Drang nodded politely. That was part of the problem. If the Asteroids had been farther away, it would have been easier spotting the smugglers’ stealth ships when they made a run for the planet.
“This is strange,” Estevan said. “The calibration is off.” He chuckled ruefully. “It’s almost as if there’s been some tampering.”
Drang appeared bored, although she mentally perked up.
In some fashion, Estevan must have noticed that. “Careless maintenance must have been responsible for this. I can’t imagine any other reason.”
I can, Drang told herself. It was starting to seem that her idle speculation about the Sub-Protector might have more basis in fact than she’d realized.
“I can fix this immediately from here.” Estevan manipulated quickly. Schematics of the sensor array appeared on his screen instead of outer space. “Aha,” he said, tapping fast afterward. He did not say “strange” again, but his manner implied it. He clicked to see other schematics. At one, he simply stared for a few seconds, looking up at her afterward. “This is what you’re after, isn’t it?”
Drang stared at him, not comprehending.
“I knew nothing about this,” Estevan said.
“The tampering, you mean?” she asked, guessing.
“The crude tampering,” he said, sounding angry. “I can fix this if you desire.”
“Yes. Please do so.”
He nodded, tapping, examining and tapping again. Once done, he sighed and sat back. He didn’t stay that way for long, but turned toward her. “Am I under arrest?”
“Not if you help me find the culprit.”
The relief flooding his face was obvious. “I had nothing to do with this.”
“I know,” Drang said.
“You do?”
She nodded.
“When did you suspect something was off?”
“That’s my department, Senior Commandant. Is the sensor node ready for scanning?”
He stared at her.
“Mr. Estevan,” she said.
His head twitched as if she’d struck him. “Of course,” he said, turning back to his board. Soon, the schematics disappeared. Space reappeared.
“We will resume our hunt, but start from scratch,” Estevan said. He waited over his console like a hawk, his eyes shifting as he tried to observe everything at once. Suddenly, he leaned forward, tapping.
“What are you doing?” Drang asked.
“I struck an echo, a ghost some would say. Experience has taught me that this is likely a cloaked ship. I’m using an advanced sensor. We call it the Goshen System. I can explain—”
“Never mind that,” Drang said.
“Hello,” Estevan said. He scowled, shaking his head a moment later.
“What is it?”
“This is an advanced cloaking system. It has to be. I saw something. Then, it just…disappeared.”
“Was it a smuggling ship?”
“That or a foreign military vessel,” Estevan said. “I need to find it.” He manipulated with a will. Several seconds later—
Drang saw an odd-shaped vessel, a shark-like ship with seeming scales for hull armor. A second later, the ship vanished from the sensor screen.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Estevan said. “It certainly wasn’t a smuggler’s ship, I can tell you that. The thing sensed our Goshen System and recalibrated. It’s like…”
“Go on,” Drang said.
Estevan made a face. “This might sound crazy, but what we just witnessed strikes me as ancient cyborg technology. We haven’t dug anything like that up from the Pit, have we?”
Drang frowned, pulling at her lower lip. Ultras. Cyborgs. Did that weird military vessel have anything to do with Marcus Cade? That seemed—
Drang came to a decision. “Senior Commandant, come with me.”
“To where?” he asked.
She peered at him sternly. “We have an emergency on our hands, and I think our Sub-Protector is corrupted. You and I must plan carefully if we’re going to save our space station and our careers.”
“Arbiter?”
“Come with me,” Drang said. “We need to talk where we’re safe.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cade moved along the jungle trail, pushing himself. He’d left the false tree-trunk hours ago. There still hadn’t been any pursuit. Well, he hadn’t detected any.
He kept wondering about Jed Ra. Cade felt bad that he’d wrecked things for the mutant chief. The mutant had treated him well. Would they cook Jed Ra in a pot, the witch doctors devouring his flesh? That was so repugnant. Once more, Cade realized he’d had no other choice, as the witch doctor hadn’t given him any.
If Cade had been in better shape, he would have felt more optimistic about the situation. He’d been caged aboard the Descartes for months on end. Only when the engine needed repairing had he lived normally. The few times bounty hunting had also been enjoyable, as he’d moved on a planet or a larger space station.
Was Dr. Halifax still alive? Or had the man died in the antimatter blast? The case officer for Group Six had reverted to form. Cade still couldn’t believe how Halifax had sold him out.
If Cade survived Therduim III, it looked as if he’d have to use a starliner to reach Earth. He’d hoped to use the advantage of having his own spaceship once near the homeworld. Cade shook his head. None of that mattered if he couldn’t survive Therduim III. He was on a planet full of mutants, Diggers and possible cyborg troopers, if the story about the Spaceport was correct.
What was the best way to get off the planet? He had two choices: a smuggler ship or a space-station shuttle. Between those two choices, he had variations. Maybe he could fly off-planet in a shuttle as someone else. That would mean what, though?
The best way to get off-planet in disguise would be from the Pit. There were scientists and technicians there. The Spaceport sounded like the better place except for the cyborg trooper guard.
A gunshot sounded from behind.
Instinctively, Cade dove onto the ground. He still wore his backpack. He didn’t hear a bullet whiz overhead. He started crawling, moving to the left. Then he panted from on the ground, waiting and listening.
Soon, he heard the careful tread of hunters moving through the dense brush. Here on Therduim III, that was everywhere so far.
Moving slowly, Cade drew a pistol and then another. He lay on his backpack as best he could, the pistols aimed in the direction he’d come.
The moving sounds stopped.
Cade closed his eyes. He heard breathing to his right. Opening his eyes, he shifted the pistols that way.
“I thought I saw him,” someone said.
Seconds passed.
“You fool. You did. Look. He crashed to the trail here.”
“That means—”
There was silence.
Cade didn’t move from his back. He was certain the mutants would hear that. If they saw where he’d crashed down, why didn’t—
Cade rolled to the left and onto his stomach. Shots rang out, dirt spraying where he’d just been. The soldier scrambled to a crouched position and then ever so slowly eased backward. It was hard on his quads, but he could do it. Finally, he stood up behind a tree trunk and then peered around it to the left.
He spied a shape moving just as slowly behind foliage. He spied another shape farther off. Without thinking it through too much, he fired at one and then the other. After that, he backed up again.
There was a thump, and then a moan. He’d hit one of them at least, or one of them was faking, trying to draw him out.
He could shed the backpack, but he didn’t want to risk losing it. It had his water bottles, purification tablets and dried rations. Drinking the planetary water straight might well incapacitate him. He couldn’t afford that—
Cade fired both pistols, taking two sneaking mutants in the head. They crumpled out of sight.
Now, Cade moved. He charged through the undergro
wth, coming upon one mutant trying to rise. Blood poured from a head wound, but not a fatal wound.
Cade pumped three shots into the warrior, finishing him. The second mutant was already dead with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.
Cade found the third and last mutant thirty seconds later. He checked their bodies. There was nothing he wanted from them, not even their knives and certainly not their crude revolvers. He’d been hoping to find a grenade.
This had been a three-mutant team, scouts, he supposed.
I have to push harder. There have to be more of them coming after me.
Cade used the trail, trotting instead of simply walking. He held the pace for ten minutes. By the end of it, he was soaked with sweat in the heat and humidity.
He shed his pack, took a salt tablet and finished off a water bottle. Then he rummaged in the pack until he found a stim. He weighed the little black pill in his palm. With a decisive move, he tossed the pill into the back of his throat, using water to wash it down.
He put on the pack and started moving again. Soon, he felt refreshed. It was artificial, but what the hell. He was going to need it.
Fifteen minutes later, he stopped, listening hard. He heard a faint roar, distant shouts maybe. A horn blew afterward. The main search party—if that was what it was—must have found the dead scouts.
Now they know I’m here, and they’re going to race after me.
The horns blew again, louder and longer.
Cade nodded, and he began to trot once more. He stretched it out, pretending to enjoy the exertion of his legs. He started breathing hard, although he could keep going like this for as long as the stim lasted. That would be another hour. Could the mutants keep up the pace? He had little doubt they could.
Once again, Cade debated shedding his backpack. Maybe a few germs or native bacteria crawling through his system would be better than cooking in a cannibal’s pot with his backpack on. He was stubborn, though, and trusted his instincts. He retained the pack.
A half-hour later, the horns blew again. They were much closer than before.
“Shit,” Cade said. He was going to have to shed his pack after all. He should have done it sooner. “No regrets,” he told himself.
He skidded to a halt, attached the water bottles to his belt, stuffed the remaining purification tablets in his pockets and dared to take another stim with as much water as he could hold. Afterward, he ate a ration bar and stuffed the rest in his pockets until he had no more room. Lastly, he heaved the pack as far as he could into the brush. One of those bastards would find it, and they might stall just a few minutes arguing about it.
After that, Cade set off again, turning the trot into a faster run. It was time to put as much distance as he could between himself and the hunters. This might have just turned into a death race. If so, he planned to win it for Raina’s sake.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cade ran down a jungle path. He was tired, and his thighs quivered from exhaustion. He’d been running for hours. His water bottles were empty, and he was getting thirsty, his clothes soaked with sweat. The two stimulants had worn off a long time ago. He could hear the mutants blow their horns from time to time. They were getting closer again. For several hours, the horns had gotten fainter. Not anymore. He was running out of steam, as the old saying went.
Part of an Ultra’s power was going the extra mile and then some. He could tap his inner reserves better than an ordinary soldier could. Those reserves were nearing their end, however. He needed water. He needed a breather, and he needed them soon or he would collapse.
What was the right decision? He could stop and sell himself dearly, killing more mutants. But how would that help Raina?
“Wouldn’t,” Cade whispered.
He blinked stinging sweat out of his eyes and yelped in surprise as he broke out from under the jungle canopy, running across grassy ground as he approached—
Cade slid to a halt, staring stupidly at a black road. It looked like old-time blacktop, but it couldn’t be that. He craned his sweat-dripping head to the right and then to the left. The road went in both directions. The jungle had been cut back from the road, with weed-killer no doubt sprayed liberally every month.
“This is the road.”
This was the only road on the planet. The jungle paths didn’t count. The road went from the Spaceport to the Pit. He’d reached a symbol of civilization, Concord civilization.
Could he have run that far in so short a time? When he’d been with Jed Ra, they had walked the entire time.
Cade took off the wide-brimmed floppy hat and waved it at his face. He was panting, sweating and full of indecision.
Should he cross the road, head for the Pit or the Spaceport? Which way was which?
He didn’t know, and he was too tired to figure it out.
“Screw it,” he said.
Cade put the hat back on and stumbled to the road. It was hot, radiating the heat of the Therduim star. Right or left, which way should he go?
“What should I do, Raina?”
No one answered him. He’d have to make his own damned decision.
Cade grunted and went left. “The Pit,” he muttered. “I think this way is the Pit.”
He’d decided some time ago that he’d have a better chance of blending in with the scientists and workers. Well, he would give it his best shot. What else could he do?
He didn’t shake his head. He was too weary for that.
He debated traveling on the road for a time. The heat would be too much, drying him out even faster than what was happening. Sure, the mutants could trail his tracks if he stayed on the side of the road. Let them trail. He had a feeling the mutants didn’t like walking so openly near or on the road.
Wouldn’t the Patrol sweep the road with armored cars or have jets buzz it? He was banking on one or the other to save him.
Cade kept telling himself to start running again. He simply couldn’t make his body do it. The heat was oppressive, his thirst rising and his physical deterioration increasing rapidly.
Maybe twenty minutes later, horns blared in the distance.
Cade muttered an obscenity and actually waved his hand back at them. He couldn’t see them yet, but he imagined he would soon.
His mouth was parched and he no longer sweated so hard. He didn’t have the moisture in him to give. The star was leaching his remaining strength. His lips would begin cracking soon.
“Could use some sunglasses,” he muttered.
While under the jungle canopy, he’d been traveling in the shade. It had made a difference.
At that point, a jet did roar overhead. The bastard of a plane had sneaked up on him and whooshed. It passed, heading for the horizon.
Cade looked up at it.
The jet moved like a son-of-a-bitch. Was that the same vehicle that had launched the antimatter missile a day ago? The jet completed its turn and headed back this way.
Cade took off his hat and began waving it back and forth. He watched the jet, too tired to try to dodge if its guns opened up.
The jet wobbled it wings back and forth. The pilot had seen him and had just told him so.
“My work’s done,” Cade muttered.
A loud blaring horn jerked him around. Mutants. There were twenty or thirty mutants down the road. They fired rifles. Cade swore he heard bullets pass him.
Muttering another obscenity, Cade turned the other way and incredibly, broke into a freaking sprint. He fled, with his feet flying across the sward beside the black road.
The mutants must have given chase.
Cade heard yells, more fired shots and some extra toot-a-loos from the horns. That caused his eyes to blaze with fierce and bitter determination. He ran, his arms pumping. A pistol fell out of his belt. He let it go, concentrating on sprinting for all he was worth.
It turned out not to be that much. His side started hurting as if someone stabbed him with needles. That changed into knife-like pain quickly enough. Cade’s thro
at became raw and his panting quite audible. His vision blurred, but not enough to trip him.
Yet.
Horns sounded again. More shots rang out—
Cade grunted as a splash of blood arced before him. His left shoulder turned numb and then burned like hell.
Cade woke up just a little. He glanced at his shoulder. Bullet graze. He looked back at the mutants and stumbled horribly.
The mutants had closed the distance. Cade swore. The mutants were the ugliest sons of guns he’d ever laid eyes on. Therduim III was a zoo world. Diggers, mutants, cyborg troopers—
Machine guns chattered.
Cade stumble-ran as the sounds caused him to blink rapidly. Did the mutants have machine guns? They must have machine guns. But that wasn’t just any machine guns, but heavy caliber—
Cade twisted around to look again, and this time he tripped, yelled and went down hard upon the hot grassy ground. He lay panting and might have started sobbing, but he was too exhausted. He rested his forehead against the grass, breathing, hurting and simply existing.
A screech sounded beside him. Tires of some kind—
Tires?
Cade forced himself to roll onto his back. With glazed vision, he spied a big black armored carrier. It had heavy wheels. It had a gun turret as well. A turret hatch opened, and a woman with a military cap poked up to stare at him. She wore sunglasses. She knew what she was doing. Cade could have used a pair of those.
“Are you alive, mister?” she asked.
The woman had an angelic voice. And she was so high up there.
Another hatch opened, this one lower down, not part of the turret. A man with a beard stared at him.
“He’s human,” the man said.
“Of course he’s human,” the woman said. “Who are you?”
Cade moved his mouth, but no words sounded.
“We killed the mutants chasing you,” the woman said.
Cade smiled. The heavy machine-gun sounds had come from the armored car.
Another big black armored carrier screeched to a halt on the road. Then a third one made an appearance.
The Soldier: Final Odyssey Page 10
