Vicky Peterwald: Target Read Online Free PDF Page A

skull.
    N OW YOU CAN TALK TO ME WITHOUT HAVING TO SAY A WORD, formed in Vicky’s mind.
    W E CAN TALK, AND NO ONE WILL KNOW WHAT WE’RE SAYING, Vicky thought back.
    E XACTLY. Y OU WON’T HAVE TO HOLLER FOR HELP, JUST THINK IT. S AME FOR ME. I F I SEE TROUBLE, YOU’LL KNOW BEFORE ANYONE CAN SHOUT IT.
    J UST LIKE K RIS CAN DO. I COULD GET TO LIKE THIS.
    A LL PART OF THE SERVICE FROM N EW B EST F RIENDS, I NC.
    Y OU’VE MADE A GOOD START AT EARNING YOUR PAY. N OW, MAKE ALL THIS KEEP ME ALIVE.
    T HAT’S THE PLAN.
    Vicky had other plans to think about while others packed.
    What to wear?
    She was returning to the Navy. The white dress she’d worn for the interview would be totally out of place among the more puritanical officers of the Imperial Navy. She chose a simple shipsuit, though of imperial purple, not the usual Greenfeld green. She subdued the imperial by wearing the proper shoulder tabs of a Navy lieutenant.
    She was ready well before the twelve hours were up.
    Right on time, Admiral Gort himself led an honor guard of two dozen Marines and several Sailors to Vicky’s room. The Sailors took over responsibility for hauling away her trunks and gear. Doc Maggie joined them at the last minute and added her few things to the collection of baggage going to the
Stalker
.
    On the quarterdeck, Captain Drago himself was there to see her off.
    “Good luck,” he told the admiral. “With her aboard, you’ll need it.”
    “As I hear it, your own princess did a good job of making her own good luck. Is all your damage aft?” Gort asked with a snide grin.
    “We must share a bottle of scotch when you’ve sailed with the Grand Duchess for three months,” Drago said dryly in reply.
    The two exchanged salutes. The admiral saluted the flag aft, and then it was Vicky’s turn. She departed the
Wasp
as smartly as the admiral, and they marched, him at her side, for where his battlecruiser lay at the next pier.
    Several newsies tried to jam mics in Vicky’s general direction, but the Marines moved swiftly enough to keep them at a distance, and if a few reporters got elbows in their guts, surely it was an accident.
    Admiral Gort paid proper honors on his own quarterdeck, and Vicky did the same.
    “Walk with me,” were the first words he exchanged with her.
    She followed him to his in-port cabin. Only when the door closed behind him did he let his face show anything but bland, military neutrality.
    When he turned on her, he was livid.
    “How could you make such a spectacle of yourself?” he demanded.
    Vicky braced, like she’d learned under Admiral Krätz’s tutelage, but she was not the green recruit anymore. “I might have acted differently if I’d known that you were coming, sir.”
    “Have you heard of communications, Lieutenant? You could have sent us a simple message.”
    Vicky felt the blood drain from her face. She had never thought of something so simple as sending out a message. Besides, she had no idea who to address it to. Her dad? The Navy? She hadn’t the foggiest notion who, in this situation, she was supposed to report to.
    She blurted that out, ending with, “It’s not like this has ever happened before.”
    The admiral paused, his mouth half-open for some retort. He closed it, then snapped out, “What were you doing on that Kris Longknife’s ship, anyway?”
    That one Vicky had an answer for. “There had been three attempts on my life. It seemed safer on the
Wasp
than on the
Fury
.” Vicky paused for just a second. “And the
Wasp
is over there tied up at the pier, and the
Fury
is nothing but atoms. I think I guessed right.”
    The admiral studied her for a long moment. Vicky studied him right back. He was young to have his own flag; his black hair was showing only flecks of gray. His uniform still fit him trimly; he carried none of Admiral Krätz’s middle-aged paunch. Vicky couldn’t think of this man in the fatherly way she had the older admiral. The Navy officer in front of her was more a big