Vicky Peterwald: Target (A Vicky Peterwald Novel, Band 1) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mike Shepherd is a pseudonym for Mike Moscoe. Moscoe is a full-time writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of the Kris Longknife series including Kris Longknife: Defender, and the Jump Universe series including To Do or Die. 

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CHAPTER 1

HER Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Lieutenant Victoria Maria Teresa Inez Smythe-Peterwald watched the romantic vision on the screen. Slowly, Kris Longknife broke from her embrace and first kiss with her chief of security, Captain Jack Montoya.

It sure took you two long enough.

The flashing red icon at the bottom of the screen told Vicky that she was the only one watching the touching scene. Captain Drago had pulled the quarterdeck video from the public net.

Who would have taken the hard-nosed skipper for such a softy, letting the star-crossed lovers have their privacy?

Vicky saw no reason for anyone to have any privacy. Not if it cost her her life. She’d paid a pretty penny, with a few extra benefits on the side, to make sure anything that happened on the Wasp was no secret to her.

It was very unlikely that the small personal tragedy playing out pier side would impact Vicky’s safety. Still, she watched. How would the ineffable Kris Longknife handle this situation? Though Vicky doubted she’d ever have to leave her one true love, still, it would be well to study how a Longknife did it.

Who knew what might come in handy someday?

Kris certainly had the “sincere” down solid. Vicky would have bet money that she and that big loving lunkhead of a man were seriously thinking of taking the chance, trying their luck at outrunning or outfighting the dozen battle-armored Marines the local admiral had brought to make sure her orders were obeyed.

With slow agony, the great Kris Longknife took another step and broke finger contact with her frozen-in-place love. Vicky could almost hear the strings in the background that always went with such movie scenes of heartbreak and denial.

Vicky felt like puking.

She didn’t. Her staff was watching her watching Kris, and Vicky would measure her reaction to their expectations of their lord and master.

Finally, Kris turned from Jack and hurried into the waiting courier ship.

“I’m glad that’s over,” Vicky said dryly to her own audience . . . and switched gears, back to survival mode. “Lieutenant Heinbock, drop down to the wardroom and see if you can overhear anything about what they intend to do with this wreck of a ship. Chief Materhand, you know where the CPO still is. Go have a drink. Hang around and see if they have any better scuttlebutt.”

Her two subordinates might be serving members of the Greenfeld fleet, but here, on the strange ship that Kris Longknife had put together with more spirit than intent, they had become accepted as just one of the boys. Vicky still wasn’t sure how to take that. After all, the Peterwalds and the Longknifes did hate each other’s guts.

The two men hurried off to obey her. Vicky turned to Kit and Kat, two of the most deadly women she had ever met. Each was 120 pounds of death in either hands, feet, or, no doubt, other portions of their lovely bodies.

They were also her body servants. “I would kill right now for a clean set of underwear.”

Since freshwater was flowing from the station into the wreck of the Wasp, laundry was finally possible. The two set to work on that immediately.

That took care of four of Vicky’s five remaining friends in this world, if you could call those bound to obey her every whim friends. Her one true friend, Dr. Margarita Rodriguez, had been making herself scarce for the last couple of weeks. The good doctor hadn’t much cared for the attack that killed, what, billions of aliens. She had been in a huff after Vicky went on a bender and very likely said some really nasty things.

Vicky, of course, had no recollection of anything she said that night. All she remembered was something about showing up on Kris Longknife’s doorstep and maybe something about Doc Maggie, and then waking up violently ill the next day.

I must be more careful with alcohol.

That left Vicky assigning herself a task.

Kris Longknife had been right about one thing: Vicky dare not go ashore. Until she got an update on conditions at her father’s Imperial Palace, there was no way to guess if, no, not if but rather how many assassins would be waiting for her the moment she set foot off the Wasp.

Vicky had come a long way on the Wasp and, at least of late, no one among the crew had tried to kill her. Strange as it sounded, this Peterwald had come to feel safe on this Longknife’s ship.

Vicky shook her head at that unheard-of thought. Her family and the Longknifes had been at each other’s throats since before the Iteeche Wars. For over a hundred years, if she was to believe the angry words her dad threw around at the mere mention of the Longknifes. Her father liked to brag that the Peterwalds had had wealth and power since the times when the Pope still had an army. But for three generations it had been the Longknifes. Always the Longknifes. Every turn, every twist that had kept the Peterwalds from their just place at the forefront of human affairs had a Longknife at the bottom of it.

Vicky had grown up believing every word her dad spoke. Lately, watching one Kris Longknife at work, Vicky was having trouble matching those words to Kris’s actions. Had her dad and granddad been mistaken, or was Kris just a different kind of Longknife?

And did Vicky want to become a different kind of Peterwald?

Could she?

Vicky mulled that question as she headed for the Forward Lounge. There, if anywhere on the crippled Wasp, she might find out both the fate of the ship . . . and her own.

As Vicky expected, Mother MacCreedy was back in business, if not fully restocked. Vicky ordered a beer at the bar and turned to survey the place for potential sources of information. It took her only a second to spot her best bet.

Kris and her team usually took the table most forward, the one just below the huge screen. The screen was dead at the moment, like so much in the ship, but Jack Montoya of the recent kiss and Penny Lien Pasley were huddled together over beers at the usual table.

Vicky headed for them.

As so often happened when Vicky approached a conversation, it died. It wasn’t just that way on a Longknife ship. It had been that way everywhere and for as long as she could remember. She’d put it down to being born to power, but she couldn’t help but notice how rarely talk came to a roaring halt when Kris joined a conversation.

More to think about . . . when she found the time.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Vicky asked.

“No,” Jack said. “Pull up a chair.”

Vicky chose to sit across from Jack. Penny had been resting her hand on Jack’s but had quickly withdrawn it when Vicky approached. Vicky didn’t want to appear a threat to them. Still, she had to wonder just how consoling Penny might be, and how much “support” Jack was willing to accept.

Vicky quickly went down the short list of what she was supposed to know and decided a good opener was, “Jack, you look terrible. Is something wrong?”

“Kris has been rushed onto a fast courier for Wardhaven,” Penny supplied.

“Without any security support,” Jack growled into his hardly touched beer. “Not me. Not anyone.”

Vicky decided that a few supportive words might be in order. “If Wardhaven fast couriers are anything like the ones we have in Greenfeld, they’re about the safest way to travel in space. The crews are small, and they’ve been scrubbed for any security flaw. If Kris got on one, I’d bet anything she gets off of it.”

“Yes, but where?” Jack snapped.

“Her great-grandfather, the king, wants to see her,” Penny...