Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) (34 page)

“You are right,” he said, feeling distant from everyone and everything.

“Damn it Matt!” screamed Sarah into his mind. “Your lifemate Eliana is hurt! But she will recover! When she does, she will need a functioning husband! And future father of the children she so desperately wants!” The brown-haired Greek woman who knew a thing or two about life surprises looked at him angrily. “Don’t you dare give in to self-pity!”

She was right too. “Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for rescuing Eliana and our ally Altuna. Thank you for bringing me back to the duty I owe to others, beyond my own
geis
obsession.”

Toktaleen inserted
his golden chitin globe-head into the shared mind communion. “Emotions are normal when a spouse is nearly lost. I knew this emotion when my spouse and infant were captured by the cloneslavers. Before Matthew rescued us. We have rescued Eliana and Altuna. Now we need to hold a Battle Council to plan our next attack against the Anarchate.”

What? Matt blinked with mental surprise. Then he realized the Brokeet of three brain lobes was reminding him of his duty as the commander of  a
war
. A war that involved injuries, losses, intense danger and growing counter-attacks by Anarchate forces. He sighed.

“You are correct, good Toktaleen.” Matt scanned the mental
community of his fleet allies. Suzanne’s red eyes were clearing. Ben the Aussie tipped back his bush hat, as one might do when prepared to defy the harsh sun on a desert Walkabout. George of the stocky frame and wrestler’s muscles stood like a marble pillar at the edge of the mind circle. Rafael, father of four and husband to red-haired Rebecca, showed Hispanic calmness as his gaze fixed on Matt. And good Sarah, she of the blue-eyed gaze that had never faltered in the moments after the destruction of Eliana’s ship, she was out of
ocean-time
but remained in council via her tachlink module, her mood one of patience.

“After we emerge from Translation just outside this system, and do what needs to be done for Eliana, Altuna and our ship
s, we head for the Orion Nebula,” Matt said. “To system CC32415.”

“To do what?” asked the Spy persona of Mata Hari, echoing the interest of every ship AI.

“To destroy the naval shipyard in that system’s protoplanetary disk. To destroy the space factories that are making these Black Hole launchers and Alcubierre Bubble projectors. And to destroy any Anarchate fleet remnants that are foolish enough to return to the last naval shipyard remaining in Orion Arm.”

“Yes!” cried everyone in
mind communion. All seven of them cried their support.

Including Matt the Vigilante.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Charlotte watched her brother Matthew as he joined her and Mom for a leafy green salad on the grassy meadow next to the small blue pond that occupied the center of the Park habitat. Matt had been solemn and quiet after the six second battle against Anarchate warships that led to the destruction of Eliana’s starship, her rescue and the shock of new weapons wielded by the Anarchate fleet.

“Matt, will Eliana come back onboard this ship?”

Her brother blinked quickly. Then he looked up from his food plate. “Yes,” he said softly, his reddish cheeks turning darker than Polynesian normal. “Sarah is tending to her. And Eliana’s onboard nanoDocs are chelating out radiation-damaged cells. Fortunately she did not inhale any radioactive particles.”

Their Mom looked up from her lettuce, tomato and sliced cucumber salad, her chopsticks laid to one side. “Matthew, you’re hurting. I see that. Why? Eliana is alive and coming here to be with you.”

Her brother’s broad shoulders tensed under his
yukata
robe. His neck muscles showed long tendons reaching down from his clamped jaw to his collar bones. And a hint of wetness showed in his eyes. He was her brother. A grown up brother. But also a man, an adult man, with life experiences she was only beginning to understand. Like the death before his eyes of his first lover, Helen Trinh. His expression seemed to echo that memory pain. Along with something else. Something she thought might belong to the leader of a wolf pack.

“Yes, she is alive, Mom,” he said slowly, with a neutral voice tone. “But she was hurt and put into danger by my choice. As commander of this fleet. My decision to enter combat even with foreknowledge of the fact the Dolmat fleet captain had guessed we would attack that system, that decision was mine. And it hurt Eliana.”

Charlotte noticed how her brother, unlike herself and her Mom, did not sniffle, did not have a good sisterly cry, and did not reach out to hug them like any woman would hug a sister who’d suffered pain and heartbreak. He was not like them. And the strength of determination that she remembered from when he’d been a sixteen year-old who resented their father Benoit’s control of their lives, that strength was now the size of a mountain. Or maybe a neutron star. She smiled his way.

“Hey, brother, it’s right to be ticked off at the Anarchate baddies.”

Matthew’s expression showed surprise at her young sister tone. His cheekbone skin loosened, almost as if he were about to smile. But he didn’t.

“Ticked off is not quite an adequate adjective. Dear sister.” Her brother dropped his chopsticks onto the
salad plate that he had barely touched. “Furious begins my mood.”

Charlotte nodded briefly, her gaze fixing on the stoic tightness of her brother. “What will complete your mood?”

“The total destruction of the Anarchate control structure. And every instrument of their oppression.”

Airmed O’Davoren sat with her
newfound lover Balor O’Leary as they watched the surveillance audiovisual record of the inquiries being made by the Anarchate spy Rak alk-thorn. She reached out to hold Balor’s hand, feeling the strength of a man who had raised a family of five children with the aid of his wife Melody, then coped with her death from a blood poisoning that their nanoDocs and MedDoc automatons could not cure. She had been alone too long as a widow with no children. Their party-making during the Thank You party for Matthew Dragoneaux in the city’s central park had led to night walks under the large moon that hovered close to Morrigan. Concerts they shared. Meals they enjoyed together. Love-making had brought both of them into a bonded closeness that felt like it would last. She hoped so.

“That black bastard has interview
ed every Rathfriland captive, including young Maeve, and two-thirds of the Omega Casino refugees,” grunted Balor as he squeezed her hand. He turned to her, his weather-creased face showing an intensity that reflected what he’d said to Matt about them both being honor-bound to sacrifice their lives for the good of Morrigan’s people. “Do we kill him, bribe him or give him a false lead?”

Airmed
recalled the two tachlink reports the Meligun bear had transmitted to its master Sytoon, a Loglan crab amphibian who seemed convinced that a human world was helping Matthew. Which of course Morrigan was. But their world could not survive being quarantined from trading with the rest of the Anarchate. They had need for too many specialty devices made only in the Anarchate. And while she felt tempted to try a bribe, she knew the Meligun bears were notorious for being ‘correct’ in their behavior as one of the Ancient species that specialized in galaxy-wide banking. A pile of Standards would not sway this spy.

“We give him a false lead,” she said, offering Balor a brief smile, then leaning forward to pour herself a glass of
ice water from the antique Waterford crystal pitcher. She sat back and leaned against Balor’s strong shoulder. “We know Matthew’s entire combat history from his rescue of planet Halcyon from the Halicene Conglomerate to the Small Magellanic Galaxy to their recent battle with that Anarchate fleet in NGC 6397. We give this spy a place to go find Matt’s hideout.”

Balor’s
face crinkled as he smiled. It was a smile that had persevered through love, grown-up children, loss and the demands of training a planetary militia. “Ah. And just where would that be?”

Airmed smiled, then winked playfully. “A place he and his fleet have already been that is unknown to the Anarchate. Star HD 86523, in the Vela domain. It’s a B3V main sequence white star,” she said, pulling back as Balor tried to tickle her ribs. “Balor! This is serious! This star hosts a gas giant with an atmospheric refining station for pulling out fusion fuel isotopes. Matt’s Ocean Fleet went there after the Vela system battle
where they destroyed the Anarchate naval shipyard.”

Balor’s
playful smile turned thoughtful. He sat back as he saw the implications. “There is enough left over debris from refueling and minor ship repairs on those T’Chak warships to convince the Anarchate this is where Matt hangs out between battles. Except it lacks an Earth-like world.”

She nodded patiently. “Which is why it is perfect! Any Anarchate fleet that visits there will see the ship refueling residue, then leave a Courier with a Bethe Inducer to make the star go nova as soon as it detects gravity wave pulses from incoming starships.”

Balor rubbed his short grey hair, then held out his hand. She handed him the half-full glass of water. “Thank you, my dear.” He sipped. “Shall I drop a reference to this star as a Matthew refueling stop that someone did not erase from the civil archive database?”

“No. Feed the existing suspicion of this bear that we ‘know something’ about
Matt,” she said. Accepting the empty water glass she put it on the foot table and sat back on the soft couch, turning to face her co-conspirator. “Put a mention of the star name and use as a refueling spot in my governor’s personal archive. With a backdoor entry that a spy like Rak alk-thorn will surely discover as he makes his fifth attempt to break into my personal archive.”

Balor chuckled. A deep, hearty, honest chuckle. “Excellent! I knew there were more reasons I fell for you, good Airmed, than your insatiable body.”

She reached out and began to unbutton his calico shirt. “Yes, I have brains too, my love. Speaking of which, send that Maeve girl on a Scouting camp-out far from her home. She worships Matthew for his rescue of her from the slaver ship captain. She has seen his T’Chak ship. And I’ve heard she has told girlfriends that she wants to join his crusade against cloneslavery.”

Balor nodded, then leaned forward to kiss her softly. “It will be taken care of, my lovely. Both matters.
Now, will you shut off that damned ceiling monitor eye? I do not wish to entertain any late night visitors to your office.”

Airmed laughed her young girl laugh. Then the older part of her passed
a hand over the monitor control tab on the couch. After that, all their limbs became nicely entangled.

Sytoon rested in his
office’s water basin as it hovered on Nullgrav just above the office floor. Before him glowed a live hologram of his spy Rak alk-thorn, who seemed very excited about something. The biped’s narrow ears pointed straight up while its two pairs of arms clawed at its several tool harnesses. The black claws left white abrasion streaks on the harnesses. The former assistant to Commander Chai pointed its datapad at the holo receptor on its side of an FTL conversation between planet Morrigan and Sytoon’s habitat on the small world that circled star CC3478 in Sagittarius-Carina Arm.

“High Commander! Excellent news!” The hairy biped’s blocky head inclined toward Sytoon. “The visit of the renegade Human to this world left a record of his fleet’s refueling and repair base! Here, I’m sending the star’s
sigil name, Human reference title and location near the Vela naval base which was destroyed many Belizel months ago.”

Sytoon moved a pincer over a side holo pedestal, which produced a three dee spatial image that measured hundreds of light cycles in size. In the holo cen
ter hung a blue-white main sequence star of class B3V. It contained a large gas giant, an asteroid belt and a small rocky world that was airless and close enough to the giant star to show a molten surface. No habitable world was present in the system. The gas giant was icon-tagged as having an atmospheric refueling station in the upper atmosphere. Inhaling a long flow of salty water, he asked the obvious questions of the eager Meligun.

“This star HD 86523, our sigil CC4213
, how do you know it was visited by the Dragoneaux biped and that it was used for isotope refueling?”

Rak’s facial fur stiffened with eagerness. “My search for hidden databases in the office of the Human governor of planet Morrigan held a datafile
secured within its database of civil government records!” The pink-eyed gaze of the dryland creature grew larger as it moved closer to the tachlink receptor. “This was the personal archive of the Human leader! It resisted my first efforts to decrypt its encoded datafiles. Then I discovered the waist-hand access point sometimes encoded by programmers, so they can bypass the user’s password algorithm. There was a week-long personal record of the visit by this Dragoneaux. It included the Human male’s mention that they had arrived from refueling at this star.”