Rebel (28 page)

CHAPTER 39

T
HE
next morning started with a quick, suborbital hop from Kiev to St. Petersburg. On the flight, Vicky was briefed that today she’d be smiling and waving at many of the people who were working around the clock to turn out the subassemblies
Retribution
needed to be restored to battle readiness. There were also several steel-fabrication plants extruding special beams to strengthen the hulls of all the battleships that would be getting extra armor.

“I definitely want to smile at these folks,” Vicky said.

No sooner had the lander rolled out of the water and onto the port than she found herself meeting a lot of serious faces. The local mayor greeted her with a delegation of business and financial leaders with one and only one question on their mind.

“What’s this we hear about an invasion fleet?”

Vicky chose honesty for her answer.

“The Empress has one in the next system out. Our convoy escorts fought with its lead elements to get the freighters through from Brunswick. Your fabs are putting together things that will give us a leg up when we next fight them. Do you have a problem?”

“Yes,” one large banker said, shouldering his way to the
front. “The commander of this force, the guy we hear is called the Butcher of Dresden, why didn’t you kill him the first time you fought him? Can you kill him?”

“When we fought his forces the first time, we blew away two battleships. He got none of ours,” Vicky said succinctly.

“I heard they got a freighter?” came from the back of the crowd of worried civilians.

“One of our merchant ships suffered an engineering casualty and couldn’t decelerate with the rest. It was picked off by one of their destroyers,” Vicky said curtly. “Apparently you’ve been talking to someone who got scared the first time they saw a battle. I’ve seen a few, and it wasn’t all that scary. We’ll be ready for them just like we were the other two times the Empress tried to take your system.”

“It didn’t seem like we were all that ready,” again came from the back.

“We fought. We won. They lost. That’s why you have a fleet, to see that they are the ones who die and we are the ones who live. I’m scheduled to say a few words to the folks making our ships better than their ships. What do you say that we stay on schedule?”

There was plenty of grumbling, but none of it rose to a level that Vicky had to pay attention to. A limo was waiting for her, and a small motorcade got under way.

“I’m glad we lost that bunch of little old ladies in long skirts,” Commander Boch noted as the fleet of large black limos took off in their own direction, leaving Vicky’s the only one with an escort of police and military SUVs headed for the industrial side of town.

“Who’s been talking to them?” Vicky asked no one in particular.

“It’s kind of hard to keep merchant Sailors from talking,” Mannie answered. “It’s not like we have state security to lock people up.”

“How
do
the Longknifes keep people from blabbing?” Vicky said, suspecting she and Mannie were continuing their talk from last night.

“Perhaps they trust them to keep their own mouths shut and maybe they do. Sailors have been talking in bars for several thousand years,” Mannie pointed out.

“Merchant captains have been telling their owners what they saw for just as long,” Commander Boch added.

“Well, at least we still have people waving at us,” Mr. Smith noted with a wave of his hand, and Vicky took the reminder that she should be waving and smiling at those people. The crowd here wasn’t as enthusiastic as the folks lining the streets in Kiev. There also weren’t as many of them. Vicky took that as a sign that their itinerary might not have been blasted all over the media.

She was about to mention that to Mr. Smith when all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER 40

V
ICKY
caught the flash out of the corner of her eye. A car parked on the side of the street had been there a moment ago. Now pieces of it were flying at her.

And pieces of the people she’d been waving at.

Time seemed to stand still.

The limo flew up into the air like a cat toy. Vicky reached out to grab hold of the door and found it coming her way in a hurry. When it hit her arm, it was pure agony.

Someone was screaming. Likely her.

The limo had been steady as she entered it back at the spaceport. Then, she’d taken it for heavily armored and been glad of it. Now it rolled over twice as if it were paper blown by the wind and came to a halt on the other side of the street against another parked car.

The door she’d been reaching for was now leaning hard against her shoulder. Pain lanced into her. Mr. Smith and Commander Boch were calling to her, reaching for her.

She couldn’t hear a word they said.

Kit and Kat were squeezing themselves out the far door, even as blood flowed from their eyes and ears. Kat had a jagged piece of metal sticking out of her butt that she ignored.

A moment later, both of her assassins were standing in the gaping hole that had been the limo door, Kat faced out with a gun leveled. Kit strained for a moment as she struggled to haul the door off Vicky.

The shattered armored-glass cut into Kit’s hands, but she didn’t so much as flinch as she pulled the heavy door off Vicky. It might have helped that Commander Boch was pushing from the inside as well.

Vicky gritted her teeth and did her level best not to scream as the door came away but the pain didn’t.

Mr. Smith touched her shoulder. From the look on his face, he was doing his best to be careful.

The pain was still excruciating. Vicky wished she could pass out, but though the world got hazy, it would not go away.

She blinked blood out of her eyes and found herself focusing on Mannie. The mayor of Sevastopol had been tossed against the opposite door. Kit and Kat had walked right over him to get out that side. He seemed to be recovering, shaking his head as the dazed look in his eyes was slowly replaced by his focusing on her.

He said something. She couldn’t make it out, but at least she heard something.

Movement caused her to turn her head. Big mistake. A wave of nausea swept over her, but she swallowed down what came up.

Reinforcements were now arriving. A pair of Rangers, rifles at the ready beat three cops to the door that Kat guarded. She kept her pistol aimed at them. They kept their weapons aimed high and turned around to face out with Kat. Only then did the diminutive assassin relax—a smidge.

Two medics arrived. At least the bags they carried showed Red Crosses and Red Crescents prominently. At the collection of firepower aimed at them, they opened their bags enthusiastically and were allowed to pass through the cordon only when the contents matched the advertising.

Both headed for Vicky, but she pointed at the bloody hunk of metal sticking out of Kat’s rear end. The two assassins took in the wound, apparently for the first time. In Kat’s case, it took some twisting around before she could spot what Vicky was pointing at.

Kat shook her head. Vicky could still not make out the words, but it was clear Kat had no intention of leaving her post while Vicky’s condition was still unknown and an assault might well be in the offering.

Kit nodded and turned her back on her friend, motioning Vicky to see if she could stand up.

Vicky tried to pop the five-point harness holding her to her seat. It wouldn’t budge. Since she and the harness had gotten quite personal during the two flips the limo went through . . . and it would be a while before Vicky let anyone else touch her lady parts . . . Vicky could only shrug to those around her.

Mr. Smith produced a wicked-looking knife and began to carefully cut Vicky free. The commander left Mr. Smith and the medics to work with Vicky and joined the growing layer of guards around the banged-up limo.

Vicky found herself free. She reached for Mr. Smith and failed to swallow a yelp. Her right arm would not move. One medic gently touched the shoulder and shook her head.

“You’ve got a dislocated shoulder,” she shouted with careful enough enunciation that Vicky could understand. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

The other medic was checking Vicky’s scalp. “You’re cut. Maybe concussed. They’ll want to keep you tonight for observation.”

Mr. Smith scowled at the medical advice. “Do you want them to set policy for a Grand Duchess, or do you decide what needs doing?”

It took Vicky three tries, but she finally got out a hoarse, “What do you have in mind?”

“You came here to tell some workers that what they were doing was crucial. Clearly, the Empress doesn’t want you talking to anyone. What do you intend to do?”

What Vicky wanted to do was crawl in bed and have Doc Maggie make all the hurts go away. Vicky squeezed her eyes shut.

Where is Maggie? When did I let her go one way and me go another?

After two slow breaths, Vicky opened her eyes. Everyone was here. Mannie and the commander, Mr. Smith and Kit and Kat. They were who she counted on now. All of them looked
to her, waiting for her to give the order.
What does a Grand Duchess do?

What would Kris Longknife do?

Not crawl back in bed,
Vicky answered herself.

Vicky squared her shoulders . . . or at least started to before the pain made her gulp down a yelp.

“Let’s go talk to some production workers.” She intended the words to be hard. And they might have been, if her voice hadn’t cracked so badly.

“Let’s see what I can do about that shoulder,” Mr. Smith said, and gently led Vicky to a nearby light post. “Hug that thing like it was Mannie here,” the spy said.

That got a giggle from Kat. Mannie turned quite red in the face.

“What are you going to do?” one of the medics asked before Vicky could get her tongue around the question.

“Fix that shoulder so she can do a day’s work.”

“Let me at least give her a shot,” the other medic said.

“You want to be stoned, or stone-cold sober when you talk to those workers?” Mr. Smith asked Vicky.

“I hate this macho shit,” Vicky said, and hugged the lamppost with her good arm, offering her spy the bad one gingerly.

He took off his leather belt, folded it twice, and put it in her mouth. “Bite down hard.” Then he took the arm gently, and carefully felt up around the shoulder as he moved it ever so gently.

Maybe this won’t be so bad,
Vicky was just starting to think.

And screamed as she nearly bit through the belt. The two-faced secret agent man had yanked on her arm with all his might, almost walking away with it. Once more, the world was turning black. Vicky did, indeed, hold on to the post for dear life.

“If you told me you were going to do that,” the senior medic said, “I’d have gotten one of these Rangers to shoot you. We don’t do that kind of crap anymore.”

“We do what we have to do to finish the job,” Mr. Smith said curtly.

“Don’t worry,” Vicky mumbled, “I’ll shoot him later.”

“You are so gracious, Your Grace,” Mr. Smith said through a grim smile.

“Well, at least take these painkillers,” the medic said,
offering Vicky two familiar pills that she was not averse to using when her monthly went long.

“Will these do any good?” Vicky asked, but only as she was swallowing them down with the offered water.

“You’d be surprised, deary,” the woman medic said. “Hold this ice pack on your shoulder. It’s going to swell like the blazes in a few minutes.”

“It already is,” the other medic said, and wrapped Vicky’s arm in a restraint that also managed to keep the ice pack in place. That done, one turned to work on Vicky’s bleeding forehead while the other began to examine Kat’s butt.

Only now did Kit allow her focus to waver toward her comrade. Her worried gaze flipped back and forth between Vicky and her sister assassin. Vicky waved Kit away.

Several ambulances arrived, lights flashing. Only after Vicky saw them did she hear the sirens. And only then did she take in the slaughter that surrounded her.

The stench hit her, forcing her to struggle to keep her stomach down.

The police SUV ahead of her limo had been even with the car bomb. The explosion had flipped it over. It hadn’t been as heavily armored as Vicky’s ride. It was stove in and had caught fire. It didn’t look like any of the five people in it had gotten out alive.

So that was the horrible stench.

Or maybe just part of it.

Around the car bomb were people and parts of people. Vicky had thought the crowd was starting to thin out. Maybe it had. Maybe it could have been worse.

Just now, she couldn’t see any way it could have been better.

More ambulances arrived, more medics. The two who had first helped Vicky were ready to move Kat. Kit gave her hand a final squeeze, then returned to Vicky’s side.

“That bitch is so dead,” she whispered, more to herself than to Vicky.

A Ranger captain appeared at Vicky’s elbow. “I need to get you out of here.”

“You need to get me to where I was going?”

“Ma’am?” had “you crazy?” all over it, but she didn’t blink,
and he led her and her team to a SUV that was three back from her limo’s wreckage. He shouted orders while Vicky gingerly got herself seated and secured in the back. Her team surrounded her and held on tight when the rig got under way, with tires squealing.

They backed up, found a left turn, and took it, drove two blocks, and took a hard right. Somewhere along the line, they picked up a squad of motorcycle cops who raced ahead and halted traffic just long enough for them to zoom through intersections without slowing.