Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Read Free Page B

her. It was tempting to see how long that could go on, but Vicky wanted to know what was going to happen next too much to just wait around and twiddle her thumbs.
    Also, she had promises to keep to a certain commander.
    “Having a busy day, Mannie?”
    “I don’t have any slow ones,” he said, not looking up.
    “You were having a pretty slow one the day you hit Kris Longknife up to talk me into giving you a royal city charter. How’s that working out?” Vicky said, playing her single ace.
    “It’s on the wall there,” Mannie said, glancing up at the framed charter. Metal seals hung from it. Kris Longknife’s staff had researched what a mediaeval city charter looked like. When Kris Longknife’s gang staffed out something, it came on parchment and with silver seals.
    Vicky would give her right arm just now for a staff like that.
    But Vicky’s glance at the framed charter had included the eight city mayors keeping busy in their offices around this globe. On the wall behind most of them was a charter just like the one Mannie had.
    Vicky took a few steps toward the wall of screens, studying the charters. “My dad was not at all happy to learn I’d signed that charter. Who’d you get to sign the other ones?”
    “Nobody looks at the signatures all that closely,” Mannie said, now leaning back in his chair and eyeing Vicky. “We forged your signature and Kris Longknife’s on all of the other seven.”
    “If it works for you,” Vicky said with a shrug.
    “It’s given us the cover we need to keep our heads down and stay out of the shitstorm sweeping your father’s so-called Empire. We’re not going hungry here,” had force behind it.
    “I know. You’re doing well here on St. Petersburg. You got the Navy to keep my darling stepmother out of your hair, and you have Navy contracts to keep jobs going on your factory floors. It couldn’t be better.”
    “So why are you here?” didn’t give Vicky any cover.
    The Grand Duchess chose to dodge the question. “How are you set for crystal? You need it for most of your high-power industry and communications. You need it for those screens you’re talking to me through. How long will your stockpile last?”
    Mannie looked at one of the screens. A middle-aged woman frowned for a second, then tapped her desk. Numbers began to flow on a screen embedded in Mannie’s desk. Vickycould just barely make them out. Mannie, however, studied them intently. A frown grew on his face as he did.
    On seven screens, a lot of men and women frowned at what they saw.
    “We can buy more,” the woman who’d done the work said.
    “At a price set by my stepmother’s family,” Vicky pointed out. “Are you prepared to pay that piper? Their charge isn’t just an arm and a leg. They demand a chunk of your soul to go with it.”
    “There are other sources,” the woman said.
    “Yes,” Vicky said. “Presov is just a few jumps away from here. I recently visited them. Their miners are getting zero supplies, neither food nor spare parts. In three to six months, they’ll be unable to produce a gram of any kind of crystal. In six to nine months, they’ll be in economic chaos. By early next year, those who haven’t managed to beg, steal, or borrow a ride off that bejeweled mud ball will be eating each other.”
    “It can’t be that bad,” the woman on-screen said.
    “Computer, deliver to them the workup you did for me on Presov. Toss in the analysis of Poznan as well.”
    Vicky turned to the screens. “The executive summary won’t take you long to read. Both end the same. I may be off by a few months, plus or minus, for either planet. They all end in the total collapse of civilization, starvation, and, well, whatever else happens when people have nothing to eat.”
    “We knew it was bad out there,” a young mayor said, a man in a three-piece suit with ruffles at his throat, “but there’s only so much room in our lifeboat. If we overload it, we all end up drowning, along with