Vicky weighed all she knew and chose her course. “Have the Retribution ready to sail as soon as possible. Have all the crystal assemblies loaded into the available merchant hulls. Admiral, I’d like a cruiser to take the jumps ahead of us.”
“You can have the Rostock, she just came in yesterday. It will add half a day to your trip, but I’d like you to go via Presov and drop off the Kamchatka there. She’s cranky and old, but she’ll provide them with a station ship and 8-inch guns to argue with anything that comes their way.”
He spoke to his computer, and the wall screen changed. Vicky saw the Navy and merchant ships available to him. Some were marked for Poznan and already loaded with food, both emergency and basics. “I can have them swing by Presov on their way back and pick up a cargo of crystal,” the admiral said.
“Are the mines that productive?” Vicky asked.
“Under their new management, and considering the prices the miners are being paid, along with the gear and victuals they now have, it’s amazing how production has gone up. Skyrocketed, one might say. I think those scumbags rotting in jail below had to work mighty hard to screw that place up and earn their bribes.”
It was clear he knew what he needed to do and was ready to do it.
“I better get myself packed for another trip,” Vicky said, and dismissed herself. Mannie followed her from the admiral’s quarters but did not make any attempt to enter Vicky’s quarters across the passageway.
“I need to get below,” he said, not looking her in the eye. “I’ve spent most of the last week, more, following in your footsteps. It seems I need to look to my business.”
“Can’t someone else take care of it?” Vicky asked, running her hand down his arm.
“You want to get away quickly. I need to make sure my merchants know what is expected of them and how little time they have to make it ready. As they say, we in government don’t make anything, but just let us drop the ball on coordination, and see who gets the blame.”
They shared a chuckle.
“I’ll be back soon,” Vicky found herself promising a man for the first time in her life.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” she heard a man say, also for the first time.
They parted without as much as a kiss.
I am changing, Vicky thought. I hope it’s for the better.
Then she submerged herself in the voyage that lay ahead of her.
CHAPTER 64
THE Retribution was away from the pier at 0600 the next morning. Following in her wake were the Rostock, Kamchatka, and nine freighters. Vicky spotted the Doctor Zoot near the end of the line. No doubt, the smaller one following in the Doc’s wake was the other tramp freighter that had happened into her merry affair.
Merry affair, no doubt, until Stepmother dearest names it treason. I wonder how many ships will follow in my wake when they know where I’m going and what I’m up to.
When Captain Etterlin asked if she had a fleet speed, Vicky answered, “Fast.”
They departed the station for the first jump at one-gee acceleration. The flip at midcourse was a bit ragged. Vicky expected it of the merchant ships, but the three Navy ships didn’t seem to do all that well among themselves. Captain Etterlin blamed the age of the Kamchatka and the inexperience of the Rostock’s skipper.
Vicky remembered how Commander Schlieffen had horsed the Spaceader around the Rostock as it stayed rock steady to cover her flight from High Greenfeld station. She didn’t like what she was hearing from this captain but kept her own counsel.
Together, the convoy decelerated toward the jump, arriving at it at a near dead stop. The jump went smoothly, as did the next jump.
What they found after that jump was anything but smooth.
The Presov system was occupied. A pair of ships had themselves just entered the system from Jump Point Adele. That jump led deeper into the Empire. The two ships squawked as Golden Empress No. 21 and Golden Empress No. 34 of the Golden Empress Line. A query of Vicky’s computer showed no such shipping line and no such ships. The specifics of the ship allowed, however, that they might have until recently been the Imperial Red Star of the Imperial Star Lines and the High Ball of the Humphrey Shipping Company.
They were making 1.5 gees for Presov.
“They will get there before us,” Captain Etterlin advised Vicky.
“Then we will have to get there faster,” Vicky said.
“Your Grace,” did not hold either disagreement or agreement.
“You have high-gee stations aboard your ship, don’t you, Captain?”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Then I suggest you inform the Kamchatka to conform to our movements. The Rostock is to escort the convoy toward the next jump at one gee, and both your ship and the Kamchatka should prepare for high-gee acceleration.”
“Your Grace, there is no way that old wreck can do more than one gee.”
“Then advise the Kamchatka to follow us as soon as possible, and you get this tub underway. We are wasting time, Captain.”
The captain looked a bit green around the gills.
“The Retribution has done high-gee accelerations, hasn’t it?” Vicky asked cautiously.
“We did two gees for an hour on trials.”
Ah. Vicky saw the problem. “Well, Captain, I was on the Wasp with Princess Kris Longknife when we were doing four gees and glad of it because the alien ships chasing us did not take prisoners. I suggest you advise your crew to prepare for three-gee acceleration in fifteen minutes and get ready to go about your business.”
The man visibly swallowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Around the bridge, Vicky spotted consternation among some of the senior officers. Several of the junior officers seemed hard put to suppress their glee. Chiefs eyed their officers. Ratings eyed their shoes as if wishing they were anywhere but here.
Vicky used her computer to tell Kat to bring her high-gee station from where it was parked in the back of her closet.
There would be hell to pay if it didn’t work. Exactly who the piper was would remain open to discussion.
Fifteen minutes later, the Retribution began to accelerate. The chief boson at the engineering station called the rising gee count. “One point five.”
Vicky’s new high-gee station still smelled of paint and friction reducers.
“Two gees,” and Vicky found herself being pulled back into the padding.
COMPUTER, she thought, using the skull harness Mr. Smith had fitted to her and that was supposed to let her talk to her computer in private. MATCH MY STATION TO THE ENGINEER’S MAIN STATION.
A moment later, the board in her high-gee station changed. Vicky studied it for a moment. It had been over a year since she stood a watch in the Fury’s engineering spaces, still she spotted the important readouts. They were tending toward the yellow margins but still safe.
CAPTURE ME THE CAPTAIN’S BOARD, she told her computer. Her board adjusted itself. It still showed several of the engineering readouts, but now damage control was there as well as an overview of casualties.
Damage and casualties showed nothing.
Good.
“Two point five gees,” the chief reported. Vicky spotted the change on the gee meter on her board.
“Two point six.”
“Two point seven,” from the chief brought a pained look Vicky’s way from the captain. Their high-gee stations were reclining, leaning back to help the human body better handle the extra weight.
“Two point eight.”
All the important engineering readouts were in the yellow, but well back from the red. Vicky remembered how the Wasp’s had run deep into the red as they fled for their lives.
But the Wasp was made by Wardhaven. The Retribution may not be as well built as the Wasp.
“Two point nine.”
“Your Grac
e?” the captain said.
“Steady as you go, Captain,” the Grand Duchess answered the unasked question.
“Three gees,” the chief reported, finally.
Vicky checked her board. Nothing in the red in engineering, though there was creep on one of the reactors. Damage control reported one of the turret scantlings had deformed. Turret Dora would likely not be available. Five crewmen had suffered casualties: back sprains because high-gee stations did not perform to the manufacturer’s guarantee.
The captain motored his high-gee station over to Vicky’s.
“Your Grace,” he whispered nervously, “we need to slow down to make repairs.”
“Can your damage control parties correct the deformation below turret Dora?” Vicky asked.
Dismay showed on the captain’s face. “How do you know about Dora?”
“I do. Now, can you fix it?”
“No, that will require yard time. Time in a major yard. There aren’t any this side of High Anhalt.”
Vicky saw no need to tell this captain that his ship was not likely to go to High Anhalt until a lot of water, milk, and blood had flowed under that bridge.
“If it cannot be repaired, I see no reason to slow down.”
“But it may get worse. Other turrets may fail.”
“Captain, I was told that the Retribution was one of the Empire’s newest and best battleships.”
“It is,” would have had more pride in it if the captain’s voice didn’t have to allow for so much worry.
“Then let’s see that we get to Presov before they do.”
“May I ask why, Your Grace?”
“No, you may not,” Vicky snapped the way Admiral Krätz had at her when she’d had the impertinence to ask the same.
The captain folded a lot faster than she had.
Who selected you to captain this ship? If this ship has no more fighting guts than you have, we are in trouble.
The proud battleship stayed at three gees. The hull showed no new weaknesses although there was a steady stream of reports about failed high-gee stations.
Vicky tried not to remember that her high-gee station was also her battle-survival pod, and, if Kris Longknife was to be believed, it was not her battle with her brother’s first command that killed Henry Peterwald XIII but someone’s sabotaging his survival pod that was the death of him.
The battleship creaked and groaned as it sped through space at three gees. The Empress’s ships tried to take themselves up past the 1.5 gees they’d been doing, but one ship blew an engine off into space and had to slow down to 1.2.
The other ship pulled back to 1.5 gees and stayed there.
Vicky motored her station over to the navigator’s post. The captain quickly came to park at her elbow.
“Navigator, could you please run me some course assumptions based upon all ships maintaining their present course and speed.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
He must have had the plot ready. He tapped his board and plots appeared on the main screen.
“We’ll be there two orbits before they arrive,” Vicky observed.
“Yes, Your Grace, and if I may point out, we’ll be on the far side when they make orbit.”
“That is not what I want,” Vicky said.
“May I ask what you do want, ah, Your Grace?” the captain said.
He was learning to ask nicely when he talked to his Grand Duchess; Vicky managed to turn to face him and awarded him a smile.
“We have only two Marine companies on the planet to protect it. Those ships could likely land two battalions of ‘Security Consultants,’ possibly more, and we’d always be on the wrong side of the planet to confront the ships that brought them.”
The navigator’s nostrils dilated just a bit. The captain looked like he’d swallow his tongue. If he had something to say, words eluded him.
Strange, he’s the captain of this ship. I’m supposed to be just a passenger, and a junior one at that, yet he’s letting me order his ship around and can’t raise a question about what I’m doing.
On the other hand, I’m just as glad that he’s keeping out of this.
“Navigator, what adjustments to our course would we need to make orbit with that first ship, the Golden Empress No. 34?”
The navigator tapped his board slowly under the weight of high gees. “I make it two point nine one for the rest of the way in. A bit of adjustment as we come into orbit should let us trail that Golden Empress by about a hundred klicks.”
The navigator looked proud of himself.
“But the other ship could adjust its course,” the captain pointed out.
“Yes, but we’ve seen what happened when they tried to jack up the speed,” Vicky said. “They can slow down. However, they can’t lay on even one-tenth of a gee more.”
“I think she’s right, sir,” the navigator said to the captain.
“Watch your board carefully, Navigator,” the captain shot back, and turned his station away.
Vicky gave the navigator an encouraging wink. He grinned. She turned away, back to what she’d come to think of as her station, just a half meter back from the captain’s own place in the middle of the bridge.
CHAPTER 65
THE Retribution made orbit exactly one hundred kilometers behind the Golden Empress No. 34. It wasn’t for their lack of trying to dodge the inevitable. No. 34 slowed, and slowed, then made as if to go for a higher orbit.
The Retribution might have a warped turret support, but it had a lot more energy to play with. When the Empress finally gave up and made orbit, there was one huge battleship on its tail.
“Battleship Retribution,” came over the hailing net, “there is nothing for you here. Move along.”
Grimly, the battleship returned silence.
“This is Commissioner Lanz. I hold a warrant from the Empress to reduce the striking workers on Presov. They have put down their tools and refused the lawful orders of their management. I command Security Consultants Group 121 and 122. We will set matters right.”
“Put me on-screen,” Vicky ordered, standing in her gee station, careful in zero gee not to drift off.
The screen came alive. Vicky found herself facing a middle-aged man of balding pate and nervous demeanor. He frowned at her, probably trying to remember where he’d seen her. She solved his problem.
“I am the Imperial Grand Duchess, Her Grace Lieutenant Commander Victoria of Greenfeld. And I know very well where the managers of the mining co-op are. I arrested them for taking bribes to act against the fiduciary interests of both their employers and their stockholders as well as conspiring to illegally restrict trade. The workers are working under new management I appointed. Rather than downing their tools, they are producing several times more crystal a month than they could under those now awaiting trial for their crimes.”
Commissioner Lanz looked like he’d swallowed something both surprising and poisonous. After several moments of looking like a landed fish trying to gulp down air, he got out, “But I have my warrant. From the Empress.”
“Who, no doubt, will withdraw it when she discovers she was misinformed.”
In a pig’s eye, Vicky did not say aloud.
“But right at this moment, I have my orders.”
“And I am telling you that you will not land on that planet.”
Now the landed fish found some sort of backbone. “I am under the Empress’s protection.”
“And the miners of Presov are under my protection. I might add that my protection includes a battalion of Marines on the ground with them and this battleship in orbit. Which protection would you care to rely on at the moment?”
The fish took only a moment to flop and slithered back whence it came. Without another word, the screen went blank.
“They are powering up their engines,” sens
ors reported.
“Captain, will you please follow them as long as they are in orbit.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” He gave the necessary orders but motored his high-gee station over to Vicky’s elbow.
“Would you have ordered me to fire on that ship?” he whispered.
“Do you think I am so foolish as to threaten what I would not do?”
The man leaned back in his chair. “So that was what the admiral meant,” he muttered.
Vicky did not ask him to explain what he now thought the admiral meant. Since the poor captain had not been required to act on anything, he might still be allowed to clutch some shred of ambiguity from which to hang his peace of mind.
Let us see how much longer we can put off starting the rebellion.
The Golden Empress No. 34 dropped down, then applied power and made a clean break from orbit. On Vicky’s word—she still didn’t like to use the word “order” where the captain was concerned, and no doubt he preferred it as well—the Retribution adjusted its own orbit and managed to stay in the planet’s embrace.
They did prepare to receive the Golden Empress No. 21. It, however, chose to come in fast and low. After that pass, it swung out high, applied a lot of correction, and blew right out of orbit without completing one. Only when it was headed back to the jump did Vicky suggest that the Retribution join the two of them accelerating out.
The navigator had a course already in hand. “If we do two-gee acceleration and deceleration to the jump, we can catch up with the convoy just before they jump out of the next system.”
“That sounds good to me,” Vicky said.
“Make it so,” the captain said.
“Captain, I need to send a message back to Admiral von Mittleburg.”
“I imagine you do,” he said, but for her ears only.
“I wanted your permission before I used your communications.”
“Thank you,” he said, and turned back to his duties.
Vicky encoded her message using a single-use cipher. She brought Admiral von Mittleburg up to date on what had happened. “I suggest that you arrange for the reinforcement of the garrison on Presov. I suspect this is just the first attempt to take the mines back. This is just my guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if not only the so-called scrapped ships are showing up either in her livery or as pirates, but if other merchant hulls that could be armed aren’t also hauled in for merchant cruiser conversion. Please ask Mayor Artamus to examine with your yard managers the prospects for outfitting some of those laid-up merchant ships with armaments.”
Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Page 30