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  A man appeared. He looked thirtysomething; his face was yet unlined by age and experience. The red uniform he sported would have been comical for all the gold and silver dripping from it . . . except for the large silver death’s head on each lapel.

  As he spoke, Vicky’s eyes were drawn back repeatedly to those two grinning skulls.

  “I am Count Korbinian, Governor General of Brunswick, and the Lord Protector of the Imperial Security Zone in which all good subjects of Brunswick reside. Unknown ships approaching Brunswick, know that we hold your silence to be clear evidence of hostile intent and we will use deadly force on you if you approach this station. Return from whence you come, or face the most serious consequences. This message will not be repeated.”

  And the screen went back to its view of still-distant Brunswick.

  “It took him that long to come up with that little,” Vicky said, scowling at the screen.

  “OOD, am I mistaken, or hasn’t the Retribution been squawking that it is a ship of the Imperial Navy every moment since we entered this system?” the captain demanded softly but firmly.

  The commander standing the watch took time to verify his answer before he replied. “Yes, sir. Both the Retribution and the other warships have been identifying ourselves properly. No squawker has broken down. One of the freighter’s IFF went on the blink for an hour, but they got it back up, and we’re all right and tight, sir.”

  “Silence, my eye,” the captain spat, but softly and for Vicky’s hearing only.

  “So, they’ve had their heads together ever since we entered this system,” Vicky said softly, “and a claim that we are silent is all they can come up with.”

  The captain nodded agreement.

  “Captain,” came from Lieutenant Blue who had joined the chief at sensors. “The warships tied up to High Brunswick have begun to charge their capacitors and power up their lasers.”

  The captain’s head snapped around to take in sensors. Lieutenant Blue didn’t so much as blink at the glare the skipper threw his way.

  The captain opened his mouth but snapped it closed just as quickly. Again, he leaned close to Vicky. “No one powers up their lasers while in port. God, think of the mess one slight twitch of the wrong finger could do. This is asinine, even for Engel, if he hasn’t taken total leave of his senses.”

  “So let’s go to the root,” Vicky said. “Captain, could you have Communications replay the message. Lieutenant Blue, I don’t recognize this Count Korbinian. Run a facial recognition program and see if you can get a match.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” and “Yes, Your Grace,” greeted Vicky’s request, and with a somewhat delayed nod from the skipper, the recent transmission reappeared on screen.

  “Sorry, Skipper,” Vicky whispered.

  “It’s my own fault for having a Grand Duchess on board,” he shot back, but his eyes were on the screen, and his lips had an upward curl at the edges.

  The facial recognition program operated as the putative “Count” spoke his terror in a monotone voice. He had hardly finished his threat again before Lieutenant Blue announced, “I have a match.”

  “Put what you got on screen,” the captain ordered.

  Vicky was careful to keep her mouth shut. She’d gotten her one free order in for the day. She hadn’t asked for it, but no doubt about it, the crew had given it to her, and the skipper was counting it. She’d have to be more careful in the future.

  “We’ve got a ninety-six percent match on Kurt Corbin. He married one of the Empress’s cousins and rose without distinction to be a minor vice president in one of the family banks. He rather enthusiastically volunteered to oversee a composite commando of Navy and Security Consultants that gunned down a lot of State Security. We’ve got a match with him and Karenhall. It was a hunting lodge owned by the major general commanding State Security’s Internal Operations Bureau. Kurt seems to own it now. He was created a baron for his efforts against State Security and was raised to Count a year ago for his pacification of several planets while commanding one, then two brigades of Security Consultants.” Lieutenant Blue paused as if not knowing whether or not to go on.

  “Is there more?” Captain Bolesław growled.

  “One of the private computers we hacked off the Golden Empress No. 34 had correspondence in it, one friend to another. It said that Kurt was up for a dukedom if he did well on his next job. The reply said that Kurt would never get a duke’s ring, not after some drunken mouthing off he did at a cocktail party about the Empress’s dad sleeping with all his daughters.”

  “Oh, ho!” muttered the captain through an evil grin. Then again, Vicky’s face was far from angelic at the moment.

  “So the hell the palace has become begins to eat its own,” Vicky muttered, doing her best to suppress thoughts about just how hellish it had always been.

  “But how can we put all of this to our own ends?” the captain said, rubbing his chin.

  “The good Count Korbinian has got himself far out on a limb and sawn it at least halfway through,” Vicky said. “He can’t afford to fail this assignment, or they will hand him his head.”

  “Apparently literally.”

  “No doubt, in that court,” Vicky agreed.

  “He’s under pressure.”

  Vicky grinned. “Let’s raise that pressure. Lieutenant Blue, can you tell us more about this fellow?”

  “He’s pretty bland. He seems to have enjoyed killing State Security commanders rather gruesomely and sending video back to the palace.”

  “Sadistic twit,” the captain muttered.

  “Oh, when he acquired Karenhall, he seems to have also gotten a string of polo ponies. He likes to win. He actually shot a pony that failed him once.”

  “Quite a temper,” the captain observed.

  “We will have to make him lose it,” Vicky said.

  CHAPTER 16

  VICKY didn’t get a chance to try her hand with Count Korbinian until they were almost to the orbits of Brunswick’s two small moons. Her computer had taken a quiet moment to bring Vicky up to date on the fellow. His last name, Corbin, meant little crow or raven. He’d chosen the old Frankish German form of that name for his noble name.

  Either way, he was a carrion eater, surviving off the rotten meat of those he’d killed.

  What say we leave you rotting by the road this time?

  Vicky was coming back from a light supper. She dropped by her stateroom and collected her high-gee station. If things got exciting—and she expected they would—she wanted to be prepared.

  Kit and Kat had it tuned up, recharged, and waiting.

  “Thanks, girls,” Vicky said, giving them a kiss.

  “Have no fear, Your Grace. We will be here when you come back, and you can give us more than a peck on the cheek.”

  With that, they sent their warrior on her way.

  No surprise; as Vicky motored onto the bridge, much of the watch was either in a high-gee station or had one parked close by. Even the skipper.

  “My, Your Grace, you are getting quite adept at this Navy Way.”

  “I’m getting quite adept at staying alive,” she growled.

  “Either one works for me.”

  Their comradely chatter was interrupted as the main screen came alive.

  There stood Count Korbinian, in all his red, gold, and silver glory, on the bridge of a warship. Captain Bolesław’s softly whispered “Oh, Engle, my lad, what have you gotten yourself into this time?” suggested that it was his friend standing a bit back from Korbinian and the ship must be the Reprisal nee Savage.

  “You should have taken my warning. Now I will slaughter you. I take no prisoners.”

  Captain Bolesław raised an eyebrow. Vicky sighed and moved to take center stage before the main screen. “Put me on screen,” she said.

  “We are no threat to Brunswick,” Vicky said, evenly. “We come bearing trading goods, escorting a convoy of merchant ships through the snares of pirates.”

  “We have no trade w
ith outies,” the Count spat, then seemed to blink twice and look hard at Vicky.

  “You’re the outlaw who sometimes styles herself the Grand Duchess Victoria.”

  “I am the Grand Duchess Victoria. And I am no outlaw.”

  “Yes, you are. You’ve been proclaimed outlaw by the Empress’s edict.”

  “But not by the Emperor’s decree. I am called to court, and I come.”

  “Like hell you do. Not on a battleship.” Then Kurt seemed to see his salvation handed to him on a platter. “Or maybe you’d send those battleships away and come alongside the station in a shuttle.”

  “Not even a captain’s gig?” Vicky said.

  “Gig, barge, boat,” Count Korbinian spat. “What do I care so long as you come here unarmed?”

  Behind him, several Navy types failed to keep scowls from flitting across their Navy-bland faces as the little Lord of Karenhall demonstrated his total disdain for the Navy.

  Vicky noted that. I can use that against you, you carrion-eating crow.

  “I will return to court at a time and place of my own choosing,” Vicky said, cutting Kurt off. He let his disappointment show on his face. “For the moment, I am doing what I can to improve the free flow of trade within the Empire.”

  “There is no trade between the Imperial Security Zone and those who have refused to submit,” Kurt snapped.

  “We are all loyal subjects of Emperor Henry I,” Vicky shot back, “with a right to his protection and to prosper in free and open trade that is ours by right of the Imperial Charter.”

  Vicky had heard her father laugh derisively at all the platitude that got dumped into the charter by the “fools and do-gooders.” Still, he’d allowed it to be written and signed it with a flourish. If that was the cost of his being declared Emperor, that was cheap. Vicky’s surprise wasn’t that these vultures were stripping the flesh off the charter, but that her father hadn’t declared it null and void before this.

  “To hell with a scrap of paper,” the Count snapped.

  “So,” Vicky said, “you are restricting trade between planets of the Empire.”

  “You ain’t nearly as stupid as they told me you were, little girl. You finally got it. Now turn those ships around and head back to where you came from.”

  That was the second time he’d said that. Turn the ships around and go back. Didn’t he know that ships couldn’t just turn on a dime like polo ponies?

  Maybe you don’t, bullyboy.

  “Or, I could take up a trailing station, say a third of an orbit behind the station,” Vicky said, lightly. “There I could pick off any ships coming in or going out. If you won’t let me trade with the planet, I can always close down your trade.”

  “And you call yourself a loyal subject of the Emperor.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, we decide who is loyal to the Empire,” Kurt growled. “You’ve gotten in the way of the Empress’s Security Forces one too many times, little girl. Now you’re in my way. People either get out of my way quick, or they die. You’ve been warned twice. Now you die. Captain, the fleet will mount up on my command and ride out to trample the enemies of the Empire.”

  Had a Navy squadron ever been ordered to space on orders so far from the Navy Way?

  “But,” the skipper of the Reprisal tried to get a word in.

  “Don’t you ‘but’ me, Captain. You have your orders. Get these ships out there. You have a battle to fight. Or don’t you have the stomach for one? Shall I have you shot and get someone with more guts to put spurs to this bunch of cowards?”

  From the rear of the bridge, several men in red coats and white trousers with machine pistols slung over their shoulders stepped forward, menace in their eyes.

  “Poor Engle,” Captain Bolesław was heard to murmur softly from his command chair.

  “No,” was not quite spat by the Count’s captain. “I will take the squadron to space. Communications, pass the word to the ships of the Brunswick Security Squadron. We sortie in fifteen minutes. I will issue more precise orders when we are no longer talking to them,” he said, raising a shoulder to the camera.

  “Yes, yes,” Kurt said, eyes locked on Vicky. “Pretender, prepare to be blown to hell.” And the screen went blank.

  CHAPTER 17

  LIEUTENANT Commander Vicky Peterwald turned to the skipper of the battleship Retribution with a huge grin on her face. “Did I just do what I think I just did?”

  “We will have to wait to be sure,” Captain Bolesław said, “but I think you just got one stupid landsman to take a squadron to space in the worst way.”

  “When we had to stop the last attack on St. Petersburg, we used a partial orbit, the same that Kris Longknife used to defend Wardhaven against those pirate battleships we won’t talk about,” Vicky said. “That was the way for them to defend Brunswick. Instead, I think our no-account Count is going to do a cavalry charge right down our throats.”

  “Oh, I’d love to be a fly on the bridge when Engle has to explain to that idiot that you can’t wheel an accelerating fleet about the way he turns his polo pony on a dime. I just hope the damn fool doesn’t shoot poor Engle just because he can.”

  “Your friend Engle should have taken retirement when he had the chance.”

  “I’m not sure he was given any choice, Your Grace. He’s on an Imperial ship, no doubt under some sort of confused chain of command, but the renamed Reprisal is squawking as Navy, not pirate.”

  “God help us when we can’t tell the difference between the two.”

  “That, Your Grace, is one reason why they say a civil war is the worst war possible.”

  As the conversation with the Count came over the net, several members of the bridge crew had been seen to share furtive glances among themselves. That was nothing like the dismay that ran around the bridge when the skipper spoke the words “civil war.”

  The captain tapped his commlink. “All hands. A squadron of battleships and cruisers is about to head our way. The security honcho giving the orders to them says the blackhearted Empress doesn’t want us trading with Brunswick. Our Grand Duchess has pointed out that the Imperial Charter the Emperor has granted says we can.”

  Captain Bolesław paused for a breath. “Division heads and leading chiefs, please take a few minutes to discuss this matter with the crew. If anyone has a problem with returning fire when fired upon, you may dismiss them to their bunks. Now, I am not asking for a Longknife vote on this. I stand with our Grand Duchess. I’ve fought with her and brought one shot-up ship home with her standing right there at my elbow, not running for the first lifeboat. If I have to fight the Retribution with my own two hands and hers, I will, but let’s clear the air if we can.”

  Captain Bolesław paused. “Now, as soon as you can get a work team together, I hear that turret Dora is flat on her ass. I’d like to see her ready to shoot back at anyone taking a shot at me. Chiefs, are you going to tell me we can’t fix the Retro as good as any yard clowns?”

  A cheer went up as soon as the captain clicked off. Whether it was for his willingness to fight the ship all by his lonesome, with maybe a bit of help from Vicky, or his challenge to the chiefs of the ship to patch the turret with no help from a yard, it was hard to say. Then again, it might have been his use of the crew’s pet name for the Retribution. Vicky didn’t even know that the new skipper knew that belowdecks his ship was proudly called the Retro.

  Whatever it was, the cheer started fast and lasted long.

  When it calmed a bit, the skipper turned to Communications. “Send my last All Hands message to the rest of the fleet. Were they tracking the message traffic between High Brunswick and the flag?”

  “Sir, all comm watches have been guarding the main commlink and following everything we’ve received and all that the Grand Duchess sent back, sir. I think you may have had your finger on the All Squadron button as well as All Hands. I have logged acknowledgments from all of the warships and half the freighters. They range from simple ‘acknowle
dge,’ to ‘yes,’ to ‘hell, yes.’”

  The comm chief paused for a moment, realizing he’d broken communication protocols. “Slinger, Wittenberg, and Augsburg are in the ‘hell, yes’ category.”

  Captain Bolesław looked a bit abashed by the reception his words had gotten around the fleet. “Well, let’s take some time to see that anyone who wants to stand down is given that chance,” he said.

  On the bridge, the chief boson’s mate went from station to station, muttering softly to each rating. The XO did the same with the watch officers. Done, the XO left to do his polling of the division heads. He was back with the command master chief in less than ten minutes.

  The command chief spoke for both of them. “Other than two layabouts who are taking the chance to malinger in their bunks, all hands are with you, Skipper. And I got a good dozen chiefs that say they can have Dora on her feet and dancing a jig before those flat-ass dandies from the Greenfeld Squadron can get on their feet. If it pleases you, sir.”

  “It pleases me very much, Chief. Carry on.”

  CHAPTER 18

  FOR the next several hours, the battle developed. Vicky’s ships continued to decelerate toward Brunswick . . . they could hardly do otherwise. The freighters bore away to starboard, opening the distance between them and the battle line to a good thirty thousand klicks. Captain Bolesław brought the Wittenberg forward to the head of the line but kept the Slinger and Augsburg trailing the huge battleship.

  “If I’m reading the Count dude, he’ll order everyone to concentrate on the Retribution. Engle might even suggest it though I doubt that stupid crow would listen to anyone.”

  “Why?” Vicky asked. “Won’t that give our other ships free shots at theirs?”

  “Yes. Admiral Krätz taught you well. Still, we are the biggest target. Take us out, and the rest are easy pickings. Then, there is you. Kill you, and they win all the chips.”

  Vicky swallowed hard. Assassination attempts were quick and over before you knew it. Most of them. It looked like she’d spend the next few hours waiting to die.