The Orion Deception (22 page)

Heck nodded somberly and Lainne smiled her understanding.

"Good. There is someone here to see you."

"My, how the mighty have fallen," came a deep voice laced with smarmy disdain from across the room.

"Virgil!" said Heck as the elegantly attired privateer captain strolled across the command center. Despite the man's unkind comment, he was smiling broadly. But, right up to the moment he saw his old friend, Heck wasn't sure if he would hug his old friend -or slug him.

"You old scallywag! What the Hell you been doin'? You got the whole Commonwealth all shook up!"

"You know you're gonna pay for getting me into this, Virg."

"Heck, I pay for my acquaintance with you every damn day of my life. What the Hell else is new?"

The two men laughed heartily.

"So, how is the business of Privateer Captain of the Commonwealth?"

"Good, man. Good. You have no idea how rich I'm gettin'. People actually
pay
me for protection and I don't have to threaten them! Ain't that somethin'?"

"Yeah!" Heck said with a rueful laugh. "You're a regular straight-laced citizen now."

"And you're in the gutter." Virgil's statement was not intended as an insult. It was a statement of the ironic truth regarding the circumstances each had bestowed upon the other. "Ain't that somethin'."

"Follow me, gentlemen," instructed Gelad. "We need someplace more private to discuss our next steps."

Gelad led them along a winding path through the busy operations room. Heck was amazed at the sophistication of the Virtual Holograph Technology that the Israelis seemed to have perfected beyond what was available to ordinary society. The effects of the holography were so realistic that the operator could actually see, feel, and smell within the hologram as though he or she were physically present in another location. Entire rooms could be transformed into a virtual reality thousands of miles or more away. Here in the operations center Heck was seeing this technology on a somewhat smaller scale though he was certain that there were more intense VHT chambers elsewhere in the consulate offices.

They passed a console desk located near a circular raised platform where two computer operators adjusted virtual holographic controls. This was one of the VHT stations where remote operators, such as special forces or police commandos, checked-in with the operations room. As they walked behind the computer station, a form began to appear on the platform. It was a man in blacked out tactical garb with black gear and weapons and a face mask. He appeared so real that Lainne started in surprise and Heck slowed to a stop to watch. It seemed to be dark where the man was and the hologram presented that image accurately. The man was walking as he communicated with a tactical officer on ROS, talking in a low whisper voice.

"What's that commando guy saying, Heck?"

"I don't know, I don't speak his language. Even if I did, I'm not sure I really want to know considering our present dilemma."

"I suppose you're right," she said, watching the man drop to one knee with his assault rifle pointed at an unseen threat. They continued on past the commando and his counterpart to a small conference room. A large table hovered above the floor and several comfortable leather chairs hovered nearby. The surface of the table was smooth and highly polished, it also served as an interface for accessing the various computer systems employed by the ISP.

Gelad advanced to the head of the table and sat down, the door to the room closed and locked behind them. He tapped the surface of the table and the glass windows suddenly darkened to an impenetrable black, preventing any wondering eyes from watching them. The walls of the room were a warm brown color and the floor was thickly carpeted. Vid screens appeared suddenly from hidden cabinets in the walls and various video feeds began to liven up the screens. One showed Rigel's Escape
video advertisements over and over.

"Rigel's Escape is not a new drift. It was at one time located near Jupiter in support of the gas mining operations going on there. In its former life, the drift was called Jovian Star and it was even then a massive operation. It fell into disuse when Jupiter and its moons came briefly under control of a criminal enterprise. After that criminal enterprise destroyed the gas mining business and moved on, the drift was abandoned.

"Years later the drift was reclaimed by the revived gas mining industry, renovated and sold to fund future operations. The buyer was a company called Orion Enterprises and is owned, partly, by Commonwealth Prime Minister Horatio Arnold."

"Dang," said Virgil. The privateer's sarcasm wasn't lost on the others. "And I thought my boss was legit!"

"Orion Enterprises was formerly known as FTL Industries, a company that had been involved in FTL engineering since mankind made space its home. Orion Enterprises took control of FTL Industries near the time that Arnold took office in his first term as PM and outfitted the drift as a luxury getaway resort. "

"So, people go to this luxury drift and they never leave?" Lainne asked as she took her seat.

"Not exactly. We believe that the drift was simply a front for Arnold's Orion Project, a lab beyond the reaches of even Commonwealth adversaries. And a source of incredible revenue.

"I will answer your question more directly, Ms. Connor. The average vacationer tends to come and go freely. It is the plight of scientists involved in cutting edge propulsion, plasma technology, and long-term portable energy who tend not to return."

"How many have vanished, Gelad?"

"Two dozen from a variety of nations, that we know of. There may be more. The Soldiers of the Crescent Moon were recruited by Prime Minister Arnold. We do not know why, but Arnold must have promised them something in exchange for their ability to operate beyond the scope of the law and beyond the reach of his own intelligence network.

"We have sent a number of informants to the drift to report back and have lost contact with them all. To be more precise, they simply disappear shortly after they begin reporting information to us."

"Were these your agents?"

"Thankfully, no. Just informants recruited for a job on Rigel."

"I'll bet it wasn't hard to recruit for
that
one!" said Virgil.

"Indeed. It is as though there is an extensive intelligence network on the drift that is able to home in on, and neutralize, outbound reporting. While we have had some real time information passed to us, most of what we know of this drift is what comes from advertisements. And our sources tell us Commonwealth Intelligence has not fared better."

"Odd, considering the drift is owned by the Commonwealth Prime Minister," said Lainne.

"We have constructed a three dimensional model of the drift based on the images from their advertisements and from our own external reconnaissance missions." Gelad tapped something on the interactive panel in the surface of the table and a holographic image of the drift appeared in the air before them. It was a striking image. The drift bore a resemblance to an island floating on one of Mars' great blue lakes. It was long and flat and the designers somehow managed to create a gravity field capable of holding a massive amount of liquid water in place around it, cementing the illusion of a bountiful Martian island.

Unlike any other drift Heck had ever seen, this one was neither enclosed nor protected by a dome. An energy field around the surface of the drift, complete with an illusory sun, kept the harsh vacuum of space at bay in the same manner as the atmospheres of Earth, Mars and the Moon. Satellites orbited the large drift and a swarm of armed short-range assault craft patrolled the nearby space like a gang of angry hornets.

"Damn," said Heck as the image of the drift slowly rotated on its axis. "They have every angle covered. How well are they armed?"

"Nuclear-well," answered Virgil. "Scans from recon flights picked up radiation signatures from the drift and from the patrol craft."

"Wait...These guys are locked up tighter than a whale's ass, but scans picked up nuclear radiation signatures?"

"It does seem unusually sloppy for them, considering how they have shut down our intelligence collection efforts," acknowledged Gelad.

"Maybe it’s the type of warhead they're using. What about some of those black market warheads from the 21
st
Century?"

"Commonwealth Intelligence checked it out, ma'am," offered Virgil. "Their analysis can't ID it."

"Alright. So we have no Intel. Do they have any on us?" she asked.

It was a good question. Both Gelad and Virgil considered it as the image of the drift continued to spin in front of them.

"I do not think so," answered Gelad after a time. "They do not seem to be collecting intelligence on anyone or anything else in the System."

"Or they're just better at it than you are."

"I am afraid we have to consider that possibility, Ms. Connor."

"When do we leave?"

"We board the transport shuttle to the Intrasystem Spaceport in two hours. Your disguises and passports have been prepared."

Heck nodded, considering the circumstances. He really had no choice but to go through with this mission. Had the chance to abandon the search for Dr. Connor presented itself, Heck wasn't sure he would have taken it. Not now.

"So who is the backup on this? What's the escape plan?"

"I'm the backup, Heck. I got my fleet on standby, 'huntin pirates' in the area."

"So, where does your government come in?" he asked Gelad. "I thought you were taking point on this."

"We are. However, our involvement must be inconspicuous. We are on dangerous ground here, Mr. Thomas. The discovery of alien life could have catastrophic impact on all civilization. Imagine what this discovery would mean to the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists."

"Don't some of them already know? The Crescent Moon, for example," said Lainne.

"Indeed. The Crescent Moon is involved with Arnold, and they seem to be doing the bidding of the aliens. As we learned from our dead assassin, there is dissidence within the ranks of the Crescent Moon on that point. So there is a weakness there that can be exploited later."

"Even the atheists would use the discovery to further their hatred of anyone possessed of an eternal soul," mused Heck. "These aliens would 'disprove' Genesis in their eyes. Then you have the possibility that some in the religious circles would probably label them demons that prove the existence of Satan in the universe."

"They might be right on that count, Heck," offered Lainne, wondering if the strange men who accosted her and Heck at Jax Aerospace Port were in fact aliens. "In either case, the potential for mass warfare to erupt quickly across the Solar System is dire."

"And Orion's Sword is the cause of it all," stated Virgil.

"So, Orion's Sword is a real entity," stated Lainne. Virgil nodded to her from across the table.

"It's real," confirmed Virgil. "My own people tell me that the nature of the attack on Heck and
Sixkiller
right after Laylara disappeared fits with what we already know about 'em."

"How much do you know, old friend?" asked Heck, sarcastically.

"We gonna get to that in a minute, Heck," Virgil responded, ignoring Heck's impudent tone. "I know you heard this before, but I'm gonna say it again: you didn't hear anything from me!"

"Understood," said Heck after Lainne poked him in the ribs. After one glance into her eyes, Heck realized that he was being unreasonable. "You took a big risk divulging Commonwealth intelligence to us, and to a non-Commonwealth government. I won't betray your trust."

"Right," said Virgil, satisfied. "My people on the inside tell me Orion's Sword has been coming up in more and more chatter around the System. Confirming they are a secret agency that works for Rigel's Escape drift."

"Who exactly is in charge of Rigel's Escape now?" asked Heck.

"That is the question. Nobody knows," answered Gelad. "None of the informants we have sent to infiltrate that drift have ever returned. Consequently our reporting is limited."

"It's a shame that the Commonwealth has locked Israel out of its intelligence loop."

"It is nothing unusual for us, Mr. Thomas. That has been our story from the beginning," said Gelad. "We are here because we all have a common interest in getting to the root of this problem."

"What about all this alien nonsense? Where is this coming from?"

Gelad was silent a moment and a knowing look passed between him and Virgil. The Israeli let out a breath, as though a mental struggle had just happened and been resolved in one brief instant.

"Israel has in its possession an alien being."

Heck looked from Gelad to Virgil, suspecting that the pair of them was complicit in an extraordinary prank. But the dread look in the eyes of each man spoke the truth.

"How can this be?" asked Lainne. "Why hasn't anyone heard of this before?"

"Outside those of us in this room, and our respective intelligence agencies, none know. And it must remain that way."

Heck understood the implied warning. Although he had not himself been an intelligence agent, he had dealt with many of them. And he knew full well that assassination and murder were routine orders of business when it came to protecting intelligence assets, or in this case, an intelligence product. While he was coming to trust the Israeli agent, he wasn't yet sure how Gelad would act if given the order to terminate him or Lainne.