Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) (11 page)

T
HERE
were a lot of shouted threats that changed nothing as the Marines frog-marched the former managers of the mining co-op out of Vicky’s presence. She spent the time drumming her fingers and eyeing the table that held the independent guild and union reps.

“Who runs the mines?” Vicky finally asked when things quieted down. “You, Molly? You, Gus? You, the guy missing an arm?”

The man stood. “If it pleases Your Grace, I’m Bartholomew O’Shannon. I was a fitter in the mining co-op before my accident. I can’t run a mine.”

“Your accident?” Vicky said. “I’ve heard management’s perspective on that. You want to give me yours?”

“Yes, Your Grace. The gear they gave me to work with was shit and damn near killed me. They said I was screwing around and damaged mining property. They docked me my ticket home and said it didn’t cover the damage. I got mad, and I did what I could to organize as much of a union as I could. It wasn’t much.”

“Who could run the mines who isn’t on my list of people I’m dragging off to face a judge on St. Petersburg?”

Between the dozen of them still connected with the mines, they rattled off eight names. All were foremen at one level or another.

“Tell them I want to see them,” Vicky said, then thought better of having people made to stand out at the mines. “Oh, do any of you see the need for the security police?”

“Most of the regular cops are decent types,” O’Shannon said. “Well, as decent as they can be. Someone has to see that a miner on a bender gets a tank to sleep it off in. The mine-security men, now, there’s a different breed for you. You’re welcome to them if you can find any use for ’em.”

“It would be interesting to see how they’d fare if we turned them loose to root hog or die,” the commander said, showing a dark side Vicky liked.

“But they are comfortable applying violent solutions to their problems,” Mr. Smith pointed out. “You might not be happy with the hogs they rooted with.”

Vicky mulled that over and found it wise advice. “Captain, have a detail go into town and collect the brown shirts. Tell them they’ve got an all-expenses-paid trip to St. Petersburg, where they can look forward to new career opportunities in fast food.”

“Captain, you might better grab them first before you enlighten them about their career prospects,” the spy suggested.

“Sir?” from the Marine captain was directed more at Vicky than her secret-agent man.

She nodded. “Good idea. Collect them, then have one of your guys read them their fortunes.”

“Will do, Your Grace,” and the captain nodded toward a lieutenant, a big sergeant, and several even bigger trigger pullers.

Vicky found herself waiting for what would happen next. Fifteen minutes later, a rig arrived with four supervisors. They seemed unsure of why they were here. Vicky chose to observe silently as they talked quietly with some of the guild folks who knew what had happened thus far.

Vicky got lots of furtive glances and raised eyebrows. When the commander offered them coffee, they showed enthusiasm for it, leading Vicky to suspect even lower management had been on thin rations lately. The wait stretched for another ten minutes before a second rig arrived with four more
supervisors. Vicky let them get their briefing from their own types and the local guild. She measured some surprise, some quiet consternation, but no shock.

Has the top management been so bad that their downfall is no surprise to their middle-management types?

Vicky called the new meeting to order.

“As you no doubt have learned, there are openings at the top of the Mine Managers’ Co-op. The previous holders of those positions are now headed to St. Petersburg under guard to face charges of fiduciary malfeasance. It has been suggested to me that you eight might be the best people available to step into those shoes. Persuade me.”

The six guys and two women eyed Vicky, then eyed each other. There was a bit of whispered table talk before one balding man whose clothes hung on him as if he’d recently lost a lot of weight stood up.

“I take it that the managers’ unilateral decision to halve the price they paid for crystal at the mine head last shift change and immediately double the cost of food in the cafeteria and commissary didn’t go over so great with you, Your Grace.”

“When people shake my hands on an agreement, I really don’t like the idea of their renegotiating everything about their agreement behind my back. Especially when I can’t see where all the money is going. Do I make myself quite clear?”

“Completely, ma’am,” the man said.

“I am here, representing an effort to reopen trade between St. Petersburg and Presov. Posnan is next on my to-do list. We’ve got food and spare parts. You’ve got crystal. I think we can all benefit and profit from trade between us. Some people, no longer present, seemed to think they could take most of the profits and leave little or no benefits for anyone else at the table. What’s your take on this?”

“You’ll excuse me, ma’am, but no one has so much as asked us what we liked and didn’t like about matters here at the mines for quite some time. This is kind of a big lump of crystal to dump in our laps. How much time can you give us to come up with new management proposals?”

“You’ve got a good point.” Vicky turned to the commander. “Please get me the CO of the Fifty-fourth Light Marines on the horn.”

Then she turned to the head of St. Petersburg’s trade delegation. “Mr. Vickun, how many of your traders would be willing to follow their goods down here and set up some sort of a trading post? They’d trade their stock for crystal as it became available. It might be more time-consuming, but after what we’ve seen in the last few hours, cutting out the middleman might not be so bad an idea.”

“Most of them, I think,” he said. “This has been an education for me, and I’m thinking your idea will look better and better to my associates the more we think about it. However, I’m also kind of thinking that we don’t want to wake up to a knife in our hearts some morning or be beaten to a pulp as someone tries to run off with all our trade goods.”

“I expect that you can count on the Navy to assure that the company thugs enjoy the hospitality of a cruiser’s brigs or maybe the very empty hold of a freighter.”

“In that case, it might work out best if we took the time pressure off this situation, Your Grace.”

“Let’s do that.”

“Colonel Hilni here, Your Grace,” came from Vicky’s commlink.

“Colonel, I’m dirtside talking to a lot of new and interesting people. The trade delegation is undergoing a change of plans and looks much more interested in setting up a trading post than in selling everything today and sailing away with the fleet.”

Vicky paused to watch people nod, not just among her own people but among the locals as well.

“That’s a lot of expensive goods and gear they’re planning on leaving,” the colonel observed.

“And the rule of law has been a bit tattered of late in these parts,” Vicky added for his consideration.

“Am I detecting a need for some security for the trading post?”

“It certainly seems that way to me. Hopefully, it will be temporary, just until the past panics and new opportunity for snatch and grab lose their attraction.”

“I think that a company of Marines billeted in the warehouse district and doing a bit of friendly patrolling might be just what you’re asking for, Your Grace.”

“Please make it happen in the next twenty-four hours,” Vicky said.

On the shuttle taking her back to her flagship, Vicky finally had a moment to catch her breath. She’d almost blown it, but she’d managed a pretty decent recovery.

She shook her head; growing up in the palace, she’d seen some pretty shoddy deals go down. She’d seen them but always as the cute kid in a new dress. She’d seen them from the sidelines and, more often than not, not really taken them for much.

Now, she was the Grand Duchess, and she was in the middle of it all. She couldn’t afford to let herself sink back into the role of a sweet girl on the sidelines. This time, the powers that thought they had it all had screwed up on their timing. This time, she’d caught them.

She shouldn’t count on the bad guys making mistakes and helping her out. Next time, she’d have her eyes open and be on the lookout for the rigged deck. After all, she was the Grand Duchess now. She was the power.

She was for now, assuming she didn’t let it go to her head and join the bad guys.

Vicky shivered. Her stepmother was about as bad as they came. No way would she become like Stepmommy dearest.

Unless she had to to stay alive.

T
HIRTY-SIX
hours later, a somewhat reduced Fleet of Desperation jumped out of the Presov system. Vicky chose to leave four freighters and the
Frozen Christmas Goose
behind in orbit around Presov under the protection of the
Biter
. Captain Spee of the
Doctor Zoot
had completed his trading and was running for St. Petersburg with the first load of crystal. Aboard her under heavy guard were the former management of the mining co-op.

Now, Vicky led the four freighters with the most famine rations as well as more generic spare parts toward whatever awaited them at Poznan.

Because of the many unknowns ahead of them, the
Attacker
was cleared for action, and the
Crocodile
assault landing ship was combat loaded with the Thirty-fourth Armored Marine Battalion and St. Petersburg’s own proud First Rangers.

Somewhere of late, the Grand Duchess Victoria had come to doubt that the universe was a nice place. The initial reports when they entered the Poznan system did nothing to change her mind.

“Silence. Dead silence,” the captain observed as he stood
his bridge, the Grand Duchess at his elbow. “No radio traffic. No radiation at all.”

“They had a fusion reactor for their space station,” Vicky said. “I think they had one for their largest town.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the captain agreed. “They
did
. Now those reactors are as cold as a tax collector’s heart.”

“Or my beloved stepmother’s,” Vicky added, not quite under her breath.

Beside her, the captain made an effort not to hear that. Vicky could almost hear his effort, it was such a strain.

Vicky turned to her brain trust. “Commander Boch, Mr. Smith, Doc Maggie, I’m open to any thoughts you may have.”

For a long moment, they didn’t have any.

Finally, Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “I can’t say that there’s much in the literature about a civilization going downhill, but there’s been a lot of science fiction or horror speculation about just this sort of thing. Local power generators could provide a few centers where a level of technical comfort might survive while all those around them reverted to wood fires for cooking and warmth. What does an infrared scan show you about the heat budget of the planet?”

The captain turned to his team on sensors. There was a flurry of activity followed by the duty officer snapping to attention and reporting. “There do appear to be several low-order heat sources that match the fingerprint of internal-combustion power generators.”

Mr. Smith smiled as the captain turned to him, and said, “Good call.”

“Unfortunately for the generator owner, there’s not much you can do with them once you run out of gas. Did Poznan have much of a hydrocarbon-refining base?”

There was a lot of looking around at each other on the bridge, but no one seemed to know where to get an answer to that question. There were disadvantages to the high level of confidentiality Greenfeld law and practices gave to just about all data.

“Computer,” Vicky said.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“What can you tell me of Poznan’s petrol, oil, lubricants, and natural-gas industry and reserves?”

“There are several proven fields that can be exploited, but the need has been low. One small refinery has been built to meet local needs.”

“Please give the sensor team its location,” Vicky said.

The sensor team began a frenzy of activity that ended just as quickly as it began.

Again the duty officer snapped to attention. “Captain, the refinery is not active.”

“No surprise there,” Vicky said. “Let’s just hope we packed the spare parts needed to get it up and running again.”

The planet kept its secrets as they made their final approach. The ships went into orbit close aboard the space station where Vicky and her earlier commander protector had gotten critical repairs made to the
Spaceadler
. Without those repairs, Vicky never would have made it to St. Petersburg.

No one was getting anything repaired at that space station now. In fact, no one was doing much of anything. It, like the planet below, was silent, cold, and dead in space.

A squad of Marines were sent to investigate. “It’s cold inside, Colonel,” their sergeant reported. “We got an atmosphere, but until someone takes off the chill and gets rid of all this water dripping off the ceiling and walls, you have to keep your suit on.”

The captain of the
Attacker
sent an engineering team over with his three best chiefs. It took most of a day, but they got the reactor back up. That only started a cascade of challenges that required a major draw on the ship’s supplies to get the life-support system back into working order.

While the Navy attacked problems on the space station, Marines concentrated on surveying the planet below. Signs of life were most easily identified at night. After dusk, the hills in the hinterland west of Kolna lit up with dull little fires. What was truly appalling was the frequency of such fires in the suburbs of Kolna, the one large city on the planet; there were even small cooking fires in some of the streets in the center of town. Well before midnight, all the fires had burned out, leaving the planet dark. Darker than any inhabited planet Vicky had ever seen from space.

They spent an entire day searching for any sign of traffic before they spotted a pickup truck making its way slowly into town. When they zoomed in, they found it pulled by two horses.
Its load was sacks of produce, but hardly enough to fill half the truck’s bed. Unfortunately, their orbit carried them over the horizon before they confirmed its destination.

That night, they concentrated on Kolna, trying to find generators and any steady electric lights they might feed. Everyone couldn’t be going to sleep that early.

They spotted nothing.

The planet kept its secrets even as the station became operational enough for the ships to dock and take on some semblance of gravity.

Inez Torrago bearded Vicky over dinner that evening. “Tomorrow morning, at 0530, the sun will come up on Kolna. I want my Rangers down there.”

“Only if you’ll take a company of tanks with you,” Vicky said.

“What do I need with those awful things?” the Ranger company skipper asked, making a face at the thought.

“You want them because I don’t want to win a firefight. I want to avoid one. I want to trade with people. Dead bodies don’t have all that many needs they want to trade for. You understand me?”

“Are you coming with us?” Inez asked.

Vicky glanced around her table. Mr. Smith seemed suddenly totally involved in his salad. Commander Boch made a face. Doc Maggie said, “Can I take my medical bag down with me?”

“We have our own medics,” the Ranger put in.

“You have medics, I’m a doctor. I’m also a doctor who hasn’t had a patient in way too long. Certainly there are sick people down there in need of my help.”

“And if you want peace done right,” Vicky said, taking a moment to pat her lips with her linen napkin, “it’s best you do it yourself. I’ll go with you.”

“Your Grace!” the commander said. The words were few, but the meaning was loaded.

“Don’t ‘Your Grace,’ me,” Vicky snapped. “I want to talk to the people down there. I can’t do that from up here, not with everything closed down.”

“As a matter of fact,” Mr. Smith said, in a matter-of-fact way, “you can. All you need is this intrepid woman to take an operational commlink down there, and you can talk all you want to whomever she gives it to.”

“Assuming she doesn’t shoot them first,” Vicky said.

“Assuming they don’t shoot
at
me first,” the Ranger captain said.

“And don’t tell me,” the commander said, jumping in, “that they won’t shoot at a Grand Duchess. Who’s to say they won’t shoot first and check your credentials later?”

“I’ll just have to be careful,” Vicky said.

Commander Boch scowled as he rose from the table. “I’ll go advise the Marines that they’ve got a drop mission tomorrow morning. Full kit and one Grand Duchess.”

“And at least one load of starvation rations,” Vicky put in.

“They can come down after we land all the Marines the
Crocodile
can land in one drop,” the commander spat back.

“One load of rations,” Vicky demanded, locking eyes with her commander.

“One load or what?” he snapped.

“No what,” Vicky answered, her voice even enough to be measured against an iron-straight edge. “We came to help. It won’t do any good to tell starving people that. We have to show them from the beginning.”

The spy and the two warriors locked eyes with Vicky. She did not blink.

“Her Grace has a point,” Mr. Smith finally drawled.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t get it between her shoulder blades,” the commander said, but he went to do her bidding.