In terms of what he looks like, and maybe how he behaves, in my mind I always imagined Ed Harris from some of his earlier films such as the Abyss, which was actually the inspiration for the undersea chapters in The Eden Paradox, but also his performance in The Rock with Nick Cage and Sean Connery.
In the books, Vince is a complete hard-ass control freak who isn't afraid to do what it takes. He's also the counter-point to Louise (see previous blog), and the only man who has any kind of control over her. He's the type of guy who you don't really want to know what he does, only that he's on your side.
Here's an extract from The Eden Paradox, near the end, with Vince on Eden, defending against a hostile alien force. People are arriving on Eden but being attacked almost immediately. Someone needs to make a hard choice...
Vince
piloted the lead Sarth missile at a distance, using a virtual immersion
‘head-can’ as the mil called it, bulleting it across the desert. While his body
lay sleep-like back at base, the neural interface allowed him to steer the
C6-laden dart just above the dune-tops, caressing Eden’s skin, zeroing in on
the latest Earth-origin Q’Roth ship arrival. A black scab formed on the
horizon. He clicked on zoom.
The swollen image resembled an animal carcass swarmed
by ants. ‘Damn, too late – again,’ he muttered, knowing Vasquez and the
controllers back at base could hear every word. Not that it was necessary –
they saw everything via the slave screens. But he was pissed off – each time a
ship landed full of human cargo, the Q’Roth began harvesting within minutes. He
zoomed in further. People flooded out of the ship, dazed and bewildered, then
fought to get back inside, eyes and mouths wide in panic, scrambling over each
other upon seeing the swathe of Q’Roth warriors sweeping towards them. He
zoomed back out, suppressing a welling of anger.
He rapped a control to relay the coordinates to his
two tandem missiles, and the pair of piloted F-39s trailing behind with their
nuclear payload. He signaled the attack pattern to the base controller with a
single word: ‘Delta’. The ‘D’ stood for destroy – he judged it was too late to save the people; instead he
had to make sure the ship didn’t take the latest Q’Roth hive back to Earth. A
letter flashed in his left field of vision, ‘S’, meaning Save. This
was the third time Vasquez had disagreed with him. Okay, Vince thought, we’ll
try it your way. He ramped up the acceleration for all three missiles,
scratching across Eden’s flesh.
His recon system auto-zoomed onto four smaller Q’Roth
ships buzzing like flies around the feed – he’d seen similar ones around the
last ship too. An electric blue band scythed in front of him, missing him by
metres. He sent a command to ‘stutter’ his engine thrust, making it harder for
the Q’Roth to get a fix on him. His vision auto-compensated – but that was
because he was there virtually – the F-39 pilots couldn’t use this trick, so he
had to take out these smaller ships. But there were four, and he only had three
missiles. As if on cue, they lifted away, accelerating towards him in a square
defense pattern. He picked the nearest one and went to maximum speed,
transmitting the command ‘frag-mode’, as he spiraled through the blue beams
latticing the sky. He pummeled into his target too fast to make out any
expression from the Q’Roth pilot.
His vision leapt to the second missile, scorching in
from the East. He dipped low to avoid a web of azure fire. He saw that his first
missile had found its target – a plume of flame billowed mid-air, the wreckage
of the Q’Roth vessel fire-balling to the ground. Better, some of the explosive
fragments had scraped another one, not destroying it, but sending it to the
ground like a swatted fly. He swerved his missile to the right, attracting
another ship away from the transport, breaking their defense formation.
His vision snapped to the third missile – the second
must have been hit. He shrugged it off; he’d distracted the ships, allowing the
two fighters to roar in from the West ten metres above ground. He watched their
pulse lasers strafe the rear edge of Q’Roth warriors, slicing a hundred out of
existence like a razor clearing stubble.
The remaining two Q’Roth ships
disengaged from Vince’s missile and pursued the fighters. Vince was about to
take out one of them when he spotted an open sore in the ground – the source of
this particular Q’Roth horde. A steady stream of warriors hemorrhaged from
their underground nest into Eden’s morning sky faster than blood from a slashed
artery. He didn’t give it a moment’s thought: he broke off his pursuit and
swung the missile full throttle into the cave’s mouth.
He saw white. He tore off the
head-can – no more missiles.
‘Christ, Vince,’ Vasquez shouted,
‘you just sentenced those pilots to death!’
Vince muscled past Vasquez to the
screens relaying video from the two fighters. Most of the people on the Q’Roth
transport arrived from Earth were already dead, thousands of Q’Roth warriors
scurrying over the mound of corpses to get inside the ship, to head toward
Earth. One of the screens flat-lined. Vince
snatched the microphone from the military controller handling the second
fighter.
‘Take out the ship – do it now,
you’re dead anyway!’
Vasquez pushed next to him, seizing
the microphone, but offered no counter-command. They watched the screen in
silence as the fighter banked hard enough to make the controller flinch. The
transport grew large in front of them as the jet aimed straight for the main hatch,
a red light indicating the nuke was about to detonate. The screen flashed
white.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Vince pre-empted
Vasquez, ‘another hero. You should be proud. Medals all around later. How many
Eagles left?’
Vasquez’s lips squeezed to a white
line. ‘Three.’
Vince eyed him, recognizing the
look. ‘Want me to fly one? I can, you know. I’m a bit rusty, but –’
Vasquez grimaced. ‘What are your
orders?’
Vince scanned the intel around him.
Three quarters of their screens were
dull; almost all of their info-drones shot
out of the sky. He hit a control and the holomap folded out in front of him
at waist-level, revealing Eden’s major continent in beige relief. Orange flags
highlighted Q’Roth nests, yellow ones transports arrived from Earth, and red
ones transports that had arrived with human freight, swapped it for Q’Roth
warriors, and vanished back to Earth. Too
much red! The inbound ships had been programmed to land on top of nests.
Vasquez nodded towards the Southern
section. ‘Turnaround time’s getting quicker. They know we’re here so they’re
boarding fast as they can. Latest one was thirty minutes.’
He made up his mind. ‘Change of
strategy. We nuke them as soon as they arrive.’ Vince spoke to the map,
pointing. ‘We send the fighters to these orange flags – we know transports are
going to arrive there soon. If the fighters get there before the transports,
they nuke the nests. If the transports arrive, they nuke them too.’ He held up
a hand, raising his voice, shouting so everyone in the room was clear. ‘The
fighters go in hot, nukes armed, so if they’re shot down, they detonate, if
not, they bomb the ships as soon as they find them.’
Vasquez blanched. ‘What about the
people on board? We’re soldiers for God’s sake, not butchers.’
Vince rounded on him, ignoring the
fact that Vasquez was a head taller. ‘Your job is to protect humanity. Contain
the threat on Eden. Maximize survival back on Earth. We can’t help the people
here, they’re dead either way. Give the command!’
Vasquez faced off Vince. ‘We’ll meet
in hell, for sure, Vince.’
Vince didn’t blink. ‘I have a condo
there waiting for me. You’re welcome for tea. Now give the fucking order,
Colonel.’
Vasquez bristled. He nodded to the
controllers.
Like I say, I miss him. If we ever are invaded, I hope someone like Vince is there...
The Eden Paradox - where it begins
Eden's Trial - where humanity is put on trial
Eden's Revenge - where it gets personal
Eden's Endgame - where it all ends - coming out Fall 2014
Like I say, I miss him. If we ever are invaded, I hope someone like Vince is there...The Eden Paradox - where it begins
Eden's Trial - where humanity is put on trial
Eden's Revenge - where it gets personal
Eden's Endgame - where it all ends - coming out Fall 2014
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