The Orion Deception (15 page)

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 effects 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!"

Heck and Lainne dragged all three bodies into the cell and closed the door behind them. Heck took the security guard uniform from one of the dead men while Lainne took the medic uniform from the other, she put it over her own. Then they hopped onto the floating gurney and Heck activated the accelerator. The hovering stretcher hurtled down the long hallway toward the door that led back out to the Space Gates.

"Why aren't there a hundred police officers surging through this passageway after us?" Lainne asked as the gurney came to a stop before the doors leading out into the terminal area.

"Because those men ordered all surveillance of the detention area to be disabled. They are ghosts and they want no one to know who they are or what they do.

"We're going into the gate now. I want you to walk to the gift shop, buy a magazine, and pretend to read it for a few moments. Watch for anyone who may be taking interest in you. If you notice no one, go to the nearest ladies room and change out of that medic's uniform."

"Why am I wearing it over my clothes now?"

"Port Authority Police will be monitoring everything that goes on out there. If they see civilians walking out of this area, they will be immediately suspicious. A pair of medics coming out from here shouldn't attract too much attention. I'll be watching you until you enter the ladies room. Take your time in there. Meet me at the
Floating Pub,
on the platform above the food court after you've changed."

"What about Gelad?"

"Gelad is fine."

"How do you know?"

"These Orion agents, or whatever they are, said nothing to us about him. They didn't seem to know he exists. If they had, they would have gloated about it." Heck tapped the button on the console of the gurney and the door slid open, startling a few passengers in the area.

"Could it be that Gelad is the one who set us up?" she asked as the two walked out into the milling crowd of travelers and shops.

"Yes. It could."

Chapter

Seven

~

Lainne did exactly as Heck instructed her and went to the newsstand.

"Can I help you?" asked a young woman wearing a black apron with several dozen pins from around the country.

"Yes," she answered, placing a magazine, a candy bar and a Dr. Pepper on the counter.

The clerk nodded and began to ring up her sale. Lainne looked around for Heck, but didn't see him. She was nervous and frazzled. She looked at the clock hovering above the newspaper stand and was relieved that there was plenty of time before their flight left.

"Here you go," said the clerk, handing Lainne her card back. Lainne smiled and sat down at a small table in the corner, her back to the wall. At first she was paranoid, watching everyone, taking in everyone who was seated at the newspaper stand. But then she remembered that she needed to be discreet and did her best to feign calm. The cold drink calmed her down and she thoroughly enjoyed the candy bar as she leaned her back against the wall. She thumbed the pages of the magazine tablet she was reading and watched the people around her, taking note every few minutes of this person's clothes or that person's features. But each time she looked up from her tablet, the person she had been watching before was gone. She began to feel more confident that no one was watching her. Finally she put the magazine tablet and her Dr. Pepper bottle back in the plastic bag and walked to the nearest ladies room.

Lainne entered the ladies restroom and locked herself in a large handicap stall. A few other travelers came in and left, none staying more than the few moments it took to take care of things. She remained in the stall a few moments more, waiting for anyone who might have seen her enter to leave the restroom. Then, very slowly so as not to attract attention to her stall, she removed the uniform pants and shirt, her own clothes still underneath. She patiently waited several more minutes to ensure that anyone who had noticed unusual activity in her stall would have left too.

She shook her head ruefully. All of the tension and stress of hiding to avoid certain death from their unknown pursuers was weighing heavily on her. She bit her lip to hold back the sob that wanted to come. She missed William dearly, he always knew what to say to cheer her up. And when he hugged her, it reminded her of her father and the way he always watched over the siblings when they were young.

She had killed someone today and it had shaken her to her core. What would William think? Deep down she knew he would find the right thing to say, that it was a necessary step to save the life of another. She had always heard that logic used by police and military personnel, but it had never been real before. It had been easy to criticize the police and the military in cases where deadly force was used, and to speak out in support of the dead or their families. But, she noted with great shame, no one ever spoke out for the guardians. No one ever publicly said how horrible it was to take a life, to have someone try to murder you, and how deeply that affected a person. Even if they never admitted it.

She had more respect now for the silent watchers that protected an ungrateful society than she ever had before. How spoiled she now felt.