Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) (19 page)

Vicky started out sure of herself but was ending a lot less so. Mannie was smiling.

“We’ve got enough heavy industry down here that we could ratchet up the docks to do heavier work,” Mannie pointed out. “We could make the upgrades to the docks as we make the repairs to the
Attacker
. Better yet, the upgrades to the yard and repairs on the
Attacker
would make a case we need for growing our heavy-industry base for generators, reactors, and 8-inch lasers, maybe larger. The bigger we grow, the more we can trade for.”

They had arrived at City Hall. Mannie helped Vicky from the limo as she reflected on all that he had said.

“How would you pay for the dock improvement?” she finally asked. “No. More importantly, how would the Navy pay for the repairs?”

“That’s the problem,” Mannie said. “Your admiral is living pretty much hand to mouth, scrimping a bit here to add a little something off budget there. We’re letting him run up a tab for food, so he can feed his extra Marines. Likely, he’s using our free food to feed his Sailors as well.”

“He can’t squeeze a heavy cruiser’s extensive repairs out of his food budget,” Vicky said.

“But there is our tax account,” Mannie said, with amazing ease.

“No one
ever
talks about taxes the way you just did,” Vicky said, then added, “and stays out of jail.”

“Yes, but to continue about our tax account.” Mannie went on with a grin. “It’s growing. Everyone is meticulously paying their taxes, using St. Petersburg marks, I might add, but no one has shown up in over a year to collect them. We don’t have so many Imperial gold marks that it’s worth sending a ship out to actually carry off a few bales of paper. Despite our many
offers, no one seems interested in us just sending a draft payment through the mail, certainly if it’s only backed up by our own script.”

“Things really have broken down when paper and e-money aren’t worth collecting,” Vicky said, a frown growing as she entered the elevator.

“But the ‘money’ is there in the bank, going nowhere and doing no one any good. Actually, it’s worse. It’s a drag on the economy and causing a bit of
de
flation. If, however, it was spent here, on this planet, for goods and services
we
can provide, it would help whoever got those goods and services and boost our economy at the same time.”

“Are you suggesting that you pay your taxes to the local Navy account, and Admiral von Mittleburg puts them to good use?” Vicky said slowly.

“Something like that,” Mannie said, his face an unreadable mask now.

“My father, the Emperor, has never had the Senate make so much as a pfennig’s change in his budget, but he does submit it, and they do rubber-stamp it. If the local admiral here started spending money that hasn’t been through the appropriation cycle, some people might say that sounds dangerously close to treason.”

“There is that,” was the mayor’s only reply.

The elevator deposited them on Mannie’s floor. Vicky was still thinking as he guided her into his office and settled her on a couch before taking the chair across from her.

Vicky opened her mouth but was interrupted by her computer.

“Your Grace, you have a message.”

“From whom?”

“I do not know.”

Vicky frowned. So did Mannie.

“From where?”

“I do not know.”

“When did you receive it?”

“I do not know.”

Vicky frowned at Mannie. He just shrugged in puzzlement. “Deliver the message,” she finally said.

“I cannot. It has visual content, and I do not have access to a screen.”

“You can use the screen at my desk,” Mannie offered.

Together they walked over to his work area and stood behind the desk, looking down at the screen inserted into its top.

“Computer, play the message.”

The screen came to life.

“Hello, darling Victoria. Why are you avoiding me?” her very pregnant stepmom cooed.

V
ICKY
almost leapt away from the desk, but Mannie was in back of her. “Freeze playback,” she ordered.

“Is that your stepmother?” the mayor asked.

Vicky eyed the stopped video. There was her young stepmother in all her pregger glory. The loose green gown she wore flowed over her distended belly. It couldn’t be long now. The gown was cut low to emphasize her full breasts. Dad must be loving this.

But it was the smile, full of viciousness and venom, that held Vicky’s attention.

“Yep, that’s my loving stepmum. How did she get this message on my computer without leaving any tracks?”

“That shouldn’t be possible.”

“But she did, and it’s here. Do you mind if I play the rest of it?”

“Do you mind if I call in my tech-support team?”

“I’d prefer dear loving Stepmum’s words didn’t get too wide a distribution until I hear them.”

The mayor tapped several keys on his computer before saying, “Go ahead. The computer is closed down. Just using the
screen shouldn’t allow too much hidden in the message to get loose.”

“You assume we know what my stepmom and her family can do.”

“Sadly.”

“Computer, play message again from the beginning.”

“Hello, darling Victoria. Why are you avoiding me?” her stepmother repeated. “You’re being a naughty girl,” sounded like she was scolding a three-year-old.

“You can’t get away from me. I know everything you do.” Her tone was hard and vicious now. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face.

“If you think riding around in a battleship will protect you from my reach, think again. If you want to keep on breathing, get your ass on the next ship available and get yourself back to the palace, where you belong. You may not live very long here, but it will be a lot longer than you will out there.”

The message ended on that note.

Vicky felt weak in the knees. Her throat was dry, and she wanted to cry.

So she walked slowly back to the couch, and asked, “Do you have a glass of water?”

Mannie brought one to her. As she drank, she considered her options.

Surrender. Run home and wait for some snake in the grass to kill her.

Fight. Grab that flag of revolution and start waving it like mad.

Keep on keeping on. Continue to build up the power base she was building until she had no choice but to rebel, and the people around her had no choice but to join her and do it with all the enthusiasm a rebellion needed.

Vicky smiled. Loving Stepmom was doing her best to get her to do one of the first two and stop doing the last.

That was a pretty solid vote for continuing down the trail she was going.

“Computer, call the commander and tell him to get the admiral’s barge ready to return immediately.”

“That is done, Your Grace.”

Vicky found the off button on her computer and pressed it.
Mannie raised a questioning eyebrow, but Vicky went on now that she considered herself somewhat free of spying eyes.

“Ask your accountants to start looking into how to move the tax money into a slush fund the Navy can draw on without making the money actually disappear from the bank accounts it is in.”

The mayor made a face. “Do you think our sneaky people can outsneak their sneaky people?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to look into getting us some reinforcements in that area.”

“Okay.”

“Now, about the
Attacker
. I like Captain Bolesław. I owe him and his crew my life. It would be a shame to leave them without a ship and the
Attacker
reduced to a hulk locked down to the station and good for nothing but barracks.”

“That would indeed be a sad end for good men and their good ship.”

“I’ll broach your idea to upgrade your repair facilities to Admiral von Mittleburg and see what he thinks of the idea. About what those bankers were saying today. Spending money to repair the
Attacker
and start up trade with all those planets. It wouldn’t cause your planet to be hit by runaway inflation, would it?”

“The taxes are deflating our economy as they go out of pockets and into bank vaults or computers or wherever money goes these days. We can fix the
Attacker
and maybe a whole lot of other ships and still have plenty left over to keep those other planets from falling apart. By growing them, we grow ourselves.”

“I hope you’re right. Now, I think I can walk again. Can I borrow your limousine to get back to the shuttleport?”

“And I will see that you have a police escort to get you there,” Mannie said, giving Vicky a hand and walking with her to the door.

“You don’t have to come with me. Don’t you have a nap to take?”

“I can’t sleep in here. My tech support will be tearing my computer apart,” he said, turning to his secretary. “There may be something wrong with my computer. Have it turned over to the tech wizards for examination and get me a new one.”

“Will do, boss,” she said, and started tapping her commlink.

“I will not risk you, Vicky. You’re the only Grand Duchess we have, and it looks like someone doesn’t want us having you.”

“Not if Stepmommy can help it.”

They headed for the elevator.

“She mentioned a battleship?” the mayor said.

“Yes,” Vicky answered. “I just found out a few hours ago that the Navy is sending the
Retribution
for me to use as my private yacht, what with the
Attacker
being nearly blown away.”

“Your stepmother must have recorded that message a week ago, maybe longer.”

Vicky raised an unsurprised eyebrow. “You could very well be right.”

“So she knew about the battleship even before that ship attacked you.”

“Even before
her
pirate ship attacked me,” Vicky said, tasting the sound of it and finding it left her gut tight and her face determined.

“I remember being told when I was hardly out of diapers that the palace leaked secrets like nobody’s business,” she said.

“I wonder how we could put that to good use?” the mayor mused.

As Mannie personally turned Vicky over to Commander Boch, he said, “I had intended to invite you to dinner.”

“We must do it next time I’m down here,” Vicky answered.

“Come back soon.”

The admiral’s barge was taxiing before Vicky found her seat.

V
ICKY
was quickly back in the admiral’s day quarters. He did not offer her wine this time.

“We have more problems than I really want to contemplate,” she said before she’d finished leading a parade of Commander Boch and Mr. Smith into his quarters.

“Do we really need this fellow with us?” the admiral said, eyeing the spy.

“Unfortunately, he’s the fellow we most need. Admiral, do you have an old, off-net computer you wouldn’t mind throwing out the nearest air lock?”

It took only a few minutes for one to be scared up. A second later, it was playing the Empress’s message for all present.

“Where’d that come from?” Mr. Smith asked.

“My computer has no idea,” Vicky answered. “It didn’t know who the message was from, or where or when it even got the message, but somewhere between my leaving the admiral a few hours ago and attending a meeting with some very powerful businesspeople dirtside, and Mannie driving me around in his limo between the shuttleport and his office, I picked up that message without being any the wiser.”

“Very good work,” Mr. Smith whispered with respect. “Not your average delivery.”

“Could this message have come attached to a knife in my back?” Vicky demanded.

“Very likely,” Mr. Smith said, eyeing her, or maybe her computer, “but then, to put a knife in your back would have taken a very noticeable action. People who try to kill you tend to end up dead. At least when I’m around. Now about this thing. You just walked around or were driven by someone, and bingo, you’ve got mail.”

“Any suggestion what we do about this?” the admiral asked.

“May I have your computer, Your Grace?”

With a scowl, Vicky surrendered her new toy. Made of the same material and matrix as Kris Longknife’s famous Nelly, it lacked the spark that made Nelly what she was. Vicky was still unsure she wanted a computer with as much attitude as Kris Longknife’s computer.

Right now, though, Nelly might have advantages.

The spy used the old Navy computer to access Vicky’s new one. He studied whatever it was he got for a long ten minutes, ignoring the admiral’s glower at being kept waiting.

Vicky considered dropping the next bombshell she had for the admiral but decided the room was much too crowded to discuss treason.

Finally, Mr. Smith faced his own computer toward Vicky’s for a few seconds, then handed the computer back to Vicky.

“The message did nothing but deliver the threat and demand to you. There was a bit of a locator program along with it, but that is gone now. You may consider your computer safe to use. I might be able to protect your computer better, now that we know of this new threat, but I’d have to visit a small shop on Wardhaven.”

“Would you and the commander mind waiting outside for a few minutes,” Vicky said.

Both men raised an eyebrow at the demand, but they went where they were told.

Once the door was shut, Vicky asked, “What are your feelings about getting the
Attacker
repaired and back in full commission?”

The admiral raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but said, “I’d be very glad to have it. We’re running short of good ships.”

“What are your feelings about misappropriation of funds and a light touch of treason?”

Admiral von Mittleburg snorted. “I believe that you can no more commit a little bit of treason than you can be a little bit pregnant.”

“Consider it a matter of perspective,” Vicky said, and filled the admiral in on what Mannie had in mind for St. Petersburg’s dormant tax accounts and budding ship-repair facilities.

“He’s not the first one to look at those damn repair slips and see something more. I’ve got several ship maintenance officers who would love to add a few jigs and cranes to what we’ve got there. Does Mannie really think they can fabricate them in the mills they have down below?”

“He’s pretty sure. Lifting them up here might take a bit of extra work. How long can you hold on to the
Crocodile
?”

“You noticed how helpful those landing craft, tanks are, did you?”

“Hard to miss,” Vicky admitted.

“The problem, of course, is paying for them,” he said, taking a seat behind his desk.

Vicky settled into the visitor’s chair beside the desk. “Rather, paying for them and the source of the money not being remarked upon.”

“Remarked upon and named treason.”

“Precisely,” Vicky said. “At least not in the here and now. Later, it may be the least of my sins, that nonexistent flag and all.”

“It wouldn’t stay unremarked upon for long if all it took was some stranger walking by the bank and suddenly, the bank’s entire set of records is available for audit and review at some unpleasant person’s convenience.”

“Exactly. That’s why I wanted Mr. Smith involved. I didn’t just want his opinion of how much my own computer was compromised. We really need to know what else might be compromised and how to make sure they aren’t.”

Admiral von Mittleburg leaned back in his chair and stared at the overhead for a long moment, then closed his eyes. “I just wanted to command a warship in space. Do you know that, Your Grace? All I ever wanted was to be the captain of a
cruiser. Then it looked like I could command a battleship, so I stayed in. Then they waved my own flag at me. I should have quit while I was ahead.”

“You want to retire to your father’s vineyard?” Vicky asked.

“I hated the place. Every summer, Dad would use his leave to take us out to the old place. His grandfather was still running it. Some kids love the dirt and sun. I hated it. What I did love was the shipboard experience getting out to Bayern but hated every minute I was there.”

“And now?”

“I’d love to be there, just for an hour, with Grandpa,” the admiral said with a sigh.

His eyes came open, and he leaned forward in his chair.

“First, we need to get better security around the banks. Do you think your Mr. Smith could arrange for that?”

“He can try.”

“Can’t ask for more. While he’s doing that, maybe we could get the bank to arrange a loan. I don’t know. Is my signature worth enough to upgrade two docks from merchant ship to heavy cruiser?”

“If nobody looks at the signature and collateral too closely.”

“Keep it off the official books, yeah,” the admiral said. “The
Attacker
isn’t the only ship we need to put through the yards. The
Avenger
is barely safe for space, but if she got a couple of weeks of tender loving care, she’d be ready for just about anything.”

“Two slips. Two heavy cruisers,” Vicky said.

“Now, how do we keep you safe?” the admiral asked the thin air. “How did it come to happen that the commander was not there when you got this message? Was I mistaken, but was he just as surprised by your stepmother as I was?”

“Sadly, that was my mistake,” Vicky said. “I felt safe on St. Petersburg. I had the mayor with me. I should have kept Commander Boch, Mr. Smith, and Kit and Kat close or closer. I will not make that mistake again.”

“See that you don’t. I’d hate to have to court-martial the commander for your mistake, you being dead and not available to face a court for your own shortcomings.”

“Like being a head short,” Vicky admitted drolly.

“Do you plan to respond to your stepmother’s message?” the admiral said, changing the subject.

“That’s one of my new priorities. If they can drop messages unknown into my mailbox, certainly I need to be able to return the compliment.”

“Then I believe we need to get the gentlemen back in here.”

“And have Kit and Kat bring me a change of clothes.”

The admiral gave Vicky a jaundiced eye.

“I will not reply to my dearest stepmom in uniform,” Vicky said. “She’s likely to take the head off the nearest Navy officer in her rage.”

“Good point.”