The Soldier: Final Odyssey

by Vaughn Heppner

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cade, Jed Ra and the others hunted, failing to catch another sight of the shuttle. It must have retreated upstairs to the space station. After two hours of tramping, the party turned away, heading elsewhere.

  Drogo had ceased whimpering about his left eye. One of the others had tied a headband over the puffy, sore eye, knotting the cloth behind Drogo’s head.

  Every time the soldier looked over at Drogo, he felt a pang, realizing he’d almost torn out the left eye as an example. Doing so would have as good as admitted that he feared the mutants. Drogo trudged with the others, keeping up with the fast pace. Whatever else the Yun People were, they were tough suckers.

  Jed Ra hadn’t spoken to Cade since the fight. Did the chief regret the blood-brother pact?

  The party reached a stream where the mutants crouched like dogs and drank their fill, refilling their water-skins afterward. Cade refilled his bottles, dropping a purification tablet into each. He was the only one who hadn’t drunk straight from the stream.

  The mutants sat on the ground. Cade did likewise, sitting apart from the others.

  Finally, Jed Ra stirred, getting up and approaching Cade. He loomed over the soldier, who kept a pistol ready under an arm. The burly mutant plopped onto the ground beside Cade.

  “The witch doctors will hate you,” Jed Ra said. “You have spoken against their words. Maybe you thought you had to, but it was a mistake.”

  Cade ingested that in silence.

  “Drogo will not speak about it, but the other two will. Gunner is his brother.”

  “Gunner is one of the other two?”

  Jed Ra nodded.

  “What do you suggest I do?” Cade asked.

  “I do not know.”

  Cade rubbed his jaw. “Jed Ra. I have another question for you.”

  The mutant chief stared at him.

  “Do the Yun People truly eat those of the Patrol they capture?”

  “The witch doctors do.”

  “Just them?” asked Cade.

  “The witch doctors absorb the knowledge and strength of the enemy.”

  “What about the warriors?”

  Jed Ra nodded in a knowing way. “You fear to eat the Patrol people?”

  “I’m not—” Cade kept himself from saying, “I’m not a cannibal.” Instead, he said, “I am not of the Yun People.”

  “Ultras did not eat the cyborgs?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” asked Jed Ra.

  “We believed it is a sin to eat anything remotely human.”

  “What is sin?”

  “Anything against the ways of God,” Cade said with a grimace.

  “This God does not want humans eating humans?”

  “No,” Cade said.

  “What about the witch doctors?”

  “God does not want the witch doctors eating humans either.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it is the way,” Cade said.

  “Your way,” Jed Ra said, “not our way.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “We are the Yun People. We do things our way. We are big. We are strong. We do not bleed so easily like you…you humans. Ultras were humans, yes?”

  “Us early ones were at least. I don’t know about the later ones.”

  Jed Ra looked up at the leafy canopy. “It might have been a mistake, my becoming your blood brother. You say things—I need the witch doctors behind me. I cannot have them hating me because they hate you. You’ve said the witch doctors are wrong, and now you say they should not eat meat.”

  “Eat all the meat you want, just not other humans.”

  “We are the Yun People.”

  “Okay. What does that really mean? You’re mutants, which means mutated from humans. Did that happen because of radiation or were your people a cyborg experiment?”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “Probably not,” Cade said. “The point is, if you’re mutated from humanity, aren’t you still human after a fashion?”

  “No. We are the Yun People. We are better than humans.”

  “I don’t agree,” Cade said. “For all our outer differences, our thinking seems similar.”

  Jed Ra frowned heavily. “What does it matter?”

  “I suppose right now…only with the God-given injunction against eating other humans. Cannibalism is wrong. If you—”

  “Enough!” Jed Ra said, jumping to his feet. “Do not talk about this again. If you do…”

  “Okay,” Cade said with a curt nod.

  Jed Ra looked up at the canopy and then at the other three. Finally, he regarded Cade again. “Get up. We’re leaving. It’s time to return to the assembly area.”

  Cade climbed to his feet, hefting the backpack, slipping the straps over his shoulders. If he was going to make a run for it, he should do it soon. But if he did make a run for it, how would he get off the planet? The Yun People were likely his best chance of reaching the smugglers. He was doing what he was doing for one simple reason: he had to rescue his wife from Group Six. The only way he could save Raina was to get off Therduim III and continue heading for Earth.

  Therefore, he would do whatever gave him the best chance to succeed…no matter what it took.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Several hours later, as the sun—the Therduim star—began to sink toward the horizon, Cade almost shouted out from the back of the line. Jed Ra led; the rest of them followed one after the other.

  Cade recalled what had happened the last time he shouted from the back. So instead, he waited until Jed Ra called another halt.

  The soldier was dog-tired. He’d been flying through space for months in a small spaceship. His endurance for hiking like this wasn’t what it had once been. Cade felt it, all right. He sagged onto the ground, glad for the respite. The pack had gotten heavier and heavier, and he finally realized they’d been trekking uphill for a time.

  Jed Ra walked back to him.

  Cade just wanted to stretch out and go to sleep. Instead, he stood, waiting.

  “Teach me to fight the way you do,” Jed Ra said.

  Cade wasn’t sure, but the chief sounded more demanding than before. “I can teach you many things. What do you find the most interesting?”

  “You struck me and then Drogo with your closed hands. Teach me that.”

  Cade nodded. “We call that a fist.” He raised his right hand and curled the fingers, tucking them under the thumb, making a fist.

  Jed Ra raised his right hand, trying to imitate that. The dog-like claws got in the way. He scowled at Cade.

  “There’s another way,” Cade said quickly. “Watch.” He stiffened his hand as if he was about to do a classic karate chop. He swung his hand this way and that. “You hit with the edge of your hand.” He used his other hand to tap the side of the first one.

  “Show me how,” Jed Ra said.

  Cade raised his eyebrows. “Against you?”

  The huge mutant nodded.

  Cade made a slow strike against Jed Ra’s left shoulder.

  Jed Ra stared at the ground, thinking, finally looking up. “How long would it take for you teach me to fight like that?”

  “A few weeks, maybe less.”

  “What can you teach me in an hour?”

  Cade debated with himself. “A hip throw,” he said.

  “Show me.”

  “It could hurt.”

  “Show me,” Jed Ra said.

  Cade moved fast, grabbing one of the mutant’s arms and flipping him over his right hip. The chief sailed through the air, slamming onto the ground.

  The others stopped speaking, staring at them.

  Jed Ra picked himself off the ground with his eyes glittering with murder-lust. “You can teach me how to do that?”

  “I can,” Cade said.

  “Yes. Show me now. I want to learn.”

  So, for the next fifteen minutes, Cade showed Jed Ra the steps for a hip throw. “You�
�re using your hip as the fulcrum of a lever. That allows you to use your opponent’s weight against him.”

  “Enough talk,” Jed Ra said. “Show me again, the fundamentals as you say.”

  Cade worked through the fundamentals and had Jed Ra do it slowly.

  “I want to do it fast,” the chief said.

  “Then call over one of your men and do it to him.”

  Jed Ra stared at Cade, nodding and shouting for Gunner to join them.

  A minute later, Jed Ra threw Gunner so the other slammed onto the dirt.

  “I did it,” Jed Ra said.

  “It’s not as hard as it looks,” Cade said.

  Gunner arose, giving Cade a dirty scowl.

  “He does not like you,” Jed Ra said.

  Cade said nothing.

  “Again,” Jed Ra told Gunner.

  “It is…”

  “Yes?” Jed Ra asked Gunner.

  “Again,” Gunner said sullenly.

  Jed Ra hip threw the brother of Drogo once more, this time harder so Gunner slammed against the ground.

  “You’re getting the hang of it,” Cade said.

  Jed Ra faced him triumphantly. “I will throw you now.”

  Cade shook his head.

  “You have taught me your tricks. I could easily defeat you. Admit it.”

  Cade grinned.

  “You find that funny?” asked Jed Ra.

  “I do, blood brother.”

  Jed Ra eyed Cade, smiling at last. Then he turned away, telling the others they would sleep here for the night.

  They bedded in a circle, their heads inward and their feet outward. The mutants lay on the ground like dogs. Cade found a few fronds, making himself a bed of them. Even wild gorillas did that.

  “He needs the ground soft,” Gunner said.

  None of the others laughed. Maybe because of that, Gunner did not say it again.

  There were plenty of night sounds, animals padding past in the dark. None of them attacked the sleeping party.

  The next morning, they ate rations, drank from their water-skins and set out at a swifter pace than yesterday. They stopped twice in the morning at different streams, drinking like dogs. Cade used his bottles, always dropping in another purification tablet to kill any unwanted bacteria or other germs. He would run out of the tablets soon at this rate, in a few more days. Just how long was he supposed to survive with the mutants before he got off-planet?

  Jed Ra had him refine the hip throw, and the chief karate-chopped several times. He finally told Cade to strike him as hard as he could the flat-hand way.

  Cade debated, finally shouting and striking the edge of the chief’s thick neck. Jed Ra staggered, but remained upright.

  “Is that the best you can do?” the mutant asked.

  “Far from it,” Cade said.

  “Show me. Attack. See if you can drop me, but do it in a way that I can learn.”

  “You sure you want that?”

  “What did I say? Do you call me a liar?”

  “Are you sure you want the others to see?” asked Cade.

  Jed Ra examined the watching three. “No,” he said. “Let us step over there behind the fronds.”

  They did, and the two faced each other.

  “Strike,” Jed Ra said. “Put me on the ground if you can. But I’ll grab and crush you if you fail.”

  Cade had been thinking. He now shouted and threw a flat-footed kick into the mutant’s stomach. Jed Ra tried to grab the foot. That’s when Cade punched him viciously in the throat. Jed Ra gurgled in pain as his eyes closed. Cade walked behind him and with a foot kicked out the back of the mutant’s knee. Jed Ra crumpled onto the damp soil.

  Cade walked around the fallen giant, crouching so his butt rested on his boot heels.

  From the ground, Jed Ra opened his eyes. He wheezed and touched his throat with his clawed fingertips. “You’re an Ultra,” the mutant said hoarsely. “Now I truly believe. You slept a thousand years?”

  “Something like that. I don’t know the exact number.”

  Jed Ra suppressed a groan as he struggled upright. He touched his throat once more. “You could have hit harder, couldn’t you?”

  Cade nodded.

  “You could have crushed my throat.”

  “Yes,” Cade said. “But it isn’t an easy blow. What I mean, the throat is hard to hit. So, you have to make it an easier target. You have to get your opponent to stand still for you.”

  “The kick did that.”

  “Yeah,” Cade said, seeing that Jed Ra really understood.

  The mutant grinned evilly. “You will continue to teach me. But is there an easier way for me to learn?”

  “You mean so I don’t keep injuring you?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is. That you’re asking means you’re becoming more dangerous.” Cade paused, deciding it was time to learn more. “How big is your tribe, clan, whatever you’re the chief of?”

  “Thirty-seven warriors.”

  “How big is the horde?”

  “Almost six hundred warriors.”

  “How big is the biggest clan?”

  “Tribe. It’s called a tribe.”

  Cade nodded.

  “One hundred and three warriors,” Jed Ra said. “Bolgol is the chief. He’s the fiercest warrior. Even your tricks might not work against him. He is mountain strong, but he isn’t smart. I’m the smartest of the chiefs. If I led the horde, we would drive the Patrol from the planet. But I want more than that. I want their shuttles, their spaceships and the space station the smugglers complain about.”

  “Are any smugglers with the horde?”

  Jed Ra made a scornful sound. “A smuggler never leaves his ship. He is too afraid. We always trade under the guns.”

  “The ship’s guns?” asked Cade.

  Jed Ra nodded.

  “When is the next smuggler supposed to land?”

  “I don’t know. They haven’t for several weeks. The Patrol must have brought more warships into the system.”

  Cade ingested that, wondering again how Jed Ra knew so much. The mutant seemed like a primitive but obviously thought on a higher plane than that. Did the witch doctors possess technology? He’d begun to suspect so.

  “My throat no longer hurts so much,” Jed Ra said. “It is time to march again. Come. We’ll rejoin the others and trek.”

  “Will we reach the horde today?”

  “In a few hours,” Jed Ra said, peering at Cade. “The witch doctors will question you. They might demand we slay you, wanting to eat you to gain your wisdom.”

  Was that literal? If the Patrol used cyborg troopers to guard the Spaceport, did the witch doctors have other leftover cyborg tech? Maybe the best thing would be to drop a new round of hell-burners onto the planet.

  “You are quiet,” Jed Ra said.

  “Let’s go,” Cade said. “The sooner we leave, the sooner I can find out if the witch doctors are going to let me live or not.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  They reached higher ground, a great jungle plateau. There were fewer towering fronds and more giant trees, and there were more breaks in the canopy. Colorful birds cawed at them. Once, Cade spied a leathery-winged creature like a flying snake.

  “Watch out for the zipper,” Jed Ra warned, pointing at the leathery-winged flyer. “Its bite is poison. They’re more likely to attack a lone warrior than a small party like ours. If one strikes, a flock of zippers lands and devours the flesh in less than an hour.”

  Cade nodded and the trek continued. There were no signs of mutant occupation of any kind. That meant there was no litter, not even mutant scat.

  “Jed Ra,” Cade said at their next rest stop. “How do the chiefs feed their warriors?”

  Drogo, Gunner and the other looked up sharply and laughed at the question.

  Jed Ra frowned. “I do not understand. Warriors hunt for their food. The chiefs do not give it to them.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Cade said. “Th
e horde is six hundred warriors strong. Do all the warriors go out and hunt each day?”

  “Ah,” Jed Ra said. “You mean the Diggers.”

  Once more, the other three looked up sharply as Gunner gasped.

  Jed Ra gave Gunner a baleful glare before turning to Cade. “We do not speak about—them. It is forbidden. Never mention them or you will die. You will understand why that is so soon enough.”

  Cade didn’t like the sound of that.

  Ten minutes later, the party trekked under the leafy canopy, the pace increasing yet again.

  Diggers, Cade thought. What in the world are Diggers? Why is it forbidden to speak about them? And what do they have to do with feeding the horde?

  A possible answer came an hour later. Jed Ra slowed their advance and began to look about as if searching for something. He pointed several minutes later.

  “Over there,” the chief said. “Walk slowly, and try not to leave any prints.”

  Cade had no idea what the chief might have seen. He looked around, stepping lightly and was curious why Jed Ra halted beside a dead tree stump. That was unusual, the dead stump. Maybe lightning had destroyed it.

  Jed Ra felt around the jagged stump, pressing something. There was a hydraulic noise, and part of the stump rose, a jagged camouflaged part. Jed Ra did not look back, but began to descend steps, walking into the earth. The others followed without comment.

  Cade came last. He was astonished to see light shining from below, obviously artificial light. He went down stone steps, and his shoulders twitched as the camouflaged half of the stump began to whine, lowering over him and hiding the hole. Cade hurried, reaching the tunnel.

  Jed Ra was at a simple control.

  “What…what is this place?” Cade asked.

  “It is a tunnel.”

  “Did the Yun People make it?”

  “You know we did not. It belongs to them, to the Forbidden Ones. Speak no more about it.”

  Cade opened his mouth to ask more, and slowly closed his mouth.

  “Come,” Jed Ra said. “I must report.”

  Cade’s hackles rose as they began to trek through the subterranean tunnel. There were lights above, lights fed with electricity. Who were the Diggers? Did they have anything to do with the ancient cyborgs?

  This is bad. Halifax never said anything about Diggers or underground quarters. Does the Patrol know about the Diggers?