Vicky Peterwald: Target (8 page)

V
ICKY
desperately wanted a bath and clean hair. Kit joined her in the tub to scrub her back and wash her hair. Vicky found her body rather lovely, and the after-bath pat down led from one thing to another. When they were done, a quick shower was in order.

Kat pouted a bit at being left out, but Vicky promised her the next bath.

They were well on their way out from Savannah when Vicky was again in a green shipsuit and ready for whatever came next.

The matter of the roses, of course, was next on the agenda of quite a few people.

As soon as Vicky reported herself ready, she was invited into the admiral’s day quarters for an inquisition. The chief of staff and the captain of the
Stalker
were seated around the conference table.

This time, the head of the table was left for her. Mr. Smith took a seat away from the table to her right. Kit, Kat, and her other staff arrayed themselves in chairs along the near wall.

They had hardly taken their seats when the Ship’s Lieutenant preceded the Chief Master at Arms in the door. They were followed by a short, scrawny seaman in enough chains that they very likely outweighed him. He had a huge MP at each elbow, dragging him along, saving him the trouble of lifting all that heavy steel.

The young seaman looked so terrified that, had he been any older, Vicky would have feared that a heart attack might end the interview before it began.

The MPs brought him to a shambling halt at the end of the table.

“This is the storekeeper seaman striker who had the quarterdeck watch when the roses came aboard and who released them to his coconspirator,” the Ship’s Lieutenant announced.

Every eye in the room focused on the young man. He took a step back under the pressure of their stares.

“Did you accept the delivery of the roses?” Vicky asked when neither of the captains looked interested in starting the inquiry.

“Um, um, yes, sir, Your Majesty,” the man stuttered.

“My father is His Imperial Majesty. I am ‘Your Grace’ the first time you address me. ‘Ma’am’ is fine after that.”

“Yes, mum, Your Grace, sir.”

On closer observation, Vicky noted that the man had at least one black eye developing, maybe two. He also was gnawing a split lower lip. Clearly, this was not his first interrogation. The fact that the Ship’s Lieutenant or Chief Master at Arms had not been quick off the blocks to tell her the results of the first suggested it had not been very productive.

Vicky glanced at her sensor lieutenant and chief. They met her eyes and shook their heads. No weapons on the fellow. No surprise there.

“Kit, Kat, would you please remove this man’s restraints, both leggings and handcuffs? I don’t think we have anything to fear from him.”

The two deadly young women moved quickly to unchain the man, and in the process performed a full body search stopping just short of the usual cavities. Done, they stepped away, also shaking their heads. They had found no weapons.

“Could one of you MPs find a chair for this Sailor?” Vicky said.

The two Military Police glanced at their Chief Master at Arms, who gave them a curt nod. They quickly scraped a chair across the deck and shoved it under the seaman. He collapsed into it, looking both surprised and weary.

The looks Vicky got from the police types were of carefully measured scorn. The two captains maintained Navy bland, but there might have been curiosity buried deep behind it.

Is this a test? Well, I’ll do it the way I want.

Kris Longknife had once joked with Vicky about the interrogation of some low-level pirates that had consisted of giving them hamburgers and fries. Vicky was half tempted to order up cookies and milk for this poor kid, but she suspected that would lead to open mutiny from the MPs.

She let the man settle into his seat, take a few deep breaths, then asked an open question.

“Where did the flowers come from? I know we were tied up at High Chance. Did a florist deliver them?”

“Yes, ma’am, Your Grace. A florist delivered ’em. I don’t remember the name, but the kid, he was just a delivery boy, or rather girl.”

Even in his present circumstance, he leered at the memory. “You know how things are around Longknife territory. They let girls do just about anything.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Vicky said dryly. “Go on.”

“If I had my log, ma’am, I could tell you the name of the florist. I wrote it down, just like I was supposed to. Two dozen red roses. I looked at them and counted them. Two dozen. Beautiful and blood red they were.”

“Did you run them through the quarterdeck sensors?” Mr. Smith asked.

“No, sir. I couldn’t. The sensors ain’t been working since before I came aboard, sir.”

Vicky eyed the captain.

“Parts were ordered back when the admiral was still the skipper. They’ve been on back order ever since. The, ah, supply situation is very backed up.” The admission seemed to pain the skipper greatly.

“Yes it is,” the chief of staff agreed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Smith said. “I seriously doubt the flowers were anything but flowers when they came aboard. Tell me, young man, who did you release the flowers to?”

“Lieutenant Commander Hoth, sir. I had him sign for them when he collected them.”

“And what did Commander Hoth look like?” Vicky asked.

“Tall, sir. Blond hair. Tough-looking fellow. I remember thinking I better keep him happy. He looked like he could bend the likes of me in two.”

Captain Kittle was fiddling with the controls of the table. It quickly showed a picture of Lieutenant Commander Hoth, the ship’s missile officer. He had dark hair and was short with a developing middle-age spread.

The two captains and Vicky shook their heads. The Ship’s Lieutenant and the Chief Master at Arms craned their heads to see what the officers were looking at, and looked alarmed when they caught a glimpse of the real Commander Hoth.

“We had the same problem on the
Fury
,” Vicky said. “There was someone wandering around with as many ID’s as they wanted, passing themselves off as people who belonged there and making three tries at killing me. That was the main reason I ended up on the
Wasp
and not the
Fury
.”

Vicky went on, “Seaman, I assume you ran the Commander’s ID through your clipboard.”

“Yes, sir. It said he was who he said he was.”

There was a sour look among the officers present. “I think we have been outteched again,” Vicky concluded dryly.

“Well, whoever this tall blond is, he is still on my ship, and we will have him,” Captain Kittle said.

“Are you sure?” Vicky asked.

“No one crossed the quarterdeck except your team and the admiral,” the skipper said with the kind of absolute surety that captains often muster.

“There is another way off the ship?” Vicky said. “One of Kris Longknife’s people, a cub of a girl, snuck off the
Wasp
by way of the midpier tie-down. The one that brings aboard the water, power, and comm lines, as well as takes off the sewage. That’s a decent-sized tie-down. No doubt the putative Herr Hoth would have to bend his head to pass that way, but it is a quick way ashore.”

“It is locked down, and we have it covered by observation cameras,” the captain snapped.

The Ship’s Lieutenant looked miserable as he failed to meet his captain’s glare.

“Don’t we?” did not have the usual captain confidence behind it.

“Sir, the camera in that compartment quit working recently and we don’t have the necessary parts to repair it.”

“Exactly when did it stop working?” Mr. Smith asked.

“About three hours before we made port at High Savannah,” the Ship’s Lieutenant reported, miserably.

“I’d like to have a look at it,” Mr. Smith said, and headed for the door. He was quickly followed by the Ship’s Lieutenant, the Chief Master at Arms, and both of the MPs. This left a very confused seamen striker storekeeper sitting alone in his chair.

“What do we do with this fellow?” Vicky asked. “He’s not going anywhere with us in space.”

“He’s the only one who’s seen this impostor Hoth. He might want to kill him,” Captain Kittle observed.

The poor seaman swallowed hard where he sat.

“I would be reluctant to consign him to the tender mercies of the brig for protective custody,” Vicky said. “I don’t think the MPs much like him from the looks of his face.”

“No doubt,” the chief of staff admitted. “He likely does need to report to sick bay.”

“I could advise the ship’s medical officer to tend to him and see that he stays safe,” the skipper said.

“Kit, would you escort this seaman to sick bay?” Vicky ordered. “See that he gets there and give his personal commlink our number. If he has any trouble, he should call us.”

“I would be glad to do so, Your Grace.”

And so a man who entered the admiral’s quarters in abject terror left with a smile and hope that he might live to finish his Navy tour.

Vicky only wished she could be so optimistic about her future.

Mr. Smith returned with a glum-looking bunch of security types. “The wire to the camera was corroded,” he reported. “It looked like normal wear and tear until I tested it. I carry a bit of that corrosive at all times for just that sort of duty.”

“So our assassin has fled the ship,” the captain said.

“Or wants us to assume he has,” Mr. Smith said. “Having the option to leave is not the same as leaving. I would prefer to operate on the assumption that he is still with us until we have clear evidence that he is not.”

That left the room silent for a long moment.

“Humor me for a moment,” the chief of staff said. “How did this bomb evade all of our best sniffers and sensors?”

“May I look at the full report?” Mr. Smith asked, and was promptly granted access.

“As I expected, notice that none of the long-stemmed roses that survived the blast are anywhere near as long as one would expect of a long-stemmed rose. My personal observation before the explosion was that the roses were as tall as one would expect.”

“I’ll agree with you on that,” Vicky said.

“But it appears that a good fifteen centimeters of those rose stems were explosive.” He paused, apparently lost in thought as he gazed at the ceiling, but Vicky was pretty sure he was interrogating his computer. “Twenty-four stems about that long would have just the right amount of explosives for what we saw in the hall. It was mainly intended to fragment the vase and send shards flying around the room. Everything in its right proportions. Nothing to excess.”

Mr. Smith paused. “Now, the vase. How did that get aboard ship? The young storekeeper’s notes say the roses arrived in a box. No mention of a vase.”

Captain Kittle looked ready to strangle on his next words. “It seems that I am responsible for the vase coming aboard my ship.”

T
O
say the chief of staff was shocked at that admission would be the understatement of a lifetime. Vicky studied the look on the man’s face. She set herself to memorizing it. Later, she would practice it in front of a mirror. That kind of sincere dismay at events was so rare in her world that she greatly doubted she’d ever have another chance to observe it.

Mr. Smith, however, did not pause in his examination. “What can you tell me about the vase, sir?”

“I bought it on Bern while the admiral was busy with a banker. There was this place next to the bank. A shopping place like nothing I’d ever seen back home. I forget what they called all the shops, tiny things, all cheek to jowl.”

“A boutique?” Vicky offered.

“Yes, yes, I think that was what they called it. Among all the little shops there was this handcart loaded with hand-worked ceramic things. The young woman selling them offered me this vase dirt cheap. My wife’s sister has made a hobby of ceramic work. She has her own kiln and is trying to get the other wives interested in artistic things. What she calls artistic works of hand art. This vase was unique to anything I’d seen on Greenfeld, the way its colors shone, and the woman offered me a little pamphlet that told how the clay was worked and how to fire it with straw and orange rinds, I believe it was.”

The rush of words slowed down. “I thought I’d gotten a bargain.”

“No doubt you did,” Mr. Smith observed dryly. “Did you see the scarring inside the vase?”

“I swear to God, I did not see anything unusual on the inside of the thing. I swear it.”

“No doubt if we look at the shards more carefully, we’ll find residue of a calking material that made the scarring vanish to the unsuspecting eye,” was Mr. Smith’s conclusion. “When did you discover the vase was missing, Captain?”

“When I saw the pictures of the shards, I couldn’t believe that it could be the same piece of ceramic. Last night, when I went off duty, I checked where I had stowed it. The box was still there. It didn’t look like it had been touched, but the vase was gone when I opened it. Gone.” The skipper paused to shake his head. “The paper explaining how to fire the thing was still there. Could that help us?”

“No doubt the woman who sold you the thing no longer works the cart. We must also ask ourselves. Do we want to involve the police of the Helvetican Confederacy in this?”

No one rose to answer that question. Mr. Smith seemed to lose himself in thought, or maybe in communing with his computer.

The chief of staff broke the long silence. “Should we search the captain’s cabin? Our assassin might have left behind a fingerprint or some DNA when he stole the vase.”

“I doubt you will find anything left behind. I believe our assassin is a pro. Even if you did find something, I doubt you would find any match to it in any Greenfeld database. If I had taken the time to hire him, I would have also taken the time to make his biometric data vanish from all places that might be used to match him. Any professional in my business would do that.”

The captain still ordered his quarters searched.

Vicky, Mr. Smith, the chief of staff, and the captain found themselves staring at each other with nothing to say. The other observers, Kat, the lieutenant, and the chief maintained their silent vigil as seated statues, awaiting the call of their master to awaken to action.

Mr. Smith turned to Vicky and finally broke the silence. “Possibly we should reflect upon what all this tells us about those who want you dead.”

“I think it means I should just slit my own throat and save everyone a lot of trouble,” Vicky grumbled.

“I would prefer to fully analyze the data before taking any action,” Mr. Smith said.

Vicky noticed that he did not dispute her conclusion, however. She’d expected it to be taken as a joke.

No one had laughed.

Vicky motioned Mr. Smith to continue, and he did. “Your stepmother seems willing to spend a lot of money to assure your demise and can find assets across a wide range of space to achieve that end. If we assume that eight captains were encouraged to buy a container of deadly shards and that eight flag battlecruisers have or had an assassin on board, the logistics become quite complex.”

“Let’s also not forget,” Vicky pointed out, “that when the bomb missed me, someone was able to lay on a shoot in the dozen hours or so that it took us to land at High Savannah.”

“That was, no doubt, a local hire,” Mr. Smith observed.

“Does my loving stepmom have connections everywhere?”

“Not connections so much as word out on a lot of streets that she’s willing to pay a whole lot of money for your sadly dead young body. Communication is cheap, and, until someone actually has your head to show for their work, she can keep her money in the bank.”

“I’m really beginning to develop an attitude toward Stepmommy dearest,” Vicky said while making a face.

“As well you might,” Mr. Smith said. The senior Navy officers seemed a bit scandalized by Vicky’s admission although the glimpse they were getting into Peterwald family politics should have prepared them for far more than that.

“To me, she seems to have very long claws,” Vicky said. “How about you educate me on how she could put my name ‘on the street’ with a huge number of commas behind the dollar sign and gets reactions like what I’ve seen of late.”

“The underground world has no respect for boundaries: planetary or otherwise. If they hear there is money to be had by separating your pretty little head from your shoulders, why, anyone who has a shot at you will take it. Our bomber clearly was better organized than our shooter.”

“What do you mean by that?” the chief of staff asked.

“Someone knew the skipper’s wife’s sister had an interest in ceramics. They arranged for him to take aboard the lethal ingredients of the bomb. The so-called Herr Hoth had to be secreted aboard the ship and kept from anyone’s attention for the duration of this cruise. A major accomplishment, you will no doubt assure me,” Mr. Smith said, with a friendly smile for the Navy types.

Or so it looked to Vicky.

The two Navy captains nodded. No doubt, the look they shared together would lead to a meticulous shakedown of all hands before supper.

Vicky wished them luck.

“The shooter, however, was a rush job,” Mr. Smith said. “I have my personal doubts about the quality of the hire.”

“You could have fooled me,” Vicky said.

“If your record at trying to assassinate Kris Longknife is accurate, no doubt you would have been fooled,” Mr. Smith said dryly.

“Kris has already debriefed my failures there. You needn’t do it again. What was wrong with the shooter? She did get the admiral, you may have noticed.”

“She was late. There were several times during our shopping trip when you were much more vulnerable. If I had the contract, I would have taken you out in the rush of the crowd. That tells me that the contract was let late. They had all the time we were on approach and shopping, but they didn’t get all the paperwork signed and a shooter in place until you were almost back aboard the
Stalker
.”

Mr. Smith shook his head in professional disgust. “Then, she aimed for your head. You were not so low on the escalator that she could not have aimed her first shot for the center of mass. If I had the contract, I would have aimed for there. But no, she had to go for a head shot. The head is much smaller and harder to hit, and it swivels without warning, as yours did. Shoddy workmanship. She deserved to die and not get paid.”

While the captains looked on with dismay, Vicky found herself taking in the lesson with respect. And filing it away to be remembered later and kept readily accessible in her memory. This man did know his business.

And she needed to learn it if she hoped to stay alive.

“Thank you, Mr. Smith,” Vicky said when he finished. “You are definitely earning your pay. So, tell me, is there a silver lining to our having the assassin on board? If he left us at High Savannah, slipping out while everyone was all hot and bothered about the admiral’s being killed, we can go to wherever the center of the Navy’s conspiracy is located so it can stay independent without anyone being the wiser. If that snitch for my stepmum dearest and deadly is still with us, it won’t matter that we’re making 1.5 gees between here, there, and Greenfeld. He will report the stop.”

Vicky paused to consider that result. “Hopefully, he won’t know what takes place in the meeting, but he will know we made the stop.”

“But what will your dearest step-murderer know?” Mr. Smith asked.

That brought everyone to a roaring halt.

“Do you have a suggestion as to how we cover this up?”

“Admiral Gort’s father is an admiral, is he not?” Mr. Smith asked.

“He is,” the chief of staff admitted, slowly.

“And would he by any chance be living on the planet you are taking us to?”

The two captains exchanged looks. “He is,” Captain Kittle admitted.

“Where does Admiral Gort’s wife live?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Not there, but we could arrange for her to meet us there. I hate to just message her that she is a widow.”

“She’s Navy. She has to live expecting such a message,” Vicky said.

“No one has to expect that message,” the chief of staff said, almost savagely. “Too many politicians mistake our professionalism as a license to get us all killed.”

Vicky tasted a lot of heat and ancient anger in those words. “I stand corrected, Captain,” she quickly said, “and it is a correction that I will not forget.”

“See that you don’t,” both captains said at the same time.

“So, if the spy/assassin is gone, we have nothing to fear. If he is still with us, he will report that we hurried to return the admiral to his people for burial, then hastened to Greenfeld.”

“Assuming the assassin doesn’t take another shot at me and succeed,” Vicky said.

“Or we succeed in canceling his contract,” Mr. Smith said with unholy glee.

“It’s going to be a long voyage,” the chief of staff muttered.

“How I hate it when good, honest sailormen have to get mixed up in politics,” Captain Kittle was heard to whisper to his fellow captain.

Vicky and Mr. Smith exchanged a knowing grin. Politics was the most fun game in town. Admittedly, it got a bit old when it was a blood sport, like the present, but all told, Vicky dearly loved the job she had.

Assuming she could stay alive long enough to get promoted from a pawn to the Imperial queen that she was.