The Soldier: Escape Vector

by Vaughn Heppner

  “You can’t possess me either,” Cade said wearily.

  “I think I can.”

  “No.”

  Velia smiled haughtily.

  “What’s more,” Cade said, “you can’t possess her either.”

  “Oh?”

  “She won’t let you. She loves me, and thus she’s going to fight you while I approach and take the blaster from her.”

  Velia’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t do it, Cade. I want your body and admire your fighting spirit. She may have feelings for you, but—”

  “Velia,” Cade said, taking a half step toward her. “Don’t let it dominate you. The Rhunes did that and you fought them in the end, remember? You don’t want to play puppet to a crazy ka from ancient times. This is your moment to be your own woman, and to make it stick.”

  “I’m warning you,” Velia shouted, taking a step away from him. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Cade raised a hand. “I’m going to take the blaster, Velia. Then, I demand that you hand over the bauble so I can destroy it.”

  “It’s mine,” she said. “Skar gave it to me. It’s beautiful.”

  “It holds an ancient evil,” Cade said, taking a full step toward her.

  “No, Cade. I’ll kill you. I will. I will.”

  “Then, do it,” Cade said, “but know you’ll never know love or freedom. You’ll be in bondage all your miserable existence. I’m offering you a chance to be yourself for once and for the rest of your life.”

  “Will you love me, Cade, if I give you the oval?”

  “I’ll admire you.”

  “I want you to love me.”

  “I want you to find the man who will love you back,” Cade said. “You deserve that, you know?”

  “No,” Velia said. “I’m used. I’m a puppet like you said. But I loved you, Cade. I heard someone say you loved me, and I believed it. That’s why I can still talk to you from my heart even though it’s trying to stifle my feelings.”

  “Use those feelings to resist the evil,” Cade said, deciding this was the moment. He stepped closer as he stared into her eyes. He could actually see the war taking place in her as the ka struggled against her will. Did she really love him? Maybe. How otherwise did his hand reach the blaster and gently take it from her?

  Cade tucked the blaster in his waistband. “Now show me the bauble,” he said. “This is the moment, Velia.”

  She raised a hand to her mouth, biting the fleshly part of her hand as her eyes widened, as tears leaked from her eyes. “No,” she moaned. “This shouldn’t be possible. I am the Purple Nagan ka, the great one from ages past.”

  Cade saw a glow from inside the space garb. He reached out, took the zipper and zipped open the suit. She indeed had wonderful breasts just as he’d known she would. The glow came from an inner pocket. He reached in, and warmth filled his hand as he extracted the ancient globe from her. It swirled with tiny stars and nebulae, and it was wonderfully beautiful to the eye.

  Velia crumpled and began to weep piteously from the floor.

  Cade stared at the globe unblinking. He could own it forever. He hadn’t realized how lovely it really was. Why, he could accomplish marvels with it in his possession. If he—a deep inner surge of disgust bubbled up in him. The globe tried to soothe that. He could do so much with it. Why, if he had it in his control—

  “No,” Cade growled. The thing tempted him. It was so damn beautiful. It could be his. If he pocketed it, touched it at times and stared into its depths at others… Cade blinked, with his disgust fading away. A twitch of a smile moved his lips. He clutched the globe, and he realized in a sick instant that he would never find Raina if he kept it.

  That’s not true, something said in his mind.

  But it was true. Cade knew it. He had to rid himself of the thing. He stared into its depths. He saw—no! Groaning, he hurled the bauble from him so it struck a wall.

  No, Cade, the Nagan ka said in his mind. I can give you so much. Don’t be a fool—

  Cade drew the blaster, struggled against the thing so his hand shook. At that point, his trigger finger moved. The blaster beamed, raw energy devouring the ancient evil formed eons ago by a Purple Nagan creator. There was a silent scream, and hot residue slag that had been the globe melted against the deck plate.

  The pressure in Cade’s mind stopped instantly.

  Velia raised a tear-streaked face. “You did it,” she whispered. “You really did it. I can’t feel it anymore.”

  “I really did it,” Cade said, with the blaster still in his hand. “I don’t feel it either.”

  “What happens next?” Velia asked after a long moment.

  He pointed at the cot with the blaster. “Get some rest, but make sure to buckle in. This could get rough.”

  “I like it rough,” she said, staring into his eyes.

  Cade blushed and turned away, determined to keep the oath that he’d made to his wife over a thousand years ago. He fled Velia’s quarters lest he succumb to her enticing temptation.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cade staggered into the piloting chamber and slumped exhausted onto a seat beside Dr. Halifax. The former case officer for Earth Intelligence sat at the controls, flying the scout, heading up from the ocean and sinking Rhune base.

  The soldier slowly buckled himself in, the rope climb, fights and confrontation against the Purple Nagan ka having taken their toll. Was the seat always this soft?

  Halifax glanced at him. “It’s good to see you again, Cade. I never thought I’d be sitting here like this, and certainly not with you.”

  “Yeah,” Cade said. “Happy days are here again.”

  Halifax glanced at him a second time.

  It’s not over until you’ve defeated all comers. Cade inhaled, focusing, sitting up. “Where’s the Rhune starship?”

  “It’s ahead and above us,” Halifax said, indicating the piloting screen. “It’s fighting its way into orbit. According to what I’m seeing, Tarvoke’s strikers must be launching everything they have at it.”

  All comers—every bloody son of them. “What about the Eagle-Dukes and their railguns?” asked Cade.

  Halifax shook his head. “I caught the tail end of a message. According to it, most of the mountain strongholds are radioactive ruins.”

  “What?”

  Halifax nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. Rhune missiles launched, I guess from various areas of the oceans. The railguns took out some—” The doctor shook his head. “But it wasn’t enough. I hijacked a striker visual and saw mushroom clouds everywhere. Reminded me of Avalon IV, if you know what I mean.”

  Yeah, Cade knew.

  “You know what I think?” Halifax said.

  I know if I sit here quietly that you’re going to tell me.

  “Every plan, every hidden play just came to fruition,” Halifax said. “Tarvoke must have brought everything he had to orbital space around Coad.”

  We’re not out of this yet. You’d better get your head in the game, Force Leader. Cade heaved up from his seat, going to the sensor station, sitting and resting his face against the rubber lining on the sensor scope as he twisted dials. He searched, searched—

  “Found it,” Cade said.

  The Rhune starship had two hull breaches as it climbed for orbital space. Striker missiles and tiny meteors rained down from orbit at it. The starship’s auto-defense guns blazed from one end of the vessel to the other, taking out everything Tarvoke could hurl at it.

  “Damn,” Cade said. “This is as hot a firefight as I’ve seen since The War.”

  “Whoa,” Halifax said.

  Cade looked up and saw the doctor point at the pilot screen. Three giant missiles sprouted from the ocean. They zoomed upward toward orbital space.

  “Must be Rhune missiles,” Halifax said.

  Cade put his face against the sensor scope, adjusted dials and got a close-up of one. “Different configuration than anything I’ve seen so far,” he said. “I think—three-stage rockets.�
�

  “What does that mean?”

  “Like you said, they’re heading for orbital space. And this is more of Uldin’s surprises.”

  “Hope Tarvoke understands that and adjusts,” Halifax said.

  The free trader must have, for in low-Coad orbit, two thousand kilometers above the climbing Jinse Tao, three trios of strikers maneuvered into attack position. They launched missiles, with empty missile-pods detaching from each teardrop-shaped vessel afterward. The missile-flock sped down. At the same time, several saucer-shaped vessels disgorged programmed rocks—the tiny meteors. The rocks also dropped at the Jinse Tao, gaining velocity as they plummeted.

  The Rhune starship continued to climb, mainly using its gravity dampeners to do so. Guns blazed away on the already-stricken starship. Exploding shells took out striker missiles. Laser lines eliminated the rest and burned the smart rocks. Another round of Jinse Tao shells blew the rocks apart, rendering them harmless as the pieces scattered and plummeted elsewhere.

  In low orbit, more striker trios maneuvered high over the climbing starship.

  By now, however, the three giant missiles accelerated at a fantastic rate through the planet’s atmosphere. On each of them, a bottom stage detached and fell away. A new motor roared on each, gaining yet more velocity as the missiles neared the edge of orbital space.

  Whoever ran Tarvoke’s end of things must have gotten frightened. The strikers quit targeting the Rhune starship so they could concentrate on the giant missiles.

  A counter-rocket launched from a saucer reached one of the climbing Rhune missiles. The giant, ocean-launched missile exploded, its pieces raining back down toward the distant planetary surface.

  The second Rhune missile shrugged off various assaults and reached low orbital space. The warhead split into masses of slivers. The slivers sped at numerous striker groups and saucers. It was a race. The strikers and saucers fled or concentrated on the slivers. Several slivers shredded under a hail of gunfire. Other slivers reached striker trios and bloomed into small nuclear fireballs, taking out the pesky space fighters and saucers.

  “Score one for the bad guys,” Cade muttered.

  He watched the last giant missile, which had slowest its ascent at the last moment. It was almost as if the missile had wanted to know how its brothers had fared before it committed itself. What the heck? Is it a dud? Not all weapons worked during combat. That was normal. But there was something premeditated about this failure.

  Keep watching. You might learn something.

  The last warhead did not burst into splinters. It ejected from what was left of the last stage. Then it began to tumble end over end. The warhead, more of a great pod really, wobbled and rolled toward deeper space. At that point, side jets began to steady it, stopping the tumbling and wobbling.

  That’s not suspicious in the least—yeah, right.

  The warhead pod didn’t change direction but kept heading out. It was an apparent dud, useless to the orbital battle. The last strikers and saucers didn’t even bother with it. Could Uldin have calculated for that? That seemed incredible, beyond statistical game theory or even Rhune genius.

  “What should we do now?” Halifax shouted. “I’ve been hanging back, waiting for an opportunity. But there isn’t one. The Rhune vessel is still climbing, thinning out the strikers, firing at everything. Maybe we should go around to the other side of the planet and try to leave from that direction.”

  “No,” Cade said, as he peered through the sensor scope, still watching the dud warhead. “I made a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  One I plan to keep despite everything. “We can’t leave that way because the Eagle-Duke railguns might have survived in greater numbers on the other side of the planet. I think it’s time.”

  “What’s that mean?” Halifax shouted. “Time for what, exactly?”

  “To keep my end of the bargain,” Cade said. “Listen. We have to go up after the Jinse Tao. Maybe we can hit it from the bottom as the last strikers hit it from the top.”

  “What?” Halifax shouted. “Are you crazy? If we attack the Rhune vessel now, it will destroy us.”

  “I was hired to destroy it,” Cade said.

  “Who in the hell hired you?”

  “It’s a long story,” Cade said. “But I gave my word.” I have to keep my word once given, right? An oath is an oath even if given to a diabolical, backstabbing Purple Nagan ka.

  “Look, Cade, we’re lucky to be here alive in one piece. The Rhunes—”

  “Are eventually heading for our space-time continuum,” the soldier said. “There’s another thing. Uldin has to capture us if he hopes to make it to our universe.”

  “I know, I know,” Halifax said. “It’s disgusting, but they have some kind of device that uses our bodies, detecting a background radiation pattern, I think. It will help them fix onto the right space-time continuum or to pick the right vortex to get them there.”

  “Yet another reason we should strike at the starship while it’s in battle,” Cade said.

  “Ah…no,” Halifax said. “It’s raining freaking meteors and missiles. We don’t want to get in the way, especially while trapped deep in a gravity well. This is Tarvoke’s moment. Let him get the glory if he wants it.”

  Cade frowned. Halifax has a point. Still, I gave my word.

  “Check this out,” Halifax said. “The strikers are gathering in one spot up there. I think Tarvoke took the enemy’s measure and now he means business.”

  The ka just double-crossed me, tried to possess me. That nullifies the conditions to my oath. Besides, I gave an oath to Raina. It’s time for some old-fashioned practicality.

  Cade recalibrated the sensor scope so he could watch the strikers. Halifax was right. The remaining strikers were converging over the rising starship. The strikers unleashed a hail of missiles. Afterward, the strikers themselves aimed down and followed in what looked like a kamikaze attack. Were the pilots going to ram the starship?

  The Jinse Tao blazed away with its auto-guns, launching counter-rockets as well.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Halifax said. He turned the Descartes sharply, heading for a different area of the planet.

  I could counter-order him, but it is his ship, right? Cade made a sour face, realizing that he was spouting self-justification.

  A few of the Jinse Tao-launched missiles ignited. Nuclear fireballs devoured the faster striker-missiles. That also created a sensor whiteout. Cade couldn’t see what was happening. It was likely the same for other sensor operators as well. As the whiteout dissipated, a striker missile passed the starship’s auto-defenses and detonated against the hull, creating the third and greatest breach.

  That seemed to be a signal. A fast striker slammed against the mighty starship. Two others did the same. At that instant, a huge and volcanic eruption of nuclear intensity obliterated the Rhune vessel and every striker that had zoomed down in a kamikaze attack.

  “Damn,” Halifax whispered. “Tarvoke did it. He destroyed the Rhune starship. What do we do now?”

  Cade was too busy recalibrating the sensor scope to answer. No way, I don’t buy that that’s it, not against Magister Uldin. Could the starship have been a decoy? If it was a decoy, what is the real thing?

  Cade found and focused on the dud warhead, the one that had been tumbling away from the planet. Wait a minute. It wasn’t tumbling before. The side-jets had corrected for that. Why’s it tumbling again? Cade’s gut tightened. He felt as if his eyes would pop out of their sockets, he was staring through the sensor scope so hard. The capsule tumbled, rotated—and showed an empty shell.

  Cade sat back, blinking. The dud held a tiny spaceship, didn’t it? Hot damn, Uldin is out there, pulling a fast one on everyone. He knew it was impossible to leave and sacrificed his fellow Rhunes to cover his escape.

  Putting his face against the rubber lining of the scope, Cade scanned near space. He found no evidence of a secret spaceship. He saw—he fiddled with t
he controls. For just a moment, there was wavering up there. That ceased within seconds. He made another sensor sweep but couldn’t find the wavering a second time.

  “What should we do?” Halifax asked.

  Cade snapped upright. We have to get out of here before the next shoe drops. “Doctor,” he said loudly. “Climb, climb, climb.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t waste any more time,” Cade said. “Get into space before it’s too late.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The ex-Concord Scout Descartes used its gravity dampeners and thrusters to climb out of the Coad gravity well. It did so well away from the spreading radiation of the destroyed Jinse Tao. The massive nuclear detonation created by the exploding Rhune starship seemed to have upset Tarvoke’s remaining low-orbital strikers. There were no more saucers. Perhaps EMP, heat and heavy gamma and X-ray radiation had wiped out all but a few of the free trader’s space fleet.

  Using that window, the Descartes reached low-orbital space before any of Tarvoke’s remaining strikers noticed. At that point, the scout poured it on, seeking to gain velocity before anyone else noticed. They wanted to be far away from the planet by that time.

  Less than three minutes later, the green comm light began to blink.

  “I’ll take that,” Cade said, moving to the comm station, clicking a switch.

  Graven Tarvoke’s fleshy features and nearly fat-enfolded eyes regarded him. The captain wore his silky multicolored turban with its great red ruby.

  “Going so soon?” Tarvoke asked with a leer.

  Cade checked a setting, realizing the signal came from deep space far ahead of the Descartes. The Free Trader Cyprian had stayed well away from the action and could maneuver into their path easily enough. They weren’t out of it yet.

  “You won,” Cade said cheerfully.

  “I destroyed the Rhune starship, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yes,” Cade said. “That’s what ‘won’ means.”

  “I beg to differ,” Tarvoke said. “My victory conditions are otherwise. For instance, I need an Intersplit engine. It would appear that you have the only one left.”