Then she fixed Mannie with a dead serious eye. "Will the people be able to take back their city? Their planet? You told me that there were democratic elements at court. Can they succeed in leading a rebellion?"

  "Did you try to raise them?"

  "Mannie, you were very careful to not tell this damn Peterwald who they were. I don't blame you for having your doubts about me. Hell, sometimes I have my doubts about me. Anyway, I had no idea how to go about getting them to break cover, assuming they're still alive . . . and that I could trust the people who came to me claiming they were ready, willing, and able to set up a democratic government for Greenfeld and Anhalt."

  "Could you have set up a government?" Mannie asked.

  "I'm told that I took an army to fight my way in, rescue my dad, and fight my way out. I didn't have enough MPs to keep law and order in Anhalt, or any civil affairs battalions to set up and run the water, sanitation, trash removal, and electric supply departments, much less governance and judicial."

  "Oh," Mannie said.

  "Yeah. I went expecting to make one change. Grab my dad and put him back on his throne. I didn't realize I'd have to run the whole shebang by myself."

  "How is your father?"

  "It's still touch and go. He's got about half a dozen different infections, and his liver and kidneys are just this side of failure. His heart, too. They starved him for much of the last year and they went through this last winter with no electric heat. They wanted him dead."

  "And then they'd put your baby step-brother on the throne and start all over again with a pliable puppet."

  "Yeah."

  "Shall we eat for a bit? Our food is getting cold," Mannie said.

  So, Vicky ate, savoring both the food and the dinner conversation. Mannie had a productive couple of weeks. Both Metzburg and New Brunswick held their first municipal elections. The planetary government was still an ad-hoc assembly, some appointed by Vicky, some by business, and some by popular acclaim.

  Mannie was watching them carefully to spot early any backsliding. Neither he nor Vicky were sure what they'd do if someone attempted to pull a planet into strong man rule, or government by economic oligarchy.

  They'd face it when and if it happened.

  However, so far, so good. There was a lot of support among the working class and budding middle class for government by a sovereign people. Mannie called it "The Great Experiment," and said it had been tried many times.

  "How often did it succeed?" Vicky asked.

  "Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no," he admitted with a shrug. "It all depends on the people. Freedom and liberty are not something you can give people. They need to want it and want it bad. They need to make it happen. You can't just hand it to them and expect it will work."

  "Are you suggesting that I was wise not to try to hand Anhalt its freedom?"

  "I'm very tempted to tell you to grab a bunch of MPs and civil action teams and run back to apply democracy to Anhalt."

  "But you're here, eating steak with me, naked and leering at me like a husband who hasn't seen his wife for over a month," Vicky said, slowly working a slice of zucchini into her mouth with her tongue.

  "You, you little devil, are not tempting me away from my duty. I will not let you. However, I think we need to wait and see what happens."

  "It doesn't matter," Vicky said. "We'd have to fight our way back into Anhalt."

  Mannie eyed her.

  "The Grand Duke sent his Navy chasing after us. We came in a back way and missed having to fight a battle I don't know if we could have won. Anyway, no doubt the fleet is back home by now and would be waiting for us if we showed up again."

  "So, no doubt, the fleet could be used to reinstall the Bowlingame family."

  "I think we've got all of them," Vicky said. She also thought she'd eaten enough. With a lascivious grin, she led Mannie back to her bed.

  It would take explosives to get her out of her quarters tomorrow.

  Sadly, all it took was a few words from Maggie.

  27

  "Vicky," Maggie said as she and Mannie were relaxing in warm afterglow. Vicky had never realized how good it felt to have a man spooned up to her back, holding her tight.

  Or maybe it was just the man.

  That was a hard question to answer, and she was not about to crawl into several men's arms to find the answer. She liked the one she had right now.

  "Maggie," Vicky growled, but softly. It's hard to growl seriously when you're just getting your breath back and wrapped in your husband's arms. "I told you that I didn't want to be disturbed. Do I need to hit that off button?"

  "No ma'am, and we agreed that time we talked about what happened the last time you turned me off that you'd only do it if you really needed to. Now, Admiral Bolesław, General Pemberton, Mr. Smith, and Prime Minister Silverburn of Metzburg all are outside, wishing to speak with you."

  "Is this some sort of an intervention?" Vicky snapped. “Because I don't think twenty-six hours with my new husband counts as sexual addiction."

  "No, Your Grace," Maggie answered. "They have news from Greenfeld that they think you and Mannie will want to hear."

  "Can't they just tell us through you?" Vicky demanded, but Mannie was already rolling out of bed.

  "They are unwilling to, Your Grace."

  "Well, can you tell me, then?"

  That created a pause, one long enough that Vicky was out of bed and headed toward the shower before Maggie said, "I have that information, but all four of them have asked me to not answer your question."

  "Whose computer are you?" Vicky snapped, as she stepped under the shower beside Mannie. Shower sex could be a lot of fun. She grinned and reached for the soap.

  Mannie, however, offered her a washcloth and began soaping up one of his own.

  "This isn't how shower sex is supposed to go," Vicky said.

  "I know, but this isn't shower sex. This is a quick five-minute shower so we can go find out what we need to be told."

  "Maggie, tell me." Vicky ordered. She threw Mannie a pouty look. He turned his back on her.

  "Your Grace, one of the words of advice Nelly left for me to consider is that humans like to receive certain information from their fellow humans. Admiral Bolesław thinks this is something you need to hear from humans and decide what to do with."

  "I am surrounded by spoilsports who are trying to steal my honeymoon."

  "We won't count this against the honeymoon," Mannie said. "I still owe you a full twenty-six days of honeymoon."

  Vicky noticed that he wasn't counting as honeymoon the day they were interrupted. She liked that type of math.

  Ten minutes later, Vicky was in undress whites, sitting at the head of the conference table in her day quarters. Mannie was at her right hand, Admiral Bolesław at her left. General Pemberton was next to him. Prime Minister Silverbrun was beside Mannie with Mr. Smith at the foot of the table.

  Once again, Vicky had her civilians facing off against her military.

  What Vicky would have loved was a round table. One of those Smart Metal tables that Smart Metal battlecruisers had. Unfortunately, building a Smart Metal battlecruiser was proving to be harder than she had expected.

  While Kris Longknife had carried through with her promise to provide Vicky's half of the Empire with access to the Smart Metal patents, building a Smart Metal foundry was turning out to be a lot tougher than anyone had expected.

  Industrial teams on St. Petersburg, Metsburg, and New Brunswick, along with some on Aachem, St. Ekaterinburg, Poltava, and Lomza were all trying to build foundries to produce the fantastic Smart Metal. However, the process was proving to be much harder than they thought it would be.

  The process of creating the molecules of the stuff had to be done to very fine tolerances of temperatures and pressures. Such tolerances had never been required in the Peterwald Empire.

  The shipyards weren't chomping at the bit for the metal either. They needed to replace welders and ship fitters with programmers. Lots and lots of programmers. And not just normal programmers, either. Programming matter at the molecular level was an entirely new process.

  For now, Vicky settled for a table that stayed the same no matter how many people she needed around it.

  "What do you have to tell me?" she said, cutting straight to the chase.

  "I'm afraid that we have bad news and no news," Admiral Bolesław said.

  "Bad news and no news?" Vicky snapped. "I am in no mood for guessing games. Why did you drag me out here?"

  "We have messages from Anhalt," the prime minister said.

  "Yes?" Mannie queried.

  "There was an effort by several people, people I know and . . ." the prime minister shuddered to a stop.

  After a few deep breaths, he began again. "There was an effort to organize a popular takeover of Anhalt. Quite a few middle managers and technocrats did their best to organize an interim government."

  "That sounds good," Mannie said.

  "Unfortunately, they did not have access to weapons," Admiral Bolesław said. "While we did major damage to a lot of the security consultants and their compounds, they still had plenty of weapons and ammunition in scattered caches. They used them to suppress the rising. Bloodily suppress the rising."

  "The younger Bowlingame cousins stayed together just long enough to machine gun down a lot of civilians," the prime minister said. "The last we heard, however, various factions in the family were fighting among themselves."

  "Who's winning?" Vicky asked.

  "We don't know," Admiral Bolesław answered. "The fleet that had missed us and that we had missed came back. Right after it arrived, the jump and communication buoys out of Greenfeld went silent. This isn't just for Greenfeld. All along the demarcation line between our half of the Empire and theirs, the comm links are being blown to smithereens. Someone doesn't want us to know what's going on in there."

  "Were there any other risings?" Mannie asked.

  "Word got to Dresden that the Emperor was free," General Pemberton said, "and the five Grand Dukes were in hack. The people went out into the streets and were shot down like dogs."

  Vicky leaned back in her chair and palmed her eyes. Then she ran her hands through her hair. "Even with all we did, they still managed to murder people that merely wanted a say so in their government."

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  Vicky sat forward and eyed her husband. "So, what happens when the people can't take freedom and liberty for themselves because they get murdered while reaching for it?"

  Mannie shook his head and looked at his hands.

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Enter," Vice Admiral Vicky Peterwald said.

  An ensign under arms marched in smartly and presented Vicky with a clipboard. The cover sheet was bright red and had TOP SECRET slashed across it from one upper side to the opposite bottom side.

  Vicky took the clip board, flipped up the cover and read. She held out her hand to the ensign who offered her a pen. She scribbled her initials on the message flimsy, then handed it off to Admiral Bolesław. His lips drew tight as he did the same and gave it to General Pemberton. The general shook his head slowly as he read, initialed, and handed the message back to the ensign.

  "Are you going to keep us civilians in the dark forever?" Mannie asked.

  "Thank you, Ensign, you may go," Vicky said.

  The young fellow, cute as a puppy, did a smart about-face and marched for the door. Vicky waited until he was gone before saying,

  "Three days ago, our colony on Idleberg dispatched a message that a task-force sized fleet of battleships and cruisers entered their system. One cruiser was dispatched for the other jump. The same jump we got the message through. The ships did not broadcast their intentions. The colony managers knew that there was peace between the two sides of the Empire. However, they remember the war. They ordered all their towns and field stations evacuated with orders to go to ground and scatter. Maggie, could you give us a star map?"

  A moment later a star map of the Empire floated above their heads. Metzburg was a bright blue dot. Greenfeld was bright green. Vicky's half of the empire was gold, the other half black. One gold dot pulsated. It was right on the line between the two sides.

  "Is it a large colony?" Mannie asked.

  "The population is not quite one hundred thousand people," Maggie supplied. "Most are immigrants. They work the major mineral deposits that exported their products to Metzburg. More people have been brought in recently to cultivate farm lands as they are terraformed. As you would expect, most of the investment is from Metzburg."

  "So, of course, the Bowlingame bandits shoot it up," the Prime Minister of Metzburg said. "Your Grace, is there any chance that you could send a fleet to their assistance?"

  Vicky was shaking her head before he finished. "The raiding force will be long gone before we can get any ships there. Still, we have to render aid and assistance. Admiral Bolesław, could you please initiate that effort, then ask Admiral Waller to attend me? I do not want this little slap to go unanswered. However, I don't want to reply tit for tat."

  "How do you want to reply?" Mannie asked.

  "They went for tit. I intend to go for the whole bloody girl," Vicky said with intent. "General Pemberton, I will need an army capable of fighting its way in and then occupying a major industrial world until we can turn it back over to a popularly representative planetary government. I would also like several smaller task forces that can drop in on small planets and raise my flag. That last little colony out from Greenfeld, the abandoned mining colony? I think it and several other small planets might be interested in switching sides right about now."

  Both the officers were immediately busy on their commlinks.

  Vicky turned to her husband and the prime minister of Metzburg. "This time, we will need to take along civilian expertise in sufficient numbers to get several large planets back up on their feet."

  The two civilians began taking notes.

  "I need for you to provide me with everything from soup to nuts," Vicky said. "Off the top of my head, I know we need managers to oversee the power and water facilities. We can't forget sewers and garbage collection. I don't know if we can impose our own judiciary, but we will certainly need bureaucrats to run cities and planets."

  Vicky focused her attention on Prime Minister Silverburn. "We'll need people from as many planets as possible. I'd prefer not to have the population of major planets like Dresden feeling like they are being reduced to a colony of either Metzburg or Brunswick, or anywhere else."

  Vicky eyed Mannie for a moment. "Or St. Petersburg."

  "I understand, Your Grace, my wife," Mannie said.

  "But, Your Grace," Prime Minister Silverburn interjected, his voice trembling and full of panic. "What will you do to keep raiders like those that hit Idleberg from jumping in and devastating Metzburg?"

  "That is something for me to discuss with Admiral Waller," Vicky said. "A balance between defensive and offensive must be maintained. However, while the Bowlingames play their little power games, we have an opportunity to fillet most of their Empire right out from under them. They can't see past the ruby they're trying to steal at the moment. I want to take back the entire Empire."

  "Can't we just wait for them to vote themselves over to your side of the Empire?" the prime minister asked.

  Vicky canted an eyebrow at Mr. Smith, who had remained very quiet this meeting.

  "Unfortunately, Honorable Sir," Mr. Smith said, "the last planet to hold a vote to switch sides did not. There seems to be much thought that the ballot boxes were stuffed. Before all the local media was replaced by a highly censored government Minister of Information, there were reports that several districts had counted votes totaling more than a hundred and seventy percent of those registered to vote. It is often hard to get people to come out to vote," the spy said, drolly. "But to vote two or more times?"

  "Or just stuff the ballot," Mannie said, dryly.

  "It would appear that my father, the Emperor, not only lost control of his tax collectors but also his ballot counters, not that he cared all that much about ballots," Vicky muttered. "It would appear that I must also decide to ignore the ballot for the near future and begin to settle matters by the bullet. Now, Prime Minister, could you leave me with my military commanders?"

  "Of course, Your Grace, of course," he said and began to back out of Vicky's day quarters.

  Mannie made to follow. "Not so fast, my democratic husband. You stay at my side and attempt to be my conscience."

  "I didn't think that Peterwalds had consciences," Mannie said with a smile as he returned to his seat.

  "We don't. That's why we have to borrow them when we want to try acting like any other moral person."

  "You are setting a mighty high task for me, Your Grace."

  "You are my consort. It goes with the job. You didn't have to say, ‘I do,’ now did you?" Vicky retorted.

  "There was nothing else I could have said," Mannie answered, smiling.

  "Your Grace," Vice Admiral Bolesław said, "Admiral Weller will be here in five minutes."

  "Good. Maggie, get us a samovar of tea and some sandwiches. I was rousted out of bed before I had any breakfast."

  "Your Grace," Mr. Smith said through a wide grin, "but none of us disturbed you before ten."

  "None of you were supposed to disturb me before next week," Vicky shot back.

  Vicky leaned back in her chair. The star chart still floated above her head. Somewhere in there was the answer to all her problems. Her challenge for the moment, was to pull that answer, kicking and screaming, out of that map.

  At the moment, she didn't see hide nor hair of any such answer.

  That would have to change, and change quickly.

  28

  Vicky let her eyes rove around the table, and the room.

  Like so many warships of the last five hundred years, she was looking at gray on gray on gray. The deck was a darker gray, with non-skid material covering it. The bulkheads were gray, as well as the overhead. It, at least, had accents of red, blue, green, and yellow denoting pipes for hot and cold water, sewage, power, and comm lines.

 

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