Vigilante Series 2: Nebula Vigilante (8 page)

In his mind’s-eye his Mata Hari spy partner tilted her head slightly, as if trying to read his intentions. Not yet, so far. His mind thoughts were private to him, until he spoke aloud or PET thought-imaged a communication.

“Three hundred and twenty-one sensor Remotes lie between them and us. Each
Remote has tachlink capability,” Mata Hari said. “However, tachlink requires tremendous power, and as soon as one of them emits a signal to us that Remote will be detected by one or both battleglobes. Shortly afterward the Remote will be destroyed by either the Anarchate point defense lasers, by pressor beam deflection or by KKPs launched against them.”

“So,” he mused. “We have better real time tachyon images, when we ask for them, but the Anarchate ships have more small Remotes running in convoy with them than we do. You can carry a lot of throwaway tachBeads, plasma torps, nuke torps, Sensor sleds and
laser Picket Globes in a twelve kilometer-wide Nova.”

“
Irrelevant,” growled BattleMind. “My flat Alcubierre space-time fields soak up anything that comes against us, large or small, beam or pressor field.”

Matt wondered about that. Could any attacking beam or torp eventually overload the field stability of the
grey Alcubierre fields? He thought that question over the observation link he had with both BattleMind and Mata Hari. “Yes, but could your Alcubierre fields ever become unstable or collapse? From weapons impacts?”

“That has never occurred in our history of using such fields,” BattleMind said both aloud and in Matt’s mind.

“But is it possible?”

Irritation filled the mind flow from BattleMind. “There is much in the universe that is possible, but which only occurs every billion cycles or so. Do not worry about a weapon that is new to you. I will control
its use.”

Matt nodded and thought acceptance, though his human memories argued that nothing is perfect. He focused on the obvious issue involved in getting close to the
Nova battleglobes.

“Well, our combined speed of closure will
shortly put us within the five light minutes range of their directed energy weapons, with some of their Remotes convoy preceding that range,” Matt said. “How do we close with them without using the Alcubierre fields to absorb the Remotes? Beyond slowing down to reach local combat speed at the fourth orbital?”

Mata Hari, sensing BattleMind’s irritation with his questions, answered. “Matthew, our forward hull weapons domes will emit long-range pressor fields that will keep any Remote device at least
twenty kilometers away from us,” she said. “And once we begin ship-to-ship combat, the Alcubierre fields will absorb any Remotes or limpet mines that try to reach our hull.”

Eliana looked his way. “Matt, shouldn’t we alert the refugees to sit in chairs or couches so they can be inertial field protected if the ship
has to maneuver abruptly? You’ve put me into a crash cocoon in the past. And now.”

“Agreed,” he said aloud as his gestalt mind perception told him he would shortly have to enter
ocean-time
in order to lightspeed communicate with the two AIs. “Record a warning and have Mata Hari transmit it to every wallscreen in every place that humans are present. Thank you, dearest.”

Her smile said she appreciated her chance to participate in the upcoming battle, as she had helped the
Derindl Autarch during Matt’s battle with the Halicene ship
Obliteration
. This time, though, too much would be happening at computer speed for her to assist. Matt had a feeling that while it would feel like hours to him, the oncoming battle would be decided in five minutes or less. Lightspeed weapons and advance prep like tachBeads would cause each ship to be enveloped in a variety of weapons attacks that would soon prove fatal to someone. Feeling glad he had eaten a decent meal with high energy nutrients only a few hours ago, Matt settled into his Interlock Pit seat and sought full linkage with the AIs.

Ocean-time
filled his mind and inner self. Femtoseconds rushed by as picoseconds moved tick-tock past his awareness, and nanoseconds felt like long minutes.

“Hello Matthew,” whispered the mind-voice of Mata Hari as she fed him all starship perceptions, interior and exterior, along with the total space-tim
e environment out to five light minutes.

“Hey there, pretty spy. Is your friend
Gatekeeper helping the humans get settled into inertial fields?”

Her mind-sense stiffened at his mention of the third AI on board, but then acted as if it were a normal question. “Yes, after your Eliana made her vid announcement. I allow
ed it to interact with ship internal ecofields since you made its duty that of taking care of the human refugees.”

Matt smiled, then leaned his mind in the direction of BattleMind. Though the alien AI’s mind-pulse sped by his awareness in a mode buffered by Mata Hari, he felt inner exhaustion just watching the T’Chak AI as it simultaneously reduced drive thrust, emitted several forward pressor fields that were already deflecting
Anarchate Remotes, powered up the axial plasma generator, fed antimatter to all six antimatter pontoons, dedicated four of the ship’s twelve fusion power planets to feed energy to the various laser mounts on the ship’s hull, adjusted the sapphire crystal skin to shift optical deflection frequencies to match the recorded laser frequencies from their two battles with Anarchate battleglobes, added more carbon-carbon ablative skin underneath the sapphire layer, extruded the five Alcubierre space-time pods at the ship’s top, bottom, both sides and forward hull placements, activated the field for production of the Bethe Inducer beam, and emitted thousands of Remotes to serve as holo decoys, Fire-and-Forget Nanoshells, Seek/Identify sensors, white noise generators, Defense torps, Offense torps including several thirty-megaton behemoths and brought to full power the Sun Glow neutrino projector. Lastly, the flat Alcubierre space-time fields wrapped around
Mata Hari
, their edges overlapping so no solid object or beam could penetrate the field edges. And their fusion pulse exhaust at the rear was sufficient to vaporize any beam or object that approached from behind them. Also, the Alcubierre fields made their ship ‘invisible’ to the battleglobes due to their absorption of all EMF frequencies, including light. However, they could be tracked by the ship’s blacking-out of stars behind them.

Matt sighed. Clearly BattleMind was preparing for many battle options. Though there was one tactical option that now occurred to him.

“BattleMind, we should head
between
the two Nova battleglobes. View my mind-image of the tactical option that the move gives us,” he said hurriedly, his
ocean-time
senses struggling to match speeds with the flood of millions of databytes being tracked by the T’Chak AI.

Intense irritation washed over him, but the five nanoseconds that BattleMind took to review his tactical idea was answered with “Sneaky. I like. Will
do.”

Matt’s mind swirled with the impact of being touched by a computer mind that thought so much faster than his organic neurons. Before he could blink, they arrived within five light minutes of the Novas and combat began.

In long seconds many things happened.

The two Novas both fired CO2 laser, neutral particle beam and free electron lasers at
Mata Hari
, while a dozen laser Picket Globes hit the side Alcubierre fields with thermonuclear-powered x-rays. Both ships also shimmered with the visual space-time haze that indicated Bethe Inducer power up.

The
attacking beams disappeared.

Nothing
penetrated the flat Alcubierre space-time fields of blackness that enveloped the top, bottom, sides and front of his starship. Meanwhile, BattleMind acted.

The space-flying T’Chak dragon opened its toothy mouth and belched out a 200 meter wide purple ball of pure,
magnetically contained plasma, which BattleMind directed through the front field and toward the Nova on their right. It would reach target in around four light minutes.

Two neutron antimatter pontoons, one on each wing, shot coherent black beams at the two Novas, one for each ship, but with an aim towards the outside curve of each
battleglobe. Matt understood BattleMind’s tactic in the outside aim. Each Nova would receive a tachlink alert to the AM beams via tachyon comlink and move away from the projected impact point. Thus causing both ships to come closer to each other. The other four AM pontoons each aimed at where his ship expected the Novas to be in four light minutes.

Ahead of them two large Remotes, each loaded with 30 megaton thermonukes, moved to either side of
Mata Hari
and sped toward each Nova using onboard Repulsor power. Nanoseconds later both Remotes exploded, creating a decent plasma fireball but, most importantly, creating an EMP pulse that would impact the Novas in just less than three light minutes. His ship was protected from the EMP pulses thanks to the Alcubierre sheets, but the Novas would feel some effect in areas not shielded against hard x-rays and gamma rays emitted by the EMP blasts.

In the forward holosphere there appeared a tachlink image from a
Mata Hari
Remote that was close to the Novas. It showed both Anarchate ships firing neutron antimatter beams at the spot where they expected
Mata Hari
to be at one light minute out from sharing the same special location.

Between the three starships space sparkled as Remotes were destroyed on both sides, laser Picket Globes directed coherent x-rays at
Mata Hari
by their own thermonuke death, plasma torps on both sides exploded when hit by point defense lasers of the three ships, Sensor sleds vaporized when their power emissions were detected, and on the snout of the dragon that was BattleMind, his two red laser eye mounts emitted powerful red beams sufficient to drill through an iron asteroid, let alone any organic-made hull. The beams passed through the Alcubierre fields in less than five picoseconds, far too short an opening for any offensive device or beam to slip through.

Matt nodded as he sensed the
Battle Configuration of
Mata Hari
defeat all offensive efforts and conduct its own attack efforts with a similar staged effort at where the T’Chak AI expected the Novas to be at any particular light minute distance.

Seconds later they passed through the thinning plasma clouds of the two EMP pulses. Matt’s mind register
ed two light minutes until spatial conjunction of the three warships.

Two nanoseconds later Matt, Mata Hari and BattleMind each visually imaged the arrival of two Weapons Sleds that began to pass through the front
Alcubierre space-time field. However, halfway through the three nanoseconds it normally took for a solid object to transit into another space-time, both sleds each exploded with a 60 megaton fury of thermonuclear energy. The blast made the black Alcubierre field go white with overload. In 30 femtoseconds the field disappeared as the forward Alcubierre projector partly disappeared in a mass of black smoke.

“We’re
—
”

All three of them took actions in short nanoseconds as each detected the oncoming antimatter beams.

Matt caused the emission of a gaseous mercury cloud to protect against normal laser beams.

Mata Hari used Repulsor power to
lift the nose of the ship upward to bring into play the bottom Alcubierre field.

BattleMind thought-imaged the side A
lcubierre space-time fields to angle around to cover
Mata Hari’s
toothy snout.

Six
femtoseconds passed until the ship’s front was fully enclosed by the side Alcubierre fields.

The two oncoming A
narchate antimatter beams . . . impacted at the eleven femtosecond mark.

BattleMind’s fury at the
loss of one of his Alcubierre fields overrode Matt’s concern that a perfect weapon had shown an unexpected flaw.

The T’Chak AI emitted a Bethe Inducer beam at the left side
battleglobe, while discharging a second purple plasma ball able to break a planet’s crust at the right side Nova, to follow on behind the earlier purple ball.

The sparkle explosions of Remotes and
tachBeads vaporizing as mutual pressor beams collided in yellow hazes were barely notable as the right side Nova staggered from the glancing blow of the first giant plasma ball. One third of the battleglobe disappeared in a raging inferno of yellow light, red gases and spinning fragments.

The left side Nova moved closer to the central path of
Mata Hari
, barely dodging the yellow Bethe Inducer beam that would have reduced it to a few neutron star particles.

Convergence occurr
ed as the light seconds between the three starships disappeared.

Both
battleglobes fired their own Bethe Inducers at the field-shielded shape of
Mata Hari
. The Alcubierre flat fields absorbed the torrential energy impact with no evidence of overload or faltering. For a few long milliseconds, Matt’s starship, his love Eliana, 152 fellow humans and the AIs Mata Hari, Gatekeeper, and BattleMind were the target of beams that should have reduced them to neutron star particles.