Vicky Peterwald: Target

by Mike Shepherd

  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.

  CHAPTER 15

  BAYERN was a lovely planet from orbit, all green and blue and tan, except for the white fluffy clouds and snowcapped mountains. On the ground, it only got lovelier. The center of human settlement around München was almost quaint in its rolling farmland and stone or wooden one- and two-story buildings.

  The shuttle port was nestled among the green fields with only a long, low terminal standing beside the runway and small apron. The shuttle rolled up to the terminal and stopped. No one made to exit.

  Why became clear in a moment.

  The aft ramp lowered to the apron, admitting air strong with the scent of spring rebirth. An honor detail approached and slowly, lovingly, removed the flag-draped coffin, and, at a funeral pace, moved it to a horse-drawn gun carriage.

  Only when it was lashed in place and surrounded by both the honor guard and mourners, did the passengers of the shuttle begin to silently exit the craft from the forward hatch.

  Vicky was the last to leave, not due to any traditional precedents of the Navy but because the chief of staff had the aisle seat and refused to budge. Vicky soon found out why.

  When she finally did exit the shuttle, she drew stares like a bride might who came naked to her wedding.

  She easily recognized those surrounding Admiral Gort’s flag-draped coffin. His son, an ensign, was a younger image of him. His retired father in an admiral’s uniform that still fit, was an older version that the admiral had not lived long enough to fulfill.

  Dominating them all was an even older rendering, the grandfather still resplendent in a uniform with Iteeche War ribbons.

  There was, of course, the grieving widow in black.

  And from that tight-knit family came enough glares that if eyes could truly kill, they would be sharing a huge bounty from Vicky’s stepmom.

  For the forty-eleventh time, Vicky rolled her shoulders back and said a grateful prayer to anyone listening that looks could not kill. Her question as to whether or not she was to join the funeral group was answered by the chief of staff placing a demanding hand on her elbow and directing her toward a small sedan.

  She went where he directed.

  The four-door sedan presented a problem for Vicky . . . or maybe a test. The front had room for two: the driver and a seat the chief of staff was clearly taking. That left the backseat to Vicky and her team. It would be a tight fit for Vicky, Mr. Smith, Kit, and Kat. There was no question about room for the lieutenant and the chief or their box of sensors.

  No other car was close at hand; all those at the shuttle field were quickly filling with the funeral party.

  “This is an exercise best left to the class,” Vicky could hear Admiral Krätz saying. She was in a Navy town. If they wanted her alive, she would stay alive. If they wanted her dead, she would die. Did she need to take her sworn defenders with her?

  “Kit, Kat, you stay here with the lieutenant and the chief.” When they opened their mouths to protest, Vicky added softly, “We are surrounded by the Navy here. Do you really think anyone would harm me?”

  The veiled looks both shot her told her “yes,” but they stepped away when she made it clear she wanted them to go.

  “A wise choice,” Mr. Smith whispered as he held the door open for her. As for the chief of staff, he had already settled himself in the front seat and sat, back straight, eyes forward.

  As soon as Mr. Smith closed the door behind him, and before he could get his seat belt in place, the sedan took off, but at a sedate pace. Indeed, they joined the tail end of the funeral cortege. The driver even turned on the car’s lights.

  That was the way it stayed until the first stoplight. There, the motorcycle escort halted traffic so the procession could go through the red light. However, Vicky’s car turned right, doused its lights, and took off at only a bit faster speed wherever it was taking her.

  They passed a mixture of cows, horses, and sheep grazing on grass impossibly green. They passed crops and vineyards in a crazy patchwork-quilt arrangement that would make any agribusiness specialist shudder at the inefficiencies. Though most of the farms were worked with modern equipment, Vicky passed one team of horses plowing a field. There an old man handled the plow while a pair of youngsters scattered seed behind him.

  They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Likely that was the main product of their labors, because a flock of birds followed the kids. No, an even younger child galloping along behind the birds, sending them aloft at her hoots.

  “Looks like fun,” Vicky muttered.

  “Hot work and lots of it,” the chief of staff answered. “My grandpa used to borrow a pair of horses for at least one of our fields. He insisted we know what it was like to do it the old-fashioned way. When I was a teenager, I used to think that he and grandma would sneak out at nights to perform their own fertility rites. Never caught them at it, though my sister insisted she had.”

  “The old-fashioned ways,” Vicky said. “Is that a part of what makes the Navy Navy?”

  “Maybe. Who’s to know? We have plenty of thirty-year men who started life in the slums of big planet cities. When they come here, they say it’s like coming home to a place they’ve always known but never been,” the captain said with a far-seeing smile on his face.

  The road they took wound its way along a tree-lined creek beside rolling fields. They turned off onto a dirt road lined with trees on each side and a white fence. At the end of the road was a farmyard with three barns. Two of them were for equipment and animals.

  The third was for people.

  The chief of staff led Vicky through two large doors into a central hall that would serve for dances or large meetings. It was empty at the moment. Closed doors led to rooms in the right and left wing of the barn, as well as
stairs that led up to a long balcony running down both sides to rooms upstairs. The captain guided Vicky to a room in the back that, from the smell of it, had been put to use baking pies earlier that morning. It had two large stoves and four sinks.

  It also sported a long dinner table.

  At the moment, twenty old men and four women sat along it. At its foot, a single chair was open. The chief of staff motioned Vicky to it before turning to take a stool for himself at what looked like a breakfast nook.

  Mr. Smith went with him without needing to be told.

  Vicky studied her twenty-four . . . what should she think of them as? Judges? Jurors? Not executioners. The captain would do that for them. Maybe even Mr. Smith if they bid high enough.

  Or not. Very likely, if they agreed to let Mr. Smith live and collect Vicky’s loving stepmom’s reward, he would do the dirty work for them.

  Vicky had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she fully tasted just how close to death she was.

  But she’d been living on borrowed time, really, since her father remarried.

  Well, girl, nothing’s changed today. Get on with it.

  The twenty-four . . . whatevers . . . ranged in age from about fifty to over a hundred. It was hard to tell, what with rejuvenation therapy so common these days. What they all shared were backs ramrod straight, even the women who she supposed were wives. The men mostly sported the short-cut gray hair of their profession. The women’s hair was uniformly pulled back tightly into buns.

  It was the eyes that held Vicky. Sharp. Clear. Intelligent. They took her in, weighed her . . . and told her not a thing of their judgment.

  Vicky thanked any god paying attention that she’d spent her last few years under Navy discipline. She held their gaze without flinching, met it with a bland Navy face, and continued her own assessment.

  These were Admiral Krätz and Admiral Gort’s peers. She had earned the respect of those two, and she could earn the respect of these.