Vigilante Series 2: Nebula Vigilante

by T. Jackson King

  Mata Hari unlocked her arms, then reached out to him with one holo hand. A hand that felt . . . whispy solid. He gasped. “Matthew, I have learned how to use miniature tractor beams to give my holo image some degree of substance. In time, I could become more . . . substantial. Almost like Eliana. Would you like that?”

  Matt reached up and touched his fingers to hers. “Mata Hari, yes we are still partners. Our inner selves still link to each other. And . . . your feelings for me make me feel conflicted, yet also joyful. Now, with you emerging this way, sharing the physical side of your inner self, I feel even closer to you. Thank you.”

  Mata Hari smiled palely. Her black eyes blinked, with perhaps the sparkle of a teardrop showing. “But we . . . can never make physical love the way I have seen you and Eliana do it. And she is a good woman, a good life . . . entity. She is good for you, Matthew. But so am I.”

  He reached out to touch her left shoulder, feeling a kind of solidity there, even if the holo lacked the warmth normal to most organics. “Yes, you are good for me. I think that, seven years ago when I thought of the death of Helen in front of my eyes, I might have gone crazy. But for the presence of you, and the real purpose that your Vigilante option has given me. Thank you, Mata Hari. Now, shall we join Eliana?”

  His friend the AI blinked, then smiled a normal smile. “Yes, let us join her. Let us be three together. Three in caring. Three partners in life . . . now together.”

  Matt stepped through the opening slidedoor, hoping that no tears showed. After all, tears were an emotional weakness. Weren’t they?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Two weeks later, Matt sat in bed looking at a color holo of NGC 3324, or the Keyhole Nebula. It showed an enlargement of a reddish gas shell that was being pushed out by ultraviolet radiation from several O-type white stars. The rim area that the Anarchate molecular memory crystal said was the site of a naval shipyard lay near the gas bump commonly referred to as the “nose”. The Anarchate base lay just beyond the open space created by the UV radiation. He waved a hand to enlarge the border of the hollow gas cloud and spotted a green-colored oval that had two white stars near its inner boundary. Standing out as a small green splotch against the rust-red of the nebula, the data that scrolled along the bottom of the image said the shipyard orbited a white A-type star. The Anarchate ID for the star was CC41324 and it listed four planets with an asteroid belt intermediate between three and four. The shipyard was located on a Ceres-size asteroid. All four planets were gas globes still raw from their creation twenty million or so years ago. No life existed in the their ammonia and nitrogen atmospheres. To Matt, it seemed an ideal location. All lifeforms had to stay within either the starships being built, visiting for repairs, or within the several dome habitats on the shipyard rock ball.

  “What is your plan of attack?” asked Mata Hari as she sat to Matt’s right, leaning against a fake wood headboard. Her holo form made a slight indentation in the silken pillow.

  He smiled, glad that even though Eliana said she truly understood the need for Mata Hari’s feminine side to be “comforted” by Matt, it would not be pleasant for her to enter and see his nude self sitting beside a Barbarian Queen wearing only jewelry. Nope, not pleasant at all.

  “See the big asteroid where the shipyard habitats are located?”

  Mata Hari nodded her head, in perfect imitation of a real woman. “Yes, I do. Also multiple starships are orbiting it. So?”

  He smiled. Mata Hari liked to pretend she was not the true repository of every bit of encrypted data about Anarchate battleglobes, regional naval bases, shipyards and fuel depots that had lain within the molecular memory crystal he’d stolen. Between Mata Hari and Eliana’s algorithms, it had taken a half day to break the encryption code. They now reveled in hundreds of petabytes of highly secret Anarchate data that Combat Command now knew he possessed. Or rather, Mata Hari possessed it and was clearly aware of the data points he had been looking at as they came within a few hours of breakout from Translation.

  “So . . . you will notice that the orbit of the giant asteroid has swept clear the usual debris common to all asteroid belts. There are no boulders, or even small pebbles located near the shipyard rock ball. It looks like we could Translate to within a hundred kilometers of the shipyard,” Matt said.

  Mata Hari’s holo lips tightened. “Matthew, materializing within a matter-crowded area of space is dangerous. Aside from gravity wave shocks to nearby planets, it is a major reason why starships nearly always materialize outside the heliopause border of a star system.” She focused intently on him. “That way we avoid sharing space with even a few molecules of stellar wind emissions. Why take this chance?”

  He double-tapped the rock ball image, causing the holo to shrink in scale, enough so that the open space between the belt and planet four was visible. “Well, we could arrive here, in open vacuum,” he mused. “But that would put us a long ways away from the base. They would feel our gravity wave instantly while it would take us long minutes to reach them, even traveling at three-fourths lightspeed. If there are operational Nova-class battleglobes at the base, they would begin firing toward us as soon as their CPUs gave them the vector of our arrival. I prefer to strike simultaneously with our arrival.”

  “Tactically, that makes sense,” Mata Hari said as she fingered a gold-link necklace. “But the precursor Alcubierre Drive space-time globe that precedes our emergence can only displace molecules, not pebbles or anything solid. We could lose part of the ship if our arrival coincided with the location of solid matter. But you know that, of course. How recent is this holo image of the base rock ball?”

  Matt smiled. She was indeed tracking his every stop and visit locale. “One month, according to the time stamp of the molecular memory crystal. Also, while the Anarchate ships do not materialize at the base, the crystal says it is common for them to arrive just outside the asteroid belt, near the fourth gas giant. That said, they arrive on a specific schedule. Any gravity wave pulse that does not match the scheduled arrival times is automatically seen as hostile and is fired on,” he said.

  “Have you located the arrival schedule, Matthew?”

  “Yes. As you likely know. It’s there,” he said, pointing to a data box lying below the text lines. “Matching our departure time with our travel time says we can arrive at the Trinary hour of Combat Command. To within a few seconds,” he added.

  Mata Hari nodded her head, then slid off the bed to stand beside the platform. With a shake of her head she resumed her frilly white Victorian dress mode. “What is your decision, then?”

  “We arrive just outside the belt at the appointed time unit, which puts us within five light minutes travel time of the base, if we arrive at three-fourths lightspeed. But that means the base’s optical telescopes will see we are not a battleglobe or courier ship one minute before we arrive. Then again, our antimatter beams travel at lightspeed so the telescopic giveaway will be simultaneous with the arrival of our AM beams. We will keep firing lightspeed weapons as we come in, until we reach the range of our pressor, tractor and KKPs. Sound okay to you?”

  His AI partner smiled normally. “Yes. This ship is my home and I prefer not to risk its integrity. Or risk the lives of our organic guests. Or the life of Eliana.” She turned to walk out of his roomsuite via the slidedoor.

  “Mata Hari, it’s great being partners with you.”

  She paused in her stride, then headed for the open slidedoor. “Yes, Matthew, it is . . . great being partners. Thank you for understanding. And for Eliana’s acceptance of me.”

  Matt smiled as she exited, thinking of how much Eliana enjoyed the small children who’d come aboard. And the smart friendliness of Sarah Vasiliades. He wondered if Sarah and her fellow humans had reached a decision on where they should be let off. The choices of Anarchate planet, human colony planet or a new world suitable for a small colony gave them more choices than he had had in his early life. Eliana had left earlier saying she had genomic research work to carry ou
t in Biolab on the slow virus that today was hitting him with the force of a transport lifter. His knuckles, finger joints, knees and elbows all hurt thanks to the effects of the rheumatoid arthritis that the virus had hit him with due to its activation of a few sequences in his Chromosome Six region. Damn! Enough self-pity. Getting up gingerly, Matt grabbed his yukata and headed for the Biolab. Perhaps they could both find Leader Sarah and deal with life issues before mass death occurred at his hands.

  Sarah Vasiliades looked left as the slidedoor to the commissary opened and in walked Matthew Dragoneaux the Vigilante and Eliana Themistocles, the geneticist. She understood the two were coming to learn the group’s decision about where they wished to be left off, after the Keyhole attack. With a stiffening of her back and a quick straightening of her blue jumpsuit, she smiled at them both, glad to see them but also very glad that the group of twenty Omega managers were standing behind and to either side of her. Two weeks spent with them, with Gatekeeper and with solo families and workers had melded them together, even as some members expressed strong views on where they should go. Red-headed Rebecca moved closer to stand beside her.

  “Think they will object?” asked the former manager of Omega’s staff housing department.

  “I doubt it,” Sarah murmured. “It’s a sensible choice and not that far away from Keyhole.”

  The tall, curly black-haired form of the Vigilante stopped a meter from her crowd, his left hand holding the right hand of Eliana the geneticist. His red-brown skin contrasted nicely with Eliana’s albino white. And she’d learned to be patient with Matt when she’d heard about his slow virus chronic disease problem. But both of them looked alert, rested and interested. She hoped their good mood would last through this visit.

  Dragoneaux inclined his head. “Leader Sarah, we understand your group has reached consensus. Would you like to discuss your decision here, on the couch among the crowd over there, or in private?”

  About seventy of her fellow bondServants were in the commissary eating, playing vidgames, chatting about the future or sharing worries about kids and jobs. They had noticed the Vigilante’s arrival but did not act interested in coming over. And their friendly AI Gatekeeper was keeping the young children busy with three dee holos of little furry critters. So be it. She smiled at Eliana and at . . . Matt. She should be polite and use his first name.

  “Matt, we can visit here, with my fellow Omega managers,” she said, gesturing to various people. “You know Rebecca and George. Also gathered here are Knut, Suzanne, Aiko, Atsushi, Marybell, Thomas, Wasuko, Giuseppe, Chang, and other folks you have not yet met. We formed discussion groups and have reached a decision on the three choices offered by you.”

  Eliana leaned forward, her green eyes alert and focused. “And? Where do you wish to be left off?”

  “Kappa Crucis cluster,” Sarah said. “The Jewel Box as it’s known. While all the primary stars are supergiants just fourteen million years old, a Sixth Wave human colony orbits a yellow-white F3 main sequence star that is hidden by the red-orange supergiant at the center of the vee of giant stars. It is called Morrigan by its settlers and has been settled for fifty years. While the settlers are all of Irish or Celtic heritage, and speak Gaelic among themselves, we think we can fit in there and be of help to the million or so settlers.”

  Matt nodded slowly. “Your data match my information. Morrigan is just 1,600 light years from the Keyhole, and lies between the Scutum-Crux and Carina-Sagittarius arms. We will be glad to drop you off on Morrigan. Along with fifty thousand platinum Standards as our effort to contribute to your settlement efforts.”

  “Nice,” said George, his brogue reminding Sarah of his own Irish heritage. “We can buy new clothes, datapads, toys for the kids and furnishings for wherever we can find living space. Most of the families here have worried a lot about the colony setup we might find at Morrigan. This will make things . . . less troublesome.”

  Suzanne smiled too. “Thank you, Matthew Dragoneaux. And you too Eliana for your help with our families and kids. They’ve enjoyed their visits to the Biolab and your talks about what you do.”

  Sarah had appreciated Eliana’s involvement in helping folks relax after the horrendous image of the T’Chak dragon. The woman had shared some of her family history, and the story of how Matt had saved her planet and its peoples from destruction by the Halicene Conglomerate. It was an impressive story. But being far away from such a famous human as . . . Matt would probably be smart for regular folks like themselves. She would rather hear about his exploits from the galactic tachnet than be onsite as starships and weapons fought and exploded.

  “You are welcome, Suzanne,” Eliana said, glancing at a patient Matt, then showing the relaxed side of her that Sarah appreciated. “Some of your young children remind me of my niece Calyce. And her fellow crossbreed students. Makes me . . . be hopeful about the future.”

  Sarah nodded, then focused on the Vigilante. “Matt, what now? What happens when we arrive at CC41324?”

  His relaxed expression turned neutral. “Combat. We will conduct a hit-and-run strike on the naval shipyard that lies in its asteroid belt. We will approach at speed. We should be in and out within ten minutes. A few hours later we will Translate and head for Kappa Crucis.”

  George stepped forward a pace. “Any chance some of us can watch this space combat? I’ve never seen an Anarchate military shipyard.”

  Matt looked puzzled, then shrugged his broad shoulders under the checkered yukata he wore. “As you wish. Anyone who wants to watch in . . . human time-mode can call for Channel Seven and the wallscreen will shift to that channel.”

  “Human time-mode?” asked blond-haired Suzanne. The former IT manager for the entire casino sounded puzzled. And, Sarah noticed, she was holding hands with George. A nice development, she thought.

  Eliana looked up at Matt, who kept his expression neutral. “Suzanne, Sarah, George, Rebecca, everyone, I am a human-cyborg hybrid,” he said. “Some of you have seen the cable patch at the back of my neck. Or noticed my strength when I helped move one of those portable couches over there. What no one has seen is when I am in lightspeed synchrony, communicating with this starship, with Mata Hari and with BattleMind in what I call ocean-time. My mind moves at lightspeed then, and nanoseconds move like minutes while picoseconds whiz along. It is the only way a human can think at computer speed and interrelate with this starship. In short, I and we think fast, act fast, and any battle we are involved in happens very quickly.” He smiled briefly. “Time for me to head for the Bridge. We will be materializing not far from the shipyard asteroid very shortly. Good day, all.”

  Sarah and her friends watched the human man who seemed more comfortable with AIs walk out to the Spine hallway with Eliana and disappear from their sight. Now, if only her memories of the vaporization of the casino could disappear as easily. While she had never liked any of the Owners, even the two human ones, she still felt traumatic shock at seeing the place she had worked for twenty-five years be vaporized by a black antimatter beam. It left a memory of danger that none of her fellow humans would easily forget.

  Matt sat in the Interlock Pit five minutes before the end of Translation, soaking in the lightbeam data inputs. He rested within a metal-lined cone, a cone filled with flashing lightbeams that did not hurt. The cone breathed with him, hurt with him, talked to him, and listened as he talked back—with a shrug, with a blink, and lightspeed quick with a change in PET-imaged codes. At the normal human speed level a twitch of fingers, groin, or feet would do. Matt controlled his levels of adrenaline, signaling with his body, a puppet on lightbeam strings who talked back to the puppetmaster. Those being the T’Chak starship and his AI friend, Mata Hari.

  Her verbal repartee was all very nice, but Mata Hari was not a clone-brain floating in nutrient solution—like those that ran the starships of some spacefaring cultures. Nor was she the engram of a real or artificial personality, impressed millennia ago upon crystalline memory matrices—like the Memory Pilla
rs on the Bridge. His AI ‘lived’ in the pillars, but her presence filled the ship. And, he’d learned months ago, she was something else. She was the outer “interface” for BattleMind, that T’Chak entity created by the Lacunae Mindworks. It was as harsh as the appearance of an organic T’Chak, but able to listen to options. If Matt could stand the massive data overload that touching BattleMind’s harshly alien mind always brought. Fortunately, Mata Hari buffered that mind-to-mind contact, as she had done during the fight with the two Nova battleglobes. Now, he would have to reconnect to BattleMind as they prepared to mount an offense that moved at nearly the speed of light.

  Matt looked left at Eliana, the woman who had given up her world for him. She was fashionably dressed in an embroidered white blouse, blue jumpsuit and partially cocooned by the clamshells of the accel-couch. She seemed preoccupied with staring at a sidewall display of CC41324, its four gas giant planets and the Ceres-size rock ball that hosted the shipyard’s living quarters, administration, landing field, Tachyon Pylon and even some defense lasers. He already had a mind-image of every Anarchate building on the rock ball, along with a month-old three dee image of the twenty hulls in various stages of construction, most of them in low orbit so transit time from habitats to work took minutes versus hours.

  A month ago there were also four Nova battleglobes in higher geosync orbit that always kept them over the land base, their crews involved in upgrading of weapons systems, cross-training with rock-bound employees of Combat Command, or enjoying the separate Pleasure Dome that hosted living greenery, a blue lake, gambling halls and sexual diversions of every category. No doubt the crews of visiting globeships needed their “entertainment” after weeks and months spent patrolling the nearby space of Orion Arm and Carina-Sagittarius Arm. How many there would be now was something they would discover just after exiting their Alcubierre Drive Translation field and were able to receive five minute old images from the rock ball’s vicinity. At least the white light of the A-type star brought enough illumination to the asteroid belt for his ship sensors to pick up normal light, ultraviolet and infrared images from the rock ball.