Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4)

by T. Jackson King

  “With frozen calmness, Suzanne.” She recalled Matt’s varied moods, and the harshness of his memory from when he’d worked as a cloneslave decanter on planet Megil, at the Flesh Markets of Alkalurops. He’d used his strength of mind to survive that job. Until he could move up in the Anarchate’s job rankings to be a Personal Guard for rich Aliens, then a Vigilante for hire by newly colonized planets. “He will hunt for news of his mother until either she is found or discovered dead. And whatever Alien owned her will feel Matt’s personal vengeance. In the way he killed that slaver ship captain in Morrigan system. Same for his sister. Matt has a gentle inner heart. But his mind is . . . like the biggest wolf ever known. He never gives up. You know that.”

  “I do,” murmured Suzanne as she, like Eliana, tachlinked to her ship Lorelei. “I felt it during the fleet battles at CC8733 in the Vela system and later at the Intel Base near the Crab Nebula. For which I give thanks. But this fleet fighting is so different from being an IT manager at Omega Casino.”

  Eliana squinted mentally, joining with her AI Altuna as the two of them split mind attention to targeting vectors for three of the 22 slaver ships that lay within a quarter light-second of the slaver asteroid. She highlighted the big globeship. “Same for me. Very different from being a simple molecular geneticist on my homeworld of Halcyon. But this crusade is worth doing. Worth living for. Even . . . even worth dying for if that becomes the price for freedom and hope in our galaxy.”

  Suzanne, like Eliana, was mind-sharing with her AI Lorelei as they brought antimatter reservoirs to full load for the soon-to-happen battle. Her mind-sister sent her a mental hug. “We will survive. As you can feel from your own precog sense of the distant future. You, myself, George, Matt and others will survive. But with changes.”

  Eliana knew about the changes. It now felt normal to behave with the viciousness of a she-wolf. To destroy starships and their crews. To turn opponents into stellar plasma or mini-black holes. In a way, her brother Ioannis was lucky she had not returned home. He would not survive as Autarch were she in her home system. “The battle nears in mind-touch, my sister. Join mental hands with me and let us help Matthew feel better about the revenge he will shortly take.”

  “Yes,” Suzanne said, stretching her hand across the cold black space that separated their warships. “Let it begin.”

  Toktaleen of the Brokeet, homeworld Cloudy, of the Nest Adventurous, stood in the Interlock Pit of the starship Gondu, feeling eager to begin battle as a member of Hexagon Prime fleet. Ever since the rescue of himself, his mate Sickanoon and their infant during the battle of Alkalurops C system, he’d felt eager. It had been a battle led by the Human male Matthew Raven’s-Wing Dragoneaux. While Toktaleen’s mate and child were safe on Morrigan world, he followed his duty to serve as a pilot for the Human’s crusade against cloneslavery. An effort he fully approved, now that he had personal experience of the uncivilized practice that the Anarchate trading conglomerates thought was normal Trade. Well, he’d done well during the Vela and Crab Nebula fleet battles, and in small fleet actions since. And his presence as the only non-Human in the Hexagon Prime fleet of Vigilante Dragoneaux was something he valued highly. It would make for a Saga Song that would be clicked across the entire world of Cloudy. Once he returned.

  “A return to your homeworld will be long in coming,” hissed the female T’Chak AI he knew as Gondu. Her winged reptile shape filled his mental foreground.

  “Acceptable,” he said bluntly. “Now, shall we plan our maneuvers once we enter Alcubierre space-time, erect our shields against offensive fire, and I begin thinking at close to your normal thought speed?”

  The T’Chak reptile, which the Humans had named a dragon, barked with amusement. “Your three-lobbed brain is faster at tactics and strategy than the two-lobed Human brain. But no organic species, except for our perfect T’Chak masters, could ever match our full speed of thought.”

  In Toktaleen’s mind there grew the weapons chambers in his ship belly that held the Sun Glow neutrino weapon, the Graviton Beamer, the Bethe Inducer and the axial Plasma Funnel. While their use would not be needed in this battle, Toktaleen enjoyed the way his mind felt when he mentally sensed the slight out-of-time feel of the neutrinos and gravitons. Their quantum dance enthralled him.

  “Ocean-time commencing,” said Gondu as their leader Matthew the Human activated his own link with every one of the eight ships in Hexagon Prime fleet.

  Toktaleen thought a brief “Good!” then fell into the endless sense of eternal time that was how he perceived the ability to think at femtosecond, picosecond, nanosecond and millisecond intervals, thanks to the optical neurolinking of the cable that linked his mind with Altuna’s. And with the Human and AI minds of the fleet. His body and mind became one with eight ships, eight AIs and seven other lifeforms who called themselves Human.

  Matt sank into ocean-time, his attention fixed partly on the slaver starship Dodemeron that floated a quarter light-second away from his ship and the other ships of Hexagon Prime. Mostly he felt the changes to his ship as Mata Hari grew two black dragon wings, each wing armed with three antimatter cannons. The ship’s deut-li fusion pulse drive with antimatter afterburner became a long tail that glowed yellow-white with fusion flames. At the ship’s front there grew a crocodile-like snout with two red eyes. The scaly snout could open a white-toothed gap that allowed the belching of a two hundred meter wide globe of purple plasma from the axial Plasma Funnel. The star-hot dragon breath could vaporize any solid construction, such as another starship. Even the giant Anarchate battleglobes could lose large chunks of their body if hit by a globe of plasma. But the weapons Matt loved most were the antimatter cannons that adorned each wing. The cannons could rotate to point rearward, up or down, depending on the vector of his target. Matt liked that. He liked feeling like an interstellar bird of prey who resembled an ancient Chinese dragon about to swallow the Sun.

  In his mind came the images of golden-haired Suzanne the precog, white-skinned Eliana, black-bearded George, sun-tanned Benjamin the Aussie, Sarah the manager, black-mustached Rafael whose wife and children were safe on the Irish colony world of Morrigan, and Toktaleen of the Brokeet, the single Alien member of his Hexagon fleet. And Toktaleen was an outstanding pilot whose three-lobed mind brought a degree of rapaciousness that Matt highly approved of.

  “Appreciation to you, leader Matt the Vigilante,” said yellow-skinned Toktaleen. The Brokeet’s giant ant form stood in its own Interlock Pit, the fiber optic cable that allowed optical neurolinking with one’s starship and with its AI mind gleamed silvery in the light of Toktaleen’s Bridge.

  Matt nodded mentally to his ally, taking his time since their thought images and discussion were happening at millisecond or faster speeds, thanks to the ocean-time immersion of each living pilot in the fleet’s eight ships. He focused on the seven other pilots of the fleet.

  “George, please Translate out to just beyond those three slaver ships that are fleeing this star system. Eliana, Suzanne and Sarah, use your antimatter cannons on the nearest slaver ships,” Matt said as the mind images of Mata Hari and BattleMind shared his mental horizon. “Rafael, Ben and Toktaleen, take on the five slaver ships preparing to attack us, and destroy any Offense sleds, shuttles and Remotes that might be launched against us.”

  Eliana broke his combat focus with her green-eyed ‘little girl look’ that had first touched his heart when he’d destroyed the strip mining robot that threatened her home planet. Her albino white face, obsidian black hair and spare, sculptured profile fixed on him with a mental focus he could never escape. “Matthew, we will all do as you say. But what will you do, beyond the disabling of the slaver ship Dodemeron? And will we rendezvous with our ships after this battle so we can each . . . be in command of our own ship?”

  Matt understood the need of his cyborg allies to be back in direct neurolink with their ships and their AIs. But this battle in the Ring Nebula would not be as dangerous as facing an Anarchate fleet. Still, he must
share his plans with his allies. With people who openly shared their minds with him. They had put their trust in him. He could do no less.

  “I will take out the asteroid base, the ships hiding behind it, then . . . then I will move this ship to face the slaver ship Dodemeron. Face on. I would have direct communication with its captain. Before I destroy him.” He paused. “And yes, we will rendezvous with your ships once every slaver artifact in this system is destroyed. The plan we agreed to in Battle Council is still in effect. Satisfied?”

  “Thank you, Matthew,” Eliana said as she turned her mental focus to her ship Altuna and to maintaining telepathic contact with her precog mind-sister Suzanne.

  “Satisfactory guidance,” clicked Toktaleen in Belizel as he rotated his T’Chak Dreadnought in a twisting spiral so its AM cannons could more easily attack three slaver ships.

  “Good hunting!” called George with a grin.

  In space, eight ships became two kilometer long dragons that closely resembled the living shape of the T’Chak aliens. Spitting purple globes of plasma, each dragon ship moved like a raptor of space after one or more slaver targets.

  Eleven seconds, 432 milliseconds and 976 picoseconds, his cyberclock whispered.

  Around his ship and every Hexagon Prime ship there arose the flat Alcubierre space-time shields that would protect each ship from any laser or thermonuke attack by the slaver ships. The shields also made each ship stealthy and nearly invisible since the shields absorbed all light emitted by any star or light emitter. Matt turned his mind to the reduction of the three kilometer tall slaver asteroid.

  To his right there appeared the twelve foot tall holo of BattleMind, the alien-minded AI whose mental voice was so powerful that Matt could barely withstand exposure to it. Which is why Mata Hari always slid her mind as a buffer over Matt’s mind whenever BattleMind spoke to Matt.

  “I detect from your sneaky Human mind that you wish to employ my Sun Glow weapon,” BattleMind said in a mindvoice that felt like the impact of a tornado.

  In ocean-time mindlink, Matt could not hide from the touch of BattleMind, the help of Mata Hari dressed as Lady of the Sword or the awareness of what the other fleet pilots were doing and saying with their own AIs. Sharing his Bridge with a giant, black winged AI dragon whose two forearms and belly showed yellow scales, while its purple spine ridge carried a zigzag line of sharp thorns, had become normal. What was not normal yet was the sharing of combat decisions.

  “Correct,” Matt said dryly. “BattleMind, please activate your Sun Glow weapon and fire on that asteroid base. I would see it become a stellar plasma ball. Then let us move away, quickly, so I may interrogate the captain of the Dodemeron.”

  “At last, a target worth my attention,” rumbled BattleMind.

  In the front holoscreen floated the black rock, silver skyrises and tiny repair bots that were futilely trying to seal the shuttle-sized hole in the base’s clear dome. The armed Corvette dispatched by the Control Station operators was just 500 meters from the lower landing dock opening. The entire conversation with his cyborg allies and their AI friends had taken much less than a half second.

  “Firing!”

  A white spear of coherent neutrinos slashed down at the black rock of the slaver base. The rock shimmered in both the holo and in Matt’s superfast thinking mind. Then the rock became a roiling ball of yellow plasma, held to its globular form by a magfield transmitted by the Sun Glow beam. That plasma included the Corvette.

  Beyond the giant stellar plasma ball lay three of the five slaver ships that had tried to hide behind the asteroid. Already they were moving away from the plasma ball. And into Matt’s line of fire. Flexing his muscles as he sat in the Interlock Pit, he tensed his arms and outside, on his wings, three of his antimatter cannons fired black beams of coherent neutrons at the three slaver ships.

  Three blue-white explosions of total matter-to-energy conversion filled a part of space that lay just seventy kilometers away. The white vapor fronts of the destroyed slaver ships joined with the golden yellow plasma ball of the asteroid to make local space very unhealthy. In his mind he gave the necessary order.

  “Mata Hari, Translate us to the area of the ship Dodemeron!”

  Grey emptiness surrounded his ship for the brief time it took to travel a quarter light second, then a band of white diamond stars sparkled in the front holo. Behind them glowed the yellow and green ionization belts of the Ring Nebula. To the side, rear and down ecliptic occurred other blue-white explosions as his Hexagon Prime battlemates destroyed their slaver targets using coherent neutron antimatter beams. In front of him floated the slaver starship. The Dodemeron showed a habitat globe at the front, a boxy body that ended in a ruptured tail section and two side pontoons that mounted proton beamers. Already the Spelidon ship captain was using attitude jets to turn toward Matt’s ship, clearly aiming to fire on him.

  “Mata Hari, fire a few neutral particle beam lasers at those pontoon beamers,” Matt said. “Then move us to within five kilometers of the slaver ship.”

  “Firing Matthew,” said Mata Hari as her steel sword shot two beams at the pontoons.

  To his right BattleMind spread wide his black wings, wing-claws curling as if trying to rip and tear something. Which gave him an idea.

  “BattleMind, when we arrive close by the slaver ship, orient us so that this ship is parallel to the Dodemeron. Once done, I would like to slice the ship into flat segments, beginning at the rear and moving up the box body to the habitat globe. Which lasers would do the best job?”

  In his ocean-time mind and by real time vision, Matt saw the giant T’Chak dragon open its long snout and display sharp white teeth. Its version of a smile. “Ahhh. Torture before destruction. Use the CO2 and hydrogen-fluorine laser domes on my spine. They have sufficient power for metal cutting.”

  Twelve seconds, 21 milliseconds and 13 picoseconds, noted his cyberclock.

  On the horizon of his mind Matt felt Eliana pay brief attention to his plan, give a mental nod, then return to her own antimatter destruction of two slaver ships that had fired on her shields. Despite the exhaustion he already felt from spending long seconds in ocean-time, and the mental strain from directly mind-linking to BattleMind, he agreed.

  “Good advice. BattleMind, please begin slicing away the body of Dodemeron, moving from the dead engine section up toward the habitat globe.”

  “Commencing.”

  Matt watched the ship’s vidimage feed on both the front holosphere and within his mind as lightspeed optical neurolinking fed him the multi-spectral images of the Alien slaver ship. While positron emission tomography and SQUID implants under his scalp gave him true thought-to-thought communication with his two AIs and with his cyborg allies, his left ear tachlink node gave him FTL links to every pilot, ship and AI in Hexagon Prime fleet. Which required him to exert tight focus on immediate issues. Like his plan for ending the existence of the slaver captain. Eventually.

  Out in space the silvery metal slices of the slaver starship drifted away from the ship body like bread sliced from a loaf of fresh hot bread. His mother Kristen always baked fresh bread for them, he thought, recalling an image from just before the genome slaver raid. The aroma of fresh bread was a sensation he had not recalled for a long time. But the haggard images of his Mom and Charlotte in the records of this slaver ship reminded him of many things. Too many things. All too soon the laser slicing of the slaver ship came to an end, leaving only the habitat globe intact.

  “BattleMind and Mata Hari, have your limpet complink and biosensors located the spot where the Spelidon rat captain is located? In the habitat globe?”

  “Yes Matthew,” said the new Spy persona of Mata Hari. “Captain Markel of Nest Perilous from the world Rocky Talus is presently standing in a Command Booth inside his ship’s Bridge. The Bridge is located in that silvery bubble which protrudes from the front end of the habitat globe. The bubble can become transparent upon command by the ship’s NavCore. Like the optical matter walls
of our ship. My complink is in control of the Dodemeron’s NavCore.”

  “Good,” Matt thought to his two AIs. “BattleMind, continue slicing through the habitat globe until only the Bridge component is left intact. Seal off any air supply tubes so Captain Markel can breathe ship air. For the moment.”

  BattleMind’s dragon holo swung a black wing at the habitat globe of Dodemeron, slicing away silver metal pieces as if the dragon was cutting apart a globe of cheese. Like his Mom often did on their soyfarm on Thuringia. The sliced cheese, combined with fresh bread slices, were a treat Matt and his four sisters had loved.

  Matt’s mouth felt dry even in swift ocean-time. “Suit, walk over to me and be ready to tractor lift me into your interior.”

  Mata Hari’s Spy image showed surprise. “Matt? You are re-entering Suit? Why?”

  “For a direct, in person encounter with this Captain Markel.” He grinned mentally, sending his AI ally a sense of wolf-like hunger. “You forget that this ship captain stole 47 people from Thuringia, fifteen years ago. My vidrecord of his ship’s destruction, and of my soon to be in person encounter with him will be of . . . great interest to Thuringia’s governor.”

  “Understood,” Mata Hari said softly as she took holo form to his left, behind the shape of Suit.

  Matt liked the Spy look of Mata Hari. With her black hair in a bun atop her head, her body dressed in a frilly white late Victorian sheath dress and a pearl broach at her neck, she looked very refined. “Please shut off the forward Alcubierre shield. So I face the Bridge bubble. But maintain our Alcubierre shields elsewhere, and fire on any Offense sled, plasma torps or other device aimed at us by the slaver ships. I will leave ocean-time in order to speak directly with this ship captain.”

  Fourteen seconds, 934 milliseconds and 17 picoseconds, noted his cyberclock.