Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) Read online

  Mata Hari’s holo nodded, then walked around Suit to stand beside the giant dragon shape of BattleMind. “We will protect you.”

  “I know you will. And thank you,” he said, removing his mind from any linkage with BattleMind, and focusing on his nearby combat suit. Dizziness slammed into him as the stress of 15 seconds in ocean-time drained energy from his body. “Suit, lift me up with a tractor, then insert me quickly inside your interior. Now.”

  The white ceramic armor of Suit, adorned with several wolf’s heads icons, bent forward as it rear entry zippered open for him. At that instant Matt felt invisible forces lift him up from the Interlock Pit, pause briefly for the Pit’s fiber optic cable to unlink from his neck, then swiftly his combat ally swung him over and down into the interior of Suit. A fiber optic cable quickly socketed into his neck and Matt resumed his human-slow awareness of the fading battle thousands of kilometers from his ship. The rest of Hexagon Prime fleet had vaporized every slaver starship, every slaver Remote and the thousands of tiny KKVs and assaultBeads that had been ejected by the Defense Mode systems of the slaver ships. Leaving only the small remnant of ship Dodemeron that floated a few kilometers from his ship’s crocodile snout. He pushed his feet into the heavy boots of Suit, snugged his arms and hands into exoskeleton units, and felt his shoulder laser pulse-cannons whir into Ready Mode. He rose on boot Nullgrav toward the Bridge ceiling.

  “Mata Hari, pouch me out past the flexhull and pressor guide me to the Bridge bubble of Captain Markel’s ship.”

  “As you wish, Matthew.”

  In two seconds he was in dark space, moving swiftly toward the silvery grey remnant of the habitat globe. His enemy’s last refuge resembled a crescent moon piece of metal surmounted by a bubble that contained the Bridge of ship Dodemeron. His mind felt the Tactical CPU of Suit make velocity computations, vector alignments and the emission of its own pressor beam to stop Matt just three meters from contact with the Bridge bubble.

  “Mata Hari, have your complink make the Bridge skin transparent.”

  “Done, Matthew,” she said as the optical matter of the bubble became transparent.

  Before him stood the black-whiskered, black-furred, two armed and two legged body of Captain Markel of Nest Perilous from the world Rocky Talus. The giant rat occupied a Command Booth in the middle of the small Bridge, its fingerclaws resting on ship controls that no longer did anything useful. Its scaly tail was laid over one shoulder. The long black whiskers flared apart in the sign of Anger Displayed. Too bad.

  “Captain Markel, I am Matthew Dragoneaux, a Vigilante who seeks the extermination of your kind,” Matt said, his radio speech translated into Belizel by Mata Hari.

  “Your name sigil is known to me,” the Spelidon biped said in harsh Belizel. “From the public broadcasts of your attack in Omega Centauri. And from the Thuringia planet broadcast that branded you an enemy of the Anarchate. Your activity in Orion Arm is why I took my ship here, to this base in Sagittarius Arm. How did you locate this place?”

  Matt felt amusement at the Spelidon’s choice to ignore the loss of most of his ship, and his own impending death. Well, the time for amusement was past. “The location of this base and of 23 other such locations elsewhere in the galaxy were recorded in the NavCore memories of the 312 slaver starships we destroyed during the annual rendezvous near Alkalurops.”

  The black eyes of the giant rat blinked hurriedly, then stayed open as it stared at Matt’s face, now visible through Faceplate. “How much longer will I live?”

  “That depends on your answers to my questions. Good answers will ensure a swifter death. Bad answers will guarantee a long, painful death,” Matt said, making sure Suit was recording every detail of this encounter.

  “Your questions?” Markel asked as its Whiskers of Distinction drooped to the posture of Hope Abandoned.

  Matt showed his teeth. It was not a smile. “Fifteen years ago you and your crew hid inside the asteroid belt of the Human colony world known as Thuringia. Your assault shuttles landed quickly, captured forty-seven Humans for cloneslave reservoirs, destroyed homes and farms, then left the system, never to be seen again. Do you recall this raid?”

  “Possibly,” said Markel in gravelly Belizel, his snout nose lifting a bit. “My memory of ancient events is poor.”

  “Perhaps I can motivate a better memory. Suit, move me close enough to touch the Bridge wall.”

  “Yes, my good Matthew,” said the CPU in what sounded like a friendly tone. He ignored the incipient sign of emotion in Suit’s Tactical CPU.

  Suit pulled Matt closer to the transparent Bridge wall using its onboard tractors, then held him motionless as Matt reached out with his right gauntlet. Pointing with his index finger, he activated the fingertip laser embedded in the gauntlet. The transparent polymer began to bubble as green laser heat began melting it away. The polymer wall was just a centimeter thick and his laser was fairly powerful.

  “Stop!” cried Markel. “If you burn a hole I will lose my air and be unable to answer any questions!”

  “Quite so,” Matt said as he shut off the fingertip laser and drew back his gauntlet. “Your NavCore cloneslave files document a Human female known as Kristen Dragoneaux, ship ID XC3427ZipSedNine. She survived to be sold as a labor slave on planet Megil, of star Alkalurops C.”

  “I do recall the sale of that nearly hairless biped,” Markel said. “What is your interest in the biped?”

  “She was my mother,” Matt hissed, showing his teeth again. “Your ship records document that you sold her to an Anarchate merchant for twenty-three platinum Standards. What is the species and name of the merchant? And what world did the merchant call his home base?”

  Markel gripped the metal supports inside his Control Booth as if he wished to make his Booth vanish into FTL Translation. The Spelidon lifted one clawhand to scratch at a leather harness that crossed his hairy chest. “If you have my NavCore records, you know what I know.”

  “Wrong,” Matt said, moving his gauntlet toward the bubble wall. “I do not know what you may remember that is not in the NavCore record file. What species was this merchant? What name sigil did it use?”

  Markel blinked. “If I tell you this data, what happens to me?”

  “You die a less painful death.”

  The giant rat gritted teeth. “You Humans are direct, I will grant you that. My memory says the merchant belonged to the Mican species. Name of Masterful. He was an employee of Halicene Conglomerate, on leave from work at the commercial embassy on planet Working, at star Antares.” Its whiskers moved to Future Possible mode.

  “Good. A second question,” Matt said as he slowly drew back his hand gauntlet. “Another Human biped who survived your raid to be sold as a labor slave on Megil was one Charlotte Dragoneaux. Hair color red, height nearly equal to that of her mother, Kristen, ship ID XC1422HaloFourSed. You sold her on Megil. To a Meligun. For nineteen platinum Standards. What is the name sigil and work duty of the Meligun customer?”

  Markel blinked slowly, as if tired. “My NavCore data told you what you just spoke. Why do you need more?”

  Matt moved his gauntlet back to the polymer glass wall and activated his fingertip laser. The formerly hot spot glowed red and began to bubble again. “Your records do not include the data I asked for. Your memory surely has that data. Or do I detect a refusal to answer my questions?”

  Markel let go the handrails inside his Command Booth and floated freely within the booth since power to the Bridge gravplates had long ago disappeared. Its whiskers moved back into the position of Hope Abandoned. “The Meligun’s name sigil was Nak ho-mesk. His work duty involved interstellar money transfers. By people and groups lying outside the conglomerate banking system. Like my ship.”

  Matt felt satisfied with Markel the rat’s answers. Since Markel’s data on Charlotte matched what Mata Hari had found in the NavCore, it was likely what the Spelidon rat said about his mom Kristen was also true.

  “Satisfactory,” Matt said, p
ulling his gauntlet back but telling Suit to activate his right laser pulse-cannon. “I had planned to open a small hole in your Bridge wall in order to watch you suffocate, your extremities bulge with fluid pressure and your two black eyes become blood shot until they burst in the vacuum that will shortly replace your ship air. But your memory answers have gained you a less painful death.”

  Markel’s black whiskers quivered in wild physical movement that had no meaning. “How will I die?”

  “This way.” Suit fired a green laser beam through the polymer Bridge wall to a point on the right side of the rat’s narrow neck. “Your neck will lose its attachment to your body. The loss of blood from your brain will bring an end to awareness in less than a second. Your brain will cease being aware of anything as the vacuum freezes solid your head.”

  Suit’s laser matched his words with action, slicing across the black-furred neck of Captain Markel, then switching off. The decapitated head gushed out red blood from the skull’s internal pressure, then the black eyes went dull. Its long tail fluttered away from its body as all muscle control was lost. Air rushed out as a spray of white moisture beads. Matt turned away from the slaver captain. His Thuringia audience did not need to see the rat’s internal refuse squirt out into the Bridge space. His record of the interrogation of the Spelidon rat, and Markel’s admission of being the raid leader, would be enough for the relatives of the 47 captives. It was enough for him. For now.

  “Matthew, do we go first to Megil for your sister?” asked Mata Hari in his mind, her words and presence happening at slow human speed. “Or to planet Working at the star your species calls Antares?”

  “Neither,” Matt said as Suit moved him back to his ship on his chest Repulsor block. “First our ships gather at the heliopause of this system so my friends can transfer to their own ships. Then the eight of us will head for an Anarchate admin center that lies on the way to Alkalurops and Antares. I wish to damage an official site of the Anarchate. And to transmit this slaver interview to Governor Metzenbaum of Thuringia. Along with our data on which of the 47 captives died and which survived to be sold as labor slaves. Their families need to know this.”

  “Reasonable,” Mata Hari said as she pouched open the flexhull of Mata Hari and Matt landed inside his Bridge even as a tractor field kept ship air from escaping. “The star of this admin center? And then, which family member of yours do we seek out?”

  Matt backed out of Suit, leaving its fiber optic cable behind, then stepped naked down into the Interlock Pit. Behind him Suit walked to the back wall and stood in place, beside the suits of Eliana, Suzanne and George. All three of whom were still in ocean-time ‘sleep’ as they completed the cleanup from the destruction of the slaver asteroid base and 22 starships and shuttles. Behind his neck the fiber optic cable of Pit slithered into junction with his neck socket. He looked to the right at the holo forms of Mata Hari the Spy and BattleMind the black-winged dragon.

  “My friends, after the heliopause rendezvous, we will travel to the nebula Dumbbell M27, which lies on the way back toward Sol space. At star CC3214 inside the nebula there is an Anarchate admin center on the third planet of the F2V star. We will destroy the center,” Matt said even as his mind projected images of the nebula on the front holosphere. “Then we will head for planet Megil, to seek out my sister Charlotte. Only this ship will enter Alkalurops C system, camouflaged with a different ship shape and a ship ID from the destroyed Commerce Station records. The other ships of Hexagon Prime will materialize beyond the Alkalurops C heliopause, with the local sun between them and the Anarchate base on Megil. The gravity wave pulses from their arrival will be partly blurred by the local sun’s gravity field and neutrino emissions.”

  Mata Hari’s Spy holo walked over to Matt, then knelt down. She put a solid-feeling holo hand on his right shoulder. Her mind touched his via optical neurolinking even as his mind felt her awareness and emotions.

  “Matthew, I am glad for you that two of your family survived the slaver raid on Thuringia,” she said softly.

  Behind Matt the Spine hallway hatch opened and in walked the holo of Mata Hari’s ‘mate’, the AI Gatekeeper. Resembling a Greek farmer dressed in mud-splattered overalls, the AI had chosen to walk into the Bridge rather than just ‘appear’. Matt liked the AI’s effort to appear human-like.

  “I too am glad for the news of your surviving family,” Gatekeeper said in a warm voice. “ Will you, Eliana, George and Suzanne enjoy a picnic in my Park habitat, before they leave for their ships?”

  Matt knew a visit to the Park habitat at the end of the Spine hallway would be joyful for them all. Grilled steaks, fresh lettuce from a vegetable garden maintained by Gatekeeper, a bottle of Morrigan wine, and a tin of chocolate would be ideal before his fleet headed off to new battles. Plus, he and George would learn how well chocolate acted as a ‘real’ aphrodisiac. For certain their lifemates would be eager to taste something that could only grow on Earth. Cocoa beans were very particular.

  “Yes, Gatekeeper, we will enjoy a dinner meal in the Park later today,” Matt said, wondering just how human-like the AI of the former Omega Casino was becoming. “As we head for the heliopause. While we could Translate there directly since the world nearby is not inhabited, and Translation quakes will not move the planet from its orbit, still, I think spending a few days to reach the heliopause is warranted by our efforts here. It is not every day we destroy 22 genome slaver starships, plus a refitting and recreation base for cloneslavers.”

  Gatekeeper stopped beside white-dressed Mata Hari and reached down to take her holo hand. “Agreed.” Mata Hari stood up with a happy smile on her face. “Will BattleMind join us in the Park?”

  Matt, seated in the Interlock Pit, looked up at the giant dragon whose holo shape stood behind Mata Hari and Gateway. The T’Chak AI’s dark red eyes, white teeth and shiny black wings filled half the Bridge. Its mind now slid away from even peripheral contact with their minds.

  “While our perfect masters ate organic food, such is not necessary for a mind like mine,” BattleMind said aloud, the deep bass of its voice filling every crevice of the Bridge. “You organics must have your . . . non-duty time. Playtime I believe you call it. Myself, I will evaluate interstellar conditions around the three locations you have mentioned as possible targets.” Its holo began to fade. “Perhaps there will be a planet suited for avians like me. Perhaps I could holo-fly through such winds. Or pretend to fly.”

  The holo disappeared. Matt blinked, feeling surprise.

  “Why do you feel surprise, Matthew?” asked Mata Hari as she stood hand-in-hand with Gatekeeper.

  He chuckled. “Your AI progenitor BattleMind just made a joke.”

  “Joke?” she asked. “How?”

  Settling back into the Pit’s glass chair, Matt smiled. “How can a two kilometer long starship go ‘flying’ among the winds of any planet? And BattleMind’s holo lacks the substance to do such. Which is why he said ‘pretend’.”

  Mata Hari smiled slowly. “Oh? How do you know that BattleMind lacks substance? Have you tried to feel his holo shape lately? As you can see, I have substance. Enough substance to hold hands with Gatekeeper.”

  So she did. Matt gulped.

  “Remind me to not get in the way of BattleMind when he is in a hurry.”

  Suzanne Magnusdottor smiled at the mental image of Matt being surprised by the behaviors of the three AIs on board his ship. Her former work as the Information Technology manager for Omega Casino had taught her that extremely complex algorithms like those which worked together to form the ‘awareness’ of AIs exceeded her abilities to write code. Or even to image code that replicated human emotions, feelings and thoughts. But one of the amazements of the Anarchate was that true, people-like AIs were a fact of life. And from briefly sharing the mind of the T’Chak AI Eternal Love, in the Small Magellanic Cloud, she had a sense of how that AI had ‘budded off’ infant minds that eventually become the 507 minds of Cloud Fleet. It was clear to her that Gatekeeper
and Mata Hari were ‘in love’ just as much as she was in love with George. The thought of whom made her feel warm inside.

  The blue mind cloud of Lorelei, her own ship AI, grew in her awareness. “Suzanne, what do you think will be the outcome of this ‘love’ between Mata Hari and Gatekeeper?”

  “Whatever they choose to make of it,” she said, recalling the love of her parents when they had lived in the coastal town of Skelleftea, on the Gulf of Bothnia, on old Earth. Before they left for their colony world.

  The AI shifted from cloud to the shape of a female T’Chak. She flared her wide wings. Red eyes fixed on Suzanne. “And what could I become in the future?”

  Suzanne resisted the temptation to use her psychic precognition to look a year or more ahead. Earlier glimpses of the far future had shown her all members of Hexagon Prime were still alive, despite ferocious and dangerous battles. To her, that was all that mattered. Any, the further she and Eliana looked ahead, the hazier the timestrands became, until they resembled a giant bush with thousands of branches. Clarity of the future only happened as people made choices and thus reduced the future probabilities. But her friend wanted an answer.

  “Lorelei, you could become the leader of an Ocean Fleet cohort in our larger effort. Or you could decipher just how the Dark Energy stardrive of the Bogean Harmony actually works. Would be great if all our ships could have that drive and then emerge silently from FTL transit,” she said with a mental nudge.

  Lorelei came closer, leaned down and wrapped her wingtips around Suzanne. Her crocodile mouth barely opened. “You organics are so nicely unpredictable! Your emotions and feelings lead in so many directions,” whispered the AI who had become as close to Suzanne as George had become. Which reminded her.

  “Thank you, Lorelei. But pardon me as George and I leave ocean-time. We have plans for a fancy meal in the Park, topped off with wedges of dark chocolate!”

  CHAPTER THREE