Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) (29 page)

“We can pretend innocence,” O’Clery said in a dry voice. “We descendants of the
Tuatha De Danaan
learned to do that when we were occupied by the Vikings, the British and others. This is our homeland. A true Emerald Isle in the stars. And we are no different from other Earth colonies, except for your rescue of our citizens. And the giant ‘Thank You’ party we gave when you landed with them in Lisdoonvarna.”

Matt smiled as he recalled Mata Hari’s nearly solid holo image dancing across the giant meadow of the city’s central park. In his mind Eliana, Suzanne, George, Sarah and Rafael also smiled or chuckled as they relived those wonderful memories.
Mata Hari’s nearby holo turned to his two Morrigan guests.

“
That party was a wonderful experience for me and for my partner Gateway,” she said, her holo persona changing from the frilly white Victorian look of her Spy persona to the cotton dress look of her Summer Girl persona. Dark eyes focused on Matt, Immovable, Airmed and Balor. “I can dispatch a limpet complink for attaching to the Defense sled we left you so its unthinking mind has no knowledge of our prior attacks. The casino refugees were always restrained during Matthew’s combat actions. You can insert data worms into your planetary datanet that will cleanse any private discussion of Matt’s crusade from the civil databanks. Any Anarchate visitor will recover only the news from those few days of anger at the attack, your tachlink contacts with us, the joy of our bringing home your captives and the casino refugees, then nothing afterwards beyond your official appreciation. Agreed?”

“Mata Hari, yes, dispatch your limpet complink with our corvette when Balor and I return to Morrigan,”
Airmed said, then squeezed his bare shoulder. “Matthew, you and your AIs are a marvel. Without your aid, fifteen of our citizens would be zombie reservoirs of DNA for sale to cloneslave factories.” Airmed stood up. “Even today we would be hard pressed to drive off another genome harvester ship without the marvel that is your Defense sled. So thank you again, from my people and from the love that we Irish always have for a great hero who fights for justice and honor.”

“Just doing what I promised to do.”
He smiled physically and mentally. “And Airmed, you and other colonies in Orion Arm will not have to worry about cloneslaver raids for some years to come. Thanks to our battle at Alkalurops C.”

Balor slapped his right
hand against his chest in the Morrigan militia sign of allegiance given. “Vigilante Dragoneaux, we may have to keep secret your future efforts to end cloneslavery in the Milky Way, but my children’s children, who even now study our recent history, will know of the honor that your
geis
bestows on us.”

Matt recalled his promise to his dead love, Helen Sayinga Trinh, to always offer help to any world that sought his Vigilante help. “Thank you, Balor
,” he said, recalling his oldest sister Charlotte. “While I fight the Anarchate for the life and liberty of everyone, human and alien, the young ones especially motivate me. No one should lose sisters or brothers to cloneslavery.”

Eliana and Suzanne suddenly appeared in separate holos on the Bridge. “Balor,” said Eliana’s holo, “we women here and among your Morrigan volunteers go to battle for life, though we bring death to some. Suzanne and I agreed long ago that we do not want our children to grow up as bondServant slaves.”

Airmed O’Davoren nodded tightly to the two women. “We understand. Our hero Cuchulainn honored one
geis
only to violate another
geis
laid on him. He too faced hard choices. But we all remember him. We all honor him.”

“And, Matthew Dragoneaux,” Balor murmured, “honoring the
geis
laid on you by your woman Trinh, pursuing battle to save souls from slavery while bringing justice to worlds in need, is the highest duty any man can carry out. Whether you overthrow the Anarchate, or just save the lives of millions, your name will be long remembered among the human and alien worlds.”

Airmed
linked arms with Balor. “Matthew, follow your
geis
. Strike against the Anarchate ships and bases until they, like Conglomerate Melikark, change their behavior and outlaw cloneslavery. If they refuse, then our world and other worlds will do it for them. With your help.”

Matt stepped out of the Interlock Pit to stand with the holos of his allies human and AI. A whisper sounded as his
yukata
robe dropped from the Bridge ceiling. He donned it quickly as his two guests reached the Spine pressure door. “Airmed and Balor, thank you for your pilot volunteers. Thank you for the normality of that party. And thank you for standing with me against the Anarchate.”

The two turned
his way, with Balor silent but Airmed showing a serious face. “Matthew of Thuringia, Balor and I, we too follow our own
geis
. We put our lives in the way of harm to our fellows. As you and your AI allies do. Go now and battle, knowing that we are your refuge and your future home.”

Matt bowed slightly, thinking of how much the citizens of Morrigan risked if it was discovered how they helped him and his fellow pilots. Then again, it seemed the entire Irish population of Morrigan followed a
geis
that matched his own. With a sigh, he mentally asked his allies to prepare for Translation and be ready for the attack on the Sector 14 naval base at Vela HD 81471 system, about 1,200 light years from Morrigan. It was an attack that neither Chai nor Yorkel could predict, but an attack that would surely worry them. And perhaps the Council of Sixteen.

Toktaleen of the Brokeet, home world Cloudy, of the Nest Adventurous, stood in the Interlock Pit of the starship
Gondu
, feeling bewildered by his elevation to serve as pilot on one of the eight T’Chak warships which made up Hexagon Prime fleet. A term that carried some sense. As did his service to Vigilante Dragoneaux, of the Newcomer species Human, who had saved the lives of him and his family. But he did not understand the lack of a price for their salvation. When none had been demanded, he offered himself as a pilot volunteer.  After all, in the Anarchate, nothing came free.

He and Sickanoon, with their newly birthed infant, had
expected only eventual death once sold to the Flesh Markets of Alkalurops. It was their curse to live when other captives died since Brokeets needed less water than most species. But then everything changed. One moment they suffered in the dark cargohold of the genome harvester starship, the next they were being fed and sheltered aboard the incredible starship
Mata Hari
. Fellow bipeds of the Human species had also been recovered by the Vigilante, but that was not the reason he and his family were rescued. And there was no demand for indentured bondservitude or the promise of their future offspring for sale. His lifemate had spoken with other species females, then clicked to him that the soft-skinned, pale-colored and two-armed Human had declared war on the Anarchate and aimed to abolish cloneslavery once and for all. Hence their rescue and freedom. Astonishment still filled him.

“
Pilot Toktaleen,” murmured the AI Gondu in his mind, “feel your astonishment at another time. We are within forty
nitas
of leaving Translation and this ship must be ready for lightspeed combat and to serve our part in protecting starship
Mata Hari
from attack by thermonuke sleds. Are your brain lobes ready for Systems Checkout?”

Toktaleen refrained from reaching back with an upper arm to feel the neural cord attachment point of the fiber optic cable that allowed
him to optically neurolink with a self-aware computer intelligence. With a thought he activated the inertial field that would brace him as his body and mind responded to thousands of inputs from the Pit and from distant parts of this alien starship. “Yes, my brain lobes are ready. All three of them. Though it seems as if you, partner Gondu, have thousands of them.”

The
mind image of a two-winged, two legged, two-armed and purple armored reptile who stood three times taller than he did, emitted the sound that Humans called a laugh. Unlike the leg rasp normal to civilized Brokeet. “You begin to show signs of humor, small Brokeet. That is good. Our allies of the Human species place much value in finding humor during times of high stress.”

“And your perfect organic masters the T’Chak, did they ever exhibit this humor you so value?”

Gondu slapped the mental floor with her spite-tipped tail, then showed the white teeth lining her long mouth. “In a sense. The Human term would be ‘dry humor’. You Brokeet would call it a ‘slow rasp’. Now, come with me as you become simultaneous with this ship.”

Ocean-time
switched on in his mind and Toktaleen felt as if a giant whirlpool now pulled his mind and his self under, below the surface of normality. With a sharp intake of air through his spiracles, he let go his attachment to ‘slow time’ and entered the realm of picoseconds, nanoseconds and long milliseconds. Thousands of inputs and hundreds of images impacted various parts of his brain lobes, cross-linking with physical parts of him. His feet became the deut-li fusion pulse space drive, while his waist arms became the six Alcubierre space-time emission nodes that protected the ship from all matter and energy weapons. His upper arms turned into the black wings of a T’Chak. Each wing carried three neutron antimatter cannons that were fed by three of the onboard fusion reactors. The wings could also twist him in space, move sideways, lift the ship on Repulsor blocks, or bring it to a full stop. Eventually. Exiting at three-fourths lightspeed was both an advantage and a problem since it took normal time to slow down. Anyway, it was his ponderous abdomen that housed the superweapons of the T’Chak. They were the Sun Glow neutrino beam, the quark-based Graviton Beam that emitted coherent gravitons and the axial Plasma Cannon that shot out two hundred meter-wide globes of purple plasma. They made him feel bottom-heavy. Still, those weapons were the wonder of the T’Chak and the AI Gondu. He preferred to operate normal weapons like the antimatter cannons, HF and CO2 lasers, pressor and tractor breams, and slow solid matter weapons such as the Fire-and-Forget missiles.

Gondu piled more inputs into his mind, his awareness, feeling both eager and anxious. “Hurry, please, organic Toktaleen. I understand you had less time for pilot training than the other organic pilots, but your species is well-suited to neurolink combat.”

Toktaleen recalled the memory sharing by Dragoneaux, which included the counterfire efforts of Yorkel, a fellow Brokeet. However, Yorkel belonged to the Nest Aggressor of the colony planet Jagged Land. So he owed no Nest duties to Yorkel’s nest, thus making him free to fight Yorkel as if the other sought to claim his wife and offspring for his own nest. Such was normal among the Brokeet. All nests valued members who could protect their offspring source. Which may be why his Nest Adventurous did not pursue the genome ship that raided the countryside of his newly inhabited world. He had failed to prevent the capture of his lifemate and his infant. Or perhaps they did pursue and were left behind. His knowledge of the Morrigan cloneslave raid, its abrupt ending by Dragoneaux, and the Vigilante’s decimation of the slaver fleet near Alkalurops C star, told him that those who chose work as genome harvesters now faced a deadly enemy. He gave thanks that he had lived long enough to see someone work to end the Anarchate’s tolerance of such an uncivilized practice.

“Speeding up now, Gondu,” he said, wrenching his mind away from distractions. Telling the reactors to feed more antimatter to the magfield reservoirs for the cannons, he initiated the creation of a plasma ball deep in the base of the Plasma
Cannon. Spitting out a plasma ball, along with hundreds of sensorRemotes and tachRemotes, was the first duty of every ship when it exited Translation and entered normal space-time.

“Good. We exit . . . now!”

Eliana’s precognition told her that she and the other ships of Ocean Fleet faced a multi-layered defense by the Anarchate naval base that occupied the fourth planet of system CC8733, a G1V yellow neighbor of the supergiant star Vela HD 81471.

“Should we change our Translation exit to a point closer to planet three?” called Suzanne over their telepathic
mindlink. “Who cares if we cause earthquakes from Translation exit?”

“That would only leave untouched the combat systems that would pursue us as we exited,”
Eliana said, musing over their options as most of her mind sped along in
ocean-time
linkage with the ship systems of
Altuna
, and the mind of Altuna herself.

Altuna entered the outer, non-psychic parts of hers and Suzanne’s minds. “We could exit near the G1V main sequence star, activate our Bethe Inducer, and move the star into a nova phase. Then Translate out. The nova’s expansion of its corona out to the orbit of planet four would destroy the base, while its charged energy fields would damage or destroy all the
Remotes the base has seeded in this system.”

Eliana, mentally tracking the short
milliseconds before they exited into the system, thanked her allies for their tachspeed help and reached over her embedded tachlink node to Matthew and Mata Hari.

“Matthew, have Mata Hari change our exit coordinates to the space between planets four and five. That is where most of the active duty battleglobes congregate,” she said, feeling the surprise in Matt’s mind as she issued a command that would cause all 507 T’Chak warships to make a
sudden change in their exit location. “Yes, I know it’s a bother to switch from our planned entry just beyond planet seven, but it will give us the most combat targets, versus shooting down thousands of combat Remotes.”