The Soldier: Final Odyssey Page 9

  Cade had a feeling the Patrol did not.

  They must have trekked a kilometer. The tunnel turned many times and finally went down sharply and then turned to a checkpoint.

  Cade blanched as a thin mutant rose from where he’d been sitting. He had knobbed skin with warts, and warthog-like tusks coming out of his mouth, but he was rail-thin, wore a human skull over his loins and rattled with other bones shaped into a kirtle or short dress. The mutant’s face was painted like an old-time Apache brave, and his eyes held hideous intelligence. He had long, braided hair instead of a shaved scalp. He held a skull-topped baton and stared at Cade with loathing.

  “What is that?” the thin mutant demanded. “Why aren’t his hands tied behind his back?”

  “He is my blood-brother,” Jed Ra said.

  The thin mutant’s heard turned sharply to stare at Jed Ra. “What did you say?”

  “I have spoken,” Jed Ra said. “I know you heard me.”

  Cade heard the truculence and hesitation in the chief’s voice. Jed Ra feared the thin mutant, likely a witch doctor.

  “He is not of the Yun People,” the witch doctor said. “He cannot enter the assembly area.”

  “He is my blood-brother,” Jed Ra said.

  “You dare to gainsay my words?” the witch doctor asked in disbelief. “Think again, Jed Ra.”

  “Excuse me,” Cade said.

  The witch doctor turned to him with outrage. “You are meat. Meat does not talk back. Jed Ra, subdue him.”

  “I cannot,” Jed Ra said. “We have shared our blood.”

  “One of you others, subdue the meat for me. I will fatten him in time for the great feast.”

  Gunner nudged Drogo with an elbow and jutted his chin at Cade.

  “No!” Jed Ra said. “I am your chief. Marcus Cade and I have mingled blood.”

  Gunner and Drogo hesitated.

  The witch doctor noticed, making him angrier. “You will lose your chieftainship, Jed Ra. You have brought an armed human underground. That is forbidden. You others, obey my word. The Diggers have given me the authority, and now I command you.”

  Gunner drew a crude revolver.

  Cade had been waiting for something like that and shot Gunner in the head, the retort loud in the tunnel. He turned and shot the witch doctor next, pumping four bullets into him. The thin mutant staggered back and slid down along a dirt wall.

  “Don’t,” Cade told Drogo, as he aimed the smoking pistols at the mutant.

  Drogo didn’t listen but continued to draw his knife.

  Cade shot him, too, and the mutant dropped beside his dead brother.

  Through it all, Jed Ra remained motionless, while the last of the party stepped back.

  Jed Ra stared at the dead mutants and then Cade. “What have you done?”

  “Sorry,” Cade said. “I see now that it was never going to work. We tried. You and I—we have to go our separate ways.”

  “You slew the witch doctor. You killed two of my warriors.”

  “Yes, blood brother. You can blame it all on me. I’m leaving,” Cade said, the pistols aimed at Jed Ra. “Why don’t you go and make your report.”

  “I…I must kill you,” Jed Ra said dully.

  “You can try. But if you’re smart, you’ll find another way. Good-bye, Jed Ra.” Cade started backing up. He felt an unexpected pang of sadness. It had been a long time since he had a brother in arms. Briefly, hope had awakened in him, but now it had died again. “Goodbye, blood brother.”

  Jed Ra stood watching him.

  Cade moved around a corner in the tunnel. He turned and ran up the steep grade. He kept looking back, but Jed Ra didn’t appear.

  At last, Cade slowed down. He had to get out of the tunnel, and do what? Survival for the moment. Later…he’d deal with that when later arrived.

  Chapter Twenty

  Arbiter Ira Drang was back on the space station, pacing before a closed door in the main Medical Wing.

  She wore her leather greatcoat, the brim of the military hat just above her eyebrows. She’d been up to the Operational Center. The Sub-Protector hadn’t been there. She’d received a verbal report from the officer in charge. Nothing had changed on the planet. It was quiet at the Spaceport, quiet along the road and peaceful as could be in the Pit. There were no signs of the damned mutants. Even so, the scientists at the Pit were nervous, demanding an immediate lift-off. They said there were tremors in the earth indicating something vile and dangerous.

  What did the scientists think was going to happen? That the mutants would boil into the Pit from subterranean tunnels?

  Drang halted as her head jerked up. Was that it? Had she stumbled upon something? Did the mutants have—?

  “Tunnels?” she whispered.

  Drang frowned, considering the idea. She grimaced a moment later. Mutants digging long and laborious tunnels—the idea was ludicrous on the face of it. The mutants were little better than savages. They might not even be a problem if the smugglers hadn’t traded weapons for ancient cyborg relics or sometimes just pieces of relics.

  Drang exhaled sharply and glanced at the closed door. She was in a waiting room, three of her security people seated on chairs and reading magazines or watching the wall-vid. They weren’t like her old security people, the ones that had been brutalized by Cade’s rampage. How was she going to replace Monitor Varo? He’d been a dogged intelligence agent, able to sift through hundreds of computer files and find the pertinent data.

  Why had Group Six sent Halifax and Cade here? What did Earth want with Therduim III? Cyborg tech, clearly. Why just those two agents, though? Hmm. More Group Six personnel must already have arrived in the system. Likely, they were among the smugglers. Could she convince the Sub-Protector to send a flotilla into the Asteroids to clear out the smugglers? Was the Sub-Protector secretly receiving bribes to refrain from doing the obvious?

  “I need you Varo. Why did you get yourself killed?”

  It had been shrewd of Cade to make sure Varo was dead. Clearly, that had been on purpose. Had Group Six already infiltrated agents onto the station? She was beginning to suspect so.

  The closed door opened. A surgeon stepped out, a short, thickset man in medical green. He lowered his surgical mask, staring fixedly at her.

  “He’s still alive,” the surgeon said.

  Drang’s lips curved upward ever so slightly.

  The surgeon shivered, perhaps thinking it a predatory gesture, an unconscious thing on her part.

  “He’s not critical anymore,” the surgeon said, “but he’s still not good either.”

  “Could he survive the mind scanner?”

  The surgeon looked away, shaking his head. “I doubt it.”

  “You don’t have to like the mind scanner, Doctor. It is a useful tool, though. Halifax is an enemy of the state, our state. Don’t protect him out of some ancient medical sympathy for the hurting.”

  “The mind scanner is tricky,” the surgeon said. “You know that. It could cause trauma. Given his state, possibly massive trauma. In that event, he would die or go into a vegetative state before he answered any of your questions.”

  “In your opinion,” she said.

  He faced her, meeting her gaze, nodding. “In my expert medical opinion.”

  “Can he talk?” asked Drang.

  “He’s groggy.”

  “Give him a stimulant to loosen his tongue.”

  “He’s in no state to receive one.”

  “Which would be worse for him, I wonder: a stimulant or the mind scanner?”

  The surgeon nodded in a tired way. “You’ve made your point. I’ll give him the stimulant. I’ll also monitor his condition as you question him.”

  Is this man a Group Six agent? The thought struck Drang hard. She hadn’t checked the surgeon’s record. If he were an enemy agent, he would be monitoring Halifax to see if the spy gave anything useful away.

  “No,” Drang said. “I’ll question him alone.”

  “That’s
highly unusual. I—”

  The curved smile returned as tall Ira Drang stepped toward the surgeon, towering over him. “What will you do?”

  He nodded sharply and no longer met her gaze. “If you’ll follow me, Arbiter.” He turned without listening for her reply.

  Drang followed triumphantly, vowing to root out every Group Six agent on her station.

  ***

  Arbiter Drang stared down at the invalid.

  Dr. Halifax lay on a cot with only his eyes and mouth showing. Literally, from head to toe, he was swathed in special bandages that protected his severely burned skin. Machines beeped as they watched him, a tube and several wires attached to him.

  The surgeon had given the hypogun injection and departed. The stimulant was still working through the doctor’s strained system.

  Earlier, Drang’s shuttle team had discovered Halifax not too far from the warhead’s blast zone. The man had lacked any clothes and moaned in agony from the severe burns. His former backpack had absorbed some of the blast and heat. The pack had likely saved his life.

  They hadn’t found any evidence of Marcus Cade, the supposed Ultra. Could Cade have run away far enough to evade the warhead’s damaging power?

  Halifax groaned.

  Drang watched him.

  Earlier, she’d wanted to widen the search for Cade. A low-level flight over the jungle in an increasingly wide circle would have likely turned him up if he was still alive. The others had argued with her. The pilot had dearly wanted to leave. Against her better judgment, Drang had given in, ordering the shuttle back up to the space station. In the end, one of the oldest arguments in the universe had convinced her. A bird in hand was worth more than two in the bush.

  Now it was time to reap the dividends of her decision.

  Halifax blinked, barely able to do so because of the bandages.

  “Can you hear me?” Drang asked.

  Halifax blinked again, saying nothing.

  “Don’t pretend, Doctor.”

  He closed his eyes, and his breathing evened out as if he’d fallen asleep on her.

  Drang leaned near his head. “The reason you shouldn’t pretend is—”

  Halifax shivered once, likely in surprise, but he didn’t make a sound.

  It told her he’d been ready for something. It told her his discipline and cunning were operative. He was strong enough to answer questions then, but clearly didn’t want to.

  “—the reason you should talk is the mind scanner,” Drang said. “It awaits the recalcitrant.”

  “I’m…weary,” Halifax whispered. “So very weary.”

  “Not as weary as you’ll be once we’ve drained your memories with the mind scanner, leaving you an imbecile.”

  “What do you want from me?” Halifax whined.

  “Information.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “Wise,” Drang said, straightening so she could look down at him.

  “Provided you give me some guarantees,” he said.

  After a half-pause, she said, “Yes. I’ll do that.”

  The doctor waited.

  “I guarantee that I’ll send you to the mind scanner if I believe you’re playing games,” Drang said. “I guarantee I’ll send you before a firing squad for engaging in espionage.”

  “Why should I talk then?”

  “Obviously to try to gain my goodwill,” Drang said.

  Halifax opened his eyes, staring up at her. “I’m not a foreign agent.”

  “You don’t belong to Group Six?”

  “I did. I was Cade’s case officer once. That’s over now.”

  “No lies, Doctor.”

  “I’m not lying,” Halifax said earnestly. “Everything changed for me after I rescued Cade from Avalon IV. He gave me the Descartes, provided I gave him a ride to Earth.”

  “You’re going to stick with that?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe? Cade is a monomaniac. He has one goal: to retrieve his wife. He won her in some kind of game.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Halifax told her what little he knew, how the Games were supposed to inspire the Ultras. This time, Cade and his wife Raina fell in love with each other. She’d been a Valkyrie, a beautiful woman with a flawless genetic history. Cade was fixated on reaching Earth, doing whatever he needed to regain his beloved wife.

  “You’re telling me Cade thinks he can fight Group Six on Earth?” Drang asked.

  “You saw him in your detention cell. He seemed pretty damned determined to take on the entire space station. He made it, too, didn’t he?”

  “You think he survived the blast?”

  Halifax laughed bleakly. “He was outta there, Arbiter. I saw him, shouted at him to wait up for me. He must have known you guys had launched a missile. It caught me in the blast. I doubt it caught him.”

  “Then the mutants have him.”

  Halifax ever so slightly shook his bandaged head. “Don’t count on it.”

  Drang stared down at Halifax. Despite herself, she was beginning to believe the man. She was beginning to believe because she’d seen Cade operate. He’d been a man of his word, as well. Would such a man battle the universe to reach his wife?

  Drang’s mouth opened in surprise. An Ultra like Cade would do exactly that. Yet, if that were true—

  Station mechanics had gone over the Descartes. The Intersplit engine had been jury-rigged, barely allowing the ex-Patrol scout to make it to the space station. That part of their story checked out.

  Drang turned away from Halifax, heading for the exit.

  “Hey,” Halifax said.

  Drang paused, looking back at him.

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s still up in the air.”

  “Don’t put me under the mind scanner.”

  Drang smirked. “Not yet, Doctor, but maybe soon.”

  He groaned.

  Drang resumed her march, thinking as she moved through the exit.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ira Drang returned upstairs to the Operational Center, which was situated at the top of the main pillar of the space station. The Sub-Protector had still not shown up. Thus, she spoke to the officer-in-charge, Senior Commandant Estevan.

  He was a middle-aged man with a ring of hair around an otherwise bald scalp. Estevan was crisp and businesslike, a professional in the best sense of the word.

  He bowed his head and tapped his boot heels together as Drang addressed him. “How can I be of service, Arbiter?”

  “When do you expect the Sub-Protector to return?”

  “He’s inspecting the latest cruiser,” Estevan said. “I imagine the captain will wish to dine with our Sub-Protector. I don’t expect the Sub-Protector back on the station until tomorrow at the earliest. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Possibly,” Drang said. “Have you noticed any unusual space activity?”

  Estevan raised his eyebrows. “Could you be more specific?”

  Was that hesitation on his part? The senior commandant seemed ready to please. Perhaps that was an act. Where was Estevan from? Drang concentrated. Egon Krenz was from Bremen. Estevan was from Rio, a poorer world far from here. Had they gone to the same military academy? No, no, not even the same year or sector. As far as she knew, this was the first posting where Estevan had served with Sub-Protector Egon Krenz.

  “Arbiter? Are you well?”

  Drang tilted her head. “I was woolgathering, trying to remember your last posting.”

  “No surprises there,” Estevan said. “I was a sensor operator on Deep Cruiser Kerch. We helped solve the Baw Triangle Pirating troubles. It was quite the operation, the pirates raiding three star systems and smuggling the proceeds onto Albion II. Several Albion senators were executed, and a few shipping tycoons are spending the rest of their lives picking stone-fields on Masmodo V.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  Estevan dipped his balding
scalp. “I’ve been upgrading the station sensors and the buoys circling the planet.”

  “To watch the mutants better?” asked Drang.

  “The sensors are aimed spaceward,” Estevan said. “Our Sub-Protector has plans for our smugglers. But surely you already know all this.”

  Drang inclined her head, even though this was the first she’d heard about it. Which was odd, really. Wouldn’t the Sub-Protector desire her input on such an operation?

  Drang’s professional suspicions clicked on. Was Egon Krenz attempting to catch the smugglers or to aid them? Surely, with Estevan’s record, no one would suspect sensor tampering. Yet, if Estevan was so good, why hadn’t the Patrol captured any smugglers yet?

  “Could you give me a demonstration of the new sensors?” Drang asked.

  Estevan rubbed his chin. “Our latest fixes haven’t come online yet. Perhaps some testing ahead of time would be a good idea. Unfortunately, the Sub-Protector has given strict orders against engaging them too soon. He wants to surprise the smugglers. He also wants to witness their surprise in person.”

  “Certainly,” Drang said, more suspicious now rather than less. “A small test shouldn’t hurt that, however. You see, I’m under pressure from Intelligence HQ regarding the smugglers. I’d like to report something positive for a change.”

  “I know what you mean,” Estevan said. “Yes. Let’s test one of the new sensor nodes. I’m eager to see what they produce.” He motioned to her before moving smartly to an empty seat at a shiny new console. Sliding into the seat, the senior commandant began tapping the board, causing lights to blink into function mode.

  “This will take a little calibration,” Estevan said.

  Drang watched. The senior commandant moved proficiently and surely. Perhaps he missed his sensor post on the Kerch.

  “The screen is coming on,” Estevan said. “Can you see?”

  Drang bent lower. “Yes. I see it.”

  Estevan’s fingers blurred upon the board. “I’m making a quick and passive sweep, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The Asteroids are sixteen million kilometers from us, amazingly close in stellar terms. They’re almost in range to be considered Therduim III satellites, almost but not quite, especially given our terrestrial size.”