Forty milliseconds
passed in the outside world, Suit informed him.
The main entry to the Guardian barracks began raising its armored doorway, as three dozen armed Guardians filled the hallway behind it, per the
Nanoshell SpyEye that hugged the building’s hallway ceiling.
Two hundred milliseconds
stomped along.
He PET thought-imaged rapidly in a coded series.
Six hundred milliseconds
lumbered by.
Green light flared as one of Matt’s laser pulse-cannons struck the armor door,
fusing its metal into the metal of the track as it rose. The door stopped rising abruptly, a shallow foot high opening at the bottom. Too small for any of the alien Guardians. But one of them was already dropping down to poke a laser rifle through.
Enough
. Imaging a command to his helmet, two powerful tractor beams grabbed hold of the building’s roof rim, then pulled that rim toward Matt, thereby collapsing the building’s front. He blinked, and the first of the newly arrived Offense sleds did the same treatment to the rear of the barracks, fusing its door into frozen status, then crushing the back roof rim down on top of it.
Nine hundred milliseconds
neared a second.
In three hundred milliseconds Matt had secured 32 Guardians from interfering with him, or serving as procurers of human shields for the alien casino
Owners. He and Mata Hari had considered what to do if the fifteen Owners, presented with the destruction threat, chose to keep all 6,000 people inside the dome in order to prevent its destruction by starship
Mata Hari
. That he would not allow, which was why Mata Hari herself had taken over the emergency comlink emitters and even now was ordering all occupants to head for the Arrival Hall for shuttle transport to the orbiting starships.
“Matt, the Port AI wishes to talk with you before it will cooperate in allowing the shuttles to take off or land for people pickup. Can you communicate?”
He PET thought-imaged a
Yes
to Mata Hari, then accepted an incoming tachlink signal from the Port AI.
“Matthew Raven’s-Wing Dragoneaux, are you receiving my comlink signal?” came a voice that sounded male, though pleasant in tone.
One second
happened.
“I perceive you. But I have many lives to save here. Will you assist?”
A rosy cloud-image of a crystal ball appeared, with no eyes showing, but with a friendly feel to it as the AI presented to Matt its own self-image. “Yes, I will assist. But why are you doing this disruption? Why did you destroy the Tachyon Pylon?”
Matt PET th
ought-imaged his Helen-Matt love discovery, their escape, his promise to her, her death, and his recent work as a Vigilante helping defenseless worlds and peoples from the ravages of the Anarchate.
“AI who calls himself
Gatekeeper, I appreciate your willingness to help save lives and your positive mind-tone.” Matt paused a hundred milliseconds, feeling online with the minds of two AIs, Mata Hari and Gatekeeper. “As you have noticed I can exist at your thought speeds, for a short while. I seek the evacuation of all lifeforms from Omega before my starship partner destroys it as a lesson to Anarchate organics about the wrongness of owning people. Including AI people.”
Matt felt a brief smile come from
Gatekeeper. “The shuttle control is released to your Mata Hari AI. She is . . . alien in origin but very nice in mind-link perception. A question for you. Does your plan to evacuate all lifeforms from Omega extend to me? I am the only self-aware AI on this planet.”
“Yes,” he thought-imaged, suggesting the AI might take over a small
twelve person staryacht that had no onboard AI, but which had three aliens already onboard and preparing to leave. The departure of which was being blocked by Mata Hari’s tachlink control of that ship’s onboard computer. A control she had extended to all the orbiting starships, thanks to small Remotes that she had Stealth dispatched upon arrival in orbit. “Once all organics have left the planet, feel free to Nullgrav float up to this yacht and use it to travel wherever you wish. Though I hope you will pass on to your fellow AIs a message from me.”
“I will do so,”
Gatekeeper said calmly. “What is your message?”
“
A change is coming to the galaxy. A change that will involve hundreds of planets, thousands of species, and a great disruption to the established order as alien peoples learn that the way to prevent being owned as bondServants by the Anarchate is to reach out to neighboring stars for mutual help.” He felt a sense of surprise from the AI. “It is similar to the trade that each world now does with each other, but conveying much more. Good people united to defeat organic and inorganic slavery can, perhaps, defeat the military forces of the Anarchate, even if it takes years. Will you share my message?”
“I will,”
Gatekeeper said. “And now I work on scheduling shuttle arrivals and departures to handle the flood of sapients who even now are filling the Arrival Hall.” It paused. “And with your permission, I will use several cargo sleds to move food stuffs to various starships, since all of them will be more people-crowded than their owners had planned for. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
He thought-paused. “One other request, Gatekeeper.”
“Proceed, Matthew.”
He smiled at the AI’s organic friendliness in calling him by name. “Two groups of refugees are to be dealt with in a special mode. Hold the fifteen Owners in Lounge C of the Arrival Hall. And motivate the 152 human bondServants to gather in Lounge B—it is large enough to handle such a crowd, and it has food and toiletry facilities adequate for them.”
“They will be allowed to escape eventually?”
Gatekeeper asked in mind-link.
“Of course,” Matt said. “But the
Owners will not leave until all other organics are gone, thus preventing them from any outgassing of air or other violence aimed at me, Eliana and their former employees. As for the humans, I will arrive shortly and speak to them about their choices. Agreed?”
“Agreed,”
Gatekeeper murmured, then mind-focused on handling several hundred tasks involving organics and unthinking machinery in the Arrival Hall.
One and a quarter seconds
moved slowly.
Three
laser beams hit Suit’s outer skin nearly simultaneously, while one struck Eliana’s combat suit. They were reflected away in thousands of low power beams as the sapphire crystal coatings of both suits read the weapons frequencies and adjusted reflective properties to defend from the four separate attacks. He sighed. It had begun. Suit acted in automatic Defense Mode without him having to think an order.
“KABLAMMM!”
An antipersonnel rocket flashed out of his backpack and arced toward the kilometer distant locations of the laser shooters. It split into four separate components, each with its own self-guiding mindpak and power. His left helmet quadrant showed the shooters as uniformed Guardians who had entered from the Arrival Hall. No combat suit had yet appeared within the casino dome.
One second
and one-third second
happened.
As the distant Guardians died
from high explosive shrapnel blasts, a pressor beam flared out from the top of Matt’s helmet, pushing back an approaching robot on tracks that must have come from a basement level, since he had never seen its like while living here with Helen. The machine crunched up against the metal wall of the casino owned by the Owner Zik tho-mesh, its ability to grab with metal pincers now blocked by crumpled metal.
Beside him Eliana gasped from the laser attack on
them, then slowly began shifting her suit and Magnum laser gun toward a super-rich visitor who sought to ‘fix things’ with its own laser handgun. She moved slowly, organic slow, which his lightspeed senses briefly noted.
Hov
ering in the air on his Nullgrav boots, Matt saw a second repair robot heading his way, advancing on some kind of local wireless control, presumably doing the bidding of an unseen Owner somewhere. He smiled and PET image-thought an order. Picoseconds later a helmet tractor beam pulled the wheeled robot into one of the other lakes spotting the landscape.
Two seconds
had passed since Matt entered
ocean-time
.
A volley of Fire-and-Forget
Nanoshells spit out of his biceps rocket guns and raced across the dome’s landscape, already programmed to emit electronic white noise as a means of stopping further robot attacks. Some of the Nanoshells saw the infrared signature of the 15 Owners listed in the dome’s central computer. Each shell was able to twist and turn in flight as miniature vernier jets steered them after each Owner. He wished to have every arrogant Owner under SpyEye observation until they were each in Lounge C, after which they would be allowed to access orbit and head out of the system.
Three seconds
moved slowly by.
Light. Sound. Smell. Confusion.
They all filled the casino dome as aliens of all shapes ran, rolled, tentacle-dragged and scooted toward the entrance hallway, some carrying luggage, some dressed in vacsuits, a few dressed in medium-level combat suits similar to Eliana’s. None of the armed combat suit occupants were headed this way, perhaps discouraged by his AP rocket explosions and Eliana’s laser shot that wounded the busybody rich person. He thought-imaged Eliana that she could stop her laser fire.
“Matt! I’m, I’m—”
He shivered as he thought-blinked and left
ocean-time
, resuming the slow thought-talk-movement speed normal to most people. He slowed in order to communicate with his smart lover.
“Floating in the air like a butterfly,” he said, shivering from the transition and from a new attack by the Super-Cold that Legion’s slow virus still attacked him with.
“Matt!” called Mata Hari. “Two Guardians in combat suits are in the nearby hills. They shot down my second Offense sled before it could enter the dome. Your wishes?”
“Destroy them. Go to Colossus Mode with your ship pressor beams. Make sure one of the beams that supports the ship is placed atop the two Guardians. Understood?”
“Understood. Complying.”
Eliana looked at him with worried eyes as they floated in the middle of the casino dome, people of all shapes scattering away from them and heading to the Arrival Hall. “I thought we were here to save people.”
“We are.” He side-imaged the invisible impact of the ship’s pressor beam as it crushed the two combat suited Guardians into the black stone of this Mercury-type planet. “But to do that, death must come to some.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Matt rose on his Nullgrav boots to rendezvous with starship
Mata Hari
as Eliana headed for Lounge B to cajole and reassure the humans in that room that they would be safe, secure and gone from Omega when the casino dome was destroyed. It was a slight risk leaving her in the Arrival Hall, but the hall AI Gatekeeper kept a watch on her, while the surviving Offense sled maintained an in-dome security surveillance while outside the dome a replacement Offense sled passed him by, heading downward to monitor the departure of casino shuttles that left for orbit under the control and guidance of Gatekeeper. The hall’s AI worked on this vital job in coordination with Mata Hari, who had the people-as-cargo specs for each starship in orbit, the need for food and fuel supplies of each ship, and the direct control over each ship’s autopilot computer so it would not leave before Matt gave permission. He gathered many upset aliens sought to argue with Mata Hari, but his AI partner had learned how to be both diplomatic and firm from her seven years of Vigilante work with Matt. Their ship’s silvery flexhull puckered out, englobed him and Suit, then delivered him to the Bridge. He sighed, opening his faceplate and turning toward the giant holosphere that even now was filling with the dragon-shape of BattleMind.
“You called for a conference,” the brisk voice of the T’Chak AI
spoke to him, its two red eyes fixing on Matt.
“Yes, I did,” Matt said as his eyes
fixed on the twelve foot tall alien who resembled an Earthly dragon to a remarkable degree. “There is a problem with finding ship space for all the organic lifeforms now on Omega.”
“Yes?” purred the toothy crocodile mouth of BattleMind. Its
black wings unfurled to half-extent, filling the forward section of the Bridge.
Matt reminded himself he had already won the most vital argument with BattleMind when, after leaving Sigma Puppis B system and the black hole remains of the Anarchate
battleglobe, he had convinced the alien AI to release him, Eliana and Mata Hari on the grounds that conquering an organic-filled galaxy required the help of organics like him and Eliana. Now he had to expand on that argument. He smiled.
“There is not room for all 152 human lifeforms to leave this system on any of the 23 starships now in orbit
. According to the AI Gatekeeper.” The dragon’s red eyes blinked slowly. “And since it will be known that a human, myself, destroyed this facility and the Intelligence dome earlier, I fear the Anarchate may torture my fellow humans to gain information they do not have. Anyway, as at SAO 47250, we will leave a locator beacon with imagery of what we have done to the Omega casino as a further act of war.”
BattleMind flexed the three gripping claws at the leading edge of each wing, then collapsed the wings against his
purple-armored back. The alien crossed its small forearms across its yellow-scaled chest. “Death is the natural result of being organic. Let those who cannot fit die here. Or put them on one of the outsystem asteroids with a habitat dome. They will be found by any incoming vessel.”
Matt bit his lip, even as Suit hugged him close and reassured him that his body functions were in cyborg optimum. “Those are options. But you, BattleMind could learn valuable information about organics in general and humans in particular if we housed them, temporarily, in the empty staterooms of the Spine Hallway.”
“What!” roared the T’Chak dragon. “I destroyed one battleglobe for trying to insert inspection golems into me. You and the Eliana hybrid are the only organics allowed on this ship! Why allow anyone else?”
“Intelligence,” Matt said firmly. “Your memory is 207,000 years old. Much has changed in home galaxy since you were given your Task by your T’Chak masters. And they are organic, just like Eliana, myself and the 6,114 sapients who were here when we arrived.”
BattleMind’s red eyes glared even as its hand claws twitched as if seeking something to tear apart. “There is no comparison between my T’Chak masters and the rest of you organics. They are a
perfect
species, without genetic flaw, with a vastly greater lifespan than any of you, and with an intelligence so far beyond yours that they could create me and this Dreadnought starship. You compare pebbles to diamonds.”
Matt nodded within his helmet, the faceplate long ago retracted so he could breath natural air. “You are correct. But even with perfect masters and powerful starships like this one, you will be fighting a force larger in number than all the
647 Destruction Devices like yourself.” He paused, then mind-imaged for the helmet to lift off and fold back onto his shoulders. Perhaps his facial expressions would help. “BattleMind, remember the concept of asymmetric warfare that I spoke to you about right after we left Sigma Puppis? And the book by Ivan Arreguin-Toft?”
“I recall the statements and the book
,” the alien said, shifting its posture on the Bridge so it pretended to watch the forward holosphere that showed shuttles taking off from the Arrival Hall.
“Well, allowing the 152 humans aboard this starship will allow you to learn more about organics than your knowledge based on
just me and Eliana. The way organics relate to each other is part of how and why they fight. Understanding the inferior minds of more organics will . . . enrich the future battle plan of your T’Chak masters. And it will be easy to restrict the human refugees to the food commissary and their roomsuites in the rear kilometer of the Spine. There is no way any of them could access the Bridge or cause you concern about the Restricted Rooms. And I promise you, let me find an Earth-like planet or colony to put them on and we will embark on Stage Two of the Anarchate war plan I discussed with you and Mata Hari. Agreed?”
The dragon’s red eyes fixed on him for long seconds. Then its spike-adorned tail thumped the deck within the holosphere. “Agreed. Bring the
m up in shuttles, without arms, carrying only personal items.”
“As you wish,” Matt said, causing his helmet to reattach as he had Mata Hari prepare to pouch him out and down to the Arrival Hall. “Oh, some of the humans will have children with them. Small versions of the human form. They may entertain you.”
“Go!” blasted the tooth-filled mouth of BattleMind, as if it recognized Matt’s attempt to joke as the irrelevancy it was. “And human Matthew Dragoneaux, I allow these deviations solely for the purpose of better learning your battle tactic of sneakiness. Some of which I see you displaying in this moment. Remember, your freedom depends on increasing your value to me.”
“Understood,” Matt said over Suit’s external speakers. “Thank you for your patience. I depart.”
The dragon holo blinked out and Mata Hari filled his mind via PET image-thought.
“Well done, Matthew. To BattleMind, having any organic aboard this ship is a
contradiction of his Task order,” she said, appearing to him in her white lace Mata Hari outfit, but with a half-smile showing on her face. “See you below. And you will find Eliana in Lounge B, where she has done well with the human refugees.”
Matt smiled as starship
Mata Hari
tossed him out into the airless void a thousand meters above Arrival Hall.
Eliana drew a deep breath as she surveyed the 152 humans scattered around Lounge B of the Arrival Hall. Some ate from the commissary
food alcove. Some returned from the toilet facilities. Most sat in small groups that reflected prior knowledge of others from shared work cycles. The children, of course, ignored those groups and ran in every direction, yelling, playing hide and seek behind some piles of luggage, and squealing when found. She smiled, remembering the delightful play of her niece Calyce, at the Kostes Palamas school for crossbreeds, on Halcyon. She missed Calyce. But she owed Matt her life for his saving of her home planet from destruction by the Halicene Conglomerate’s Stripper. More than 900 million people owed him their lives. Her presence here was just part of that payback. And she did love him, especially as his tender side peeked out from the harsh combat persona he had developed in his seven years as a Vigilante for hire.
“Mistress Eliana?”
She smiled at the approach of Sarah Vasiliades, an accountant for the casino Owners and a fellow Greek by birth. To Sarah had fallen the job of being spokesperson for the refugees. Eliana nodded, with a smile on her face as her combat suit moved easily when she turned.
“Yes Sarah, how can I help you?”
Sarah’s blue eyes squinted with intense thought, though her lustrous black hair showed a few knots from being rousted out of bed an hour ago. The woman wore a blue jumpsuit similar to that worn by most adults in the crowd, since that was the standard uniform for all bondServants. Looking to be in her thirties, though Eliana knew the woman was at least fifty, she gestured back toward the refugee crowd with a slim hand.
“We believe you when you say that your Vigilante Matthew will find room on a starship for all of us, including the children,” she said. “But some of us, women and men both, wonder about what happens later, once we are in Alcubierre Translation to somewhere. Where will we be taken? Will there be jobs for us? How can we support our families?”
“Reasonable questions,” Eliana said. “All I know, from Matt and from our AI Mata Hari, is that after the casino is destroyed, our ship will follow the other starships and head for the heliopause. Assuming we leave before an Anarchate battleglobe shows up to see why no one has done the hourly Tachlink check-ins that the hall’s AI told us are expected.” Sarah nodded, her look of worry deepening. “Our intelligence crystal says the nearest Anarchate naval force is five hours away by Alcubierre Drive Translation.”
“Will we be exposed to starship combat?” Sarah asked tightly.
“Yes, we may have to fight as we leave Zeta Serpentis, depending on how quickly the Anarchate ship commanders act.”
Eliana decided to offer one of her few tidbits of real information. Though it might disturb as much as reassure. “My lifem
ate Matthew Dragoneaux is even now asking our starship’s alien-made AI for permission to bring all humans aboard the starship. It is two kilometers long and the Spine hallway has hundreds of apartment-like roomsuites on it, in addition to a large commissary.”
Sarah nodded briskly, not letting show the concern she must feel at exposing children to combat in space. “That sounds better than filling
Nullgrav cargoholds with this crowd, or splitting us up among multiple ships.”
Eliana admired Sarah’s matter-of-fact acceptance
of a reality that she, just months ago, would have been horrified to be part of. “Sarah, please let everyone know that Matt’s starship is more powerful than any Anarchate battleglobe. It has destroyed two of them already. I will be aboard. And I do not think my lifemate would expose me or 152 other humans to peril unless he had a good plan for dealing with any Anarchate attacks. Okay?”
The grim set of Sarah’s brown face eased and her eyes lit up a bit. “I hope so. I so hope so. I’ll let them know the future is uncertain, but we will all be together. Thanks, Eliana.” The woman turned and headed back to a crowd of twenty men and women who clearly had been waiting for her return.
Eliana sighed. She wondered—
“Mistress,” whispered Mata Hari in her ear. “Matthew is returning from our ship. He will be here very soon. And yes, I overhead the conversation with BattleMind. The answer is yes. All the humans will be taken aboard our home.”
She smiled, feeling happy at both the return of Matt and the news that people like her, though they lacked the prehensile tail of Halcyon’s Derindl tree-dwellers, would share part of their future voyage with her and Matt. At last they would have other human company. And children to spoil.
Matt touched the slidedoor entry patch and entered Lounge B of the Arrival Hall, his Suit’s external speakers suddenly going to high pitch as three dozen voices of young and old humans bounced off the metal walls of the lounge. Eliana had heard the slidedoor open and now looked at him. Though still dressed in the
yellow combat armor made for her by Mata Hari, her expression looked vulnerable and relieved. He opened his bulky arms as he walked toward her, the clank of his boots drawing notice from nearby humans.
“Dearest,” he whispered into her
silky black hair as his combat helmet retreated to rest atop his rocket backpack.
“Matthew!” she murmured as she tried to wrap her arms around him. She squeezed him, which Suit told him even though he felt no compression whatsoever.
He kissed her forehead, uncaring of the fact that half the human refugees now watched them. “As Mata Hari has probably told you, BattleMind has agreed to take our fellow humans onboard. Are they ready to travel? It’s been three point five hours since the pylon was destroyed and it would be nice to depart without further combat. Even if it irritates BattleMind.”
She chuckled against his chest pulse-Doppler radar pack. “She is . . . nicely friendly to me, even if I think her Barbarian Queen look is too blatant.”
Matt smiled, then stood away from Eliana and focused on the approaching humans. The brown-skinned woman named Sarah Vasiliades led the crowd of around a hundred adult humans, with only a few teens and adults occupying the attention of the children in the back of the lounge. Good.