But none of that mattered to Heck Thomas anymore. He had remained hidden in the dangerous Asteroid Belt for many weeks, dodging his relentless pursuers and fending off pirates. During the lengthy solitude, Heck began to feel his primal instincts taking over. It was a constant struggle for his physical and mental survival. Eventually he resorted to piracy himself, using the powerful weapon that was his cruiser to board a merchant vessel bound for a drift in the Inner System. He was deeply ashamed of himself, and felt as though he had abandoned his humanity for the sake of his own pitiful survival. He wondered bitterly why he had bothered. An appeal for charity may have resulted in that very merchant satisfying his need for food and water with a smile rather than by force. More than once the ex-lawman had cursed himself for surviving. What good could there possibly be in store for his life now? The cop in him was gone, burned away by the unspeakable events of the past months. He had been forced into hiding, to assume an anonymous existence and become a nothing. A no one. He found that it became very hard to care about anyone or anything else other than hiding from whoever was pursuing him. Loyalty? Loyalty was something that, once lost, could not be regained.
He downed another shot as the sports programming was interrupted by another "breaking news" report.
“Thank you for joining us, began the three dimensional image of a news anchor with a British accent. We will return to the match in a moment.
“We have breaking news to report from Palace Drift, the capital of the Commonwealth. Today, Liberty Islands Drift have joined Palmetto Drift in accusing the Commonwealth of biased trade policies engineered to favor and prop up the struggling Earth states. The Liberty and Palmetto drifts have declared that these long standing trade policies have amounted to acts of aggression against their sovereignty and have further suggested that any sanctions or punishments enacted against them in response to their withdrawal from the Commonwealth will result in a military response.
“There has been no official alliance formed between these drifts yet, but Commonwealth officials believe the two countries will act in tandem to any perceived threats. They have been outspoken about this issue for years and have the support of many non-Terran states. Now, for more in-depth coverage we return to Palace Drift and the Prime Minister...”
Arnold had to have known that was coming. Was he trying to incite violence? Why else would he send his message blaming the Drift States to the people of Earth if not to shift sentiment against those successful nations? Heck blew out a long sigh. The Commonwealth was very divided over Horatio Arnold these days, and that was reflected in the Halls of Parliament. Supporters of Arnold were growing fewer, but those who were on his side were ruthless in their dealings with the PM's opposition. And lately the members of the PM's opposition were mysteriously dying. Things were going to get bad in the System very soon and Heck wanted to be somewhere in deep space when it did.
It couldn't last, he reasoned bitterly as the barkeep filled his shot glass again. There was a point in the history of every great society where its people became inured to the things that made them great. And that point usually fell where the people realized they could use the power of government to take money and property, by force if necessary, from one segment of society and bestow it upon others.
Just then a woman sat down beside him. A very beautiful woman with long blond hair, a nice figure, and long legs displayed beneath a professional looking dress. The woman stirred something deep within him, something he had successfully buried during his solitude in space. It was his need for companionship, female companionship. He turned his attention away from her quickly. He was in disguise now, he could not afford to be friendly with anyone and risk them coming to harm, or risk his own discovery. It was the cost of survival, though the part of him that longed for female companionship rebelled against his logic.
Damn, he thought, throwing back another shot.
As he placed the shot glass back on the counter he glanced at the beautiful young woman and saw that she was looking at him, tears streaming down her face. Damn.
"I know who you are," she said with a quiet sniffle.
"I don't think so, ma'am." Heck gave her a short reply and held his shot glass up, signaling the barkeep to refill it. The barkeep glanced at Heck and shook his head, leaving the man perplexed. "What the...?"
"Sir, I really need your help."
"Help?" Heck asked absently, as he waved at the barkeep to come to his end of the counter. But the tall man was now studiously ignoring the ex-Marshal.
"My brother has disappeared and I need your help to find him."
"Lady, I'm just a guy trying to drown his sorrows in the bottom of a FULL SHOT GLASS!" he raised his voice as he spoke the last few words and glanced meaningfully at the bartender. The bartender wasn't looking.
"I know a little about your sorrows, sir." The woman had a mild Southern drawl, not unlike those who hailed from rural Florida. He found the accent appealing despite himself. "And I am so very sorry for your loss. But my brother is not lost, not yet."
"Look, I told you before, I don't know who or what you’re talking about," he said gruffly. "Miss!" he called to a passing waitress. But she ignored him too. "Why is it so hard to get a drink?" he said, exasperated. He placed his glass down on the counter in defeat and looked into the bleary blue eyes that were begging him for help. Damn.
"I guess I was wrong," said the woman dejectedly. "I'll go."
"Wait," he groaned as she stood, silently regretting it.
The woman's eyes pierced him, gazed right into his soul. He felt a twinge of guilt about feeling so attracted to this woman, but the truth of it was that Laylara was as good as dead now. She'd been sent through the wormhole nearly and there had been no sign of her return. The site of the wormhole was under heavy guard. Commonwealth cutters had a permanent presence in that quadrant now, and heavily armed fighters kept constant patrols in the surrounding space. He agonized over his plight during the many long weeks of his evasion; he had the means to open the wormhole but couldn't get close enough to it to try. It seemed as though all hope of getting back to the wormhole was now lost.
As he gazed into the woman's eyes, Heck made a resolution. He had never been the type to wallow in self-pity for more than a few hours in his entire life, and yet lately he had been doing just that. Heck was a man of action, not remorse. But he had been wallowing in remorse and regret. He had been, a long time ago, a man of faith. But his faith had been broken and he had been questioning. Moments before this woman sat down next to him at his pity party, he had been hoping for a reason to go on with his life. Was this it?
Long ago the man who had been strong in faith would have said yes, that it was a sign. But Heck had grown very tired of looking for signs and trying to find direction where there was none. This woman needed Marshal Heck Thomas to come to her aid. And as the smile crept into Heck Thomas' face, he wondered who needed whom more. Although he knew he would, someday, go through that wormhole to find Laylara he was sure that all he would find would be her body and the cruiser that she had been locked inside of; if there was anything left of it to find.
It was time for Heck Thomas to let go.
"Sit down, please," he said as he slid his stool closer to her own. She had a familiar face. "What's your name?"
"Lainne Connor," she said wiping her eyes with a tissue.
"Ms. Connor, what is it you think I can do for you?"
"I think you can find my brother."
"Why me?"
"I know what it is you used to do. There isn't any place in the System that someone can hide from you."
"Who told you to look for me? And how did you find me, anyway? Most people don't even know Mason is an actual place in Florida, let alone where this dive happens to be."
"We have a friend in common, one who knew that you would be here in the Osprey's Nest."
"I find that hard to believe. You seem like too nice of a gal to be running in my circles."
"Our mutual friend is
a person of high birth, royalty so to speak."
Heck growled at the realization of who the snitch was that ratted him out. He was beginning to sober up and wasn't liking it so he tried again to wave the bartender over for a refill, but the man just shook his head. "What the Hell?" he said as he looked around for a waitress. Finally he put his shot glass down with a loud crack on the polished bar.
"He's 'royal,' all right. A 'royal' pain in the ass!" he grumbled. "Assuming we're talking about the same person, why on Earth would I want to help you? Like I said, I have my own trouble."
"I know. But by helping me find my brother, you may find that there are other ways to reach your goal of finding Detective Espinosa."
"And now we've established that my best living friend can't be trusted to keep his damn mouth shut," he said angrily. "I'm going to have to kill him later."
"Seriously, Mr.-"
"I am serious, believe me. And please, don't say my name."
"Fine," said the woman. She let out a long sigh and Heck couldn't help but look into her deep blue eyes. "Will you help me?"
Damn, he thought again. "Tell me what happened to your brother."
Lainne removed a small holophone from her purse and placed it on the counter. She tapped the side with her finger and a blue light suddenly danced in the air above the device. Then the blue light stretched as other colors projected into it from the phone and within about a second a holographic control panel appeared. She tapped an icon with her pen and the control panel disappeared, replaced by another panel that displayed pictures. She tapped on one and the picture expanded into a three-dimensional holographic image of a smiling young man.
"That's him," she said, staring wide-eyed into the image. "His name is William. He's 28 years old."
"Looks like your typical all-American kid."
"He was-is," she corrected herself as she flicked off the picture with a wave her pen. "I won't bore you with too many details. But you should know that he's an FTL engineer for Aurora Aerospace Industries based here, in Florida."
"An FTL engineer? As in 'Faster Than Light?'"
"Exactly. As you can imagine, most of the work he does is classified under Commonwealth Security Directives. Consequently, I know very little of the nature of his work, other than the obvious."
"I see." Heck knew that AAI was the leading defense contractor in the entire Solar System. While everyone knew that the Commonwealth government was actively searching for a method to break the light barrier, few knew exactly which companies were involved.
"Not long after he disappeared I received a copy of the internal report from AAI concerning William's disappearance. The report said that he had been involved in casino gaming on a remote drift. They even suggested that Will had been running with some nefarious mafia characters. You can imagine how furious I was. Will is a nerd, always was. He couldn't be bothered wasting his time with activities like sports and gambling."
"You two were close then."
"Our parents were killed during the Cuban-American War. They were on the bridge between Fort Myers and Cape Coral when it was destroyed by Communist sympathizers. We've no other family left."
"What does your brother do for fun?" he asked, his old police mind kicking back on and collecting data to be analyzed later. He knew from past experience chasing fugitives that some people disappeared because they wanted to. But others didn't, and Heck didn't have enough facts to decide which camp William was in.
"He just works. Like I said, he is a nerd of the first order. When he went home after work, if he wasn't sleeping at the lab, he would keep working on his own personal theories and projects."
"So do you think the company is part of the cover up or are they ridiculously ignorant?"
"All I know is that he was working on something incredible in the FTL field. I believe the government snatched him up and AAI contrived the absurd story about a gambling habit that led to his own disappearance, implying a mafia debt payback."
"What sort of contact did you have with your brother before he disappeared?"
"He began acting very strange. For weeks before he disappeared he refused to meet with me, saying he was too busy. That was very unlike him," she said, dejectedly. Then she let out a deep breath and continued her tale. "William stopped taking my calls too; our communication was limited to trading messages with each other."
"What was the tone of his communication?"
"Typically, he would enthusiastically bore me with talk of his work for hours on end. Lately he was very wooden, oddly unemotional, even when discussing what he could of his research. He began talking about how he had managed to 'come into money,' whatever that meant. And the corporate investigators used that to justify their allegations of his gambling addiction."
"Ok, so what kind of gambling? Cards, sports, asteroid racing?"
"The report was vague on specifics, as you can imagine, but it did mention asteroid racing. I could never get a straight answer from anyone at AAI when I called them. And when I went to the office of the CEO, I was threatened with arrest for trespassing. They really didn't want to see me."
"And what do you do for a living, that they wouldn't see you about the death of your own brother?" Heck knew there was something about this woman that gave him a sense of deja vu.
"I'm a law clerk for the Committee on Law and Justice in Miami."
"Uh huh." While the ex-Marshal had never had a run-in with the Committee on Law and Justice, he knew plenty about them. He had seen her on holovision interviews a number of times before, which was why he recognized her face. The Committee was a government watchdog group. At times they could be vicious and unbending when they felt law enforcement or government were being dictatorial. Luckily, the Committee tended to focus their ire against the Commonwealth politicians most of the time. And, from time to time, they had been known to come out in support of local American law and government agencies that had come into conflict with the Commonwealth Police. While he disliked the manner in which the Committee would attack law enforcement officials, he did admire their constant guard against infringement on the rights of Americans within the Commonwealth. With a smirk he added: "You know that admission did very little to help your case, right?"
"Please," she said with a faint smile. "There isn't much time!"
It was then that Heck Thomas noticed how it was that he seemed to be more and more susceptible to the woman's charm as he became more sober. It's not supposed to work that way! he thought wryly as the bartender walked past behind the bar.
"Barkeep!" he said, holding his empty glass in the air and pointing to it with his free hand, all the while a scandalized look on his face. But the barkeeper shook his head with a wry grin and gave Heck a shrug of the shoulders. Heck gave up and put his glass back on the table, grumbling.
Just then Heck's legendary survival instinct kicked in and he became aware of a sudden increase in the general hubbub in the bar. He cautiously listened for something, anything, that might indicate danger. And then he heard it. His stomach twisted into a knot, realizing his chances of escaping from this bar were not favorable.
"...right there!" came the unmistakable observation. Someone recognized him. His mind started computing escape plans. Lainne was talking but he wasn't listening to her now.
"You sure, Eddie?" hissed a voice in a drunkenly loud whisper.
"Dammit, Pedro! 'Course I am! You saw the ticker too!" Heck watched the pair seated near the holovision over his glass, pretending to be disinterested. The ticker on the news feed was now running a story about renegade Commonwealth Marshal, Heck Thomas, and his picture scrolled by alongside other wanted felons. Though he had taken some precautions with genetic disguise technology, changing his hair and eye color and he grew in his beard, he knew his disguise would not pass sincere scrutiny.
"Hell," he cursed. Things were going to get out of hand soon. And as the adrenaline began to surge, and the fate of a damsel in distress was placed in his hands, the old Heck Thomas came back
to life.
"Thanks!" he said wryly, glancing at his own three-dimensional image drifting along the bottom of the holovision display. "That sure made things easier."
"I'm sorry," she said, nervously glancing around. One of the nearby men was glancing down at a holophone computer in his hands. "I can't trust anyone now, least of all the government. You were the only one to turn to."
"The clowns in this bar won't bat an eye about turning us in for a reward."
The ex-lawman's perception of danger triggered a dump of adrenaline into his system, helping to clear his whiskey-fogged mind. Realizing he had to act quickly he shouldered a backpack and took hold of Lainne's hand. He began to make his way through the bar toward the back door where the fly-bikers had entered. But a strange look from the bartender told Heck that the man was probably on to him too.
"Crap," he said, turning around and dragging Lainne toward the front door.
The pair of men whose poorly concealed conversation warned Heck of the danger had taken an interest in them. The two men got up from their table and moved into Heck's path to bar the way out. In one smooth motion Heck picked up a stool and smashed the first man over the head. He followed through with a powerful shove to the second man that sent him flying backward. Before the splinters had even hit the floor, Heck and Lainne were moving past the dazed men and out the door. "Come on!"
"Pedro!" said Eddie, tapping his unconscious friend on the cheek. "Pedro? Wake up, man!" The rest of the patrons in the bar were abuzz with excitement. Some moved closer to the would-be bounty hunters, Pedro and Eddie, while others looked out the door after the fleeing pair.
The blistering heat and stifling humidity would have ordinarily overwhelmed the man who had spent so much of his life in climate controlled spacecraft, but his adrenaline was pumping and he barely noticed the sweat beading up on his brow.
The Orion Deception Page 2
