“Yes, Mata Hari. I may have missed something. In particular please highlight any sleds or Remotes that may be thermonuke sleds. Yorkel’s choice to give them one-fourth lightspeed was an innovation not listed in the confidential records of Combat Command.”
“Quite so,” she said, changing to her Lady of the Sword mind persona. With a gesture of her sword she cast little red dots at the points she now highlighted. “The neutrino emissions document a total of 160 battleglobes, fourteen Supply Tubes, twenty-one Courier ships and seven fusion reactors within the 900 habitat globes of the Intelligence base. The infrared lifeform heat signatures indicate the base contains 3,124 beings. Plus the four hundred lifeforms per battleglobe that is the standard crew size.”
“Megawatt laser installations? X-ray Picket Globes? Offense sleds?” he asked, even though he could see most of them himself based on spectroscopic analysis of reflected light.
“Yes.” She pointed with the sword. “The asteroids within a half AU of the base contain twelve megawatt mining laser modules. With tachlink sensors and guidance CPUs. Based on prior battles, there are at least two thousand Picket Globes dispersed just outside the outer shell of battleglobes. While most occupy positions along the plane of ecliptic, a few score are placed above and below the planetary ecliptic.”
“Anything out of the ordinary? Something that seems not normal to a star system with no planets?”
In his mind, moving at lightspeed and downlinking to his mind, she highlighted four thousand, three hundred and six locations. “These spots within the asteroid belt emit energy that is greater than absorbed stellar radiation. They could be sensor stations, automatic mining devices, astronomical stations or simply spots with thorium and uranium deposits.”
George frowned, then tugged at his black beard. “A puzzle for sure. And a problem to solve. How?”
That was the question he needed to solve. Yorkel would expect Matt and his ships to detect the obvious. The battleglobes, Picket Globes and other ships with onboard fusion reactors for stardrive thrust. But what surprises did the giant ant with a three-lobe brain hide from him? His experience of being in mind communion with Toktaleen had taught him a Brokeet alien thought comprehensively, in-depth and with a twist to the usual assumptions that he intuited were a challenge for him. At least to how he thought. Then again, the Anarchate had regularly underestimated him and his T’Chak ships. For the moment, they assumed he would arrive with just seven ships, not 507 Dreadnought-level warships. Ocean Fleet outnumbered the defending fleet by a three to one factor. He focused ship sensors on the twelve armed Courier ships that clustered next to the white globes of the base.
“Are those ships the genome slaver ships?”
“Yes,” said Mata Hari.
BattleMind took form to Matt’s right inside a giant holo that showed a giant dragon ready to take wing and rend the flesh of every opponent. “Why bother with those captives? They are a distraction. They may be dead. We can include them in the spread of our Graviton Beam and allow them to become minuscule black holes.”
Mata Hari assumed the persona of a smaller female T’Chak dragon, her wings spread in imitation of BattleMind’s stance. “Senior leader, that could be done. However, perceive these tachnet and UHF transmissions that come from one of those ships. Some of the captives still live.”
Matt’s mind filled with the holo image of Commander Chai standing before five captives in a red-lit cargohold. One of the captives was a male human, two were Mican griffin-tigers with sad-looking plumage, and two were Meligun bear bipeds whose black fur looked matted. Within their mind communion, George cursed. Matt’s cyborg CPU implant translated the Belizel of Chai, and the responses of the captives.
“Have you eaten recently?” Chai, standing to one side of the galactic tachnet image, gestured to the Meligun bears. “Do you have water? Are waste disposal devices provided for you?”
“Yes three times,” said one of the bears, his two pink eyes glancing off-image to what Matt assumed was a slaver crewman. “We do not lack for the basics. We volunteer to be sold as labor if you of the Anarchate would speak on our behalf to the ship’s captain.”
Chai’s black whiskers spread upward as if startled that a captive sought some kind of help. “Your request will be conveyed to this ship’s commander. However, my duty to the Anarchate is to confirm that your ship conditions are survivable. That you will live to reach a market world where . . . species cloning is performed.”
“Kill us!” cried one of the Mican griffin-tigers as it lifted dirty brown wings and panted from being overheated. “We live only to die soon!”
The person holding the holo recorder moved to place the two Micans out of the device’s perception zone. Chai turned to face the male human who had been watching the pretend interview. The Spelidon rat flipped his tail up onto his left shoulder. He focused on the man. “Human male, do you have food? Water? Waste disposal? Any degree of—”
“You will all die,” the man said hoarsely, as if he had not drunk water in a long time. Though he stood upright his body trembled. His clothing, while covering him from hips down, did not hide the red streaks of neurowhip slashes on his back.
George grunted. “The man’s been tortured by these slavers!”
Chai stepped back, then flared his whiskers. “Die? Us of the Anarchate? Member of a Newcomer species, you know not your place in the galaxy!”
The man moved to stay in view of the holo recorder as the device’s holder moved to show Chai backstopped only by the weak-acting Meligun bear people. He spit blood on the gravplates of the cargohold in which they were held. “I will die. But you and others will die for this cloneslavery. For not stopping the kidnapping of thinking people! You—”
The image of Chai with the captives disappeared, to be replaced by Chai facing the holo recorder. “Citizens of the Anarchate, my inspection of the other eleven genome harvester starships that voluntarily came to this base shows the captive beings are alive, being given basic sustenance and allowed normal functions during their transit to a species cloning facility elsewhere in Perseus Arm.” He paused, then assumed a relaxed posture. “Alleged reports of captive mistreatment by genome harvester ship personnel are not substantiated. This appears to reflect normal commerce that the Anarchate exists to protect.” The image disappeared, to be replaced by the black and white image of a galaxy bisected by a lightning bolt. The emblem of the Anarchate filled the tachnet holo, then vanished. A report on politics in Norma Arm began as a cluster of seven aliens began a discussion that Matt had no interest in.
Nor did George. “Fuck ‘em. Fuck the Anarchate. And I vote we kill every slaver ship captain.”
BattleMind looked at them in ocean-time mode. “At least the Human was willing to fight. The others do not deserve to live,” he said, then disappeared from the Bridge.
“Mata Hari, were you able to track that UHF broadcast to a specific slaver ship?”
“Yes, Matthew.” Her female T’Chak form contrasted sharply with her soft feminine voice. She resumed her human form but stayed in their ocean-time mind communion. “Shall we approach closer to the base and the battleglobe shells?”
“Yes. But let us skim just above the ecliptic plane as we pass by Yorkel’s fleet. While we cannot be seen or detected, someone might notice our blocking out of reflected light from a nearby asteroid as we pass between them and the asteroid.”
Re-entering their mind communion, BattleMind fixed his red eyes on Matt. “Vigilante, when do we call in the other ships of Ocean Fleet? I wish to see destruction on the scale of our Vela attack.”
Matt felt the same desire, after watching the fake interview of the captives. But that was one of the emotional reactions he must put aside. He had the equivalent of ocean-time hours to observe the system, the defenses and the movements of ships and people. Even though his passage from one side of the defense shells to the other side would take only a few real-time minutes. By the time they reached fifty thousand kilometers beyond the b
ase, he must either leave the system or call in Ocean Fleet.
“Soon, my battlemate. Soon.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Matt felt close to calling in Ocean Fleet. But Mata Hari filled his mind with an image of the small limpet complinks that had slowed enough to attach to a few of the habitat globes which formed the Intelligence space base.
“Matthew, important data! One complink has decrypted the location of High Commander Brrzeet, the master of this base and the person who ordered Chai and Yorkel to bring slaver captives here.” She brought into their ocean-time mental communion the image of a large, hippo-like Orko alien, standing before a control pedestal in some kind of office. “This Brrzeet also brought a hyper-fast Courier ship into linkage with his Command Node in Globe 223, along with an Offense sled that contains a single weapon—a Bethe Inducer.”
Why the hell would this Brrzeet outfit a sled with a weapon usually found on a battleglobe? Was this one of Yorkel’s surprises? Or something Yorkel and Chai did not know? “Mata Hari, who has access to this Courier and the Offense sled?”
Her Spy persona frowned. “The decryption says only Brrzeet, by way of a bodyheat ID and a verbal Command Code, has access to these two vessels.”
So the big boss of Sector 14 Intelligence spacebase was prepared to escape if things got too risky? Nice. And perhaps something he could share with Yorkel at the right time. “Any other data from this and the other complinks?”
“Yes.” She brought up an image of a Spelidon rat that matched the ID of Commander Chai. “Your enemy Chai has returned to his work station in Globe 841. He works with five other aliens on the defense against our arrival.”
“Show me the locations of these two globes in relation to the slaver ships.”
A three dee holo blossomed in his mind. The tight cluster of 900 habitat Globes, connected by scores of transit tubes, materialized before him. The two globes he cared about were located on the side of the base where the slaver ships were clustered. “Excellent. Now for the big one. Any data on which of the 160 battleglobes out there is the one occupied by Sector Captain Yorkel?”
George slammed a mental fist on the table that stood in front of his mental space. “Yes! Show us where this guy is!”
Mata Hari smiled a slow, nearly human smile. “Thought you would ask that. Yes, Matthew, though the decryption took some effort, here is the location of Yorkel’s battleglobe. Also the locations of every other battleglobe, the Supply Tubes, Courier ships and 100 asteroid locations labeled as ‘special ships.’ Whatever that means.”
He noticed something about the ‘special ships’ locations. “Mata Hari, I think those ‘special ships’ match up to 100 of the 4,306 locations you noted earlier as having unusual energy signatures.”
“They do,” she said, her Spy persona frowning with intense interest. “But the base datafiles do not identify what is unusual about these ‘special ships.’ We do know they have an energy signature that is not normal for a cold asteroid.”
“How not normal?” Matt asked even as his ship senses brought him the inputs that Mata Hari had noted. George looked intensely interested too.
“Neutrino emissions, but at a very low level. Low enough to be from naturally occurring thorium or uranium deposits.”
One part of his mind said they had less than a second to go until they reached the far side of the outer shell of battleglobes, which would put them at 90,000 kilometers from the base. He did not wish to go beyond the range of his antimatter cannons.
“Good spying, my Mata Hari. Tachlink transmit all this data, especially the space-time locations of every battleglobe, Courier and other ship within this area, to Ocean Fleet. Include the fake interviews for my human pilot allies. Oh, and order the fleet to be ready for Stepwise Translation jumps of a light second right after arrival here. There are thermonuke sleds out there, beyond the outer shell and taking a Translation jump within system is faster than moving off their arrival vector.” He smiled as something else hit him. “Adding to the gravity quakes caused by arriving this far in-system will be fun!”
George chuckled, thought of dishes rattling in a space habitat kitchen, and grinned wider. “Yup. Nice to know our fleet’s arrival will startle everyone!”
“Complying, Matthew. And while Ocean Fleet is heading this way, I will reverse our thrust so we will be heading straight at Yorkel’s defense shells when everyone arrives.”
“Yes!”
“Good!” muttered George, even as his stray thoughts brought to his mind the image of brown freckles and blond hair of his Nordic lifepartner.
Matt exerted tight mental control to avoid doing likewise. Combat. That was what must occupy him now. Along with the vital position intelligence they had gained. Tossing out a PET thought-image, he added the locations of the 100 ‘special ships’ to his list of targets for attack by Mata Hari’s directed energy laser domes and the antimatter cannons. He might not be as bloodthirsty or ruthless as BattleMind, but he liked the idea of heading straight at his enemy. And Mata Hari’s appearance within 90,000 kilometers would be a shock to the Anarchate. His ship’s Alcubierre shields were known but would be a frustration to their offense attacks. And he planned to lay down multiple antimatter cannon barrages just as soon as Ocean Fleet arrived and began their own AM barrages.
“They are arriving, Matthew.”
Yorkel had spent the last three hours in neurolink within his Captain’s Booth when Defiant’s AI flashed a Purple Alert image to his mind. The image co-occurred with a shuddering of the ship that said scores of gravity wave pulses now hit them as many ships Translated into the inner part of the base star system. Before he could think a thought, more images hit his three brain lobes, carrying blue-white antimatter explosions as too many battleglobes in the outer shell vaporized totally under the impact of thousands of antimatter beams.
“How!” he thought to the AI even as Defiant shifted its vector position per standard orders to every defense battleglobe. “What is—”
“Five hundred and seven T’Chak Dreadnoughts have Translated into this system, within antimatter cannon range,” shrilled the AI’s mindvoice in Brokeet click-speech. “All ships are firing back but the Alcubierre shields went up before any AutoFire beams could impact. Orders?”
This was the moment that he had planned for. Just not that they would be outnumbered three to one. Ignoring the question of where the Human had found 507 warships, he gave the command that would bring his surprises into the early seconds of this battle. And perhaps cause enough disruption to save a remnant of his great fleet.
“Sigma zi fourteen, nine twelve four.”
Skyree of the Solink felt his work globe shudder to the impact of hundreds of gravity wave pulses. Instantly he understood everyone had been wrong in assuming the weak pulses within the nearby supernova nebula had been natural. They were not. They were evidence of more ships than even Yorkel had emplaced in this system. And the arrival of the gravity wave pulses told him he must look to survival, albeit with an alert to his co-workers.
“An attack!” he cried in Belizel as he flared his leathery wings and then flew-hopped toward the globe entry hatch which contained vacsuits just inside the arrival chamber. “Put on vacsuits! Prepare for loss of eco-fields!”
Amidst the cries and grunts and ultrasonic whistles of his fourteen workmates, Skyree racked his memory for the location of the nearest Supply Tube or Courier vessel. The base’s arrival Globe 001 lay just three nipads away from his Globe 112. But only six transport vessels were attached to the globe. The rest had been grabbed by Sector Captain Yorkel for his purposes.
Touching the wallpad, the entry hatch opened onto the transit tube that led to other habitat globes. He grabbed at a vacsuit, brought his wings into a cluster against his back, and began pulling on a generic vacsuit suitable for bipeds of his size. In his mind a mental timekeeper spoke to him.
“One second, nine hundred and thirty nanoseconds since Alert.”
Behind him sounded the
foot pads and wing rustles of his workmates. Soon he would be crowded aside. Unless he entered the transit tube at a speed not normal for an avian like him.
Skyree sped along the tube faster than his workmates could follow.
Toktaleen of the Brokeet arrived in the target system in tachlink mind communion with other pilots of Hexagon Prime even as the five hundred ships of Ocean Fleet also popped into normal space-time all around him. Simultaneous with his perception of scores of steel grey battleglobes clustered in a pentagonal pattern that blocked access to the distant sparkle of the Intelligence base came his awareness of nanoBit computers, white noise generators, Offense sleds and tachRemotes that launched outward in the short femtoseconds before Gondu’s shields went up. Gondu was already in his mind, carrying over with him in ocean-time intimacy from when they had been in Translation.
“Targets primary are battleglobes,” she said. “Firing!”
Toktaleen left his AI ally to the firing of the antimatter wing cannons as he ordered slashes of proton beams, neutral particle lasers and carbon-dioxide laser blisters to fire at hundreds of smaller targets that included two Offense sleds now heading toward him at one-fourth lightspeed. Thermonuke sleds!
“Include those sleds!” he warned Gondu.
The female T’Chak dragon breathed antimatter fire at six battleglobes while her spike-tail swung sideways to kill the thermonuke sleds.
In his mind appeared Matt’s warning about ‘special ships’ lying in the nearby asteroid belt. The one hundred ship locations were identical to positions that even now showed high neutrino emissions.
“The ‘special ship’ asteroids are activating fusion reactors!” he called to his hexagon partners and to the ten Cohort leaders in charge of Ocean Fleet itself.
Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) Page 27
