The Soldier: Escape Vector Read online

  “Did you spot any cities?”

  Cade shook his head.

  “Any industrialization?” asked Halifax.

  “Mountain strongholds,” Cade said. “I suspect the humans—the Eagle-Dukes—live there. From my scanning, this seems like a low-tech planet.”

  “Then why does Tarvoke fear them?”

  “Good question,” Cade said. “What did he say before? The Rhunes control Coad. Yes, I suspect some kind of aquatic or amphibious aliens. This would be the perfect planet for them.”

  “Does that mean the Rhunes are indigenous to Coad?”

  “I have no way of determining that.”

  “Interesting, interesting,” Halifax said. “Did the Rhunes build the pocket universe?”

  “It’s time to decelerate hard and slide into orbit. We can examine the surface better from orbit and possibly contact someone on the surface.”

  Halifax went to piloting. They buckled in, and the scout decelerated hard, the gravity dampeners working overtime. Soon, the ex-Patrol scout took up orbit around the water-lagoon planet.

  The comm board began blinking.

  Cade unstrapped and tapped the controls. He caught the tail end of a garbled message, perhaps in code. He frowned and manipulated the board, frowning more severely as he worked trying to decode it.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Halifax.

  “It appears the message originated from somewhere in the Asteroid Belt. I unscrambled some of it, but I don’t think it was meant for us. The tail end said: ‘Surrender immediately.’”

  “That sounds like Tarvoke. Why would he send that to Rhunes or Eagle-Dukes?”

  Cade was still frowning when he spun toward Halifax. “Quickly, Doctor, we must leave orbit.”

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “Tarvoke may have sent the message to implicate us, to make those on the surface believe we’re hostile to them.”

  As if to punctuate the point, red streaks rose from the surface, heading for the Descartes. At the piloting station, Halifax maneuvered the ship to avoid the streaks, but couldn’t shift the scout’s position fast enough. Particles struck them, smashing through the tail section, disintegrating part of the ship as the entire vessel buckled.

  “Mayday, mayday,” Halifax shouted. “I’m beginning an emergency crash landing. Hang on, Cade.”

  As hatches automatically closed everywhere inside and locked, as the entire craft shuddered, the crippled Descartes plunged toward the surface. Both men grabbed emergency breathers, strapping them around their faces.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was a hell ride through the upper atmosphere. Halifax flew the shaking, bucking, metallic-screeching vessel, the gravity dampeners straining so it became extremely hot inside the control cabin. It must have been much worse everywhere else aboard the stricken scout.

  Cade had time to wonder if they should have taken Tarvoke’s offer. It would have given them the possibility of getting back to their space-time continuum someday. Now, they’d be lucky to survive the next few minutes. Fortunately, no more red streaks rose up from the planet. Had the streaks been material or some kind of concentrated energy? Did it even matter anymore?

  They had one point in their favor: the Concord had made its Patrol vessels tough. Even without a tail section, the scout held together. The overheating gravity dampeners might have had something to do with their survival so far. Surely, some of the dampeners were burning out, but as they did, they slowed the craft’s descent just enough. Would all the dampeners be useless after this? Would the Intersplit engine melt into slag?

  After a grimly torturous, gut-twisting descent, the scout reached the lower atmosphere, still moving like a runaway sled. Through the polarized window, a vast green ocean spread out before them. The Descartes kept descending as it flew horizontally, bucking wildly.

  Cade turned to Halifax, shouting through his breather. It was certain the doctor did not hear him. Maybe the small man instinctively knew that the ship would not float on the ocean surface, but likely plunge to the bottom.

  The entire craft shook, rattled and tried to roll over. Halifax fought that masterfully. It might have been his greatest feat of piloting to date.

  Through the window, a brown smudge appeared in the green distance.

  Cade pointed at it.

  If Halifax saw, he gave no indication. The racing scout lowered abruptly. For a moment, they skimmed across the green sea, touching water. Around them, sea monsters surfaced to watch. They were huge creatures with long rubbery necks and gleaming rows of teeth.

  The scout lifted even as it shed bottom hull pieces.

  The brown smudge grew into low mountains surrounding a vast lagoon. The scout slowed to a degree, but not enough, not nearly enough, perhaps having taken too much damage. Luckily, the final energy of the gravity dampeners gave them just enough control to reach the lagoon and plow into a great kilometers-long mat of reeds. That jerked both men hard against their straps. Halifax’s collarbone snapped. He went white, blood seeped from his mouth and he slumped unconscious.

  In some ways, it was worse for Cade. The skimming, stone-like skipping, wild bouncing and then abrupt stopping tore the restraints from Cade’s seat. The polarized window had not survived, and that proved a minor miracle, as it allowed Cade to live a few minutes longer at least. He ejected from the scout like a missile, hurled free of the craft. He flew through the open space where the window had been and struck reeds, bouncing, hitting more reeds until he tumbled like a rag doll onto oozing mud.

  The flight across the reeds had knocked him unconscious. Luckily, he landed on his back. If he’d landed on his belly, his face might have sunk into the slimy mud and he’d suffocated to death. Instead, he lay battered and bruised, unconscious.

  The heated scout burned some of the wet reeds. The wrecked, halted spacecraft settled, pushing burning reeds into muddy water. Amazingly, only part of the ship flooded with lagoon water. The rest of the craft remained dry.

  Time passed, an hour, two.

  With no more smoke billowing from burning reeds, leathery winged creatures began circling the wreck. A few squawked upon seeing Cade lying on the mud. They were like evil little pterodactyls from Earth’s prehistory. Several flapped above him, circling lower and lower. The boldest screeched loudly, perhaps to test if he was still alive.

  Cade’s eyelids fluttered. Despite a pounding headache, he stared into a beer-colored sky with a hot sun shining down on him. He spied the little pterodactyls and groaned as he moved his arms and legs. The muscles barely responded to his will. They were sore from the beating they had taken. Yet Cade was a soldier. His comrade might be in danger. Grimacing, he sat up quietly.

  Cade saw the wrecked, crashed scout, a swath of burned reeds marking the vessel’s route over the great mat. He saw water lapping against hull metal and into open parts of the vessel. He had to rescue Halifax.

  Cade tried to stand, but that proved beyond him. He hurt so badly that he began checking himself for broken bones. Incredibly, there were none. Maybe he had muscle tears instead. He couldn’t tell at the moment. With a groan, he lay back on the mud, staring up at the sky.

  He shivered painfully, but he refused to despair. As long as he lived, he would fight. As long as he could fight, he could change things. That meant he would struggle to find his wife, no matter what kind of odds were arranged against him. Being stranded on an alien planet in a pocket universe far from his space-time continuum made it long odds. But what the hell, what else did he have to do?

  He might have passed out again. When he opened his eyes this time, the little leathery flapping creatures were gone. That seemed strange to him. If he’d been unconscious, they should have landed to tear into his flesh. They were obvious scavengers. Why had they left? There had to be a reason.

  Motion at the corner of his vision might hold the answer. Cade turned his head, focusing on the sky. That…looked like a dirigible, a rigid airship, sometimes known as a zeppelin. There was a l
arge wickerwork gondola hanging by ropes that attached to the skeleton frame, holding gasbags within. The dirigible drifted in the sky, with two giant propellers spinning lazily. The propellers were attached behind the gondola. Lines of white smoke drifted from the rear area. Was that a diesel engine chugging? It sounded like it might be. Perhaps just as interestingly, there was an extremely long rope attached to the gondola. That sagging rope trailed sideways to a rocky hill. Might that be an anchor rope?

  Cade squinted at the gondola. He thought to see tiny faces peering over the edge of the wickerwork construction. Were those men studying the crashed spaceship in the lagoon?

  Feebly, from his spot on the mud, Cade raised an arm, moving it back and forth. But they must not have seen him, as there was no reaction on their part.

  One of the people in the gondola leaned far out and waved frantically in the direction of the rocky hill and the end of the anchor rope. At the same time, a huge rudder at the back of the airship turned, and the two propellers began spinning faster. The diesel chugged harder than ever. Slowly, the airship started turning toward the hill. The sagging rope also began to tighten as if others at the end pulled. Ever so slowly, the airship began moving for the rocky hill.

  Cade watched, entranced and then in horror.

  A red streak in the sky raced for the giant airship. There were several red streaks following one after another, maybe tracer rounds. The red-hot rounds struck the airship, and that area ignited into flame. The flames caused an explosion, igniting the gasbags. They must be filled with hydrogen. Hydrogen was highly flammable. The explosion became a roar of fire. More red streaks riddled the gondola, masses of them, breaking parts of it. Men fell from the gondola as the fire roared hotter above them.

  Cade could feel heat on the mud.

  Two parachutes opened. Tracer rounds riddled the drifting men and the parachutes. Screaming, the men splashed into the sea. The parachutes crumpled, those corpses following the others into the green sea.

  The burning airship sank, following the jumping people. The rope fell as if someone at the hill had cut it from the anchor.

  I have to get out of here. I must hide.

  By heaving himself and groaning, Cade managed to turn onto his stomach and began crawling like a sick turtle across the mud. He crawled into reeds where the mud wasn’t as slick. As he crawled farther, he reached dry land with fewer reeds.

  He no longer saw the airship, gondola or people. He no longer heard the roaring fire or felt any extra heat. What he’d seen—it felt surreal.

  Trembling from exhaustion, Cade rolled onto his back, panting as sweat soaked his frame. He had no idea what to expect, biplanes perhaps. Instead, a great square raft, a floating raft, slid across the sky. He saw two more rafts following the first. They had chrome housings underneath. Perhaps those were gravity dampeners or lifters of some kind. The sky-rafts lowered toward the vast mat of lagoon reeds, maneuvering—

  Cade raised his head.

  The sky-rafts maneuvered over the wreck of the ex-Patrol scout.

  Cade licked his cracked lips.

  Dr. Halifax was still aboard the Descartes. At least, Cade believed that was true. The soldier could do nothing about it now. As if to punctuate the point, his muscles painfully spasmed. He wanted to rescue the doctor, but he simply could not do it.

  Cables lowered from the three sky-rafts. The ends of the cables attached magnetically to the scout. The sky-rafts rose, strained and the chrome under-housings whined. Then, a great sucking sound gave Cade the motivation to raise his head again. He saw the taut cables pull the scout out of the muddy lagoon. Water poured out of holes.

  The rafts began sliding through the sky, taking the swaying, creaking scout with them. They headed out over the open ocean.

  “No,” Cade whispered. Where were the sky-rafts taking Dr. Halifax and the scout? This was a second disaster. Did Rhunes fly the sky-rafts? Is this what Tarvoke had anticipated would happen? Why hadn’t the free trader spoken more openly then?

  Cade scowled.

  What had Tarvoke said before? The Rhunes ruled Coad. He ruled space. Tarvoke had also feared the Rhunes using the Intersplit to help them come into space—or so the captain had said, anyway.

  Tarvoke had indicated that he’d been on Coad before. That was interesting. The double—the Tarvoke outside the barrier—had implied the Eagle-Dukes preached about honor. Eagles lived in mountainous regions. That was why Cade had believed the strongholds he’d seen from orbit belonged to the Eagle-Dukes. It would seem Tarvoke had dealt with them before. Did that mean the Eagle-Dukes spoke the same language as the free trader?

  Despite his exhaustion, Cade kept crawling, trying to reach drier ground. Men had fallen from an airship-buoyed gondola. The sky-rafts had fired at the airship with red streaks, perhaps tracer rounds. Did that mean the owners of the red streaks that had attacked the orbital scout were the same beings?

  That seemed logical. Thus, it also seemed logical that he should try to reach the people who must have cut the anchor rope. Those in the gondola had fallen and surely died or drowned. They must have drowned on the other side of the rocky hills. What had happened to the people on the hill? Could some of them still be alive?

  If Cade was going to survive the planet, it might be easier if he could reach the Eagle-Dukes. As long as he lived, he had a chance of reversing his situation. He’d learned that long ago in The War. He’d been in many seemingly hopeless situations before and had come through in the end. Why not now?

  Because you lost your ship and are stranded in a pocket universe, you idiot. I know. I know. I failed miserably. But I’m going to win. He clenched his jaws. Raina, Raina, I’m coming for you, darling. I’ll do whatever it takes.

  Cade crawled painfully toward the base of the mountainous hill, refusing to quit. He crawled through sparser reeds, the motion lubricating his aching muscles and thus his mind. He was beat up, dispirited—he dug in a pants pocket, finding a tiny flattish packet. He pulled it out and tore the packet open with his teeth. There were two pills inside. He dry-swallowed them both. He seldom relied upon stimulants, but he always carried a few just in case for emergencies like on Ember.

  He waited for the stims to take effect. Using them would demand a toll on his body, but he figured now was the time to reach any people on the hill. Soon, feeling almost normal in a surreal kind of way, he climbed to his feet and looked around.

  The reeds, lagoon and then the ocean were behind him. Before him was the tall jagged hill, almost a mountain, with others behind it. There was lichen growing on rocks and patches of orange and red flower-like vegetation and towering green ferns from a Jurassic-like jungle. Small leathery winged creatures soared high above. He saw clouds of insects in places, but not any animals other than the flyers. He hadn’t spotted any more people—

  A hiss to his left alerted him. Cade spun that way in time to see an alligator-like creature with a ridged back. It had short thick bowed legs but moved them in a blur as it charged. The alien alligator was seven meters long, a true monster. It had bloody teeth, indicating it might have already been feasting on fallen people, and its belly bulged.

  The stims allowed Cade to break into a sprint, heading for a jumble of rocks. He looked back over his shoulder. The alien alligator was gaining fast. It closed and lunged at the last second. Cade had been waiting for something like that and jumped left. Teeth clashed, barely missing him. Then, the reptilian beast rushed past. Cade fell and rolled across stones and dirt. The monster skidded to a halt and swiveled toward him. The soldier shot to his feet, whirling around to face the thing. He jumped at it, shouting, waving his arms. Surprised perhaps, the alien alligator flinched. Cade ran and jumped again, over the jaws, his boots thudding across the head as he literally ran over the ridged back.

  The beast gave a throaty grunt-roar, outraged, and swiveling again. Cade sprinted for the boulders. He looked back as one of his thigh muscles cramped painfully. He didn’t want to tear anything and cripple himself fo
r weeks. The beast rose up and down on its short bowed legs like a lizard. Maybe he could scare it away and wouldn’t have to run anymore. Cade had picked up several rocks when he’d tumbled. He slid to a stop as the thigh muscle badly spasmed. He hurled one fist-sized rock after another, hitting near the beast’s eyes each time.

  The monster gave another throaty grunt-roar and charged again.

  That wasn’t the desired result, although the momentary rest had given the exhausted muscle time to stop cramping. He hurled one more stone, and it struck a protruding eye. The beast hissed, slowing down. Cade took the opportunity, turned and lurched for the jumbled boulders in the distance.

  The beast blinked the bruised eye several times as if checking to see if it was damaged. Finally, perhaps deciding the stinging eye was okay, the beast charged once more.

  Cade barely reached the boulders in time, scrambling madly up one and then another. The beast lunged upward, using its short legs to attempt to climb after its dinner. The teeth clicked centimeters from the soldier’s boots. That was the monster’s last chance, however. The soldier scaled rocks and then a cliff, climbing out of immediate danger.

  Cade continued up, doing it deliberately, more slowly now, so he didn’t cause any more cramps, scaling almost sheer rock at times. He finally reached a large ledge and dragged himself up. He panted, looking around from on his belly. There were tall ferns, a few outrageously large orange flowers and a surprise.

  Three men stepped from behind a lichen-covered boulder, aiming what looked like long-barreled flintlock rifles at him. They wore garish garments: red kerchiefs on their heads, black vests with white stained shirts and baggy blue pantaloons with heeled black boots. Each had jeweled belts and each had a green sash on his torso. Some had knives stuck in the sash, others flintlock pistols. Sheathed cutlasses swung from their hips.

  The three men had harsh features: big noses, thick lips and red-rimmed eyes. They were stout fellows, each with a belly from too much grog or meat.

  As they approached, Cade climbed to his feet.