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

they tried to add ballistic protection to a simple black dress.
    “First off, there’s not all that much dress here for you to armor,” Vicky pointed out.
    “We were hoping you’d choose something more conservative,” the female agent said.
    “I’m not,” Vicky said flatly.
    The look on the agent’s face caused Vicky to offer a compromise. “Computer, do you have a copy of that new dinner dress uniform I wore at the palace not too long ago. The one I proposed that Admiral Heller authorize for all female Navy officers?”
    “I do.”
    “Provide it to them.”
    The computer did. The entire sales staff quickly congregated around a hologram table where her diminutive self modeled the dinner dress uniform. From the sounds of their comments, they liked the design.
    From the moans of the seamstresses, there was no way they could duplicate it anytime soon.
    “We lack the cloth. We haven’t had any cloth of gold in months,” one pointed out.
    “Those colors. We’d have to dye them ourselves,” another groaned.
    “How did they get that skirt to fall that way with ballistic-resistant cloth?” a third asked.
    “They didn’t,” Vicky said. “That dress was not armored.”
    Vicky and the agent were back to a standoff.
    “I will not go to dinner tonight looking like a brick outhouse,” Vicky said. She’d learned that expression during her Navy time and found it useful.
    Vicky got her simple black dress.
    As her purchases were bagged, the commander shook his head. “We have got to order you some of that spidersilk underall armor that they have in the U.S.”
    “Why don’t we have any here?” Vicky asked.
    “Restrictions on sales of it outside the U.S.,” Gerrit said. “We’ll have to smuggle it out.”
    “Please have someone do it,” Vicky said.
    Grandmadre returned Vicky to her suite a good four hours before Mannie was due to pick her up.
    Vicky put it to good use. The commander voiced no complaints.

CHAPTER 10
    T HE mayor of Sevastopol voiced delight in Vicky’s appearance when he met her at the door at eight o’clock sharp.
    There were eight large, identical, vehicles waiting for Vicky in the lowest parking basement of the Hilton. Again, they played shuffle car, but this time it was a lengthy drive that took them out of the city.
    The dinner meeting that evening was at an estate high in the hills overlooking the city lights and enhanced by the sparkle of a newly risen full moon on the bay. Surrounded by croplands, pasture, and woods, the uniformed and armed troops walking the perimeter had clear lanes of fire.
    The commander voiced approval.
    “We’ve had need of a secure meeting location a time or two,” Mannie admitted. “This used to belong to the head of State Security for our province. I doubt there will be time for a tour this evening of the lower basements. I would have thought dungeons had gone out with the horse-and-buggy whip.”
    “When I was a little girl, General Boyng, the head of State Security, used to give me the loveliest dresses,” Vicky said dreamily, then added cynically, “With bugs on them so he couldrecord my daddy’s conversations with me. I did not weep when my father had him killed,” she finished dryly.
    “None of us did,” Mannie agreed. “It just would have been nicer if the destruction of the black shirts hadn’t taken the entire Empire down with them.”
    “Yes, change is difficult. You seem to have managed it better than most.”
    “Yes.” Mannie smiled at the praise. “We had the black shirts tamed and half replaced when your father chose to demolish the rest.”
    They entered what might have passed for a hunting lodge on old Earth five hundred years ago. A wood fire blazed away with cheerful snaps. A dozen men and women awaited Vicky.
    She was introduced to each one of them individually. Spouses had not been included in tonight’s invitation.
    Colonel Mary White was introduced first. A tall, athletic woman, she’d been an explorer of the southern