The Soldier: Escape Vector Page 28

  His neck itched and he looked around. It seemed that someone spied on him from around a corridor corner.

  “Who is it?” he called in the dream.

  There was a giggle, a feminine sound, and someone darted away from the edge over there.

  “No you don’t,” he shouted. Cade ran after her, and it seemed that his feet would not move fast enough to propel him forward, so he ran in place.

  “Who are you?” he shouted. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Marcus,” a different woman said.

  He stopped running, and he spied Velia De Lore with her zipper all the way down. He stared in wonder at her glorious breasts. In the dream, he was grinning widely indeed.

  “Take me,” Velia said, as she sauntered toward him.

  “I…” Cade nodded. He wanted to take her. He could— “No!” he shouted. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  Velia dissolved.

  Cade found that his feet finally moved again. He gave chase down the corridor, knowing that he ran after Raina, beautiful Raina, his wife, his prize, his beloved.

  He darted through one corridor after another. Ah! He caught a glimpse of her. She wore red slacks, his favorite. “Raina!” he shouted. “Stop! Wait for me.”

  “Catch me if you can,” Raina teased. “Can you do it, darling?”

  Cade roared, and he truly began to run. He rounded a corner and saw Raina as she raced away. He was grinning now. “I’m going to catch you.” He sprinted faster, closing the distance between them, closing.

  Raina squealed with glee and she began to turn her head—

  Cade’s head snapped up in his quarters aboard the Descartes as he lay on the cot. His eyes were unfocused, questioning. With sudden realization, he understood that he’d almost seen Raina face-to-face in his dream. He would have kissed his wife, held her, hugged her—

  A bitter sense of having been cheated swept through him. The ache of loneliness—oh, how he missed his dear wife. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath—

  I must find Raina. She’s out there. I can’t let anything stop me. I have to get rid of Velia De Lore. If I can escape the pocket universe, I have to leave her at the first planet I can.

  Cade swung his legs off the cot, putting his bare feet on the floor. He opened his eyes, nodding to himself. With a grunt, he stood.

  He hadn’t slept long, only a power nap. He felt better, and he knew they weren’t out of it yet by a long shot. There was Tarvoke, the cyborg mobile base, the Tarvoke double just outside the pocket universe, the vortexes—

  “And the stealth ship,” Cade whispered. “I have to find the stealth ship. I can’t give Uldin any edge.”

  The soldier rummaged in a bureau drawer, finding and putting on a fresh pair of socks. Then he donned his boots and almost left the chamber. He went to a wall speaker instead and pressed it.

  “Problem?” Halifax asked.

  “Is she done in there?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell me when she is,” Cade said.

  “You mean after she’s gone?” Halifax asked softly.

  “Yes,” Cade said. “That will work.”

  ***

  The soldier entered the piloting chamber after Velia had finished with the Nion XT and left the room.

  “The Cyprian is still accelerating,” Halifax said from the piloting board.

  “Is it heading for Coad?” Cade asked.

  “Yep.”

  “And us?”

  “We’re leaving by a much different route,” Halifax said. “We don’t want our paths to cross.”

  “Good thinking,” Cade said, heading to the sensor scope. He sat and studied the huge, boxlike Cyprian. He mentally cataloged the Descartes’ armaments and tried to think of ways they could successfully attack the mighty vessel. He didn’t see one except for a kamikaze strike. But what would be the point of that? At last, he leaned back, rubbing his neck.

  “Kind of freaky when you think about it,” Halifax said.

  Cade raised an eyebrow.

  “A few hours ago, we were on Coad, trapped in the Rhune base. Now, we’re up in space again. We only have one real enemy, one possible threat left, I should say.”

  “You’re talking about the Cyprian?”

  “Of course,” Halifax said. “There could be a stealth ship, but we haven’t confirmed its existence yet.”

  Cade pinched his lower lip, thinking about all that had happened. “The Jinse Tao exploded. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “None of us were.”

  “I wonder…could Uldin have foreseen the incident?”

  Halifax smirked. “That isn’t your real question.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Halifax said. “The real question is: did Uldin want that to happen?”

  “Why would he want that?”

  “For the most obvious reason: to rid Rhune society of the dreaded virus.”

  Cade frowned as he considered the idea. “You mean Uldin secretly knew that some of the surviving Rhunes carried the virus? Thus, he engineered their elimination?” Cade shook his head. “I don’t buy that. Uldin would want to leave Coad and the pocket universe as a conqueror, not sneak away like a frightened mouse. Besides, can Uldin start over in a new space-time continuum with so few Rhunes?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Halifax said. “In essence, they turn people into magical cyborgs by stuffing them with special machines. All Uldin needs is the tiniest kernel. That could mean two or three Rhunes and the schematics to building such a convertor. Once he has such a machine, he could begin converting people into Rhunes.”

  “That’s how cyborgs do it,” Cade said. “It seemed different with Rhunes, special surgeries and such.”

  “Making a Rhune is likely more difficult than creating an ordinary cyborg. You might have a point about that. And I’d imagine utilizing the internal energies to levitate, fire rays from their fingers and use more of their brain takes a different kind of machine than ordinary cyborgs use. The very fact the Rhunes labored so hard and for so long, and created a virus in the meantime—”

  “The Purple Nagan ka told me it caused the virus,” Cade said.

  “Oh,” Halifax said. “That’s interesting. Still, it doesn’t change the main point. Could Uldin cause our space-time continuum real harm with say, four or five Rhunes? I think yes, but not in our remaining lifetimes.”

  “Because it would take him time to start mass production of Rhunes?”

  “Exactly,” Halifax said.

  Cade nodded thoughtfully.

  “So really,” Halifax said, “why should we care?”

  Cade’s features hardened. “No. We stop Uldin from leaving this place.”

  “At the price of killing ourselves?”

  Cade thought about that. “I don’t know about that,” he said at last.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s straighten out our priorities here and now,” Halifax said. “Our survival is everything.”

  “That’s mostly right.”

  “No, not mostly—”

  “Doctor,” Cade said, interrupting. “I don’t want to argue hypotheticals. We still have too much on our plate to worry about what might happen. Our first priority is to see if we can convince Tarvoke to leave us alone. He’s heading for Coad. We’re leaving. I don’t know how many Raptor missiles he has—”

  “You think he’ll launch at us?” Halifax asked.

  “We have to be prepared for the possibility. So far, so good. But the more separation we have from him, the better.”

  “I agree with that,” Halifax said. “What I’m wondering is why won’t he launch once he has the secret stash.”

  “I don’t know. I suppose we’re rolling the dice, depending on his character.”

  “That’s bad odds, if you ask me.”

  Cade snorted. “Dr. Halifax, we have the game we have. Wishing isn’t going to help us. So let’s lengthen whatever odds we do have. That means more acceleration while I continue to st
udy his vessel, looking for some kind of weakness we can use.”

  “Yeah,” Halifax said. “I hope to hell we can get some kind of advantage.”

  “Right,” Cade said, with his face pressed against the scope. “I’m on it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The hours slipped away as the Descartes built velocity, speeding farther away from the lone star of the pocket universe. At the same time, the huge boxlike Cyprian neared Coad. Nearly four hours after the conversation with Tarvoke, the free trader rotated so its thrusters were aimed at the planet. It began its deceleration, slowing its velocity.

  More time passed.

  “This is maddening,” Halifax said from his spot at the piloting station. “I hate the waiting.”

  Cade shrugged.

  “The waiting doesn’t bother you?” Halifax asked.

  “I didn’t say that. We can’t do anything about it, so why fret over it?”

  “Because that’s how I’m wired,” Halifax snapped.

  “Wrong. The hard wiring, as you put it, resides here.” The soldier tapped his forehead. “As a man thinks, so is he.”

  “Yeah?” asked Halifax. “I think I’m a god.” He snapped his fingers and looked around in fake bewilderment. “Hey, guess what? My godlike powers didn’t work. We’re still in the pocket universe.”

  “That’s because you don’t really believe you’re a god.”

  “What?” Halifax shouted. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I’ll tell you—what?”

  “I’m kidding you,” Cade said. “The saying works to a point. We’re still bound by reality. However, as a saying or proverb, it holds truth. I think of myself as a hunter. That means I have patience. That means I do not let the waiting bother me, as it’s part of the game. If you want to play the game, be in the hunt…you have to endure the waiting.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “And our conversation has just turned boring,” Cade said. He put his face to the sensor scope and started studying the Cyprian again.

  The free trader’s exhaust lengthened as the mighty ship slowed, and then slowed even more. Finally, the exhaust shrank. Soon, the Cyprian inched into Coad orbit, finally parking above the planet. From this distance and through the scope, Cade witnessed several shuttles leaving the free trader and beginning their descent down to the planet.

  The minutes grew, becoming an hour, two and finally three. During that time, Cade pulled out a chess set and the doctor and he played two drawn-out games. Halifax won both in the end.

  “You’re too predictable,” Halifax told Cade.

  The soldier waved his hand, stood and began to pace.

  “What’s wrong?” Halifax asked, as he put away the set.

  “Nothing,” Cade said.

  “You don’t like losing to me?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “Didn’t think I could beat you?”

  “I did not,” Cade said.

  “Well, that just goes to prove—”

  “Shut up for a second,” Cade said, plopping down at the comm board. A full seven hours after the talk with Tarvoke, the green hailing light was blinking.

  Cade took a breath and engaged the screen. It took a moment as it wavered and then the slightly sweaty face of Tarvoke appeared. The connection wasn’t as good as last time. Did that meant the captain was still on the planet?

  “There’s going to be a slight delay between our transmissions,” Tarvoke said in an alerted voice. His sweaty features broke out into a huge grin. “Congratulations. The woman knew what she was talking about. We found the hidden base, a few oddities there along with schematics to an Intersplit engine. The last appears to be new information, which would indicate that Uldin had just learned about it. My chief engineer assures me that we can produce such an engine aboard the Cyprian.” The captain paused before he said, “I’ve debated with myself concerning you people. One part of me wants to launch a few Raptor missiles. Another part wonders if that might cause unneeded complications. The mobile base at Sarus might react to such launches. Thus, I’m disinclined to destroy you that way. Then—oh, hell, I’ve decided to let you live. If you can escape the pocket universe, you can escape. Once I’m ready with my own Intersplit, I’ll take my chances outside the system. What I mean is that I’ll enter a vortex and hope for the best.”

  A sense of relief flooded through Cade, although he hid that from his features, merely nodding. “Good luck with your endeavors, Captain.”

  Tarvoke stared at him, maybe waiting in case he said more. Finally, the captain stirred as he frowned. “I’m quite curious. How did the woman know about the secret cache?”

  “Do you really want to know?” Cade asked.

  Again, there was a delay, as the Descartes was farther from Coad than the Cyprian had been when they’d first communicated seven hours ago.

  “That’s a stupid question,” Tarvoke said, “as I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. Look. I’ve heard rumors before about the creators of the pocket universe. They left artifacts behind, strange objects with personalities, if the rumors are true. Have any of your people been acting strangely lately?”

  “In what way?” Cade asked.

  “If you’re afraid to say, just tell me.”

  “Captain, I’m happy to have pulled this off, at least so far, anyway. I’m more worried about the cyborg mobile base and your double at the edge of the system than any so-called artifacts with personalities.”

  “There could be another problem you’re overlooking,” Tarvoke said.

  “Oh?”

  “I found the shell of a giant Rhune missile. The missile malfunctioned and went off course during the battle—or seemed to. The inside of the shell was empty, and it showed the markings of a launch.”

  “Do you mean it might have launched a small stealth vessel from inside itself?” asked Cade.

  Tarvoke’s eyes narrowed. “So you already know about it, huh?”

  Cade nodded.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I’m not sure I was,” Cade said. “I think the stealth ship is lurking out there, and perhaps is going to trail us all the way to the vortexes.”

  Tarvoke stared at him for several seconds. “Do you know why?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Not necessarily,” Cade said.

  Tarvoke fingered his chin. “You must be worried I’ll launch some Raptor 5000s at you if I know what’s going on.”

  “That could be it.”

  Tarvoke smirked. “I guess you’ve figured out the real reason I’m not going to launch at your ship. Since your woman was correct about the secret base, I’m guessing she’s correct about the destruct codes. I’ve cleared the goods out of the base already, so I’m no longer concerned about that. It’s what she hasn’t told me yet that has me—I’m not worried. It has made me pause, though, and reconsider.”

  “She’s not my woman,” Cade said stiffly.

  It took several moments before Tarvoke laughed, and said, “Oh no, of course not. That doesn’t mean you can’t be screwing her to your heart’s content. Live today, for tomorrow you die.”

  Cade opened his mouth to retort.

  “Ease up a little, Cade,” Halifax hissed from the piloting board.

  The soldier glanced at a worried-looking doctor before regarding Tarvoke. He forced a smile. “Your philosophy is too cheery for me, Captain.”

  Tarvoke smiled, nodding. “We beat the Rhunes, Cade, or almost all of them, anyway. After all this time, it’s hard for the reality of my victory to soak in. I’m finally going to get to go home again. It’s a strange feeling.”

  Cade wondered what was really keeping Tarvoke from launching at them.

  “The mobile base shouldn’t threaten you if you take a few precautions,” Tarvoke said. “And I can send a message to my double that will convince him to leave you alone.”

  “I app
reciate the offer, but I’ll be at the system edge far ahead of any message you can send.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Tarvoke said. “But I don’t need to send the message if you don’t want me to. Listen, Cade, I’ll give you some free advice. My double is a madman. Uldin formed him in a Rhune man-maker, which is—was—similar to an Eagle-Duke man-maker, but with a few oddities. I’m not going to go into details about that. The point is that my double has been living out there alone for far too long. I’m going to leave the star system from a different area from him. He’ll send missiles at me, of course. But I’ll have plenty of counter-rockets for that. I’m not sure you’ll have enough counters to ward off his attacks—if he decides to launch against you.”

  Cade shrugged, although the knowledge made him uneasy. The Descartes had won past the madman before. Could it do it again? As the old saying went, “The proof is in the pudding.”

  “Well,” Tarvoke said. “I suppose I’ll never see you again. So…good luck to you, Cade.”

  “Thanks. I wish the same to you, Captain.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A day passed and Cade began to feel as if Tarvoke really meant letting them go without a missile launch.

  During that time, the Descartes built up velocity. Halifax had taken a wide detour from Sarus, trying to put as much separation between them as he could, and still leave the star system quickly. The scout hadn’t gone in the opposite direction from Sarus, as they had entered the star system on this side. But the ship was farther from the gas giant than when they’d first passed it.

  Cade spent several hours at the sensor station, examining the gas giant and the mobile base when it swung around its orbital path. Particles trickled from the hull rupture. The soldier took his time, trying to guess the breach’s size. It was several kilometers wide, he finally decided. What could punch such a huge hole into the hull armor? A nuclear detonation could, of course, but it should have done even more damage than that. A large meteor would do the trick. Again, such a meteor strike should have done more damage to the mobile base as it smashed through.