Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) (25 page)

“It’s just part of me,” came the calm mindvoice of Eliana. “Back home on Halcyon I had to pretend to be human-normal while growing up, even as the Direndl part of my nature told me to run and hug the nearest Mother Tree branch.” Her albino white face smiled at the memory ech
o. “Pretending to be one person while existing as another person is normal. For me. And for dear Mata Hari, as you may recall from her Lady of the Sword persona during the genome harvester raid.”

“Watch out, George!” called Suzanne’s mindvoice.

A thermonuke sled had just dropped its stealth camouflage directly in front of the vector he was following toward the shuttle. The sled activated its deut-li fusion pulse drive, then seemed to jump toward him as the sled dumped antimatter into its exhaust. It would impact his front Alcubierre space-time shield within a second. Unless he acted.

“Right wing AM cannon, hit that target!” he mentally ordered one of his ship’s antimatter cannons. “CO2 and HF lasers, fire at a ring of space lying just outside the sled’s position, in case other sleds are hiding in stealth!”

A blue-white blast of total matter-to-energy annihilation filled the front holo and his mind as the AM cannon blast impacted, while thousand megawatt laser pulses drove through the outflowing gases in search of hidden targets. One part of his mind noticed two eddies in the outflow of AM blast gases. With a thought he re-aimed two hydrogen-fluoride lasers to target those eddies. Smaller explosions happened almost immediately given the lightspeed nature of his weapons and his optical neurolinking with his partner.

“Well done!” said the soft voice of Inevitable. “I and several other AI partners had computed you organics might try to sneak in other stealth-hidden thermonuke sleds that would be partially covered by the gases of the first sled’s destruction.”

George noted in one part of his mind that the fleet warships had encountered nineteen similar hide-the-sled efforts by the group of fleet AIs who were guiding the Anarchate Defense effort. In three cases the central warship missed detecting the hidden sleds and was impacted by 30 megaton blasts. Simulated of course. But even though the nose shields dropped in those cases, the encircling warships extended their own nose shields to cover the center ship’s missing Alcubierre shield. And the extension happened within five femtoseconds. The fourteen other cases of stealthed sleds resulted in their destruction by protective cross-fire or impacts from the fleet’s own thousands of nanoRemotes that could impact a hidden ship, tachlink-signal that data to a nearby T’Chak warship, and have the hidden sled destroyed even though the nanoRemotes did not survive impact. George felt new amazement at how a battle could begin and finish in tiny parts of a second. Thank god for tachlink!

“Agreed, George,” murmured Inevitable as the white teeth of her snout closed around
a cluster of sensorRemotes. “If we did not have the ability to see enemy vector changes that are instantly reported to us by our tachlink Remotes, we could be damaged.”

Recalling the loss of Ocean
AI, and the more recent death of a cloneslave woman captive during Matt’s attack on the Halicene shipyard, George felt grimness settle in his gut. While he, Matt, Suzanne, Eliana, Sarah, Rafael and their Morrigan allies had the advantage of superior warships thanks to T’Chak superweapons, still, they could be hurt. And the Anarchate had more than eleven thousand battleglobes in their Combat Command. While most Anarchate military forces were spread around the five arms of the Milky Way, still, their effort to overthrow a two million year-old galactic system was audacious. Or insane, according to their opponents Chai and Yorkel. And perhaps to many alien cultures that had known only the existing anarchy of the Anarchate. After all, if the Anarchate leaves your planet alone except for the payment of annual taxes, while your species can travel the galaxy selling one’s assets, why seek change?

Eliana’s mindvoice broke into his ruminations. “George, you know why we have to fight this battle. See
this image from Matt’s memory of working as a cloneslave decanter?”

An
image of a alien fetus filled George’s mind. It was one of dozens held in placental tubes that Matt and other decanters worked to extract. So the cloneslave infants could be made into perfect servants for whomever bought them. He understood Matt’s choice to work in order to survive. And survive he had. Taking up the job of being a Vigilante for hire, to help bring some degree of justice and hope to isolated planets and peoples, was Matt’s early way of fighting against the Anarchate. It was a commercial anarchy created by the sixteen interstellar corporations whose members made up the Council of Sixteen. Those sixteen beings never left the Central Nexus admin planet of the Anarchate, a place lying deep within Norma Arm that was heavily defended. For now, Ocean Fleet struck at the installations of Sector Fourteen, which included segments of Norma, Scutum-Crux, Sagittarius, Orion and Perseus arms. The Milky Way had long ago been split into sixteen triangle segments that speared out from the inner Core region. What he and Matt did now had upset a few of those segments. Perhaps when they attacked Sector 14 Intelligence headquarters near the Crab Nebula the lifeforms in charge would wake up to the wrongness of what they permitted.

He smiled at the concerned look of Eliana. “Thank you, good lady. Yes, I know why we have to fight. And win. And seek to harm as few people outside the Anarchate as possible.”

Suzanne’s golden mindsense flowed into his, carrying both her face and the feel of her inner spirit. “My love, what we do now is essential. You do not awaken a monster by nipping at its toe-claws. And once we awaken the Anarchate, we will have to split the fleet into many segments for more Hit-and-Run attacks.”

“Will we win the war?”

Suzanne’s face looked sideways to the mind image of Eliana, then back to him. “Good George, I cannot see that far ahead in time. Our upcoming battles, yes, we will win. But there will be surprises, difficulties and more casualties among our forces.”

“You? Eliana? No!”

Suzanne shook her head. “No, George, she and I are sisters of the mind and of the heart. We will survive our battles. As will Matt and you and Sarah and Rafael. Beyond that, the haze of time obscures my reach forward.”

George nodded mentally, aware that the battle simulation had finished and that his mindpartne
rs now were these women, Sarah and Rafael, and the AIs Altuna, Lorelei, Gondu, Imperial, Flowering, BattleMate and his own Inevitable. She of the black wings and green mindglow who felt as real to him as his human fellows. “Thank you, partner in mind and in love. Thank you, my Suzanne. And yes, we must be ready with a trained battle fleet when Matt arrives. Eliana, is he on the way?”

Their crossbreed friend of the albino white face and
jade green eyes showed a ‘distant’ mindsense, then grimaced. “He has decided to fight one more battle on his way here.” She lost the ‘distant’ look and fixed on the human and AI minds who were in tachlink communion. “My friends, Matt will call me shortly. And I must be there for him. So goodbye to you all. And may our volunteers enjoy a well-earned rest aboard their own ships!”

Matt mentally viewed the three dee graphic of Sector 14 Naval Academy, which orbited a yellow G-class star that lay on the outskirts of Owl M97 Cluster. Translation travel always left him feeling bored, unless he was weaving or playing with the puffer fish in his aquarium. They were two days past the battle at Halicene shipyard, and on the way to Morrigan. But the nanobyte datacubes resting in his visual cortex had a bad habit of popping
data into his mind’s-eye on any matter that he thought about. He had been thinking about just where Commander Chai and High Captain Yorkel had learned their naval tactics. The answer, according to both the Intelligence data crystal he’d stolen from the Intelligence Dome at SAO 47250 system and the datacubes, was this place.

Before him floated
a near copy of Earth. The planet Salem was a watery world with the land being mostly archipelagoes and volcanic seamounts. There was one equatorial continent with a central plateau much like the Tibetan plateau on Earth. Except this place was warmer, had rivers flowing through it and had been colonized by many Anarchate species millennia ago. The native Dweedle species were two-legged, two-armed mammals who bore a striking resemblance to the sloths of Earth. Their four-clawed hands had evolved as the species dug burrows to hide from six-legged predators. As they gained intelligence and began growing crops, they developed a system of matriarchs who spoke for each family, clan and city-state. The Anarchate naval academy occupied a high bluff where two rivers joined to form a wide, shallow river that eventually became a waterfall dropping off toward the southern ocean. While the Dweedle worked willingly in mines and on food farms, they kept to themselves. Their technology had not progressed beyond that of 1920s Earth, after the arrival of Anarchate occupiers. But their astronomers had mapped the six other planets in their system. And discovered how vital was the single moon that orbited their planet to the rise and fall of tides, and the growth of sea-life.

“They are an interesting lifeform, Matthew,” said Mata Hari in her Spy persona. She fingered the pearl broach that was affixed to her high-necked, frilly white dress that bespoke a 1912 party style. “There is no need to vaporize the planet in order to remove the academy.”

“Agreed.” Casting his eyes over the planetary holo he noted starship shuttle launch facilities lying beside the high rises, domes and cubes of the academy. Defensive anti-missile and anti-ship sites were at the north and south poles of the planet, each site automated long ago. In orbit was an ancient battleglobe hulk that, according to records, could not move but was a source of class pride. Two other armed and mobile Nova-class battleglobes were always near the planet Salem and its moon Lileen. Sensing his interest, Mata Hari expanded the holo to depict the layout of the six planets and outer cometary cloud.

“What is your wish, Matthew?”

He gritted his teeth. “To hit Chai and Yorkel in their gut! If I destroy the naval academy where they learned how to be the ship commanders they now are, it will hurt. It will hurt every battleglobe captain in Yorkel’s fleet. It may even make them so angry they do things out of emotion, rather than logic. Understood?”

Mata Hari stood tall, slim and thoughtful in his mind. Her dark eyes, long black hair and amber skin suggested a Eurasian heritage that did not match her Dutch birth. But it did match the grown woman who had created a persona of sensual intrigue that had proven highly useful during parties for high-ranking German and
Russian generals. Everyone who saw her perform in Paris hoped to bed her. The smarter men admired her at a distance, understanding the danger of being too confiding after a bout of love play. But many generals had believed themselves immune. Which is how she became a great double-agent for the British and French. She lifted one slim white hand, palm outward.

“Understood. You wish to make them incautious, Matthew. But why?” Mata Hari flashed him an image of the 506 T’Chak dreadnoughts that now made up Ocean Fleet. “We have a massive fleet. It is nearly invulnerable. Your Eliana, with the help of Suzanne and George,
has been training the ship AIs and human volunteers in fleet maneuvers. Why hit them in their gut, to quote your phrase?”

Matt knew the answer. He knew that he still hurt from the loss of Marilyn Bochansky, the mother who’d died in front of her daughter. William Bochansky had hugged his sole surviving daughter Colette as
Matt sought to console the husband and father. The man’s anger at the death of his wife Matt understood. He had lost his first love, Helen Sayinga Trinh, to a raid by resource pirates on their freighter as they fled to a Sixth Wave colony. Now, his Eliana was at risk. Even though she had the immense powers of a T’Chak warship at her command, still, he feared for her.

“Matthew?” called
Eliana across the thousands of light years that separated them. “You are planning another battle before you join is. I see it happening. Must you?”

The tachlink node behind his left ear gave him and all the ship captains instant mental contact with everyone else, thanks to optical neurolinking
and FTL tachyons. Eliana’s sudden appearance in his mind was always welcome. He missed her. With a sigh he gave Eliana a half-smile. “My love, you are correct. As I was sharing with Mata Hari, I think it a good tactical move to destroy the naval academy where Chai and Yorkel studied. Do you foresee any major problems with my plan? Or within the star system of Salem?”

Eliana’s green eyes bored into him even as her facial expression went ‘distant’ as a part of her mind looked ‘ahead’ in the time streams. She blinked slowly. “No, my Matthew. No major problems. Or even small ones. So long as you leave the planet intact and the Dweedle species alive, our future crusade will not be harmed. But . . . but I foresee Chai and Yorkel being rather ticked off at your action.”

“Good!”

Mata Hari joined their mind conference, folding her legs under her to sit on the grassy sod that
filled the Park created by Gatekeeper. Her own AI lifepartner, who was more than the stocky, grey-haired Greek in khaki pants that his holo showed. Gatekeeper had taken on the job of working with the 72 alien and human captives he had rescued during the attack on planet Megil of Alkalurops C system. He nodded to the brown cloudmind who was Gatekeeper. Mata Hari smiled briefly.

“Matthew, it is good that you remember this ship is for more than achieving your personal vengeance. We have other lives to preserve. And other lives to lead in battle. Eliana, have you gained many pilot volunteers from Morrigan?”