Quillian said nothing.
“I’m an official case officer of Group Six,” he said. “I’m on a secret mission by the express orders—”
“Stop,” Quillian said sternly. “Stop it now.”
Halifax bent his head, rubbing it, groaning. This was a disaster. She’d drugged him.
“Doctor,” she said.
He looked up. The roomed seemed to spin. He was going to be sick. He turned to the side and vomited.
“Here,” she said, giving him a handkerchief.
He thanked her and dabbed his mouth. He still felt strange, but vomiting helped. He didn’t feel as sick anymore.
“Look at me, Doctor.”
He did. She had stern, uncompromising features.
“Now, tell me what really happened.”
“Who are you?”
“I told you, I’m Leona Quillian.”
“You said the original.”
“Yes.”
“Who did I see at the space station?”
“One of my clones,” Quillian said.
“Clones…?”
Quillian nodded. “I’m the most successful G-6 cleaner for a reason. When an operation strikes me as particularly dangerous, I send a clone in lieu of myself. I have not heard back from her. Given the situation, I believe someone killed her. Did you do that, Doctor?”
“No,” he slurred.
“Did…Jack Brune?”
Halifax shook his head.
Her dark eyes become penetrating. “Did the Ultra substituted for Jack Brune kill my clone?”
“No,” Halifax slurred.
“Who did?”
“I have no idea. Your clone was on the station when we left. Perhaps she died in the explosion.”
“Is Jack Brune still alive?”
“No.”
“Is Brune’s Ultra replacement?”
“Do you mean Marcus Cade?”
“Yes, I do mean him. Is he still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is he aboard the Descartes?”
“Yes.”
“Is he drugged or incapacitated like you said earlier?”
“No.”
“What is he doing?”
“Waiting to capture anyone who comes aboard with me,” Halifax said in a mechanical voice. He couldn’t help himself, as if someone else were speaking.
“It’s as I thought. You’re on the run.”
“Maybe…”
Her eyebrows rose.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Halifax said truthfully.
“Ah, yes. The Director told me you’re exceptionally deceitful. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to have you back. Unfortunately, now that you know my little secret, I can’t let you live.”
“But you promised.”
She laughed. “Like you, Doctor, I lie sometimes.”
There came a sharp knock at the door. The sound startled Halifax.
Quillian turned, staring at the door suspiciously.
The knock came again, louder this time.
“Enter,” Quillian said. “It’s not locked.”
The door opened and a big man with short blond hair and steely blue eyes stepped into the room holding a small gun. Quillian jumped up as the intruder aimed and fired knockout slivers from a needler. The frozen ice slivers failed to penetrate her metallic one-piece. Quillian stared in shock at her garment. Then she regained her poise, looking up just in time to see a big fist flash at her jaw.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Group Six woman’s eyelids fluttered as she stretched out full length onto the floor of the interrogation room.
Cade hardly felt his bruised knuckles as he studied the watching doctor. He hadn’t trusted Halifax, and had taken a second shuttle after the doctor departed. Cade had landed at the same spaceport and taken another rocket plane to Garwiy. In the city, he’d hurried to the financial district and gone directly to the Octagon Tower.
At that point, the secret locator sticky on a numbed area of the doctor’s skin must have shorted. The tiny unit in Cade’s hand had beeped, indicating it had lost the signal.
He’d numbed a small area on the doctor’s back yesterday and attached the sticky as the other slept.
Cade expected a loss of signal at some point, as he was dealing with a notorious spy agency. He’d studied a purchased schematic of the Octagon Tower and 12th Floor during the rocket-plane trip. As the soldier moved along a sidewalk outside the tower, he accelerated his timetable.
The needler he carried was a specialty weapon. He’d found it a week ago in the doctor’s quarters, carefully searching those quarters as the doctor tried to reset the Intersplit engine. The ice slivers were biodegradable and melted in flesh. A needler could hold over two hundred shots before reloading.
As Cade had walked through the Main Floor, Octagon Tower lobby, he’d decided on a frontal attack, hitting the Group Six station in one fell swoop. That meant every present operative in the fake headquarters for Roguskhoi Metals on the 12th Floor was drugged and asleep. They hadn’t known what hit them as Cade charged from room to room, firing, drugging and sleeping everyone indiscriminately.
Now that the dark-haired woman was unconscious, Cade pumped a few sleep slivers into her, too.
Afterward, he stared at a blinking Halifax. “Are you sick?” Cade asked.
It seemed to take effort for the doctor to part his lips. “She gave me truth serum. Why are you here, Cade?”
“I’m your back up.”
“We already had a backup plan.”
“This is the real one.”
“But…but…you lied to me.”
“How does it feel?”
“Bad, really bad. You used me.”
“I’m saving your life.”
Halifax blinked several more times. “What happens now?”
“We’re going to find out.” Cade pulled Halifax to his feet. “Tell me, Doctor, where would they keep cash, credit notes?”
“Uh…I have a few ideas.”
“Good. Now, let’s get to work before the slivers wear off.”
“You’re not going to kill them?”
Cade didn’t answer that as he shoved Halifax toward the door.
“Oh, I forgot,” the doctor said. “So-called needless killing is against your precious ethics.”
“I’m betting on Group Six’s need for anonymity on Durdane,” Cade said. “We’ll get the Intersplit repaired and be on our way.”
“Anonymity or not, they’ll certainly report this to the Director.”
“Maybe,” Cade said. “I took the liberty of erasing everything in their monitoring system.”
“Octagon Tower will have a similar system.”
“Enough already,” Cade said, forcing Halifax to walk faster down the corridor and step over a body lying on the carpeted floor. “Earth Intelligence used me. That means they owe me these funds. If they’re wise, the station personnel will stay out of my way once they wake up. Next time, I won’t be so nice.”
“This is nice?” Halifax asked, indicating more drugged, unconscious bodies lying on the floor of the next room.
“I didn’t kill them. The credit notes, Doctor. We need them in order to pay for repairs.”
“They’ll never let this go.”
“For their sakes, they’d better hope that I do.”
Halifax turned and stared at Cade. “Is that the famed Ultra arrogance?”
Cade ignored the question as he checked his chronometer. He wanted to grab the credit notes—cash—and get off planet within two hours. It would take the station personnel time to recover from the amount of sleep drug he’d pumped into their bodies. He planned to go to an outer system orbital yard, making it harder for the G-6 people here to interfere.
First, though, he needed the cash. If anyone should have large amounts lying around, it would be a spy agency on a foreign planet.
It took several tries, but Halifax found wads of bills in a false bottom of a large desk drawer. They f
illed two briefcases with the notes and headed for the elevator.
So far, there hadn’t been any triggered alarms. In fact, they made it to the rocket plane, landing at the spaceport.
A personal comm unit began beeping as they hurried through the huge terminal building.
“Should I answer?” Halifax asked, holding up a small comm unit he pulled from a pocket.
“Here,” Cade said, extending an open hand.
After a second, the doctor handed it over.
“Hello?” Cade said into the comm unit.
“You made a terrible mistake, Doctor,” a woman said.
“This is—Brune,” Cade said.
“I know you’re not Jack Brune,” the woman said, likely Quillian. “Brune died over a year ago on Helos.”
Cade motioned for Halifax to keep heading for the ticket counter. Then he said into the comm unit, “While on Avalon IV, we eliminated a Web-Mind.”
“What does that mean?” Quillian asked.
“Tell the Director what I said. A Web-Mind—”
“I know what it is,” Quillian practically snarled. “You said you found one on Avalon IV?”
“Yes.”
“It’s dead?”
“Completely,” Cade said.
Quillian was silent for a moment. “Listen, whoever you really are, you need to come in from the cold. Earth needs you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Quillian said. “On your own, you’ll never leave the Durdane System alive. Do you think we can afford to let your kind run free?”
“I’m no threat to Earth.”
“The hell you say. Look at what you did to us. You just waltzed in like a hurricane. No one but a…a someone like you, could do that.”
“Cyborg troopers would have been much worse,” Cade said.
“Come in from the cold. I’ll escort you personally to Earth.”
“Don’t try to stop me, Leona Quillian. If you do, the Director will learn about your clone games. How do you think he’ll feel about that?”
She was silent for several heartbeats until she said, “Listen. You’d better listen closely to—”
Cade clicked off the comm, pocketing it.
“Hey,” Halifax said. “That’s mine. Give it back.”
Cade pointed at the ticket counter. “We’re leaving, Doctor. She told me to tell you goodbye. She said she’ll miss us.”
“Cade, let’s rethink this. Now that—”
Cade shoved the doctor to the ticket counter. It was time to leave Durdane II and get the Intersplit repaired. Then, in time, he would arrange a meeting with Director G. T. Titus. One way or another, Cade was going to find his wife.
Epilogue
Cade and Dr. Halifax made it onto an orbital shuttle and reached the Descartes. From there, they flew to Durdane VIII and an orbital repair yard. It took two and a half weeks for engineers to fix the Intersplit. That used up most of the credit notes they’d liberated from the secret stash on the 12th Floor of the Octagon Tower.
Afterward, they headed out-system far enough to engage the Intersplit. They hadn’t heard from Roguskhoi Metals or from Leona Quillian. They scoured the ship for hidden locators or trackers, finding none.
“We did it,” Cade said as the green Intersplit Field circled the scout.
“I hope you’re right,” Halifax muttered from the pilot seat.
Cade nodded. They’d won the first round against the secret tech company and against Group Six. Cade didn’t really care about either. What he wanted—
“Raina,” he whispered, while staring out the polarized window at the stars. Was his wife Raina still alive? The ache in his chest…he was going to find out, on that, he vowed. And Heaven help anyone that tried to get in his way.
THE END
To the Reader: Thanks! I hope you’ve enjoyed The Soldier: The X-Ship. If you liked the book and would like to see more in this universe, please put up some stars and a review. If you’d rather see more of Captain Maddox, don’t worry, the next Lost Starship novel will be coming out this winter.
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