Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) (37 page)

Three
battleglobes blew up. Four did not. Why?

“Matthew, there is a hole for the rest of the fleet!” cried Mata Hari in his mind even as BattleMind
projected the Sun Glow tube, ready to blast away once they were inside the shell. “We Translate now!”

Running Leader’s mind felt the neurolink with three of his fourteen ships die as the Command Cores of those ship
s failed to receive the Defense algorithm in time. Four ships touched by the pink beam stayed intact even though the crew would be senseless and unable to defend their ship. Perhaps the AutoDefense programs of those ships would fire weapons.

His own ship fired black antimatter beams at the oncoming grey cloud of the enemy ship. They had no effect.

“The enemy is pressing aside the black holes and antimatter clouds!” cried Chief Lark as his tail thumped the Bridge floor in frustration.

His ship
Defiant II
rocked to the explosion of several Thermonuke sleds as they died under proton beam assault from the incoming ship.

Which disappeared
.

# # #

Matt’s splintered mind felt the change from Translation to real-time emergence as if he had blinked. The distance was so short that Mata Hari had barely to switch their drive module on, then off in order to move his ship inside the shell of battleglobes, his exit vector aimed
the hole he’d created. A hole that would shortly be the vector for incoming antimatter beams as the other six ships of his fleet materialized a quarter light second out and began to fire into the shell.

“Fire
everything everywhere!” he cried.

In mind linkage with a ship whose weapons can operate in picosecond and nanosecond intervals is a wonder. It is so, so very deadly to one’s enemies.

The Sun Glow tube shot a white neutrino beam sideways, impacting three unshielded battleglobes. They became yellow stellar plasma.

The Graviton Beam
er shot an orange spear of coherent quarks at the opposite side of the shell, reducing three battleglobes to tiny black holes.

Both wings shot all six antimatter cannons at three northerly battleglobes, allocating two beams per ship. Two of the three ships blew up into expanding shells of ionized particles, while the third battleglobe lost half of its mass
. But its antimatter reservoirs were not touched, so it survived.

The directed energy domes on his
ship’s spine shot coherent beams of neutral particles, free electron, carbon dioxide, hydrogen-fluorine, and excimer particles forward at the battleglobes that bordered the hole he’d created with his Stasis Beam attack.

Two hundred thirty milliseconds, 76 nanoseconds, 49 picoseconds, and 11 femtoseconds
, said his onboard cyberclock as it tried to keep up with near lightspeed thinking.

Ahead six grey clouds materialized as his fleet comrades
took aim at the three surviving battleglobes that had changed orientation to a triangle of three clustered Alcubierre Bubbles.

“Forget the antimatter
attack!” he cried over their mental tachlink. “Translate to the factories and take them out! I will finish up here.”

Matt fired a second antimatter barrage at
the wounded battleglobe that sought to join its two surviving fellows.

Running Leader’s mind nearly collapsed under the weight of the simultaneous destruction of eleven battleglobes. The
neurolinked minds of his fellow captains just vanished. As did the comlinks between their Command Cores as ships lost the ability to coordinate their offense and defense efforts.

“Noooo!” he croaked, unable to understand how the enemy could avoid death from his new Black Hole and Antimatter Cloud weapons.

Yanakutt slapped his ship’s Translation pedestal. “Translating!” it clicked harshly.

Running
Leader told his remaining herd to disperse, to run for their lives as these deadly predators sought to eat them all. One ship vanished into Alcubierre space-time. The other ship blew up under the impact of six black beams. His ship’s passage away from normal space-time left him with a single mind-image.

A fire-breathing reptile with black wings
pursued him as if all the predators in the universe hungered for him and his.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Mindstorm floated before the Council of Sixteen as each sector leader gathered for that rarity of rarities—an emergency council meeting. He inhaled the water basin’s scented liquid. His ingestion cilia did not touch the datapads and holo emitters that floated within his gravity field. His mouth palps moved.

“So pleasant to see your colors, Sooteen of the Loglan
,” he rasped, preferring to begin the confrontation rather than just react.

The soft-shelled amphibian fixed all four eyestalks on Mindstorm. Her chromatophore skin showed traceries of red, yellow, black, purple and the blazing white of intense anger. “
Your naval shipyard at CC32415 in the Orion Nebula is destroyed, with the loss of twelve battleglobes. Leaving only two operational battleglobes as the remnant of your naval force,” she chirped in ancient high-tone Belizel. “The operatives of High Commander Sytoon of your new Intelligence Base in Sagittarius-Carina Arm have failed to locate the Human world that is supporting this Human renegade. There are no naval shipyards remaining intact in your sector!” She paused to dip her gills into her own water basin. “And this soft-skinned biped’s dispersed fleet has destroyed an additional 412 battleglobes, bringing our galactic fleet level down to just 10,102 warships.” Her mouth palps squirted exhaled water into the open space around which each sector leader was gathered. “Disgusting! Do you accept personal responsibility for this series of sector disasters?”

Mindstorm
felt shock at the impolite challenge to his hereditary position as leader of Sector 14. The attacks by the dispersed T’Chak fleet in other sectors must have greatly unsettled the leader of the council. Which guided his reply. “No, my excellent mentor on proper council behavior.” There. His ally Noktoren from Sector 13 would surely perceive his reminder to Sooteen that council members did not make personal accusations against each other. “No more than you accept personal liability for the scattered attacks on bases and naval shipyards in your Sector 16. As I recall, you lost a Commerce Station in Omega Centauri cluster more than a Belizel cycle ago. But none of us even thought to question your fitness to be chief of this council!”

The white of Sooteen’s chromatophore skin increased to cover nearly half of her oval shell. “Upstart! Impertinent
being who fails to appreciate the antiquity of senior amphibian species! How dare you—”

“Sector leaders!”
squealed the Hootnai quadruped Rolette am-tok. Its brain bulge tilted down to fix a single eye on Sooteen, Mindstorm and the other members of the council. “My Sector 15 has also suffered minor losses from attacks by up to fifty alien warships. Observer Globes have documented their post-Translation shape as matching the T’Chak flying reptile images of prior battles with this Human renegade. But I accuse no one. Instead, I offer assistance.”

Mindstorm felt surprise, a feeling almost as foreign to him as was amusement. His Sector 15 neighbor had long ignored him at seasonal celebration events in Central Nexus, when sector leaders pretended to welcome contacts from lesser staff. Now this offer. Why?

“Your offer of assistance is highly valued, my esteemed neighbor,” he clacked in middle-tone Belizel. “What might compose your assistance?”

The high-necked carnivore blinked slowly, its single
white eye focusing on Mindstorm. “Sector 14 leader, I offer you two hundred of the six hundred battleglobes remaining in my sector.” Their neighbors in the council hooted, growled, clicked, chittered or light-blinked. “We ask only for the secret of the Black Hole ejectors and the Alcubierre Bubbles which our colonists at star CC9342 observed during the recent combat between eight T’Chak warships and 32 battleglobes led by your Sector Captain Running Leader. So that we may refit our own battleglobes in a manner that increases their chances of surviving future attacks by this unstable biped.”

“Done,”
Mindstorm clacked abruptly, feeling an anxiety to please other council members, a feeling that had long been foreign to him. “How soon before they arrive at my new Intelligence Base at star CC3478, in Sagittarius Arm?”

“A Belizel month.” The Hootnai turned its brain bulge and s
ingle eye to Sooteen. “Council Chief Sooteen, my sector could perhaps lend a few battleglobes to your sector if needed.”

Sooteen squirted a water jet into the middle of their
hovering platforms. Its four eyestalks split to focus two on Mindstorm and two on the Hootnai. “Not needed. Other sectors may assist each other as agreed by their leaders. Mindstorm, do you have any revised plans for capturing this soft-skinned Human? Our civilian populations have begun to pay attention to the galactic tachnet broadcasts of this biped. The issue of cloneslavery and bondServant contracts is being discussed by billions of tech-level civilians.”

Mindstorm rose on his six pincer-feet, an ingestion cilia activating a holo emitter. “Council chief, there are 30 trillion civilians within the control of the Anarchate. A few billion who question normal Trade conventions is irrelevant to the task you set me earlier. And yes, I do have revised plans.”

Sooteen’s brown eyestalks fixed on him. “Describe these plans! Quickly! I have an appointment with Loglan clan representatives that was delayed by your failure to eradicate this minor insurrection.”

Mindstorm cilia-gestured to the holo, which changed from an image of the galaxy to an image of a Human of gender female. “Observe. This is a clone of the Human female name sigil Charlotte Dragoneaux
. Her age and appearance match that of the Charlotte original, from the time when this renegade biped’s family grouping was captured by genome harvesters.” Council members focused eyestalks, vision patches, sonar horns, infrared senses and chemosynthetic light emitters on the holo image. “While my operative Medun lost possession of the progenitor of this Matthew Raven’s-Wing Dragoneaux, and the biped’s female sibling escaped from the custody of her Meligun owner, my commerce representatives were able to locate a cloneslave produced from the cells of this Charlotte. I will use her as a lure to bring this Human to me and my forces.”

Noktoren the avian raptor clicked his yellow beak exactly as Mindstorm wished. “Where will you place this biped lure? Why will this renegade Human seek to capture a clone of his sibling? And what forces will you use to defeat the warships of his local fleet?”

Mindstorm dipped two of his eyestalks toward the perch bar of his Sector 13 ally. “Good questions all,” he clacked as all members of the council focused on him. Solely on him. “I will send this clone to star CC4213, near the location of my former naval base at Vela system. This star, Human sigil HD 86523, has been confirmed by a spy operative of Intel High Commander Sytoon as a refueling base for the renegade’s fleet.” He paused, inhaled salt water through his gills, then continued. “The Human will seek to rescue this clone of his sibling based on familial emotion that is unknown to us amphibians of Ancient species. It is, however, a powerful motivator for certain dryland species.” Noktoren flapped its leathery wings in agreement. “Finally, I will send my two remaining battleglobes to loiter near the gas giant refueling planet. Both ships carry the new weapons.”

“That is not an offensive force,” Sooteen said with a clack of her mouth palps. “You will lose your battleglobes.”

“Correct and correct,” Mindstorm said. His cilia activated a second holo that floated next to the Charlotte clone image. “However, observe the blue-white B3V star of this refueling system. A Corvette ship will hide on the side of the star opposite the gas giant, where the Human lure will be held within a Courier ship guarded by the two fleet battleglobes. It will activate the Nova Blast weapon upon the arrival of the Human fleet to rescue this clone of gender female. The Human leader of the attacks in all sectors will die along with his seven surviving Dreadnoughts.”

“Remarkable,” rumbled
the Sector 9 leader, Dooshesh mik-mal of the Meligun. “You will sacrifice your remaining battleglobes in order to vanquish this renegade biped.”

“Of course!” Mindstorm
clacked, feeling surprise that such a tactic sounded unusual to the black-furred Meligun. “These two battleglobes lost the battle of the Orion Nebula naval base. Their sacrifice in this future battle at HD 86523 will redeem the battle honor of Sector Captain Running Leader of the Dolmat. His species’ Herd Defense instinct would view such a sacrifice as entirely normal.”

Sooteen twisted her eyestalks away from Mindstorm’s two holos as her mouth palps
shut off the council’s holo recorder. “This emergency council meeting is ended! Disperse to your habitats or entertainments as you choose.”