The Orion Deception

by Tom Bielawski

  "Heck Thomas," he said simply.

  For a long moment nothing happened. Then a red beam of light raced across his face in a grid pattern, measuring every square micrometer and scanning his retinas. For a second a digital likeness of his own face hovered in the air before him.

  "Identity confirmed," came a smooth and feminine computer voice.

  The sound of bars sliding and internal mechanisms clanking presaged the opening of the door. Heck was bathed in cool air once more and stepped into the brightly lit chamber, his eyes squinting as they adjusted from near darkness to bright LED lights. When he could see once more, Heck was facing a pair of armed men with black steel pistol muzzles scant inches from his head.

  "Heck Thomas?" demanded a man seated in a chair beyond the two henchmen.

  "That's right," he said cautiously.

  "Bless my mama's soul, I heard you gone rogue," the man scowled darkly and he stood, a gun of his own aimed near the ex-lawman's midsection. "But I never thought you'd have the balls to show your ugly face here." The muscular man towered over Heck and his own henchmen, his pale skin and military style hair making his scarred face look more ominous.

  "Well, I can see I'm not welcome here," Heck said with a wry laugh. "Guess I'll just be going now."

  "You ain't going nowhere, Heck Thomas," said the man as he jammed the muzzle of his pistol into Heck's ribs. "You got a pretty big reward on your head."

  "Thanks," said Heck between gasps of pain. "I didn't need that rib. I've got a few more on the other side if you want to break those too."

  One of the henchmen obliged and Heck gasped in pain again, cursing his own smart-ass attitude as pain coursed through his other side. "Nah," he wheezed. "You just bruised it. Try again!"

  Just as the criminal was about to oblige, the seeming leader of the trio raised his hand and waved off any further assault. "Get up, you son of a bitch!" said the leader, laughing, as he extended his hand to the ex-lawman. "Never could stay mad at you long."

  "Glad you didn't remember that first," said Heck, rubbing his side. "I need help."

  "No shit," said the man as he said down on his leather chair. "What else is new?"

  "I'm in trouble. The Commonwealth and the feds are after me."

  "And some others too?"

  "And some others too."

  "Well, I don't wanna know who you gone and pissed off now. Though if you did to them what you did to my brother, they must be really pissed." The scarred man leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up on a desk as he shoved a cigar into his mouth. "What can I do for the great Marshal Heck Thomas?"

  Heck took in the sight of the room as the other man had been speaking. Old fluorescent lights hung from a ceiling with white paint peeling along the surface. The walls were the same, but several dark holographic interfaces lined the walls and there were two holographic interface workstations in the room. He was in the right place.

  "Open ended passage certificates for Jax Aerospace port to any destination and false ID with 3D point recognition masking."

  The man said nothing for a moment, considering. Then, "Alright."

  "For me and two more."

  "Two more?" the man demanded. "Damn. Anything else?"

  "Yep." Heck smiled as he divulged the shopping list of featherweight body armor and plastisteel weapons that he and Gelad had decided would be required to give them safe passage off-world. As he spoke, the two henchmen put away their guns and began turning on the holographic interface stations around the room.

  "What makes you think I won't just turn you in for the reward?"

  "You? Call the police?" Heck asked with a laugh. "You'd be walking the bottom of the St. John's River with cement shoes on your feet. Everyone round here'd think you turned into a rat. That wouldn't be good."

  "Shit," the man drawled. "I could take the reward and be off-world before any of that ever happened," the man said, and Heck knew that was probably true. "Convince me."

  "For payment I'll match the reward."

  "Shit," he drawled again, his gun in his hand once more. "It'd be a whole lot less work to turn you in."

  "After I reach my destination safely, I'll match it again."

  The man smiled and put away his gun. "Now you talking."

  "Boss," chimed one the man's henchmen. "How you know he'll really do it?"

  "Because, if there is one thing that every crook knows about Heck Thomas it’s that he always keeps his word. Crazy as a pole-cat, but always keeps his word."

  That seemed to satisfy the henchman, which satisfied Heck Thomas. And it was now that Heck was grateful for the one good thing he took from his upbringing: a strong sense of integrity and a good fear of Hell.

  Chapter

  Six

  ~

  Heck, Gelad, and Lainne stepped out of the taxi on the Departures Terminal A passenger unloading platform. The trio walked along a foot path that was outlined in fluorescent yellow lights which took them safely through the dozens of other taxis that were taking off and landing on the platform. An anti-grav sidewalk ferried all passengers across the open space above the ground transportation loading area and to a large sidewalk. Heck placed a hand on Lainne's shoulder to encourage her and remind her not to stare about like a tourist.

  Heck had been through this Aerospace port before on assignments and was quite familiar with its confusing layout. He was confident their ID cloakers would work, having been thoroughly familiar with the ID artist's brother in the past. He suppressed a chuckle and was glad that his deductions about the brothers' relationship had been right: there wasn't much love lost between them.

  Two great sliding glass doors opened and the trio walked in with a few others. Heck was grateful to be inside. This would probably be his last taste of hot and muggy Earth atmosphere for a very long time, preferring as he did the constant conditions of life in space.

  Inside the doorway were rows upon rows of ticketing kiosks. Heck and Lainne went to one, they were posing as a married couple traveling together, while Gelad went to another a few places over. They made no conversation with Gelad at all, acting as though it were mere coincidence the man had been traveling in the same taxi with them.

  The holocontrols popped up in front of Heck's eyes as he stepped in front of the kiosk and immediately a 3D face scan mapped the features of his visage. In two seconds the scan was complete and the interface politely asked Heck for his flight number. Heck tapped the numbers on the keypad floating before him. Lainne was casually looking around while Heck accessed their tickets, looking for anyone hanging around with no purpose. They didn't really think their pursuers from Orion's Sword would be amateurish enough to hang around and look obvious, that would probably be the MO of Commonwealth agents.

  "Ok, your turn." Heck stepped away from the kiosk and Lainne stepped up, repeating the same process. Heck saw Gelad complete his own ticket acquisition and noticed that he was now working his way toward the security screening area and the trams beyond that led to Space Gates. He didn't notice anything unusual among the local Port Authority Police who patrolled in uniform throughout the ticketing area. His trained eyes picked out a few plain clothes agents who most likely worked for the Port Authority and seemed to be mostly attuned to contraband interdiction.

  Once Lainne was done, and her encoded plastic ticket was ejected from the machine, he and the woman walked together toward security screening. They didn't have to wait long as the security in this Aerospace port was state-of-the-art. There was a long line but the Port Authority Police who checked ID and managed the security area did a good job of moving passengers through the process. When it was Heck's turn, he stepped onto a platform near a uniformed Port Authority officer and placed his luggage on the floor near his feet. The floor moved and Heck was transported through a tunnel that was about twenty feet long as he was assailed by a variety of radio and light waves that scanned for the presence of contraband. Specialized detectors analyzed the air around him for explosive residue, disease, or other
harmful substances. At the end of the tunnel Heck stepped out onto the ground where two more uniformed officers waited silently.

  Heck was relieved to see that the officers were not interested in him, boosting his confidence that his disguise technology was, so far, serving them well. In a few seconds Lainne stepped out of the tunnel next to him and the pair continued on through a set of large glass doors to the tram waiting area.

  The trams were old-fashioned monorail trains from the early 21st Century, and passengers waited on platforms now as they did then. A light signaled the approach of a tram and as the white, train-like, car slid to a stop several sets of accordion style doors flew open. Cautionary warnings to mind one's step were repeated in several languages as the pair stepped onto the tram.

  The doors slid closed and Heck and Lainne grasped the cold silver poles that ran from floor to ceiling in the ancient tram car. The tram lurched forward and shot out of the tunnel soaring through the air along its lofty rail above the arrival/departure areas. Gradually the tram descended as it approached the massive gate area which serviced air travel throughout the world and space flights to various orbital stations around Earth, the Moon, and Mars.

  Heck's mind tuned out the vid screens that flashed advertisements for vacation getaways around the System. But when the commercial for Rigel's Escape flashed in front of him, his mind locked in. The commercial was innocent enough, boasting life in the lap of luxury and showing the rich and famous frolicking in pursuits of pleasure. The vid screen flashed again and a new ad went on just as the tram came to a stop at the Space Terminal. The doors slid open and Heck and Lainne stepped out into a large shopping and dining area that was crowded with people.

  He led Lainne by the hand and couldn't help but notice that her grip on his own hand was firm. It was a comfortable feeling, but Heck wasn't sure he could get used to it. Lainne was so unlike Laylara, who had been possessed of a wild and forceful personality. Laylara was a wonderful woman, but she had never been into holding hands in public; and Heck never had either. But things seemed different somehow, and he was glad for the ruse of their disguise.

  He was conflicted about his thoughts however, feeling that somehow he was betraying Laylara's memory even though he was becoming more and more sure that she was, by now, just a memory. Lainne looked up at him, sensing his internal struggle and gazed into his eyes and somehow Heck's world just turned upside down. For a moment he thought he had been lovestruck, whatever that was.

  Then he realized he had been struck in the back of the head.

  Heck cursed himself and women everywhere as he stared up into the cold hard eyes of a killer, who was dressed as a medic and pretending to render him aid.

  "Clear a path for the gurney!" shouted the man. Heck found that he could not move anything but his eyes. He searched for Lainne, straining his peripheral vision, and saw a man standing behind her with his arm protectively around her shoulder. Soon a hover-gurney with a pole topped by a yellow and red flashing light arrived and settled to the ground beside him. The front of the gurney looked very much like a yellow and white car, complete with the word ambulance across its hood.

  Heck found himself sinking into unconsciousness but fought it back valiantly. Another man, this one also wearing the uniform of a medic, looked down at him from above his head as he felt himself being lifted onto the gurney. At first the medic's eyes seemed normal, yet Heck knew they were the fiendish eyes of a killer. And then the medic's eyes changed horribly. His iris's suddenly expanded impossibly wide, seeming to encompass the entire eyeball, for nothing was visible but pure blackness. It seemed as though the light of the world was being sucked into those orbs of darkness, and with it his very soul.

  But then, very quickly, the eyes reverted back to normal again leaving Heck to wonder who -or what- it was that he saw.

  In minutes the hubbub of the Space Gates area was gone as the gurney left the crowded area behind. Heck sensed rather than saw that his captors were standing on some part of the gurney next to him, allowing the device to move them all swiftly along. The false paramedics had taken him through a doorway and into the hidden world of passageways where the protective services and the maintenance people made the aerospace port safe for everyone. Down a long gray passageway they went, silently, even Lainne said nothing as they were rushed along.

  Finally they came to a room that looked suspiciously like a holding cell and the hover-gurney came to a rapid halt. The gurney dropped roughly to the ground, jarring his already aching head, and the straps that secured him came free and he felt as though he could move again. He struggled to rise from the bed to get to his feet, hoping to fight his way free but found a blunt object pressing into his spine, immobilizing him.

  "Ah yes," came a soft voice. "The great Marshal Heck Thomas. One cannot be too careful with a specimen like you." The speaker was a newcomer to the hallway, but Heck wasn't sure just where he had come from. The two paramedic impostors stood flanking the gurney, there was nowhere to go.

  Heck stared daggers at the newcomer's cold visage. The man was olive skinned, like a Mediterranean, with light brown hair and large eyes. He was not the one whose eyes had changed so bizarrely earlier, but this man's eyes did seem unusually large. He was wearing a suit and when he leaned over to whisper in Heck's ear, the ex-lawman saw a neck chain bearing a Commonwealth Bureau of Investigations badge. But if that man was a Bureau agent, Heck Thomas was an Iowa farmhand.

  The rough hands of the impostor medics picked him up and dragged him, limp, through the open doorway and into the room. Lainne had been ushered in ahead of him and was now sitting on a bench in the small cell, she seemed similarly subdued. Sensors that were capable of recording video, sound, vibration, and odor, were located in the corners of the room.

  "You begin to see the hopelessness of the situation, yes?" asked the man, tauntingly. "You are our prisoner. But you wonder who we are, don't you?"

  Heck did indeed wonder, but whatever device they were using to immobilize him would not allow him to verbally express his thoughts. It was probably for the better, he thought ruefully, as he would have doubtless engaged smart-ass mode and that would only have made the situation worse.

  "You will soon find out. It was so nice of you to bring Dr. Connor's sister with you. We have plans for her." By the eager tone of the man's voice, Heck knew that their plans for Lainne would not be good.

  Heck's mind was working on several levels at once. Part of him was analyzing the situation over and over and over in his head, waiting for an opportunity to escape. Another part of his mind was recording what the strange man was saying, the alien story and these Orion's Sword goons were beginning to seem all too real to the ex-lawman.

  And if it were true that these were agents of Orion's Sword, then Heck was sure there would be no evidence of their existence anywhere. The security sensors would certainly be off when these men came around and any local law enforcement officers would have been asked to be elsewhere. That's how the Commonwealth spy outfits did business, it seemed likely that these guys would do the same.

  Now he just needed a way to escape.

  "It was a pleasure to meet you, Marshal Thomas. You are a rare specimen of your feeble kind. But I am afraid we will have to kill you anyway. For now, I will leave you and Ms. Connor alone while we arrange for your death. And after watching you die, she will be accompanying us on a very special trip!"

  Heck was poised, a coiled spring ready to explode into action. He couldn't move a muscle, but he suspected that whatever it was that was paralyzing him would deactivate soon and he had to be ready. So when the man stood and removed the strange device that had been pressing into his spine, Heck lurched his lethargic limbs into action and threw himself at the stranger. It was a clumsy attack but the man had been caught off guard. Just as Heck had hoped, his captor had not truly accounted for the ex-lawman's legendary intestinal fortitude.

  Heck's attack was a simple one. He knew that his muscles would be slow to react as the effe
cts of the device were deactivated, and that they would not respond to requests for fine motor movements. Instead he relied on using the largest and strongest muscle groups of his body to make a powerful, albeit clumsy, assault. He fell onto the man, tangling his own powerful legs with the man's knees; they fell to the ground together in a tangle of limbs. The man was up again in a flash, but it was all the time Heck needed to get his body back under full control. With a powerful surge he leapt bodily at the man and managed to grab an arm. He used the man's own momentum to redirect him away from the open door and slammed him forcefully into the wall. The man's body sagged to the floor, limp. Heck was shocked by the ease with which he had felled the strange man.

  And just then the two more of the strange men, this time dressed as security, piled into the small cell. Heck had already picked up the strange paralysis device that had been used on him earlier and slammed it into the gut of the first guard who came in through the narrow door. The guard crumpled into a limp heap, forcing Heck backward where he tripped over the inert from of the false Bureau agent, the stunned guard falling on top of him. The second guard was poised behind the first and his gun was at Heck's head in a split second. Then there was a deafening crack as the gun went off and Heck knew that he was dead.

  But then the armed guard fell over backwards and Heck was not dead.

  "Oh my God!" shouted Lainne, as she dropped the gun and covered her mouth with her hands. "I killed him!"

  Heck wriggled out from underneath the body of the first guard who was still immobile from the effects of strange device. Then he wrapped both arms about the man's neck, and looked into hate-filled luminous eyes as he snapped his neck. There would be no more problems from either of these men.

  "Time to go!"

  "What happened? Was that really a Bureau agent?"

  "No," he said gruffly, trying to avoid looking into her terrified eyes. "Definitely not a Bureau agent. Come on!"