“Matt!” cried Eliana from a kilometer away, her own suit spinning like his. “We have to help Charlotte! There can only be a few hours of air in that mineshaft!”
He knew that. More seriously, he knew from linkage with Mata Hari and with a growling BattleMind that the three nuclear blasts on Thuringia had been detected by the Anarchate base on Pearl. Two more Corvettes were even now lifting off and preparing to blast at top speed toward the Nidar Peninsula. Even worse, a Nova-class battleglobe that had been patrolling near the far side of Pi-3 Orion had stopped its movement, according to tachlink Remotes his ship had emitted on arrival at Thuringia, and seemed likely to reverse course and head back to his homeworld. The future space battles which Suzanne had warned him of now moved into high probability.
“Eliana, head back to the mine entrance,” he said, sending her a PET thought-image of what he wished her to do. “Use your suit to clear away that boulder pile. Then begin clearing the interior mine shaft of whatever blocks it. Use your ultrasonic viber to fragment rocks as needed. And be careful about letting radioactive air into the shaft before you can shield Charlotte with your suit’s pressor field!”
His lifemate’s worried face took shape in both his mind and on Faceplate’s virtual reality display. “Understood Matt! What are you going to do?”
“What must be done to defend you two. Rejoin my ship, take her up to orbit and destroy any Anarchate ship that tries to get to you!” Eliana’s expression showed surprise. “I know. Not my usual ‘Matt leads in everything’ mode. But you were right to insist on joining me. You did great in fighting that Corvette. And you will do fine in clearing the mine shaft and finding my sister Charlotte!”
Eliana nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Will do, my Matthew. Good luck!”
Matt smiled at her even as many segments of his mind filled with dataflows from Mata Hari’s shipboard systems and real-time tachRemote images of space lying between the moon Pearl and Thuringia. “Thanks! I’m offloading shuttle Ariadne to land next to the shaft. You and Charlotte can use it to rejoin me in orbit or to hide away elsewhere on this world, until one of the fleet can recover you.”
Eliana gave him a mental salute in the style of the Third Global Oil War, then flew away toward the mine shaft. Replacing her in his mind was the Lady of the Sword persona of Mata Hari, her sword already glowing with red laser energy.
“Smartly done, Matthew,” she said. “We can fight better in space. Do you like seeing me in our dragon shape?”
“Love it,” he said, boosting toward his ship’s Bridge. “Power up the reactors to full antimatter output! Once these Corvettes are within a hundred thousand kilometers of us, a single AM cannon shot each should vaporize them. Then we can head to intercept the battleglobe. I want to see if they possess the black hole launcher weapon!”
CHAPTER TEN
Eliana stood on the radioactive dust that had settled outside the boulder-blocked mine entrance. Matt was in orbit and about to take out the oncoming Corvettes. Her sense of the group mind communion was that once the battleglobe was defeated, Matt would return to pick up her and Charlotte. That did not give her a lot of time to clear away the landslide.
“Suit Tactical CPU, are you in comlink with the shuttle Ariadne?”
“Affirmative, human component,” said the voice that she had adjusted to sound like her grandfather Petros.
She smiled, then wondered if her Tactical CPU would become more personal in its interaction with her. The way Matt’s own suit CPU had become. “Tell the shuttle’s NavCore to activate Repulsor power, then to hover just above me. Can you link my PET thought-image of what I want done to this rock slide to the shuttle’s NavCore? I wish to use its onboard tractor beams to remove the debris in front of me.”
“Obeying, human component. You are aware this combat suit has multiple tractor nodes that can relocate the debris you have mentally indicated?”
Of course she knew that. “Yes, Tactical CPU. I know that. I plan to use your suit tractors to move rocks once I gain access to the interior mine shaft.” She was tired of being called ‘human component’ by this CPU. “Uh, Tactical, can I call you a name? A sigil designator? You can address me as Eliana.”
The Ariadne arrived a hundred meters above her helmet, its forward Bridge area pointing to the rocky slope that showed red scorch marks from the heat of the thermonuke blast as the Corvette’s fusion plant lost confinement. Her suit CPU replied.
“Mistress Eliana, you may call me by any sigil designator of your choice,” it said, the tone of Grandfather Petros’ voice sounding perplexed. An emotional reaction? Good!
“I will call you Petros. That is the organic source for your voice tone. Okay?”
“Okay . . . mistress Eliana.”
With a thought she left fine-tuning of her CPU and focused mentally on using Ariadne’s tractors to pull at the pile of brown dirt, purple rocks, grey boulders and nodules of black volcanic rock. The big boulders were easy to grab and toss to one side. The smaller rocks less so. The soil and gravel debris hardly moved. Damn!
“Mistress Eliana, if you would allow me to control the shuttle tractors, I believe I could clear the way to the mine entrance in a faster mode,” the suit’s CPU said in her grandfather’s voice.
“Sure. Go ahead. And thanks Petros!”
She got no reply from her CPU, but her normal light vision through her faceplate showed a miracle.
The two primary tractor beams changed their focus from pinpoint to linear vertical, with one beam atop the other. Striking the left side of the rock and soil avalanche, the two beams moved sideways to her right, as if they were something solid. In seconds the two beams returned to their starting point, pressed lower, raked to the right, then repeated. Faster and faster the tractor beams moved.
She watched with amazement as gigatons of soil moved away from the entrance as if pushed by a giant dozer. The boulders and small rocks also moved sideways, as if some Goliath-sized person was using a giant broom to take out a gopher mound. In three minutes the rocky face was clear of the debris pile, and any new rock fall from the fresh cliff edge had also been cleared away. She saw the grey metal of the entrance framework tilted and bent sideways. Behind it lay a pile of boulders, roof fall and some dirt. To one side the hovering bees of the nanoShell remotes flew at the rock pile and sought to bore through crevices between the boulders.
“Stop!” she ordered the nanoShells through her CPU. “Petros, please tell the shuttle to use its tractors to return the metal support beams to their normal rectangle shape, then press them into the rock face using ship’s pressors. Once that is done, you and I will enter the shaft and work at pulling out the boulders.” She paused, thinking beyond debris removal. “Uh, on the shuttle, are there any construction supports? Or vertical metal beams that could be used to support the shaft ceiling as we clear away the debris?”
“Yes, and yes, mistress Eliana,” said her CPU in a warm tone reminiscent of when her Grandfather Petros had helped her with her molecular genetics homework. “If you wish, the shuttle can lower its hover to your height, then use its tractors to pull out loose rocks and boulders from inside the shaft. It has my record of the mine shaft’s original appearance for guidance on where shaft walls are likely to be. The shuttle would be faster than what you and I together can do. Orders?”
She smiled and sent the CPU a smiling image over the PET thought link that let them operate as a combined entity. “Yes! Excellent suggestion, Petros. Thank you! Please continue to offer me more efficient options in the future.”
“You are welcome . . . Eliana. The shuttle is moving to remove interior debris.”
Eliana activated her suit’s Nullgrav boot plates and floated up and to one side so she would not block its use of tractor and pressor beams.
The shaft entrance became a blur of rock and debris, as if an air hose inside the mine shaft was blowing out the debris plug. Metal pillars flew in, pushed by pressor beams, and took rectangle shape as roof supports. Ama
zingly, both operations happened simultaneously. It seemed that in short minutes she would reach Charlotte. But was she alive?
Charlotte sipped her water bottle, then lifted it to pour out a little onto the head bruise that had knocked her out. She had not tried to stand up, but the echos from her movements suggested the mine shaft here was not lower or closer than it had been before the nuclear blasts outside. Her breathing felt normal. But would she have to go further inward, down the long horizontal shaft, in order to find fresh air? A rumble came from the debris plug. She felt inside her shoulder bag, grabbed the fingerlight, pulled it out, and pointed it toward the sound.
“Matt? Are you coming to get me?” she called, then felt silly as her fingerlight showed the dull gleam of grey granite rocks, and some bits of metamorphic rock that may have been part of the lithium rock seam that was being mined.
She shivered from the coldness of the mine shaft. Pulling the sheepskin jacket tighter, she used the fingerlight to illuminate the shaft floor, looking for the laser pistol she’d been carrying when knocked down. Its blue gleam came from a meter away. Leaning forward, then reaching out she grabbed the pistol. Sitting back against the rock wall, she lifted the laser and aimed it at the illuminated boulder plug.
“If you aren’t Matt, I will shoot you!”
The echos of her voice felt lonely. As lonely as she felt inside a mine tunnel that had lain empty for decades. Until she’d come, taken refuge inside, then called down upon this lonely mine shaft an atomic violence she could not believe was happening to her. Feeling cold, and trembling as her stomach ached for food, Charlotte did her best to fight for her life.
Eliana ordered Petros to stop pulling out boulders and tossing them behind her combat suit, where the shuttle’s own tractor beams were grabbing them for removal. “Petros, what is our distance inside this shaft?”
“ Sixty-seven meters, good Eliana.”
Gad. Her CPU was getting personal now. “Thanks ever so much.” She knew Petros would be a rare AI personality if it ever understood sardonic comments!
Eliana felt alert despite the last half hour of work inside her suit, thanks to the cyborg upgrades to her heart, tendons and muscles, and the onboard nanoDocs that were feeding her body large dosages of carbohydrates and proteins. In her mind she felt the antimatter destruction of the distant battleglobe as Matt used his ship’s antimatter beams on the unshielded mass of the twelve kilometer wide ship. The blue-white glare of matter-to-energy transmutation shocked her visual cortex, then faded as she returned her attention to the mine shaft. Several Spy Eyes floated beside her as suit’s helmet lamp filled the shaft with light.
“Petros, tell the shuttle to apply a pressor field to the shaft entrance so the outside air does not enter. Uh, what is the radioactivity level of that outside air?”
“The human exposure level is 74 rem, mistress Eliana. The hurricane winds blew most of the irradiated material far away.”
Eliana tapped her forebrain’s databyte nanocubes for the various ways ionizing radiation was categorized. “Oh. So if Charlotte were exposed to the outside air, she might sustain a reddening of her skin?”
“Yes,” Petros said. “A fatal dose exposure would be 500 rem in a short period. A dose of 100 rem will cause nausea in most humans. However, any radiation exposure is cumulative. It is best to block off the entry of any outside air into this shaft, and to remove this Charlotte within the tractor field of my suit corpus.”
Eliana planned to do just that. “Agreed. Can your bodyheat sensors detect any life beyond those boulders?”
“Open air space lies just a meter past this rock cluster, according to my chestpack radar,” Petros said. “My acoustic sensors do detect the sound of movement. It could be due to small rocks shaken loose by our work. Or it could be the human Charlotte.”
Eliana nodded, hoping against worry. “Use my helmet tractor to remove the blockage stone by stone, with debris deposited behind us. We can exit on Repulsor flight if needed.”
“Your satisfaction is guaranteed,” Petros said in a friendly tone.
Shaking her head to dismiss a CPU that had become all too friendly for her cyborg self, Eliana watched as the pile of boulders and small rocks were pulled away from the pile, floated to behind her, deposited on the shaft floor, then repeated. In short minutes a black opening showed at the top of the boulder pile. She activated her suit’s external Talker.
“Charlotte! Are you there? This is Eliana. I’m Matt’s girlfriend! Can you answer me?”
Charlotte saw the sudden appearance of light as the boulder blockage was pulled away from her, leaving a shoulder high pile of debris. She pointed her laser at the bright hole. A woman’s voice called to her.
“Charlotte! Are you there? This is Eliana. I’m Matt’s girlfriend! Can you answer me?”
Was this really a human woman? The woman who’d hovered above her while she was outside? Recalling the fake Matt who had used Matt’s recorded voice to trick her into revealing her location, she thumbed on her laser.
“Stop! I’ve got a laser pointed your way!” she said, then pulled back sharply as two Spy Eyes whizzed into her space. On instinct she fired at one, killing it. Before she could get the second one the woman yelled.
“Charlotte! Stop shooting. My combat suit is on AutoDefense mode! I’m overriding its program to fire on you with my shoulder lasers! I’m real! I’m human!”
Charlotte recalled the white ceramic armor of the combat suit that had floated above her. She knew something this woman should know, if she were not an alien imposter.
“Tell me the name of the animal heads on Matt’s suit!”
A chuckle sounded from the other side of the boulders. “Wolves! They are the heads of wolves. They never give up on the hunt, just like Matt.”
Charlotte shivered from the cold, felt a headache coming on from the rock strike, and decided to trust the answer. And the human-sounding chuckle. “Here! I’m tossing my laser through the air hole! I’m not armed anymore.”
Eliana saw the laser pistol fly through the air hole to land at her feet. Before she could stop it, Petros aimed her right shoulder laser at the pistol and melted it with a single pulse of green laser light.
“Damn it Petros! Stop!” she cried, using her PET thought link to order the CPU to Standby. “I order you to stop all offense actions! There’s an unarmed young girl behind those rocks. And she’s Matt’s sibling. Do you wish Mata Hari to disassemble your CPU?”
“No,” the CPU said in a soft voice. “Please, mistress Eliana, do not cause me to lose awareness. I thought we were becoming . . . becoming friends.”
Eliana sighed. Managing a CPU on the edge of self-awareness was not anything she had studied on her homeworld of Halcyon. Gad. She had a baby CPU to tend to now!
“Good, little Petros. Now, quickly remove those boulders so I can give Matt’s sister a hug!”
Charlotte watched, still on her knees, as the pile of boulders flew away from her to land somewhere down the mine shaft. In front of her stood the white armor of the woman who’d told her to take shelter inside the mine shaft. Advice which had surely saved her from nuclear incineration. Putting her right hand against the shaft wall, she stood up slowly. She dropped the water bottle that she had held onto.
“Eliana?”
“Yes!” said the combat suited figure who slowly walked forward. Her face was illuminated in the helmet light. The woman’s jade green eyes focused on her. “There’s blood on your head! Are you able to walk?”
“Yes. I think so.” She stumbled toward her brother Matt’s girlfriend, then began to weave.
“Hey girl!” cried Eliana as her arms caught Charlotte before she could fall. “Come here and let me give you a hug!”
She felt the woman move her armored arms slowly, so as not to crush her against equipment modules that adorned the suit’s chest, hips and biceps. Were those rocket gun tubes on her biceps? Charlotte looked up, seeing a caring smile. “Uh, you’re all white skinned. Are yo
u an albino?”
Eliana laughed loud enough to echo off the shaft walls. “Yes. And no. And it’s a long story. My hair and my eyes are human normal. But I’ve got a nice tail from being a crossbreed. My Dad was a Direndl tree dweller! Hey, come on. My suit’s tractor field will hold you to me as we fly out of here and up to Matt’s shuttle Ariadne. We gotta get you inside and away from the local radiation!”
For the second time Matt stepped out of his Interlock Pit and faced the red-bordered pressure hatch that linked the Spine hallway with the Bridge. To the right his Mom also stood up from her accel-couch, as eager as Matt to see Charlotte. The hatch hissed open.
“Mom!” cried a red-haired Charlotte as she launched herself at Kristen Dragoneaux, their sobs and cries mingling together as they embraced and hugged like there would be no tomorrow.
Eliana entered behind Charlotte and walked in her combat suit to stand beside his own Suit, against the back wall. A hiss sound told him she was coming out to share his joy. He tossed a dress her way, knowing she would need it on the cold Bridge.
To Matt’s left stood Mata Hari in her Spy holo mode, her hand holding that of her partner Gateway, who wore the image of a Greek farmer in mud-spattered trousers. Both AIs were watching the very human celebration of two humans who had been kept apart for fifteen years. Were the AIs learning something about family?
Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) Page 18
