Rebel (45 page)

Vicky met that with a rueful rolling of her eyes.

“However,” Admiral von Mittleburg said, going on, “Grand
Admiral Kuznetsov still has his ships encumbered by certain Security Specialists who seem most enthusiastic to carry out any little order that comes in from the Empress.”

Now it was the grand admiral’s turn to roll his eyes.

“It seems to me that it would be better for us all if our lasers had empty capacitors. We should be able to tell the second any capacitor, ours or hers, begin to power up and take actions accordingly.”

Vicky glanced at Commander Blue, who stood at his station out of view of the camera. He nodded. Vicky drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We thank you for your thoughts, good admiral, and it pleases us to follow your advice,” she said.

“Good God, I’m deleting your copy of Shakespeare,” Admiral Bolesław muttered softly.

“Oh no. I don’t read that old guy. I like trashy period romances,” Vicky said. Feeling like a ton had been lifted from her shoulders, she headed off the flag bridge.

At the hatch, she paused and glanced back. “Oh, Admiral Bolesław, please lay in the fastest course for St. Petersburg. I have a bone to pick with a certain mayor.”

The admiral raised a questioning eyebrow, but Vicky was already turning away. She desperately wanted a bath and a bit of sleep.

CHAPTER 66

“W
HAT
the hell did you do?” Vicky demanded, as soon as Mannie walked into her day quarters aboard the
Retribution
. She’d been on a slow burn ever since she got blindsided by this mediation idea. For this meeting, she’d sent everyone away.

“And what might it be that you think I did?” Mannie asked as he approached her, so innocent that platinum might melt in his mouth.

That act didn’t work on Vicky. She knew Mannie too well. Hands on hips, she let him have it. “Don’t be cute with me. You hornswoggled my dad, your Emperor, into letting Kris Longknife mediate this thing between us,” Vicky spat. “He’s the Emperor. I’m the Grand Duchess.
We
decide how things are done in this Empire.”

“He does now, does he? I hadn’t noticed him doing much of anything of late.”

He had Vicky there.
But still!

“I thought we had an understanding between the two of us. We are an Empire. We don’t put everything up for a vote like they do in Longknife space. You democrats tricked him.”

Mannie paused only a few feet from Vicky and pulled himself
up to his full height. That made him just about eye to eye with her. He paused, took two deep breaths, then said, “I am the duly elected mayor of Sevastopol.
I
have no authority over
your
Empire. No one does, except your father, as you are quick to point out.”

“I’m glad you’re willing to admit that,” Vicky snorted.

“And for the last several years, your father has been sniffing around your stepmother and letting her family wreck everything that your forefathers and a hell of a lot of other good people built. Am I not right?”

Vicky let out the breath she’d been holding, and admitted, “We’ve agreed on that.”

“So, the Empress goes running off to make sure that you are blown into tiny bits by one honking-big battle fleet, and it just so happens that some other people manage to get a word in the Emperor’s ear.”

“Democrats,” Vicky spat, making it sound like a dirty word.

“I suspect that the people who managed to sell your father on this entire mediation idea came with a whole lot of agendas, some of which I would, no doubt, find distasteful. I am told that a functioning democracy is very messy. From what I’ve seen on St. Petersburg, I think they got that right.”

“But we’re letting Kris Longknife in!” Vicky almost screamed. “She’ll likely try to turn Greenfeld into something . . . something . . . all Longknifish,” Vicky said, with a shiver.

“Would you rather your father mediated between you and the Empress?”

“What would
that
do?” Vicky growled.

“Likely keep the war going much, much longer, piling up the bodies,” Mannie said.

“Couldn’t any of you think of anyone else?”

“Can you?”

Vicky found herself stumbling to a roaring halt. Mannie had her, point, set, and match.

Who
could
mediate between me and my stepmother?

After a long moment for reflection, Vicky found herself deflating like a pin-pricked balloon. A couch wasn’t too far away; she stumbled to it and folded herself into it.

In a moment, Mannie joined her on it, seating himself about as far away from her as the overstuffed bit of furniture allowed.

“You know,” Vicky said softly, aiming her words at no one,
“we almost won that battle. We had the Empress running for the jump and a whole lot of your merchant cruisers on her tail.”

“I’m sure our merchant Sailors would have been only too happy to open the gates of hell for her.”

“I was pretty sure I could give the order for them to do it,” Vicky said.

“Only pretty sure?” Manny asked with a highly raised eyebrow.

Vicky allowed herself a loud sigh, and, if possible, deflated even more. “I’ve seen a lot of people die. Ships vanishing in a blink. Thousands of good men dying without even a moment to know it was coming.”

Mannie nodded. “It must have been horrible. How do you keep your sanity in such an insane situation?”

“I’m not sure I did,” Vicky admitted. “When the cruiser showed up with Dad’s message, I was of half a mind to ignore him. To order the merchant cruisers to keep baying after the Empress until they caught her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Vicky shrugged. “I’d really be the rebel then, now wouldn’t I?”

“The victorious rebel?” Mannie offered.

“Are you sure? Do you think your, ah, unctuous rats at court could have kept Dad from disowning me, from declaring me in rebellion? Where would that have left us?”

“With you leading a rebellion marching on Greenfeld. Likely one of those unctuous rats, as you named them, would slip a knife in your father’s back before we got there.”

Vicky turned to Mannie. While they’d been talking, somehow the distance between them had grown smaller. “I didn’t think all that through, but I think I knew in my bones that that would be the endgame if I didn’t take the chance those rats had given me.”

“Given us,” Mannie added.

He’d leaned back on the couch, one arm resting on its back. It was almost touching Vicky’s shoulder. “Given
us
?” she repeated.

“Us,” Mannie said. “The people of the Empire. You and me.” The smile he gave her warmed her in places she hadn’t been warm in a very long time.

With a sigh and a smile, she folded herself into his arms. His lips were waiting, and she took them. The first kiss was tentative,
just a brush of hers on his. When he answered that touch with a soft kiss of his own, Vicky pulled his head to her, eager to see where this might lead.

Just before she let the universe disappear, one last thought floated by.

Good luck, Kris Longknife. You’re going to need more of that legendary Longknife luck than anyone has a right to expect.

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. Now retired from building databases about the endangered critters of the Pacific Northwest, he’s enjoying 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.

Look for
Kris Longknife: Bold
, coming from Ace in October 2016, to see what happens when Vicky and Kris cross paths again. Mike is also hard at work on Kris’s next book for October 2017.

You can learn more about Mike and all his books at his website mikeshepherd.org; you can e-mail him at [email protected] or follow Kris Longknife on
Facebook.

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