Eliana focused on a data input from Altuna. “No, all are fine. We left the refueling station 507 ships strong and we arrived here with that same number. Thank the spirit!”
Suzanne sent her a warm mindsense of support, caring and shared shock at the hellish conditions of the inner nebula. “Well, Matt was right in saying we should hide out here. Even if our gravity wave pulses were picked up by the Intelligence base, no one would believe any starship would visit this inferno.”
Matt’s mindtouch, filled with his sense of determination, duty and persistence, flowed into her mind as her lifepartner reached out to all members of Hexagon Prime over the tachlink node shared by all. “Good. The fleet is stable. George, can you slide over here to Mata Hari and join me? I’m looking forward to the havoc two guys in combat suits can finagle!”
Eliana smiled even as Suzanne did the same. These two guys were almost like kids, sometimes. Other times they were so deadly serious it made her wonder about the future. But they were all a team now. A team committed to ending a kind of slavery that victimized young babies. A slavery that imprinted those early minds with an ‘Obey or Feel Pain’ pattern they would feel every day of their lives. She shivered, trying not to imagine her future children being subject to such a monstrosity.
“Eliana,” called Matt in private tachlink mode. Which was kind of hard considering how every mind in the Hexagon Prime fleet shared the same mind field.
“Yes?”
“Mata Hari kept me safe for seven years. Trust in her. Trust in my ship. Believe in us.”
Her heart swelled. Wetness touched her. She reached out mentally to give Matt a hug and a kiss, and a promise of personal time for the two of them once this battle was done.
“I will, Matthew,” said, enjoying the feel of his mind, the reddish-brown of his face, the sparkle of his eyes and his feeling of inner love for her.
He nodded, gave her a smile, then shifted his mindsense to address the entire hexagon crew. “Friends, allies, good AIs, Mata Hari, BattleMind, George and I leave now for the Sector 14 Intelligence star. You should hear a tachlink call from me within a day or less. Forty light years does not take long to cross in Translation. And even less time on this Dark Energy stardrive, Mata Hari tells me.”
Eliana’s mindsense observed George entering Matt’s ship dressed in his white armor combat suit, its outer layer stenciled with the Running Wolf logo of Matt’s Vigilante work. She gave a mindwave to them, to all her Hexagon Prime allies, then focused on working with the Cohort leader AIs on ways to dodge kamikaze attacks by Yorkel’s fleet. She also reached out mentally to the forty Morrigan pilot volunteers, seeking to reassure them that their arrival in place like this was not an error. Or a sign of suicidal planning by her Matthew. Like her, she felt they needed reassurance. As did every human in Ocean Fleet.
Matt thought flying through Elsewhere-Elsewhen by way of the Dark Energy stardrive was . . . fascinating. Unlike the greyness of Alcubierre pocket universes that everyone used for FTL travel, this FTL universe showed star and galaxy dots just like the normal universe. Only in this parallel space-time, space itself was bright and matter was dark. Dark stars. Dark planets. And bright space. When he’d asked Mata Hari how the Dark Energy stardrive works, she said it relates to seven billion years ago when the universe began expanding faster than expected. The negative vacuum energy pressure that happened shortly after the Big Bang, during the Inflationary Epoch, had a second period of inflation. It became known as Dark Energy. Or the Cosmological Constant of the Lambda-CDM model of human cosmology. That Dark Energy inflation effect continues to drive the outward expansion of the universe.
He felt her in his mind. “So, dear partner, this Bogean stardrive hitches a ride on the Dark Energy that fills all space-time?”
She wore her Summer Girl cotton dress, since they were in no danger from the Anarchate or anything else. Her lips curved in a smile that betokened inner amusement. “Matthew, your mind has cyborg supplements that allow you to think faster and more expansively than any standard human. But explaining how the Bogean stardrive ‘links’ to the Dark Energy that surrounds us would be . . . hard for you to understand.”
He grinned and sat back in the Interlock Pit, happy that he could speak and think at human real-time speed. “So tell me what is important about the Dark Energy stardrive. Beyond the fact that it works.”
“What matters is that it provides FTL travel at twice the speed of the Alcubierre pocket universe stardrive, with no emission of gravity wave pulses when you exit,” she said, changing their mindsense to the green meadow of the Park. She sat down, pulling him with her. They sat and listened to buzz beetles flit over the small lake. She focused on him. “There is, as you saw on our first Bogean contact, just a mild microwave haze that surrounds the starship as it arrives. But as most star systems are filled with radio and microwaves from local gas giants and stars, it is unlikely our arrival just outside the asteroid belt of CC93721 will be noticed by anyone or anything.”
“How quickly will you raise our Alcubierre shields?”
“Within six femtoseconds.”
That was faster than any detection-response action they had yet recorded for a battleglobe on combat patrol. And such reactions were due to ship Combat CPUs being set on Auto-Fire mode, since no organic crewman could react within those tiny portions of a second. “So our own neutrino emissions from our fusion reactors will be absorbed once the fields go up?”
“Yes, Matthew. As has been the case in prior battles.” Mata Hari turned her face to him, her dark eyes full of depths he knew only slightly. “What are your worrying about, Matthew?”
He dipped his bare feet into the wetness of the pond, feeling amused that a mental water dip did not require actual drying off. “What you heard Eliana and Suzanne say before we left for the Crab Nebula. What combat surprises will Yorkel have for us? Will there really be living captives on the cloneslave ships? How many battleglobes will be lying in wait?”
The amber skin of Mata Hari that showed through the thin summer dress fabric tensed. “You are worried about something else. What?”
He bit his lip mentally, existing both in the Interlock Pit and in the mindsense meadow of the Park. “Myself. My emotions. I cannot allow our enemies to manipulate me by dangling cloneslave captives in front of us. I must be smart, think of this battle from an asymmetric warfare point of view, and most of all, I must be able to turn away from something that tugs at my heart. If it means we will win this battle.”
In their joined mindsense, Matt felt Mata Hari squeeze his hand. Much as Eliana often did. “Your human emotions are such a gift to me and to Gateway. They give us so much greater depth than simple facts and data inputs. But finding the right algorithms to express them within myself and within Gateway are not easy. You humans do it by intuition. We AIs know nothing of intuition. Let alone precognition. Does Eliana feel we will win this upcoming battle?”
He recalled their last mental moments together. “Yes, she does. She describes an incredible flurry of hundreds of starships striking out at each other. There are hundreds of matter-to-energy explosions. She could not track the movements of me and George, but she said there are living captives present now, in the Intelligence system. She is . . . optimistic that Hexagon Prime and Ocean Fleet will overcome a deadly opponent.”
“Good.” Mata Hari let go his hand and stood up. Her persona appearance changed instantly to that of Lady of the Sword, dressed in silvery chainmail, a leather skirt, a leather headband to keep hair out of her eyes, and holding a long broadsword in both hands. Her eyes held the fierceness of a hawk. Much as she had looked when her holo had joined him and George in the attack on the Morrigan slaver ship. “Ready?”
“Gotta call George up from the armory.” He glanced back to where their two combat suits stood against the back wall of the Bridge. Did Suit’s Tactical CPU miss him? The CPU was not an AI, but it knew how to improvise. And how to relate to him as part of the cyborg unit that was himself and Su
it. “Is exit that close?”
“Yes.” She occupied a full-size holo to his left, the sword pointing forward. “The Bogean stardrive is fast. Very fast. We exit within two minutes. I’ve sent a call to George.”
“Good.” Matt turned to the front holosphere and to the racks of grey instrument modules that filled the Interlock Pit. Sitting back, he sent out a mental PET image-thought. The fiber optic cable that permitted true lightspeed thinking at computer speeds snicked into the socket at the back of his neck. He felt the ship, its wings, its reactors, its weapons and its multi-sensory abilities as if they were a suit of clothes, well-fitting after long wear. Most of what he needed to do for imminent arrival in normal space-time he did by instinct and by mental autopilot. But the preparing of sensor Remotes, tachlink Remotes and a few Offense sleds for departure before the Alcubierre fields came up required intense focus. Splitting his mind into dozens of segments, while keeping his awareness of all, he waited for George’s arrival and their entry into hostile space.
Yorkel was here. Chai was likely here. The cloneslave captives were here. What else awaited him?
Yorkel stood within his Captain’s Booth aboard the new Defiant battleglobe, his old Bridge crew filling a half-circle of touchpanels and holo input pedestals. While he was in mental neurolink with ship systems and the scores of offensive ship modules and projectors, his neurolink, like that of every captain in the fleet, moved at the speed of thought. Fast compared to physical action by muscles and chitin-limbs. But still much slower than the basic AI that oversaw the hundreds of servo sensors and Tactical CPUs that would respond first to any attack. He looked right to Malel, his executive officer.
“Have the last battleglobes formed into position, honored Malel?”
The four-legged Orko turned to him even as a scaly arm waved over two holo pedestals. “They have, Sector Captain. Every one of the 160 battleglobes that make up our fleet is located within fifty thousand nipads of each other, so their lasers and antimatter beams can offer backup fire on targets.” The two scaly ears of his highly competent assistant flapped outward. “The ‘special ships’ are hiding in the belt, while the modified Supply Tube ships are dispersed as you ordered. As this holo shows, we present an outer shell of eighty battleglobes, a middle shell of sixty and a final, inner defense shell of twenty. This ship lies within that final shell, not far from the dozen cloneslave ships. Further inward are the habitat globes of Sector Intelligence. Uh, and there are a dozen megawatt lasers stationed on nearby asteroids to supplement our vector fire.”
Yorkel tapped his thorax in approval, then shifted his eyes and antennae toward Chief Lark, who stood before his Tactical Weapons cluster. The Spelidon’s black whiskers showed Guarded Confidence. “And you, Chief Lark. What do sensors in the fleet and on the base tell you about this system, and local space?”
The Spelidon’s black tail thumped the gravplate floor. “They tell us that no ship has arrived within a light year. Or further, even. No gravity wave pulses. No powered asteroids sneaking in toward us. No distracting explosions. And Commander Chai is already broadcasting his interviews with selected captives aboard the cloneslave ships. They are going out on the galactic tachnet and by local UHF broadcast. For the amusement of Intelligence employees who might be on break time.”
Yorkel leaned back against his stool, feeling at ease. That would not last once the battle began. The inertial fields that protected every lifeform in a rest alcove would activate. The inertial restraint for the active duty crew of each battleglobe was limited so each crewperson could move as needed. And while he had spent the last week organizing a few tactical surprises for his opponent, and consulting with ally Chai, it was the indifference of High Commander Brrzeet that worried him. The sly Orko stood on four feet, his two forearms folded over a scaly chest, whenever he and Chai reported in person. Brrzeet had approved every action they proposed. And had lent him Repair and Maintenance staff to construct some of the surprises he’d thought up during their long Translation trip. But the presence of a hyper-fast Courier ship attached to Brrzeet’s Command Node, along with an Offense sled, made him wonder at the future behavior of the station’s leader. Would Brrzeet stay in place during the battle? Or would he seek escape to another system if the renegade Human appeared to be making progress?
“Sector Captain,” called Chief Lark. “The amount of dispersed munitions, magnetic mines, sensorRemotes, Offense sleds, thermonuke sleds, plasma torps, and Fire-and-Forget missiles has reached a total of forty thousand devices.” The Tactical officer’s stance suggested what his whiskers showed. Guarded Confidence.
“Good!” He looked over at Malel. “Executive Officer, remind each battleglobe that they are to rotate offense station crew off neurolink duty after six hours so there are always fresh crew at the lasers and antimatter projectors.”
The Orko tapped his touchpanels, spoke softly in Belizel, then glanced his way. “Done, Sector Captain. Uh, you yourself have been in ship neurolink for seven hours. Perhaps an energy meal would be useful? We detect no sign of the enemy.”
Yorkel knew he needed a break from neurolink. His lower arm pair already sagged down to rest on his abdomen. His antennae felt wilted. And the pheromones he was emitting to those Brokeet among his Bridge crew likely betrayed his near exhaustion. Well, he could rest in his habitat alcove just behind the Bridge. Food servitors would bring him a meal. And he could reach his Captain’s Booth within a minute or less if the Alert sounded.
“Thank you, Malel. I depart for my habitat and a meal. You, Malel, assume command on the Bridge. At least until shift change or my return.”
“Complying, Sector Captain.” The Orko’s stance became more alert, and it donned the silvery lace cap that put any being with a braincase into neurolink with ship systems.
Yorkel felt an itch on the back of his thorax. Of course the chitin skin of a Brokeet could not feel an itch. Only a puncture would cause a back sensation. But he had spent so many days among the soft-skinned crew like Chai, Lark, Malel and others that their obsession with tegument itches had now infected his mind. What would his progenitors of Clan Night Sky think of a senior son who felt the itches of the soft-skins?
Matt floated in ocean-time amidst a sea of data inputs, three dee holos, multi-spectral images, and tachlink reports from the sensorRemotes and tachRemotes they had ejected right after re-entering normal space-time. The Alcubierre fields had gone up within seven femtoseconds. And he now felt like an interstellar buzz beetle flashing here and there amidst the vastness of space that was a true star system, the tens of thousands of asteroids that filled any normal asteroid belt, and the push-touch of the local stellar wind as the orange-yellow star four AU away tossed dust particles and ionized electrons into the fields, where they disappeared to Elsewhere-Elsewhen. What mattered, though, were the people constructs that occupied the star’s asteroid belt. And perhaps other localities. That would be revealed by his tachRemotes once they moved through the system on the one-quarter lightspeed exit velocity they had upon system entry. Mata Hari had entered local space-time out of the system’s plane of ecliptic, with the Crab Nebula behind him, and the tilted ecliptic of the Intelligence system lying directly ahead. His AI partner had said such an appearance locale would overlap his microwave shimmer with the flood of microwaves, x-rays and gamma rays emitted by the Crab Nebula. A natural form of camouflage. It was nice when your AI was able to anticipate your own sneaky instincts.
“Thank you, Matthew,” she said, her mind image the Spy persona she’d first worn upon recruiting him as a Vigilante. “I thought materializing here would be in keeping with the dissembling tactics taught by Sun Tzu, Mao Zedong and Chanakya.”
“Exactly so,” he said mentally, feeling Mata Hari the way a human might feel another person walking beside him on a crowded street. For the T’Chak warship was indeed crowding his mind with internal data flows and external imagery that showed the target system in the purple of ultraviolet, the deep red of infrared, the green of micro
waves, the white of neutrino emissions by more than a hundred battleglobes, the local star and the Intelligence base, and heat lifesigns that showed thousands of lifeforms inhabited the 900 habitat globes of the spacebase.
George, standing in his combat suit just behind Matt, was also in mind communion with him and Mata Hari thanks to the suit’s fiber optic link to the man’s spinal cord. And to the tachlink node behind his battlemate’s left ear. “A big base,” he said, his mindvoice carrying his Irish brogue. “And lots of battleglobes. Well, as some stratec person once said, being outnumbered gives you plenty of targets.”
Matt grinned at George’s sardonic mental smile. “Exactly so, my friend. And first battlemate in this fight. You ready to take wing once we get pass the defense?”
“Of course.”
In Matt’s mind he felt George become one with the cyborg systems of his combat suit. It was a feeling he had missed since he’d become wedded to the Interlock Pit and ocean-time fighting from within the Pit. Well, soon enough he would join George in his first ally, Suit. Who was activated and in tachlink communion with him, Mata Hari and George. “Hi there, Suit. You ready to fly?”
“Yes, Matt,” said the simple Tactical CPU that might not have an AI personality, but which possessed terabytes of combat power, knowledge and options. “How soon do we fly?”
“Soon,” he said. “But now we must see what our enemy has done.”
Mata Hari reclaimed his mental attention. “Do wish a compilation of what Sector Captain Yorkel has assembled to oppose us?”
Did he? Using ship senses allowed him to see far beyond human normal. The different wavelengths of light reflected from steel, titanium, angled constructs and floating Remotes were something his mind perceived directly. Just as he felt the impact of the local stellar wind as if it were a light summer breeze, so he perceived space and the artificial constructs that filled a part of the asteroid belt just an AU away.
Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) Page 26
