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battleglobe in orbit or on station elsewhere in the six planet system.
    “We arrive at the heliopause just like normal traffic, we emit a counterfeit ID beacon, we adopt the common main tube starship with two pontoon outrigger tubes configuration, and pretend to be the private yacht of a human optoelectronics manufacturer,” he said thoughtfully. “You can pick some name and image from your Library of current geopolitical Big Names, right?”
    “I can,” Mata Hari said , fingering her white pearl necklace. “And I can make the camouflage changes you suggest. Second simple question. Your organic partner Eliana—do I fabricate a combat suit for her? If she accompanies you downplanet, she will need better protection than a skintight vacsuit, a machete and a low power laser gun.”
    Good point. “Yes, fabricate a basic combat suit for her, with the usual adaptive optics crystal coatings, an ablative layer and standard ceramic armor underneath. No need for a combat exoskeleton. But I do think you should outfit her helmet with a tachyon comlink that automatically connects with you and me, and a waist belt of nanoDefense shells with ultrasonic viber. And yeah, give her a cutdown Magnum sidearm—once she has taken lessons from you at our shipboard target range. That okay with you, Eliana?”
    The spare, fine-boned and scu lptured face of his albino lover nodded slowly, looking from him to Mata Hari and back to him. She brushed at her ebony black hair. “Matt, I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Will I have to kill if I travel with you?”
    “Not if I can help it,” he said sincerely. “But the Anarchate is a dangerous galaxy. Anyone who . . . looks defenseless will draw tech scavengers and genome harvesters. Being combat suited and carrying a decent sidearm will protect you simply by being present on your bodyform. Understand?”
    “Understood, Matthew my love.” She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. Then she leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was such a simple sign of affection that he nearly cried.
    Instead, he looked at the holo of Mata Hari. “Those are the simple matters. What is complex?”
    His AI partner, the product of an alien civilization hundreds of thousands of years old, gave him a passable human-style smile. “ What do we do when we arrive in orbit about Omega?”
    Matt eyed Eliana, seeing identical curiosity in her jade green eyes.
    “Vengeance,” he said. “For Helen Sayinga Trinh and thousands of other bond-slaves who work for the casino.” He paused, recalling the indignation of her casino Owners who did not wish to lose their natural gravity baccarat dealer when they were asked the buyout price for her contract. The reply of two million platinum Standards was given by a bear-like alien with a sly smile. They had escaped in an outbound freighter two days later, during her morning sleep time.
    Eliana blinked, understa nding immediately. Mata Hari tilted her amber-skinned, aquiline head to one side. “Vengeance for what purpose, Matthew?”
    “To deliver a lesson to the Anarchate that owning people through bond slavery is wrong. That selling cloneslaves is utterly obscene. And that some people will fight against it. I hope to create a galaxy-wide tachlink rumor mill of poor people trying to guess what might this dangerous Matt Dragoneaux do next?” He paused, thinking deeper about how to asymmetrically conduct a war campaign against a galaxy-wide entity. “And to cause the Anarchate to dispatch Nova battleglobes to similar large commercial and industrial star systems around the galaxy, thus reducing their ability to mass a naval fleet for action against our fleet.”
    Mata Hari blinked even as Eliana murmured “What fleet of ours?”
    He grinned, then swung his legs off the bed platform and headed for the suite’s door to the Spine hallway, naked as the day he was born. “We will have a fleet. Eventually. Maybe even before we arrive in the Small Magellanic Cloud.” He stopped and