the countermeasures box back as far as the antenna. There was no apparent break in the flow of data and no cutout that she could spot. If the box had been jimmied, it was well past her ability to find it without taking out a screwdriver and digging around under the dash.

Assuming that her paranoid self wouldn’t damage stuff in the process.

For a good half hour, they made their way deeper into the system and away from the Rostock, and the system stayed quiet and safe.

Satisfied the ship was indeed alone in an empty system except for their erstwhile escort, Vicky made a show of sniffing at the armpits of her shipsuit.

“I need a shower. Commander, shouldn’t we save the ship’s water supply by showering together?”

“Do I need a shower?” he asked.

“You need a shower. I can smell you from here,” Vicky lied with a straight face.

“Well, if the woman says the man needs a shower, I guess the only thing a gentleman can do is clean up his act.”

“Before we get down and dirty,” Vicky purred.

“You sure you’re up for this?” came out concerned and serious.

Vicky did a quick mental check. As usual, her soul was back on ice. Other things were . . . revving up very nicely.

“If I start shaking and go pale. Or worse, try to slit your throat, I’m sure you’ll take the signal as a no and stop,” she said with what she hoped was an honest grin.

“Since you put it that nicely,” he said, and activated a couple of toggles on his station. There was a bit of a surge in acceleration, but then it went back to where it had been.

He stood. “After you,” he said.

“You just want to see how my ass wiggles,” Vichy shot back, and made sure her ass wiggled as she headed for the exit.

CHAPTER 38

THE guy waited patiently while Vicky got the shower where she wanted it: nice and warm. It may have helped that the gal shed her shipsuit on the way down the circular stairwell.

He, however, kept his shipsuit on and his hands to himself.

What do you know, I may have found myself a gentleman.

His eyes, however, were clearly enjoying the view of her in the lingerie the woman Marine captain had provided. Happily, it was nowhere close to regular issue.

Which raised all kinds of question about that captain’s instructions and what a real woman Marine kept in her lingerie drawer. Vicky really didn’t want to delve into those questions. So she didn’t.

Water just right, she shimmied out of said underthings and slipped under the water. There, she turned to eye the commander, and, only coincidentally, gave him an eyeful of her.

He groaned. “You’re even lovelier than your news report suggested.”

“You couldn’t expect me to show everything for just a few extra minutes of airtime, could you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Now, are you shy or something? We’re wasting water. If you’re going to have me take my shower alone, yours is going to be a very cold one.”

“I’ll need one.”

His shipsuit was showing evidence of why.

“Or,” Vicky purred, “we can take care of that the way nature intended.”

“Yes, I think you very much can,” he said, and his shipsuit was quickly a puddle on the floor. In a second, he added his underwear.

Now it was Vicky’s chance to survey what he had to offer, and she did like what she saw. He might have spent the last couple of months as a slob and a thug’s henchman, but he hadn’t let himself go to seed. He was well muscled . . . in all the right places.

Vicky allowed herself a low wolf whistle.

“I thought that was my line,” he said, slipping into the shower.

“If the bod fits, I always say, whistle for it.”

He began to soap up her back.

She shivered, despite the warm water. Then he reached around and began to soap up her front. She moaned nicely for him, and for the very manly item he now rested between her butt cheeks.

“Nice,” she said.

“You’re all soaped up. Now rinse off,” he ordered. “This may be a yacht, but its water tank isn’t endless.”

“Slave driver,” she said, and took his hand and put it between her legs. “You missed a spot.” He applied himself to cleaning her there . . . while she moaned nicely.

“Now, rinse,” he ordered.

She did.

“Now it’s my turn,” Vicky said, and turned him around to face the shower flow. She started, as he had, on his back. It was large and broad and covered with nice, tight muscles.

Really, I should have done this shower thing with more men.

She was working his butt when he turned around way too soon. But that did give her even more delightful maleness to soap up.

“The chest. Don’t forget the chest,” he reminded her when she might have run the tank dry on what she had in her hands.

So she lathered up his nice chest. Strong pecs. She might have to study an anatomy chart so she could praise all of him properly.

She would have lingered there, but he raised his arms over his head. “I do remember some woman complaining about the odor in the cockpit.”

So she soaped up under his arms.

By now the water was starting to run to the chilly side, so she obeyed when he insisted they rinse off thoroughly. But that still let her run her hands over him as he did the same for her.

Water off, she toweled him down as he provided the same courtesy for her.

She, of course, insisted he be dry everywhere, and when she finished, he made sure there wasn’t a drop on her anywhere, either.

They might never have gotten out of the tiny bathroom; Vicky was coming up with several delightful ideas for using the close walls, when he led her by the hand to the bed.

“This is taking forever,” she purred, wondering what Gerrit had about beds.

“I hope you’re saying the same thing in a couple of hours,” he said through a deliciously mischievous grin.

So she threw herself at him, wrapped her arms and legs around him, and gave him a long, wet kiss.

“Now I’ll bet you want to towel yourself dry again,” she said when she came up for air.

“Nope. Good, honest human spit don’t need no toweling,” he said, and tossed her on the bed so hard she bounced. “You may think you’re just a bit of nothing, woman,” he said, putting his hands on his back and stretching, “but at one and a quarter gee, you’re too heavy for that bit of the Kama Sutra.”

She flipped herself around and began enjoying the lovely prize he was dangling there in front of her. He let her get a few good licks. Then he grabbed her by her hips and flipped her around and over, facedown on the bed.

“Down, girl, this has got to take enough time for you to be complaining about this taking forever.”

“Well, I was doing my part. So far, you were just standing there looking inviting,” she said with her face now squished into the pillow.

He began massaging her feet.

“Stop that,” she said.

“Why, you ticklish?” he asked, not stopping.

“No, but you’re making me feel things all over the place.”

“Like here?” he said, and a hand wandered up to her thigh.

“Kind of.”

“Or here?” Now his fingers were exploring the soft inner flesh of her thigh.

“Yes.” She moaned. “No. I’m not ticklish there.”

“Or here?” His hand was back doing things to her feet.

“No, I’m not ticklish there, I just don’t like the way you make my feet and a whole lot of other things feel. You sure you don’t have some sort of fetish?”

“And if I did, would it matter to you?” now his fingers wandered up one leg and found the sweet spot between them.

“Oh,” she moaned.

“Yeah, I thought that would work just fine. Now, enough of that,” he said, and flipped her over on her back.

“What?”

She might have said more, but his mouth was on hers, caressing, exploring, getting to know every part of her.

She felt him exploring other places as well.

Whatever question she had wanted to pose evaporated.

Then his questing tongue was working its way down her cheeks and throat before diverting to one breast, his fingers to another.

“Nice,” she managed to get out around another moan.

“No more complaints?”

“Was I complaining?”

“Might have been.”

“Must have been some other girl you were doing this to. Couldn’t have been me.”

His teeth closed urgently on her nipple; she felt explosions around a totally different part of herself.

Now his tongue explored lower and lower on her. Quickly, his tongue and fingers switched places. She arched her back and spread her legs wide as his tongue reached her goal, while his fingers did wonderful things first to one breast, then the other.

Vicky spread her arms, reaching for . . .

“Oh!” She’d found something bobbing around beside her, and latched onto it. “Look what I’ve got,” she moaned as she began to play with it.

“You are making it hard for a workingman to keep working.”

“Or a hard man,” Vicky offered.

He answered by sucking just the right place. Suddenly, Vicky couldn’t remember anything that she might want to do as she was shaken by one long shiver.

She let out a long moan.

And a shout when her world imploded and exploded at the same moment.

A bit later, she came up for air.

“I’m not done,” he said.

“More, sir?” was somewhere between a question and open begging.

He flipped her back over, facedown, and pulled her close. For several moments, his fingers did that magical thing in the soft spot between her legs. She would have thought herself sated, but she found she was hungry for more.

Slowly, he pulled her hips up, brought her to her knees, and gently put her new, very favorite toy where she’d wanted it for, oh, forever.

And then he took it away.

She moaned at the loss.

He brought it back, but this time let it play about where his fingers had.

Then, ever so slowly, he drove it deep into her.

She shivered, tensed, moaned, and smiled.

When he tried to withdraw, she backed up, keeping it where she wanted.

Thus it went on forever, him giving her what she wanted, then trying to deprive her of it. Her backing up against him, demanding what was hers.

Finally, he seemed to lose the iron control that had allowed him to play this game with her. Now he pounded. She got, and gave as good as he did until the stars exploded, and he ended up atop her.

Deliciously spent, she managed to wiggle around under him until she had his head resting between her breasts.

“Now I’ve got you just where I want you,” she whispered.

“Strange, I could say the same about you.”

She listened as his heart slowed, and his breathing followed. So did hers. He was falling asleep. It seemed like a good idea to her, too, so she did, too.

CHAPTER 39

VICKY 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.”

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.”

“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.

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 said.

“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.

It also didn’t cover the rounded derriere that had been the bane of her trainers since it popped out about the same time her chest had developed its own mass of roundness. One woman body trainer had finally told Vicky, “You have to have something to counterbalance all that weight up top. Besides, I hear a lot of men love curves.”

Since that woman was a thin, willowy bit of nothing, Vicky had a hard time believing that she’d ever heard anything of the sort.

Though, of late, she was starting to place some faith and credence in the woman’s words.

The sweater was dial-a-size. Vicky selected one size too small.

The entire ensemble got a wolf whistle from the commander, who had decked himself out in a more conservative yachtsman’s outfit, complete with a hat sporting fake admiral’s scrambled eggs.

Vicky gave him a glare.

“We’ve got to look the part of owners, or at least me the owner, you the rented bimbo, the kind who can afford to flash the kind of cash you gave me.”

“Bimbo, huh? Maybe I ought to have the money and you be the bought hunk of flesh.”

“It’s a man’s world. No doubt you’ve heard that.”

“Never liked it when I did, but I think I’ll let you live for a bit more. You do have your pleasant side even if it isn’t brains.”

“As much as I hate to end these delightful exchanges, I think we better clean up our act for the paying public.”

“Clean up my act, in this?” Vicky said, taking in her scanty clothing with a wave of her hand.

“You’re the distraction. Money’s the motivation. With luck, we’ll get in and out of here faster than our last quickie.”

“Promises, promises.”

But when they sealed locks with the station, Vicky was all professional arm candy for the skipper.

Gerrit had advised the port control of High Poznan that they had a leaky tank and would need service. They were directed toward the small yard. Small as it was, all the piers were empty.

Clearly, business was way down.

They exited the yacht, arm in arm, with Gerrit’s hand on her butt, to find a man waiting for them. Iwo Mackiewicz was a hard, grizzled man in coveralls who offered Gerrit a callused hand to shake.

“How are things in Badenburg?” he asked.

“They’re hard all over,” Gerrit admitted. “And I have this immediate problem. I need to get home from my vacation before my wife gets home from her vacation. You know what I mean?”

“Let me guess, her side of the family is the one with all the money.”

Gerrit offered him an envelope with a quarter of Vicky’s blood money. “And now you have a nice chunk of money.”

Iwo thumbed open the envelope, eyed the contents, and pursed his lips. “You really do need your work done fast. Let me tell you what I can do for you. I’ll get you and your lady friend out of here in two, maybe three hours, and you’re going to give me another one of these envelopes.”

Gerrit scowled, but said, “I think I can arrange that.”

“Good. I’ll get my welder on the job.” He hollered into a mic for Tazio and got an answer to the effect that he was already on it.

“Can I watch?” Vicky gushed, wishing she did have some chewing gum to snap. Didn’t all women in her alleged calling chew gum? “I just love to watch strong men working hard.”

“Yeah, I can believe that,” Iwo muttered. “You can go down the next two decks of the pier and take a look. Maybe you can see him. Maybe not.”

“Go ahead, honey bunch. Have fun.”

Vicky sashayed off. She could feel male eyes, four of them, undressing her. Not that it would take all that long to do it in the flesh, but it seemed to take longer in their imaginations.

Once back on board, she was going to make Gerrit pay for his fun.

Two decks down, there was a viewing port that let Vicky spot a guy in a solid workman’s space suit. It was almost hard enough to pass for armor. He had a sensor attached to one wrist as he went hand over hand along the external end of one tank. If the leak was along the internal side, this was going to turn into a several-day exercise, but most of the wear and tear was on the outside.

Vicky could hope.

He went down one tank, and up another, and was going down the third when he paused.

His “I found it” was likely intended just for his boss, Iwo, but Vicky’s computer had hacked into their net within the first five minutes of being docked to the station.

Vicky glued her nose to the glass and watched as the fellow slapped a patch on the problem area, then pulled up his welding tools and went to work. He ran a good, professional bead on his weld. Vicky had her computer zoom in on the work and check it against its own database for good welding work.

The guy was passing, but Vicky’s paranoia was not allayed.

COMPUTER, CAN YOU ACCESS THE READOUT ON THAT SENSOR THE GUY IS CARRYING?

YES, MA’AM.

DOES IT SHOW A LEAK?

YES, MA’AM. IT SHOWED A LEAK FOR REACTION MASS. THE ANALYSIS OF IT WAS THAT IT MATCHED WHAT IS IN OUR TANKS.

To Vicky’s great surprise, she wasn’t being set up. Even better, her own computer was now able to follow what she was thinking and answer the next question before she asked it.

Things were looking up.

Vicky waited until the guy was done and jetting away from the boat before she climbed the stairs back to where she’d left Gerrit. She did it quietly, and she stopped at the rung that gave her a peek at where she was going.

Which turned out to be a good idea.

Iwo had a gun on Gerrit.

“I told you, I’ve got one more load of cash like that. That’s all.”

“Then you got a credit chit with a whole lot more money, don’t you?”

“My wife has one.”

“You have one. Don’t kid me. Give it up.”

“Man, I don’t have it on me.”

“Don’t kid a kidder. Cough it up, or I’m going to send off a message full of pictures of you and that dame you got hanging on you. Nice pictures.”

So things hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped.

Despite the skimpy clothes, Vicky has still managed to secrete her automatic about her person. It wasn’t the one Greenfeld had issued but the one she’d picked up on Wardhaven waiting for the Fleet of Discovery to get under way.

The one that Kris Longknife suggested.

This automatic had two options, deadly like the one Greenfeld issued, and the sleepy darts Kris preferred. Clearly, the local was threatening Gerrit with deadly force, but leaving a line of dead bodies behind might be too much of an invitation for attention, and attention was something Vicky did not want.

“Just let me check the registration on this love boat of yours,” the ship yard boss said, and pulled a tired old computer from his waist and began thumbing it.

He was in for a big surprise.

Vicky decided to save his heart the shock of discovering who really owned the Happy Trails.

Taking careful aim, she put three sleepy darts in his butt.

He seemed surprised at the soft pop the automatic made when firing the nonlethal darts. He glanced around—then his eyes rolled up and he began to collapse toward the deck.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Gerrit said, making a grab for the guy, the gun, and the ancient computer. Somehow, the commander managed to get his hands on all of them. He let them down gently to the deck. All except for the gun. That one disappeared into one of his pockets.

“What took you so long? How much fun can a gal have watching an ape swing around in a space suit?”

“Whatever turns you on,” Vicky said. “And don’t you go complaining. I got the drop on him, didn’t I?”

“Where’d you get those sleepy darts?”

“Do you honestly want a gal that kisses and tells?”

“No, but I’d like one myself.”

“I’ll mail order you one when we get to St. Petersburg. You ready to go?”

“You think I ought to leave him the second envelope after what he pulled on us?”

“I think he made an honest deal with us and, even if he didn’t stay honest, we ought to. With any luck, once he wakes up, he’ll be glad for how it came out and call us even.”

“Are you developing scruples? Scruples in a Peterwald?”

“No, I’m just thinking of practical things. Will that extra money help me where I’m going? I doubt it. Could it help keep him quiet, here? Possibly.”

The commander dropped the second envelope on the sleeping yard boss, and they retreated to their boat. Quickly, they resealed locks and headed for the cockpit.

The board readout showed the tanks holding steady. The commander started sucking down some more reaction mass from the station, taking his tanks up to 75 percent full.

Again, the tanks held the pressure.

“That patch is on the outside, right?”

“Yep, a good weld patched to the outside of tank 3,” Vicky said.

“Then we’ll hold at this. It’s enough to get us to St. Petersburg.”

Vicky nodded.

“Poznan Station, this is the yacht Happy Trails. We are ready to depart.”

“Yacht Happy Trails, you are not cleared for departure. I haven’t been advised by the yard that you have paid him.”

“I paid him in cash, and he looked like he was headed for the nearest bar,” the commander said.

“Damn, he’ll drink up my part of the pay. Happy Trails, you stay locked down while I go check on this.”

“Blast, I thought he’d let us loose while he did the checking,” Gerrit said.

“Computer,” Vicky said, “can you access the releases on the pier tie-downs?”

“Yes, ma’am, I can.”

“Could you please run the getting-under-way routine for this pier?”

“Yes, ma’am. Running the routine.” And the yacht began to back away from the pier.

“Are we clear? Is that welder out of our way?” Gerrit asked.

Vicky had the outside cameras run a scan of the area. “We are clear. No one in sight.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

The reactors had been kept as warm as the port authority allowed, or didn’t know about. Now the steering jets pushed them away from the station. In a moment, they flipped ship and were under way from the station at a tenth of a gee. Once they were ten klicks out, Gerrit upped the acceleration, and they gained weight, first a quarter gee, then a half, and finally a full gee.

About that time the station came back on. “What do you mean, leaving without authorization?”

“It’s not like you got a lot of traffic I got to dodge,” Gerrit said. “And you did get your share off Iwo, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, he got his, and I got mine. Why’d you sleep him?”

“He tried to renege on our deal. Up the price after the work was done. It’s likely not something he’s very proud of, considering that it was the little girl that nailed his butt. He probably won’t want you to ask him too much about it. Happy Trails out,” the commander said, and only then laughed.

“No doubt, approach will ask Iwo about the deal and how it went wrong,” Vicky said.

“And, no doubt, he’ll be asked often and late about how a cute little bimbo got the drop on him, him with his gun out and all.”

“You are horrible.”

“It’s a guy thing.”

“Speaking of guy things,” Vicky said, and left it hanging there.

“Guy things?” Gerrit asked.

“Yeah, you owe me. Lots.”

“What for?”

“The way you used me at that station! And letting him get a drop on you so your poor, cute little bimbo had to go and pull your chestnuts out of the fire.”

“Hmm. What do you have in mind?”

“Wait. Worry. Be very concerned.”

He grinned. “That sounds promising.”

CHAPTER 43

VICKY waited until he was yawning and Poznan was well in the rearview mirror before offering to take the watch. They had just flipped the ship to decelerate toward the next jump, still six hours out. The fuel tanks were holding steady, showing no more drop than what one and a half gees should show.

Gerrit yawned again and allowed that she could stand an underway watch, what with nothing happening or due to happen. When he required her to swear a blood oath that she would wake him before they got to the next jump, she did.

If she did what she planned to, he wouldn’t get any sleep between here and the next jump anyway.

She managed not to smile at that thought.

She waited for him to go below, then set a timer. She waited for fifteen minutes and then waited another five as she checked to make sure they had the system to themselves before unbuckling her restraints and beginning to strip out of what little he’d allowed her to wear on Poznan.

Barefoot, and bare everywhere else, she tiptoed down the central circular staircase to the bedroom. The door was open.

She crept in.

And found him laid out on the bed wide-awake, with his hands behind his head. Not a stitch on him and his pole waving at her with every beat of his heart. And it was beating quite fast from the way it throbbed.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“Don’t you get up,” she ordered.

“But I am up already,” was full of a proud grin.

“Yes, I noticed,” she said as she pranced to the bed, spread his legs wide, and plopped down between them.

And gave him a couple of good licks.

“You don’t want to do that too much,” he said.

“Oh, you’d rather I did this,” she said, letting her fingers trace up one inner thigh, then make a circle around his balls before tracing their way down to his knees, which, no doubt, would have been entirely too weak to support him if he hadn’t been lying flat on his back.

“Oh,” was all she got out of him for her effort.

“Or I could do some of this. Starting at his head, the little one, she lightly traced her way down to his balls, cuddled them nicely. Her fingers danced along the space between his legs, stopping just short of what lay there.

“What are you doing, woman?” had a certain strangled nature to the question.

“Getting even with you for saying all the things you said on Poznan.”

“But I had to play to the audience we had. I don’t talk like that when it’s just you and me.”

“I should say not. If you talked like that, I’d lay you out and do even worse to you.”

“Worse?”

She went back to licking his hardness while letting her fingers lightly wander all around.

“You keep that up, and I won’t have anything for you to enjoy later.”

“Try the multiplication tables. I’m told they are very steadying.”

“I’m doing them in my head. You’re much more powerful than they are.”

“Hmm. How about squaring the numbers?”

“I’ll try.”

“Out loud.”

“Two times two is four. Three times three is, ah, six. I mean nine.” Vicky was quite proud of herself for that one. She’d found a very nice button on him. She pushed it several times. Not one right after another, but wandered around it a while in between each punch. Usually when he was trying to get the answer out.

He got a lot of answers wrong.

At the square of twenty-six, he gave up and made a grab for her.

She danced away from the bed. “No you don’t. Girls rule tonight. You just lie there like a bump on a log. You must have had some girls that did just that.”

“Never. I assure you, no girl has ever just lain there like a bumpy log for me.” There was that leer again.

“After last night, I can believe you. But back down you go. No treat if you’re a bad little doggy.”

“Are we going to do it that way again tonight?”

“I’m thinking that I might try something more familiar.”

He lay back and invited her to climb atop him.

“You not afraid of me?” she asked.

“Not in the slightest. Well, yes, I’m afraid of you. Every man is a bit afraid of women. But you’re so different. So hard to understand. And yes, you’re trained to be dangerous beyond all your fair side of the species, but I’ve come to trust you with my life.”

She strode back to the bed and slowly mounted him. He was very ready for her, and she found that she was so slippery she had trouble getting him in the right place. Worse, he kept slipping up on purpose to do wonderful things to her that made her weak in the knees.

Finally, she got him where she wanted him.

Slowly, she got a steady rhythm going.

And he ruined it by slipping a finger down to in between her legs, finding that delightful button there, and doing wicked things to her sense of timing and everything else.

“You are mean,” she sputtered, flustered. “You won’t let me do to you all the things I want to.”

“But I’m just a guy who likes doing wonderful things to you.”

Vicky tried to keep control for a moment longer. She brought her hands up to caress her breasts, and then pinched her nipples until they stood up hard and proud.

But Gerrit kept doing what he was doing and, with a cry, she was undone.

She collapsed on top of him. In a blink he had one of her breasts in his mouth, suckling it. Then the other.

Now it was him driving hard into her, setting his own pace, first fast, then furious. Her skin began to tingle with electricity as his rhythm drove her to new heights of sensation. As his strokes grew more forceful, more penetrating, she clutched him close until they both cried out at the same moment in their pleasure. Once, twice, three times, he seemed to pierce her to the heart. Exhausted, she collapsed into his arms.

“Now, Your Grace,” he whispered in her ear, “I most certainly feel properly punished.”

“Good,” she said, and closed her legs to hold him captive.

CHAPTER 44

VICKY came awake to the ship’s announcing, “Thirty minutes to jump. Wake up, you sleepyheads! Thirty minutes to jump. Wake up, you sleepyheads!”

On the ninth or fifteenth repeat, she turned to Gerrit. “When did you program that?”

“When you hit the head just before I started yawning.”

“You malicious, devious . . .”

“Guy who plans ahead.”

“Yes. That, too.”

“Well, get yourself into whatever you intend to wear. I intend for you to watch me like a hawk on my shoulder as I go through this jump. The next one is yours.”

“One jump I watch you, then I have to do it myself?”

“They’re easy. The computer does all the work.”

“Yeah, right,” Vicky said, pulling on her bra and slipping into panties that were more of a distraction than nothing would have been. She followed Gerrit up to the cockpit and settled into her seat. Immediately, she checked her own board. “We still have this system all to ourselves. Not a ship anywhere. How can a planet survive with no commerce?”

“Would you like my analysis of the situation?” her computer asked.

Vicky found Gerrit eyeing her like she had two heads.

“Why yes, Computer, I would like to hear your analysis of the situation on Poznan. How did you come by this analysis?”

“As I told you before, the net on the station was easy to hack into. I also tracked most of the communications while we have been in system. Almost none of it is encrypted. From all I captured, I was able to construct an analysis of the situation there that is ninety-eight point six-four percent probable.”

“Very good, Computer. I approve of your initiative. However, in the future, please ask my permission before you do such an analysis. In some places, the communications tracking that you did would land me in jail.”

“Oh, I would not wish such an outcome for you, ma’am. Yes, I will be more careful in the future and ask your approval before I do such a thing.”

“Good. Now, Computer, what is your analysis?”

“All major industries on Poznan have closed down for lack of spare parts or critical feedstock that can only come from off planet. The planet managed to pay its taxes for last year only by being stripped of its gold reserve. With no further hard currency to support trade, it collapsed. Some small, cottage-type industry is still working. There are a few small machine shops, and some tiny foundries that are only using local raw materials. These local enterprises are keeping some locally manufactured equipment up and running, such as farm rolling stock and the like. However, most of what is needed for a modern economy is either closed down or falling apart.”

As the computer paused in its analysis, Vicky and Gerrit traded raised eyebrows. He spoke next.

“Computer, what impact is this having on the local population?”

“May I answer his question, ma’am?”

“Yes. Always, please.”

“The farms have become less productive. Their production is down below fifty percent of five years ago. Many people have and are fleeing from the cities to the countryside. The first wave of flight was able to find jobs on the farms. With equipment failing, many farmers were falling back on human labor. However, the farms could only support so many workers. The later waves were met with armed guards telling them to move on and threatening to shoot anyone who raided the farms for food.”

“I guess that’s understandable,” Vicky said, and did not like the taste of the words in her mouth.

“A church is now arranging for passage of people through the farm belts and into the hinterlands beyond. They will collect refugees and convoy them out.”

“Convoy?” Vicky said. “Do they have trucks to carry them?”

“No, ma’am. They all have to walk: men, women, children, and the elderly. I do not have a word for a large group of walking people accompanied by good-hearted people who arrange for their passage. Are you aware of such a word?”

“I’d say pilgrimage,” Gerrit said, “but the word’s inadequate to cover this tragedy.”

Vicky nodded. Then found she had a question. “How are the people managing when they are dropped off outside the farmlands?”

“There are few reports from there. The people are falling back on gathering what food they can find. Some of the farm seeds have been carried on the wind into the unseeded area. Other land has been converted into forest, and there is some gathering of nuts and berries. It appears that some of the indigenous seeds and fruits are edible if prepared properly. However, the land is being stripped of food close in, and people have to walk farther and farther to find anything edible. There are rumors of lawlessness breaking out among the vagrants, as they are being called.”

“The population is crashing,” Gerrit said. “It’s only a matter of time before those that have any strength or access to guns decide that they will not leave the cities. Then they’ll demand that the farmers turn over their food at gunpoint.”

“And what happens after that?”

“Anarchy, murder, total collapse,” the Navy commander said through tight lips.

“We can’t let that happen,” Vicky said.

“How are we going to stop it?” came hard from the Navy man.

“Maybe the money we paid the station with will start something?” Vicky thought out loud.

“Assuming there isn’t a tax farmer who sucks it up and uses it to get off planet.”

“I would have thought any tax farmer would already have left,” Vicky said, “what with food being so scarce.”

“No matter how bad the famine, there are always the few who manage to stay fat,” Gerrit growled.

That left Vicky with little to say.

They were coming up on the jump, so both of them concentrated on the instruments. Gerrit was right, the computers and sensors did most of the work. Gerrit did have to adjust at the last minute for some wandering by the jump point. Still, he only had to goose the engine for a small bit to push them through the jump.

He did warn Vicky, standing behind him holding on to his seat, not to move so much as a muscle. He had the ship steady and wanted to keep it that way.

Vicky held her breath for the last few seconds and didn’t even wiggle her toes.

They found themselves in a new system.

Tests showed they’d jumped fifteen light-years. This system held a small colony on the fifth planet, Presov. Vicky had her computer gain access to its net. The story was sadly the same, only in this case, the colony had a shorter distance to crash since it was just getting started.

The crystal mines that had been the main reason for its colonization were still working, and a ship did come by every three months for its produce, but it was not bringing products for the colony, just taking, claiming that they owed too much on their debt to pay for any imports.

This was strangling the colony, and mining production was dropping as people spent more and more time in the search for food.

“My estimate is that there will not be enough crystal production to pay for the ship’s stop next time,” Vicky’s computer concluded.

“So they will abandon those workers to survive as best they can,” Vicky said.

“Assuming they can survive at all,” Gerrit pointed out.

“Yes,” Vicky said, and sighed. “Isn’t there anything we can do about all this?”

“Computer,” Gerrit asked, “is there any mention of the situation on these two planets in the records back on Greenfeld?”

“The only reference I can find in the data I accessed on Greenfeld about these two planets is that they are in arrears on their taxes, Poznan four quarters, Presov six.”

“They are behind on their taxes, and that’s all the Empire cares about,” Gerrit growled.

Vicky found herself shaking her head. “A Marine general dies under questioning, and the Imperial Guard tries to goad the Marines into a fight over his still-warm body. Two planets are only months, if not weeks away from anarchy, murder, and maybe even cannibalism, but all the palace notices is that they are behind in their taxes. This has got to stop.”

“And who’s going to make them?” Gerrit asked.

“Nobody,” Vicky admitted bleakly, and the breath left her body. “Nobody.”

“Or maybe you, huh?”

Vicky felt herself fill with impotent rage.

Rage she was used to. Impotence, not so much.

“Gerrit, what can I do?” she snapped. “I’m running for my life. I don’t know if I’m going to find a place to hide or if I’m going to be one of those refugees, hopefully somewhere in the backcountry of St. Petersburg, but still grubbing in the dirt for my next meal.”

“Is that the way a Grand Duchess ends?”

Vicky’s next breath escaped her in a bitter laugh. “Those were just words my dad spoke when he had no one but me to pin his hope on for the next generation. Now he’s got a son coming along and a witch for a wife who’s only too happy to rule over the wreckage she and her family are making of everything my ancestors tried to make of Greenfeld.”

“Maybe when those monstrous aliens you and Kris Longknife discovered show up, they’ll ignore planets with only a few naked savages on them. Who knows, it might work to save humanity,” Gerrit muttered.

Vicky glanced at her board. “We have this system to ourselves. No ships. I need a shower.” And she headed below.

Gerrit joined her as soon as he got the ship headed for the next jump at 1.3 gees. Vicky took him, still wet from the shower. She took him with barbaric lust, as if she was already dirty and starving and hoped that if she slacked his needs, he might share the raw, still-bleeding results of his hunt.

And Vicky hated herself for what she did. For who she was. And for what she could never do for the people that looked to her for, just possibly, their only salvation.

CHAPTER 45

THEY argued and made love, and argued and screwed, and argued and just sat in their chairs in a huff.

Vicky could see in Gerrit’s eyes the Grand Duchess that he saw in her, the one woman of the Empire who could make a stand against the wicked Empress.

Vicky knew herself for what she was. A spoiled brat raised to needlepoint and the Kama Sutra, both for business and pleasure. Maybe she was good enough to stand a communications watch on a battleship where nothing much was happening and there were a half dozen eyes backing her up.

But she had no real skills. If she had to scratch in the dirt for her next meal, she might very likely starve if someone didn’t give her food.

Well, maybe she could cook a meal if pulling it from the freezer and warming it was all that was required. Gerrit took to insisting that she cook for them.

He didn’t do it nicely.

“If a bed warmer is all you’re good for, you can at least learn to cook.”

Vicky didn’t quite throw his first supper at him. He managed to catch it on the fly and refused to notice that it had been tossed high and wide.

So she cooked their meals and found that there were more options in the ship’s kitchen than just warming precooked packages. Their last meal before the jump into the St. Petersburg system, Vicky put together something special.

Not for Gerrit. He was just a pain in the neck.

No, she did it for herself, to show herself that she could do it.

The steaks were from the freezer. The mixed vegetables she did herself. There were a dozen baking potatoes preserved some way she didn’t understand, but that didn’t keep her from popping two in the oven to bake.

And there was bread. She made it herself, from a recipe glued to the kitchen wall next to a bread cooker. She found the starter dough in the freezer and took it from there.

That got Gerrit’s attention. He came down from the cockpit.

“What are you doing to make the whole ship smell wonderful?”

“I’m baking bread.”

“From scratch?”

“Yep.”

“Yeast and all?”

“Yep.”

“And steaks! Are those real potatoes?”

“The very same. Now shoo, this is my kitchen, and you will just have to wait for dinner.”

“Please don’t make it too long. My mouth is watering, and I’m a whole lot more hungry than I realized.”

“Begone, you, from my domain. Don’t you know, too many cooks spoil the stew.”

“I’m not joggling your elbow. Just your time line.”

“Go!” she said, pointing at the stairwell.

He went.

She found real butter in the bottom of the freezer and took it out to slowly thaw. Dinner might not be by candlelight, but it was good. She served it at the table and even dressed for it. Of course, all she had that looked good was the outfit she’d worn on Poznan.

He seemed to like it, and the meal.

“You can cook!”

“I can follow instructions,” she said modestly.

He gave her a sad look at her rejection of his praise.

“Okay, I can cook as good as the next girl.”

“I’d say better than most girls I’ve had the honor of sharing a home-cooked meal with.”

So they enjoyed the steak and the small talk. Afterwards, he made love to her the way Vicky dreamed that a man might make love to a woman who’d sated his alimentary needs before inviting her to his bed.

She felt very warm and approved of as she fell asleep in his arms later.

Gerrit did let her take the ship through the final jump to the St. Petersburg system.

It wasn’t as easy as it looked, either.

The jump did a bit of a wiggle just as she was about to juice the ship through. She had to apply lateral jets to chase the jump, then dampen down all movement to get the ship rock steady again.

That was the way it was with the jump points that united the galaxy. They orbited not just the two points they safely connected, but four, five, or more systems, depending on your acceleration, speed, and rotation when you hit them. Do it rock steady and at slow speed, and you jumped ten, fifteen, maybe thirty light-years.

Always.

That was what insurance companies and national command authorities liked and what most merchant and warships did.

What Kris Longknife had done, jetting around the galaxy was crazy and not to be attempted by anyone at home.

What Vicky did was slow, steady, and by the approved book.

Through it all, Gerrit stood behind her, his hands holding on to the chair to keep him steady in microgee. If he had any doubts about what Vicky did, he said not a word.

Once through the jump, Vicky studied her board and had her sensors do a check.

“There’s St. Petersburg waiting for us,” Vicky crowed.

“I told you that you could do it,” Gerrit said, a proud-as-a-papa grin on his face.

“Yes, you did. Now, tell me, kind sir, who always plans ahead, what am I going to wear to meet our new allies? Not this,” she said, glancing down at the scant covering she had for her all-too-bare skin.

He was in a skimpy thong, and looking better than he had in a while.

He’d actually shaved.

“Come below, and I’ll show you.”

He actually did show her, rather than entice her to bed.

He had a blue shipsuit, complete with lieutenant commander’s boards waiting for her. Of course, he also had a blue shipsuit for himself with the three full stripes of a commander.

They needed a shower before they put on their new uniforms, and that led from one thing to another. Then they needed a second shower before they did get dressed.

They were back on the tiny bridge when a call came in from High St. Petersburg station. Before going through the jump, Gerrit had done another reprogramming job on the squawker. They were now the Lucky Strike Jubilee out of Port Royal.

“LSJ, this is St. Petersburg station. We have you on approach. Be advised, your papers are not in order. Dock and stay locked down until a Marine detachment arrives to check your papers.”

Vicky turned to Gerrit. “What’s wrong with our papers?”

“Nothing,” had a lot more worry in it than Vicky wanted to hear. “At least nothing when we left Greenfeld. They were first-class forgeries, done by the folks who do the legal ones.”

“Well, something’s gone wrong. Should we bug out?”

“And go where? Besides, until we refuel, we really can’t go anywhere.”

“Good point,” Vicky said, and settled down in her chair to worry a bit.

Had dear, loving Stepmomma managed to reach all the way out here? Or was it a case of Stepmom casting a wide and very expensive net of bribes from a comfortable distance so that no matter where Vicky went, she’d have this kind of welcome waiting for her?

There was no way to tell what it was until they were docked, locked down, and pretty much left to ride out whatever was intended for them.

Vicky hated the idea of being helpless again.

She must have said that out loud, because Gerrit had something to say on that thought.

“All of us normal folks have to get used to being helpless now and again. I think even your old man must feel like this every once in a while.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that aloud.”

“I’m glad you shared it with me. If you don’t share with anyone, how are we going to help you?”

“I usually don’t get much help,” Vicky admitted.

“That was the spoiled brat. You’re Her Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Lieutenant Commander Victoria Peterwald, Vicky to her friends. That person has a right to all the help the rest of us mere humans can offer. Because, she just might come up with a way for all of us to save ourselves.”

“All of us to save ourselves,” Vicky echoed. “You mean I don’t have to do it all on my own?”

“And when it’s done, it’s not just your Empire, but an Empire for all of us.”

“Dad would never see it that way.”

“And look at what that has gotten him.”

That left Vicky with a lot to think about.

Gerrit made sure she had the time to think. He cooked lunch for them. Vicky didn’t say anything about the blackened crust on his ham and cheese sandwich. She just smiled.

She was deep in thought about what he said.

“Have you read anything about how Kris Longknife fought off six rogue battleships that attacked Wardhaven?” she said, slow and thoughtful to Gerrit as they munched their sandwiches.

“The pirates that, no doubt, came from some money interests that only the loose ways of the Longknifes could have permitted to get so strong?” he said, quoting the usual propaganda sources that passed for news in Greenfeld.

“They were from our Navy,” Vicky said. The words sounded strange coming out of her mouth.

“Some of us suspected that,” Gerrit said softly. “There were a lot of missing hands the next year at Academy reunions with no explanations given.”

“Kris Longknife had no power. No authority. She’d been relieved of her command,” Vicky went on, as if in a dream.

“Yes,” Gerrit said. “I heard that she took over without any authorization although no one made much of it after it was over. You win something like that, you get a medal.”

“Only if you lose do you get a court-martial,” Vicky added softly, losing herself in thought.

“That’s the way it is with most of history. If you win, you’re a patriot. If you lose, you’re a traitor.”

Vicky swallowed hard at the mention of that word. A traitor. “They hang traitors,” she said.

“And someone is doing her level best to kill a Grand Duchess, or so I hear.”

“Hmm,” Vicky said. “Either path I follow, I end up dead.”

“Or you can follow Kris Longknife’s path.”

“And win?” Vicky said, surprised that it had come out a question mark.

“Yes. You win,” Gerrit said, and there was no doubt in his voice.

Vicky let that thought bounce around in her head for a long moment before venturing, “What does a win look like here?” She asked no one in particular.

The commander stayed silent.

“Well, I can tell you what a win does not look like,” she said, feeling steel creeping into her words. And maybe her backbone.

“A win does not see economies vanishing away into nothing for lack of trade. A win does not see planets’ populations collapsing into anarchy, murder, and cannibalism.”

Gerrit nodded along with the cadence of her words.

“A win means a lot of people pulling together to pull all of them back from the precipice,” Vicky said, finally able to answer her own question.

“And who can lead them in that march back?” the commander asked.

“A Grand Duchess can lead that, and it doesn’t even require a banner, of rebellion or otherwise.”

“Just a bit of a risk,” he said.

“And I am nothing if not someone who takes risks.”

An hour later, the commander caught the tie-down on the first pass at the pier they were directed toward. Then they sat and waited, docked, but their air lock still sealed against what would come next.

CHAPTER 46

THEY had to wait quite a while before a Navy captain showed up leading a full platoon of Marines.

“Open the hatch, please,” came on net.

They sealed the ship to the pier and opened the hatch. Immediately, the ship began to draw water and matched their comm gear to the net. Gerrit tried to draw reaction mass, but their credit chit was denied.

Then the captain arrived on the bridge.

“So it is you two.”

“Yes, sir,” Gerrit replied.

“Did you have to drop this mess of crap on us?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Vicky said.

The commander cleared his throat. “Captain von Kluge, may I present Her Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Lieutenant Commander Victoria Smythe-Peterwald.”

Vicky held out her hand. “My friends and Navy superiors call me Vicky.”

The captain did not kiss her hand but made a point of shaking it. “Thanks for the warning. If you two will come with me, you’re wanted by the admiral.”

So they went.

The Marines formed a solid phalanx around them as they climbed the stairs out of the dock to the main deck of the station. It was so sparsely populated that Vicky wondered if it had been cleared beforehand. Then again, during their approach, they had not identified any ships, merchant or Navy, in system on approach or departing St. Petersburg. There were only two merchant ships in port.

Several dozen merchant hulls with cold reactors trailed the station in the thousand klicks behind it.

St. Petersburg might have it better than the rest, but it was no hotbed of commerce either.

The Imperial Battleship Scourge was docked at midstation, to make it easier to balance her weight, so it wasn’t much of a walk. Still, the Marines held station at Vicky’s elbow. No one could see her, much less get a good shot off at her.

That left Vicky to wonder which was most important, that she stay safe or that her presence on the station go unnoticed?

The navigator was there on the quarterdeck to receive her salute as she rendered honors to a cloth flag draped on the aft bulkhead, then saluted the navigator.

“Permission to come aboard, sir.”

“Permission granted, Commander. If you will follow me,” the navigator said, and led off even with the captain right behind her. Poor Gerrit might have shuffled off to some out-of-the-way corner, but Vicky made a point of slowing down so he could catch up with her.

“He’s saved my life so many times I’ve lost count,” she said to no particular question.

“And she’s saved mine a time or three,” he added.

Gerrit was allowed to accompany Vicky to whatever awaited her.

Apparently, the passageways from the quarterdeck to admiral’s country had also been cleared; she saw no one in the walk there.

The navigator opened the door to the admiral’s in-port cabin and stepped aside. Vicky led the way in, followed by Gerrit and the captain.

“I got them for you, sir,” the captain reported to the admiral. “I still think we should have spaced them,” he added.

“Yes, yes, Bruno, but what would I do for excitement for the rest of the day?” the admiral said, standing and shaking first Vicky’s hand, then Gerrit’s. “And yes, Bruno, you must have some paperwork you need to catch up on. Go do what a busy chief of staff does when the boss isn’t looking over his shoulder.”

The chief of staff’s “Yes, sir” did not have a lot of “yes” in it. Clearly, he didn’t think his boss should be alone with Vicky, whether it was as a temptress or wandering Grand Duchess.

Still, like a good captain, he left his admiral alone.

“So, how bad was it getting here?” the admiral asked as soon as the captain was gone.

“Not that bad,” Vicky said. “We developed a fuel leak and had to make a short stop on Poznan, but they fixed it, sold us extra fuel, and sent us on our way. There was no traffic in any of the systems we crossed. No commerce at any of the planets we passed, either. The two colonies we passed were shriveling up on the vine, and the people were on the edge of starvation. Maybe across it.”

“Yes, I’m hearing that about the planets that either the Navy or the Empress’s family are not taking a hand in. That’s too damn close to half the Empire.”

“Have you heard anything from Greenfeld since we left? How did our papers suddenly become questionable?”

“Your papers became questionable because the Lucky Strike Jubilee was not expected here at St. Petersburg. We were advised that you would take one of three options. We weren’t one of them.”

“The admiral offered me three options,” Vicky said, “but he also said I was free to come up with a fourth if I could think of one. I thought of one.”

“Hmm, that seems to have escaped his recollection when he sent us our update on you,” the admiral said, but he didn’t seem surprised by that.

“Sir, may I ask how things are on Greenfeld?” Vicky said again.

The admiral took a moment to rise from his desk and saunter over to a star map of the Empire. “Things are about the same, only worse. Your father, our Emperor, is well. He continues to issue proclamations. The Empress is also well. Her pregnancy seems to be advancing apace. Her family are just as grasping as ever.”

He paused, as if to measure his next words carefully.

“The Navy is pressed in on all sides. You know about General Colenberg’s death?”

“Yes. I temporarily occupied his casket with him. It was the cover I needed to get up the beanstalk.”

“Oh, so that’s the way it was. Admiral Waller mentioned that they had a close call getting you out, but he didn’t say how.”

Vicky had more questions. “I understand from some of the nasty words passed by the Imperial Guard as they goaded the Marine honor guard to swing on them that he died during interrogation.”

“Yes. He told them nothing, but the bitch’s family didn’t let that stop them. They’ve hauled in a dozen Marine generals and colonels. Under torture, some of them broke, poor souls. The Empress has her security consultants carrying out a purge of the Marines.”

“Take away the Navy’s army just as they’re building their own.” Vicky scowled.

“What is Admiral Waller’s response to this?” Gerrit asked.

“What can he do? He’s holding things together by his fingernails. I’ve been authorized to take on as many Marine recruits as I think I can handle, but I have to keep them off the record. I’ve also gotten a draft of Marines from Greenfeld, both to help me train our recruits . . . and to get them away from the inquisition.”

“I know where you can recruit a lot of likely good men,” Vicky said. “Poznan and Presov.”

“There are a lot of planets with many good men and women hungry for their next meal,” the admiral pointed out.

“Yes, but I owe a welder on one of them, and maybe even his boss.”

“Him, too?” Gerrit asked.

“Him, too,” Vicky said. “He could have been worse.”

“If you say so.”

“So, Admiral,” Vicky began, “what are the conditions on St. Petersburg?”

“Interesting,” he said, returning to his seat. “Interesting and challenging.”

“That tells me a lot, and yet a lot of nothing,” Vicky said, trying for something Imperial but gentle. Not that she’d ever seen anything Imperial that was gentle. Discovering a new Imperial style was going to be challenging.

But then again, she’d had a chance to watch Kris Longknife develop a style all her own.

“Would you mind telling me why you’re asking?” the admiral said. “Better yet, could you tell me what you’re doing here?”

Vicky smiled at the admiral. “Since you asked so nicely, I can try. I hear that St. Petersburg is in fairly good shape. That they are prospering by supporting the Navy and the new Navy colony, Port Royal. I also hear that they might owe the Navy a favor, considering how you kept them from being taken down by the Empress’s security consultants.”

The admiral shook his head. “They don’t see it that way, but go on.”

“If they don’t see it our way, maybe we can help them see it that way.”

“I hope you aren’t thinking of using force,” the admiral said, steepling his hands in front of him.

“I think force is overrated as a means of solving our problems, and way overused by my family, either natural or just married into, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think the Emperor is interested in what the Navy thinks.”

“But I am not my father. I am not sure who I am, but I know I am certainly not my father. Now then, if I stipulate that I don’t want to entice you into using your troops to enforce my will or anything else on St. Petersburg, what can you tell me about things down there?”

The admiral studied Vicky for a long moment, then made a decision.

“They are running things very much on their own,” he said. “They don’t want us down on their turf, and, indeed, none of my shuttles can land there without their prior approval. If we try, the landing system kicks out and we find ourselves with no beacon. When they have product for us, they send a shuttle up. If they hear a delivery has come in, they check it out with the arriving ship. And they always seem to know when a ship has arrived and what its cargo is.”

“I understand,” Vicky said, “from my earlier visit that they had eyes and ears everywhere.”

“And in more places today,” the admiral said with a scowl. “No doubt despite my best efforts to keep your arrival a secret, they know about you.”

“I’m hoping they do. As I see it, they owe the Navy one, and they owe me one as well.”

“You?”

“Me and Kris Longknife. Last time I was here, Mayor Manuel Artamus had an idea. He wanted his town, Sevastopol, to have its own city charter, a document that outlined a limited duty toward the crown and let them manage their own affairs. I signed it for him, and he’s been running his own show ever since.”

“And doing it very well, I might say. Most of the other towns now have their own charters. Though where they got them, I have no idea. Anyway, they’re running their own show and even have a council of mayors running the whole planet.”

“Yes,” Vicky said. “I heard that the council of mayors made it easy for the Navy to find someone to dispute the arriving vultures’ claim that they had been invited.”

“Yep,” the admiral agreed. “We got to send the security consultants packing, and that gave us a solid planetary base in this sector of the Empire.”

“As I said, they owe you one,” Vicky noted.

“And you intend to collect what from them how?” had way too many questions for Vicky to answer.

Vicky chose to pick an easy one first. “Face-to-face, if I get a chance.”

“You won’t get a chance,” the admiral said.

“How much do you want to bet?” Vicky said.

The chief of staff knocked and stuck his head in the door without waiting for a reply. “Admiral, there’s a call coming in for you from dirtside. Mannie wants to have a word with you.”

“The big man, himself,” the admiral said, with the widest grin Vicky could imagine.

The admiral punched the commlink on his desk. “Admiral von Mittleburg,” he said.

The screen beside him on the bulkhead came to life. There was Mannie, just as Vicky remembered him, though a bit older and a whole lot less eager.

“I understand that Vicky Peterwald dropped in on you today,” he said, without preamble.

“I don’t know where you heard that,” the admiral said.

“Hi, Vicky,” Mannie said, turning to face her.

“Hi, Mannie, how’s it going?”

“A lot better than I have any right to expect, though a lot less than I’d hoped for.”

“I’m glad you managed to dodge my dear stepmom’s effort to take you over.”

“Yes, I imagine you are. Now, let me make myself as clear as I can. You are not welcome here. Don’t even try to come down here. I would prefer for you to leave the station as quickly as you can, but I have no control over what happens up there. I do, however, control what happens down here. If you try to come down, you will find all landing beacons off. Approach at all five of our major cities will not recognize you or give you any clearance. Do I make myself clear, Vicky?”

“Perfectly, Mannie. How about tea at three o’clock today?”

“Don’t test me, woman.”

“Mannie, I gave you the charter you asked for. Can’t we at least get together and talk about old times?”

“There are no old times between us, Vicky.”

“Then how about new times? My father’s Empire is a mess. You’re doing great here. I’d really appreciate a chance to talk to you about what you’re doing different.”

“You know exactly what we’re doing different. If your father wanted to adopt it everywhere, he could, but he doesn’t, so there’s no reason to talk now, is there?”

“I need to talk with you, Mayor,” Vicky said.

“This mayor does not need to talk to you. This call is over.”

And the screen went blank.

“Well, that was short and sweet,” the admiral said.

“Gerrit,” Vicky asked, smiling at the man she’d come to depend on, “how good are you at piloting a shuttle if it has to land without any ground support?”

“I’ve done it three or four or fifty times,” he admitted.

“Admiral, do you have any little shuttle that you can spare a Grand Duchess? One that can handle an unassisted landing?”

The admiral looked at Vicky for a long moment. Was he measuring her for a casket or deciding if he was willing to risk the entire Navy policy toward dirtside on one young woman?

“Are you planning on raising the flag of rebellion once you get down there?”

“No. Nothing could be further from my mind,” Vicky said.

“So, what is closer to your mind?” the admiral asked the Grand Duchess.

Vicky leaned forward and rested her hands on the admiral’s desk. “The economies of entire planets are crashing because trade has dried up. St. Petersburg’s economy is surviving, but surely it could use some of the products from other planets. I’m going to talk one mayor into seeing the opportunities for growing his planet’s economy by helping other planets walk themselves back from the brink of cannibalism and catastrophe.”

The admiral continued to eye her for a long minute.

“And besides,” Vicky added, “I can’t start a rebellion when I don’t have a friend to my name, can I?”

Vicky let the silence become pregnant, then added, “I may be a Peterwald, but I’m not that crazy.”

The admiral mulled that over for a very long time.

“Okay, Your Grace, I do happen to have a gig that I’m willing to risk. Commander, you want to talk to our chief bosun’s mate and get checked out in it.”

“Yes, sir,” Gerrit said, coming to attention and saluting.

“With any luck, the two of you will splatter yourselves all over some bay down there and solve all my problems in one nice crash.”

“We’ll try not to do that, Admiral,” Vicky said. “Admiral Krätz used to say the same thing, but he always remembered how much paperwork he’d have to fill out and ended up wishing me luck.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MIKE SHEPHERD grew up Navy. It taught him early about change and the chain of command. He’s worked as a bartender and cabdriver, personnel advisor and labor negotiator. Since retiring from building databases about the endangered critters of the Pacific Northwest, he’s spent his time with some fun reading and writing.

Mike lives in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife, Ellen, and close to his daughter and grandchildren. He enjoys reading, writing, dreaming, watching grandchildren for story ideas, and upgrading his computer—all are never-ending. He’s hard at work on Kris Longknife’s next story, Tenacious; Vicky Peterwald: Survivor; and books that tell the earlier story of the Iteeche War.

You can learn more about Mike and all his books at his website mikeshepherd.org, e-mail him at Mike_Shepherd@comcast.net, or follow Kris Longknife on Facebook.