Vicky Peterwald: Target Read Free

what, six months older than Vicky?
    Kind of hard to call her Mommy.
    But then the two had hardly shared more than a few minutes together. Just long enough for Vicky to swear fealty to the newly created Emperor and Empress and then ship out for the other side of the galaxy.
    That should have been a safe distance.
    Funny how it wasn’t.
    Empress Annah had taken no time at all before announcing that she was knocked up and it was a boy and she was going to bear it in her own body. Dad had gone all goo-goo over it all.
    Vicky sighed. Dad liked boys. He’d doted over Henry Smythe-Peterwald XIII. Vicky had witnessed all that doting from the shadows. And God help her if she did anything to cause big brother any pain.
    Boys were everything in the Peterwald world. Girls were good for marrying off and having babies. Oh, and for seduction. Vicky had seen enough of that around court.
    So, Dad had a baby boy on the way and the Empress had a family of brothers and uncles and other vultures who were spreading out, taking every advantage of their place at court and grabbing for all the money and power in reach.
    Oh, and likely hiring a couple of assassins and getting them into the Fleet of Discovery. Three tries at Vicky and three failures before the aliens wiped out four battleships and put an end to further attempts.
    Should Vicky just go home and set up her own security team to help her stay alive in that jungle? Could she?
    But that presented the problem of getting home. She’d come on four huge battleships with some of the best people she’d ever met in her life. Kris Longknife had lost them in a fight that may or may not have saved a planet from being wiped out.
    Which was bound to cause Vicky problems. Problems with the Navy and problems with Dad.
    Somehow, she had to cover her rear end for the loss of the fleet, then figure out how to get home without becoming excessively dead on the way.
    Vicky left her hardly touched beer on the table and walked slowly, lost in thought, from the Forward Lounge. She needed to get out to the people her own version of how it came to pass that four powerful Peterwald battleships went exploring, and none were coming home.
    And she’d better get it out soon. If Penny’s assessment could be trusted, and Kris had almost always trusted her intelligence officer, Vicky was safe to walk the station today. Maybe tomorrow.
    After that, not so much.
    Vicky needed to talk to someone in the media, and real soon. That shouldn’t be too hard. The
Wasp
’s communications section had been bombarded with calls. Her computer had a list of them, stripped out from the ship’s computer. Vicky would have no problem getting a call out to the right one. They’d be delighted to have someone to talk to.
    Still, she’d have to hold their attention for the full amount of time.
    Vicky went down the wardrobe she’d managed to save from the
Fury
. Sure enough, she had one or two outfits that would be most camera worthy.

CHAPTER2
    I T was so easy. Just one quick call, and the media vultures were panting. Vicky agreed to meet early the next morning on the station; no news team would ever have gotten aboard the
Wasp
.
    Getting off the
Wasp
, even at that early hour, proved to be more of a challenge than Vicky had expected, but no Marine sergeant was going to stop a Grand Duchess. Certainly no United Society Marine could stop a future Peterwald Empress.
    Vicky had covered the dress, what there was of it, with a hooded cloak. No surprise, the sergeant of the guard got physical when she refused to let him stop her. He grabbed for her. The cloak came open, and he ended up with a handful of her right boob when that bit of ribbon that was the halter top slipped easily aside. That left one red-faced Marine sputtering apologies as Vicky stormed away.
    Vicky grinned to herself. She’d planned to use that trick in the interview. Now, when it happened, if anyone asked, she’d have a ham-handed Marine to blame for it.
    This just gets