The Soldier: Escape Vector Read online

  SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  THE SOLDIER SERIES:

  The X-Ship

  Escape Vector

  THE A.I. SERIES:

  A.I. Destroyer

  The A.I. Gene

  A.I. Assault

  A.I. Battle Station

  A.I. Battle Fleet

  A.I. Void Ship

  A.I. Rescue

  A.I. Armada

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  The Lost Artifact

  The Lost Star Gate

  The Lost Supernova

  The Lost Swarm

  The Lost Intelligence

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  The Soldier:

  Escape Vector

  (The Soldier #2)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2020 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  Prologue

  Aboard the battered ex-Concord Patrol Scout Descartes, a hatch began to slide open until it stalled, freezing in place. From the other side, someone muttered under his breath. Then, powerful fingers latched against the side of the hatch. There was a grunt and the squeal of metal as the hatch opened another few centimeters.

  Centurion-Grade Ultra Marcus Cade squeezed through into his tiny quarters. He wore gray spaceman’s garb, including boots and a thin jacket. Cade had brush-cut hair, blue eyes and exuded power. He should, as he was a genetic super-soldier with dense bones, stronger than ordinary muscles and accelerated nerves, designed over a thousand years ago to battle cyborg troopers and win.

  That was the rub, though—a thousand years ago. Everything he knew was dust and ashes: the gleaming Federation, Battle Unit 175—his brothers-in-arms—and his wife, his wife, dammit! He’d defeated all the other contenders in the Game to mount the platform and claim his wonderful bride Raina as his trophy. He’d loved Raina, made an everlasting oath to her and, the last time he’d seen her, had boarded a sleeper ship with her to go on vacation. He should have woken up to the most enjoyable time in his harsh existence.

  Instead of waking up to joy, he’d found himself on an operating table a thousand years in the future. The miserable spymasters of a diminished Earth—too impoverished to build starships but with enough money for assassins and spies—had implanted an ancient cyborg obedience chip into his brain, making him their killer pasty. He’d won free from the chip to find himself alone in a dismal future almost nine hundred light-years from Earth.

  Everything he knew, understood and loved had vanished.

  One desperate hope drove him. He’d survived the sleeper ship in a stasis tube. Might his wife and others from Battle Unit 175 still be in stasis on Earth, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Intelligence Agency? He meant to find out and free them, saving the only people that mattered to him, as he was sick of being alone, sick of not having those around him who cared about and knew him.

  That meant one more test of his skills. This future time to him was the same as being behind enemy lines, doing what he must in order to make it home again. Home was his wife and surviving friends from Battle Unit 175.

  Cade scowled at the half-frozen hatch to his quarters, as it was yet another electrical malfunction on this bucket of a ship. There had been other malfunctions the past few weeks. Dr. Halifax—his former mercenary case officer for Earth Intelligence—said the wiring was degrading and needed an overhaul or replacement.

  Thinking about it, Cade sat on the side of his perfectly made cot and opened the drawer of his nightstand. He took out a loaded WAK .55 Magnum revolver, setting it on top of the stand. Then, he picked up a wad of Concord Universal Credit Notes—cash in this part of the Orion Arm. He leaned over and stared into the drawer, using a finger to move trinkets and pieces of paper, but found no more credit notes.

  Cade stared at the wad of bills in his hand. In the past, Ultra Command had provided him with the tools of his trade and a salary, and he did his duty. Now, he had to come up with money and resources himself. It was such a different way to think, to operate, and made him uneasy.

  I’m behind enemy lines. That means using whatever I can to get it done.

  Right. Get it done. The wad of notes was smaller than he remembered. Halifax had spent some at the last refueling stop. Had it really taken so much? Or had slippery Halifax wasted—or stolen—the money the moment he had the chance?

  No. That wasn’t the point. He had what he had.

  Cade removed the rubber band and divided the bills into denomination piles. He had seven 500-credit notes, two 100s, thirteen 50s and the remainder divided between 20s and 10s.

  Where had all the cash gone?

  This was all that remained from what Cade had collected—removed—from Roguskhoi Metals Headquarters on Durdane II. The installation had been on the Twelfth Floor of the Octagon Tower in the city of Garwiy. It had been a front for Earth Intelligence, a Group Six station, and thus quite targetable in Cade’s estimation. He’d made the doctor see the light about that.

  Halifax and he had been traveling steadily through space since leaving the Durdane System, with the FTL Intersplit engine operational again. They were headed for Earth, of course. It made Cade antsy to think his wife was still over seven hundred light-years away.

  He concentrated on the Concord Universal Credit Notes, considering recounting them. Nah. What was the point? They were low on cash, on any kind of funds.

  The trouble was that the scout had never been designed for sustained travel. A Patrol mothership would launch a squadron of scouts, and they would fan out and soon return with intelligence. The scout’s Intersplit engine was designed for several light-years of travel, not hundreds at a time. The Descartes needed refueling and a routine overhaul, to say nothing about the electrical rewiring.

  As Cade sat on his cot, he raised his head and stretched his back. He stood and cracked his battle-scarred knuckles.

  Behind enemy lines. Whatever it takes.

  He had one item he might sell: the Gyroc rifle and shells that had been so instrumental in his defeating an ancient Web-Mind on Avalon IV. Dr. Halifax said he knew a collector who would likely pay a pretty amount for the Gyroc and shells. Tarragon Down was an arms dealer living in the Sestos System, which was on their way.

  Cade’s nostrils flared. Could he sell the Gyroc, a piece of his past? Damn straight, he could. Freeing his brothers-in-arms and wife was all that mattered.

  “Raina,” he whispered. “I’m coming, babe. That’s a promise.”

  Chapter One

  Tarragon Down the arms dealer and manufacturer from Sestos III was a huge brutish man with gray skin, black eyes and red-dyed hair, artistically shaved on the sides and long on the top so the hair hung down onto the left side of his face. He wore an expensive black suit and slacks and was known as ruthless, hyper-intelligent and an amateur collector of alien curios from across the galaxy.

  Today, he walked through a half-derelict torchship with two synthetically enhanced bodyguards trailing him. They wore synthi-leather jackets and kept their hands near holstered automatics, their attention taking in occasional spark
s or prolonged sizzles from various pieces of equipment or dangling wires. Tarragon ignored the obvious disrepair and crushed used drink cartons and old frozen dinner dishes lying on the deck with his heavy shoes as he walked through the narrow ship passageways.

  The man ahead of the trio—a thin asteroid miner with missing teeth and the vague stare of an iridix addict—kept up a constant blather regarding the exciting alien find in his cargo hold.

  Despite Tarragon’s presence on the orbiting torchship, he didn’t trust the miner. There was something weird, something eerie about the man and his dirty garments. The miner stank from too few showers and other unhygienic choices. Even so, it wasn’t that the asteroid miner was hooked on iridix. Many of life’s losers were. No. It was something else; maybe the hypnotic stare in the eyes that suggested the miner had seen what? Marvels, horrors, psychological evils?

  The shallow faced miner turned to him, smiling, showing the gaps among his remaining yellowed teeth. The man had brown staring eyes and—

  Tarragon frowned, his left hand flexing as he debated with himself about drawing a shock rod and applying it liberally to the wretch.

  There was a sinister glitter in the miner’s eyes that made Tarragon feel that he was meant to be the victim of some twisted joke.

  If shock rodding the fool didn’t help, Tarragon would beat the miner senseless until his mushed brains leaked through his ears. Did this skeletal loser think he could trick the most intelligent man on Sestos III? Why, Tarragon had politicians and police chiefs on the take, men and women in high places who danced to his tune.

  Tarragon thrust his left hand under the flap of his suit jacket, the thick fingers curling around the rod’s handle and thumb switch.

  “Just a little farther,” the asteroid miner said in an annoying whine. “You’ll see what I mean, then, sir. You’ll definitely want to buy it. I assure you, I most assuredly assure you.”

  Tarragon hesitated. Had he read the fool wrong? Maybe he saw desperation in the eyes, a deep but hidden understanding that he—the miner—was on the edge of losing what remained of his sanity and this was his last chance to save it.

  Tarragon grunted, releasing his hold of the rod. For the miner’s own sake, the iridix-sniffing loser had better be right about the curio. Tarragon felt soiled walking through this derelict heap of a ship. The man had not only forgotten how to fix equipment, but to clean up his messes. Just how long had the wretch been alone in deep space, anyway?

  The grimy miner stepped before a sealed hatch. He tapped it with a dirty fingernail as craftiness twisted across his skeletal features. “Are you sure you want either of them to see this, sir?”

  “What’s that?” Tarragon snapped.

  The miner pointed at the two bodyguards.

  Without turning around to eye his bruisers, Tarragon said, “Open up, already. I’m in a hurry.” He also wanted to get off this pigsty of a vessel.

  The miner hunched his head, flinching as he nodded. “I understand. I do, I do. But I assure you, sir, you won’t be in a hurry after you see this.”

  Tarragon’s gaze narrowed in annoyance.

  The miner grinned pathetically, hunching like a mongrel fearing a beating.

  Tarragon almost struck him on principle. What was the wretch up to, anyway?

  The grinning fool of a miner faced the door, using his free hand to cover the fingers tapping in the hatch’s code. The heavy door clicked. The man pulled, barely opening it and slipping through into darkness, disappearing from view.

  Tarragon frowned in alarm. Was this an assassination attempt? Did the miner work for a secret Intelligence agency? He knew about Group Six on Earth, having taken several assignments from contact officers such as Dr. Halifax.

  A light clicked on in the compartment.

  “Don’t you want to see it?” the miner asked from within the compartment.

  Tarragon raised an eyebrow and yanked on the handle, opening the hatch further. It revealed a small empty compartment—not a cargo hold—and with yet more litter on the deck. There was a long low shelf built against the back bulkhead. The miner snatched the lone item there, a thing that shimmered. He held it against his chest as if it was a beloved treasure, also hiding it from Tarragon’s view.

  The momentary shimmer—

  Tarragon felt as if an electric pulse had leapt to his eyes. His head jerked, and he clicked his teeth together. The pulse seemed to travel along his optical nerves to his brain. Disorientation struck, and he blinked repeatedly. He massaged his eyes, groaned, and his heart hammered in his chest. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. He shivered and felt as if a snake crawled up his back to curl around his neck. Suspicion struck him, struck him hard.

  He glanced back at the two bodyguards.

  They were synthetically strong and dangerously fast, with steel-reinforced bones and electrically speeded reflexes. They eyed their massive boss, each stepping back as if in alarm.

  “Wait here,” Tarragon said. He stepped past the hatch into the compartment and closed the heavy steel door.

  The scrawny asteroid miner turned with an evil grin and an eviler light shining against his narrow features. The light came from the fist-sized object he held with both hands against his chest. Perhaps as bad, his brown eyes burned with an ancient lust, one, it seemed, willing to do anything to gain its desired end.

  The feeling of tightness around Tarragon’s neck increased. The massive arms dealer hunched his blubbery shoulders as if he would lunge and attack the wretch in order to save his life.

  “Look,” the miner crooned. With both hands, he fingered a fist-sized globe of glass or crystal. In the globe shone hundreds of tiny stars and swirls of galactic nebulae.

  Tarragon’s shoulders lowered to their usual position and he began breathing normally. The stars in the globe, they twinkled strangely, fixing his vision. The swirling nebulae, they held secrets: potent, wonderful and lovely mysteries.

  “Hold it out,” Tarragon whispered. “I can hardly see it.”

  The miner’s dirty fingers clutched the globe even tighter than before as he turned away from the arms dealer.

  “Is it for sale or not?” Tarragon asked thickly.

  The miner glanced back at him over a shoulder. He licked his lips, an obscene gesture somehow. “I’ve—I’ve changed my mind,” he said quickly. “I-I thought I needed to repair the ship. But the cost is too high, much too high. Don’t you see? I no longer want to sell. To hell with the ship!” he shouted.

  Tarragon squeezed his eyes closed. The desire to see the artificial stars and nebulae again—to understand the wonderful secrets they wished to impart—

  “I’m already here,” Tarragon said in a hoarse voice, as he opened his eyes. “Let me take a look, you fool.”

  The miner was staring at what he held. It seemed to take an effort of will for him to tear his gaze from it and peer at Tarragon again over a shoulder. “It…it speaks to me. It whispers mysterious joys. It tells me ways to reach those joys.”

  That was too much for Tarragon. The urge for a look— “You fool. I said let me see.” Tarragon grabbed a shoulder, wrenching the miner around. He wrapped powerful fingers around a skinny arm, pulling.

  “No, no!” the miner shrieked, struggling to free himself. “Release me. I’ve changed my mind about selling. Let me go!”

  “It’s too late for that,” Tarragon snarled, ripping the miner’s arm back.

  That allowed the arms dealer a much better, fuller look at the stellar globe. The sight was intoxicating, and Tarragon could not say why. He could hear inarticulate, ghostly sounds—the globe whispered to him in an alien tongue. Still, he understood that it promised glorious secrets that would bring delights and power, great and wonderful power.

  “Give it to me,” Tarragon said, reaching for the globe.

  The miner slapped the powerful hand, finally tugging his triceps out of the arm dealer’s grasp.

  Tarragon snarled like a beast, his fleshy features twisting evilly. He reach
ed for the globe a second time.

  The miner shouted and repeatedly slapped at the meaty hand.

  Tarragon grunted, shoving until his fingers touched the smooth glass.

  The miner shrieked again, keeping hold of the globe with one hand and trying to pull his holstered, belted sidearm with the other.

  Tarragon perceived the move as a threat to his life—perhaps even an assassination attempt after all. Yes, the miner had lured him here and somehow stimulated his mind with this cosmic bauble in order to distract him. Tarragon wrenched the globe from the miner even as the miner drew his sidearm. Tarragon swung powerfully, hitting the miner on the forehead with the globe and knocking the man back. Tarragon didn’t give the scrawny wretch time to recover, but rushed him with his bulk while hitting the miner against the head again and again.

  Finally, Tarragon realized he was on his knees, having bashed the wretch’s skull into pulp, with brains dripping from his hands and sleeves. The fact startled him, and momentarily brought him back to his senses. He climbed to his feet and wiped his hands and sleeves as best he could and studied the corpse. He would leave the dead wretch here to rot.

  Slipping the bauble into a jacket pocket, thereby acquiring ownership of it—after all, having it in his possession was nine tenths of the law, as the saying went—he began plotting what he would do next.

  Chapter Two

  Tarragon Down stepped out of the sealed compartment, eying his two bodyguards.

  The two enhanced killers did not ask questions. They did not make a point of staring at his stained sleeves or bother to ask about the miner. They waited stoically, long ago having learned to appear disinterested in any oddities displayed by their boss.

  Likely, it saved their lives. Just as likely, they both knew it, as they must have heard the miner’s shrieks, at least.

  Tarragon flew the half-derelict torchship to one of his factories on the water moon Ember that orbited the gas giant Sestos V. There, he had a team strip the ship into pieces, sending the parts to various places, effectively erasing its existence. The miner’s corpse entered an incinerator, and that was the end of the matter for the dead man.