Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) (33 page)

The Spelidon’s whiskers moved into the mode of
Arrogant Bemusement. “No doubt my supervisor will feel some relief. After all, you and I are the known targets of this Human, not High Commander Brrzeet.”

Yorkel wished he could feel
amusement at the social emotion machinations they were arranging. But the degree to which the destruction of the pillar would emotionally affect the Human was unknown. He just knew, from basic social tactics lessons, that targeting an item your enemy felt emotionally attached to would motivate that enemy to action. Hopefully action based on emotion rather than rational, thoughtful planning. This Human had already destroyed nearly a hundred battleglobes in his various attacks. He did not wish to see what lengths the Human would go to in his cloneslavery campaign if he thought his birth world were at risk.

Matt
sat naked in the Interlock Pit of
Mata Hari
, ignoring the beauty of the starry sky that filled the space about HD 86523, a B3V main sequence white star that held a gas giant suitable for refueling by the fleet. He ignored the automated Supply sleds that moved from each ship of Ocean Fleet to the local gas giant’s atmospheric refining station. He ignored the record of hydrogen, helium, ammonia, methane, nitrogen and similar Jupiter-like gases that the station sifted for hydrogen isotopes. Even though the minds of Eliana, Suzanne and other members of Hexagon Prime were watching the same tachnet holo he was, he kept his thoughts to himself. As much as he could.

“Matthew,” said Mata Hari in
a concerned mindvoice that his fellows could also perceive. “The destruction of the Memory Pillar on Thuringia is an effort to make you react emotionally.”

“I know that!” he
yelled harshly. “It still hurts. And it says, as the galactic tachnet report states, that cloneslavery is an approved and legal commerce in the Anarchate.”

Matt fixed his gaze on the seventh replay of the destruction of the Memorial Pillar in the plaza that fronted on the White House of Elios Port. Instead of using a
krypton-fluorine laser to vaporize the stone, which included flat images of the 47 people kidnapped by the genome slaver ship fifteen years ago, Commander Chai had chosen the way of melodrama. He had hired alien laborers from the port to use sledgehammers to take it down. Seeing the images of his parents and four sisters splintered into fragments felt like a kick in the gut. Which surely every human on Thuringia felt, judging by the circle of police hoverjets that some governor named Metzenbaum had ordered out. To keep the gathered crowd of Elios residents from attacking Chai and his workers. As no doubt they would have tried. Only to be arrested and sold into labor slavery by the Anarchate officials who watched from a nearby hoverjet. Among the officials were Sector Captain Yorkel, a giant yellow ant easy to spot.

Keeping his lifepartner Eliana at a mental remove hurt. As did keeping
away Suzanne, George, Rafael, Toktaleen, the AI Flowering and Sarah, a Thuringia native. “Sarah, why do you think the Anarchate did this now? Rather than earlier? Or later, after they caught me?”

Sarah’s classical Greek profile moved her attention from the holo each saw within their own Bridge to focus on Matt. Her face looked drawn. The blue eyes seemed watery. Yet her jaw muscles
clenched tight. “To agitate you, of course. But also to shift the blame for the pillar’s destruction from the Anarchate to you. You heard the tachnet report. They are doing this because of your attack on the Omega Centauri Commerce Station. They imply that other humans are more reasonable than you. And they included a statement from Earth’s president that she deplored the destruction of the station.” Sarah paused, then wiped wetness from her eyes, moving in slow real-time. “They want you to attack them. They think you have only seven warships. If we attack Sector 14 Intelligence headquarters near the Crab Nebula, they will be waiting for us. With a lot of battleglobes.”

“Matthew,” said Eliana softly, her pale white face showing her own strain at the desecration of the pillar. “The tachnet report says the Anarchate
is gathering a dozen genome slaver ships at their Crab Nebula headquarters to interrogate ship captains over living conditions provided for captives. The tachnet report quoted intel officials as feeling sympathy for any suffering by such captives.”

“Bullshit!” snarled George, his
bulldog face contorted as angry disgust spilled out. “The Anarchate takes bribe money from the slavers so they can attack colonies before they can defend themselves. It was documented in the ship NavCores we recovered at Alkalurops!”

Rafael smoothed his black mustache, then shook his head sadly. “The mention of the slaver ships being held
near Crab Nebula is an obvious effort to draw Matt there. As was the release of Chai’s presence there when Yorkel was cornered. Now, it seems the two of them are good buddies in destroying the pillar.”

“Bet you the two of them headed for CC93721 right after this was broadcast,” said Suzanne, her blond curls looking a bit ragged after three days in Translation. “We are only a thousand light years closer to the Crab Nebula, here at this system. It will take almost two weeks to get there if we leave now. Matthew, what do we do?”

Matt reached out with his mind and gave a warm mental hug to everyone, even the Brokeet pilot Toktaleen, who’d done fine work during the Vela naval base battle. “My friends, members of Hexagon Prime, we will re-enter Translation once every ship is refueled. Then we head for the Crab Nebula, not the Sector 14 Intelligence base at CC93721.”

Sarah,
the expert at organizing, looked puzzled. “Why the Crab Nebula, rather than the intel headquarters star?” She looked around the mental community they all shared thanks to implanted tachlink nodes. “No one can live near the Crab Pulsar, or even within the 11 light year reach of the nebula’s expanding gas cloud. Why would we go there, Matthew?”

“Camouflage,” he said, calling up an astronomy file image that he rotated in three dee within their shared mind communion. “The system is a supernova remnant that emits x-rays, gamma rays and radio waves
at a ten tera-electron volts strength. The Crab pulsar at its center spits out hard radiation at a spin rate of 30.2 times per second. Think . . . think of a tornado that is light years in size, with its winds being deadly radiation. But if we exit Translation just inside the nebula’s synchrotron wavefront of blue emissions, our gravity wave pulses will be over-ridden by the pulsar’s emissions and the ionized filaments that will surround us.” Matt pointed mentally to a spot where the color changed from pale blue to purple-red. “There. We can exit Translation there and not be detected by the Intelligence star base that lies forty light years away.”

Eliana’s beautiful aquiline face turned from the holo image to him. “But Matthew, exiting within the Crab Nebula itself will subject every lifeform in the fleet to killing radiation. Right? Or wrong?”

“Right.” He waved to cause another similar holo to appear beside the Crab Nebula holo, showing 506 starships at the point he’d picked. “But if we immediately raise our Alcubierre space-time shields the moment after we materialize there, the shields will absorb all the radiation. And we will stay in ship-to-ship communication via tachlink. That way Hexagon Prime and the rest of the fleet will know when to head for the headquarters itself. Which I will locate on my own, using Mata Hari herself.”

“What!” cried Eliana, her
tone fearful.

“No way!” growled George. “You gotta have backup!”

“Why go alone?” asked the yellow mindshape of Toktaleen, father to a Brokeet family that Matt recalled seeing right after the Alkalurops C system battle.

Holding up a mental hand to call for patience, Matt smiled at his friends. That shocked them into silence.

“Hey, did you folks forget about the gifts we got from our Bogean Harmony friends?” He paused as Mata Hari, following his thoughts, inserted images of the two devices. “One was the Stasis Beam, which we used to good effect as we neared planet Megil during the second Alkalurops battle. The slaver ships in orbit we put to sleep. So we could recover captives like good Toktaleen and his family. Well, a second device was the Dark Energy stardrive. Recall that when we first encountered the Bogeans their ship did not emit a gravity wave pulse even though it arrived at FTL speeds?”

Eliana’s fearful look eased, but her concern was obvious. “So? Sending
Mata Hari
into system CC93721 where you will face scores, maybe hundreds of battleglobes, is insane!”

Matt kept his mental smile. “Friends, battlemates, I plan to travel from the Crab Nebula to the Intelligence headquarters using only the Dark Energy stardrive. We will arrive quietly, undetected. With our Alcubierre shields up, we will be invisible. I wish to scope out the layered defense that Sector Captain Yorkel will no doubt establish to welcome us. And to locate which
base node holds Commander Chai. Once I have that data, I will tachlink share it with you. Then our Ocean Fleet of T’Chak Dreadnoughts will materialize close to the Intel space base. While the fleet fights and destroys Yorkel’s battleglobes, I and George will take our Suits out into space to do some hunting. For Chai. For the cloneslave captives. And for anyone else who thinks cloneslavery is just fine!”

The AI Flowering inserted a yellow cloud that conveyed a T’Chak neuter mentality. “Fellow lifeforms, and Matthew, why try to capture this Commander Chai and other lifeforms? Why not use just Hexagon Prime to exit close to the base’s star and cause it to go nova with our Bethe Inducer? Surely that is most efficient.”

“Agreed!” roared the mindvoice of BattleMind, who’d been hovering on the edge of Matt’s mental communion. Usually the giant T’Chak dragon stayed out of their discussions unless there was destruction to be done. Not now. “Why waste time on this two-step attack? It seems inefficient.”

“Sneakiness,” Matt said still smiling mentally but adding a sense of firmness to his mindvoice. “BattleMind, we have aroused both Combat Command and Intelligence Command of this sector to attack us. That has not happened in millennia, according to the public Anarchate history
. But there are fifteen other galactic sectors of the Anarchate. Are they taking any precautions against us? What of the Council of Sixteen? Are they directing Chai and Yorkel and other officials of this sector? Allowing me to sneak into the Intelligence space base allows me to attach some of Mata Hari’s limpet complinks to the node globes that make up this spacebase. As we did with the slaver ship in Morrigan system, then later in the first Alkalurops battle, we can scan the memory Cores of this base for such information. Or collect encrypted comlink chatter for later analysis by our AI comrades.”

Eliana threw back her black hair. “Screw sneakiness. I’m coming with you on
Mata Hari
when you enter that system! I’m your partner!”

“Me too,” grunted George, his facial expression one of grimness. “You
will include me in the node search effort while you are in-system. I can do more than be a backup gun platform!”

“Include me,” said
Sarah softly, her tense look now one of determination. “Chai and Yorkel destroyed the Memorial Pillar. It was my world’s honoring of our lost citizens. As you recall, Matt, I grew up knowing of their loss, then hearing about the pillar while in Commerce School. I should share your risks.”

Rafael, Toktaleen and
Suzanne also moved to demand inclusion. “People!” Matt said loudly in mindvoice, his smile becoming the look of a Vigilante on a Hunt. It was a look that often kept aliens some distance from him. “I’m the Vigilante who pledged a
geis
obligation to protect worlds from harm, to provide some kind of justice, and to bring hope where there was none. This is my duty. It is my obligation. And, George, yes you will accompany me since I will need backup and more eyes than those possessed by Suit, Mata Hari and BattleMind. But the rest of you will stay with your ships. I need you to bring Hexagon Prime fleet to my personal location, while the Cohort leaders will bring Ocean Fleet into direct battle with Yorkel’s defense line of battleglobes. A lot can happen in short seconds and minutes. I need the combat smarts of each of you, especially Suzanne’s fleet maneuver innovations, in order to buy me time to grab Chai, secure intelligence and most of all, to rescue the slaver captives that will be located next to the space base.”

Suzanne’s
hazel eyes showed puzzlement. “Matthew, why will the slaver ships be located close to the space base? Why not elsewhere in the system, or surrounded by the defending battleglobes?”

“Because Yorkel is a smart adversary,” he said, mentally replacing the Crab Nebula holo with one of the nine hundred habitat globes connected by access tubes that made up the space
base of Sector 14 Intelligence. “See this image from the memory Core of that data crystal we recovered from the Intelligence Dome at SAO 47250? Before the Zeta Serpentis casino attack? It shows what the base looked like less than a year ago.”

“I see it,” said Suzanne impatiently. “
A cluster of hundreds of white globes. So what? How does that affect Yorkel’s choices?”

Matt tried to relax in his glass chair. But his mental communion tenseness carried over and muscle relaxation did not happen. “Well, Suzanne, it affects Yorkel this way.
The orange-yellow star that is CC93721 has no planets, just a ring of asteroids, gas and dust. And not long after the Crab Nebula’s giant star had its core collapse and became a Type Ib supernova in 1054 A.D., the Anarchate visited this region. They located CC93721 and decided it would make a fine base for Sector Intelligence due to its lack of planets. And due to the high radiation emitted by the Crab Pulsar that makes this a rarely visited locality. Yorkel knows the system’s layout as well as we do. So, I am betting he will place his battleglobes into defensive shells. With the slaver ships at the center of his defense shell, sitting beside the base. Thus forcing us to come to him in order to reach Chai and the captives.”

Eliana reached out a mental arm to touch Matt’s shoulder, conveying a sense of warmth, love and support. “But why do you need to go into the system with just
Mata Hari
and George? What do we gain?”

Matt loved her touch, her sympathy and her support. He needed it the way most lifeforms needed to breathe. He reached a mental arm over to hug her close, and offered her a genuine smile. “We gain specific knowledge of the location of each battleglobe, their numbers, the x-ray Picket Glob
e locations, the presence of any high-megawatt mining lasers similar to those Yorkel used before, and we may detect any new combat surprises.” Matt paused, drawing in the mental attention of Mata Hari and BattleMind. “My AI friends, while I can be a sneaky human in battle tactics, some aliens can be equally inventive. And dangerous. So scoping out the opposition before we attack is vital. Will our 507 warships be enough?”

“Enough!” sputtered George. He pulled at his thick black beard. “We have never faced more than forty battleglobes. We can take this installation.”

Matt nodded slowly, but then portrayed a new system holo for their mental perusal. “That was in the past. What if we now face a hundred battleglobes. Two hundred? More? The Anarchate records from the Intelligence Dome say Combat Command possesses 11,321 Nova-class battleglobes. Plus thousands more Courier ships, Supply Tubes and millions of offensive Remotes and sensors. So what do we face? We must know before we risk Ocean Fleet.”

Toktaleen the Brokeet pushed forward his mindsense. While his mind was encased in a globular yellow head with two eyes and two sensor antennae, the alien’s mind depth was deep. Which was perhaps why he had done so well in lightspeed neurolinking during the recent battle.
Toktaleen clasped his upper arm pair over his thorax. “Allies, fellow bipeds, what Vigilante Dragoneaux warns about is very possible. Most citizens of the galaxy never even consider the idea that the Anarchate could disappear. Or be defeated. There is a reason for that. Their Central Nexus admin world has devices that destroy any unwelcome vessel which approaches to within a light year of the home star. Their organization into sixteen galactic sectors allows for efficient administration. And their refusal to interfere in planetary affairs allows them to reserve their combat forces for use against anyone who wishes to change the system. As we are attempting to do. This next battle will determine whether we survive to battle in the future. Or whether we will be overwhelmed and dispersed. Accurate intelligence is vital to the survival of Ocean Fleet. I support the Vigilante’s plan.”