Vicky Peterwald: Target (12 page)

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
un
allot 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.

V
ICKY
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.”