Matt sat in the Interlock Pit,
thinking in normal human mode, mind-feeling the shape of his starship. They were still in Translation and had weeks to go before arriving at an outer star system of Omega Centauri. He’d done research on BattleMind’s target using Anarchate databases and the encrypted data of the Intelligence dome. They said the cluster held perhaps ten million stars, with the stars belonging to a wide range of Hertzsprung-Russell classifications, with most belonging to the F, G, K and M types of stars, their colors ranging from white to dark red. Ancient research by the Loglan species had determined the cluster was the remnant of a dwarf galaxy torn apart by the Milky Way, sometime in the very distant past. Thus the cluster held many stars with ages in the billions of years, and many Earth-like planets, in addition to moons with atmosphere that could be occupied. Like Megadeen. Intelligent species in the cluster had lived under the Anarchate for at least two million years, per the Combat Command data file. He grimaced at the thought of the task he faced.
“Matthew,” spoke Mata Hari in his mind by way of their lightspeed link. “I have located an F-type main sequence star lying on the outer portion of the cluster. Its primary lifeworld is Galifray, fourth in orbit about
the yellow-white star CC1939. It has long been a mercantile world where all that matters is the size of your platinum Standards pile. The Anarchate leaves them alone unless called, since the two Conglomerates based in the system have their own space defense forces well able to handle commerce raiders, resource pirates and genome harvesters. Do you wish to see the system’s layout?”
Did he? At least they would leave this star system intact. All it took to get what they needed was enough
valuta
to prompt an orbiting Supply Tube to link up with
Mata Hari
and transfer enough deut-li fuel pellets, water, consumables and gases for the lasers. Then they would head out-system for the heliopause and prepare to Translate to the moon Megadeen. Bringing massive death with them.
“Yes, Mata Hari, please feed the data to the front holosphere.”
Mata Hari did so. To his left and rear, Eliana, George and Suzanne looked up and saw the basic ID info on the illustrated star system. Eliana leaned forward. “Is that the star system of Megadeen?”
“Nope,” Matt said. “It’s
the mercantile world Galifray where BattleMind plans to obtain fuel and supplies. Before we attack Megadeen in another star system. Then after we take out the Anarchate Admin node in the galactic tachnet at that star, it wishes to Translate on a south galactic heading for something called the Magellanic Stream. It needs a lot of fuel to do that.”
George shifted behind Matt. “
What the heck is the Stream?”
In his mind’s eye Matt saw Suzanne lean forward, clearly eager to participate in the
ir joint effort. “George, the stream is a giant plume of gases left behind by the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds as they orbit the Milky Way,” she said earnestly. “The clouds are dwarf galaxies captured long ago by the Milky Way. This stream is a gaseous filament torn off those two small galaxies by the gravity pull of home galaxy. Even though the stream is mostly gas with few stars in it, Mata Hari told me it is the pathway used by the ancient T’Chak when they made trade visits to the Milky Way.”
Mata Hari took form between
Suzanne and Eliana, this time dressed in her Victorian dress Spy mode. She nodded at George. “This gas stream will give this starship the opportunity to gather deuterium and tritium isotopes of hydrogen to fuel our onboard reactors,” his partner said. “The reactors are what power the Alcubierre Translation and fusion pulse drives. We will have to drop out of Translation several times in order to fuel up, using an electromagnetic scoop and filter.”
“How far is it to get to the Small Magellanic Cloud?” Eliana asked.
“Far,” Matt said, reclaiming the conversation. “At least 197,000 light years measuring from Sol. But the Omega Centauri cluster is located on the bottom, or south pole side, of home galaxy. That puts it closer to the Magellanic Stream of neutral hydrogen that links home galaxy with the two Magellanic clouds. That might reduce the distance by a few thousand light years.”
Suzanne frowned, her yellow eyebrows pulling together
. “Far that is. Will it take us a year to get there?”
Mata Hari turned to face the front holosphere. “Unlikely. This starship moves faster in Translation than any starship within the Anarchate. If we do not encounter any opposition to our movement, we should reach the T’Chak homeland within four months.”
“Opposition?” said Eliana in a puzzled tone.
Matt let his
AI partner lay out one of the mysteries of home galaxy. “Eliana, George and Suzanne, there are areas of home galaxy where the Anarchate does not govern,” Mata Hari said, looking back over her shoulder. “No one knows the reason why. Whether it is a lack of space-going species, or lack of planets, deadly radiation belts like in the central core near our central black hole, or . . . the presence of powerful and unfriendly aliens is not known. The Combat Command memory crystal held a detailed map of this galaxy, the territories of various species, and those few areas that are marked . . . Do Not Enter. Going from Omega Centauri to the nearest part of the Magellanic Stream takes us close to one of those regions. We shall see,” she said softly, walking closer to the holo of the F-type main sequence star that harbored Galifray.
Matt
did not like the idea of going near any kind of Do Not Enter region of the galaxy, but this was BattleMind’s Task imposed by its organic bosses, and he could not see any further combat lessons to be taught to the arrogant dragon. Perhaps when they arrived in the Small Magellanic Cloud the AI would see its masters were dead and then, BattleMind might enroll in Matt’s version of a ‘take over home galaxy’ plan, a plan that would free millions of beings from lives of bond slavery.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
George stood in his full-scale combat suit, next to Matt, and beside the mid-ship exit portal that Mata Hari would open for them now that the ship’s exterior had been altered to match the look of a Brokeet merchant ship. Like most non-military starships in home galaxy, it showed the central tube with two outrigger tubes look, but decorated with red and green streaks that were allegedly some kind of Brokeet family clan marker. While larger than most Brokeet ships, its false ID transponder and their sedate journey inward from the heliopause had followed the standard approach used by the twenty-one starships now docked with Galifray’s orbiting Commerce Station. However, Matt had chosen to hang next to the Station, like fourteen other starships. The occupants of those ships would access the Station by way of shuttle transport or powered suits. Like theirs. George swallowed, blinked his right eye in the pattern Matt had taught him, and brought into action the virtual reality faceplate display that showed piles of data and images on the left, right and central faceplates.
“Feeling strange?” muttered Matt over their joint tachyon comlink.
Strange? With his mind perceiving the mind-shape of Mata Hari, his limbs feeling like those of a superman, and his heart beating faster than it should now that Mata Hari had injected him with the nanoDocs that would keep him healthy, alert, immune to any outside disease, and capable of rapid healing, he thought not feeling strange would be a contradiction of reality.
“Yeah,” he said. “This combo of blink control and PET thought-imaging to chat with Mata Hari while simultaneously seeing
a dozen system readouts from this suit’s weapons systems
is
really strange. I know we went through two weeks of onboard suit training, but I’m glad I passed on the neck socket for this
ocean-time
link you use to connect with the computer minds of our AI partners. Don’t think I could have coped.”
Matt chuckled, even as
George’s central faceplate showed a real-time view of the Vigilante’s face from the inside of Matt’s helmet. A view similar to what Matt could see of him, and which was also seen by Mata Hari. She glowed in the back of his mind like a red cloud that roiled, curled and acted faster than George could think. “I grant you, having a mind guest is not for everyone,” Matt said over the comlink. “And even fewer organics can handle a direct mind flow link with an AI.”
“Agreed. Mata Hari has been patient with me.” In truth, the AI was backing him up as he joined Matt for a combat-suited
delivery of a cask holding 14,329 platinum Standards. The currency would pay for the supplies they’d ordered during their inward journey to system CC1939’s fourth planet. A Supply Tube ship even now approached starship
Mata Hari
to offload the food and fuel they had contracted for with a business named Trans-Galactic. The Supply Tube would dock soon, after he and Matt paid its owners, and use its own automated supply sleds to deliver crated supplies over to the handling of Mata Hari’s own botsleds. The supplies would be delivered through a newly created cargohold airlock near the rear of the starship. He lifted the cask holding the Standards. “Don’t mind doing grunt work as delivery man. I’ll leave the ‘fight and win’ stuff to you!”
The flexhull wall puckered open before them, exposing them to vacuum even as the hull walls came together behind them. The small puff of escaping air moved them outward. Very slowly. George felt Matt’s mood shift to focus on the imagery George saw in his right faceplate quadrant. Now where is that control for the Repulsor block that let him follow the Vigilante?
“Time to head for the station over there,” Matt said, blinking to convey an image of the globular station festooned by twenty-one tubular shaped starships. A small access hatch glowed in red. “Head for that entry point, George. And be certain you have told your suit’s CPU to shut down the rockets in your backpack! They will not be needed here. And anyway, I have my suit already performing a Defense survey of the surrounding hundred kilometers. It will go to Auto-Defense mode if someone powers up a laser dome just before taking a shot at us.”
George half-heard Matt’s words as he felt relief at finding the correct suit function icon. Using PET thought-imagery to activate the Repulsor block that lay just beneath his backpack, he
tilted his head toward the Commerce Station and used blink control to tell his suit’s onboard CPU the message “I wanna go there!”
“Nicely done,” Matt Hari said in his mind as the red cloud presence cleared to show the high-cheeked face of her Mata Hari Spy persona. She
smiled encouragement. “Matt has cross-linked his CPU to yours so that the weapons of both suits can work in synchrony in case there is some kind of hostile action. That is highly unlikely. All comlink and tachlink frequencies carry normal mercantile chatter and orders. So relax and enjoy your first outing in a Level One combat suit!”
“Thanks, Mata Hari. I’m working on it.”
Keeping the center of his faceplate clear since it was his first time to ‘cruise’ in deep space, far from the surface of any planet, George kept one eye on the white ceramic armor of Matt’s suit, admiring the Running Wolf motif that the Vigilante had long ago chosen as his personal icon. “You know, Mata Hari, it was amazing back there on ship how I hardly felt any weight as I picked up the currency cask.”
“Good,” she said, her smile looking relaxed. “That is just how you
should
feel in a combat suit with neural linkages to its exoskeleton, lasers, rocket shell launcher pipes, pulse-Doppler chest unit and all the other modalities now at your control.”
In truth George felt like some kind of superman. Then he recalled Matt’s lesson on the target range as George used the helmet’s sighting laser to place every blast from his shoulder
pulse-cannon lasers right between the humanoid target’s eyes.
“George,” Matt had said as he’d felt exaltation at the ability to destroy any opponent. “Target shooting is fun. Killing other living creatures is necessary, but
not
fun. And remember that you are the primary mind in control of what your suit does. While the Combat CPU expert system will take over if you go unconscious, and fight to get you back to safety, it is
your
mind that selects among the dozens of combat options that your suit can perform. Always think first before thought-ordering an action. It will save on ammunition, and on missing a threat from an unexpected quarter. Understood?”
George thought of the intense lesson from two weeks ago and told himself to pay attention to stuff that Matt the Vigilante would not be watching. Stuff like the species and attitudes of every organic being they encountered after station entry. He’d learned to read the ‘body language’ exhibited by
three dozen alien morphoforms while working on Omega. That was an essential tool for every bondServant at Omega since many species were not as talkative as humans. The stars disappeared as they coasted under the yellow striped overhang of the access lock.
“Stay behind me,” Matt said as they entered the access
chamber, then felt the station’s gravplates pulling them to the floor with a sharp metallic ‘click’. “Station gravity is the common six-tenths Earth grav, as you know from your years on Omega.” Behind them the outer lock door closed soundlessly since they were in vacuum. Air whooshed into the lock. The inner lock door opened. Then an overhead speaker launched into its Visitor Welcome sales pitch.
“Visitors! Welcome to the emporium of Commerce Station, a place where the Central Aisle offers
services and products for every desire, from Joypaks that link to the pleasure centers of every species, to drugs of exaltation suitable for inhaling, injection or imprinting on your mind, to food both alive and dead, to—”
“Provide the location of Trans-Galactic mercantile,” Matt interrupted loudly, his English words transformed into the
Belizel speech recognized by all AIs and most merchants. “Transmit on frequency 1201 FM. Leave out the persuasion harmonics.”
They left the inner lock room as a three dee holo image appeared in the right quadrant of George’s
faceplate, showing the merchant’s location. “May you find all the riches you—”
“Shut up!” Matt said. “Or I will leave behind a white noise microbot that will heterodyne your acoustic speech into a range beyond
the hearing of any organic!”
“But, but . . . , as you wish, good sapient.” The overhead voice that had followed them out into a transit hallway shut up, thankfully, and George began his job of observing the comings and goings of
the many space-traveling species that were allegedly intelligent.
“The office of Trans-Galactic is located two point one kilometers horizontal from here, and on upper level
Gamma,” Matt said aloud even though George could see the green location dot on his right side faceplate quadrant. “Let’s roll.”
Roll? George was unfamiliar with the language idiom Matt had used. Perhaps it related to the ancient vidpic character
‘Paladin’ that Matt said he’d used for his Job Board listing? Earth was full of antique cultures, obscure nation states, three super-conglomerates of the corporate persuasion, and ten billion humans trying to survive warming of the planet, algae-based meals, polluted water, and ruling elites that saw the populace of Earth as a bother, versus an opportunity. Still, bond slavery had been outlawed by the antique United Nations, though its Security Council directorate now included twenty national identities. Eire was not a council member, but the EuroDem confederation was. He sighed, leaving behind archaic human cultural issues and focusing on the few aliens that moved alongside them, by walking, floating, slithering or galloping down this feeder hallway. They would enter the Central Aisle in another hundred meters.
“George, what are you thinking?” Matt asked with a tone of humor as the cyborg/combat suit
duo clanked along the feeder hallway.
“Cataloguing the alien species now sharing the hallway with us,” he said, working at the mind-splitting of his conscious attention that Matt seemed to do effortlessly.
The Vigilante’s right shoulder laser pulse-cannon whirred briefly and set its green target dot on a lumbering six-legged alien that reminded George of an ancient auroch beast. “What species is that thing? I have not seen it during my travels.”
“It is a herbivore of the Dolmat species which calls home an M-type star on the far side of the Norma Arm, a location that is directly opposite our Sol star. Human astronomers did not know of it due to the intervening mass of the galaxy’s central star core,” George said, likely adding more detail than Matt needed. “Its front legs double as armhands, while its spike-tail
serves for predator defense. The armor-plate hide and its dirt brown color give it decent camouflage against predators. They like games of chance, which is how a few Dolmats passed through Omega while I worked there.”
“Interesting,” Matt said as they reached the junction of the feeder with the Central Aisle
thoroughfare. “Move the Standards cask to your left hand so your right is free to use your Magnum gun. In case of need.”
George did as directed. It was no bother even though he was left-handed. He’d practiced enough target shooting with his right hand, along with block
handwriting, that his right side could do most of what he automatically did with his left hand. “Done. You visited many places like this?”
“Plenty of them,” Matt said tersely. “A lower class station called Hagonar is where I met Eliana. We linked up there and I went to help her planet survive its contract with the Halicene Conglomerate.”
“Halicene!” George said, feeling intense surprise. “Whatever possessed them to deal with—”
“Rapacious bastards like Halicene?” Matt interrupted. “My exact question to her. She got . . . ticked off by my comment, to use an archaic euphemism that the Paladin vidpic taught me. We eventually got along better.”
They must have, to become a Committed pair, George thought as he navigated the crowded Central Aisle. His suit’s onboard Combat CPU kept blaring loudly every time any sapient got within two meters of suit. He blinked to shut off the alarm, reset the proximity zone to a half meter, then began cataloging the weird shapes that someone called intelligent.
Two Mican griffin-tigers entered the hundred meter wide Aisle ahead of them, but fortunately they turned to walk ahead of him and Matt. The dirty brown feathers of their shoulder wings fluttered as the strong air circulation of the aisle moved exhaled carbon dioxide into ceiling filters while fresh oxygen and nitrogen brought in what ninety percent of the known species in the galaxy needed for life. George bit his lip as he recalled his battle with a furious Mican crewman onboard the harvester starship. His wrestling muscles had served him well. And the incident had taught him to activate a minitractor in the handle of the Magnum laser
gun so it would return to his left hand even when knocked out of his grip.
Between them and the Micans marched, slithered, tumbled, flew and floated on
Nullgrav plates six dozen aliens that belonged to the Spelidon, Dolmat, Loglan, Orko, Brokeet, Hashclick, Topean, Zam, and Hootnai species. He noticed only one Meligun bear-like alien, while no humans were to be seen. Most of the species were known as Ancients, longtime members of the Anarchate who had been in space for millennia compared to the two hundred years of humanity. In polite Belizel such new species were called Newcomers. In gutter talk they were called something else which George had overheard a few times as he did vacuum welding outside the casino dome. His work had been near the floater park where patrons rented Nullgrav vehicles for a tour of exotic places on Omega. If you could call craters, razor-sharp crags, steaming fumaroles, a few volcanoes and thousands of deep fissures tourist locales. Ahead, Matt slowed his pace, then gestured with a gauntleted hand to a ceiling flatscreen.