Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) (40 page)

“Follow. Do not resist the tractor beam that my suit will emit. Safety lies in my ship nearby. Do not transmit anything and do no hostile action.”

The even tone of the Human’s radio voice must mean something, but Chai had no idea what. “Complying,” he said in imitation of simple computer minds. “Take us as you wish.”

The sudden jerk of
the tractor beam was still a shock even though the Human had warned them. Still, it was better than being incinerated by a laser pulse cannon. With Kontine’s oval vacsuit floating next to him, they followed the Human as its combat suit widened the hatch entry enough to allow the three of them to exit the remains of Globe 841.

Brrzeet felt relief as the Courier cleared the base globe cluster and arrived in open space. The hundreds of T’Chak warships ignored him and seemed intent on eliminating the remnants of Remotes and sensors that Yorkel had seeded in the system. Well, his
Offense sled could help with that! He reached out and touched the pad that linked him with the Control Mind of the sled.

“
Offense sled 42, feel my bodyheat imprint and hear my words. Acquire your target and activate the Bethe Inducer. I wish to see the target’s corona brighten before this ship departs for Central Nexus.”

“Activating,” said the sled’s simple Control Mind.

Emission status lights flared across the holo pedestal that served him for both flight control and contact with the separate Offense sled. A change in the sled’s image distracted him from his real-time watching of the orange-yellow F-series star that anchored the asteroid belt and the base.

“Target is the star!” he cried to Control Mind as the sled
turned to point its Bethe Inducer projector at the Courier and himself. “Override—”

The shimmer of a Bethe Inducer engaging its transmutation function
showed in the holo. Before he could finish his slow verbal override command, the shimmer filled the holo.

An overwhelming light passed into him and all about him. Then sensation ceased.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Matt left the sound and vidimage of Brrzeet’s demise to hear something more welcome. George was aboard
Ariadne
and had completed the slaver captive evacuation during the time he and Suit had spent capturing Chai and the rat’s Loglan assistant. His battlemate’s face loomed in his mind as the minds of Mata Hari, Eliana, Suzanne, Sarah, Rafael and other Hexagon Prime members faded to the sidelines.

“Matt, great news! We rescued 131 captives from the twelve slaver ships. There were seven humans among the group, including that neurowhipped guy who stood up to Chai.” George’s mind passed him multiple mind images of scores of aliens lying within the Community Hall space of
Mata Hari
, their bodies protected by accel-couches extruded by the flexmetal floor. Inertial fields held them within the couches.

“Wonderful! How soon before the captives recover consciousness?”

“Mata Hari says five more hours,” George said from the hall, still wearing his combat suit for the ease of maintaining lightspeed mental link with Matt and other members of Hexagon Prime.

“We should have left this system by then and be on our way to Morrigan. I’m sure Governor O’Davoren will be willing to accept our freed captives. And to hear battle reports from their forty Morrigan volunteer pilots!”

“Sounds good, Matt,” George said. “Uh, how long will Ocean Fleet stay near Dagda star? Long enough for another central park party?”

“For sure,” he said, then recalled a plan he’d discussed with Eliana before they’d left Morrigan with the fleet. “But sooner than later the fleet will need to split up and mount attacks on Anarchate targets in Norma, Scutum-Crux, Sagittarius, Orion and Perseus arms.”

George’s black eyebrows wrinkled. “So we move to the Big Time?”

Matt wondered what George meant by ‘Big Time’ but a databyte nanocube in his visual cortex supplied a reference to something called a ‘circus.’ “Well, yes, though I doubt there will be any performing animal acts.”

George grinned. “Was wondering if the kid raised on Thuringia would know what a circus was. Anyway, maybe we will gain some more alien pilot volunteers from among the captives we now have. Gotta have more than Toktaleen and that Dolmat herbivore lady who joined up in Morrigan.”

He agreed. The fight against cloneslavery was for the freedom of infants in all species, and the prohibition of cloning any thinking lifeform
and impressing them into a lifetime of slavery. “George, feel free to return to your ship
Inevitable
. I’m boarding
Mata Hari
now with Chai and his assistant. Gatekeeper will take them off my hands as I return to my Interlock Pit.”

His ally nodded, then moved his mind to the distant mental horizon that was peopled by every mind, organic and AI, of Hexagon Prime. Maybe he and Eliana could meet in person, in normal real-time, before they all began the weeks-long trip back to Morrigan space.

Suzanne brought the 502 members of Ocean Fleet into close proximity to the habitat globe cluster of the Intelligence base. She had asked Rafael and Sarah to oversee the continuing evacuation of base personnel into Supply Tubes and the dozen non-military Courier ships. It seemed at least three thousand lifeforms had survived the incredibly short, incredibly violent battle between her fleet and the 160 battleglobes of Yorkel’s fleet. It had been hurtful to lose the AI minds of five ships to the
kamikaze
asteroid and Supply Tube antimatter attacks.

“Suzanne,” called her lovely George in her mind’s-eye mental vision. “I’m done with captive rescue and I’m back onboard
Inevitable
. Need any help with anything? Like the evacuation of Yorkel’s battleglobe?”

She sent him an impulse of heart love. And a promise of another private picnic onboard either her ship
Lorelei
or on his ship. “Not needed. Flowering of the hexagon has overseen that. She arranged for her own shuttle to transport the four hundred and seven crew of Yorkel’s ship to Globe 001, where people are boarding transports for evacuation. Yorkel himself she deposited with Mata Hari while Matt was capturing Chai. Did you notice the demolition of Brrzeet’s Courier by his own Offense sled?”

“Yes.” George’s middle-aged face grew pensive. “Damned crazy what that Orko alien planned to do. Evaporate the whole system and presumably tell the Council of Sixteen to blame Matt.” His expression brightened as he felt her heart love. “What’s next?”

“A Battle Council mindlink meeting of everyone in Hexagon Prime, in a few minutes, after Matt is back in his Pit and linked in. We have losses to grieve for. And allies to thank.”

“So true. Love you. See you soon!”

Suzanne felt George’s mind move away from hers. He, like every AI mind of the fleet and every lifeform pilot, was always accessible by tachlink over the optical neurolinking of the Pit or the cable that was attached whenever in a combat suit or in the Pit. She still felt amazement at how this man she’d known for years at Omega Casino, this Repairs trouble-shooter who always did his job right the first time, had become such a fine combat leader and ally to Matthew. And such a match to her own inner self. Being able to be in the mind of one’s lifemate, while also sharing slow physical life, was a wonder. A wonder she gave thanks for every day that she lived.

Back in his Interlock Pit, Matt
joined the mental landscape of Hexagon Prime. Each of his pilot allies was there, along with the ten cohort leaders. The Cohort AIs had selected one named Immovable, a neuter T’Chak dragon, to represent them within this Battle Council. He gave a mental nod to everyone, then a mind-thanks to the solo AI Flowering, who had lost five fellow AIs in this attack.

“I grieve for your fellow minds, Immovable.”

The pink eyes of the T’Chak AI scanned Matt’s fellow humans, then fixed back on him. “My . . . fellow AIs Mata Hari, Altuna, BattleMind and the ship AIs with whom each of you work, have shown me this grieving is authentic. And normal to organics. My cohort members have followed these emotions of you organics, and of Mata Hari and Gatekeeper, ever since we left the Small Magellanic Cloud. It seems that beyond fulfilling the Task given us by our perfect masters, there is much to be learned by partnership with you organics.”

Mata Hari changed her persona appearance from Lady of the Sword to the smaller female T’Chak bodyshape she used when working with BattleMind. “
Immovable, these organics do feel emotions. They do see us as equal lifeforms. And Matt, I know, has always treated me the same as he treats his fellow organics. Thank you, Immovable, for your battle support and for risking your lives to achieve an end to this Anarchate.”

BattleMind’s mental appearance grew and grew until he nearly filled the mental communion space occupied by seven humans and
eighteen AIs. He pulled in his deep black wings even though his spike-tail was elevated. “Battle allies, we have fulfilled a part of the Task given us by our perfect masters. And by the still living master TrueLife. The Anarchate is wounded. But it is large. Will you join us in future battles such as this one?”

Immovable’s pink eyes blinked, then she lifted her own spike-tail to match BattleMind’s action. “Does a neuter ever leave her male and female partners? Does a star stop shining when a planet rotates to its dark side? Yes, BattleMind of the Lacunae Mindworks, we will join your great Task.”

Matt felt the relief of his fellow pilots. Eliana mentally joined her hand to his as Suzanne did the same with George, while Sarah, Toktaleen and Rafael emitted feelings of closeness. Even Flowering, a fellow neuter like Immovable, sent her sense of self into the circle of feeling.

“Battlemates organic,
” Flowering said. “Being in this Battle Council has infected me with . . . what you call emotion. Strange as it seems, I begin to see the complexity of emotion that Mata Hari and Gatekeeper have spoken. I welcome it.”

A
round them all floated the shipminds of Altuna, Lorelei, Gondu, BattleMate, Inevitable, Imperial, BattleMind, his own Mata Hari and Immovable. They were each different one from the other. But so were he and his fellow organics. However, in mind communion it mattered not what form you wore. What mattered was the sense of community created by minds different and similar. For every mind in the council circle understood duty, obligation, honor and even regrets.

Matt hugged them all mentally. Even
the one with hard chitin-skin. “Allies, Suzanne is organizing the departure of surviving Anarchate lifeforms on Supply Tubes and Couriers, thence to go where they wish. Once they leave, my ally BattleMind will show us how to turn this collection of 900 habitat globes into a small ball of plasma, courtesy of the Sun Glow weapon!”

The Humans cheered.
Toktaleen rasped his legs. And the AIs added the emotional exhibition to their inventory of organic emotions, with the meaning to be studied later.

Matt did not add
inject plans for dropping Chai and Yorkel off on a habitable but primitive planet, with a Survey Sled in orbit. He planned for lengthy imprisonment. After all, it would take awhile for those two commanders to find the raw copper with which to make a coil of wire to surround a tube of solid carbon, then power it with a lime-like juice container that would replicate humanity’s first battery. Which was made in ancient Babylon, around 250 A.D. Once the sled detected signals from the primitive radio, it would send a ‘Rescue Request’ to the nearest Anarchate-monitored planet. Perhaps by then the two Anarchate officials would oppose cloneslavery. After all, how can you endorse slavery for the offspring of someone on whom you depend for food, shelter and protection while you sleep?

Too bad the ‘civilized’ Milky Way galaxy had the excuse of the Anarchate and
a good life to insulate them from the horrors of the Flesh Markets on Alkalurops. Vaporizing the Flesh Markets on planet Megil had been immensely satisfying. But as Chai had said in the fake interview of slaver captives, there were other clone manufactories in Perseus Arm and other arms of the galaxy. If he had to, he would visit every such den of cloneslavery and wipe it from existence.

Mata Hari filled his mind as the Battle Council members receded away. She wore her embroidered white cotton dress and the persona of Summer Girl. The way her long black hair whipped in the mental wind, the way she spread her slim arms wide to welcome in the yellow light of a distant star, it all made her beautiful beyond compare. Or, almost as beautiful as his lifemate Eliana.