Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Read Online Free

everybody else.”
    “Or you can expand the lifeboat,” Vicky said, turning on the young man. “You need crystal for your lifeboat, so you include Presov. Poznan has resources you could use as well. Not as critical as crystal, but still nice to have. You’re already trading with the Navy colonies. You expand your safety net to include more.”
    “Why should we?” an older woman demanded. “We keep our heads down, and your loving stepmother and the rest of the bloodthirsty Bowlingame family look for easier prey. When all this is over, we will have saved ourselves and our own.”
    “You dodged a bullet when their Security Consultants showed up last time,” Vicky pointed out, almost delicately. “You sure they won’t show up again? This time they’ll be bigger and badder, having fattened on easier prey.”
    Vicky paused for only a second. “They don’t like the Navy. They’re trying to take it down, or better yet, take it and its ships over. You sure that if you stay small, you won’t become next year’s prey? That if you do nothing, this tragedy will ever end well?”
    “That’s strange talk coming from a Peterwald Grand Duchess,” the older woman snapped.
    “And one who has a rather high price on her head,” the man with the frilly shirt added.
    “True on both counts,” Vicky conceded.
    “Are you planning on going rebel on your old man?” Mannie asked. “What are you looking for? Us to be your power base?”
    “No, no, and no,” Vicky said quickly.
    “Then may I ask,” Mannie said, coming to his feet, “just what the hell are you doing here?”
    Vicky had been asking herself that question for way too long. She opened her mouth to give them the only answer she had.

CHAPTER 6
    “H AVE any of you read the file we have on Princess Kris Longknife?” Vicky asked.
    Her answer was a collection of shaking heads.
    “It’s interesting reading. My dad’s in a lot of it.”
    “Why’d she have to save his neck?” someone asked.
    Vicky ignored that question and went on.
    “I don’t know how many of you were aware or remember those six rogue battleships that showed up in the Wardhaven system and threatened to blast them back to the Stone Age.”
    Some of the heads on the screens nodded. Others shook from side to side.
    “No one ever found out where the ships came from,” Mannie said.
    “I found out,” Vicky said, and suddenly had their full attention.
    “They were our ships. My father sent them. Navy reunions have had a lot of unexplained empty chairs at their tables of late, haven’t they, Gerrit?”
    The commander nodded solemnly.
    “How do you know?” the older woman demanded.
    “I overheard my father arguing with an admiral shortlyafter the affair. I didn’t know what I was hearing until I shared it with Kris Longknife. Her and a few of her friends. One of them lost her husband of three days blowing up those battleships.”
    “Oh my God,” someone said softly.
    “But what is important for us here and now is that back then and there no one had any idea what to do about the incoming battleships. Wardhaven had been maneuvered into sending its fleet off on some wild-goose chase, and there was a caretaker government. No doubt my father’s fingerprints can be found on a lot of that.”
    “Son of a bitch,” came from one screen.
    Vicky wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to the revelation or a reference to her father. Once again, she tossed it off to bore in on her point.
    “What matters to us here and now is that Princess Kris Longknife returned to her squadron. She’d been relieved of the command of one of the fast-attack boats. Tiny things, ships with no real chance against battleships. She declared herself the commander of the squadron. No one knew what to make of her actions. But while their government diddled, she and many others used her princess card as a pretense to rally a defense not one of them could have produced without her.”
    Vicky stepped forward to face the eight