Vigilante Series 2: Nebula Vigilante by T. Jackson King Read Free Book Online

looked back at the puzzled expressions of both Eliana and Mata Hari. “Coming my dear? And both of you should understand that just because billions of sapients comply with the way things are now, does not mean they will always accept the status quo. Peaceful most people are, even when oppressed. But if they see someone, anyone, successfully challenging the authorities, why, for humans at least, that is an incitement to rebellion.”
    Eliana joined him as they walked the hallway heading for the commissary room that lay between his suite and the Bridge. Food they both needed. Combat training Eliana needed. And skull-to-skull scheming he needed to do with Mata Hari, to fine tune the elements of his intention to teach the Omega people-owners and the Anarchate a lesson about the danger of owning thinking people. Who knows, maybe some of the self-aware AIs that ran most things behind the scenes would be interested in insurrection. Stranger things had happened in human and alien history.
    Matt smiled, internally and externally. At last, a Vigilante job worth the doing!
     
     
    They took the Omega Port’ s shuttle down to the Arrival Hall that lay just outside the casino dome, leaving Mata Hari to continue the pretense of being an super-yacht owned by a weird biped who had too many Standards to spend and too much arrogance to stay home. There were many like Howard Demitri Trimestes on Omega, the super-rich of at least 30 species, based on the vid spy-cams of the casino that Mata Hari had tapped into using her superior mind, and sloppy programming of the central gaming computer. It had no self-awareness, unlike the Port AI that needed sentience in order to multi-task with thinking organics. And, Matt suspected, the casino Owners very likely did not want a mouthy AI questioning them on why so many gambling games were rigged against payouts, unless they were minor amounts to be given in front of an audience.
    Eliana, dressed in a yellow combat suit adorned with the Running Wolf motif of his own suit, had pushed back her helmet now that they were in the decent oxy-nitro air of the Arrival Hall. She looked at the bustle of a hundred or more sapients either arriving or departing to their orbital transport. Then she hugged his arm to her side. Matt, wearing Suit with his helmet faceplate clear to anyone’s view, glanced at her.
    “Yes?”
    “You are . . .  this Howard person. But my real name was given by Mata Hari to the Port AI. Why Matt? Won’t someone here have heard about me and you and Halcyon?”
    He guided them toward the tall hallway that led to the casino dome, noticing just two Anarchate Guardians dressed in green military uniforms who sat behind a distant computable, partly in the shadows, doing their best not to disturb the rich aliens who expected perfect security with no sign of disturbance, dirt, beggars or loud military types who did not know the aliens were their natural betters. At everything. The casino Owners clearly did not want to give the impression that anything could “go wrong” on Omega, so they kept the Anarchate security presence restricted to the Arrival Hall and to their pylon office where incoming and outgoing tachyon messages could be monitored for security lapses and emergencies.
    “You have not done covert work before, Eliana, so I thought it best for you to use your real name. While Sigma Puppis and Zeta Serpentis are in the same part of Orion Arm, the destruction of a Nova-class battleglobe by an unknown starship is not something the Anarchate is likely to share with anyone outside of Combat Command. The Intelligence AI knew of us, of course. But elsewhere on the galactic tachnet that links worlds and galactic arms via Tachyon Pylons, the news that refers to Halcyon is likely to be commercial, how the Halicene Conglomerate screwed up a contract and was ordered by the Anarchate to depart Sigma Puppis system.” He considered further her question as they joined three dozen aliens of various