Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) (30 page)

“Any sign of black holes shot at us?” he asked Mata Hari.

“None,” she replied, moving their combined vision closer to the planet New Hope. “Surely tachlink calls for help have gone out from both the battleglobes and from the planet. But our approach at three-fourths lightspeed does not give them time to do much.”

Matt nodded thoughtfully. That was the major point of near lightspeed Hit-and-Run attacks on Anarchate bases and abominations li
ke the Flesh Markets. Appear, Strike, Destroy, Disappear. Those were the steps practiced by every T’Chak Dreadnought during fleet training in space near to Morrigan. They were the actions being taken by 494 T’Chak warships that Immovable had guided into attacks on Anarchate bases in other sectors of home galaxy. They had destroyed more than two hundred battleglobes, the AI had reported to him during their transit from Thuringia to M2-9 nebula.

Three seconds, 600 milliseconds, 33 nanoseconds, 112 picoseconds and 42
femtoseconds
.

“New Hope is now within one light second,” Mata Hari said.

Ahead
, Matt saw a Supply Tube speed away from the Commerce Station on a vector that paralleled the approach of Hexagon Prime. He ignored it as closer to hand loomed the two armed Corvettes that had barely managed to activate fusion power for their spine and belly laser domes. Four beams shot out from their carbon-dioxide lasers, based on the light frequencies of the incoming lasers. The beams guttered out as they hit his Alcubierre shields. Return laser fire from their own proton, hydrogen-fluorine and xenon-fluoride lasers tore into the ship hulls with the ease of a hot knife in soft mud. The Corvettes disappeared into small balls of yellow-brown destruction. The blasts added to the gravity wobbles caused by the recent Translation of two Supply Tubes from space near the station.

“Matthew,” murmured Eliana from her sideline mental communion. “This is almost too easy.”

Her words were exactly the thought a part of his mind had been considering. But the Flesh Market of the city of Beautiful Whiskers was coming into range. Mentally focusing his ship’s telescopic vision on the city of low domes, long blocks of structures with narrow alleyways, a few skyrises and a domed sports stadium where the Spelidon rats conducted some kind of competitive sports event, Matt noticed something unpleasant.

“The Flesh Market
cloneslave manufactories are spread across this city. There are nine markets scattered over six kilometers,” he said to Mata Hari and Eliana.

“Destroy the planet?” growled BattleMind in a hungry tone that only
strained his mind, thanks to Mata Hari’s buffering.

“No,” Matt said to the image of a giant black dragon leaning forward eagerly. “But the city goes. BattleMind, please use your three starboard wing cannons to blanket the area occupied by the Flesh Markets.”

“Firing!” screamed the T’Chak dragon who much preferred to destroy stars or make planets into tiny black holes.

A yellow-orange
nuclear plume rose up from the former site of a city occupied by a half million Spelidon. Grey black clouds encircled the plume even as  yellow lightning bolts struck down from the ionized gases created by the strike of antimatter beams against the rock and soil of a world with no record of atomic warfare.

“Outstanding,” growled BattleMind.

Four seconds, 930 milliseconds, 873 nanoseconds, 976 picoseconds and 31 femtoseconds
.

Matt looked ahead as the Commerce Station drew rapidly closer
. All the remaining ships were normal commerce ships or small pleasure craft.

“Matt,” called Eliana. “Leave their station intact. They will need its help in doing search and rescue for survivors from our attack on city.”

“True,” he said, looking ahead to the retreating Supply Tube. Why was it running away, rather than—

“Stepwise Translation!” cried Suzanne into the minds of all eight pilots.

A PET thought-image sufficed to move
Mata Hari
into Translation in just twenty-three femtoseconds. In ten milliseconds the greyness of Translation disappeared. Matt looked around both mentally and with ship sensors.

Sarah, yes. Altuna the AI, yes. Toktaleen the Brokeet, yes. George, oh yes! Suzanne, for sure. Rafael and BattleMate, yes! But where was young Ben?

“Matt, he’s alive!” cried Suzanne into their minds. “But one side of his ship brushed against the antimatter cloud put out by that damned Supply Tube! He’s lost one wing and the Alcubierre nodes for his right side and spike-tail. His AI Flowering could not enter Translation due to the power disruption caused by the antimatter overload of the Alcubierre nodes!”

“We head back!”

With a PET thought-image he showed the rest of the fleet how he wanted them to envelope Ben’s ship to protect it from any Offense sleds dispersed by the two battleglobes.

Greyness blocked his vision, then the black of normal space-time reappeared. Just below and ahead of them was the wounded shape of Ben’s ship
Flowering
. Upon their arrival into a protective englobement, Matt sensed Ben’s AI dropping the shields so it could focus on stabilizing the twelve fusion plants inside the two-kilometer long warship. It did not look pretty. The right side dragon wing was gone. The stub glowed and sparkled with power emissions at the stump of the wing even as the hull’s flexskin moved slowly to cover the stub with nanoMechs so repairs could begin. The two dead Alcubierre nodes smoked a little but then stopped as the AI cut power to them. That left Ben with shield nodes that worked on his spine, nose, left side and belly. The belly and spine shields could extend to cover the area exposed by the dead nodes. Likely that would happen with minutes as the T’Chak AIs were masters of ship manipulation. You could do a lot when walls were optical matter and individual rooms could be shuffled around like marbles in a hand.

“I’m  doing decent,” said Ben in their mind communion, sounding apologetic for not mind sharing earlier.

Sarah extended a mental hand to grip his khaki-covered shoulder. “Hey guy, you did great to use your Repulsor block for moving away from that damned cloud of invisible antimatter!”

Matt agreed with Sarah. If Ben and his ship had plowed directly ahead into the core of the AM cloud, the entire ship could have been consumed as every shield was burned out by AM energy overload.
Damn!
He had not realized a dense cloud of antimatter could have the same effect as several Thermonuke sleds hitting an Alcubierre shield surface. This was not a lesson he welcomed.

Five seconds, 112 milliseconds, 35 nanoseconds, 22 picoseconds and 17
femtoseconds
, said his cyberclock.

Seeing that the rest of the fleet had Ben protected as they sped out system toward the heliopause, he decided they could remain in-system for
a few more seconds. Reaching out with his mind over the tachlink node implanted in his skull, he mind-called for Immovable.

“Yes, Vigilante Matthew?” replied the calm, stable mind of Immovable from a distance of 63,000 light years. “You have more—oh! This technique of emitting an AM cloud along your vector track is a new tactic not foreseen by me or by our Morrigan human pilots.” Matt felt the leader of the dispersed Ocean Fleet reach out mentally to his nine cohort leader AIs and the minds of each human and alien pilot. A swift flow of images and facts from Matt’s mind was distributed to the
fleet. “Thank you for that warning, Matthew. Any other news you wish to share?”

Matt brought to mind the images of Kristen and Charlotte. “Well, my good news is that we were able to rescue both my birth mother and my sister from their labor slave captivity. Also, we had a useful battle at Antares B, which I shared with you e
arlier. Watch out for those new weapons of the Dolmat Sector Captain!”

The steel grey cloud that represented the mind of Immovable grew two human eyes that showed a touch of emotion. “Congratulations on the recovery of your blood relations, Matthew!
That must feel as if—”

“As if our absent Ocean had a daughter AI who now returned to join your fleet.”

The AI’s eyes blinked slowly. “ Yes. Very much yes. Thank you, Matthew, for seeing me and my fellows in such a caring perspective. It will not be forgotten.”

“
Well, time for me to depart. We must Translate out of this system and head for another Flesh Market target in the NGC 6397 globular cluster. On the way to Morrigan. Good hunting!”

“The same to you,” mindspoke Immovable as its strong mind withdrew from tachlink connection.

“Matt, what do we face at NGC 6397?” asked his beautiful mate of the long black hair, slender shape and deep feeling heart.

He gave a mental shoulder shrug. “
Lots of stars of all ages. One of them is our target. System CC9342 with seven planets. Will be something similar to what we faced here, at M2-9 nebula. Hopefully the local commander will not be as creatively hostile as the one who thought up the Supply Tube diversion.”

Eliana’s jade green eyes looked deep into him, seeing his worry over the danger that young Ben might have been lost, his concern for Sarah’s
feelings if her first serious lover had passed over death’s doorway, and his worry over the future surprises of the Dolmat Sector Captain.

“Matthew, do you think this new fleet captain can really hurt us?”

“I hope not,” he said honestly, then sought retreat from her inquiring mind in the excuse of routine. “Uh, we eight pilots have to prepare for Translation.” Eliana’s lips pursed. She knew avoidance when she felt it. “Hey, I’ll help Gatekeeper cook two steaks with salad and a slab of that great Morrigan cheese you love so much! Let us get into Translation and you will have my undivided attention!”

Eliana smiled as if she saw through his blather to the young man who’d wondered about women well before he was sixteen. Only to be removed from their
presence, until he met Helen on Omega Casino. She sent him a friendly mind hug. “I look forward to a picnic of just ourselves. Your mother and your sister will understand that we have to . . . recover after being in
ocean-time
.”

Yes! That was a great excuse to escape interrogation by his sneaky and inventive sister. And the ethical questions of his mother. He would spend days with them anyway. The new target lay a good 3,000 light years away from the
M2-9 planetary nebula.

“Thank you, my brilliant Eliana. Now, to work.”

Blessing the Fates for Ben’s survival and the repairs completed on Ben’s ship, he gathered his pilots together mentally and gave the word.

“Onward!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Running Leader heard the news of the Human’s attack on the Flesh Markets at M2-9 with a degree of irritation. How rude of the biped to take advantage of his fleet’s necessary downtime! Still, the local protoplanetary disk of sand, dust, gravel, boulders and gas isotopes had been sufficient for the repair of his damaged battleglobes, and for the building of additional Alcubierre drives for the Assault Asteroids and antimatter-laden Supply Tubes that always accompanied any fleet. Most importantly, half of his 32 battleglobes now possessed the Black Hole Ejector weapons, while every ship carried his third surprise weapon. Resting on his Command bench, he glanced sideways to his heavy planet ally Malel. The Orko’s long scaly ears showed an alertness that promised something interesting.

“Malel? Does my
executive officer know something of interest regarding this destructive biped?” he croaked in informal Belizel.

“Yes,”
muttered the omnivore whose brown armor plates showed a pleasant interlocking pattern. “The Observer Globe deposited in system CC8712 showed a six
nitas
long battle with one surprise.” The quadruped looked at him with all four yellow eyes looking intent. “One of the AM-laden Supply Tubes with automated pilot was ordered by someone to run ahead of the incoming T’Chak fleet but on the same vector line. After the Alcubierre shielded Dreadnoughts destroyed the two battleglobes and two armed Corvettes, they approached from the tube’s rear. The tube used its magfield to eject antimatter into the pathway of the incoming fleet.”

“And?” Running Lead
er asked as he switched his vision to UV and infrared, the better to read the heatmap excitement of his fellow academy graduate.

Malel hooted with excitement. “One of the T’Chak ships brushed against the AM cloud. Two of its Alcubierre
shields burned out! Plus it lost an entire wing to the antimatter! See this image?”

Running
Leader looked ahead at the Bridge’s main holosphere, glad that the other Bridge crew, especially Chief Lark of Tactical Cluster, were paying attention. His ultraviolent sight showed multiple energy discharges at the site of the wing stub. It also showed the incredible flexskin of the hull moving to englobe the stub. Presumably for some kind of internal repair. What a ship! He raised his chest forehands to activate several of the datapads and holo pedestals that surrounded his Control Station.