Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) (17 page)

“Can you get a Spy Eye
to her? Gotta talk her to a place where the Offense Sled can pick her up!”

“Moving toward her. A few moments,” Mata Hari said pensively. “Now! She is in view. Speak to her.”

Matt swallowed hard, giving thanks he had not stayed in
ocean-time
computer think mode once they arrived safely at Working. The Spy Eye shone a pale yellow light on the head of his mother, alerting her to its presence.

“Wha . . . what! Go away you pest!” cried his mother’s
tired voice.

“Mom!”
yelled Matt even as he wished he was down there, in Suit, able to take her in his arms and protect her. “It’s Matt. I’m in orbit above you. I’ve sent down a robot rescue sled. Follow this Spy Eye up to ground level and near an outside wall. The sled will cut a way into the skyrise and take you onboard. Then you’ll be with me in orbit in just a few minutes!”

His mother’s hazel eyes blinked, wetness seemed to gleam in them, then she smiled a huge, happy smile. “Matthew! Oh, I so missed you. And, and, your sister Charlotte is alive! Or was 15 years ago. I’m sorry I could not save your other sisters but—
”

“Mom! Jump off that maglev car now!” he interrupted. “I know about Charlotte. She’s still alive. I know what planet she lives on. We’ll go there next after I and my fleet rescue you. But head up that rampway to your left and
get to ground level! Your Mican owner and the Medun giant rat have sent out their own Spy Eyes and tracking Remotes into the Halicene skyrise. Some are coming up the maglev tube after you. Move!”

“Moving,” she said as she threw off the tarp, grabbed a shoulder bag, then jumped
down two meters onto an accessway that led to the rampway. His Spy Eye floated ahead, guiding her to the rampway even as another Spy Eye preceded it and the complink latched onto the Melikark skyrise Core computer.

With control of the skyrise computer, doors and accessways, Matt knew he could block any physical effort by local people to capture his Mom. What he did not control were the
tracking and security remotes being sent after his Mom by her owner and the Medun person.

“Matthew!
” cried Mata Hari in his mind’s-eye. “Look! A fleet of battleglobes just appeared! Out near the gas giant!”

Running Leader blinked as he and his battleglobe fleet re-entered normal space-time
in Antares A system. They had chosen to exit Translation in the empty space between planet Working and the gas giant that was the system’s outermost planet. While not close to any world, still, the gravity wave pulses of forty battleglobes would surely set off small earthquakes on Working. With complaints from local officials, no doubt.

“
Sector Captain, tachlink datafeeds from the four battleglobes in Lagrange orbit about Working show the usual traffic,” Malel said from the right of Running Leader’s Command Bench. “Other ship captains are even now confirming they are operational and ready for your orders. Do we make another Alcubierre jump closer to the planet?”

He eyed the UV and infrared images of the space lying between the gas giant and Working, a distance of ten AU. Running Leader’s fleet had materialized eight AU out from Working.
Inward past the fourth planet loomed the huge red ball of the supergiant star that was called Antares A. In truth it should have a name in keeping with its incredible size compared to normal stars elsewhere in home galaxy. Only the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, and a few other stars were larger than Antares A. But the star’s history as a slow irregular variable with changes in its corona due to the star’s helium fusing and few large solar granules in its photosphere, ruled out further disturbances of local space-time.

“No. We move inward to planet Work
ing on normal deut-li system drive,” he said, changing his vision to the yellow light spectrum so he could see his Bridge crew. “However, Chief Lark, bring your Tactical Cluster post to full power. See that the north and south pole antimatter cannons have an antimatter reserve for four barrages. And Malel, send what I just said to Chief Lark to the captains of each battleglobe. We should be prepared for hostilities at any moment.”

Chief Lark, a slim black-haired biped with a long
scaly tail, looked back at his Command bench. “Sector Captain Running Leader, shall our ships eject tachRemotes, plasma torps, Thermonuke sleds, and our internal stores of antimatter-laden Supply Tubes and Assault Asteroids?”

“Of course!” croaked
Running Leader, feeling irritated by the question. “Treat this system as if it were controlled by hostile forces! I thought you knew better from your battles under Sector Captain Yorkel!”

Lark flared
his Whiskers of Distinction in the sign of Willing Obedience and turned back to his Tactical Cluster post.  To either side, at the NavCore post, the Ecofield post, the EMF Shields post and a dozen other work stations, his Bridge crew focused on their jobs.

Running Leader settled down on his
Command bench, prepared to respond to the predictable complaints from conglomerate leaders. They would claim the minor quakes from the graviton pulses that always happened whenever any starship exited Translation were about the topple over their skyrises. Silly commerce beings! They might be experts in making money, co-opting local species leaders and discovering options for increased taxes and fees, but they knew nothing about a herd of starships running through the stellar grasslands.

Matt
bit his lip at the fleet arrival news, then forced his emotions about his Mom to evaporate. What was needed here was clear thinking. Good tactics. An overall strategy. And fast decision making.

“Mata Hari,” he called to his mind partner. “
Put us on Combat Alert. Eject half the tachRemotes you have on a trajectory toward the newly arrived battleglobes. Mix in with them the normal ratio of sensorBeads, holo Decoys of this ship, nanoRemotes, white noise Defense sleds, plasma Torps, and attackBeads. Send off an Offense Sled toward each of the four battleglobes at the planet’s two Lagrange points. And do your best to track any talk chatter between this fleet and commercial people on Working. They are bound to say something that is not encrypted.”

BattleMind’s giant dragon form took holo shape to Matt’s right. Its
scaly crocodile-like mouth opened. A long pink tongue slithered over white triangular teeth. “Promise me that we will not run away from these tasty battleglobes, little organic.”

Matt grimaced mentally but held that in the background as his ship’s two AIs began diversifying their attention modalities to a zone much broader than the local
planet Working. “You will have a meal, my ally BattleMind. If the new fleet continues its slow approach on deut-li system drive, they will not arrive here for another hour. When they do arrive and get within the range of our FTL tachRemotes and similar sensors, one or more ships of our fleet will engage them.”

“Matthew?” called Eliana and Suzanne simultaneously
, their expressions showing concern. “We learned of this new fleet at the same time your ship detected their gravity pulses. We’ve looked ahead precog for the next hour and do not see any active fighting within range of this planet. But longer than that timeline, things become confused, violent and with a sense of danger for the fleet.”

Matt knew the eight ships of Hexagon Prime fleet could probably destroy this new Anarchate fleet. But who was leading it? Was there a successor fleet captain to Yorkel? Was there coordination with whomever now led the new Intel Base in Sagittarius Arm? And what new tactics and weapons might this fleet commander employ,
like the Nova weapon they’d encountered at the Dumbbell Nebula? He made a fast decision.

“Eliana and the rest of Hexagon Prime, hold station where you are,” Matt thought-imaged over their mind communion. “My Offense Sled is close to picking up my Mom. Once she is on board, I will become briefly visible, attack one or more battleglobes, then we all will Translate out to Antares B star, which has no planets. Our arrival there will cause this fleet commander to come after
us, once he has reclaimed any  Thermonuke sleds and similar weapons that he launched upon arrival.” Matt gave them all an upbeat smile. “That gives us time in the Antares B system to seed the space around our arrival point with tachRemotes and combat sensors so that when this fleet comes chasing us, we will have the advantage in use of lightspeed weaponry. When the battleglobes close on us, we can use Stepwise Translation to avoid attacks by Assault Asteroids and Supply Tubes stuffed with antimatter.”

BattleMind growled low at the thought of destruction delayed, but Mata Hari, who’d slid her mind between Matt’s mind and that of the T’Chak dragon, spoke her agreement.

“Good tactics. Good strategy, Matthew, to make this fleet come after us, versus us having to fight in a system friendly to them,” Mata Hari said.

Suzanne and Eliana, with the other fleet pilots on the mental horizon, also nodded agreement. “Will do, Matthew. Let us know when we should all Translate out to Antares B.”

“Agreed,” Matt said even as his primary mental attention followed Mata Hari’s sleds through the wind-whipped plateau on which the skyrises were located. Already his first Offense sled hovered outside the metal skin of the Melikark skyrise, preparing to cut an exit hole for his Mom. With use of pressor beams to hold the skyrise air inside, the sled could grab her with a tractor beam and pull her inside the sled’s habitat cabin. Then it could shoot skyward to rendezvous with
Mata Hari
. Any craft that sought to interfere would be destroyed by the second Offense Sled that even now circled the cluster of skyrises.

“Ohhhh, how nice it would be to destroy that Halicene skyrise,” mused Matt in real-time voice.

BattleMind slashed his long spiketail against the floor of Matt’s Bridge, adding mental sound as if the gravplates of the Bridge had actually been struck. “Yes! Finally you hunger for the depth of destruction that I was created for!”

Kristen arrived at ground level, noticing
several hundred Aliens of various species in the distance, near the Central Welcome area. She instead followed Matt’s Spy Eye as it turned down a service hallway that followed the outer wall. The floating device stopped before an airlock that gave external access to automated sleds for maintenance and outside repairs. No person or floating sensorbot was to be seen.

“Mom,” said Matt over the Spy Eye. “Stand back ten meters from the airlock. My sled will burn a hole in it, then send in a Nullgrav platform. Get on the platform, hold tight, and the sled will pull you out using its tractor beam.”

“Sure, Matthew. Is your sister living on Megil? Someplace else? Or maybe—”

“Mom!” yelled her son in a stressed tone. “I’ve got an Anarchate fleet breathing down my back! Just get on the platform and hold on u
ntil you’re inside the Offense sled. Strap yourself in, even though its inertial fields should protect you from its fast escape maneuvers. And yes, Charlotte has been living on Megil. She will be back there soon. More later on!”

The airlock grew red, then yellow, then white before it vaporized with a loud
“
Blam!
” Looking down the hallway she’d taken to get here, Kristen jumped onto the platform and buried her head in the bulk of her shoulder bag. Any nasty methane air would be filtered by the bag’s cloth. She hoped. Anyway, she was certain Matt’s robot creatures would not let her suffocate during their rescue of her. Under her the Nullgrav platform trembled, then moved quickly, judging by the whipping of air through her hair.

“Mother Kriste
n,” said a feminine voice. “You are safe inside our Offense sled. I am Mata Hari, the human-mode AI of your Matthew’s combat starship.”

Kristen looked up
to see a thirty-something young woman with long black hair tied in braids that were corded atop her head, a narrow face, black eyes with an intense look, a pearl broach at her neck, all dressed in a late Victorian style frilly white dress. She sat up.

“You are Mata Hari? Uh, but aren’t you on Matt’s spaceship?”

“Yes,” the slim woman said, then pointed to one of the five accel-couches that filled the habitat area of the sled. “Please take a seat there. Quickly. This sled needs to be out of her very soon, with you taken onboard our ship. There is a fleet of Anarchate battleglobes heading our way, and your Matthew does not wish to fight them within this star system.”

Kristen jumped off the platform, stumbled over to the accel-couch, sat back, felt an inertial field come on, then dragged her shoulder bag to her chest. She eyed the
amber-skinned woman.

“Uh, are you a robot then?”

Mata Hari smiled with amusement. A very human normal smile. As was her voice. “No, mother of Matthew. I am a self-aware AI who is Matt’s battlemate, cooperator in his crusade to eliminate cloneslavery from the galaxy, and mutual conspirator in recruiting other organics to work as pilots for our battle fleet. What you see of me, well, that is a hologram.”

Hologram
? Kristen could swear the woman standing in the aisle just a meter from her was solid. She reached out to touch the woman’s left arm. Her fingers passed through the arm. “Oh! Uh, sorry for that. You just look so real that I—”