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.
CHAPTER 31
NEXT morning, the Imperial Grand Duchess, Lieutenant Commander Victoria of Greenfeld strapped herself into her seat in the Attacker’s captain’s gig. She was in full Marine battle armor. How it had come to pass that some Marine armorer had knocked together a set of combat gear that fit her hips, waist, and boobs, Vicky could only guess. However it happened, Vicky had a full set of battle rattle.
What she’d come to think of as her staff sat around her. The commander in undress blues and Mr. Smith in his usual black suit were across from her. Maggie, with her doctor’s kit taking up the aft storage bin, was beside her. Kit and Kat, also in black, occupied the seats behind her. Two industrialists sat across from her diminutive assassins, holding tight to their computers with their long lists of available spare parts and assemblies.
Eight big Marines in full play clothes filled up the rest of the gig’s seats.
Vicky’s team was the last away from the Attacker, behind four longboats loaded with two platoons of light Marines. Eighteen LCIs and a half dozen LCTs had dropped from the Crocodile minutes ahead of them, loaded with companies of the Thirty-fourth Armored Marines and St. Petersburg’s First Rangers.
The ride down was no more bumpy than any Vicky remembered. They began landing at Kolna’s abandoned shuttleport at one-minute intervals.
No doubt, per the commander’s orders, the captain’s gig was last.
Initial reports said they’d seen nothing and no one. The real encouraging words were that no one had fired at them, either.
At least not yet.
Then the reports were modified.
As the Rangers secured the apron, a half dozen starving and ragged children wandered out to beg the troopers for food.
Vicky had no doubt that it was an almost automatic reaction for some of the Rangers to share out portions of their battle rations to the kids. No sooner had the children torn into the offered food than equally desperate adults showed themselves straggling forward from the hangars and terminal.
“We got about thirty pretty bad-looking folks on our front, split about evenly between adults and kids. They’re begging for anything we can give them,” came from Captain Inez Torrago. Her Rangers had claimed and gotten the right to the first half dozen landing craft.
“Do you have survival rations?” Vicky asked.
“After what you said last night, I had each of my troopers load out two bags of the things. There are more in crates in the back of the landers that we’re about to off-load. I had to hold back a fire team from each platoon, so I had lift to carry them.”
“You did good, Captain,” Vicky answered. “Hopefully, those rations will come in much more handy than the four extra trigger pullers you left behind. Begin distribution of rations to individuals. Try not to let anyone walk off with a bag. We don’t want to start riots or hoarding.”
“Aye, aye, Your Grace, Ranger One One Six out.”
Vicky smiled at the comm
ander.
“You win this one,” he said. “Want to bet me this is the easy part?”
“No bet,” Vicky said.
The day would prove that a wise choice, but like most days, the full evil apportioned to it took a while to show up.
Then again, problems didn’t take any time at all popping into view. The landing craft, tank, had hardly come to a complete halt when the unloading hit a snag. One tank and three infantry vehicles proved balky. They had to be pushed or towed out of the loading bays before the LCTs could continue with cycling back up to orbit for another load.
As the infantry trotted to take up their assigned positions, mechanics cursed and struggled to get recalcitrant machines to do man’s bidding.
A few of them, that was. Most of the contraptions proved quite biddable. Five tanks and nine infantry carriers rolled off the landing craft and headed out to provide backup at the front gate or just formed a loose circle around Vicky to assure that her day only went so far sideways.
One infantry carrier turned out to have an air force. It launched a drone that circled the strip and gave them the first high-resolution picture of their surroundings.
“Those buildings over there,” Vicky said, pointing at what she took for a warehouse district to the south of the runway. “Are there people in them?”
The drone quickly gave pictures in the affirmative. Worse, some of the kids who had finished their first meal since forever were straggling their way across the runway, no doubt to spread the word there was food available. They did this even as landing craft taxied clear of the unloading area to form a line to take off back to orbit.
Now there’s an accident waiting to happen, Vicky thought with a scowl.
“Can somebody get some troops and food over to those warehouses?” Vicky called. The skipper of the Marine company shouted orders, and two of the working infantry vehicles came to life and rolled for the runway.
Only then did Vicky see that each tank and infantry rig had landed with a nifty one-axle trailer strapped to its back. Once it was pulled down and hitched to the rear, it allowed the armor to tow a squad of Rangers and/or food supplies.
Such a team of mechanized infantry and Rangers loaded with starvation rations drove for the warehouses. Another was soon dispatched to what looked like a housing complex to the east.
Things were going so well that Vicky hardly noticed it when her day went to hell.
“We got two guys bicycling into our perimeter,” the Marine sergeant reported from their outpost on the road approach to the spaceport. “What do I do with them?”
“Find out what they want,” Vicky said.
She spent the next couple of minutes talking with Inez and the Marine company skipper about sending some of the Marine tanks and infantry fighting vehicles up the road toward town with a load of famine biscuits to see how that would work.
While they talked that through, several irrepressible scarecrows stood at her elbow and thanked her profusely.
“It’s been hell, here, ma’am, hell,” mumbled one man in rags that failed to cover much of him. “No job. No food. My wife, she can make a soup of grass and bark. When we’re lucky, we find a book. Their bindings make good eating,” he told Vicky.
“Could I have another one of those cookies?” a child begged.
Vicky gave her a starvation biscuit from the bag she’d swung at her own belt before boarding the gig this morning. The girl began to eagerly gnaw on it. The kid was of that age where she was missing her two front teeth.
“You know, you could have your mommy cook that in a mush if you’re having a hard time chewing it,” Vicky said.
The kid turned away, as if afraid that someone might take the biscuit from her, and kept on gnawing.
The commander gave Vicky a raised eyebrow.
Yeah. How hard is it going to be to help these folks?
Vicky was still mulling that question over as the morning’s first major problem cycled toward her on two rickety bikes.
Pedaling with little skill and even less coordination were two men. Both sported the machine pistols preferred by State Security, but neither wore the black uniform. That was no surprise considering what Vicky’s dad had done to that previously-so-useful bunch of murderers.
These riders had their weapons slung over their shoulders and their hands on the handlebars. Since half the Marines in sight had them under loose cover, the pair were careful to keep their hands clear of their weapons and make no sudden movements.
They came to a halt a good hundred meters from Vicky. One was balding, the younger one had a mortal case of acne. The elder handed his bike off to the younger, fingered his weapon for a moment, then let it dangle free as he began stalking toward Vicky.
Several Marines moved quickly to block his way.
“Who’s in charge here? They’s got to talk to me. They’s owes me money!” he demanded for all to hear. He looked around to take in the fleet of assault craft, now empty and slowly taxiing around to the other end of the runway for takeoff.
“Yous can’t take off until yous payed me the landing fees, the ramp fees, the takeoff fees, and the air-traffic-control fees.”
“Did you notice any air traffic control on the way down?” Vicky asked Commander Boch.
“Nary a word from the flight deck,” he answered.
“Bring that clown over here before he gets himself killed,” Vicky said.
“Who’s yous?” he demanded as soon as he was presented to Vicky and her staff by two Marines, one of whom now had the fellow’s machine pistol swinging at his belt. “Yous owes me money.”
“I might ask who you are,” Vicky shot right back.
“I’m the grand vicar for transportation, that’s who’s I am. I collect the duke’s taxes for the use of his roads and runways. You’s using them. Yous owes me.”
“And you’ll pass these fees right along to the duke,” the commander said.
“Yeah. You’s the guy in charge?” he said, clearly not impressed by Vicky. Maybe it was the armor. It couldn’t be that she was a woman.
Yeah, right.
Either option, Vicky didn’t much care for this dud.
“Big mistake, old man,” Commander Boch said. “May I present you to Her Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria of Greenfeld. Be careful, she’s a real duchess.”
The guy didn’t seem all that impressed. “I thought she was dead, her stepmum and all.”
“Nope,” Boch said. “Not even close.”
“Well, what’s she doing out here?” he said, the look on his face going from skepticism to belief quickly followed by consternation and open panic. He might have bolted, but the Marines grabbed his elbow before he could turn to run.
“Now, about those fees you were yelling about?” Vicky said.
“Fees, oh, yes, fees. I begs your pardon ma’am, but I gots to collect some fees. The duke, he heard the booms your jets made, and he said to me, Jake, you go get the fees from thems that are using my runways. I gots to get some money, ma’am.”
“What say you that we go talk to your duke about these landing fees,” Commander Boch suggested.
“Really, you don’t need to bother yourself. Yous just pays me, and I’ll go take it to the Duke and yous can go on about your business.”
“How much do we owe you?” Vicky asked, all cookies and cream.
“Ah, let’s see. Yous gots a dozen landers there.”
Vicky counted two dozen, but she wasn’t about to correct the man’s math.
“Landing, ramp fees. How long was yous parked?”
“An hour or so,” Mr. Smith put in, a smile on his face that was more evil than anything else.
“Oh, I gots to charge yous for the whole day. Can’t charge by the hour like some cheap hotel for streetwalkers, now can I?”
“Certainly not,” Vicky
said with deadly cheer.
“Takeoff. Air control while yous in our spaceport’s airspace.”
“Yes, you have to pay those tower operators,” Vicky said, eyeing the tower and seeing only broken windows and no evidence of controllers. The guy followed her eyes to the tower. He blanched but went on.
“Can’t charge yous a pfennig less than sixty thousand marks.”
“Hmm,” Vicky said with a light frown. “That’s a bit steep. There any chance we might be able to trade you something worth that much? Currency is in short supply.”
“What do yous have in mind?” was all eager and no smarts.
“How about Marine field rations? Private, could you hand me your lunch?”
“Ma’am, it’s chicken loaf with lima beans,” the Marine said, clearly pained at the thought of anyone’s actually eating it. No doubt, he’d pissed someone off mightily to have it foisted off on him.
“I’ll take it,” the grand vicar said, grabbing for the offered meal box.
“How much of a discount do we get?” Vicky asked.
“Yous gives me sixty of these, and we’ll call ourselves even.”
“Sixty,” Vicky said, eyeing the commander. “You drive a hard bargain. You going to carry all sixty of these on your bike there?”
The guy took in the measurements of the box, eyed his dilapidated bike and its twisted wire basket, and recognized the problem. “I’ll have the kid carry the rest of ’em.”
“What do you say that we carry them in to the duke?” Vicky said. “I’d like to meet the guy, and it would be a shame if you got jumped on the way back into town.”
“Oh, no problem, yous don’t have to do no nothing.”
“We insist,” Vicky said. “I’ll even have you ride along with me.”
“Ride?”
Vicky waved for an infantry fighting vehicle. Its motor roared to life in a cloud of smoke. Its tracks clattered as it turned in place toward Vicky.
The local looked like he’d seen a dragon.
Then three tanks fired up, and the ground rumbled as they, escorted by six infantry vehicles, ground their way toward the exit from the spaceport to the road into town.
Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Page 12