The Soldier: Final Odyssey

by Vaughn Heppner

  SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  THE SOLDIER SERIES:

  The X-Ship

  Escape Vector

  Final Odyssey

  DOOM STAR SERIES:

  Star Soldier

  Bio Weapon

  Battle Pod

  Cyborg Assault

  Planet Wrecker

  Star Fortress

  Task Force 7 (Novella)

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  The Lost Artifact

  The Lost Star Gate

  The Lost Supernova

  The Lost Swarm

  The Lost Intelligence

  The Lost Tech

  The Lost Secret

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  The Soldier:

  Final Odyssey

  (The Soldier #3)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2021 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  Prologue

  “Cade.”

  “What is it?”

  “I, ah, just discovered an error.”

  Centurion-Grade-Ultra Marcus Cade looked up from the sensor scope. He wore gray spaceman’s garb, had brush-cut hair and blue eyes. He exuded power, as he was a genetic super-soldier with dense bones, stronger than ordinary muscles and accelerated nerves, designed over a thousand years ago to battle cyborg troopers and win.

  He sat in the Descartes’s control cabin. The small spaceship was an ex-Concord Patrol scout, presently using its Intersplit engine to travel faster than light.

  At the piloting board, Dr. Halifax fidgeted. He had narrow, highly intelligent features and inquisitive bright eyes like a Canidae Vulpes, a fox. Unlike Cade, the doctor wore stylish garments. He’d once been a case officer for Group Six of Earth, running Cade, in fact. Now—

  “Well?” asked Cade. “You found an error. Are you going to tell me what it is?”

  “Uh…do you remember the Vellani Rift, how we slipped through a warp into a pocket universe?”

  Cade scoffed. Of course, he remembered. “What’s your point?”

  “Yes, well, we, ah…lost some time going through the warp.”

  Cade’s eyes narrowed.

  Halifax spoke faster. “It didn’t resister at first, as many worlds use their own peculiar calendars. I double-checked just now, and—”

  “How much time did we lose?” Cade asked in a suddenly tired voice.

  Halifax hesitated before saying, “According to my calculations: three years, four months.”

  Cade closed his eyes as if in pain. I can’t believe it. Is the universe conspiring against me? Cade opened his eyes, regarding the doctor. “How could that have happened?”

  Like a Canidae Vulpes in one of Aesop’s Fables, Halifax smiled, trying to put a good face on the matter, as if the discovery was exciting. “It’s actually rather remarkable, perhaps operating on the principle that governs a black hole. Time slows down near a singularity and…” It was possible Cade’s baleful stare shook the doctor’s confidence. If so, Halifax quickly recovered. “Yes, well, uh…the bottom line is that traveling through the warp must have taken longer than the subjective minutes we experienced.”

  “A year and eight months more each…each time?” Cade asked.

  “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

  Cade turned away as his breathing deepened. Time, he’d lost more time. He’d already lost more than any man in history and now this?

  Over a thousand years ago, he’d been an Ultra soldier in the Federation, what people now referred to as the Old Federation, a long-defunct political entity. He’d fought the terrible cyborgs in what eventually became known as the Cyborg War. Back then, he’d entered a sleeper ship, traveling from a battlefield, heading for a vacation world. Something must have happened to the ship, as it never made it to the play-world. In the present era, Group Six had found the drifting vessel. Cade didn’t know where the derelict had been drifting all this time.

  Group Six technicians had pried his still-operational stasis tube from the vessel, rushed him to Earth, taking him out of the tube and inserting a brain chip into his cranium, trying to turn him into their obedient pawn. He’d rebelled on Avalon IV—hundreds upon hundreds of light-years from Earth—losing the chip and remembering everything.

  The Ultras, the cyborgs, the Old Federation, the war, it was all gone. He was like Rip Van Winkle but with a twist. He’d replaced another Ultra found on the sleeper ship. Such being the case, more might have made it as well.

  Also, Cade’s wife had been aboard. Might she be on Earth, still in stasis, awaiting her turn to enter Group Six service? Cade was heading back to find out, to free Raina of the Golden Hair, his Valkyrie wife, if she was alive.

  Now, though, Halifax had told him he’d lost more time. “Rania,” Cade whispered, with an ache in his heart. She had to be alive. Whoever tried to stop him—a feral light shined in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Cade,” Halifax said.

  The soldier shook his head, engaging one of his core characteristics: mulish, hard-bitten and sometimes mean-old stubbornness. If Raina had survived the thousand-year-sleep, what difference could an extra three years and four months make?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Cade said gruffly.

  He was, of course, dead wrong, as the extra time was going to matter a great deal.

  Chapter One

  One of the reasons that Cade was wrong was that life was about to take a nasty turn for the Sestos III arms dealer, Tarragon Down. Cade had dealt with the arms dealer before heading to the Vellani Rift, which meant more than three years, four months ago. That extra time had allowed someone to do its homework and do something about what it had learned so far.

  The Sestos System was nearly 700 light-years from Earth—not that far really from the Descartes, the ex-Patrol scout presently using its Intersplit drive.

  Over three years ago, Tarragon Down had supplied the Descartes with a Nion XT Navigator, which had been responsible for the detour into the Vellani Rift. Because of his troubled mental condition, the arms dealer had screwed Cade with the Nion XT.

  Tarragon no longer felt any anguish from that time, and he seldom thought about Cade. Tarragon was a huge, ruthless man with gray skin, black eyes and a topknot of hair like an ancient Samurai warrior. He’d shaven the sides of his head and wore an expensive suit and shoes. He radiated strength, looking like a retired wrestler, but was possessed of a keen, some said penetrating intelligence.

  Two bodyguards preceded him, big thugs with bionic limbs and flak jackets, carrying short iron bars. Each kept a pistol in a shoulder holster. They wouldn’t need the guns for the coming “lesson,” however, but would certainly use the bars to pulp muscles and break bones.

  A high-level judge had ruled against Tarragon, a judge that had once taken bribes and should have known to remain bought. The judge and his fluff were waiting in a room at the end of the corridor. A snatch team had plucked them from their vacation hideaway, stripped them, slapped them around and then shackled each to a torture rack.

  Tarragon smiled in malicious anticipation. Tha
t caused folds of fat to engulf his eyes. The judge’s ruling had cost Tarragon over six million CUCNs: Concord Universal Credit Notes. In the old days, he would have grudgingly accepted such a ruling from a High Judge, one of the planet’s top five. Since overcoming a dreadful compulsion from an alien item four years ago, since his run-in with Cade afterward—the soldier’s gunplay had cost him millions—Tarragon had changed. He did not let anyone screw with him now, as he’d developed a burning passion to punish those who thought to thwart him, even if it was a High Judge of Sestos III. The man had taken the bribes when he’d been on a lower bench. Still, they’d had a working relationship, and the judge should have heeded it.

  Tarragon rubbed his thick hands together, the calloused flesh making a rasping sound. Then, he put the right in a suit pocket. He had a small pair of pruning shears there. Snip, snip—the judge would howl in despair, maybe even start to cry for mercy.

  Tarragon chuckled evilly at the thought.

  The two bodyguards walking ahead hunched their shoulders, perhaps in fear of their employer. Tarragon Down was a harsh taskmaster, all the pity drained from him four years ago.

  The trio soon approached the end of the corridor, which showed a closed steel hatch. The underground bunker was an old safe house that Tarragon had purchased in his early years. He couldn’t remember why anymore. It would be perfect for tonight’s work, though.

  Tarragon fondled the shears in his suit pocket. “Hurry,” he said hoarsely, “open the hatch.”

  The bodyguard on the left slid open a wall console and tapped in the code.

  The steel hatch slid up into darkness. None of the three considered that, but they should have. The bodyguards walked into the room, fumbling for the light switch.

  Tarragon eased closer to the opening. There was a click, but no light.

  “Boss,” one of the guards said.

  A hiss sounded. It could have meant anything. A second hiss sounded. There were two nearly simultaneous thumps. That definitely sounded like bodies hitting the floor.

  Tarragon pulled out the garden shears as he made a soft sound in the back of his throat.

  An unnaturally thin man stepped out of the dark room, pulling a slender magazine from a pistol, shoving in a new one afterward. He had a narrow face and long narrow fingers. He wore a brown suit. It did not fit him well but hung like old drapes over a chair.

  “Who are you?” Tarragon demanded.

  The man raised the pistol and shot him in the chest, three hisses from the strange gun.

  Tarragon shouted in fear, and he wondered why he didn’t stagger backward from the bullets. Then it occurred to Tarragon that the man hadn’t fired bullets that accelerated from a chemical—a gunpowder—reaction. No. It was a spring-driven gun, likely shooting biodegradable slivers—possibly knockout darts—into his flesh.

  Tarragon looked into the man’s face. It was narrow like the rest of him, expressionless, with obviously artificial eyes: black plastic sockets, steel orbs with a red light shining where the pupils should have been. The eyes were hideous, inhuman—robotic, perhaps. What did that mean? It definitely meant something not good.

  “Are you working for the judge?” Tarragon asked. “Are you with the IPO?”

  The last stood for the Interstellar Police Organization. Like the Patrol, they had jurisdiction throughout the Concord of Planets.

  “No?” Tarragon asked.

  His body betrayed him then—

  “I’ll pay,” Tarragon said, with his tongue feeling thick and his words sounding slurry. “I’ll triple whatever they promised you.”

  The man—if he were a man—just stared with those hideously artificial eyes.

  “Please,” Tarragon slurred, “say something. Let me know you understand me.”

  Not only was Tarragon huge, but he’d taken anti-knockout treatments for just this sort of thing. There was a limit to their effectiveness, however,

  The shears fell from his nerveless hand, clattering onto the floor. “I’m—”

  Tarragon’s knees buckled, and he collapsed. His consciousness faded, his last thought hoping that his special instructions would kick in so he could survive the kidnapping.

  Chapter Two

  Tarragon awoke as a sharp pain stabbed in his chest, groin and thighs—there was a roar all around him. He hated it. The roar increased, as did the horrible pain. Air squeezed from his lungs as grim pressure pushed against him.

  He recalled the thin man, the three darts that had hissed into his flesh.

  The walls shook all around him. The flattening pressure rose once more. Tarragon screamed.

  Then, it clicked in his mind. These weren’t walls but bulkheads in a spaceship, a rocket leaving Sestos III, perhaps. Yet, if that was the case, why didn’t the vessel possess anti-gravity units? Why do this the old-fashioned way?

  Tarragon lost consciousness again, which was probably a blessing. It was the last he would ever receive.

  ***

  When Tarragon Down awoke, he found himself marching down a corridor. His naked fleet slapped against a steel floor. The situation was terrifying, to say the least. He noticed his lack of clothes and that his former gut—a large, hard, strong stomach—had shriveled so folds of useless flesh now hung down against his groin area. His thighs were no longer heavily muscled, but equally shriveled.

  Tarragon looked around wildly, seeing an unnaturally thin man behind him. The man wore an odd suit and held a baton. Sparks sizzled from the end of the baton as the man reached out and touched Tarragon’s back with it.

  With a lurch and a painful grunt, Tarragon faced forward, although he asked, “Where am I?”

  The baton shocked him again.

  “Please—”

  For a third time, a shock zapped him.

  Tarragon stumbled onward. He wanted to weep with frustration, but that wasn’t going to help. Why had he shriveled up like a sunbaked raisin?

  It hit him then. He realized what had to have happened. The kidnapper had put him on a rocket, right? The rocket must have reached an orbital spaceship. The kidnapper had obviously put him into a cryogenic unit for a long journey. He’d hibernated, the voyage so long that his body had devoured his stores of fat and then fed off his muscles. It had left him a husk of his former self.

  Who was the baton-wielding man? Why did he have artificial eyes? Could this man have anything to do with the evil alien item that had tried to master him four years ago?

  Yet if he questioned the man, he would receive more shocks. Thus, he would have to wait.

  Tarragon marched until they reached a hatch. It opened into a cavernous chamber. Might they be deep underground? It felt that way, as the place was far too cool.

  There was a steel bed with a hideous assortment of equipment hanging from robot arms over it. Farther away was a vast array of—Tarragon frowned. He spied numberless rows of large clear domes. Inside each dome were sheets of what looked like pink brain mass. Green computing gel surrounded the pink-white tissue sheets. Cables, bio-tubes and tight-beam links connected the many domes to visible computers and life-support systems. The combination made a seething and evil whole and seemed to go on forever into the cavernous depths.

  An old memory stirred in Tarragon. Like many in the Concord, he knew some of the legends of the terrible Cyborg War waged over a thousand years ago. It had destroyed the Old Federation and supposedly destroyed the last vestige of cyborg power as well. Yet, what he saw here indicated—

  “Web-Mind,” Tarragon whispered. The mass of domes with tissue sheets was a Web-Mind: a guiding personality that had once run millions of cyborg troopers.

  Tarragon jerked back to glance at the thin man with the artificial eyes. That meant—

  The cyborg trooper zapped him once more, making Tarragon lurch toward the steel bed.

  The arms dealer’s throat went dry as terror seized him. According to legend, cyborgs extracted a person’s brain and tore it down so they could attach the tissues to the sheets, adding to the
Web-Mind.

  At that point, Tarragon heard gurgling sounds as warm liquids pulsed through tubes and fed the various systems. Backup computers made whirring sounds as lights indicated the great seething mass of brain or intelligence.

  “Tarragon Down,” an emotionless voice said from nearby speakers.

  “Y-Yes?” the arms deader stammered, too shocked by all this to let anything else startle him.

  “You are Tarragon Down then?”

  “I am. What do you want with me?”

  “Information,” the Web-Mind said.

  Tarragon swallowed in a constricted throat. The thing wanted information. “Y-Yes, I’ll gladly tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “I know you will,” said the mechanical voice.

  “C-Can I sit while you…you question me?”

  “You have already proven me right.”

  “W-What?” asked Tarragon, confused.

  The cyborg trooper grasped one of Tarragon’s withered arms. The thing propelled him to the steel bed.

  “Please,” Tarragon pleaded. “What are you doing? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  The cyborg trooper effortlessly shoved Tarragon onto the steel bed, forcing him to lie on it.

  “I’ll cooperate,” the arms dealer wept. “Just let me live. I want to live.”

  The cyborg trooper attached steel bands to Tarragon’s ankles, thighs, chest, wrists and neck.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Tarragon blubbered. “I told you I’d cooperate. I’m a man of my word. You can trust me.”

  The cyborg trooper picked up a hypogun from a tray. He charged it with an ampule and turned to Tarragon, who watched him avidly.

  “No! I don’t want to sleep. What are you going to do to me?”

  The cyborg pressed the hypogun against Tarragon’s neck, and he heard the soft hiss of another drug being injected into his bloodstream.

  Tarragon attempted to thrash and struggle. It made no difference. In moments, his consciousness faded as he wept bitterly.