The Evolution of Vaughn, page 18
“There will be. Open the door.”
The cargo bay door lowered, providing a ramp out into space. In the distance, Loe was the size of his head. He tried not to think about the fact that he was about to jump out of a space craft travelling three hundred thousand kilometers per hour, backwards, towards a planet upon which had to hit a target the size of the cargo-hold door he was about to jump out of.
“How long until my window, Halle?”
“Thirteen seconds, Captain.” Halle started the count-down. Vaughn’s entire life flashed before his eyes, from his earliest memories of his mother and father, to his marriage of Sarah, to the birth of his son, and every moment he’d ever spent with Matt. When Halle reached one, Vaughn took three steps across the cargo-bay door and launched himself into space.
The second suit, operated by Rom, leapt just after him.
The two flew through the vacuum of space, carrying all of Halle’s velocity with them. For the first fifteen minutes, there was almost no sensation of movement, except the ever-growing planet directly in front of them. After five more minutes, Vaughn could make out the largest of the space craft and two of the space-stations orbiting Loe, mere pinpricks to his vision.
“Halle , calculate trajectory of all objects in our path.”
“Captain, at current speed, rate of gravitational acceleration, you will miss a Geraldinian transport by less than one meter.”
Rom projected all of the ships in orbit on Vaughn’s visor display. “There is a seventy-two percent chance we will collide with one of the vessels marked.” None of the ships were outlined in red.
“Fre, contact the Geraldinians. Advise them of inbound space debris directly in their path.”
“On it, Vaughn.”
“Geraldinian vessel Merovingian, this is collision control, there are two objects inbound directly in your path. Advise you slow by ten percent.”
“Collision Control,” replied a gruff Geraldinian voice. “We will eliminate the debris before impact. Thank you for the warning.”
Fresia nearly panicked but kept her voice steady. “Merovingian, debris is of unknown origin, power signature indicates non-natural formation. Elimination may result in catastrophic detonation. Please adjust course. The objects will burn off safely in the atmosphere.”
“What is the nature of the debris? Perhaps we should collect it? It could be valuable salvage.”
Struggling to maintain her composure, Fresia said, “Merovingian, we’ve followed the inbound objects for the last twenty hours, found zero value.”
“Will do, Collision Control. Shame it wasn’t something valuable.”
Fresia sat back in her seat, put her hands over her face and sighed through them, rubbing her eyes. “Fucking crazy ass Vaughn.”
Vaughn watched the Geraldinian vessel closely. He tucked into a ball as he passed less than five meters from the bow of the vessel. Rom could have reached out and touched the craft as he glided past.
“Sir, might I recommend thrusters of some sort, if we’re going to be making a habit of this.”
“Thrusters would be picked up by the Continuum’s sensors,” Vaughn said. “Although that’s something to keep in mind.” He folded into a pike position to narrowly miss the communications tower of a small ship. The tip of their antennae passed in the meter between Vaughn and the empty suit.
The pair passed through the gauntlet of ships, narrowly missing several as they passed between him and the surface. “Thermosphere in nineteen seconds,” Halle called.
“I see it,” Vaughn said, noting the slight haze as he turned his head side-to-side.
Fresia watched their trajectory and descent on the display in front of her. “You’re coming in way too fast, Vaughn. You’re going to burn up.”
“I need the speed. Too much ground to glide over.”
“You can’t glide if you’re dead,” she snapped.
“I’ll try not to die,” Vaughn said. There was nothing he could do about it at this point, he was committed.
As the atmosphere thickened up around him, he spread his arms and legs to create maximum drag. “Rom, give me the optimal path to target.”
His visor changed to show his location in a three dimensional map and the arc he needed to hit in order to approach. Once he was forced to roll onto his back, there was almost no way to control the descent angle.
His readout started flashing; he was three percent off his vector. Vaughn pulled his feet in together and spread his arms, trying to fly his body, changing the angle at which he was hurtling towards the planet’s surface. Slowly, the descent arc and his actual trajectory came into alignment and Vaughn held that pose. His arm muscles were screaming. The suit did the majority of the work, but he had to keep his muscles tensed in order to lock the suit into flying position.
He felt the heat in his fingers and toes first. The massive friction of his suit flying through the upper atmosphere at twenty-three meters per second heated the metal. The warmth spread through his arms and legs. A glance at his fingertips showed they were glowing red. The suit diverted a huge amount of power to cooling the internal temperature.
Next his legs started to feel hot, and then his torso. He knew he couldn’t stay in this position much longer. His visor said eighteen more seconds until it was time to roll onto his back. “Fifteen seconds, roll on my mark, Rom”
The heat in his fingers and toes was starting to burn his flesh. “Five seconds. Three. Two. One. Mark.” The pair rolled over onto their backs. A huge trail of fire arced out behind them. It was beautiful to watch, if Vaughn had been able to separate the fact that he was on fire.
He was on target, and descent was slowing to acceptable parameters. As he slowed, the friction lessened, and the temperature in his suit dropped. “I’m coming, Matty,” he said, rolling back over and extending the glide wings to stage one.
Vaughn had spent most of the night modifying the glide wings of the suit. The new wings extended outward, swept back for high speed maneuvering. As his speed dropped, the old wings generated enough lift to slow his descent, but not enough to really fly. At stage two, the wings unfolded again. At that point, the wingspan was nearly twice his height, enough that he could fly for extended periods. The drawback was that fully extended, the wings created a large enough surface area for him to be picked up by ground sensors.
“Tracking to target, six thousand kilometers.” The pair of battle suits flew high over the ocean, just at sunset. From this height, the planet was still round, and everywhere he looked was water. He’d chosen this entry point because it was the path over the least amount of the city possible. Vaughn was at the equator of the planet, soaring towards the southern edge of the city. Hundreds of kilometers below him, the planet’s vast, single ocean sprawled.
“Now we sit back and enjoy the ride.”
“Vaughn, your speed is well above where you should be. Recommend you bleed some off,” Halle told him.
“Plenty of time. You should see how beautiful it is.” The sun dipped down to touch the surface of the ocean. “It’s an exhilarating feeling, flying.”
“You’re not flying, Vaughn, you’re falling.” Fresia that time.
“That’s true, but I’m falling like a badass.”
“You’ll be over the coast in three minutes,” Halle said.
Vaughn looked out over the ocean one more time, and then concentrated on the job at hand. He focused Max, and then quietly sent, “Max. Is there any way you can tell Matty that I am two minutes away, and that if possible he should move away from the window?”
No response from Max. Vaughn leaned his body, veering left, and then leaned again swerving back to the right. Four large sweeping turns lowered his speed down under twenty meters per second. He was still three thousand meters above the surface, three times taller than the Maxist Cathedral.
He reached up and hit the button to further unfold his wings. “Secondary wings, engaged. Now I’m really flying.”
Vaughn spotted the Maxist building and circled it once. High over the dome, Vaughn zoomed in on Rotelle’s office. It was empty for the night. He ejected a small metal drawer from his leg armor and pulled out a small ball and pressed the button on it. As it fell, a gelatinous coating seeped out of the sphere. It made a soft splatting sound when it impacted the dome above Rotelle’s desk.
Matthew’s cell appeared on his visor, a small red spot on the opposite side of the building. He turned to his left, circling wide around the building, then lined up a downward path straight for the window.
“We’re going in, Rom.”
Chapter 27 Matthew
Date: 432nd Year of Emperor Valek Foger XXVI
At the last second, Vaughn flared his wings to slow himself and then fully retracted them. He fired Fresia’s rail gun at the glass as his wings folded up into the back of his suit. He hurtled towards the window, now covered in fine cracks like spider webs. At the last second, he tucked into a ball and rolled forward to hit the window with his back, where his armor was thickest. The second suit, being controlled by Rom, did exactly as Vaughn. Both of them came to a stop on the floor in the center of the room.
Vaughn laid on the floor verifying to himself that he was still alive for less than a second before leaping to his feet and calling for his son. “Matty?”
The boy stood up. He’d been laying on his bunk when his father crashed through the window. When he saw the suits crash into his room he rolled off the far side of his bunk and hid between the bed and the wall. He looked unharmed. “Dad? You came? You’re really here?”
“I did, I am. Nothing could keep me away from you.” Vaughn rushed forward towards his son. “Rom, open up.”
The second suit stood up and turned around. The back opened from the back of its head to the ankle.
“Step into the suit, Matty. Let all your muscles be relaxed. Rom, disable manual control.”
“As you wish, Sir. Manual controls disabled.” Vaughn typed a command into his wrist controller. Blue arcs of electricity ran down the external plating of the pair of battle suits. The black heat shielding sublimated off, turning to gas when the current hit it.
Free of the thermal barrier, Vaughn could now activate the suit’s active camouflage systems. Both suits turned dove gray to match the concrete of Matthew’s cell. “Let’s go. I’m getting you out of here. I’m never losing you again.” Vaughn grabbed Matt’s suit and shoved it out the window. “We’re heading for the shuttle dock.”
Fresia’s voice sounded worried. “Vaughn, the Maxists are reporting a terrorist attack. They’ve shut down all the shuttles on and off the planet. The stations are going into lockdown.”
As he was falling out the window, Vaughn replied calmly, “Connect me to Nathan Rotelle.” His suit changed from the gray concrete color to a pale blue with occasional white swirls to match the mostly clear sky above him.
“I’ll attempt the connection, Sir.”
The ground rushed up towards them. The pair extended their wings, and soared off towards the shuttle platform. The city sped past below them; occasionally City Security would look up. One pointed his weapon upward but never fired. The two battle suits were almost impossible to see against the bright sky, and Vaughn and his son were still higher than any buildings in this section of the city. Buoyed by the rising air current caused by the wind hitting the buildings, the pair raced towards the only way off the planet.
Vaughn’s comm lit up in the corner of his display. Nathan Rotelle was sitting at his desk, looking impertinent. “Vaughn… It’s Nathan Rotelle. We can end this peacefully, and no one has to get hurt. I wouldn’t want any harm to come to your son.”
“Why did you send me to Sliuvarg?”
“Come on in, let’s talk about this face-to-face, like civilized people.”
“Dad,” said Matthew. “I don’t want to go back there.” He sounded afraid.
Vaughn muted the link with Rotelle. “We’re not going back, Matty. We’re going to go explore the universe, just like we always talked about.” He unmuted the comm, “Not gonna happen, Rotelle. Just answer my questions.”
Nathan was up, pacing around his office with his arms crossed over his ornate robes. “What do you think is going to happen when you hit the ground? Do you think there is any way off this planet? Do you think you could possibly get away? I’ll admit it was a daring thing you did, but it was a completely wasted effort.”
Vaughn was furious. The Maxists kidnapped Matthew. They did this, and he was being framed as the bad guy. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to give me a shuttle, or I will melt your building. Do you know what was on Sliuvarg? Do you know what they were building?”
“Yes, Vaughn. That’s why I had to send you, so you could destroy that weapon before they had a chance to use it.”
“That ship is now fully functional and under my command. It’s in orbit directly above your building. What do you think would happen if I fired it?”
“You would be the largest mass murderer in history, Vaughn. Is that what you are?”
“I don’t have to destroy the whole planet. A short burst would devastate your building. Your computer systems would fry, all the electrical systems in your entire building would be destroyed.”
“All easily replaced, Vaughn.”
“Sure,” Vaughn gambled. “But what about the sub-basement? Your lab? Your collection of E’Clei? All your experiments? All gone. How long will it take you to rebuild all of that?” He’d seen the sub-basement complex on the plans. It was a massive catacomb-like facility. On the official papers, Vaughn was certain it was marked as something innocuous, but on the builder’s plans, the amount of power being run to the basement could only be used for one thing.
Rotelle paused. Vaughn saw his jaw clench, verifying Vaughn’s hunch. “Look, Vaughn. Even if I let you off the planet, you’re still going to have the entire Fogerian army breathing down your neck. You’re a wanted man.”
“You worry about you. I’m landing on the shuttle platform in one minute. Clear the platform and clear the shuttle for takeoff.” The shuttle pad complex was in sight. It was a round building with more than fifty levels; each level had eight oval-shaped docks. From above, the entire facility looked like a stack of flowers with the landing platforms forming the petals.
A massive park surrounded three sides of the facility, and the district’s business section sprawled in front of it. Full of money changers and lenders, this section of the district probably contained more physical crench than all of the others combined, except perhaps the Maxist Cathedral.
“Done. You won’t make it far. Dock forty-seven is cleared.”
Vaughn and Matthew glided to a stop on dock forty two, and ran towards their craft. Several guards stepped out of his path and let him pass as they ran. He climbed aboard the shuttle and took off.
“Rotelle, if I don’t make it back to my ship, it’s programmed to melt this entire planet. Don’t try anything.”
“I don’t think you have it in you, but it doesn’t matter. There is no where you can run. There is nowhere you can hide that we won’t find you. You’ll never be safe.” His face was red, and a small vein popped out of his forehead.
“I could say the same for you, Rotelle. If you ever try anything like this with any of my family again, I will come for you. I slipped through your security this time. Next time I’ll come in the daylight; you’ll see me coming. Next time, you’ll have plenty of time to think about how much it’s going to hurt when I get you.” Vaughn pressed three buttons on his forearm controls. He heard the gel explode above Rotelle’s head and saw the glass shards flying on his monitor. A silver sphere landed on Nathan’s desk. The top hemisphere of the ball rotated with a quiet ticking. Nathan dove away from his desk, running for the stairs.
“Fresia, release the packages.” Inside Halle, Fresia opened up a control panel and swiped over to the remote command module. A star chart opened with red dots around every major inhabited planet in the Fogerian Empire.
“All of them?”
“Every one.”
Fresia swiped along the display and then tapped it twice. “Done, Captain.”
On the ancient mahogany desk, the sphere opened up. Inside, the head of an E’Clei opened his eyes, shrouded in a transparent mesh bag.
Vaughn said, “I’ve released twenty-six hundred tons of Argimonium spread in two gram bits across every inhabited planet in the galaxy. Argimonium is now worthless. Your entire organization is bankrupt.” He ended the communication link.
Vaughn piloted the shuttle to within a meter of Halle, initiated the auto-return sequence and opened the door. He and Matthew leapt to the cargo bay. There was barely room to walk. Halle was loaded with every fuel canister Vaughn had. While Vaughn was on the planet, Fresia had been busy loading everything from his home into Halle.
The father and son stepped out of their suits. Vaughn nearly knocked his over in an effort to get to his son. He grabbed the boy and pulled him close, hugging him tightly, and then held him out at arm’s length. “Are you okay? Did they do anything to you? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine, Dad. They just asked me a bunch of questions. On the first day they took some blood, but that’s all.”
Vaughn breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s go get some food. Want a tak bar?”
“Ugh. Is that all you have?”
“You could eat some of Aunt Fresia’s cooking,” Vaughn replied, grinning.
“I’ll take a couple of tak bars, thanks.” Vaughn put his arm around his son and headed for the galley.
As Vaughn, Fresia, and Matthew folded for the farthest edge of Fogerian space, Nathan Rotelle watched the net-worth of his million year organization fall to nearly zero.
Chapter 28 Epilogue:
Date: 432nd Year of Emperor Valek Foger XXVI
Foger:
Imperial security knocked on a door in the middle of a field of junk. “Frasier Werts, we have an order signed by The Emperor, may he guide us safely through, to search this property for Argimonium. If you turn over any Argimonium, you will be allowed to keep a one-hundredth share of all you return to the Empire. If you are found to be in possession of undocumented mineral, you will forfeit your property and citizenship.”
