Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) (16 page)

V
ICKY
was finishing up a breakfast that, while it might not be up to Navy standards, was warm and filling.

Enjoying a final cup of coffee, she allowed herself to people watch. In this case, it was Marine and Ranger watching. They were intent, attacking their meal with a rapid, methodical approach that they, no doubt, would take to their jobs.

There were a few Navy types thrown in who took to their meals with less intensity than the ground pounders, possibly because the food wasn’t up to shipboard standards. Lost in the sea of green, gray, and blue was the rare civilian in newly issued khaki shirt and pants.

Apparently, Cindy wasn’t the only civilian to earn mess privileges. While this handful appeared a bit dazed, they attacked their food with the ferocity of feral dogs.

More civilians would need to be signed on for jobs. There was no reason for a Marine or Ranger to stack their weapons so they could hand out ration biscuits. If they didn’t have enough volunteers who could be trusted, more would have to be found.

God knows, there seem to be no other employment opportunities for locals other than gun-toting thug to a delusional duke.

Vicky had to wonder what kind of pay a minion of the duke collected.

The thought brought a sour taste to her mouth.

A runner appeared at her elbow, saluted, and said, “The colonel sends his respects and requests your presence in the command center, Your Grace.”

Vicky returned his salute with one hand as she put down her coffee cup with the other. She did a quick assessment of the metadata behind the runner’s comments.

So it seemed a Grand Duchess outranked colonels now. She chose her reply with that in mind.

“Very well. Give the colonel my compliments and tell him I will be there shortly.”

The runner was off for the door even as Vicky got to her feet.

“It appears that Herbert is making his move,” she told the commander.

He nodded agreement as he stood.

Vicky would have loved to race the runner to see who could get to the colonels first. However, Admiral Krätz had taught her that a Navy officer never runs, and a Grand Duchess never even thinks of it.

However, a Grand Duchess can do a very fast walk.

As Vicky got to the door, she noticed that a lot of Marines and Rangers were rising from only half-eaten meals and heading out right behind her.

She wasn’t the only one who knew the clock was already ticking for his or her day.

As Vicky walked briskly across the apron toward the command center, she found herself musing.

I’m not supposed to run because it will scare people. But my runner can run and, as best I can see, scare everybody just as much. Someone has missed something.

This was, no doubt, something she’d have to think about in her plentiful spare time.

If she ever had any.

She entered the command center and quickly joined the two colonels staring at their battle board.

“By the way, gentlemen, I do have a commlink. You might have used it to get me here quicker.”

“We don’t know for sure that Herbert doesn’t have a capacity to eavesdrop,” the Marine colonel said. “Sending runners is not only traditional, but a good way to avoid giving out intel we don’t want to part with.

It’s also a good way to get you some time without me looking over your shoulders,
Vicky read between the lines but did not say.

“What do we have?” she asked.

“You are looking at what appears to be Herbert’s first move of the day. Shortly after you left for breakfast, his henchmen started rousing civilians from wherever they were hunkered down in town. We had a drone make a low pass. It got fired at but not hit. It appears that his thugs are yelling that there’s food down the road and rousting people out to go get chow.”

“What if they don’t believe there is any food or don’t want to leave?” Vicky asked.

“They’re shooting people.”

Vicky winced. This Herbert was a really bad actor and getting worse.

“Which of our food outposts are they headed for?” she asked.

“All three, it appears,” the Marine answered.

Vicky spent a moment watching the visual on the screen. Several groups of people with the rough constituency of mobs were moving down nearly a dozen streets, possibly more. Even people on the roads over from the ones with gunmen prodding mobs along with promises and threats were struggling to make their way along as quickly as they could toward the suburbs.

“I guess there was a reason people yesterday kept quiet about the food or only went to tell their family or friends. Now that a lot more know, there are a lot more of them moving,” the Ranger colonel said.

“When they hit us, it’s going to be a god-awful mess,” the Marine colonel pointed out. “Lots of desperate people going for too few food-issue lines.”

“Can your computer give you an estimate of how many people we have coming at us versus the amount of food we have?” Vicky asked.

“We’re running that count, Your Grace. So far, we’ve got ten times as much food as we need to feed them.”

“So panic is more of a problem than food.”

“It seems that way, Your Grace.”

“So, let’s get the food out there for everyone.”

“Huh?” came from both colonels.

“This isn’t a fight, at least not yet. People want food. We want to give it to them. Right?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” from the Marine had a lot of question in it.

“Let’s get the food out front. Let the people have the food. Are there any civilians who can issue the famine ration biscuits?”

“I don’t know, Your Grace, we haven’t looked into that,” the Marine said.

Vicky made a face. “We will, right after we survive this little trick. Colonels, get your troops to load out the boxes of famine biscuits. Think of the boxes as mines. Put food mines out in front of your positions. I’ll bet you those boxes do a better job of stopping these people than actual mines would.”

The Ranger colonel looked intrigued. The Marine colonel looked like he had a bad attack of gas.

“Your Grace, how are we going to limit them to three biscuits a day?” he demanded as mildly as a colonel could of his Grand Duchess.

“We aren’t. Not now. Not today. Not this morning. So some folks get a few extra rations. It doesn’t matter. What we want to do is stop the mob before it hits your defensive line.”

The Ranger colonel was almost laughing. “Strip the punks of their human shields. Have the starving multitude drop out of their charge to grab for food. That sounds like a plan to me,” and he began talking on his commlink.

The colonel commanding the heavy Marines still seemed nonplussed. “Okay, your Rangers get the food out front, and I’ll have my heavies cover you.”

There had been some grumbling about mixing the two commands. Now, Vicky was glad she had both of them and their different mind-sets out there on the line. Between the two, they just might make this assault on her food stations peter out before it got anywhere.

While the two of them concentrated on their present problem, Vicky brought up an unused battle board and tasked it for the problem of the western hills.

Most people had headed west when they discovered the normal food-production chain had fallen apart. There were farms all around Kolna. Vicky had had those farms photographed and the resulting pictures run through the appropriate agricultural analysis.

There were crops in the ground, but they weren’t going to be bountiful.

There were also a lot of guards protecting those crops.

Hungry townspeople had been shunted farther to the west, to the hills where there might be something to eat.

Analysis of that land showed it picked clean. Vicky had asked to have the analysis applied to the land farther to the west. There wasn’t a lot to eat there, either. You had to go quite a bit farther west, up into the higher foothills, before you saw much decent eating.

There were people there. No doubt the strong and hearty, or the ones who were smart enough to leave first. Now, their smarts might be the death of them.

Vicky measured the distance from where the edible land was and where her three food stations had been set up by the Rangers. A lot of people would die trying to walk back over the desolate land if Vicky didn’t establish food stations along the way.

As soon as the matter with Herbert was settled, Vicky would have to concentrate on those western hills.

Oh, right, Cindy’s dad was somewhere out to the west. What could Vicky do to get him back here? She needed him and likely a lot of the people who could make Kolna work again.

“We’re starting to have problems,” the Ranger colonel advised Vicky.

The Grand Duchess of Greenfeld turned from her future problems to study the trouble coming at her today.

V
ICKY
watched as the starving masses struggled from the streets into the open spaces where the Marines and Rangers had set up the food-distribution depots.

In all three cases, the Marines had literally circled the wagons. The four infantry tracks were in a rough semicircle with their wagons. The two tanks completed the laager by closing the rear. All six of the heavy metal brutes had turrets, and all six were trained on the streets that would disgorge the mobs coming out from the city.

Scattered out well in front of the armor were pairs of Rangers with open bags and boxes of famine rations stacked in front of them.

It would be a shame if the Rangers had to resort to using the bags as cover to shoot from.

That wasn’t in today’s plan.

The middle food-distribution site was the first one to have a crowd arrive.

When the starving masses saw the food bags, those who could began hurrying for them. That was when the Rangers shoved over the bags, spilling their contents on the ground in front of them.

With a shout, the mob broke into a run.

The Rangers backpedaled for the next batch of piled food. They took up positions behind them and watched as the first line of food bags and boxes was engulfed in a mass of starving, desperate people.

It was not pretty. People were knocked over in the rush. Others stumbled over them. Many went down and were trampled. And that was before anyone got to the food.

Then it got worse as people grabbed for biscuits and struggled to get away with what they had. Others fought with them, kicking and scratching to steal one little morsel.

But not everyone lost all presence of mind. There were those who saw the next line and went wide of the first bags and the fight raging around them.

Maybe they were slower. Maybe they were weaker than the others. Either way, they walked wide of the mess and approached the Rangers more cautiously.

The bags and boxes at the second line were spread out wider. They invited people to form lines, and folks seemed to naturally do just that.

An officer with a bullhorn now got into the act.

“We have plenty of food for everyone. Come up and take three ration biscuits for today. We’ll be here tomorrow. Get three and step aside for the people behind you. If you share and share alike, it will go a whole lot better than that first mess.”

People formed lines. Rangers picked someone to stand over each bag or box, handing out the food. It wasn’t always the first person there, but it was always an early arrival.

Vicky watched as the food-distribution process settled down to something a whole lot smoother at the second line than at the first. Even some of the duke’s thugs stood patiently in line, their guns slung over their shoulders. They eyed the Rangers and their rifles at the ready, and kept their eyes down. Like docile children, they took their rations and followed the others in turning away to wolf down their food.

“That can’t be what Herbert wanted?” Vicky said, giving voice to her puzzlement, puzzlement likely shared by the silent colonels beside her.

“And I had two rescue task forces already rolling,” the Marine colonel said. He moved the battle board to show where two teams
of similar size, two tanks and four tracks, were rolling up a side road from the spaceport to the threatened food outposts.

“Is there anything happening on our front?” Vicky asked.

“We haven’t spotted anything,” the Ranger colonel said. “There are people moving toward us, but nothing like the situation to the south.”

“Show me,” Vicky said.

They zoomed in on the road leading into town. There were a lot of walkers. The news about the food out here had to be catching on.

“We’ll need to get the food out for them,” the Ranger said.

“These seem better dressed than most I’ve seen,” Vicky said. She had the picture zoom in more. It got too grainy, so she pulled out some. Still, despite the growing heat of the day, quite a few of the people walking down the road had coats on, or blankets thrown over their shoulders.

“Did I just see a gun?” Vicky asked.

“Backtrack, computer, scan the picture for weapons.”

“I identify three people carrying weapons. I identify five people carrying weapons. I identify twelve people carrying weapons,” the computer reported.

“Terminate search program,” the Ranger colonel growled.

“We have a problem here,” Vicky said.

T
HE
two colonels got busy ordering their troops into positions to defend the spaceport. The two detachments of reinforcements were ordered back. While they talked into their commlinks, Vicky examined where the best place was for her.

She left the command center.

“Where are
you
going?” the commander demanded.

“Where I can see what’s happening and maybe make something better happen,” Vicky said, looking around the port.

“If I ordered you to stay inside?” the commander only half asked.

“I’d ignore you.”

Outside, Vicky picked up Kit and Kat.

“She’s gone crazy,” the commander muttered to them.

The two assassins just fell in step behind Vicky.

Around Vicky, it was chaos. Or so it would appear to any observant civilian. Vicky had no problem picking the order out of the disorder.

The Marines were standing to, getting their tanks and tracks ready for action. The Rangers were joining them, but several climbed around on the trailers hitched to the tanks, checking the food loads.

The Marines were eager to cut loose of the trailers. The Rangers, for their part, were pointing to the farther end of the port and demanding a lift. From the looks of it,
their
orders were to deploy another food-based minefield.

For a moment, Vicky considered charging back inside and knocking two colonels’ heads together, but the problem between laagering the tanks up and getting food out was resolved as she watched.

While the tanks got rid of their trailers and headed off to firing positions, several of the tracks took off with their loads of food for the parking lot in front of the terminal.

Vicky was about to follow them when Cindy rode up on a lovely black Friesian.

“What happened to your horse?” Vicky cried.

“It needs more time to graze. Blacky, here, was Herbert’s favorite mount. He’s well fed. What’s going on?”

“Gunmen are headed toward us on the town road. There are hungry people mixed in, but there are a whole lot of gunmen.”

“And if they start shooting, a lot of innocent bystanders will die,” Cindy finished for Vicky.

“You got it in one,” Vicky said.

“You’re putting food out for the people,” Cindy said, standing tall in the saddle to watch what was happening down the road.

“We hope to get the people to stop at the food. With any luck, they’ll take to the ground when the shooting starts.”

“What if a lot of people took food down the road and stopped all of them before they got here?”

“The gunmen wouldn’t be happy.”

“The gunmen are hungry, too,” Cindy said. “You feed them, and they might be open to anything you suggested.”

“Something like that happened at the other food sites this morning, but there were a lot more hungry people and a lot fewer gunmen there.”

“Well, let’s see what we can do about getting more people out there among the gunmen.”

“Is that wise?” the Grand Duchess asked.

“Do you want a bloodbath?”

“No,” Vicky said. “I don’t think it would be good for Kolna or its people.”

“Me neither. Let me see what I can do,” and Cindy kicked her horse to a trot.

Vicky found herself the observer as two quite different plans came together.

Three, if she admitted that the Rangers and Marines were playing different games themselves.

The Marine tanks formed a line in the space between the terminal and the hangars. Several tanks disappeared around the front of both sets of buildings to extend that line. The infantry tracks delivered the trailers and Rangers to several rough lines across the parking lot. Once those were unhitched, the tracks and their infantry withdrew to join the tanks in a deadly defensive array.

The Rangers off-loaded as much of the food as they could while keeping a wary eye on the approaching crowds out on the roads. Unloading sped up as more and more civilians from the apartment buildings to the north of the spaceport and the warehouses to the east joined the Rangers around the trailers.

Off in front of the apartment buildings, more people milled about in a growing mob. Cindy circled them on her Friesian like a sheepdog out to win a blue ribbon. That crowd grew both as more joined them from the apartments, but also as some who’d been helping the Rangers unload took off, lugging food sacks to the waiting crowd.

Some ration biscuits got gobbled up, but more than Vicky expected stayed ready in hands.

At the moment of Cindy’s choosing, the mob headed down the road, following their mounted guide like an army behind its equestrian general.

Vicky asked Kat to rustle her up a mount of her own, but her minion instead came back with the two colonels. Between the six of them, it was somehow settled that Vicky would not get closer to today’s hot business than the line of tanks.

“What are we now, a democracy?” Vicky spat, but it did her no good. She was outvoted five to one. The two colonels and the commander were no surprise. But Kat and Kit going against her!

Voting should be banned.

But what Vicky did see, even if it was from a distance, was quite a show.

The two mobs met about a thousand meters forward of the
farthest line of ration bags. The mobs collided, mingled, and became one milling collection of humanity.

It quickly boiled into one mob that didn’t seem all that interested in going anywhere.

This confused state of affairs lasted for a couple of minutes as food was passed around from those who had it to those who desperately wanted it.

While that went on, nothing much happened.

Then the guns came out.

Someone fired a long burst in the air. Then someone fired a second long burst, and there were screams of agony.

Like a wave, the mob went to ground, leaving several standing. Many of them were waving guns. Several more were bringing them out. There was a lot of shouting, then more bursts of automatic weapons fire.

Try as Vicky might, she could not make out what they were firing at.

However, from among the Rangers came a ragged staccato of single shots. The Marine tracks added short bursts from their chain guns.

The results downrange were immediate and horrible. Where the Rangers’ snipers picked off a gunner, the man dropped. When a Marine 20mm cannon took out a gunman, blood and body parts flew in every direction.

In a blink, no one was left standing.

“Somebody out there can learn,” the commander said from beside Vicky.

“Get me a bullhorn,” Vicky ordered.

“Your Grace,” the commander said. “You’ll make yourself a target.”

But Kit had already scrambled up on the tank next to them and was returning with a mic. “Key it that way and several tanks will make sure everyone hears what you say,” the tiny killer told her.

Vicky took the mic and keyed it. “This is Your Grand Duchess, Victoria of Greenfeld. I’ve brought food for all of you. I promise you that there will be jobs for all of you soon. To those of you with guns, I can offer you a job distributing food, but only if you turn in your guns immediately. This is an offer for this morning only. You can turn in your guns, get a
job with us, or you can hold on to them—and risk having to fight my Marines and Rangers later.”

Vicky paused to let her words sink into minds that were dense in the best of times and likely starving in the moment at hand.

“You’ve seen what they can do. Now the choice is yours. Make it quickly.”

In front of Vicky, men were scrambling to their feet, rifles or machine pistols held over their heads. Quickly they made their way through the still-prone crowd to the first line of Rangers.

The Rangers checked the guns, safetied most of them, and sent them farther up the line to Marines who were now ready to take the weapons in return for sacks of biscuits.

Cindy, who’d never dismounted through the entire affair, now trotted up to Vicky.

“You know, of course, that a lot of women will want to press charges against those pieces of crap for what they’ve done.”

“I know,” Vicky said.

“So, what are you going to do?” the young woman challenged her Grand Duchess.

“I’m going to keep them close where I can see them, for the moment,” Vicky said, “while you get your father and his friends back in here from the hills. I’m sure he can find us some judges eager to restore the rule of law. Then, I assume, matters will take their natural course.”

“Good,” Cindy said, uttering one word that Vicky had never heard carry so much venom.