Vicky grinned to herself. She’d planned to use that trick in the interview. Now, when it happened, if anyone asked, she’d have a ham-handed Marine to blame for it.
This just gets better and better.
Her newsie was waiting for Vicky at the end of the pier. By now, her hood was again fully covering her face. She let the reporter guide her anonymously through the mob of other newsies hanging around the station.
Actually, Vicky had put the cape over her dress to avoid drawing a mob of every functioning male in the place. The dress was called a halter top, but there was no halt in it. Not at all. The top shouted come and the short skirt was one big invitation.
Vicky figured her outfit would give her an extra five minutes on camera.
They quickly covered the distance to what the station laughingly called a hotel. The room was small, but a camera team was already set up with a star-covered backdrop behind Vicky’s chair.
Good, these folks know their business. That should make doing my business a whole lot easier.
Vicky settled herself in the offered chair. She had to pull the hem of her dress down. It still didn’t get close to mid-thigh. As the Marine had already discovered, the top wasn’t much. There was no back. The front consisted of two strips of cloth that struggled to cover her ample breasts as much as they revealed them. When Vicky pulled the dress from one of the foot lockers shipped over from the Fury when she asked Dr. Maggie and Kit and Kat to join her, there had been strips of double-sided tape to hold it in place as she moved.
She’d left the tape in her quarters, as the Marine sergeant had already discovered and the newsies would find out in due course.
The woman producer smiled with delight and offered some whispered advice to the camera man before asking, “Are you ready, Your Imperial Highness?”
“Always,” Vicky purred, not bothering to correct the title.
“So,” said the interviewer, a man selected for eye candy rather than intelligence. “What did you think of the idea of the Great Voyage of Discovery?”
“Oh, it was wonderful,” Vicky gushed. And Vicky knew that she did gush very well. She laid it on thick about how exciting it was to be going out, deep into the heart of the galaxy. “Daily, we would see things no one had ever seen before. Our scientists were so excited. They would babble on and on over supper. We knew that we all were living a dream for the rest of humanity.”
“So, how did the Great Voyage of Discovery become the Great Battle?”
Vicky twisted in her seat. Now the strap of her dress went limp, just as she wanted it. All that held her top in place was hope. And every male viewer would be hoping it didn’t. Behind the interviewer, the producer smiled and nudged the cameraman. He zoomed in close.
Vicky had their attention. Not with her words. Her boobs.
“I have no idea how things changed,” Vicky said, breathlessly. “I was invited over to the Wasp for dinner with Princess Kris Longknife and then things started to go sideways so quickly that it was impossible to keep track. The admirals had all decided to go back to human space. All of them.
“But the princess would have none of that. She insisted we must attack these aliens. She had these fancy, new weapons her king had sent her and she just had to use them. Somehow she got the admirals to change their minds and join her in the attack.”
At the ‘somehow,’ Vicky twisted in her seat. She didn’t have to glace down. She knew she had a nipple showing by the way the producer grinned and the camera cut in closer. Vicky went on talking, though she doubted any of those present were listening. She went on and on about Kris and the way she twisted the admirals to her wishes. She yammered on . . . and they let her.
This was as good as she’d hoped it would be.
“I know Admiral Krätz was all for returning. He’d been the first to insist we come back for further instructions. I think Kris paid a visit to the Fury before he changed his mind. I think Kris visited all the admirals personally to somehow persuade them.
Let Kris take the fall. I’m certainly not going to.
By now, Vicky was repeating herself. Repeating herself several times, but the camera just kept going. Finally, Vicky went for the climax. She glanced down and said. “Oh,” as she shrugged her boob back under their minimal cover.
“How could that have happened?” she said looking directly into the camera. “A Marine sergeant tried to keep me on the Wasp. He grabbed me when I wouldn’t do what he wanted and damned if he didn’t knock my top down. He must have ripped something. I’m so sorry. You won’t use that material, will you?”
“Of course not, Your Grace,” the interviewer lied almost believably.
Vicky smiled so gullibly and went on. “The battle was horrible. Nothing went right. The aliens were just so much more powerful than anyone in the fleet had ever imagined. No question, Princess Longknife had bitten off a whole lot more than she could chew. Of course, only one of her ships had laid eyes on the alien fleet, and it had been running away from it the whole time it was in the same system. The aliens started shooting and battleships were blowing up and then Kris Longknife had her ships duck out of the fight so we never saw what happened to the battleships and then we were running for all that we could.”
Vicky managed to let a tear drop run down her cheek. “Running, running, running. Ships would fall behind and Kris would just leave them. It was horrible. Finally, she managed to make a jump that the aliens couldn’t follow. Or maybe she ducked out while the aliens were beating up on the last ship that was still with her. I don’t know. It was just horrible. Horrible, I tell you.”
The camera was back on her boobs as she writhed in agony at the memory. They were hoping for another nipple slip.
So she gave them one.
“I don’t know how I will ever forget what I saw. I don’t know how any of us will ever forget what we went through. I’m just so glad that all of that was way on the other side of the galaxy. I’d hate to have something that horrible anywhere close to us. Wouldn’t you?” she asked the camera.
“No. No, I agree with you. Thank God they’re on the other side of the galaxy as far away from us as they can get,” the interviewer said.
Again, Vicky glanced down and noticed the supposed wayward bit of pink flesh. She shrugged herself back into place.
“I think we have enough,” the producer said. “We’ll have that formatted and back to corporate as quick as we can. No one else has given us an interview. I know this will be on every news show before the day is out.”
“Why thank you,” Vicky said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to be getting back to the ship and making arrangements for me and my handful of survivors to make our way back to Greenfeld. Four proud battleships left with full crews and only myself and five others survived to come back.”
Vicky noticed the camera was still on. No doubt, that final take would be the real end of the interview.
She returned the way she’d come, again putting the hooded cape to good use. The young sergeant was still guarding the quarterdeck. He reddened as she swept past him. He’d likely be doing something else tomorrow once they discovered how she’d used him.
Back on the Wasp, she headed straight for her quarters. It wouldn’t do to be spotted in this outfit aboard this wreck of a warship. Changed back into a modest shipsuit of blue, she checked in with her minions. The lieutenant and the chief had discovered no more than she had.
The Wasp was going nowhere. What was to be done and when was no more than a series of guesses among the various members of the crew. Very likely, even the captain was waiting for orders.
Vicky took her team to lunch. Though only she and the lieutenant were officers, she usually had all four dine with her in the wardroom. No one had objected; the Wasp was nothing if not flexible. One of the benefits of having a contractor running the show, no doubt.
Vicky, Kit and the chief settled down at a table, while the lieutenant and Kat went to fetch plates for them. They had learned their choice
s among the limited meals served on the Wasp. Today was better. Fresh meat, fruit and vegetables had arrived, and the cook was doing himself proud.
Vicky found herself served with a steak, baked potato, mixed fresh vegetables and a salad. It tasted like ambrosia to her after the last couple of weeks of dry rations . . . and short rations at that.
She was half done when a man joined her table.
That was unusual.
Normally, she and her team dined alone. Even more unusual, the man was not in uniform. Kit stiffened; hands went for whatever weapons she had secreted on her body. Vicky glanced at the chief. He had a black box beside his dinner plate. He eyed it and shook his head.
Most likely, the stranger was unarmed and not carrying a bomb.
Most likely. One never knew for sure, what with the race between offense and defense going at a maddening rate. Her best resources said he was unarmed.
Had her best been out bested?
“Hello,” Vicky said, breaking the silence. “And who might you be?”
“I’m your new best friend,” the guy said with a knowing grin.
Chapter Three
Vicky studied her new, putative, best friend.
He looked old enough to know better, but young enough to still be doing foolish things. If his legs were as muscled as the bare arms his shirt showed her, he likely was in good enough shape to get out of the messes he got into.
The eyes that watched her would have done good service to a hawk. The face they rested in was intelligent and alert.
“Words are easy,” Vicky said. “Do you have any deeds to back them up?”
“You may remember that bomb that messed up the Forward Lounge just a few minutes after you left.”
“I do recall such an event.”
“I’m the reason it blew five minutes after it was supposed to.
“Why five minutes? Why not never?” Vicky asked.
His narrow lips formed a tight grin. “But if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t know that you needed a new best friend to be grateful to. Or that you needed to have your eyes and ears open for the next assassin that will, inevitably, come along. Now you do, don’t you?”
“You have a point. It was kind of hard on the help. They did lose a waiter to space.”
He shrugged. “What was he to you? It sent a message that needed sending. Messengers have been dying for a long time.”
“I could get to like you,” Vicky said. “You want to draw a plate and eat with us?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He stepped away to take a run down the steam serving tables.
While she’d been talking to her new best friend, her team had returned with loaded plates from the steam table. “What do we know about that man?” Vicky whispered to them.
The chief and the lieutenant were madly running their black boxes through their paces. “He looks as unarmed as a newborn babe,” the lieutenant finally said.
Kit spoke for the two. “We’ve seen him in the ship’s gym. He’s good. We could probably take him, if we got the jump on him.”
“Let’s let him run with his own thing for a while,” Vicky said as the stranger turned back to their table. Around her, her minions settled into watchful alert.
He was dressed in an unmarked blue shipsuit, which told Vicky only that he was of the Wasp, but nothing about rank, rate or status. Most likely he was carried as a contractor, but he could be assigned to anything from weapons to short order cook flipping burgers in one of the restaurants.
Good camouflage.
“So, do you have a name?” Vicky asked as he settled in.
“You can call me Smith. Mr. Smith. It works as well as any.”
“And where do you draw your paycheck?”
“That might take a while to explain, since I draw several for all the different things I do for all the different folks I work for. If you catch my meaning.”
“So who paid you to delay that bomb? A friend of Kris Longknife, or a friend of mine?”
“Honey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you don’t have that many friends just now.” He took a bite of steak. “Not many at all, and you could use a whole lot more.”
Vicky leaned back in her chair. “So, with Kris hauled off for points unknown, you’re out of work and looking for a new employer. If you catch my meaning.”
The man chuckled. “You aren’t slow. Not slow at all. I could deadhead back to Wardhaven and wait for some new assignment to come along, or, as I see it, I could sign on with you and start charging hours to your account immediately.”
“You sure I can pay?” Vicky asked.
“I must admit, there’s a little risk involved, seeing how you’re at severe risk of not making it through until next payday, but I’ve bet on worse cases and drawn a bonus for the risk.”
“Again, I find you a lot of talk, but not so much on the deeds. How do I know you’re worth your paycheck?”
The man went on eating for a while, then put down his fork. “You asked Kris Longknife to let you have a better computer. The one around my neck is a couple of steps up from the one around your neck. That thing around your neck is the new, fancy self-organizing matrix. But the software isn’t all that good at organizing it. Not at all good.” He raised an eyebrow. “What would it be worth to you if I upgraded you while we finish lunch?”
“You’ve got a computer as good as Nelly?”
“Nobody has a computer as good as that bit of matrix, but my computer is better than anything you can get your hands on in Greenfeld. Maybe not the best in your Empire, but a whole lot better than any you can buy in a store there.”
“Why don’t you start the upgrade and we’ll see.”
He reached for his fork again. “Joe, upgrade. Transmit.
The computer at Vicky’s neck said. “Receiving.” A moment later it announced. “Processing.”
“Now, while these two are doing their thing, why don’t you and I finish our dinner?”
Vicky picked up her fork, but she hadn’t taken one bite when one very angry looking Marine charged into the wardroom. Jack looked around, spotted Vicky, and headed for her table like a herd of charging bulls.
They couldn’t have released that interview already, Vicky thought, then retook her measure of the angry Marine rapidly approaching and changed her mind. I guess they rushed it into production and distribution.
“You lying snake in the grass!” Jack whispered as he came to stand across the table from her, at Mr. Smith’s elbow. “You backstabbing purveyor of misinformation and twisted tales! I ought to lock you in the brig and throw away the key.”
“But you can’t because your brig is about to be torn down,” Vicky purred. She put her hands in her lap, struck up her most alluring pose, and waited for what would come next.
“I could leave you in it when they take away the outer hull,” Jack snarled. “I wonder how long a snake like you can breathe vacuum.”
Vicky knew Jack was just talking. No US Marine would dare harm a Grand Duchess of the Empire. “Jack, why don’t you sit down and have something to eat? Life always looks worse on an empty stomach.”
“I wouldn’t take a drink of water from you if I was dying of thirst in a parched desert.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” Vicky said, relaxing in her chair. “What does your Princess Kris say? ‘It looked like a good idea at the time.’ Well, I did what I felt I had to do.”
“We have orders not to talk to newsies.” Jack snapped.
“No order from United Society, or whatever you’re calling yourself today, has any power or authority over a Grand Duchess of the Peterwald Empire. I do what I will do.”
“Well, you can do it somewhere else. I want you off this boat. Now!”
“Fortunately, a Marine captain does not command a Navy ship. Why don’t you go talk to the real captain here?”
At that moment, Captain Drago himself walked into the wardroom. He too, looked around, spotted Vicky, and slow marched for her table.
> “Thank you, Captain Montoya, for sending me that news clip. Very informative. I had no idea any of that took place on our long voyage.” He turned to Vicky. “Miss Peterwald, your presence on my ship is no longer desired. You have one hour to cross the brow headed for the station. If you aren’t gone in one hour, I will have the Marines throw you out. Do we understand each other?”
“As always, Captain, your use of the Standard language is very exact and precise.” Vicky said, making no move to rise.
She locked eyes with the two captains for a long, hard minute. Then both of them turned and stalked toward the exit.
Vicky waited until they were gone before saying. “You heard the man. We have an hour to get out of here. Let’s start packing. We leave nothing behind.”
Her four minions were up and trotting without another word spoken. Mr. Smith continued eating.
“You coming?” Vicky asked.
“Ma’am, I packed my bag before I came down to talk with you. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be across the quarterdeck. Now, my computer and yours are in the middle of a major upgrade. Unless you think you have to look over any of those four shoulders to make sure they get every little thing right, I suggest you stay seated here.”
Vicky stayed in her chair.
“Upgrade complete,” a pleasant male bass said. “I have a message for Her Grace, the Grand Duchess of Greenfeld.”
“Vicky will do just fine.”
“Vicky, you have a message coming in from Admiral Gort of Battle Cruiser Division 4. He has just jumped into the system and will be docking at High Chance station in twelve hours. He requests the pleasure of your company for a trip back to Greenfeld, if it pleases you.”
“Computer, who is Admiral Gort?”
“I don’t know, Vicky. When I was last synced to the Greenfeld database several months ago, there was a Captain Gort on the Battlecruiser Stalker. That ship is now his flag, so I would assume he has been promoted since you were last at Greenfeld.”
“Sounds like a safe assumption,” Mr. Smith said.
There was still no way for Vicky to know if he had been sent to shepherd her home, or to see that she died ‘of natural causes’ somewhere along the way. Still, unless she planned to walk home, she’d have to trust herself to some vagaries of fate. Her power base in the Navy seemed more dependable than the odds of her surviving a trip home on the average liner.
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