Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4)

by T. Jackson King

  About them, the black of normal space-time became the greyness of Alcubierre stardrive space-time.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Matt felt softness under his body and a soft touch to his forehead. Restraining his ‘strike out’ combat reaction from years as a Protector to Aliens, remembering he was on his own starship, he opened his eyes. His Mom’s face loomed above him, her expression of deep concern obvious. She smiled with relief.

  “Matthew! We were so worried about you, Eliana and I. But your Mata Hari told us about these exhaustion collapses from being in computer speed link with people and AIs. How do you feel?”

  He flexed his hands, shifted his arms under the silken coverlet of his platform bed, noticed that the fiery burning to his left side had vanished, then half-grinned at her. “Hey, Mom, remember the time I felt off the silo roof? Well, it’s better now than that time. No broken bones. Love you.”

  Matt’s mother Kristen took hold of his face with both hands, her touch warm and tender. She blinked away tears. “Ohhhhh, my Matthew. My young man. How you have grown. And I am so happy to be here with you. And with your Eliana!”

  The tall, white-skinned woman who was his lifemate, his battlemate, the woman who had helped heal his memory pain from the death of Helen Trinh, she moved from behind Kristen to stand beside the platform bed. The bed they had both shared in love-making. Before Eliana took control of her own T’Chak Dreadnought as a combat pilot. And as a precog mind partner with her mind-sister Suzanne. “Hey there, battlemate. Good to see you awake,” she said softly in her soft musical voice.

  Matt reached out to Eliana with his left hand, then touched his Mom’s face with his other hand. “Mom, if you don’t mind, I need to hug Eliana. She . . . has become as vital to me as . . . as life itself. As important to me as you and Charlotte. Okay?”

  Kristen Dragoneaux smiled like a grown up woman who knew what being married to a life partner was like. Letting go of him, she stood up and moved aside a bit. “Of course Matthew. It has helped me, talking with your Eliana, while we waited for you to recover from your . . . ocean-time exhaustion.”

  Eliana bent down to embrace him, her long black hair spreading out to cover his head. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “Oh, my Matthew. I was so worried for you while we waited for you to return to us from that battle. I . . . I felt your mind pain from the laser strikes on Mata Hari’s left side. We all did. Suzanne, George and everyone else. Feel my love!”

  Matt wrapped arms around Eliana and hugged her close, physically, but also close mentally thanks to the tachlink nodes implanted in each of them. She felt his true love for her. As he felt her deep devotion and love for him. Their human and AI allies stayed away from their mind communion, giving them the privacy they needed after the second close call of their fight against the Anarchate.

  “I love you too.” Under the cover of her hair, he searched for, found and kissed her lips. “And I’m sorry for the shared pain. But in mind communion, I do not hide anything. As you and Suzanne know from peeking at my future plans!”

  Eliana sighed, kissed him back, then stood up with a happy smile that she turned on his Mom. “Mother Kristen, your son is a wonder! He first helped me overcome my xenophobia toward computer AIs, then saved my home planet from a strip mining that would have killed our Mother Trees. And now he is leading us on this crusade against cloneslavery and bondServant status for all too many people!”

  Matt felt overpraised. Was his face getting darker? His Mom’s high cheekbones, a heritage from the Apache and Polynesian ancestors that they both shared, grew more prominent as she smiled back at them both.

  “Eliana, thank you! When your Matthew was growing up, I knew he would become more than a soybean and potato farmer.” She pointed at Matt’s chest. “Like that zigzag tattoo on his chest. And the dot within a circle on his left arm. I think the arm tattoo indicates he served as a personal Protector for an Alien. But what does the other one indicate?”

  Eliana, dressed in her green cheongsam dress from Vietnam, held onto Matt’s hand as she focused on his mother. “You guessed right on the shoulder tattoo. The chest zigzag indicates someone who has worked as a stevedore loading and unloading fragile and perishable items from a commerce starship. I gather your years in service to this Mican owner educated you on lots of Trade stuff in the Anarchate?”

  “Lots,” his Mom said, her expression moving from a happy smile to a stony look similar to the way his Dad Benoit might look when a merchant from Elios Port would visit to bargain over the price of future food deliveries from their farm. “My owner Masterful made frequent Trade trips to other star systems where he bargained for a low price in order to sell high elsewhere in Orion Arm. Like all members of Halicene Conglomerate, he was voracious in his Trade behavior. And extremely focused on status within his banking combine. Which is why he treated me as a ‘unique possession’ that he could show off at corporate events. It’s also why he resisted the effort by this Medun rat creature to buy me for its own master. Matt, why was an Anarchate official trying to buy me?”

  Matt licked his lips, then slowly sat up. Eliana stepped back a little, then handed him his yukata robe. He put it on, knotted the sash and stood up. “Mom, this Medun creature was trying to grab you for use as a ‘come to us or she dies’ lure to draw me into an ambush by Anarchate battleglobes. Myself, Eliana, our allies and 494 other T’Chak starships that belong to my larger Ocean Fleet, we have been making Hit-and-Run attacks on Anarchate bases all over this area, and even farther afield like the Omega Centauri Cluster in Norma Arm. In what the Anarchate calls Sector 16.”

  Kristen reached out to take Eliana’s hand in hers, her expression softening. “I’ve heard about your anti-cloneslavery crusade from dear Eliana. During the hours you were asleep. While I hate being thought of as a ‘product’ to be bought and sold, I am glad that the Anarchate’s frustrations led you, my son, to me!”

  Matt stepped to between the two women, gripping the shoulders of each. “Well, ladies, a crusade never ends. Just has pauses, sometimes. Eliana, where are we and what’s been happening?”

  His tall, willowy lifepartner matched her pace with Matt’s as the three of them left the stateroom and entered the Spine Hallway. “We’re on our way to Megil, in the hope Charlotte will have returned there with her Meligun bear owner. Your Mom liked seeing the computer Core images of her that George retrieved from the estate computer,” she said. “Also, while you were unconscious and the fleet behind Antares A, I traveled over to the Mata Hari, Suzanne transferred her refugee Gareth Davies to the custody of Benjamin, and Toktaleen gave an orientation to its two Alien refugee captives. Our Battle Council conferred with Immovable to warn it and its cohort captains about this black hole weapon newly invented by the Anarchate, and then we entered Alcubierre to travel the long way to Alkalurops C star. And planet Megil. We have plenty of time to change our Translation exit point, Matthew.”

  “Good,” he said. “Very good! Thank you, Eliana, and the rest of the council for taking care of vital stuff while I was unconscious. And yes, I agree that heading for Megil makes the best sense. Maybe we can head off an Anarchate attempt to capture my sister.”

  His Mom stopped walking, turning to him with alarm on her face. “Charlotte could become an Anarchate captive? Oh, Matthew, no!”

  Matt nodded his understanding, then renewed walking toward the Bridge. “Mom, I know. I will do all I can to prevent her capture,” he said. “But the attacks by my two fleets have really awakened the Anarchate’s Council of Sixteen to the fact that there is a serious insurrection brewing in Orion Arm, and soon, elsewhere in the other galactic arms.”

  Eliana squeezed his arm and stepped in. “Mother Dragoneaux, there is hope. The galactic tachnet vidcasts we’ve made of how genome slavers treat their captives, the fact that Anarchate naval fleets are bribed by slavers to permit attacks on new colony worlds, and our news the dead Intel Chief Brrzeet was willing to explode a star with thousands dead in o
rder to kill Matt, has had an impact. Galactic public opinion is beginning to realize the status quo is not so profitable.”

  Kristen walked alongside them with her head down. Then she looked up, eyeing them both with a serious look. “Well, this cloneslavery is an abomination. Such a horrible imitation of the true ‘birth of new life’ that every mother in every species goes through in order to bring their offspring into a hopeful future. As your Dad Benoit and I tried to do with you, Matt, and with your sisters. Maybe . . . maybe your crusade will allow us to rescue Charlotte. So she can find a career of her choice. And maybe a mate, for children of her own.” His mother’s gaze on him turned soft. “You children were the supreme joys of our lives, Matthew. To find that two of you still live and are safe, well, I’m your Mom. That is the kind of news any mother needs to hear.”

  Matt nodded again, then stopped in front of the red-lined hatch entry to the Bridge. “Thanks, Mom. One of our pilots, the Brokeet giant ant Toktaleen, was rescued along with his spouse and infant child, thanks to our fleet efforts. He became a cyborg pilot in order to pay me back. No payment is required of course. But his attitude must be nearly universal.”

  Eliana squeezed his hand. “True, Matthew. Go. Go now to the Interlock Pit, link in with our Battle Council members, and confer while your Mom and I rest in the accel-couches. Later, we can have a picnic in the Park habitat!”

  Matt smiled to himself. Tossing his robe to one side, he stepped down into the Pit and sat, eager for the star-spanning linkage of tachyons that sent the thoughts of him and other fleet members across the galaxy at a nearly instant speed. He wanted to hear about the attacks being done by Ocean Fleet ships in other parts of the Milky Way. He wanted to confer with his Irish battlemate George, who understood well the pull of honor and duty. And most of all, he wanted to think about ways to avoid being trapped in the future by these black hole projectiles that had been fired by five of the thirty surviving battleglobes. There was some hope there. Not every battleglobe had this new weapon. Perhaps more distant battleglobes on the opposite side of the Milky Way might not have this new weapon. Yet. Time to find out what he needed to know as the leader of a galactic crusade.

  “True, Matthew,” said Mata Hari in his mind when the optical fiber cable socketed in. “As your famous military strategist Sun Tzu once said—He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.”

  Charlotte Dragoneaux stood inside the shuttle arrival hall of Elios Port, on her homeworld of Thuringia, her escape from her Meligun owner nearly complete. At her side stood the giraffe-like ship captain who had brought her from the Module Commerce Station to the capital of her planet. Leather straps and shoulder bags adorned its zebra skin even as the Hootnai’s cyclopean eye kept watch on her every move. Her payment of 37 Standards for a ticket had not been enough to keep it quiet when the Anarchate asked about its biped passenger. She had promised it a reward for not returning her to Module. Now, it awaited the promised reward in platinum Standards and would not leave her until Governor Metzenbaum paid it. Feeling grim, she waved her hand over a holo pedestal, then input the comlink code for the governor that she had memorized long days ago.

  The holo filled with the soybean and potato official emblem of Thuringia, then cleared to show the image of a woman. She was of Asian heritage and her black eyes fixed on Charlotte. “Yes? Young lady, this is the office of Governor Charles Metzenbaum. He is quite busy with bringing in his fall crop so if—”

  “Understood,” she said, her accent alone telling this woman she was a native of Thuringia. “Please give me a live link with Governor Metzenbaum. It is a private matter. About our shared heritage. The governor will welcome hearing from me.”

  The office coordinator looked past her to the tall form of the Hootnai ship captain. “And the Hootnai? Is he, or it, part of this call?”

  “Yes!” she said before the alien could begin demanding his reward. But the four-footed creature shifted its position beside her, its long neck bent down to focus on the holosphere image.

  The Asian woman sat back in her office rocker, then shrugged. “On your head be it. Your location at the arrival hall at Elios Port is obvious. I will send civil enforcement guards to take you into custody if you abuse this privilege. Hold.”

  Charlotte said nothing as the official planetary emblem replaced the woman’s figure. In two seconds it cleared to show the ruddy face of a stocky, soybean farmer wiping sweat from his brow with a piece of cloth. Below his red cheeks a black beard covered his face. The man matched the image of the Governor Metzenbaum she had seen in the Memorial Pillar destruction vidcast. “Yes? Who are you young lady?”

  She smiled. “One of the 47 captives lost fifteen years ago. I know I do not look like I did then. But I’m 29 now. And this helpful Hootnai ship captain agreed to bring me home in return for the reward that you promised to anyone who brought home one of our captives.”

  Metzenbaum squinted and looked past her at the Hootnai giraffe, whose long horse-head bent closer to the holosphere. “Captain?” Metzenbaum said in accented Belizel. “I am this world’s governor. What reward amount did you expect to receive for returning one of our citizens?”

  The Hootnai, who went by the name Grindalamun, whistle spoke. “One hundred platinum Standards. It is the amount this unstable biped said would be paid to me for bringing her to this agricultural planet.” It waved its disk ID through the holo field. “Here is my official ID and payment repository code.”

  Charlotte knew her appearance was not human normal. She had colored her hair black, versus red, then arranged it into two horizontal wings that swept to either side like something from the royal court of Louis XVI, of ancient France. Her face was blackened by two horizontal zebra stripes, something she had done to draw the Hootnai captain into occasional talks. Beyond the head and facial feature changes, she wore a long robe that shielded her body shape, even though the fact she was two-legged was obvious to any Alien. She was aware that her departure from Module’s Commerce Station, and her arrival here at Thuringia’s orbital station, were automatically recorded by Anarchate biometric monitors. When her former owner complained to the Anarchate officials in charge of lost property tracking and they used his monitor images of her as a search source, she wanted to look very different from her lightly clothed image when she’d worked at his estate on Megil.

  Metzenbaum glanced at Charlotte, his lips twisting into a tiny smile as if he were amused by her theatrical looks, then he bent forward deeply to the Hootnai. “Captain Grindalamun, thank you for rescuing one of our citizens.” The holo image showed Metzenbaum lifting his palm-size datapad and holo emitter to his chest. The man tapped in something on the device. “There. One hundred platinum Standards are sent to your payment repository. And captain, if you would . . . arrange for your ship’s NavCore to forget its onboard records of our citizen here, that would be appreciated. She has a family heritage link to me that would be commercially embarrassing if it came to official attention.”

  The Hootnai whistle-laughed. “As do most thinking creatures within the Anarchate. Your request can be arranged with my NavCore.” The Hootnai clattered its front hooves against the metal floor plates of the arrival hall. Then its chest tendrils flared widely. “But such reprogramming is complex. And lengthy. There will be an additional cost of thirty Standards.”

  Metzenbaum eyed Charlotte with a look like the ones she recalled her father Benoit giving her when she failed to complete her vidcast homework. Then the man leaned forward again, in imitation of the Hootnai ‘paying attention’ body posture. “Agreed. That amount is now deposited. Thank you for your services to Thuringia. I hope your departure from our world will be swift.”

  Grindalamun’s horse-mouth smiled. Or, Charlotte thought it was a smile. “This is a pleasant world. For those who choose to grub in the dirt like herbivores. May you escape the day predators and survive to another sunrise.”

  “Thank you,” said Metzenbaum as he straightened up.

&n
bsp; The Hootnai turned its cyclopean eye to Charlotte. “ For a bipedal omnivore, you did provide some entertainment. May your Hunt be productive.” It turned away and headed for the landing field and its shuttle Savage. Charlotte turned back to face Governor Metzenbaum. Whose grey eyes fixed intently on her.

  “No last name. Give me the names of your mother and father.”

  “Kristen and Benoit,” she said, trying for a zebra-striped smile. “My mom is still alive and so is—”

  “Don’t say your sibling’s name!” Metzenbaum said harshly. “I know it already. From galactic tachnet reports on his spatial adventures.” The man showed a distant look, then focused back on her. “I’ve already had one Anarchate interrogation about our losses from fifteen years ago. I am not eager to repeat that social encounter. And the worries that came with it.” The man lifted his datapad and tapped it several times. “To know your mother is still alive is, however, new to me. I am happy to hear it. We had thought all 47 captives were dead.”

  “Most were,” Charlotte said, her mind recalling the horrors of an unlighted cargohold where they had eaten just twice and drunk once on a weeklong trip to the Flesh Markets of Alkalurops. “We gave our blood to my three sisters but they died anyway. Too young to—”

  “Enough,” said Metzenbaum with a softness to his deep voice that surprised her. “When we can talk in private, versus over comlink, I look forward to hearing your news. And the news of your other family members. Now, go out the city side of the arrival hall and take the hoverjet that I’ve rented. It awaits you. Your image is already encoded to its Core. Step inside and it will bring you out to my farm. My wife and I look forward to seeing you, young survivor.”

  Charlotte felt close to tears. She gasped. She was home! At last, she was back where she’d grown up. Back on the world where some of her farm neighbors had been kidnapped along with her family. Back on a world with dry winds, a harsh winter, but a beautifully green spring and summer. And even though it was now fall, with winter to come, she knew a lot about surviving hard times and frigid temperatures. Both Alien and planetary.