Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) (31 page)

Rage shook Ioannis. “If you so much as—”

“What!” Matt roared back, curious to see his opponent’s reaction.

Ioannis’ mouth closed. His eyebrows beetled with analytical calculation. One stubby-fingered hand thrummed on the metal tabletop as he inspected his sister’s employee. “Sooo. Your price has now gone up. How much?”

Matt laughed. “Despot, you misjudge me by assuming I am your duplicate. The price is the same. But only I will say when the battle is finished. Understood?”

“Understood.” In control of his emotions now, Ioannis turned coldly impersonal. “Do you plan to destroy Zeus Station?”

What the heck?
“Ioannis, what do you mean?”

The Despot shrugged, face still frozen, mood glacial. “You act as my enemy. I must assume that is your eventual intent.”

Matt sighed, rubbed the back of his neck where the cable entered, and then folded both hands together, in full view of the Despot. As if he’d made a decision. “You’re wrong, Ioannis. Zeus Station serves the interests of both you and the Derindl. I would not destroy it . . . unless it were controlled by Legion.”

“So you say. What are your current plans?”

“Why, it should be obvious that Halicene Conglomerate will try to repair the Stripper. Failing that, they’ll try to put a new one in its place. Remember the contract?” Ioannis winced. “Corporate minds are the same the galaxy over. They will keep on ravaging Sigma Puppis system . . . until it becomes too expensive for them to do so. Mata Hari and I plan to raise their operating costs—substantially.”

“Good.” Ioannis simmered. “But how?”

Matt chose to change the subject. “By the way, have you gotten your Genetic Primary carrier downplanet to safety?”

The man grimaced. “I know my business. With Spyridon running around loose, downplanet may not be so safe.” The Greek sat back in his chair. “Now tell me, how will you defeat the Conglomerate?”

“Watch and learn, Despot. Good day.” The holo blinked out.

Matt felt new worry over Ioannis’ evasion of his question about the status of the colony’s Genetic Primary carrier. With a man like Ioannis, he could predict the Despot would keep the carrier close by, under his immediate control. But the person chosen to be the carrier of the colony’s genomic Library, the gene codes that spelled out how to create crossbreed children with the Derindl, was worth a lot to a genome harvester, or a corporation like Halicene. Ioannis risked the future of his colony by keeping the carrier nearby, in space and vulnerable to capture. But Matt couldn’t fix all the problems of Olympus Colony . . . .

He looked aside at the Pit wall. Several screens showed the Combat Alert data field—all local system traffic, outgoing starships, the registries of each ship, Halcyon atmospheric traffic, mining activities in an asteroid belt far out in the system, and scores of other spaceborne parameters. At present they orbited below the track of Zeus Station, but well above the usual satellite belt one finds around any spacegoing planet. Since they weren’t in geosynch orbit, there were times when they were out of direct line-of-sight of Zeus Station. During those times, his minisats and picket lines of sensorProbes covered those quadrants. Strange that there’d been no sign of the Halicene repair ship. Hadn’t they gotten tachword of the Stripper’s breakdown?

Mata Hari
broke in on his musings. “Matt, there’s a new call. From Autarch Dreedle. Do you wish to accept it?”

Under the lightbeams of the Pit, half in cyborg-link with an entire star system and half limited to slow, organic real-time chitchat, he shrugged, his skin rippling to autonomic moods. “Yes. Put her up.”

The red-haired, slim Autarch Dreedle took form in the forward holosphere. It looked as if she spoke from some kind of genetics laboratory, rather than her Trunk office.

“Good day, Autarch.”

Dreedle nodded, her chin moving down and forward. “Greetings. Our heartfelt gratitude to you on the defeat of the Stripper. Are the ecotoxins gone from our planet?”

“Yes, they are. And where are you?”

Dreedle smiled indulgently, her brown eyes flashing. “At the main Genetics Manufactory for all of Derindl society. It’s a secret location which cannot be backtracked from our signal. I came to check on our ecosystem monitoring of the Stripper area—to be sure no additional ecodamage had occurred.” She blinked slowly. “Beyond, of course, the expected pollution of our ground waters in the immediate Stripper area.”

“Of course.” At Matt’s thought-imaged query,
Mata Hari
confirmed that Dreedle’s signal was indeed untraceable, much like the last signal from Spyridon. “Autarch, why do you call . . . besides the Thank You? I appreciate that, by the way.”

“It is your due.” Dreedle smiled human-like. “And I call about the nine hundred neonatal placental units. Half are with us and half with Olympus Colony. We wish to prevent their forcible recovery by the Halicene Conglomerate.”

Ahhh
. Here was someone who thought beyond tomorrow. “A reasonable concern, since they may allege contract default. Although you could assert punitive damages before the local Anarchate provincial base. But aren’t your military forces sufficient to discourage the Halicenes?”

Dreedle leaned forward, her manner concerned. “On the ground, yes. Not in space. We have only two lightly armed corvettes for in-system security patrol. Both are in polar orbit now, on Alert. What are your future plans?”

Matt told her what he’d told Ioannis. “So you see, Autarch, you’ll still benefit from my presence.”

She smiled warmly. “Very good. And will you visit me soon to discuss . . . interspecies sharing?”

God, did every politician use sex as a tool? “Uh, not right now. I suspect there’ll soon be a lot of work to do—in space.”

“But surely—”

“
Emergency override!
” Mata Hari said, displacing Dreedle’s image with one from the picket line sensorProbes. Massive computer data files and sensor feeds flooded his brain. Even downshifted to his slower neuron speeds, it made him dizzy. Blinking, going to gestalt perception, Matt focused on the event.

“What is it?”

“A repair ship,”
Mata Hari
said urgently. “Sent by the Halicene, probably from the F5 star.” In his mind, a hurtling image resolved into a long black tube, flanked by four outrigger pontoons of unknown weapons capabilities. Then the Bridge holosphere flickered with the transferred sensorProbe image. The repair ship had Alcubierre Translated into Sigma Puppis B system just beyond its outermost planet. Already it sped inward very, very fast. It would be at Halcyon within a few hours, thanks to decel abilities that could ignore fragile protoplasmic beings. Even ships with artificial gravity, and inertial fields to keep their organics from bouncing around during vector changes, could not decel as abruptly as an AI-only occupied ship.
Sooo. It had begun
.

“Move out,
Mata Hari
.
Take up station in the sixth planet’s orbital range, among the asteroids. And bring in a few of our sensorProbes.”

“Complying, Matthew.”

Behind Matt, the Spine slidedoor opened. A Pit screen showed Eliana striding in, dressed now in a silvery jumpsuit, a puzzled look on her face. “Matthew! I heard the Combat Alarm. Who are we fighting?”

He pulled out of gestalt perception and pointed at the holosphere. “An armed robot freighter. From Halicene. Sit! I need you in the couch and under crash-padding before we engage. Hurry!”

Eliana hurried. Once seated and encased by impact clamshells, she glanced over at him, her eyes wide with concern. “Are you, will you—”

“I’ll be fine if I don’t have to worry about you!” Her look softened even as the flashing image of the robot freighter grew closer to them. “Now please, let me work. And try not to let my cyborg self upset you—I’ll be in gestalt mode and operating at the speed of thought.”

“Understood,” she said, looking secure as the accel-couch’s crash padding enveloped her with its clamshell arms. Her albino face paled. “It looks deadly, doesn’t it?”

What?
Matt had nearly gone to
ocean-time
when she spoke, her words blurring out as she spoke slower than he perceived. “Don’t worry. This ship can handle it. Now, let me work.”

Once more, the dam burst.
Ocean-time
overwhelmed him and Eliana shrank to a minor star in the constellation of his awareness.

Seven milliseconds
.

The Dreadnought-class battleship built by the ancient T’Chak aliens, a shape-changing wonder able to destroy a star, now did his bidding.

Moving swift as a hawk,
Mata Hari
left orbit at one-half lightspeed thrust. Briefly, he was pushed back into the molded-glass chair of the Pit—until the inertial fields came on. Matt didn’t notice the slight weight gain. Other things overwhelmed him. For within his mind, within his body, the avenging force that was a two kilometer-long starship changed form.

It changed into Battle Configuration.

Two seconds
.

The ocean filled him. The ocean enclosed him. The ocean sang to him. He was one with
Mata Hari, the Ship was one with them, three were as One, they had become the entity
::.

Two and a quarter seconds
.

Both biceps clenched.

Distantly, Matt felt the two pontoons of the neutron antimatter cannons power up and move to Standby.

Three seconds
.

His heart beat faster.

Within her dozen fusion power plants,
Mata Hari
sped up energy production.

Three and a quarter seconds
.

His fingers twitched.

Outside, on the outer Hull, dozens of beam-weapon projectors came on-line, spotting the ship’s skin like an attack of giant warts. Some were low frequency carbon-dioxide gas lasers, some were excimer lasers, some proton beamers, a few hydrogen-fluorine metal-punch lasers, several free electron lasers, and multiple plasma cannons, while others carried neutral particle beamers. They all flowed with energy, they all sang to him—
we are ready. Ready! Ready!

Eight seconds
.

His groin twinged.

On
Mata Hari’s
top and bottom, giant pods now protruded on pylon arms. They contained Torps ready for Defense, for Offense, ready even to give their own lives as decoys, if necessary. And as they protruded, his Hull skin flowed like water. Flexmetal and adaptive optics on the Hull moved like something alive, reshaping him into a spacegoing fortress. The silver and brown main Hull now resembled a long barrel cactus embraced by four outrigger pontoons.

Ten seconds
.

Matt clenched his jaw muscles.

The winding coils of the subatomic particle accelerators that wrapped around the Spine hallway and staterooms now glowed with energies primal, ready to feed neutron antimatter to the pontoon cannons, charged protons to the proton beamers, or pure plasma to the scores of projectors waiting to defend the ship. The plasma cannons were for close-up solid projectile defense. Nothing stopped a Nanoshell, a MIRV’d smart rock or a nuclear torp like a 10,000 degree mini-sun.

Other changes occurred inside the ship.

Fourteen seconds
.

He grasped the chair’s hand-pads.

The Spine’s airtight slidedoors all closed down, compartmentalizing the ship. Subsidiary AIs secured the cargo holds.

Sixteen seconds
.

Matt blinked.

StratTac plans were downloaded into mindless backup computers for each weapon and pod, making sure that every part of the ship would fight on even if other parts sustained major damage. Within
Mata Hari,
in deeply hidden and shielded armories, holo decoys were readied for use as diversionary tactics. Fire-and-Forget Nanoshells were downloaded with the spectroscopic signature of the robot freighter. Monomolecular armor was plated to nanoware borers. And penetrator viruses were specially manufactured to attack the silicon, germanium and gallium arsenide components of the oncoming robot ship. As for the Restricted Rooms . . . they did nothing. For the thousandth time, he wondered at their presence, then dismissed them, too busy with the change to Battle Configuration to worry about a non-problem.

Fifty seconds
.

Matt blinked again, calling for a gestalt perception of the ship.

Like a red cloud it glimmered in his mind, rushing to him over the PET relays, floating in front of him in the holosphere, flickering off the backs of his contact lenses, touching his sensitive skin. One would not think you could
see
with your skin. But you can.

One minute
.

He looked deeper.

Linking everything onboard were the fiber optic cables, the optoelectronic relays, and even onboard tachyonic senses, all making the ship a version of the old “fly-by-wire” atmosphere fighters—where you needed a computer to adjust the wing control surfaces, or you crashed.