Read Online Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) by T. Jackson King - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: T. Jackson King
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thought—”
“No! I survived Creon’s machinations.” She acted nervous, even a bit guilty-looking. “Uh, I’ve returned with a Vigilante. Someone who will solve all our problems. Does Ioannis still sit on the Dais of Power?”
“He does.” The old man looked aside, staring at Matt. Despite his own opaque faceplate, ancient eyes seemed to read him even better than Mata Hari . Eliana’s grandfather Petros pursed his lips. “A Vigilante? Good. Is he powerful?”
“Very,” Eliana said. “More than I expected.”
“Oh?” Petros looked suddenly alert. “Well, what do you need?”
“To see Ioannis,” she said. “The Vigilante—he calls himself Matt Dragoneaux—would speak with my brother about Halcyon, the Halicene Conglomerate, and how we may rid ourselves of its Stripper.”
On-screen, Petros sat back in a flexchair, the very image of an elderly patriarch who knew how to keep his own counsel. “Ioannis will return to the Dais in a few minutes. I’m sending a taxi tube for you. Ride it. And only it. There are . . . others about who have long memories.”
In his ear, Mata Hari commented on the overheard conversation between Eliana and Petros. “Matt, would you like a Defense Remote for backup?”
“Nod,” he said. “Just stay on-line and monitor. I detect nothing that Suit can’t handle.”
“All right,” Mata Hari sniffed. “But it’s harder to repair you organics than to debug a new program.”
Matt smiled. She was so protective of him. “I’ll be okay. Just monitor us from Suit’s uplink feed.”
“As you wish.”
He followed Eliana through the swiftly opening lock-door and up to the tubeway loading platform. A maglev taxi whistled to a stop in front of them, its yellow sausage tube free-floating beside the platform. He motioned for Eliana to wait and let him enter first. She fidgeted, her impatience poorly concealed.
Moving within Suit, Matt felt expanded, enlarged, empowered.
Hello, Suit. Sorry to be away so long .
Suit hugged him back the way a puppy might nuzzle its young master.
Time to work now, but at cyborg machine speeds. The speed he called ocean-time . With a thought, Matt changed his perception speed.
Forty milliseconds passed, according to Suit’s mind whisper.
Faceplate’s Eyes-Up display went Active. In the right quadrant scrolled a mech readout on the taxi and the transport platform. Long data columns listed taxi propulsion mode, vehicle registration data, its fabrication date, the equipment suppliers and subcontractors, the energy ambience for this Transport station, power fluxes lying behind the tubeway’s metal walls, the linear induction magfields that supported the taxi and propelled it along the station’s looping tubeways, and scores of other parameters.
On the left quadrant glowed a downlink from Mata Hari that showed the local space environment, the status of the six other starships docked at Zeus Station, the slightly varying distance—now at 30,431 kilometers—to Halcyon’s surface, ground-to-space shuttle launches from the planet’s human colony of Olympus, the ebb and flow of the planet’s meteorological cycles, its electronic noise emissions, and thousands of other data details. Most datafeeds were through-putted to his on-line nanoware subsystems and stored away in his cerebral nanocubes—for later recovery as needed. Finally, in the middle of the faceplate there floated a virtual-reality graphic of the tube taxi, already sectioned along its long axis and rotating in three dimensions.
Two hundred sixty milliseconds .
“Matt. When are—”
Nine hundred milliseconds .
Chemical sniffers and neutron activation sensors showed the taxi clean of any explosives or offensive weapons. Inside the taxi, Suit’s scanners likewise showed no gaseous incapacitation systems. It contained only a forward bench and a rear bench, facing each other, with side wall entry hatch in between. It also contained maglev machinery, a simple Go-Fetch control
“No! I survived Creon’s machinations.” She acted nervous, even a bit guilty-looking. “Uh, I’ve returned with a Vigilante. Someone who will solve all our problems. Does Ioannis still sit on the Dais of Power?”
“He does.” The old man looked aside, staring at Matt. Despite his own opaque faceplate, ancient eyes seemed to read him even better than Mata Hari . Eliana’s grandfather Petros pursed his lips. “A Vigilante? Good. Is he powerful?”
“Very,” Eliana said. “More than I expected.”
“Oh?” Petros looked suddenly alert. “Well, what do you need?”
“To see Ioannis,” she said. “The Vigilante—he calls himself Matt Dragoneaux—would speak with my brother about Halcyon, the Halicene Conglomerate, and how we may rid ourselves of its Stripper.”
On-screen, Petros sat back in a flexchair, the very image of an elderly patriarch who knew how to keep his own counsel. “Ioannis will return to the Dais in a few minutes. I’m sending a taxi tube for you. Ride it. And only it. There are . . . others about who have long memories.”
In his ear, Mata Hari commented on the overheard conversation between Eliana and Petros. “Matt, would you like a Defense Remote for backup?”
“Nod,” he said. “Just stay on-line and monitor. I detect nothing that Suit can’t handle.”
“All right,” Mata Hari sniffed. “But it’s harder to repair you organics than to debug a new program.”
Matt smiled. She was so protective of him. “I’ll be okay. Just monitor us from Suit’s uplink feed.”
“As you wish.”
He followed Eliana through the swiftly opening lock-door and up to the tubeway loading platform. A maglev taxi whistled to a stop in front of them, its yellow sausage tube free-floating beside the platform. He motioned for Eliana to wait and let him enter first. She fidgeted, her impatience poorly concealed.
Moving within Suit, Matt felt expanded, enlarged, empowered.
Hello, Suit. Sorry to be away so long .
Suit hugged him back the way a puppy might nuzzle its young master.
Time to work now, but at cyborg machine speeds. The speed he called ocean-time . With a thought, Matt changed his perception speed.
Forty milliseconds passed, according to Suit’s mind whisper.
Faceplate’s Eyes-Up display went Active. In the right quadrant scrolled a mech readout on the taxi and the transport platform. Long data columns listed taxi propulsion mode, vehicle registration data, its fabrication date, the equipment suppliers and subcontractors, the energy ambience for this Transport station, power fluxes lying behind the tubeway’s metal walls, the linear induction magfields that supported the taxi and propelled it along the station’s looping tubeways, and scores of other parameters.
On the left quadrant glowed a downlink from Mata Hari that showed the local space environment, the status of the six other starships docked at Zeus Station, the slightly varying distance—now at 30,431 kilometers—to Halcyon’s surface, ground-to-space shuttle launches from the planet’s human colony of Olympus, the ebb and flow of the planet’s meteorological cycles, its electronic noise emissions, and thousands of other data details. Most datafeeds were through-putted to his on-line nanoware subsystems and stored away in his cerebral nanocubes—for later recovery as needed. Finally, in the middle of the faceplate there floated a virtual-reality graphic of the tube taxi, already sectioned along its long axis and rotating in three dimensions.
Two hundred sixty milliseconds .
“Matt. When are—”
Nine hundred milliseconds .
Chemical sniffers and neutron activation sensors showed the taxi clean of any explosives or offensive weapons. Inside the taxi, Suit’s scanners likewise showed no gaseous incapacitation systems. It contained only a forward bench and a rear bench, facing each other, with side wall entry hatch in between. It also contained maglev machinery, a simple Go-Fetch control
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