The Soldier: Final Odyssey

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Hard to say,” the woman told him. “I can run more tests if you like.”

  “No. That’s fine. Is there a chance the headaches will go away?”

  “Perhaps in time and given enough rest,” she said.

  Halifax told Quillian that the next time she checked up on him.

  She stood in the open hatch to his quarters. “You’ll survive, I’m sure.”

  “Meaning what?” he asked from the bunk.

  “Rats swim to shore when every other animal drowns.”

  “You’re calling me a rat?”

  “Not as a slur,” Quillian said. “I’m admiring your survival instincts. Whatever it takes, eh, Doctor?”

  “Rat sounds like a slur to me.”

  Quillian stared at him before turning to go.

  “Wait a minute,” he said.

  She paused, looking back over her shoulder at him.

  “Are you really going to recommend me to the Director?”

  “I said I would.”

  “I’m double-checking is all,” Halifax said. “You’re really going to do that?”

  “Yes and no,” she said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “That you’re going to find out when we reach Earth. My suggestion is that you prepare yourself, Mr. Rat. You’re going to see Director Titus in a few weeks. That should help bring some sparkle back to your eyes.”

  He realized she was taunting him. Leona Quillian was cruel like a cat to its victims. She was letting him see her claws, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  He threw himself back on the bunk and put an arm over his sore eyes.

  Quillian laughed as the hatch closed.

  Halifax removed his arm, although he kept his eyes shut. So that was how it was going to be, huh? She was going to sell him out to the wolf. Quillian likely had her own agenda to play. Maybe she feared the Director. What did that mean for him?

  It was funny, but as Halifax lay back and thought about how to deal with Titus, he considered Marcus Cade and his missing wife Raina. He’d been with Cade for years already. Before that, he’d been with Jack Brune, running him from Helos in the Rigel System. He’d liked Brune, more than he liked Cade. But as Halifax reviewed their time together, he found that he admired Cade’s stubborn grit.

  Was it right to just hand Cade over to the Director?

  What can I do about it? The truth was, not a damn thing. He was Dr. Halifax, the rat according to Quillian. Except…Quillian and the Director were going to screw him. He could feel it in his bones. Maybe the harsh time spent in the General’s hands had shown him what awaited him on Earth.

  Does it have to be that way?

  Halifax squinted, and for the first time in a long time, doing so didn’t spike his brain. He realized that a moment later. He laughed. It was a rueful thing. He’d tried to sell out Cade back in the Therduim System. Cade had given him a second chance. Maybe he should give Cade a second chance.

  Maybe I should give myself a second chance.

  The thought was jarring. It seemed so unlike him. Yet, he was headed to Earth, to Director Titus, and there were things he’d done that Titus might not approve of, might not like. If he thought the General had been bad—

  Director Titus will be worse.

  Halifax exhaled heavily, and a glimmer of an idea started to develop. Cade had wanted to come back to Earth as the victor, as lord of the lurker. Cade would have traded the lurker to Titus for his wife and friends. That was such a noble deed. It actually caused Halifax to shake his head in wonder and admiration.

  What would it be like to have such noble friends? Halifax realized he’d like to see Cade stare at him with admiration. He would like to do the soldier a real solid, a real unselfish act. Well, it wouldn’t be completely unselfish. It might well get him out of a jam with the Director. In fact, instead of quailing before the Director and the cleaner he’d sent out to kill Cade and him if things went south, which they had—

  Halifax cocked his head. How come Quillian had never spoken about what had happened on Helos? She’d never even said how he’d seen her in Sparta in store windows. Wasn’t that odd?

  What is going to happen to me? Will the Director forgive my slights, or is it more likely he’s going to make an example of me? I need a friend, a badass dude to scare Titus and his G6 goons.

  It was at that point the feel-good idea started to turn into a plan. And the plan against the Great Spymaster of Earth caused Halifax to bare his teeth. He was the rat, huh, the survivor? Maybe he was more than anyone realized. Maybe this was the dawning of a new era for him, with a butt-load of badass friends to back him up.

  “Yes,” Halifax whispered. “I think I’ll give selfless goodness a whirl.” Especially as it might be the wisest choice possible.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Inside the cargo bay in a cryo unit, Marcus Cade dreamed in slow motion as the Sunflower neared Old Earth. The blue Intersplit Field surrounded the mighty starliner. Within were hundreds of passengers and the officers and enlisted personnel that saw to the vessel’s functions and the people’s needs.

  The same old planets still orbited the Sun together with the blue-green homeworld that had spawned the race of Man. Once, the Solar System had only been the seed to the Ultras, cyborgs and regular humans. In those days, Martin Kluge had fought Highborn, Social Unity, the Jovians and finally the cyborgs of the Outer Planets. It had been a desperate time, and from that era had come the expanded versions out in the stars.

  With faster-than-light drives, humanity had surged outward, colonized, created a mighty Federation and then battled the dread cyborgs. Ultras jumped to the attack, and in a great and mighty cauldron of war, worlds burned and billions perished. The Old Federation vanished as surviving planets tumbled back into an Iron or even Stone Age. A millennium later, the Sunflower returned to the system where it had all started.

  Director Titus sought to drag Earth back into the limelight of ruler-ship over its children. He lacked the gleaming warships of the Concord, but he had the old guile of the slyest humans of history. He was the master manipulator and he used those like him to attempt to achieve his dream.

  Cade knew little of this now. He dreamed of the Games, of winning his glorious wife and then going on vacation to a play-world. For all he knew, he was about to arrive.

  Then the starliner dropped out of Intersplit as it reached its destination. The soldier did not realize it when handlers moved his cryo unit from the giant Sunflower to a waiting hauler. There were other cryo units. Many of them held cattle and other animals. No, Cade did not know about the acceleration from the Sunflower as the hauler headed through the Kuiper Belt, passing Pluto on its journey to the third planet from the Sun.

  Time passed as the hauler made the trip past Uranus, Saturn and then Jupiter. The hauler passed through the Asteroid Belt, never saw Mars on the other side of the Sun, and finally began to brake as it neared Earth.

  Halifax and Quillian were aboard the hauler. Communications had been established many days ago with G6 Headquarters. Director Titus knew what was coming in, and he had listened to some of Quillian’s explanations about all this.

  The Director distrusted her on principle. But he would find out the truth. Sooner or later, he always did.

  The hauler braked more as it passed Luna, and finally, it reached orbit around Earth. It had made it. Cade was here, in a cryo unit, in deep hibernation.

  Were his dreams interrupted in the slightest as a shuttle flew him down to the surface? Many places on Earth still burned with radiation because of hellburners dropped more than a thousand years ago. Few people lived on the surface, not even mutants, tusked or otherwise. The people of Old Earth laughed and cried, worked and played in giant subterranean tunnels and deep cities.

  Workers used a forklift, taking the cryo unit from the landed shuttle and to a waiting sub-car. The car whisked the cryo unit away, deep below the surface area that used to be known as Kansas City.

  On
e of the best medical facilities on the planet was in subterranean Kansas City.

  Group Six technicians received the cryo unit. They carefully brought Marcus Cade out of hibernation. Director Titus joined them when it was done, staring down at the naked Ultra inside the opened cryo unit.

  Director Titus was a big man wearing a white suit and a Guards Tie. He had white hair and wore thick, black-rimmed glasses. He might have an extra crease to his skin, but otherwise seemed the same as when he’d sent Cade off on the original mission.

  Titus nodded.

  Group Six technicians lifted the vaguely aware Ultra and brought him to a giant clear cylinder. They put a breathing mask around Cade’s face, one with an attached tube, and lowered him into the container. Soon, warm green liquid gushed within. Cade floated, much as he’d floated long ago.

  After sealing the cylinder, techs changed his air mixture, and he revived just a little more as he breathed the good stuff. He no longer dreamed, but he wasn’t fully awake yet either. He slowly kicked his muscular legs in the green solution, and his fingers twitched.

  Techs monitored him carefully.

  Director Titus put in a second appearance. He eyed Cade in the cylinder, noting the Ultra’s rugged physique and many scars.

  The Director cracked his knuckles. Years had passed since he’d sent this Ultra out on a mission. Earth had not received an X-ship or any cyborg technology. Yet, according to Quillian, Cade had stormed a lurker. That was remarkable. He wanted to hear the story direct from Cade. Halifax’s story hinted at another world, Therduim III. The Concord had begun to uncover olden cyborgs relics on the planet.

  Director Titus removed his black-rimmed glasses and took out a cloth, cleaning the lenses. It would seem the Ultra had been partly successful. What was interesting was Quillian’s acquired brain chip. Her story—how she’d found it—had sounded…suspect. Titus wondered how she’d really gotten hold of the chip.

  He put the glasses back on as he deliberated. Marcus Cade had proven resourceful. Perhaps he’d have to send the Ultra out again, but with a few revisions, and with a modified cyborg chip in his head.

  The Director nodded to himself. It was time to speak to Quillian in person. He would see Halifax soon thereafter. Perhaps he would wait to have the techs insert the brain chip. Yes, it needed a thorough inspection first anyway, and he wished to interrogate the Ultra.

  “Your work isn’t over,” Titus told the slowly moving Cade. With that, Titus turned and left.

  Cade continued to breathe slowly and kick his legs even slower. His dreams had ended. He seemed on the verge of trying to wake up all the way. Fortunately, the techs realized what was happening and put more sleep gas into his mask.

  Cade’s kicking lessened until he floated limply in the green solution. He was back, and he was a slave waiting for his next assignment.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Time passed. Cade had no idea how much. The techs must have changed his air-mixture again, as the powerful Ultra began to climb his way to consciousness.

  He breathed more deeply and scowled at the sounds of hissing air and bubbles. That meant something, he knew, but he couldn’t place it. What was the last thing he remembered?

  Cade grunted and scowled more. He’d been somewhere important. He’d been moving in a suit, a battlesuit—the lurker, he’d been marching through the cyborg lurker, the one in the 16 Cygni System. He’d spoken to the Master. That’s right, that’s right. He’d also slain cyborgs who’d attempted to capture him with tanglers.

  Cade’s eyes snapped open. He wore a mask, a breathing mask. He saw a bubble rise before him, saw it wobble. That he saw the bubble clearly meant he looked through glass or some other clear substance. If he hadn’t been wearing a mask, the bubble would have been blurry.

  He moved his head, examining his own nude form floating in a green solution. He looked outward and saw that he floated within a cylinder. Outside were technicians wearing white lab coats. A few watched him with styluses and slates, making notations, presumably about him.

  “Hello,” Cade said, as he waved.

  None of the watching lab-coated individuals addressed him or gave any indication that he’d attempted communication with them.

  Some people farther away studied monitors.

  Why did they treat him like a nonentity, an insect? It was worse than rude. Screw them.

  Cade kicked upward and brought his hands up, pushing against the stopper that sealed the tank. That shoved him down until his feet touched the bottom. He shoved up, trying to knock off the stopper with his hands. That simply propelled him back down again to the bottom. It was repetitious and useless.

  But what the hell? I have nothing else to do.

  Thus, Cade continued the performance until he felt just the slightest give to the stopper up top.

  He heard a tapping. It was loud and annoying.

  Cade paused in his efforts and saw that one of the technicians, a woman, tapped on the cylinder. She shook her head at him. He made a sign that they remove the top and let him out. She ignored his sign, although she looked at him, well, his body anyway.

  He was naked, and she stared at him. That was wrong of her. He wasn’t a specimen in a test tube. Well, he was, but he wasn’t going to play along.

  He shoved against the top with his hands—

  As he went down, Cade stared at the woman because a realization just struck him. She wasn’t a cyborg. The others in the chamber were human, not cyborgs. How had he gotten here then? What had happened to him aboard the lurker? Had Halifax sold him out somehow?

  When his feet touched the bottom, he pushed himself toward the watching woman and banged a fist against the cylinder.

  She jumped back in fright, the slate dropping from her hands.

  Behind his mask, Cade grinned.

  She frowned at him, scooped up her slate and then turned sharply as if someone had called to her.

  Cade could not hear any of the sounds out there.

  She turned back to him once before hurrying away to confer with several others, who glanced at his cylinder now and again.

  Cade banged on the glass, waving at them and finally flipping them off.

  They ignored everything.

  Finally, Cade got pissed. Screw them. Screw all of them. He wasn’t going to play their game. No. He was going to force them to act. He tore off the mask and shoved upward, striking the top with his hands. He shoved down, hit the bottom and shoved up. He kept going up and down, moving faster and faster. He didn’t know if they watched him or shouted. He ignored everything, even the bubbles pouring out of his drifting mask and tube. He wasn’t going to don the damn thing. Either they let him out—

  Cade couldn’t hold his breath anymore. He exhaled and swallowed water. It was terrifying. He jerked and forced himself to suck down water again. If he didn’t, if he tried to hold his breath, he would end up reflexively trying to grab the mask. Screw them! He would no longer be anyone’s pawn. He—

  Cade started blacking out as he inhaled water, beginning to drown inside the sealed cylinder.

  ***

  By slow degrees, Cade began to drift back into consciousness. He realized he was coughing hoarsely, feeling sick, with his lungs hurting—

  He hacked more, water gushing from his mouth, realizing he was on his stomach on some sort of gurney.

  He looked up wearily, seeing technicians in long white lab-coats staring at him. Some were wide-eyed. A woman jabbered at him, but he couldn’t understand her, as there was loud ringing in his ears.

  Cade pushed up from the gurney and glanced at the cylinder. The top was off. A mechanical pincer seemed to have pulled him out and placed him on the gurney.

  A door into the chamber opened. Several big thugs in brown uniforms hurried toward him. They each gripped a heavy baton and had a holstered sidearm attached to a belt. He counted five of them, five bruisers running to his gurney. They looked musclebound, steroid users, he supposed. None of them was as tall or as broa
d-shouldered as he was.

  Cade pushed up more and swung his legs down. He was still naked, wet and shivering, although no longer hacking as if he was going to cough up his lungs.

  “Hold out your hands,” one of the bruisers said. That one had put away his baton and held handcuffs.

  From the gurney, Cade looked up with bleary eyes.

  “He doesn’t seem to understand us,” a lab-coated woman said.

  “Hey!” the musclebound clod shouted. “Hold out your hands.”

  “Shouting won’t make any difference,” the woman said.

  “Shut up,” the bruiser said.

  “Now see here,” the woman said. “The Director put me in charge—”

  “You idiot,” the clod said. “He understands you just fine. Don’t say anything more. You! Hold out your hands.”

  Cade’s eyes had widened as the woman said, “Director.” She must mean Director Titus. Was this Earth? Had he been transported to Earth, to Titus?

  Cade slid off the gurney so his damp feet touched the cold floor.

  “That’s it,” the clod said. “Let’s beat him—”

  If the clod had been about to say, “Let’s beat him down,” Cade did not give him the opportunity to finish the sentence. Instead, Cade hit him in the mouth. He hit the clod hard, too, so the man’s head snapped back. Incredibly—or so it seemed to the watching throng—the clod collapsed onto the floor. The lab-coated technicians screamed.

  The four remaining bruisers rushed Cade. A few of the techs got in the way, buffeting the musclebound men. A humming baton or two accidently touched a tech. The batons sizzled then, and the techs dropped to the floor, stunned by the discharge. That hampered the bruisers even more, causing one to trip and stumble.

  Cade had been dodging and assessing as only an Ultra could. He reacted, reached the stumbling bruiser and snapped the man’s arm. The bruiser moaned in agony, releasing his baton.

  Before it hit the floor, Cade grabbed the baton out of the air. He moved like greased death, like a glittering axe-blade. More sizzles and thuds told of Cade’s baton strikes.