Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Page 14

  Then, on reflection, what exactly was her mission now that she had to consider this new twist? An opera buff with ducal delusions and a predilection for raping his dinner guests?

  Time to think on your feet, girl.

  “I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Herbert,” Vicky said. “I’m here on a mission of mercy. We’ve brought famine rations for distribution to the starving populations.”

  “Why that’s a fine idea. Why don’t we discuss it over dinner? I am told that I set an outstanding table. We can work out the fine points of how my army will distribute this food you’re donating to famine relief.”

  The commander threw Vicky a cautionary eye. Caution that Vicky did not need.

  Cindy had only horror in her eyes as she turned to Vicky.

  “I have a better idea. No doubt the chefs aboard my battleship in orbit can set an even finer table. Why don’t you come up to the station? We have it operational, and we can discuss the food distribution with all the technical support we might need. It would be a shame for something to fall through the cracks, now wouldn’t it?”

  The man laughed. It was not a nice one.

  “So you don’t want to eat my food any more than I want to eat yours.”

  “Not one bit,” Vicky said with a shake of her head.

  “Well, my army will do the distribution of the food,” he said, cold stone in his voice.

  “My Marines and Rangers have already begun the distribution and are having no problems.”

  “On Poznan, my army controls everything. Your strangers could find themselves in trouble and not even know what happened before it hits them.”

  “Please don’t say that too loud. My Imperial Marines might take umbrage at such an idea,” Vicky said, buffing her fingernails.

  “You have been warned. This audience is over,” Herbert said with a theatrical flair, and turned to exit, stage right, off his balcony.

  For a long moment, there was silence.

  “You going to level the building?” Mr. Smith asked. For once, the look in the commander’s eyes showed full support for something from the spy.

  “No doubt, my dad would,” Vicky said, considering her options and their outcome.

  “No doubt,” the commander agreed.

  “What do you say we don’t and say we did,” Maggie said.

  Everyone gave Maggie a puzzled look. Even Vicky.

  “Let’s not do it, but later we can say we did,” the doctor said by way of explanation.

  “Why would we do that?” the commander demanded.

  The doctor just looked at Vicky.

  “We are not going to do it today. And it doesn’t matter what we say tomorrow. Captain,” Vicky said to the company commander of the heavy Marines.

  “Your Grace?”

  “Conduct an orderly withdrawal.”

  “Ma’am, we have some grooms from the stables asking if we have any food they might have. They’ve heard we’re handing out stuff to eat.”

  “Have the Rangers make the usual three-biscuit issue.”

  “And if they want some for their horses?”

  “Please,” Cindy said. “They’ve got my horse and my sister’s pony.”

  “If we feed horses, will there be enough for the people?” Maggie made haste to point out.

  Vicky took a deep breath and turned to Cindy. “If you had three starvation biscuits, would you share them with your horse?”

  “In a switch of her tail.”

  “Issue six bars to the grooms. Three to any other goon that asks us for food. Withdraw the tanks to the next block and hold for ten minutes while half the tracks distribute food.”

  “What do I do with the other infantry rigs?” the captain asked.

  “Spread them out, two to a street, and distribute rations.”

  “And if we take fire?”

  “Return it heavy,” Vicky said, tasting the blood in her voice.

  “Aye, aye, Your Grace,” said the captain, then, a moment later added, “Ah, Your Grace, what do you want me to do with that fellow who was demanding landing fees?”

  “Is he still with us?” the commander asked.

  “We tied him up and tossed him in a track. He’s been amazingly quiet ever since, but now I’ve got a sergeant asking what we want to do with him.”

  “Drop him off here,” Mr. Smith said. “He can explain this all to Mr. Duke, grand or otherwise.”

  “He’s begging not to be left here. He wants to come with us.”

  “Suddenly he knows which side his bread is buttered on,” the commander said. “He picked his side long ago. Toss him.”

  “He’s done us no great wrong,” Maggie said. “You dump him here, and he’s a dead man for sure.”

  Vicky eyed the spy. He shrugged most expressively and made to wash his hands of the matter.

  “Captain, dump the guy two blocks from here. He can decide where he goes from there,” Vicky said.

  The withdrawal from Government Square was slow and orderly. It was also peaceful.

  Vicky glanced back at the white house as they motored from the square. Behind one window, she might have caught the glint of gold.

  She swore she heard the gnashing of teeth.

  CHAPTER 35

  “LET’S talk about what just happened,” Vicky said on the drive back to the spaceport.

  “Why didn’t you blow that ass away?” the commander demanded.

  “Why don’t you hold that thought,” Vicky said. “Cindy, why didn’t you tell me what you knew about Herbert?”

  “You didn’t ask. You didn’t even ask me my name,” the young woman almost but didn’t quite spit at Vicky. Clearly, she was holding on to her temper with her fingernails.

  And ready to take those claws to anyone who gave her an excuse.

  “Yes, you and I were on different tracks, and I didn’t ask you for more information than you were willing to give, even your name,” Vicky conceded, softly. “You looked in pretty bad shape, and maybe I wanted to get that trip downtown that you were offering before you fell apart. My mistake. Now, could you please tell me what I need to know about this planet? How did you get into this mess?”

  “I don’t know,” the young woman said, settling back into her previous seat in the corner of the infantry fighting vehicle.

  Vicky sat down across from her.

  The staff quickly arranged themselves in the fighting compartment. The commander and Mr. Smith were to Vicky’s left. Maggie sat next to Cindy with a comforting and mothering arm over the young woman’s shoulder. Kit and Kat took seats on either side of the compartment, quiet, but ready to spring into action.

  Cindy began to cry. Maggie and the commander produced handkerchiefs. The young woman took Maggie’s.

  “What went wrong on Poznan?” the woman repeated, then looked across at Vicky. “I don’t imagine you’d be very happy if I said the Emperor screwed up.”

  “But I’d understand,” Vicky said with a shrug. “My father’s midlife crisis is causing the Empire a whole lot of trouble.”

  “But you want to know how it went wrong on this particular planet, right?”

  “Kind of. I’m here with food and some spare parts. If I knew what happened, I might be able to help you make it better.”

  “Can anyone make it better? My dad tried, and look what it got him?”

  “Where is your dad?” Maggie asked, saving Vicky from asking a question that might well bring on Cindy’s final collapse.

  “Safe, I think. He has a hunting lodge well back in the hills. There’s a lake he liked to fish. When he gave up trying to make things better, he and Mom took off for there with my little sister.”

  “Why didn’t you go?” Vicky asked.

  “I have a girlfriend. I wanted to take her with me up-country. I tried to save her and g
ot caught myself,” Cindy said, ruefully.

  “How did things go bad?” Mr. Smith repeated. “For the entire planet?”

  Cindy sighed. “Dad said he wasn’t getting spare parts. He needed motors to keep the oil wells pumping. Pumps to keep the pipelines moving the crude to the refinery. In the refinery, he needed just about everything. Then everything quit coming. First, his credit dried up with the big, offworld banks. After that, he couldn’t get the parts he needed shipped in. He managed for a while, using the local fab mill, even machine shops and craftsmen, but they needed materials to make the parts that were broke.

  “Before long, special materials quit coming from off planet, and we only mine pretty basic stuff here, and not a lot of it. Besides, our fabricators were pretty basic. You want a ton of rebar to reinforce a concrete wall or pipe, we can make that. You want the specialty steel that goes into a twelve-inch pump, and you can sing for it. More and more often, Dad couldn’t make all the pieces come together. Dad knew a lot of guys who were having it just as bad as him, or worse.”

  The woman looked at Vicky, all the despair of her world in her eyes. “Then Herbert started meddling. I don’t know how he got his hands on the guns left behind when the State Security went down. The Marines who came here to close down State Security took the men away. Dad said they were supposed to take the guns with them, but when they marched off with the survivors from State Security, the ones that didn’t die in the firefights, the guns weren’t accounted for.”

  “That happened a lot,” Vicky said. “That was not one of my dad’s better ideas.”

  “Well, suddenly Herbert had guns and confiscated trucks. Suddenly, he’s telling everyone that he will provide security. He didn’t say from what,” Cindy said with a bitter laugh.

  “One lunchtime, my father was holding a meeting with the fab managers and craft shops, trying to figure out who gets what little we had left, and Herbert crashed in with all his gun-toting goons and announces that my dad and all the rest of them were plotting against Posnan. He hauled them all off to jail, and there they sat until they posted bail.”

  “What happened when they did?” Vicky asked.

  “He let them go, but that bail bond took about every spare mark Dad had. For most of the other people, it was the same. Now they were trying to run things with little or no cash. Can you imagine how that went?”

  “Downhill in a hurry,” Vicky said.

  “Yes. And then Herbert took it in his head that the farmers were holding back on us city folks. Not bringing their crop to market. So him and his bullyboys go charging out to the country and started ransacking farms. The poor farmers were having enough trouble keeping their equipment up and running. I know. My grandparents worked a farm out in the country, and they were telling us every weekend what wasn’t working anymore. So now the farmers have goons turning everything upside down looking for hoarded crops and making a wreck of everything.”

  “And when Herbert collected the food?” Vicky asked.

  “He paid in a script the bank was now issuing. Script that quickly wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on,” Cindy answered.

  “Nothing got better. Everything just went from bad to worse. Herbert was on Dad’s neck to increase gas production when all it could do was drop lower each week. He accused Dad of sabotaging the economy, called him an enemy of the state.”

  “Is that when he ran?” the commander asked.

  “Not exactly. Dad could see it coming. He ran when he still could. No, that was what Herbert told me after he caught me. Before he took me to his, you know, bed.”

  “That was when you tried to kill him?” Vicky said.

  “It took me a few days to work up the courage or give up all hope. I don’t know which.”

  “Could you get me to your dad?” Vicky asked.

  “Why?” came out with terror in her eyes.

  “I, too, need to get the oil refinery working, and the power and water and sewage going. I’ve got Navy techs in orbit and four ships with spare parts and small machinery as well as famine rations. We can just feed people, or we can help people get the wheels of civilization working again.”

  For a moment, there was hope in Cindy’s eyes. Then it went out like a snuffed candle.

  “Herbert won’t like that,” she said.

  “I really don’t care what Herbert does or doesn’t like,” Vicky said, and was surprised at the steel in her voice as she said it. “I let him live today. What happens to him tomorrow depends on what happens tomorrow.”

  “He raped me,” she spat.

  “Then he should face a judge for that crime,” Vicky said.

  “There are no judges on Poznan.”

  “Not today, but in the backcountry with your dad, I’m sure there are a few.”

  “Yes, there are.”

  “Let’s make Kolna a city that has courts again,” Vicky said.

  Maybe the tight little smile that creased Cindy’s lips had a glimmer of hope in it . . . with a huge twist of vengeance. “Yes, let’s.”

  CHAPTER 36

  “I guess that answers my questions,” Commander Boch said, as Maggie took their exhausted native guide off to find a place to rest.

  “Not really,” Vicky said, eyeing the new tanks coming off the landers. This was the third drop of the day, and these were the last of the company of eighteen tanks the Thirty-fourth Armored Marines had.

  Vicky smiled. I have eighteen tanks. Herbert doesn’t have any.

  That loadout included two carriers with four drones. Vicky ordered one drone tasked with keeping an eye on Government House along with its other duties. Then, her commander at her elbow, she went looking for the headquarters of her rump brigade.

  The Imperial Marine lieutenant colonel was, of course, senior to the St. Petersburg Rangers light colonel. For now, that was not a problem.

  Someday, it might well become one.

  The problem they all faced today, however, had their full attention: the correlation of space to available forces. Even if they borrowed the two companies left on the Attacker from the Fifty-fourth Light Marines, Vicky still had less than two thousand troops to both feed people and keep an eye on the operatic drama queen’s armed thugs.

  “I don’t want them to get a free swing at either a Marine or a Ranger,” Vicky said.

  “The best way to do that is to withdraw all our troops to an armed cantonment,” the Marine light colonel said.

  “But the starving people can’t all walk in here,” Vicky said. “We also don’t want a huge refugee camp on our doorstep. That would provide too many opportunities for mischief. No, we need to deliver the food to where the people are hunkered down and starving.”

  Both colonels stared at the generated overhead map of the city projected on the table in front of them.

  “He’s ready for a machine-gun fight,” the heavy Marine battalion commander said. “We have armor. He’s going to have a hard time going up against that.”

  “Unless he has antitank rockets or even Molotov cocktails,” the Ranger said with maybe a hint of a grin. “This is an urban area. They’d be tossing those on you from rooftops as you drove by.”

  “That assumes two things. Rockets and gas,” Vicky put in before her two battalion commanders invited each other out for a duel to prove their particular point of pride. “He got his hands on State Security machine pistols. Anyone ever see a State Security goon with an antitank rocket?”

  Heads shook around the table.

  “And we just finished debriefing the daughter of the local refinery owner,” Vicky pointed out. “They haven’t produced a new drop of gas for several months. We spotted heat and light sources when we jumped into the system. Have we spotted any power generators since we went into orbit?”

  “Are you thinking they ran out of gas as we were on approach?” the Ranger colonel asked.

&
nbsp; “It’s not an impossibility,” Vicky said.

  “Tonight should tell us,” the Marine colonel said. “As you requested, we will have a drone watching the opposition’s so-called palace all night.”

  “That would tell us a lot about his forces,” the Ranger colonel said. “My Captain Torrago has an idea she wants to float. We don’t want to sit on our hands too long. That would surrender the initiative to him. Not a good idea.”

  The Ranger captain had been hanging back against the wall of the headquarters. Now she stepped forward. “Those horses we saw today. Assuming opera buff is out of gas, they are his only transportation. If we can take them away from him, he’d have to walk his machine pistols to our tank fight.”

  She nodded toward the heavy battalion commander as she paused to let that idea sink in. “And if we empty the stable of horses, he has no use for stable grooms. They become just another batch of mouths to feed, and he doesn’t look like the type to keep mouths around that aren’t earning their keep.”

  “So if he fires his grooms,” Vicky said, “we get a whole lot of hungry mouths at our gate that know a whole lot about what’s going on around the palace.”

  Vicky smiled at the Ranger. “What do you have in mind, Inez?”

  “A horse raid,” the Ranger said through a grin that knew no bounds.

  Much later, as Inez left to organize her little raid, Vicky stepped outside the command post. The commander followed.

  “You want to ask your question now, Commander?”

  “I thought you might have answered it earlier, but the more I listen to you, the more puzzled I get. Before, I wanted to know why you didn’t kill that idiot when he pranced out on his so-called palace balcony. I know your father, our Emperor, would have.”

  “Like he killed General Boyng and all his State Security organization.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that has turned out so well for us,” Vicky observed in full sarcasm.

  “There is that. So, why did you let him live? It’s the kind of thing Kris Longknife might have done.”

  “And you’re wondering whether, if you stop a bullet headed for me, are you saving a Peterwald or a Longknife?” Vicky smiled as she said that.