Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3)

by King, T. Jackson

  The red eyes of Inevitable focused on George’s thought image of the space near the trinary star system of Alkalurops. “This ship is able to defeat any Anarchate battleglobe. As you know from your history with Matthew. And of course I will cooperate. It is why I and the other ships of our fleet were built, after all.”

  In the forward holo of his Bridge the image that was starship Mata Hari moved out of the hexagonal ring and toward the two golden objects left by the Bogean Harmony aliens. In the space beyond them, reaching out to five light minutes, gravity wave pulses by the hundreds drew his attention and that of Inevitable. The rest of the fleet had arrived, only a few hours later than the eight of them had arrived. An incredible feat, considering the 180,000 light years they had all traveled since leaving the Lacunae Mindworks and the Small Magellanic Cloud. While they had all waited at each refueling stop until everyone arrived, then left in near unison, still, such a tightly timed arrival gave him optimism about the impending battle at Alkalurops.

  “George,” came Matt’s voice over the tachlink that gave his partner instant communications with his ship and the rest of the fleet. “Mata Hari and I are picking up the Dark Energy stardrive module and the Stasis Beam projector left by our Bogean Harmony friends.” Matt’s mental image portrayed his curly black hair, wide shoulders and brown eyes that looked intense as his mind worked with Mata Hari to move to the gifts. “You and the other members of my personal command should keep an eye out for any gravity wave pulse that indicates a visit by a Melikark Conglomerate starship. They must have set up trading relations with the Harmony by now.” His battlemate paused, then moved his mental attention to other members of the Hexagon Prime fleet. “Eliana, Suzanne, Gondu, BattleMate—”

  George blinked mentally as Matt’s mindflow disappeared as he and Mata Hari repeated the same cautionary order to the other Dreadnoughts that made up his Hexagon Prime fleet of T’Chak warships. Time to go to work.

  “Inevitable, please resume scanning for new gravity wave pulses that could be coming from the direction of the Milky Way,” he said aloud and by PET image-thought. “We and the other members of the fleet must keep watch while Matt is recovering the Bogean devices.”

  “Complying, George,” came her pleasant voice as her green mindglow expanded outward in a rush that left him mentally dizzy.

  His mental dam burst as once more he entered ocean-time. Oceans of machine-fed data filled his mind’s-eye.

  The ship’s flexhull shivered in space, its shape moving into that of a two-kilometer long T’Chak dragon. The side pontoons changed into broad black wings with three antimatter projectors per wing. The nose of the ship lengthened into a crocodile-like snout where the adaptive armor plates overlapped in a manner to suggest giant teeth. The red eye-like projectors of thousand megawatt lasers gleamed brightly. And the two front nodules that projected a flat Alcubierre space-time sheet as protection against any external energy or matter went to full power. As did the Alcubierre nodes on his sides, back, belly and rear. His back itched as directed energy weapon domes popped out as armored spine nodules. His biceps fed power to the ship’s six antimatter cannons. He clenched tight his jaw muscles, bringing on-line the deuterium-lithium six fusion drive for local maneuvering as the dragon tail spat out yellow drive flares. His ears listened to tachyonic comlinks, synthetic aperture and phased array radars. His ship eyes “saw” infrared, ultraviolet, gamma ray, and radioactives. George sniffed. His ship body smelled through subtle sensors, devices that could detect biological spores drifting through space upon ancient stellar winds. Inside his chest, his heart beat. It beat in sync with the Alcubierre Drive that moved him and Inevitable from one star to another in days.

  While he knew they lay 9,421 light years from the southern edge of the Galactic Core, the attention of him and Inevitable focused much closer to home. Being alert for the unexpected was something George had learned as Repairs manager for the Omega Casino. Back when he worked for others. Now, he worked and battled for himself, for Suzanne and for an end to cloneslavery. This future battle spoke to his Irish sense of honor and duty. It was a duty he would not fail in carrying out.

  Matt perceived the hexagonal shapes of the two Bogean gift devices in multiple spectrums, even though he had not yet entered ocean-time. Time enough for that later, when the entire fleet re-entered Alcubierre space-time for the last leg of their three month long trip to the Milky Way. Right now, though Mata Hari had emitted the Friend code left to them by the Bogean Harmony starship, they must understand the nature of the two devices that floated in space, then determine how to integrate them into the workings of starship Mata Hari. While he felt intrigued by the FTL capabilities of the Dark Energy stardrive, it was the Stasis Beam projector that he most wanted to add to his ship’s weaponry. Anything that could penetrate an EMF shield and put into suspended animation the living beings who controlled an Anarchate battleglobe was a device he welcomed. While the battleglobe Tactical and CPU AIs would not be affected by the beam, the loss of their organic commanders would allow him and the fleet plenty of time to destroy a battleglobe, render it useless or allow their escape by normal deut-li thrust rather than having to Translate while still inside the gravity well of a star system. He liked increasing his options. And the surprises he could lay on any enemy.

  “Matthew,” said the red mindglow of Mata Hari. “The two devices have responded to me via a Bogean language transmission.”

  “What do they say?”

  Mata Hari’s slim white hands gestured toward a shared mind image of the two devices. “Each of them, on the same frequency, say: I am your Bogean Harmony friend. I will serve you well. Simply link me into your central thought modulus and what you wish will happen.”

  Matt eyed the two modules. The Dark Energy stardrive one was twice the size of the Stasis Beam projector. But both could fit into the belly cargohold space that also held their shuttle Ariadne. Thinking this image to Mata Hari, he gave the order. “Hey gal, please direct them to enter our cargohold and then hold on to the deckplates using their own gravity plates. We will be leaving shortly for the Milky Way.”

  Mata Hari’s mind image switched to Lady of the Sword, her slim body clothed in silvery chain mail from neck to waist, while brass plates studded a leather skirt. Her two-handed broadsword was held point down beside her sandal-shod feet. Her look was a no-nonsense glare. “So we enter battle soon?”

  “Soon enough,” he said, a part of his mind registering his ship sense that the belly cargohold’s flexmetal hull had opened and then closed after the entry of the two Bogean modules. “Share with every ship in the fleet the coordinates of the Alkalurops system. We will arrive in the deep space between primary star A and the B/C binary system. But the trip will take two weeks. And let everyone know that after our arrival far from any star, we will organize for a battle with at least three hundred genome slaver starships.”

  Mata Hari’s high cheek bones tightened into a harsh look. “Good. Those who would enslave others deserve nothing but death.”

  Matt smiled at his partner’s ferociousness. “I agree. But prepare an Intelligence sled to examine the remains for Core CPU records. I would know if there is a refit and recreation base for these slavers. If so, it needs to follow Omega Casino into oblivion.”

  Mata Hari lifted her sword with her left hand, putting its tip into her right palm. The mind image nodded slowly. “Will do. And two weeks will give me time to integrate the simple minds of the Bogean devices into the awareness network maintained by myself, BattleMind and you.”

  “Good.” Matt mind-watched as various parts of starship Mata Hari activated in preparation for returning to Translation and their entry into a small space-time modulus that allowed each starship to travel FTL within the confines of its own artificial space-time. They could communicate by tachlink with each other while in Translation. However, synchronizing each ship’s internal timeline was not easy. Although atomic timekeepers on each ship had been synchronized with the one aboard his shi
p. And as their arrival here within hours of each other showed, they could reliably arrive in a similar space-time locality so long as each ship transitioned at the same time. A sudden ache in his knees, elbows and wrists made him moan out loud.

  “Matthew? Are you functional?” asked Mata Hari, her mind image switching instantly to the Summer Girl persona.

  No secrets were possible while in mindlink. “Yes. But the slow virus has changed again and hit me with some kind of arthritis. Maybe Eliana can research a cure for me after we arrive in home galaxy.”

  His love’s image materialized in his mind, her albino white skin shinning in the light of her own Interlock Pit as she, like Matt, sat naked for optical neurolinking via low power laser beams, in addition to the fiber optic neck socket mindlink she now used to speak to him, mind to mind.

  “Matthew, I felt that. As I’m sure Suzanne did too.”

  The ache in his joints made him feel slow and aged. “You did? How? And why would Suzanne felt my aches?”

  She smiled at him, her jade green eyes carrying deep empathy for his bouts of pain and strain that were caused by the slow virus. “My psychic mindlink with you. It does not need tachyons to cross space and time. Recall what the T’Chak AI Love Eternal said about female T’Chak? And the question she asked me? We human women have the genes for psychic abilities. We just have not exercised them much. Until now.” The mind image of Eliana showed her relaxing in her glass Pit chair, one elbow on its armrest while her chin rested on her right hand. “Matthew, I felt your bouts of pain even during Translation. After Suzanne, George and I transferred to our own ships. You are always with me, my love.”

  He blinked, ignoring a separate part of his mind where Mata Hari’s Summer Girl persona had chosen to sit cross-legged on a grassy meadow, chin on hand in a duplicate of Eliana’s pose, her expression thoughtful. “Eliana, that is wonderful news. And terrible news. I did not wish to burden you with this slow virus stuff.”

  “Burden? Maybe no longer.” Her mind image shifted to her Molecular Geneticist look, the look of a young woman gifted in biological sciences far beyond his own rudimentary knowledge that he’d picked up from studying datacubes. “Mata Hari? Please enter this mindlink.”

  Matt’s mind felt nicely crowded with the mental personas, and fast mindflows, of two women who loved him and whom he loved in different ways. Mata Hari nodded from her grassy meadow. “Proceed, Eliana. I find it fascinating that your psychic abilities can cross the Translation space-time barrier.”

  His Eliana tossed her shoulder-length hair. “Well, it surprised me at first. Then I was able to feel Suzanne’s mind too as we left the Large Magellanic Cloud and entered the Magellanic Stream of hot gases. We discussed it during our refueling stops. And our link got stronger. As did my mindlink with Matthew.” Her green eyes shifted to include both of them. “But beyond the ability to mentally feel Matthew, I found that I have developed a . . . a kind of precognition. The ability to anticipate where someone or something will be, or will happen.”

  “Remarkable,” Matt said in synchrony with Mata Hari.

  “Quite,” his love said as the short tail from her Direndl crossbreed ancestry wrapped around her naked waist. “But just now, the pain Matt felt from the onset of the new incarnation of the slow virus did more than just hit me mentally. It conveyed a sense of where the slow virus will next be in Matt’s body and biochemistry. In particular which chromosome and gene segment it will next infect. I am sending you, Mata Hari, a mind image of the retrovirus anti-viral treatment that will zap this new incarnation of the slow virus. Along with the epigenetic protein triggers that will allow the anti-virus to latch on to the new incarnation of the slow virus. It will kill it. For good.”

  Matt shuddered at the thought. An end to his slow virus ailments? An end to painful periodic surprises as his body came down with Super Flu, then muscular dystrophy, and this case of swollen joints? He had assumed it was just the long-term price he must pay for saving Eliana’s planet of 900 million from destruction by the Halicene Conglomerate’s mining Stripper. It had been with him ever since Legion the Mican had infected him with it during his battle on Zeus Station to return control of the station to Eliana’s brother Ioannis. “That . . . that would be wonderful.”

  She smiled at his weak reaction, knowing the body drain each new slow virus incarnation inflicted on him. “More than wonderful. It is the final defeat of Legion. The bastard!”

  Matt’s inner mind wondered if the Micans, who resembled a tiger-griffin of ancient Earth, even possessed the concept of illegitimate births. He licked his dry lips as Mata Hari caused a servebot to bring him a globe of water. Giving thanks he was hearing this news in slow human time versus sped up ocean-time, he gave a smile to a concerned Eliana and a frowning Mata Hari. “Yes, ladies, that is good news! Thank you. And I am sure the Biolab, under Mata Hari’s guidance, can formulate the anti-viral retrovirus treatment. I look forward to it.” He paused, thinking about Eliana’s revelation of the trans-spatial reach of hers and Suzanne’s psychic powers. “Eliana, I noticed your ship Altuna and Suzanne’s ship Lorelei arrived here within milliseconds of each other, exactly ten light seconds apart. Was that due to your mindlink between each other?”

  “Yes,” said a smiling Eliana as she brought up a mental image of Suzanne, inviting the woman to join their mindlink and make it a four-way confab. “Suzanne, image-think to Matt your ideas for how to use our psychic precognition in future battles with the Anarchate.”

  Suzanne the Swede appeared in his mind’s-eye, sitting nude in her own Interlock Pit like Matt and Eliana, her pale Nordic skin showing brown freckles all over. Matt thought the freckles looked nice on her. Suzanne’s pink lips curved into a relaxed smile.

  “Thanks, Matt!”

  Realizing every level of his mind lay open to potential visitation by the two ladies and Mata Hari, he mentally gulped, gave a half-grin and shook his head in real-time as, in the back of his mind, Mata Hari showed him the locations for where the Dark Energy stardrive module and the Stasis Beam projector now resided inside the starship. “Uh, hi there Suzanne,” he said lamely. “Still getting used to this mindlink with other people. Mata Hari and I are used to instantly being in each other’s mind via the tachlink embedded behind my left ear. It supplements the lightspeed mindlink we have over the fiber optic cable. But feeling other minds in my mind, like clouds or true images of you, well, I’ve only experienced that a few times before. And having BattleMind and Mata Hari sharing my mind is different from this tachyonic mindlink with you two. Or not, in truth.” He gave each of them a big smile and a sense of his acceptance of them as complex, deep-thinking people who were every much a part of his anti-cloneslavery crusade as he was. “Uh, Suzanne, you had some psychic advice on battle tactics?”

  The blue-eyed woman whose embroidered dresses were the template for Mata Hari’s Summer Girl persona changed in his mind to convey a sense of a corporate manager about to render a presentation to fellow managers. She looked the same, physically. But her mental image now conveyed a kind of seriousness he had felt from Mata Hari as she fought the genome slavers beside him, and perhaps the way Eliana had felt during their political battles in orbit about her home planet Halcyon, just before the Mican and the Anarchate ships had shown up. Suzanne’s long blond eyelashes blinked. “Matthew, your Eliana and I can do with each other, all the time, what we now do with you and Mata Hari via tachyonic mindlink. We did it during Translation. We even do it when we are sleeping, as shared nightmares and urgent memories told us during the trip back here.” In his mind her body image nodded sideways to the mind-shape of Eliana, then further to the Summer Girl persona of Mata Hari. “While tachlink with dispersed sensors gives you advance knowledge of where an enemy lightspeed beam will impact, allowing you to shift ship position, or to fire weapons in anticipation of their changed position, this psychic link does all that and more.”

  “In what sense?” he asked, enjoying the feel of the four of them mentally relaxin
g on a grassy meadow, like the one in the Park habitat at the rear of the ship.

  Suzanne lifted a mental hand and pushed back her long blond curls. “Uh, mind if I signal George to join us? He should know what we’ve just discussed. And the psychic tactical value I wish to share.”

  Matt mentally slapped his head with a baseball bat. Stupid him to not invite in George earlier. Even as his recrimination blossomed, the black-bearded image of George joined them on their mental grassy meadow. Like them he was nude, and sat cross-legged, though with his hands in his lap. As all of them were doing that in order to keep the mindlink from turning sensual in tone. Suzanne waved at her George, blew him a kiss, then reached over to hold his hand mentally. Which Eliana now did with Matt, conveying a sense of touch based on their months together. Mata Hari, as quick as thought, brought her AI buddy Gatekeeper into their mindlink conference. The human-like bodies of the AIs sat naked like the four of them, holding hands like the humans, and their minds were similarly focused on serious business. Suzanne looked to Matt.

  “Good. Matt, you and Mata Hari have used your tachlink and ocean-time mindspeed abilities to destroy every Anarchate battleglobe that has gone up against us. And you adjust just as quickly to the unexpected, as happened when that proton beam slashed into the bedrooms of Rebecca and her family.” Suzanne looked around mentally, gathering in their attention. “That linkage is wonderful and we newbies are glad to be invited to join in by way of our own fiber optic sockets. And by feeling our own ship like a suit of clothes via the constant lightbeam contact with skin that happens when we walk the corridors of our ship. But being able to anticipate Anarchate battle moves, even to sense what might happen months ahead, will be essential to our future battles.”

  “Essential?” Matt queried even as Eliana sent him a mental For sure statement to his mind alone.

  “Essential,” Suzanne said in her Information Technologist manager voice. “The Anarchate is alert and aware of your efforts. While a slow organism to arouse, once aroused it has tremendous resources it can deploy against us. And anywhere we are likely to appear.”