Rebel Read Free Page B

deck.”
    “You are risking a lot,” the Navy officer said.
    “I have a lot at risk,” Vicky countered.
    The commander sat back in his seat, and the spy played the third message.
    “I don’t recognize the man,” Mannie said when it was finished.
    “I prefer that you don’t remember his face.”
    “He seems to speak for the Navy.”
    “In a manner of speaking, he may,” Vicky agreed.
    “What is this ‘rag’ he spoke of?”
    “Substitute flag of rebellion and how does the message go down with you?”
    Now it was Mannie’s turn to sink back into the thick leather seat.
    “So, when you dropped down here the first time, you were planning rebellion?”
    “No,” Vicky said, as forcefully as she could. “I could not beplanning rebellion because I had nothing to rebel with, and I was not willing to even consider rebellion. What I told you that day was true.”
    “For that day,” Mannie pointed out.
    “For that day, yes. And forever more if I could have managed it. I love my father for all his faults and for all that his middle-aged folly is causing a disaster. I still don’t want to rebel.”
    “But you kind of like living, don’t you?”
    “Very much. It offers all kinds of opportunities for tomorrows,” Vicky agreed.
    “Yes. There is that. And those first two messages, they don’t seem to promise you many tomorrows if you do as you are told,” the mayor said slowly.
    Vicky nodded.
    “And I don’t see us getting a whole lot of good done for ourselves if you stick your head into that noose.”
    “I can’t agree with you more.”
    “So, if you go there, you die. If you stay safe out here, you are in rebellion. Did I miss any other option?”
    Vicky shook her head.
    “Then I think we will have to persuade my associates that we would lose too much if we send you back home as requested and required. We will gain far more by keeping you out here than the Empress can take out of our hide.”
    Vicky had never felt so much support and acceptance in her life. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and kiss him. She wanted to, but he had turned away to watch the city flowing by his window, seemingly lost in thought.
    Gnawing her own lower lip, Vicky did her own turn away. Civil war was not something covered much in her education. It had also not had a section in the ship’s library on the Fury or any other Imperial ships she’d been on. Civil war was not even a whisper in Greenfeld territory. Now she was left to wonder what a civil war might do to the lovely city of Sevastopol.
    “I had planned a quick lunch,” Mannie finally said. “Have you eaten?”
    “Not since breakfast,” Vicky admitted. “I’m not really hungry.”
    “Love letters like those would kill any appetite. Still, ourmeeting may go long now that I’ll be adding this to the agenda. There’s a deli I ordered sandwiches from. I’ve reserved a room for us to eat under the watchful eyes of my security team.”
    They were taken up the tall glass tower that Vicky had been in before. This time, they stopped a floor below the conference room; she was escorted to a suite of rooms under heavy guard.
    The ham and cheese sandwiches waiting for them were quite delicious. The pasta salad that came with it reminded Vicky of something she’d tasted as a kid when Maggie would take her for a picnic on the palace grounds, and the cooks would outdo themselves.
    The guards took turns wolfing down sandwiches while staying on high alert. She and Mannie talked about her most recent voyage. He enjoyed the part where the Golden Empress ships turned and ran from Presov.
    “I don’t think their 4-inch popguns and 18-inch pulse lasers were ready to take on a battleship,” Vicky said with a laugh.
    Several of the local guards shared in Mannie’s enjoyment of that picture. Vicky was prepared to let this go on as long as Mannie was willing, but one of his aides came to whisper in his ear.
    The mayor stood. “The meeting is ready to begin,” he said,