The Soldier: The X-Ship

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I see,” Tara said, interrupting. “You spoke to a seer. I understand now. Some of the Vargs—”

  “That’s your name for the wolf aliens?”

  “Don’t interrupt me again,” Tara said. “And yes. Anyway, a few of the Vargs have psionic abilities. I believe you witnessed one of them destroy the black saucer, as you called it.”

  “I did.”

  “The seer also possessed psionic power. He probably directly read your thoughts. You thought you heard his words, but he must have placed them in your mind so you could understand him.”

  “Oh,” Cade said.

  “Some of the Varg psionics are frighteningly powerful, more than just destroyers of clay pigeons.”

  “Huh?”

  “Skeet shooting, if you will,” Tara said. “I’m referring to the black saucer. Anyway, the priestess possessed vast powers of the mind.”

  “Possessed? She doesn’t anymore?”

  “That’s right,” Tara said. “I had her killed soon after we captured her, as she was too dangerous to keep around. Then, I used the threat of her death against the Vargs to keep them away. Even though a few of them were psionic, they didn’t know we’d already killed her. In any case, now you understand why I couldn’t trade her for you. Maggots have devoured everything, but for her bleached bones. The Vargs would have gone insane with fury if I’d given them her bones.”

  “So…why the deception of agreeing to meet at the Pillar of Exchange?”

  “To draw them near, of course,” Tara said. “To separate the seer and you from the main horde.”

  “Aren’t the Nian worried the Vargs won’t honor the Pillar of Exchange anymore?”

  “I said earlier that I’ll ask the questions. If you continue to ignore that, I’m inclined to burn you.”

  “Why would you do that? I came here to help you.”

  “Liar. You came in the pay of Rohan Mars.”

  “I thought I made that clear. I came in spite of him. I came on my own. Remember, he made the offer more than two and a half years ago.”

  “The length of time makes no difference to this. Besides, that’s what you would tell me if you were working for Rohan.”

  “Look, Tara, I’m here to help. I want to help you.”

  “Again, I ask why?”

  Cade nodded, and he groaned as the answer bubbled from his lips: “Because you were trapped in a stasis unit for a long time.”

  Tara frowned as she leaned nearer. “I hear the truth in your voice. But why should my rising from stasis stir you like that? What are you keeping from me?”

  Cade made a vague gesture. “Is this a spaceship?”

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “You’re not answering too many of mine.”

  She regarded him, stepping back and sitting on a stool. “Yes. This is a spaceship.”

  “How old is it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you might.”

  Tara smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Have you ever heard of the Old Federation?”

  “A little.”

  “Right, it’s legendary. The Ultras and cyborgs burned each other out in what was known as the Cyborg War. This ship was from that era.”

  “Is that why you crash-landed on Avalon IV—to reach this ship?”

  “You already told me why, remember? I was trying to escape Rohan’s cohorts.”

  “Is that the truth?” asked Cade.

  “What difference does that make to you?”

  Cade mulled that over. He was missing something. He wasn’t connecting all the dots. He’d wanted to come here because—

  “Enough,” Tara said. “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? We’re on a proscribed planet and two orbitals are keeping us from leaving.”

  “Or the tech company people from landing.”

  “Sure,” she said with a shrug.

  Cade sat utterly still as he saw it then. This Tara Alor hadn’t fled from Rohan Mars. She was part of a team trying to get someone onto Avalon IV. Yet, if that was true, that meant Rohan’s story to Brune had been a lie. Why would Rohan lie? Ah. Cade understood. The tech company people wanted Brune on Avalon IV. Why they later wanted him—Cade—on the planet, he didn’t know.

  “You’ve gotten awfully quiet all of a sudden.”

  “Just a second,” Cade said, holding up a hand, trying to think this through. What had Jack Brune possessed that would make him a candidate for Avalon IV? If the tech company had sent Tara down here and wanted Brune to join her—

  Cade looked up at her.

  Tara smiled, looking more than ever like a vampire queen. Tara Alor had been in stasis…maybe for one thousand years or more. She didn’t strike Cade as an Ultra. With her oily eyes—was she indeed a cyborg?

  Tara laughed darkly. “You really are quite easy to read. One minute, you’re in love with me, the next I’m your worst nightmare. What are you thinking, Cade. Spit it out while you can.”

  “Is this the reason you came down to Avalon IV?” he asked, tapping the deck.

  “You mean this little thing?”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  “An X-ship.”

  “And X-ships fought in the ancient war that destroyed the Old Federation?”

  “Oh, they surely did.”

  “What made X-ships so special?”

  “Me.”

  Cade frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t mean me all the time. I mean pilots like me that flew the most dangerous ship in the war. There was nothing like an X-ship, Cade.”

  “You’re a cyborg?”

  She laughed. “Oh, Cade, you really are quite boring. I’m not one of the living dead, as people called the cyborg troopers. I’m modified, mostly human, but for my interfaces to fly these babies.”

  He shook his head. “That makes you a cyborg.”

  “Cade, Cade, Cade, what do you know about the ancient Cyborg War?”

  “Not much.”

  “No?” she asked, with a hint of mirth in her voice. “And why is that?”

  “You’re trying to make a point.”

  “We’d hoped you would have come two and a half years ago. Well, that is to say, we’d hoped Jack Brune would have come, but you’ll do just as well.”

  “You’re talking about the device in my skull.”

  “In your mind, I should think.”

  “The device is why you wanted me, and him, on Avalon IV?”

  “There you go. You finally figured it out.”

  “Why do you need the device?”

  “You’ll learn soon enough.”

  “Do you mean to tear it from my brain?”

  “Would I have ordered the minions to give you the elixir if that were case? Wouldn’t I have simply torn it from your mind while you were near death?”

  Cade blinked several times. She had a point. “Why was I so eager to reach you?”

  “I don’t know. That is odd. Does it matter?”

  “To me it matters a great deal. I thought—”

  “Yes?”

  Cade shook his head. “Forget it.”

  “You look sad, dispirited. What did you hope to find here?”

  “You.”

  “Here I am. Your quest is finished.”

  “No. There’s something else. You woke from stasis. That was critical to me.”

  “Did you also wake from stasis?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “You’re not a regular human, you know? You’re an Ultra. I remember them. But you don’t look like one of the masters. You look ordinary enough. I suppose you have superior reflexes and must be tougher, too. After all you did survive an orbital drop and a trip across the plains with the Vargs. Maybe your type was meant to mingle with ordinary people.”

  Cade looked away. This couldn’t be his destiny. Where had he made his mistake? Something was missing from the puzzle. Tara Alor had woken from stasis. She was from long ago j
ust as he was.

  “Are you listening to me?” Tara asked.

  Cade realized she’d been talking. “What was that?”

  “I said you actually made it right on time. It would have been harder keeping Brune alive all this time. Using some of the mechanisms from the X-ship, I fixed the older areas of the crypt. The crypt is why I came, and why we needed you, or the ancient control chip in your brain. Such chips are actually quite rare in this dull era, amazingly so. Where did you get yours?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Another foolish lie,” she said. “It doesn’t matter for now. I’m almost ready to proceed.”

  “To do what?” he asked.

  Her smile widened. “Once you find out, you’re going to wish you hadn’t.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Meanwhile, out in space in the Descartes, Dr. Halifax knew it was far too late to flee. He knew it had been far too late for several days already. He sat beside the sensor scope in the piloting chamber aboard the Descartes. He was a little over two million kilometers from Avalon IV. The ex-Patrol scout was still on silent running.

  The small doctor had no idea what was happening on the surface. He assumed Cade was alive and let it go at that. All his concentration and terror was centered on the decelerating teardrop-shaped vessel approaching Avalon IV.

  It turned out the strange spaceship was the size and tonnage of a missile cruiser, which because of its nature was larger and heavier than a strike cruiser. A strike cruiser in most Concord space navies used laser cannons as the attacking force. That meant a large laser generator energized by the main engine. Lasers, like any light, lost cohesiveness or effectiveness the farther they beamed. Thus, at extremely close range—zero to four thousand kilometers—a strike cruiser’s laser cannon was murder against its opponents. At five thousand to fifteen thousand kilometers, strike cruiser lasers were deadly indeed. From twenty thousand to thirty thousand kilometers strike cruiser laser cannons needed far longer on target to burn through heavy plate armor. A strike cruiser’s laser cannon was a joke beyond fifty thousand kilometers. Thus, in military terms, warships relying on laser cannons as the primary weapon needed to maneuver close to targets to destroy. It was quite different for missile cruisers, which used thermonuclear-tipped missiles to reach within five thousand kilometers and detonate against their targets. A missile could be fired from extremely long ranges in a star system. In fact, a missile cruiser could theoretically launch a missile across an entire star system, waiting weeks for it to reach the target and detonate. Normally, warships launched missiles from less than one million kilometers from target—although, it was common to launch from as far away as ten million kilometers.

  The Patrol orbitals operated on shorter distances than this, launching their missiles when the target passed the 500,000-kilometer boundary from the planet and saving the lasers for five thousand kilometers or less.

  The reason why a strike cruiser was smaller than a missile cruiser was simple. The missile cruiser needed more cargo space to hold all its missiles. Once the last missile left the cargo hold, the missile cruiser had to return to base or await a supply ship to restock with more missiles.

  Most Patrol personnel preferred serving on a missile cruiser than a strike cruiser. The reason was obvious. It was safer to launch missiles from a great distance than to bore in and use a strike cruiser’s laser cannons.

  The large teardrop-shaped vessel decelerating as it neared Avalon IV possessed missile-cruiser tonnage specs. On this point, Halifax was certain, as he’d been comparing tonnage specs for days.

  That created a conundrum for the doctor. Why was the teardrop-shaped vessel moving in so closely? By his calculations, given its rate of deceleration, the vessel would reach the 500,000-kilometer boundary in another half day. At that point, the orbitals would attack it.

  If Halifax were in charge of the mysterious ship and wanted to take out the orbitals, he would have already launched, letting the missiles take the risks rather than the vessel itself.

  The small man muttered to himself, eating crackers as he kept his face pressed against the sensor scope.

  There was one salient point to all this. The teardrop-shaped ship was coming in on the other side of Avalon IV as he was. From all appearances, the tech company people hadn’t spotted his silently running scout. That would be to his advantage.

  Halifax sat up, wiping crumbs from his lap. He was recording everything. If the teardrop-shaped vessel failed, he could sell the data regarding its fate to the Patrol. Surely, they would want to know exactly what had happened out here. If the teardrop-shaped ship succeeded, the Patrol might pay even more to know what happened.

  “Win-win,” Halifax muttered under his breath.

  The latter scenario wouldn’t help Cade any. Hmm…come to think of it, the first scenario probably wouldn’t help him either. If Halifax sold data to the Patrol, the Patrol would likely learn about Cade’s orbital insertion. In that case, would Patrol agents go down to retrieve him from the surface?

  What was the policy on proscribed planets? Why did the Patrol build orbitals in the first place? Halifax was stunned that he hadn’t thought of that before this. If—

  “No, when,” he said.

  When he survived and reached a university, he would use its library services and research the reasons.

  Halifax rubbed his chin. It made sense that something down there on the planet was quite dangerous. Might it be the ancient alien ruins? Was Cade finding out their value or danger?

  If the teardrop-shaped ship destroyed the orbitals and did whatever they planned on the surface—if that was their goal—he could land with the scout later and figure out if any of the dangerous stuff remained. That stuff might be worth millions of credits.

  Halifax giggled as avarice shined in his brown eyes. He’d been thinking about making enough from sale of the scout so he could survive the next few years without involving himself in dangerous projects. Millions of credits—he could become a grandee, marry a young beautiful heiress and start having children.

  “My, my, my,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  It struck him that loyalty such as he’d been showing to Cade should earn him vast rewards. He could have run out on Cade. Instead, he’d stuck around like a good partner should. Sure, this was a damn risk. He didn’t like sitting out here as the teardrop-shaped ship readied to do its dirty business.

  The doctor went to another seat, and for the twentieth time, rechecked the ammo supply for the two .50-caliber guns and the anti-missile rockets. The scout was no match for the teardrop-shaped ship, but if the enemy vessel sustained damage from orbital missiles—

  A cold feeling struck Halifax. The idea of going in with the scout if the teardrop-shaped ship was badly damaged, and acting as a pirate, demanding—what would he demand from them? If their ship was badly damaged, he could demand anything. It was the acquiring of the prize—getting it aboard the Descartes—that might be dangerous.

  Halifax shook his head. He shouldn’t count his unhatched chickens yet. He was out here waiting all by himself. The longer he waited, the less inclined he was to try the Intersplit engine alone. In truth, he wanted to rescue Cade so he would have someone resourceful with him again in case things went south.

  The doctor had hated the past few days. It was one thing to monitor a Group Six stooge from the shadows. It was another being in the thick of it himself. He had been much better as a case officer than as the stooge—the spy himself.

  “Bad things always happen to me,” he muttered. And, in the end, he was always the last man standing.

  He raised his hands and felt his palms. They were moist.

  A soft ping from the sensor scope alerted him.

  Halifax’s head snapped up and terror caused his facial skin to darken. He made a squeaking noise in the back of his throat, managed to stand and stagger to the scope. Sitting down, he pressed his face against the rubber lining and saw a missile eject from the teardrop-shape
d ship.

  He made a quick calculation. The vessel was five million kilometers out from Avalon IV. The ship was moving at a crawl compared to even three days ago.

  The missile drifted for several seconds. Then, its main propulsion ignited. The Class M missile raced for Avalon IV.

  That’s a relief.

  For a second, the doctor thought the missile was heading for the scout.

  The missile accelerated to a terrific velocity in a short time. Even so, it took twenty-four minutes before the nearest orbital activated.

  Halifax knew, because he saw an anti-rocket leaving near orbital space. He hated waiting for this. Minutes ticked by—

  The missile’s thermonuclear warhead detonated, taking out the orbital’s anti-rocket.

  “Here we go,” Halifax said. He manipulated the sensor panel, studying the radiation count. It was high, but it didn’t look as if any would drift near him. The planet should shield him from that.

  Would the radiation count—? “No,” Halifax said. The planet’s atmosphere should shield it from any radiation drifting down from that far out.

  Halifax scratched the top of his head. What was the teardrop-shaped ship’s game? The crew in the ship had launched a single missile. What did that mean?

  Five minutes later, Halifax believed he knew the answer. The missile must have been a signal. The question was: a signal to whom?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Look around you, Cade,” Tara said triumphantly.

  The two stood in the four-acre walled area, having used the subterranean stairs to exit the buried ship. Several bowmen on the walkway stared at them, leaning near their fellows to make soft comments.

  Cade’s wrists were behind his back, manacled with gleaming steel magnetic locks. He’d put them on, as Tara had given him a choice: wear them or die. It wasn’t that he’d believed her, or that he feared death so greatly. An instinct had told him this wasn’t the last moment. He understood her precaution, not wanting to climb the stairs in the dark with him in the lead. If he’d guessed wrong…then he’d guessed wrong. That was how tactics worked. Sometimes, a person took the wrong route and paid a deadly penalty for it.