“Good,” he said as his mind vision perceived the approach of the giant remotes. “Extend our stealth coverage to include them. Once past the moon we will Translate to the side of the three battleglobes. Their Combat CPUs are probably set to fire at any gravity pulse that arrives behind them or in front of them. We will arrive in a spot I have never used before.”
Flowing into
ocean-time
was almost easy this time. Perhaps his encounters with TrueLife and the increasing care of BattleMind prevented the usual shock he felt. Whatever the reason, he now felt the ship as if it were a skintight vacsuit. Inside he linked directly to the ship’s normal weapons, including the Bethe Inducer. BattleMind moved to control the Graviton Beam and the Sun Glow weapons, along with other Restricted Room devices. Mata Hari flowed over both him and BattleMind, feeding them both the power and function levels of every part of the ship. Splitting his mental attention, Matt used Repulsor power to shift the starship’s hull 90 degrees to the right and made sure the six wing antimatter pontoons were fully loaded with neutronic antimatter ready to be sent in a coherent beam at any target his mind sighted. Finally, BattleMind activated the Alcubierre space-time to Translate them to within ten light seconds of the incoming battleglobes.
Five picoseconds
, murmured Mata Hari.
The front holo turned grey
briefly, then space black with its tapestry of colorful stars that filled Cluster Prime. In front of them glowed the ten second old image of the Novas’ twelve kilometer-wide globes. BattleMind activated the flat Alcubierre fields that would shield them from any automated attack beam.
Six picoseconds, five femtoseconds.
The flat space-time sheets formed in front of Matt and to the sides of
Mata Hari
, their shapes enclosing the attached Offense Remotes. He knew they had ten light seconds before any laser or antimatter beam reached them. With a thought he fired the right wing’s three AM pontoons, each targeting a single battleglobe. The left wing’s pontoons fired just above the predicted pathway of the battleglobes so any movement out of their vector line would be covered by at least one AM beam. With a shiver he cast off the Offense Remotes. They used their fusion pulse drives to move away from
Mata Hari’s
approach vector. Matt told the belly Nullgrav plates to move them upward, off of the vector line that their gravity wave signal would indicate to the automated Combat CPUs of the three battleglobes.
Forty-two milliseconds.
Matt fired scores of his laser mounts at both the standard vector of the battleglobes and at a circle of spots where they might move as a result of detecting his ship’s gravity wave pulse. The globes were arranged in a vee-shape, with one globe leading the other two. With a clenching of his stomach, he ordered the axial accelerator to eject a purple plasma globe at the spot just ahead of where the globe cluster might be within ten light seconds.
Four point five seconds.
Approaching the battleglobe cluster with the ship’s dragon snout aimed forward and with both T’Chak wings fully extended as the ship slowly rose above the gravity wave vector, Matt told the ship’s fusion pulse spacedrive to speed up from one-half lightspeed to three-fourths lightspeed. The distance between
Mata Hari
and the Novas was so small that the speedup would make little difference. Except the vector speed gain might throw off the CPU calculations that governed offensive action by the battleglobes. At least until an organic commander chose to modify the automated offense responses of the battleglobes.
Nine seconds.
Matt fired more neutron antimatter beams at the projected vector course of the battleglobes, then tensed as his mind filled with thousands of data inputs and status alerts from inside and outside the ship. Around him his companions were shielded by inertial fields and the crash clamshells of their accel-couches. Gatekeeper had left the Bridge long moments earlier to see to the inertial containment of the park and the swimming pool. Its concern for the frogs and crawling insects pleased Matt.
Ten seconds.
Four black antimatter beams hit the forward Alcubierre space-time field, disappearing into another part of the universe. The beams had come from the equatorial AM mounts of two Novas. The lead Nova that lay a thousand kilometers ahead of the trailing two Novas did not fire at them. Why not?
Eternity passed as Matt
waited for the ten second old image of the damage done to the battleglobes by his initial barrage. A ten second journey to the globes meant an identical ten second journey back to his ship’s sensors.
In the holosphere both rear battleglobes moved off their initial vector, one rising slowly and the second dropping slowly off of their inward vector. The rise was not
large enough to avoid his barrage of AM beams. The front Nova, though, slowed down its speed, as if it knew his plasma globe approached it. From the forward globe’s equatorial mounts came two black antimatter beams that hit their Alcubierre shield as soon as Matt saw them. Then the front Nova shifted its vector line to straight up and away from its inward vector.
The holo filled with
white explosions as his first AM barrage hit the two rear Novas, causing each Nova to lose a third of its mass. The Novas began to tumble in space, as if out of control. Ahead of them the front Nova’s forward hull was creased by Matt’s first AM beam, then missed entirely by his second beam. A red-glowing furrow showed on the lead Nova. Then its thick hull sparkled as fifteen excimer, neutral particle and proton laser beams hit it, but none of them penetrated the half-kilometer thick armor of the Nova. It continued to lift above its approach vector, clearly under control by a living commander.
Twenty-one seconds.
Matt saw that the antimatter beams fired by both Assault Remotes hit mainly the two trailing Novas, causing them to break into large pieces. Those Novas would either explode from the release of inheld antimatter or from magfield control loss in its fusion power plants. He ordered all six wing pontoons to fire at the front Nova that was rising well off the approach vector, knowing nothing would happen for ten seconds. The result of whatever happened would not be known for twenty seconds. A lifetime while in
ocean-time
.
The image of the surviving Nova shimmered. But not from a startup of the Bethe Inducer field
. Could this Nova have learned—
“Translate now! To between HomeWorld and its moon, on the planet side facing us. Now!”
“Complying, Matthew,” said Mata Hari’s mind-flow.
Twenty-two seconds.
The grey of Alcubierre space-time filled the front holosphere. He spoke slower than he thought.
“The two Novas are dead or will be when the Assault Remotes arrive on their vector,” he told the shapes of his companions as they asked why the combat images had disappeared. “
But the front Nova has Translated away from here. I believe it is heading for HomeWorld to use its Bethe Inducer on the planet.”
“Nooooo!” roared the mind-voice of BattleMind as its swirling
mentality read his memory of the Megadeen battle and his conclusion the same Jump and Attack maneuver was being tried by this Anarchate globe.
“Peace!” he cried to the purple hurricane. “I cannot fight if your mind knocks me out.”
“If there is any harm to HomeWorld why I will—”
Twenty-three seconds.
The holo cleared to show stars and the grey surface of HomeWorld’s moon. To one side of the moon glowed the surviving Nova battleglobe. It lay three light seconds from them. Its hull showed the shimmer of its Bethe Inducer weapon as a large hole opened in one part of the globe that faced them. They were in the way of the Inducer beam, which would of course take out them and the world behind them. Matt’s mind fired two AM beams at the globe’s position, then took hold of the Alcubierre Drive chamber.
Translation would save them.
But their exit would kill them all since Matt had chosen to emerge at the exact space-time spot occupied by the Nova. He barely had time to think of Eliana before—
A red-glowing gas
cloud appeared before them and then was swept away by their passage through it and toward the grey surface of the moon. A moon that showed a red-glowing spot at its north pole. Behind them the two antimatter beams he had fired impacted on the rear Alcubierre shield.
“Thank you for your effort to give your lives to save my world,” came the mind-flow and
spoken words of TrueLife. “But the Tachyon Beam installed on our moon delivered a large amount of antimatter to the spot occupied by the Nova. With no time lag due to lightspeed delays. The Nova’s destruction preceded your arrival by three hundred milliseconds. Your emergence was perfectly safe.”
Eliana looked at him, her face showing shock as she understood he had chosen to sacrifice her, Suzanne and George in order to save a world. Tears showed in her eyes, as they did in Suzanne’s. It was George who kept him from seeking
death.
“It was necessary, Matthew,” his combat companion said. “
Your
geis
is to save
all
worlds from the Anarchate. Whether there is one life on a world, or billions. I do not think I would have had your . . . devotion to honor to do what you just did.”
Matt exited
ocean-time
and slumped in the Pit. “But, but, I nearly killed you all!”
“But you didn’t,” Eliana said, leaving her accel-couch and walking over to kneel beside his head.
A head that ached from the force of BattleMind’s reaction. He shivered at the cool touch of her lips on his cheek. “And now we, we four, we have a chance to bring an end to bond servitude in a galaxy where evil is normal, kindness is rare and people of all shapes need more in life than simple survival.”
“Yes,” whispered Suzanne as she hugged George to her. “Now, we all have a future to look forward to.”
From the Spine slidedoor Gatekeeper floated in to hover beside his Mata Hari, whose holo appearance showed a smile and joy that flowed over her shape the way sunlight fills a meadow. “We thank you too, Matthew. We realized your intention before Translation, but we agree with George. It was necessary.”
“And well done,” growled the holo of BattleMind as it approached Matt and Eliana. Its red eyes did not show anger. “A good . . . partner you are. TrueLife agrees and has sent me the code needed to activate my brethren. Agreed?”
Matt looked at the somber faces of George, Suzanne and dear Eliana. “We do not have to do any more world saving. We can take this ship or another and return home. Perhaps tending a soybean farm would be for the best. Especially for our future children.”
The faces of the women lost their tenseness as he brought forth what all four of them desired. It was his Eliana who turned his jaw to face her. While tears dripped from her jade green eyes, and her pure white shoulders shivered from
her emotions, she shook her head quickly.
“No. Onward to the Lacunae Mindworks and to a future that infuriates the Anarchate. Let us go, Matthew. Children can wait awhile. But first we must make the galaxy into a home where kindness is not rare, where cloneslaves do not exist and where love can stretch beyond one’s homeworld.”
Recalling the future meeting of genome harvester starships just outside the three-star system of Alkalurops, Matt nodded slowly. Yes, cloneslavery must come to an end. And he knew where to start that process.
“Thank you my love, my friends, my AI companions. Onward it is.”
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. Jackson King (Tom) is a professional archaeologist and graduate of UCLA (M.A. 1976) and the University of Tennessee (B.Sc. 1971).
He writes hard science fiction, anthropological scifi, dark fantasy/horror and contemporary fantasy/magic realism. Tom’s published science fiction novels are
NEBULA VIGILANTE
(Wilder Publications, 2013),
STAR OF ISLAM
(Wilder Publications, 2013),
GALACTIC AVATAR
(Wilder Publications, 2013),
STELLAR ASSASSIN
(Wilder Publications, 2013),
STAR VIGILANTE
(2012),
THE GAEAN
ENCHANTMENT
(Wilder Publications, 2012),
LITTLE BROTHER’S WORLD
(Fantastic Books, 2010),
ANCESTOR’S WORLD
(Ace Books, 1996, with A.C. Crispin), and
RETREAD SHOP
(Warner Books, 1988, 2012). His short stories have appeared in the collection
JUDGMENT DAY AND OTHER DREAMS
(Fantastic Books, 2009). His poetry has appeared in the collection
MOTHER EARTH’S STRETCH MARKS
(Motherbird Books, 2009). Tom has worked as an archaeologist in the American Southwest and has traveled widely in Europe, Russia, Japan, Canada, Mexico and the United States of America. Other jobs have included short order cook, hotel clerk, legal assistant, telephone order taker, investigative reporter and newspaper editor. Tom lives in Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA, where he writes science fiction, fantasy, poetry and freelance non-fiction. He is married to Cathy and has three grown children. Tom can be reached at [email protected] and his other writings can be viewed at
http://www.sff.net/people/t-jackson-king
.