Vigilante Series 2: Nebula Vigilante

by T. Jackson King

  “Matthew,” called Eliana from nearby. “What will we see upon emergence from Translation?”

  Mata Hari or Gatekeeper could have told her. But human to human was their way. A wonderful way. “Many many stars. A tapestry of white diamonds, red garnets, blue aquamarines, yellow quartz and orange citrines,” he said, recalling the dense starfield that was Cluster Prime. “Our earlier stop just outside the cluster allowed us to orient on the exact position of HomeWorld and its F7 main sequence star. We used the navdata of Elegant Vessel to project the star’s motion across the cluster, but after 200 millennia of moving through the cluster, our arrival point is not that exact. Which is why we are aiming for the heliopause of what the T’Chak call StarHome. We will arrive light hours distant from StarHome and HomeWorld. Which is how we usually exit Translation.”

  “Matt,” called George from behind him. “Any evidence of other space-going species since the mass death of the T’Chak?”

  “No,” Matt said as in his mind his internal timekeeper counted down the minutes until emergence. “But the data of BattleMind and Elegant Vessel are not current. And it only took humanity a hundred thousand years to advance from hunter-gather to Alcubierre stardrive. If there were planet-bound sapients on some stars in Cluster Prime, they could be roaming around by now. Especially since this cluster possesses millions of stars and thousands of habitable planets.”

  “Your statement is speculation,” said Elegant Vessel as it floated to Matt’s right, in the space often occupied by BattleMind. “Our T’Chak masters occupied 27,326 planets within Cluster Prime just before the disease killed our society. There were thousands more occupied planets in both cloud clusters. After two million years of growth and expansion, my masters had inventoried every main sequence star in this cloud and most in the larger cloud nearby.”

  “But,” said the holo of Mata Hari that stood beside Suzanne’s accel-couch, “did your masters inventory any planet-bound yet intelligent species?”

  “No,” said Elegant Vessel, its red-glowing globe shifting closer to Matt. “But why should they? There were no other space-going species in the two million years since they moved away from HomeWorld and out into the two clouds. Why search for the unlikely?”

  Suzanne chuckled. “Because the unlikely, over time, is guaranteed to happen. Somewhere,” she said to the Planetary AI. “Neither I nor George nor our Omega friends ever expected to see the Omega casino dome vaporized. But a genome harvester raid led Matt to leave his home planet, travel, find Protector training, then to link up with Mata Hari and this starship. The last one remaining in home galaxy, it seems. They then gave Vigilante help to Eliana’s planet, which resulted in the visit of an Anarchate battleglobe. Which visit led to the battleglobe’s destruction and the emergence of BattleMind. Those events then set Matthew, Mata Hari and BattleMind on the pathway to defeating the Anarchate by way of a visit to the T’Chak home cluster. Now, each of those events viewed singly would be rare or common. But linked together, as they have been, surely that meets your definition of unlikely?”

  In Matt’s mind a purple cloud swirled, grew larger and then appeared to the right of the Interlock Pit. BattleMind, it seemed, wished to see the condition of HomeWorld and StarHome. And perhaps to add its platinum Standard to the discussion of what was unlikely in a part of space-time where the four hundred billion stars of the Milky Way, and the several hundred million stars of the clouds, provided fuel for organic speculation.

  “Likely or not, this Destruction Device is returning to its home,” BattleMind said as its deep red eyes focused on the front holosphere, still grey from their presence in Alcubierre space-time. “What we find here will guide myself and Elegant Vessel in our future actions. You organics will then learn your roles in fulfilling the Task of the T’Chak Imperium.”

  Emergence is approaching, Matthew. Three seconds, said Mata Hari in his mind.

  With a grimace, Matt PET-linked to the racing thoughts of Mata Hari and, eventually, to those of BattleMind. Ocean-time flooded over him the way an ocean flows into a dry basin. Femtoseconds rushed by as picoseconds moved tick-tock past his awareness, and nanoseconds felt like long minutes. A torrent of data inputs filled his mind, his body, his senses, his awareness, it filled . . . every part of him except his soul. That he held separate, though how he did so he did not know. Time now for feeling the ship like a skintight vacsuit. Time to feel the energies surging from the ship’s fusion reactors to every habitat and weaponry space within the ship. And time to perceive this new space-time, as the front holo suddenly filled with millions of colorful jewels, with the yellow-white glow of StarHome at the center of the holo.

  “Home,” mused the soft mind-voice of Elegant Vessel.

  “Our masters’ home,” growled BattleMind, its dragon form flaring its black wings to full extension even as its spike-tipped tail flowed backward until it wrapped around the Memory Pillars that housed Mata Hari. “Surely at least one survives. Perhaps many. They were the perfect lifeform. Perfection cannot have disappeared.”

  Matt focused on the F7 star that the T’Chak called StarHome. He took a graphics download from a databyte nanocube resting in his prefrontal cortex, mind-viewed it, transferred the image to his contact lenses, and split his awareness between the databyte image of the system and the distant glow of StarHome in the front holo.

  Fourteen nanoseconds, whispered Mata Hari in his racing awareness.

  The graphic image showed the system held seven planets. Planet One was an airless Mercury analogue, while Planet Two was hidden in white carbon dioxide vapor, its surface temp equal to that of Venus. Planet Three, while habitable to most lifeforms, was a humid, hot jungle world similar to how Earth had been during the Carboniferous Age, when oxygen levels were high, plant growth was everywhere, and the polar ice caps nearly non-existent. A nice home for lizards and sharks, given the shallow oceans that covered a third of its surface, according to the databyte’s ancient records. HomeWorld was Planet Four, a cross between Earth and Mars. It possessed small oceans, a good oxy-nitro atmosphere, temperate zone forests, broad desert expanses, and long strings of smoking volcanoes at the tectonic plate boundaries that split the planet’s surface into four continents. It was dry in most places, except for a few jungle-covered spots, while the high mountains created by crustal subduction were the site of T’Chak vacation homes. Or had been. HomeWorld was circled by a large moon nearly the size of Earth’s Moon. Beyond this planet-and-moon system lay two gas giants and an icy Pluto-type planet that orbited far out from the hot rays of StarHome. Being an F7 main sequence star, StarHome’s habitable zone lay further out than Sol’s, but included Planets Three and Four. Per the databyte, almost no T’Chak had lived on Three since they preferred a dry environment with the hot updrafts to be found in mountainous terrain. A feature not common on Three.

  Five hundred milliseconds, Mata Hari said.

  Dismissing the system graphic, Matt focused on the light signatures of StarHome and the planets made infrared warm by its stellar heat. The hours old emission spectra were nearly identical to the databyte’s historical records, except for the absence of pollutants in the air of HomeWorld. Another sign of the death of the T’Chak.

  “Neutrino detection!” said Mata Hari in his mind, her Spy persona showing intense surprise. “At Planet Three. In orbit it seems, though a hour will be needed to confirm that.”

  “But the neutrino emissions are not T’Chak!” roared BattleMind, the AI’s angry reaction making him feel seasick. “Invaders! StarHome and HomeWorld are being invaded! We must Translate there—”

  “In an hour or so,” Matt said into the maelstrom of the purple cloud, wincing mentally as BattleMind’s black claws and white teeth seemed to bite into his brain. “Please! Let us stay here and be passive. For the moment only! Let us gather intelligence just as we did when fighting the Anarchate.”

  One second.

  Mata Hari mentally moved herself between Matt’s mind and the hurricane torrent of BattleMind
. “Master, Matthew speaks well! Let us gather intelligence before we jump into the unknown. There will be plenty of time to visit HomeWorld once we have dealt with this intruder.”

  BattleMind’s ruby red eyes stared at Matt, its mind-sense one of frustration and anger combined, as it understood his point but felt deep anger at having to accept his suggestion. “Accepted! But once we emerge close to Temtok, I will personally deal with this intruder. In the meantime, put this ship under stealth cover.” The AI’s mind presence disappeared, as did its lifesize holo. Beyond Matt, words were just being spoken by his normal-time friends. Blinking mentally, he exited ocean-time.

  “Matt, why did BattleMind leave?” asked Eliana. “Is there a problem or—”

  “Yes, but one we can handle,” he said, feeling exhaustion strike him both mentally and physically. “You see just the F7 star and the planets in the system, from the databyte info I posted on the wallscreen. But the ship’s sensors detected neutrino emissions from a starship in orbit about Planet Three. A world called Temtok, it seems. We are holding here for an hour to refine our remote sensing data, then we will Translate inward to the orbit of Temtok, there to . . . deal with this intruder.”

  “Deal with the intruder?” called Suzanne. “Is BattleMind going to destroy it?”

  “Unknown,” said Mata Hari as her Spy persona looked haggard and worried. “BattleMind must visit HomeWorld. It is convinced that living T’Chak will be found there. But it must now divert to Temtok to fulfill the primary duty of any Destruction Device—defense of the T’Chak domain. Which is why I am now enclosing our ship in the flat Alcubierre space-time fields. They will absorb our neutrino emissions and all other operations of this vessel.” Matt felt the Alcubierre fields wrap around them, leaving only a separate SpyEye Remote to monitor the intruder and send its dataflow to them via tachlink. “And it may not matter what these aliens intend. Their presence in our home system is . . . not something likely to be tolerated by BattleMind.”

  Matt leaned back in the Pit and closed his eyes. Thanks to Mata Hari’s intervention he had not passed out from the mind-flow anger of BattleMind. But now he had to think about how to save an alien starship that might not even be aware of them, or aware that StarHome was once the home space of a race of space-going dragons. Dragons who were deeply territorial, like all flying lifeforms. And the T’Chak had a history of ferocity that put an eagle or hawk to shame.

  Lateen of the Haktoon pondered the impossible. A quarter-cycle earlier, his ship and his clutchmates had detected the gravity-wave pulse of an arriving starship. It was a pulse identical to that emitted by every ship of theirs when arriving at their home world of Wetness. But according to the sensor echos from his Circle Panel, that ship’s neutrino emissions had now disappeared. How? The ship had not left this system, so far as they could detect. Was it an Old One returning home?

  “Navigator, does your own panel confirm the absence of the unknown ship’s neutrino emissions?”

  “It does,” clicked clutchmate Salseen from its own Circle Panel.

  The other five Circle Panels that lay atop the hull of their ship, much like the armor layer that shielded the top of every Haktoon, were equally absorbed in the job of orbiting their new home. Leaving to him and Salseen the job of Outer Watch.

  After a journey of twelve light cycles, they had arrived in a system once occupied by an Old One lifeform whose constructs still defended the drier planet further out. The Old Ones were a lifeform that was often airborne, based on ruins and carvings they had encountered in their home system. Perhaps it still lived somewhere nearby. But their journey to this star place was the first for his clutchmates, and only the second ever authorized by the Great Mother. Soon, he would have to present his knowledge offerings to the younger Mother who commanded all aboard his ship. What could he tell her of this strange ship that had appeared, then disappeared? Would there be conflict with an Old One? Were there other star-traveling species yet to be discovered in their egg cluster of stars? And would this now distant ship appear suddenly near the planet their young Mother had designated as the home for new generations of the Haktoon?

  “Clutchmate Madawan,” he clicked to his brother, who rested inside the Circle Panel that controlled ship’s power and spacedrive. “Move us close to the moon of Mother’s World. Perhaps our departure from this orbit will hide us from detection by this unknown starship.”

  “Complying, my commander.”

  Lateen focused two of his eyes on the space-normal sensor echos that spoke to his eyestalks in the language of bodyheat. Space was such a cold, waterless domain. It seemed as if the race must suffer the unnaturalness of this domain in order to locate new homes for their clutchlings. New homes with warm humidity, dense plant growth, new animal life that might be nourishing, and shallow seas that would nurture their egg clusters until the time of Landing for every Haktoon, whether Mother or Worker. Lifting two of his ten legs, Lateen tapped in an echo code for the few clutchmates allocated to Defense against hungry lifeforms. They had but a ten-pack of such weapons, but defend the young Mother he would. As would every Worker onboard the Lustrous Wetness. Everyone except the double-ten of Workers who had landed on Mother’s World with the young Mother. They must survive as they could.

  Matt’s mind swam in the dataflow of ocean-time as the ship left Translation and appeared three planetary diameters out from the surface of Temtok. Their appearance would cause mild earthquakes on the humid world, but not affect its orbit. Or so Mata Hari had assured him after they had confirmed the orbit of the intruder starship. They had Translated fifteen light-hours from the heliopause inward to StarHome’s third planet. Where, it seemed, BattleMind wished to erase the intruder. An action that Matt could not permit.

  “Where has it gone!” snarled BattleMind’s mind-voice.

  Extending his ship senses out to ten light minutes, perceiving in UV, infrared, microwave and yellow-white starlight, Matt searched for the neutrino signature of the intruder. So long as the intruder was not lying between them and the local star, the artificial neutrino emissions of a fusion power plant were always as bright as a candle in a cave. Ahhhh.

  “Beside this planet’s moon,” Matt said, tossing a PET thought-image to the purple cloud of BattleMind. “It is orbiting just a hundred kilometers above the moon’s surface. It seems it detected the absence of our neutrino emissions and sought to hide its own presence.”

  “BattleMind,” said Mata Hari in the first milliseconds after their arrival. “Let us contact this ship and discover—”

  “A laser beam will be my contact!” it roared, activating a spinal hydrogen-fluorine laser dome before Matt could block it.

  It took the beam less than five light-seconds to reach from Mata Hari to the brown disk shape of the alien intruder. Matt shifted to gestalt thought mode and shut down broadcast power to that laser, then told all the ship’s lasers to shift control sensors to a wavelength unknown to BattleMind. In his mind, the return light echo showed a black spot on the upper hull of the alien ship, then a spurt of yellow as its fusion pulse shipdrive moved it into a jerky effort at avoiding a straight-line course that would allow easy targeting. In his mind, BattleMind roared its outrage.

  “Human! In seconds I will reset the laser access frequency and finish the extinction of this intruder!”

  Seven seconds, said Matt’s onboard nanoware timesensor.

  “I cannot allow the death of a starship that has not tried to harm us,” Matt said in mind-flow, gritting his teeth against the pain of the T’Chak AI’s outrage. “Please! Remember our Stage Three agreement! I will assist you in overthrowing the Anarchate! But you must accept me as a partner, not just a tool.”

  The adjacent holo of BattleMind, moving in slow human time-mode, stopped its effort to strike him with an immaterial wing. “Partner! Your mind is weak, your thoughts are slow and your brain is imperfect,” it roared.

  “But my human sneakiness tactics have helped you,” he groaned mentally, wishing he did no
t have to fight the dragon on a hundred fronts inside Mata Hari as the AI made dozens of efforts to circumvent Matt’s lightspeed hijinks that constantly changed control frequencies for the normal weapons of the starship.

  “The Graviton Beam is under my personal control,” muttered BattleMind. “This intruder will become a speck of compacted neutrons, unable to—”

  “Stage Three will fail without me and my friends.”

  BattleMind let go its activation of the Restricted Room graviton weapon and focused its red eyes on his mind. “How will it fail? Hundreds of my brethren are now resting at the Lacunae Mindworks. With their help I can—”

  “Waste your efforts,” Matt said, his energy levels flagging. “Study this book, How The Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict by Ivan Arreguin-Toft,” he said hurriedly as he PET mind-sent the book file to BattleMind. “It holds many combat lessons learned by early human rebels such as Mao Zedong, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Sun Bin. And we will need the scheming insights of Chanakya in turning the tables on those in power, as the great Hindu wrote in The Arthashastra. These are but a few of the human sneakiness elements that you need.”

  “Destruction of this intruder is not needed,” said the intruding thoughts of Elegant Harmony, its mind-flow appearing as a golden cloud. “If there are no living T’Chak, it matters not who visits this system. If there are living masters, we should consult them before acting harshly.”

  “Agreed,” Mata Hari said over their common mind-link. “Master of this ship, I have done my best to relate to organics whom you see as inferior. I tell you they are not inferior. Just different. And very valuable to your old Task, and perhaps to new Tasks that may yet come if we discover a living master on HomeWorld. Put aside this violence and let us seek communication with the intruding starship. After all, they sought to hide, not to attack us.”