Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4)

by T. Jackson King

  Immovable thumped its spike-tail on their mental floor. “The precognitive abilities of your two psychics, Eliana and Suzanne, they detected this planned event before it happened?”

  Eliana rubbed both eyes with her hands, and sighed. “Yes, Immovable. Suzanne and I had held back from extended time sensing due to the . . . the pain of hearing thousands of minds die on planet Stony. But as we headed toward the local star in pursuit of two Courier vessels, Matt’s wonderment about those vessels prompted me and Suzanne to look ahead. To see what the Couriers might intend.”

  Suzanne grew large in the mental conclave. “Our precog view showed the star’s corona expanding to engulf the two Couriers even as the Courier on the far side of the star went into Translation and escaped the nova expansion. Its position just beyond a half AU was close enough to hide it from our ship sensors. And our fleet had no tachRemotes in the system that could reveal the hidden Courier.”

  Immovable opened its long crocodile mouth. A pink tongue slithered over sharp white teeth. “Then future attacks on Anarchate bases must include a least one T’Chak ship that emerges on the opposite side of the local star. That will at least allow our pilots to detect the lightspeed image of such a ship.”

  “Good solution to this new surprise,” Matt said, taking in the mental attention of his fifteen mindguests plus Mata Hari and BattleMind. “It is clear that a new mind now directs Anarchate fleet operations. Someone who is as inventive and sneaky as was Sector Captain Yorkel. Immovable?”

  “Yes?”

  “I suggest you and your nine other cohorts hold off on any attacks until Hexagon Prime can learn about other new Anarchate battle tactics.”

  The neuter dragon swirled its scaly tail. “One of my cohort leaders can do this detective work as easily as your fleet, Matthew. Let us share in the dangers. You organics are all too quick to become martyrs to a cause.”

  Were they? Was he? “Well, alright,” Matt said. “Assign one of your cohort leaders to enter an Anarchate target system, with a backup ship on the opposite side the star, and see what other tactical surprises the Anarchate has invented. We will do the same on our side of the galaxy.”

  “Agreed. And thank you for this warning. We will be in touch when new data is discovered.”

  The mindimage of Immovable winked out of their mental communion. Matt shook his head. “Let us resume course toward Antares A star. It contains the planet Working, where my mother is held captive. But our first rescue will be my sister Charlotte, on Megil, in Alkalurops C system. Seven of our ships will arrive at ten light years out from Megil’s star, while one of us will arrive at its heliopause and pretend to be a commerce ship. The Omega Centauri station IDs offer us plenty of options for ship camouflage and Trade contents.”

  “Can do,” said Sarah as her image faded from view.

  George waved at Matt. “My battlemate, let me go in as the pretend commerce ship. Any landing at Halath city will require passing an Anarchate people tracking station. Your face and body are surely on their automated Watch List. Me, I’m a refugee from Omega Casino just trying to survive by working for an alien.”

  Matt knew George had a point. There was no way he could safely visit the surface of Megil, either in Suit or in person. “George, thank you. Stay in tachlink with us while you are down there. If my sister is there, the whole fleet will Translate in and be damned the Anarchate officialdom!”

  George smiled, then waved goodbye. The other pilots faded from Matt’s mindview . . . except for Eliana.

  “Matthew,” she said as in his mind she walked up to him, reached out and grabbed his shoulders. “I almost lost you!”

  Matt’s slow physical body, feeling the fatigue from being in ocean-time thinking mode, left the superfast thought mode that had been essential for the recent battle and for their escape from being incinerated by a dying star.

  “I know,” he whispered as his body collapsed back into his chair. “I almost lost you!”

  Together in mind, they comforted each other.

  George O’Hussey cracked his knuckles as he sat in the Interlock Pit of ship Inevitable, feeling belated shock at just how close they all had come to being consumed by the superhot corona of a star exploding into a nova. While the T’Chak ship he piloted was a tech wonder, and its female AI a delight to play a game of Tavli with, it was not invulnerable. Not to a nova.

  “No, George, I am not invulnerable,” said Inevitable in a musical tone that echoed the ancient songstress Joan Baez. “But this Task of Vigilante Matthew to rid the galaxy of cloneslavery is a . . . an honorable task, worthy of your Irish forebears. And destruction of the Anarchate military and naval forces fits with the original Task given to all of us by our perfect T’Chak masters.”

  He smiled at the AI’s lengthy effort to encourage him. She was trying to be as emotional as Mata Hari, but she lacked the seven years of day-to-day mind sharing that Matt and Mata Hari had. “Inevitable, I know you’re not invulnerable. And while I felt fear for my lifemate Suzanne, I would grieve if ever I lost you and survived to know of the loss.”

  The AI dragon flapped her wings as she looked beyond the Park meadow where most pilots came to rest and enjoy growing things. “Speaking of whom, Suzanne calls for you. As perhaps you can feel by direct mindtouch?”

  “Yes, I can,” he told the polite AI. “Later.”

  The dragon vanished to be replaced in his mind by the golden curls, green eyes and brown freckles of the woman he had fallen in love with. He had only one regret.

  “One regret, George?” she said with a bemused smile. “What’s the regret you have about falling in love with me?”

  “That we did not discover each other years earlier, while working at Omega Casino,” he said in a mind tone that hopefully carried a sense of how finding her was like finding an oasis in his solitary life.

  Suzanne’s expression became tender. And focused in her mind tone. “I love being your oasis, George. And I guess we owe our kidnapping by Matt for the discovery of each other.”

  He chuckled, the sobered. “Just now, in the group talk about this new nova tactic, I feared for you.”

  Suzanne sighed, then bit her perfect lips. “Me too, George. Me too. This surprise was more than a sudden ocean squall that flips your boat but leaves you alive. It was so . . .” she left whatever she was going to say and he felt her mental and inner essence move deeper into him. “George, I want more.”

  He blinked at the visual-emotional sense of her devotion to him. It matched his own feelings and yearnings for her. “More what?”

  She smiled like moonrise over the lake that shone amethyst blue beside the village he’d grown up in. “I want what any woman wants when she finds the love of her life.”

  George knew this had nothing to do with perfect algorithms or fame for the best integration of expert system software. He nodded, feeling glad that he had shaved today. “Tell me.”

  “I want our baby.”

  Mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart, the two of them floated out of time in a unity of spirit and hope that few beings are ever blessed to experience.

  “Yes.” He pulled her mindself closer. “Right after I do this job for Matt, we’ll rendezvous at 10 light years out from Alkalurops C. Your ship or mine?” he asked, stifling a laugh.

  The glow smile she gave him was brighter than any sun. “Mine, of course. See you soon!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mindstorm of the Council of Sixteen focused on the mental tachlink vidimage of his chief assistant Medun of the Spelidon species. While land-based, Mindstorm did not begrudge the hairy biped his loss of the ability to live in sea water. Amphibians were nearly as rare as avian-evolved species. A phenomenon that some academic philosopher had surely investigated. Mindstorm cared not. He cared only for tradition and for power. And for data on the cloneslave captives who had once been the blood family of the renegade Human known as Matthew Dragoneaux.

  “Well, Medun, have you found a living family member?” he thought-spoke
over his implanted tachlink node.

  The Spelidon’s black whiskers lifted in the sign of Satisfaction Achieved. “Yes, Sector leader. Vidimage files garnered from the rest and refitting bases of genome harvester starships have revealed an image that matches the one recorded as the Human’s birth mother. The image matches that depicted on the Memorial Pillar on the Human’s birth world of Thuringia.”

  “Good,” Mindstorm thought as he rested in a bowl of sea water, his bottom gills savoring its saltiness. Three of his ingestion cilia tapped a Privacy shield so any sapient who might enter his chambers would not bother him. “What is the name sigil of the female Human? And her labor slave identity?”

  The long black whiskers of Medun flared upward in the body sign of Knowledge Assured. The biped’s two close-set eyes, a vision limitation he had never understood, blinked once. “Her name sigil is Kristen Dragoneaux. Her purchase identity record is XL3427ZipSedNine.”

  “Who is her current owner? And where is she located?”

  The mind-image of his chief assistant moved closer so Medun’s head and expression occupied Mindstorm’s mental focus. “The female is owned by a Mican merchant named Masterful, who works at the Halicene Conglomerate commerce embassy on planet Working, which orbits the star Antares A, my leader.”

  Mindstorm had never visited the Antares star, though of course he knew of it as one of the largest red supergiants on record in the entire galaxy. At just 12 million cycles of age, the star would eventually collapse within 100 million cycles. But for the moment, its four small rocky planets and a gas giant served as decent quarters for Halicene operations in the Orion Arm. The fact the Human female was owned by one of the conglomerates that made up the Council of Sixteen was a bother. But a minor nuisance. Medun himself could surely visit the planet Working and locate the female. A purchase price would be agreed on and the Human would belong to him. She would then serve her purpose as bait to draw the Dragoneaux Human to a distant star system where a surprise would be waiting when the Human tried to rescue the bait.

  “Medun,” Mindstorm said as he raised up on his six pincer legs preparatory to attending a meeting of the council. “This Human renegade disturbs my Sector 14. I wish that disturbance ended! Visit the Mican merchant, purchase the Human female and bring her to me here at Central Nexus. Your reward for faithful service will be a vial of Life Extend.”

  The Spelidon biped’s long tail jerked off his shoulder to thump on the metal floor of his hyperfast Courier vessel. Black whiskers spread forward in Eagerness Shown. The alien’s black body fur gleamed in the ship’s light. “Excellent! Generous you are my master. Your wishes will become fact as soon as I travel to this Antares star!”

  Mindstorm felt amusement at the eagerness of those species with limited lifespans to acquire longer life. His Nik-nik thot species commonly lived 300 cycles before age collapse occurred. His mindtalk with Medun was ready to close when Medun’s long scaly tail thumped the floor.

  “Sector leader, since you go to Council shortly, perhaps you wish to know of trouble in other galactic sectors. Such as Sector 13. Yes?”

  “Yes! Describe this trouble.”

  Medun’s eagerness flowed into Mindstorm’s mind even though his repulsion at the dryland nature of his assistant keep his mental barriers elevated. “Sector leader, my spy who uncovered the labor slave data from genome slaver databases tells me that the genome harvester base in the Ring Nebula, in Sector 13, has been completely vaporized by this Human Matthew Dragoneaux. Perhaps your council associate Noktoren needs to learn of this development?”

  Mindstorm felt satisfaction at Medun’s report. At last another sector beyond his was now plagued by this Human’s revolt against Trade traditions. Add in Sooteen’s own Sector 16 where the orbital Commerce Station in Omega Centauri cluster had been destroyed, and now the council faced hostile activity in three of sixteen galactic sectors. Perhaps he would gain more support than criticism at this upcoming meeting.

  “Valuable information, chief assistant Medun. You are excused to pursue the purchase of this Human female at Antares. Report to me when this is accomplished.”

  Medun disappeared from Mindstorm’s mental terrain and with a thought he shut off the tachlink node. While a useful adjunct to normal thought, the node could be distracting when he faced real-time encounters with other sector leaders. Activating the Nullgrav plate of his water bowl, Mindstorm moved sedately toward his chamber’s exit and the short trip to council chambers. After a Belizel year of bothersome behavior by this Human, it seemed as if a solution had been found for the eventual termination of this dryland biped. Inhaling salty water through his gills, Mindstorm considered whether to add a sapphire or ruby to the tracery of gold and precious stones that adorned his body shell. After all, as leader of one of the galaxy’s sixteen sectors, he must appear properly adorned in order to draw the correct obedience from lesser beings.

  Charlotte Dragoneaux stood in a Visitor habitat on Module, third planet of 51 Pegasi, and watched as her Master Nak ho-mesk stalked toward the habitat’s exit slidedoor, the black fur and four arms of the person who’d bought her fifteen years ago a constant reminder of her status as a labor slave. As if aware of her resentment, the Meligun bear halted just inside the slidedoor, turned and glared at her.

  “What? Do you not appreciate being on a world with gravity normal to your species?” Nak said in guttural Belizel, his two pink eyes and elfin ears fixed on her.

  “Master, yes, it is nice being on this world with a star so like the one we Humans are used to.” Thinking quickly, as she always did when dealing with this magnate of interstellar money transfers, she acted on an impulse that had been in her mind for some while. “And my bedroom accommodations are adequate. However, my blood period is upon me. May I exit our quarters to search for medicinal pain relief? My datapad will help me find the proper services in this academy.”

  Nak ho-mesk growled. “Your blood-letting period? Is it not a week too early for such a Human body function?”

  Charlotte gave a shrug, a behavior her Master was long used to seeing. “It happens when it happens, once every month. And this planet does not have a moon, unlike where we live on Megil. Perhaps that has caused this irregularity?”

  “See to your personal needs then!” the Meligun grunted, his upper right arm moving to grip his leather chest strap with four finger-claws as the alien’s waist arms put hands on hip in obvious impatience.

  “Payment for my medical needs will be done how Master?” she asked, pursuing her long thought out plan. “Shall I use my datapad to charge it to your account? Or pay with some platinum Standards?”

  The alien blinked quickly in a sign of irritation. Charlotte had learned the many moods normal to a Meligun bear person over her fifteen years of solitary labor slavery. It was clear her Master was impatient to be about his business of hiring a graduate of Orion Arm’s best known academy for training in computer algorithms, software, expert systems and AI mind formation. And perhaps likely to be less attentive to detail than he normally was when dealing with thieves, outlaws, genome slavers and Anarchate officials eager to build a private reservoir of wealth.

  “My business account does not need your intrusion, hairless biped good only for picking clean my fur!” Nak said loudly in his command voice. He pointed his own datapad at the chest-like furniture where he kept datasticks, transaction records and a supply of platinum Standards, then looked at her. “The upper drawer is unlocked. Withdraw three platinum Standards for your needs and bother me no more!”

  Charlotte clasped hands in front of her waist, bowed low and squeaked in a high voice she knew he considered a sign of her submissiveness. “Thank you Master! The Standards will suffice for my pain medications, some food and new shoes for my poor feet. You recall that my feet have not your extensible claws, nor the durability of Meligun feet.”

  Nak turned to face the slidedoor, tapped the exit patch with his upper right hand and headed into the hallway that connected their Visitor
habitat with the rest of the giant building that housed the IT Academy. “Your physical deficiencies are well-known to me, servant. I care not what you do to mend your function. But return to this habitat no later than this evening. I will have need of a full body massage after spending most of today finalizing the employment contract for an IT graduate.”

  “Yes Master,” she squeaked toward the Meligun’s departing form.

  The slidedoor closed. And Charlotte exhaled loudly. Then she got control of her emotions, never forgetting for a moment that the Meligun had set the habitat’s ceiling monitor to record all that happened within the habitat. Feeling cold from being dressed only in her underwear she grabbed her shawl, then walked over to the wallscreen embedded in the entertainment portion of the living room. She spoke in Belizel.

  “Screen, show me today’s galactic tachnet news.”

  “Obeying,” said the simple device that gave her a view on the entire galaxy. “Which sector?”

  “Sector 14, emphasis on Orion Arm news and Trade developments.”

  “Obeying.” The expert program paused. “Displaying.”

  A variety of image icons filled a screen as large as Charlotte, their ID codes listed in Belizel. The icons showed a mix of news from stars like Antares A, 18 Scorpii, Gliese 581, Gliese 667C, Kepler 22, Lagoon M8 nebula, Zeta Serpentis, Theta Aurigae, Sigma Puppis B and a variety of Combat Command locations that held shipyards, naval fleet units, and Commerce Stations in orbit about all kinds of planets. Even a few worlds occupied by methane and chlorine breathers showed as icons on the screen. None of them were Thuringia or Megil.

  “Guidance icon,” Charlotte said, impatient to be about her scheme.

  “Guidance to news sources activated,” said the screen’s expert system that automatically matched her voice tone.

  “Planet Megil, star Alkalurops C, current events, Trade and general news for the last three Belizel months. Display,” she ordered the simple device.