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.
“Hello, Matthew,” whispered the image glow of his Mata Hari symbiont, full of happy feelings as she lifted a Mauser rifle and sighted along its length. Aiming for a target. The freighter target. Imitating his instincts, she showed herself ready for combat. And Matt could tell she felt happy. How, he knew not.
“Hello, partner. It’s good to be . . . working with you like this. Again.”
No other words were exchanged. Not by mind-image. Not by slow skin twitch. Not even by slower eye blink. None were needed.
Gestalt. Or, what the AI called Complete Identity Overlap.
Within his ship body, Matt moved as one moves about his house, a place familiar and comforting. A place where you knew every little detail. He left nothing to chance and nothing was left undone. Endlessly he cycled through his domain, checking, touching, sniffing, feeling, intuiting . . . and ecstasy was his constant companion.
There is, truly, nothing to compare with systems checkout.
Time passed. Eliana remained patient. And Matt existed as the uplinked, integrated, biocomponent of the ship named Mata Hari.
One hour passed like a century—but so fascinated was he by all the nooks and crannies of Ship that he never felt a moment of boredom.
When the robot freighter passed their picket line of passive sensorProbes, the ship was ready and on station next to a large asteroid. Like a double-image, Matt stepped-down from ecstasy, moving just a little out of identity-sync. It was necessary, if he were to operate slow, organic instrumentalities for the benefit of Eliana.
He licked his lips and blinked. The forward holosphere showed the image of the intruder. “Mata Hari, display the weapons systems carried by the freighter.”
“Complying, Matthew.” She sounded breathless.
Eliana jumped to the sound of his voice, the first speech she’d heard from him in an hour. But she did not speak to him, only looked more and more concerned as the armed freighter filled the holosphere. His Patron could tell they were but moments away from combat.
The holosphere image became a sectioned schematic of the Halicene ship. Rotating axially, it showed him the freighter’s weapons. Which weren’t much. The ship carried only a few hydrogen-fluorine laser guns, outrigger plasma cannons, and a single belly pod loaded with a few nuclear torps. Most of the craft consisted of automated repair and fabrication shops, as expected. To the side of the holo image, scrolling data columns glowed purple in two places.
“What’s that?”
“We are being ranged by its pulse-Doppler radar, Matt.”
He smiled. Stealthy avionics packages were fine for some engagements, but in this one they wanted the opponent to find them. “Mata Hari, detonate the Offense Probe.”
On screen, behind the robot freighter, a twenty megaton thermonuclear warhead detonated. It had been riding inside one of his outlier picket sensorProbes, not attracting attention to itself. Until now. In the holosphere, the freighter’s autotracking gun pods swung back toward the glowing radioactive cloud.
“Attacking!” In his mind’s eye, Mata Hari dove like a screaming eagle, her talons outstretched. “I’m launching our own KKP submunitions and Nanoshells.”
“Good. How long before they arrive?”
“Six minutes.” The claws shone bright.
“How soon before the freighter’s in reach of our HF lasers?”
“Three minutes.”
He thought quickly. While the neutron antimatter pontoons were the ultimate weapon of Mata Hari or any battleship—since they could not be turned aside by electromagnetic shields that deflected charged particle beams—they stayed coherent only over short distances. Also, it took a lot of power to generate antimatter in quantity. Recharge t
ime between each shot was two seconds—a lifetime to computer senses. Other lightspeed weapons were better for long-distance engagement.
“Matt, I’m emitting the mercury vapor shield.”
“Good.”
Engagement would occur soon.
Once again, he marveled at the weapons systems of Mata Hari. While much of what she held was similar to top-of-the-line Anarchate weaponry, the mercury vapor shield was unique. It was a variant on the old-style mercury absorption clouds used by sublight cargo-carriers to deflect incoming particle radiation, radiation that piled up on a sublight starship’s nose like water before the prow of a ship.
Light glimmered.
Between Mata Hari and the freighter there billowed a five thousand kilometer square screen of vaporized mercury. Mercury vapor had long been used as an absorber and deflector of laser beams, but Mata Hari had developed a new adaptation. Out in space, the mercury molecules were charged, and linked into a single electromagnetic field. The screen-field, controlled by thousands of nanoware computers seeded among the gas vapor molecules, opened and closed holes in the gas shield—at totally random intervals. The opening times for these holes were known only to Mata Hari and its Fire Control programs. Which programs fed into every weapon system aboard Mata Hari. The holes allowed Mata Hari to shoot at an opponent, but their enemy’s beams were deflected or absorbed by the vapor. Of course, the vapor shield was a static defensive tactic that didn’t work if your ship had to maneuver a lot. But if you could force your enemy to attack along a predictable vector . . . .
“Firing the HF lasers, Matthew.”
Light is far speedier than even the fastest hypervelocity shells or missiles. Blue-green laser beams speared out to the freighter, making the holosphere flare. At the same time, the freighter fired at them. Mata Hari suddenly vectored sideways—but not enough to disrupt its own firing solutions through the gas shield holes.
Light flared along one pontoon of the freighter.
“A hit!” Matt felt overwhelming excitement.
“Maneuvering,” his partner said hurriedly as one beam from the freighter penetrated through the gas shield.
Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) Page 23
