Rebel Read Free

“It is hard to say how fast news travels in these times, but I would strongly suspect that bad news flies to her without delay.”
    “Your father was hearing stories about you,” the commander put in. “I doubt if he was reacting to word that you’d been kidnapped and staked out to die of thirst.”
    Vicky nodded slowly. “Knowing him as I do, I suspect thatyou are too right. Me nearly killed. ‘Oh dear.’ Me with just the hint of rebellion. ‘Damn it, you will answer me immediately.’ Or so it went when I was getting into this cookie jar or that boy’s pants. Now, I suspect it will be worse.”
    “No doubt,” the spy agreed.
    “So, what are your plans?” the admiral asked.
    “We will have to somehow buy me time to stay out of the palace’s loving clutches.”
    “But how?” the commander asked.
    “Maybe ze mademoiselle was more hurt in ze latest mad escapade?” Kat put in.
    “Not a bad idea,” the admiral said. “Not a bad idea at all.”
    “Considering how bad my feet hurt, I could easily have stepped on something that gave me the roaring heebie-jeebies,” Vicky agreed.
    “I suggest you answer the Emperor’s demand from sick bay, after some serious bandaging and, ah . . .”
    “I believe I can apply the makeup,” the spy offered.
    “We have pictures of all her lovely scratches and bug bites,” Kit offered.
    “Maybe the answer should best be taken from a planetside hospital,” Vicky said. “It would be easier for me to claim I can’t take a shuttle ride up here than that I can’t take a starship ride home.”
    “Good point,” the spy said. “I will make an operative out of you yet.”
    “Thank you, but I think Grand Duchess is dangerous enough for my tastes. So, how are we set for ships?”
    The admiral’s shrug was burdened with fatalism. “The Attacker ’s damage report grows by the day. It is not that the pirate ship did more damage than we thought but that the ship was in much worse underlying shape than we were led to expect. I find myself wondering what we would turn up if we put any of our ships in the docks here on High St. Petersburg.”
    “Is nothing what it seems in the Greenfeld Empire?” Vicky asked, not expecting a reply. She did not get one.
    “The Kamchatka is now in our second newly equipped refit dock,” the admiral went on. “We have replaced it with the Azov and Orsk on patrol above Presov. They are old but serviceable. It appears that we got the old Kami into dock just intime. Her reactors are being torn down and totally rebuilt as we speak.”
    “Are the Retribution and the Rostock all we have in port that could respond to anything?” Vicky asked, trying but failing to keep the incredulity from her voice.
    “It would seem so. Two laid-up liners are just about through being converted to armed merchant cruisers, but until you got back, we were kind of thin here,” the admiral admitted.
    “We will not leave St. Petersburg that unprotected again,” Vicky snapped.
    “Yes, Your Grace,” the admiral answered.
    Vicky realized what she’d done only after she had done it. It seemed that the admiral also was only now tasting how he’d responded to her coming the Grand Duchess with full intent.
    She chose not to apologize, and he chose to move on.
    “Will you be dropping down to Sevastopol to meet with the local power brokers?” the admiral asked. “It would seem that they may feel a need for a say if you are intent on using their planet as your base for a slow boil to revolution.”
    Vicky sighed. “No doubt I have more politicking to do. Oh, for the days when my father or grandfather could snap his fingers and people would jump.”
    “Or appear to jump,” the spy pointed out.
    “Ah yes, we do seem to be deep in discovery of how things really went, don’t we?” Vicky agreed.
    She left others to do what they did and headed out to do what she did best: listen to people talk and talk and talk until they agreed with her. However, before she headed