“Yes,” he mind-imaged his reply to a speaker that would broadcast at normal human speech speed.
In his mind, where his two AM beams struck, mini-stars blossomed.
The Anarchate
battleglobe spouted a white gout of pure matter-to-energy conversion on its southern hemisphere and at its equatorial right side limb. Red clouds of vaporized metal were pushed out by the gamma rays created by the blast. Into the three kilometer deep holes in the battleglobe there now struck neutral particle beam lasers that were unaffected by the globe’s magnetic deflection fields. Proton, excimer and HF beams struck against the thick armor of the battleglobe, digging deep into the armor, but not harming the inner habitat zone. So far. Elsewhere on the globe its adaptive optics coating deflected back much of Matt’s incoming laser fire, even as debris and gases exited from the two AM craters on its hull. The northern hemisphere still had plenty of power. It fired antimatter beams at each of Matt’s four decoy Remotes, vaporizing them before they could dodge away. The four thermonuke bomb Remotes died from multiple laser hits. The battleglobe began to tilt its northern hemisphere toward Matt and Dreadnought
Mata Hari
. He mentally activated a recording he had made earlier, choosing not to leave
ocean-time
and thereby lose his cyborg time-lag advantage.
“Anarchate Nova
battleglobe, do you surrender?”
Five hundred milliseconds passed between the
tachspeed emission and the FTL reply from the battleglobe.
A black
icon took form in the forward holosphere, bearing the dreaded Anarchate symbol of the galaxy split by a lightning bolt. A bell-like tone sounded. Concurrent with the holo and bell-tone, an alien replaced the official emblem.
“Cease all hostilities immediately, or
face annihilation by Anarchate warship
Pursuer
,” intoned the tachspeed voice of a brown feathered, griffin-like alien whose species Matt knew all too well. A Mican! This cross between a tiger and a raptor fixed its three eyes on Matt’s image. “You cannot evade us forever. Surrender your ship and we may allow you to survive. As a cloneslave decanter in the Flesh Markets of Alkalurops.”
Three seconds, five hundred milliseconds
, said the nanoBit.
Matt thought quicker than he could talk a
nd chose to PET image a message to BattleMind. Time to bring this to an end before the battleglobe recovered from the shock of his attack.
“Commander, my name is Matthew Raven’s-Wing Dragoneaux, aboard the Dreadnought-class starship
Mata Hari
,” his voice replied via tachlink. “As I advised your Intelligence dome AI, we are at war with the Anarchate. No longer will we obey your Four Rules, nor ignore the enslavement of planetary populations to groups like the Halicene Conglomerate.” The alien’s dirty brown wings began to lift in outrage. “We will leave a beacon beside the remains of your Nova for whatever services your crew deem proper for passing into the great beyond. Goodbye.”
In his mind’s eye and in the forward holosphere, the Mican’s hand moved toward a touch panel, aiming to send a neutron antimatter beam toward the source point of Matt’s tachlink. But Matt had already given his
PET orders well before his image began slow-talking.
Outside, between starship
Mata Hari
and the battleglobe
Pursuer
, there appeared a grey sheet of flat Alcubierre space-time, a shield against all incoming matter and energy weapons. Thanks to BattleMind. That was followed by a shiver of the ship as its Bethe Inducer speared out at lightspeed, passing through a hole in the Alcubierre field and impacting on the battleglobe.
For the second time in his short life, Matt saw wondrous destruction.
The Anarchate battleglobe had begun to shimmer with its own Bethe Inducer start-up field, but now, bathed in the orange glow of the Bethe beam, it began shrinking. Wreckage flowed back to the battleglobe as the beam induced an implosion similar to that which formed a black hole. Except in this case, instead of causing a star to go nova, Matt had chosen the beam setting that would reduce the Anarchate ship and its occupants to a few grains of collapsed neutron star matter. Sighing mentally, he imaged an order to emit a locator beacon for eventual discovery by a follow-on Anarchate battleglobe.
Four seconds, ninety milliseconds.
Leaving
ocean-time
felt like . . . hitting the ground at a hundred miles an hour. His body felt wasted. His mind felt overstimulated. And his eyes, sweeping over to the sober, spare, sculptured profile of Eliana, felt wet.
“My love, we are done here. Do
you mind if we Translate to Zeta Serpentis? I have a chore to complete there and a lesson to share with BattleMind.”
Eliana nodded slowly, her black eyebrows crinkling with concern. “Of course Matthew. My love. I support you. Always.”
Support him she had, ever since the end of the battle in Halcyon system when she had broken the isolation tube that held his slow virus-infected body to grip his hand and declare she loved him. Openly declared love was something he’d experienced only once before.
Eliana
knew the story of his lost love, Helen Sayinga Trinh. A baccarat card dealer who was bond-owned by a casino dome on the airless resort planet Omega, a Mercury analogue that orbited close to the F3V star Zeta Serpentis. Her Owners had pursued him and her when they had left without buying out her contract. They had fled in a decrepit freighter, aiming for a Sixth Wave colony planet that lay in Perseus Arm. They had never made that refuge. Resource pirates had attacked the freighter with KKPs, killing her and leaving him to float in stasis in a lifepod. Until he had been found by starship
Mata Hari
, and given the chance to do something good for people victimized by the Anarchate. He had become a cyborg-human mix, and had taken jobs as a Vigilante for hire. He’d even used the words of the ancient vidpic hero Paladin—“Have starship, will travel.”
He had traveled far beyond ancient Earth. Now, in pursuit of his battle against the soul-destroying culture of the Anarchate, he would travel across home galaxy and eventually to the
Small Magellanic Cloud. And he would leave behind . . . painful lessons for the Anarchate and a name that people without hope might pass on, in whispers to their children. So he hoped, deep in his mind, before he passed out from Translation and Interface overload.
CHAPTER
THREE
In his dreams, Matt recalled the life he had chosen, that of a Vigilante who had sworn to his lost love Helen that he would use his abilities to help people in need. People all too often ignored by the Anarchate and the industrial Conglomerates that ruled whole star clusters. Unless the world held something they wanted, like mineral resources that the Halicene Conglomerate had schemed to extract from planet Halcyon, even when it meant poisoning the biosphere and killing two intelligent peoples.
He had blocked that effort, that wrongness. But in a galaxy of four hundred billion stars and
at least 17 billion Earth-like planets, evil had plenty of places to grow when there was no law, no justice and no galactic ruler except for the Anarchate, which enforced star-to-star anarchy because it was profitable.
And to enforce its Four Rules. Number One said no planet interferes with the internal affairs of another planet. Number Two said all planets obey Anarchate orders. Number Three said every planet pays taxes to the
Anarchate—or suffers interstellar quarantine. And Number Four said no one challenges an Anarchate Nova-class battleglobe--on pain of total destruction.
Well, he had fulfilled his promise to
Helen by rescuing Halcyon, and by destroying two Anarchate battleglobes. He and starship
Mata Hari
, which was also his AI partner Mata Hari, had done that together.
It was a life whose strangeness still amazed him. A life where he could be close to something, and yet not be affected by closeness. A life where he could insulate himself from caring, from attachment. From the circumstance of watching as—inevitably—anything he cared for was eventually destroyed, damaged, or taken from him. It was a surcease from car
ing, with challenging work.
And yet,
his choice to become a cyborg was imperfect.
Even in his dreams, caring memories returned to haunt Matt. The memory of his dead childhood. The memory of his dead pet. The memory of his dead love
Helen. Along with memories of implacable aliens doing unmentionable things to helpless people all across the galaxy. Like rude strangers, the dream memories accosted him. But there was only one of him and billions of needy people. What could he—
“Matt?”
A strange image invaded his dream universe. An image of fiery clouds, lightning, and resonant song that both uplifted and frightened him. An image—
He blinked, coming to awareness in normal human mode. Not in
ocean-time
, thank goodness. Matt opened his eyes, saw the pale blue ceiling of his stateroom, and looked left to the voice he had heard. To his new love, Eliana Antigone Themistocles. She’d taken the time to brush out her waist-long black hair, apply rose-colored lipstick to pale white lips and change into a green Vietnamese
cheongsam
style dress. He half-smiled at the woman he hoped would not leave him, would not be lost like all the people he had previously cared for.
“How long since I passed out?
Eliana’s concerned expression eased. She leaned forward to touch his left arm as it lay atop a silken sheet. “Three hours. I told Mata Hari to go ahead and head for Zeta Serpentis. We passed the heliopause an hour ago and are now in Translation space-time. Do you hurt, Matt?”
She cared for him. In truth, she loved him, as she had told her brother Ioannis the Despot of the human colony on Halcyon when she had refused to return to the patriarchal control of her brother, their
younger brother Konstantinos and scheming relatives. It had surprised and pleased him when she chose being with him over working as a “tame” Molecular Geneticist for the Greek humans and the native Derindl hominids whose world was occupied by Mother Trees that existed in symbiosis with the Derindl. He had so little experience of true loving, of companionship by choice. He gave her a happy smile.
“
Nope. Feeling very good, really. Guess I needed the rest and recuperation,” he said, mentally querying his nanocube databytes to confirm their analysis matched his. Being used to internal “systems analysis” was a part of being a cyborg. As was seeing in infrared, ultraviolet, gamma rays and even radio waves when he activated the nanoware in his contact lenses. “You? Did Mata Hari help you get me here?”
“Yes, she was really—”
“Matthew.” A human-size holosphere took form to the side of Eliana, near the foot of their bed platform. Mata Hari herself took form in it, but not dressed in her Victorian lace spy dress. Instead, she appeared as a black-skinned, nearly nude Barbarian Queen. She lifted a hand to languidly finger a necklace of giant white pearls, with a central black pearl as large as a knuckle. “What about me?” she said softly. “I arranged for the floater sled to waft you down the Spine hallway to your oh-so-private stateroom. Which of course is criss-crossed by my lightbeam sensors array.”
Eliana flinched at the sudden appearance of low power red laser beams crossing all parts of his stateroom, including a few dozen that touch
ed Matt’s bare chest, arms and head. He just sighed.
“Jealous, my lady? Yes, I love Eliana. And I also . . . cherish you, dearest one.” Mata Hari raised one eyebrow. “But you already know my organic condition thanks to your continuous monitoring of me, whether here onboard ship or in Suit outside ship.
Thanks to your tachyonic comlink and senses, we are never apart. Right?”
Mata Hari the Barbarian Queen crossed arms under her
full breasts and went “Hmmph! You take me for granted.”
Eliana bit her lip to avoid laughing. Matt gave thanks that his AI partner was a rapid learner of emotionality. And of how a naked woman could distract almost any man from asking pointed questions.
“There’s a problem. Or several problems. What are they, dear partner?” he queried Mata Hari.
With a snap of her long fingers Mata Hari changed her holo image to the Victorian spy look, now fully clothed and appearing a trifle impatient.
“Zeta Serpentis lies just 75 light years from Earth’s Sol and at a diagonal vector from where we were at the F3V star,” Mata Hari said. “That means another ten hours of Alcubierre Translation time before we materialize. I need further guidance on simple matters and on complex ones.”
Matt reached up to squeeze Eliana’s warm hand,
pulled himself into sitting, then nodded to his other partner. “What simple matters?”
Mata Hari’s black eyes focused on his. “Do we materialize at the
F2V white star’s heliopause boundary, which will alert every starship and Port facility outfitted with a gravity wave detector? Or do we materialize closer in, close enough to rattle some coffee cups in that casino dome on Omega?” She smiled at him, knowing he would appreciate her command of human vernacular speech. “Or do we try another approach?”
Matt recalled his arrival at Omega as the personal Guard to a gaggle of methane-breathing tentacles. There had been
seventeen freighters and private staryachts in orbit, with frequent shuttle traffic down to the Port arrival facility that sat like a small tent next to the three kilometer wide geodesic dome that housed all the lifeforms working, playing and hoping for more riches at the galaxy’s premier gambling establishment. While there was an Anarchate commercial office sitting beside the Tachyon Pylon that gave everyone easy access to interstellar fund transfers and mercantile demands, there had not been any Anarchate battleglobe in orbit or on station elsewhere in the six planet system.
“We arrive at the heliopause just like normal traffic, we emit a counterfeit ID beacon, we adopt the common main tube starship with two pontoon outrigger tubes configuration, and pretend to be the private yacht of a human optoelectronics manufacturer,” he said thoughtfully. “You can pick some name and image from your Library of current geopolitical Big Names, right?”
“I can,” Mata Hari said
, fingering her white pearl necklace. “And I can make the camouflage changes you suggest. Second simple question. Your organic partner Eliana—do I fabricate a combat suit for her? If she accompanies you downplanet, she will need better protection than a skintight vacsuit, a machete and a low power laser gun.”
Good point. “Yes, fabricate a basic combat suit for her, with the usual adaptive optics crystal coatings, an ablative layer and standard ceramic armor underneath. No need for a combat exoskeleton. But I do think you should outfit her helmet with a tachyon comlink that automatically connects with you and me, and a waist belt of nanoDefense shells with ultrasonic viber. And yeah, give her a cutdown Magnum sidearm—once she has taken lessons from you
at our shipboard target range. That okay with you, Eliana?”
The spare, fine-boned and scu
lptured face of his albino lover nodded slowly, looking from him to Mata Hari and back to him. She brushed at her ebony black hair. “Matt, I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Will I have to kill if I travel with you?”
“Not if I can help it,” he said sincerely. “But the Anarchate is a dangerous galaxy. Anyone who . . . looks defenseless will draw
tech scavengers and genome harvesters. Being combat suited and carrying a decent sidearm will protect you simply by being present on your bodyform. Understand?”
“Understood, Matthew my love.” She smiled at him and squeezed his hand.
Then she leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was such a simple sign of affection that he nearly cried.
Instead, he
looked at the holo of Mata Hari. “Those are the simple matters. What is complex?”
His AI partner, the product of an alien civilization hundreds of thousands of years old, gave him a passable human-style smile. “
What do we
do
when we arrive in orbit about Omega?”
Matt eyed Eliana, seeing identical curiosity in her jade green eyes.
“Vengeance,” he said. “For Helen Sayinga Trinh and thousands of other bond-slaves who work for the casino.” He paused, recalling the indignation of her casino Owners who did not wish to lose their natural gravity baccarat dealer when they were asked the buyout price for her contract. The reply of two million platinum Standards was given by a bear-like alien with a sly smile. They had escaped in an outbound freighter two days later, during her morning sleep time.
Eliana blinked, understa
nding immediately. Mata Hari tilted her amber-skinned, aquiline head to one side. “Vengeance for what purpose, Matthew?”
“To deliver a lesson to the Anarchate that owning people through bond slavery is wrong.
That selling cloneslaves is utterly obscene. And that some people will fight against it. I hope to create a galaxy-wide tachlink rumor mill of poor people trying to guess what might this
dangerous
Matt Dragoneaux do next?” He paused, thinking deeper about how to asymmetrically conduct a war campaign against a galaxy-wide entity. “And to cause the Anarchate to dispatch Nova battleglobes to similar large commercial and industrial star systems around the galaxy, thus reducing their ability to mass a naval fleet for action against our fleet.”
Mata Hari blinked even as Eliana murmured “What fleet of ours?”
He grinned, then swung his legs off the bed platform and headed for the suite’s door to the Spine hallway, naked as the day he was born. “We
will
have a fleet. Eventually. Maybe even before we arrive in the Small Magellanic Cloud.” He stopped and looked back at the puzzled expressions of both Eliana and Mata Hari. “Coming my dear? And both of you should understand that just because billions of sapients comply with the way things are now, does not mean they will
always
accept the status quo. Peaceful most people are, even when oppressed. But if they see someone, anyone, successfully challenging the authorities, why, for humans at least, that is an incitement to rebellion.”
Eliana joined him as they walked the hallway heading for the commissary room that lay between his suite and the Bridge. Food they both needed. Combat training Eliana needed. And skull-to-skull scheming he needed to do with Mata Hari, to fine tune the elements of his intention to teach the Omega people-owners and the Anarchate a lesson about the danger of owning thinking people. Who knows, maybe some of the self-aware AIs that ran most things behind the scenes would be interested in insurrection. Stranger things had happened in human and alien history.
Matt smiled, internally and externally. At last, a Vigilante job worth the doing!
They took the Omega Port’
s shuttle down to the Arrival Hall that lay just outside the casino dome, leaving
Mata Hari
to continue the pretense of being an super-yacht owned by a weird biped who had too many Standards to spend and too much arrogance to stay home. There were many like Howard Demitri Trimestes on Omega, the super-rich of at least 30 species, based on the vid spy-cams of the casino that Mata Hari had tapped into using her superior mind, and sloppy programming of the central gaming computer. It had no self-awareness, unlike the Port AI that needed sentience in order to multi-task with thinking organics. And, Matt suspected, the casino Owners very likely did not want a mouthy AI questioning them on why so many gambling games were rigged against payouts, unless they were minor amounts to be given in front of an audience.