Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) (29 page)

She brought him closer to release. Moments later she gasped for breath. “Why, then?”

“Because of a Promise I made to Helen.” Matt pulled her up from his hips and sought her eyes. Her wondrous green eyes. The eyes of a woman who loved him and whom he loved. “Enough of old memories and new love. Show me what the Derindl women do with their tails.”

“Pervert!” she laughed, then spread her legs as she mounted him, her hips shimmying like a young colt. In that moment she drove away the loneliness and brought back love. She made him believe once again, believe that, somehow, it would all work out. She offered him hope . . . .

Long into the night they pretended things were not as they were.

Two days later the Stripper broke down.

Seated in the Interlock Pit on the Bridge, with Eliana sitting close by in her accel-couch dressed only in his Samoan
lavalava
skirt, Matt watched the forward holosphere.

The blood red hulk of the Stripper filled the sphere. Spy Remotes fed him its image from every angle, in every spectrum. But the Stripper did not move. No ore-cutting lasers flared. No air defense shot down his Remotes. No active radar ranged his Remotes. Nothing moved. Nanoprobes confirmed the death of interior machinery. Already, a Fire-and-Forget Nanoshell had penetrated the hull, dispersed into submunitions, and his nanoborers and nanoware energy seekers now spread through the immense interior caverns of the Stripper. Saying a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of Chaos, he turned to Eliana.

“Well, lovely Patron, the job is half-done. Shall we take up Hover station over the Stripper before your countrymen beat us to the salvage rights?”

Eliana looked puzzled. “What do you mean? No one knows the Stripper is dead—yet. I know satellites will report its demise to both Autarch Dreedle and to Legion’s spies, but we’re first on site. And what Greek would approach the Stripper?”

Matt watched as she turned crosswise in her couch, folded long slim legs under her, and watched him instead of the holosphere. He had an advantage over her—the PET relays still fed his mind an uplinked view from his miniProbes. “Almost any Greek, my dear. Spyridon could use the ecotoxin reservoirs to blackmail Autarch Dreedle. Your uncle Nikolaos could offer them to Halicene Conglomerate, as a bribe to return their freighter traffic to his Port. Ioannis could salvage the hulk and sell its remains back to Legion—or hope for continued preferential trade relations if Halicene doesn’t blame him for the defeat of its machine. Even you—”

“Me!” she sounded amazed. Then her hot temper caught up, turning her look stormy and challenging.

“Peace!” Matt bit his lip—it was not fun looking at situations from the self-interest of all possible opponents. “But yes, Mistress, even you could find value here. How many full spectrum neonatal placental units do you think you could buy . . . with enough ecotoxins to destroy a planet’s lifeweb?”

The heat left her mood. Eliana knew him well enough now to see how and where he led. She did not like the direction he illuminated, but she was too intelligent and too honest to dismiss him as a crazy cyborg. And . . . she was falling in love with him—so she had confided last night. In the end, Eliana could only turn away, stare at a sidewall image of Sigma Puppis system, and whisper her protest. “Matthew, you misjudge me. I may have my own interests, I may detest your computer, but I would never make possible the destruction of another planet. Throw the damned stuff into the sun!”

“Good idea.” Matt rejoiced inside and knew that his choice to love her had been well-founded. “Mata Hari
will send the reservoirs to your sun aboard a cargo Remote. But it will be stealthed—we can still use the possible trade of them as a card in future negotiations. Understand?”

Eliana groaned, then turned back to him, her expression stark. “Matt, I don’t want to know more of human and alien depravity. I hate politics! All I want is . . . .”

“Yes?”

“An answer to how I can both serve my people and be with you.” She looked at the holosphere, her expression troubled. “When do we leave for the Stripper?”

Ouch!
Well, he’d invited that sharing. “We’ve already left, Eliana.” Matt blinked twice. “I’ve set up our own Defense Zone around the Stripper. In seconds we’ll be hovering above it. Would you care to walk atop the corpse of your planet’s enemy?”

“Go outside?” Astonishment filled her. “Unprotected? You want me to walk where you walked?”

“Not me. What do
you
wish to do?” They took up Hover station over the Stripper just as he finished his question.

“Matthew,”
Mata Hari
said, interrupting their discussion. “We’re there. What are your instructions for decontamination and recovery of the ecotoxin reservoirs?”

Holding up a hand up to forestall Eliana’s reply, he answered his partner. “Your Nanoprobes have located all the reservoirs?”

“Of course,” she said, sounding a bit indignant. “There are four—two in the front hull and two in the rear. It will take awhile to cut through the upper hull plates. But our starboard lasers and plasma cannons can do the job.”

Matt recalled onto his contact lenses the schematics of the Stripper. His onboard CPU scrolled parameters and readings along either side of the tiny image. “Can they be detached without setting off some kind of deadman switch?”

“Deadman switch?” A few milliseconds passed. “Oh—the Library has defined your idiom usage. Yes, it can be done.”

“Will you, directly and personally, monitor the ecotoxin removal and local area decontamination?”

“Yes, Matthew. Although it is a simple task, one quite within the capabilities of my expert subsystems.” His AI partner sounded peeved, as if he’d asked her to put all her massive intellect into building a farm compost heap. “Besides this job, I am quite able to continue with my usual stellar system monitoring, Vidcast intercepts, probability runs, and sociopolitical spyprobe monitoring—along with a few million other minor tasks.”

She was exaggerating, but only slightly. “I know. You’re the perfect AI.” Both he and his symbiont laughed out loud, together. It felt like old times, when he’d first begun working with the ship, saving lives, fighting lost causes and seeking justice in a lawless universe. Even Eliana smiled at their repartee. “What about Legion—any sign of the MotherShip?”

“No, Matthew,” Mata Hari
said, her tone abruptly sober. She appeared suddenly in a side holosphere, dressed in the lacy, white Victorian dress, her expression thoughtful. “All is quiet on the F5 front, according to tachyonic reports from our sensorProbes.”

Eliana looked at him querulously. What did she want? Oh, yeah. He lowered his hand. “Sorry, Eliana. About that walk atop a corpse . . . I’m afraid it’s too risky. And the timelines on this Job are getting constricted. Okay?”

She shrugged. But her look was not jovial. “Fine by me. I prefer trees to metal.”

He left that one alone and refocused on his PET links and his other partner. “
Mata Hari—please open up the Stripper and remove the ecotoxin reservoirs. Have a cargo Remote standing by in the belly lock for detachment and transport of the toxins to the local sun.” Matt paused, thinking over his instructions. “And after loading the reservoirs onboard, take this ship into orbit about Halcyon.”

“Complying, Matthew.” The AI’s holosphere presence turned busy as her image key-touched a make-believe laptop. But through his cyborg relays and over the hundreds of lightbeam neurolinks, Matt felt a two kilometer-long starship go about her business. She did it most efficiently and most logically.

Nearby, Eliana tapped her armrest. He dropped gestalt focus and smiled at her. “Yes, Patron . . . my Eliana?”

Eliana looked over at the holosphere image of
Mata Hari, then over her shoulder at the green forest of Memory Core pillars. The place where most parts of his AI partner resided. She fixed a smoky gaze on him. “Matt, can we ever speak in private . . . without her hearing us?” She gestured to the pillars.

“Whatever for?”

“Please answer me—can we?”

He thought a second, querying his onboard nanocube Intelligence CPU. “Probably. Although
Mata Hari
is a person—not my servant. A simple request to her should suffice.”

Eliana smoldered, as if she were both angry and frustrated about something, something that was not his fault. “Oh, all right, I guess that will have to do. Will you join me in my stateroom?”

Matt couldn’t help but laugh. “Eliana! Your room, my room or any of the other four hundred and ninety-eight multi-environment staterooms along the Spine will suffice. Either she listens, or she doesn’t. Understand?”

Eliana’s lips tightened like she’d bit into something sour. “Understood. She’s an ethical AI in a criminal universe. And she saved your life.” The holosphere
Mata Hari
glanced toward Eliana, her dark gaze looking intrigued. “Let’s just step out into the Spine hallway. Okay?”

“Whatever makes you happy.” Reaching back, Matt unhooked his neck socket, stood up, and climbed out of the Pit. He pulled on shorts that lay beside the pit, then sandals. Eliana waited nearby, still dressed in his Samoan
lavalava
but all business in her manner. He looked over at his symbiont’s holo-image. “Mata Hari
,
have you been monitoring our last conversation?”

“Of course,” she said, the soft, feminine voice of his partner sounding a bit hurt, as did the visible
Mata Hari, whose expression had changed from interest in Eliana’s two compliments to puzzlement. “I will refrain from standard security monitoring of the first Spine segment. Your Patron may have all the privacy she wishes.”

Eliana looked skeptical, but followed him through the Spine slidedoor and into the hallway. Turning, she faced him, crossed arms under her bare breasts, and looked nervous but determined. “Matt.”

“Yes, Eliana . . . uh, Patron. You wish to speak about something in private?”

“I do.” She paused, looked around suspiciously at the silvery-
grey flexmetal walls of the hallway, then focused back on him. “Tell me, Matt, how long have you known Mata Hari? The computer AI that is?”

“As I shared with you earlier, it’s been seven years since she awakened me from stasis in the freighter lifepod.” Where was she heading with this? “Why?”

“Why?
Why!
” Eliana’s eyes grew dark with determination. “Because while you were gone, I asked her questions. She evaded answering most of them.”

Matt had a bad feeling about this. “What questions?”

“Why did Mata Hari
rescue you?”

That was a tough one even for him. He didn’t know the answer to it. But even AIs were entitled to be . . . quirky. “I don’t know, Eliana. She’s never told me for real. Oh, she’ll say something about being bored and lonely, or wanting someone to feel superior to, but I’ve never gotten a real answer from her. Why do you ask?”

Eliana lowered her head, her expression troubled, then she looked up. “Matt, I also asked for a full historical readout on the T’Chak aliens. The ones you said made her and this ship. She gave me exactly one paragraph of text. Do you know more?”

Shit. What was Eliana thinking?
Mata Hari
was his partner, his rescuer, his friend, and a delightful personality in her own right. In the early years, she had adopted the Mata Hari persona thanks to review of some Earth datacubes they had bought after his first Vigilante job. A few times she’d shown him her sexy persona like some
hetari
out of the Arabian Nights or a Turkish
hareem
. Her efforts to be a well-rounded human woman had comforted and reassured him, while providing a nice female presence.

“Yes, I know more,” he finally said.

Eliana raised her eyebrows, prompting him. “Well?”

Matt shrugged. “She was probably holding back because you don’t have a security clearance—or a ‘need-to-know’ in the old intelligence jargon. What do you want to know about the T’Chak?”

“Do they still exist?” Her eyes bored into him.

“Nope.
Mata Hari
was very explicit about that. Their last outpost died out over two hundred thousand years ago. This ship was left to fend for itself. For a long time it drifted between star clusters, needing a purpose but having none.”

“What were they like—the T’Chak?” Eliana shifted her stance in the hallway, watching him expectantly.

He felt like an old vidpic bull-fighter, waving a red cape and hoping he didn’t get gored. “I could ask Mata Hari to call up a holosphere image of them for you. It would be the fastest—”

“No!” She bit her lip, then smiled encouragingly at him. “You tell me. Please, Matt?”

Interesting. Who was doing the leading here? And what agenda did his Patron still hide from him? It seemed the student had learned very well and very fast. “Oh, all right. Give me a second.” Closing his eyes briefly, Matt took a graphics download from a databyte cube resting in his prefrontal cortex, mind-viewed it, transferred the image to his contact lenses, then opened his eyes.

“Eliana, the T’Chak were a
two-legged, naturally-armored lifeform much like an ancient T-Rex dino of old Earth. Except they had two large wings. They had three brain clusters, a head and mouth, and two small manipulator hands that hung from their scaly chests. They were sexually trimorphic, omnivorous, and they ruled a stellar empire over seven thousand light years across. An empire based in the very distant Small Magellanic Cloud. Even the Anarchate has left the Magellanic Clouds alone—plenty for them to do within home galaxy.” Her worry increased visibly.