Neither of them spoke for the next thirty minutes as they trudged along through the refuse tube. Lainne had long ago given up paying attention to what was happening around her. How could she do otherwise? It was nothing but a long, dark, wet tube of floating refuse. It was completely devoid of markings and there were no navigational aids that she could see. She shuddered at the thought of being a sewer worker, forced to trudge these lonely tubes every day, and wondered if any had ever become lost down here.
Finally, it seemed Heck had reached his intended destination. He stopped at the first hatch that she had seen since they entered the tube. There were a few markings that she could not read and arrows pointing in different directions. It was hard to tell in the amber fog, but she thought that the arrows might be different colors, indicating a path to a specific destination. As she looked at the door she saw there was a large blue square upon it and assumed that marked the destination for the blue path.
Heck opened the door and stepped into another sally port chamber. There was a bench, as before, and myriad spray nozzles about the chamber. The door on the other end of the chamber seemed to beckon to her, she could almost imagine stairs leading to a comfortable bed. Then she saw a man standing there, peering through the porthole in the door. But the man was actually a cat with green whiskers and-
"Lainne!" came Heck's voice through the helmet radio, startling her. "Your eyes were closed. Are you ok?"
She looked around, alarmed that she could have fallen asleep standing up. The face in the porthole was gone, it had never been. It was a dream.
"Fine. But I'll need a good rest, and soon."
"We're almost there," he said comfortingly. He eased her down onto the bench and punched instructions into the computer console on the wall. "After we decontaminate our suits and dispose of them, we'll be just about done. I'm sure you'll be able to rest then."
Lainne nodded and leaned her helmeted head back against the wall of the air lock. After a moment shower heads mounted on the ceiling and the walls blasted an array of chemicals and solvents designed to decontaminate their biohazard suits. Lainne forced herself to stand and endure the process that would bring her closer to what she wanted right now more than anything, sleep.
Finally the two were decontaminated to the standards of the sally port computer and the other hatch opened to allow them egress. Once inside this room they removed their suits and placed them in a bin for destruction. In minutes Heck was leading Lainne out into the seemingly never-ending, monotonous, tunnels in the depths of ROS.
"It is about time!" drifted an accented voice through the passageway.
"Gelad!" said Lainne with relief.
"It's good to see you, Gelad," admitted Heck, despite himself. He wondered bitterly if he was getting soft. Gelad was waiting near a maintenance hatch and Heck, in his fatigue, almost missed him.
"Mr. Thomas, I am very pleased to see that you and Ms. Connor made it safely through your ordeal. It must have been quite a shock to see the ghost of Stephen Doolin."
"More than you know, Gelad." Heck said in a tone that made it clear the matter was to be dropped immediately. He wasn't surprised that the Israeli agent had known. By now the solar flare would be long since over and communication systems would be back online. News reports would have reached all levels of all governments, and the intelligence machine would report what the media didn't know. "We need to get this poor lady to a bed where she can rest."
"Indeed. I think you both deserve some well-earned rest. But I am afraid there is one last leg on this journey."
Heck nodded in understanding and smiled reassuringly at Lainne's despondent gaze. Gelad handed each a pair of darkened goggles.
"Whoa, what's this?" complained Lainne as she put the glasses on. "I can't see at all!"
"Sensory dampeners," answered Heck. He smiled as Lainne grabbed on to him, suddenly unsteady on her feet. "We'll hardly be able to walk, much less remember where we are being led. It's for our own good."
"I am sure you understand, I cannot allow you to see the manner in which our special forces conduct their covert ingress and egress from this station. To do so would only make your own existence a liability to my government. Mr. Thomas, please hold onto this tether," Gelad handed Heck a cord that was tethered to the Israeli's backpack and Lainne was tethered to Heck's own belt.
"Alright, Gelad. Let's go."
Gelad led the pair silently down a short hallway, then through a series of turns that Heck had no hope of memorizing. Finally they stopped and the sound of a hatch opening reached their ears. Heck was gently guided through the hatch and made to take a seat on a bench. In a moment, Lainne was next to him and the hatch closed. Then a sudden burst of movement told Heck that they were in a car of some kind, being transported through secret means to the consulate.
"Heck," Lainne began, a question on her lips.
"Please, Ms. Connor. No talking."
Lainne quieted as she had been asked, but Heck found himself longing for the sound of her voice. Longing? he wondered what was getting into him. Was this first step to complete loss of mental control and sanity? He shook his head ruefully, certain that Gelad could have seen his embarrassed face.
The car stopped and the two were guided out of it and made to stand. The only sound Heck heard was that of the vehicle door closing and then nothing more. Gelad took the darkened glasses from them and Heck found himself blinking in the bright lights of a lavishly furnished room. A room with four walls and only a human sized door leading out. There was no sign of the vehicle they had seconds ago been riding in or of any place where such a vehicle could even have traveled.
"How did they do that?" asked Lainne in awe.
"Don't bother asking, Lainne. He won't tell."
"I never heard it leave. We didn't leave!"
"Indeed, Ms. Connor. You did not. Now, please make yourselves comfortable. I am afraid this is all of the comfort we may provide you at the moment, but no one will bother you."
"Thank you!" said Lainne as she dropped onto a full leather couch. The room was paneled in rich, dark wood and a number of paintings depicting the Holy Land adorned the walls. The carpet was thick and soft and Heck thought he could sleep on the floor if he had to, but that leather recliner looked much more inviting.
"I will have some food and refreshments brought to you. Please, rest and eat. There is some time before we must execute the next phase of our plan."
Heck wanted to argue, wanted to insist on getting on with the rescue mission. But he couldn't. He could hardly see past his nose and his eyes were so heavy. He started to walk past Lainne, toward the recliner, but her hand shot up from the couch and locked onto his. He sat down on the couch next to her and lay down; in seconds the two were fast asleep.
Chapter
Nine
~
Gelad returned sometime later for Lainne and Heck, silently appearing in the doorway. And though it seemed like only minutes had passed since the Israeli had left the two in peace, it had been nearly eight hours. The Israeli officer was flanked by two armed men, each wearing a plain and unadorned uniform. The men wore grim expressions and displayed their Raptor Assault Rifles with skill. Their black high-collared coats bore dark gray stripes above each cuff and gray buttons down the front, their trousers were black with a gray stripe down the leg. The only adornment on their uniforms was an embroidered badge, a dark gray Israeli flag over the heart.
"I don't feel as though I've slept at all," grumbled the woman.
"Me either. All right, Gelad. Let's get on with this."
Gelad turned on his booted heel and the two followed after. A few moments later they were all standing in a lavishly decorated hall, tributes to the historical might of the nation of Israel adorned the walls. The door before them was large and made of wood, a rare thing to find in the drifts. In the center of the door was a retinal scanner with a DNA scanning palm pad.
Gelad looked into the eyepiece and placed his palm on the DNA scanning pad.
A holographic message flashed before them, Identity Confirmed. Then the great door swung inward and Gelad strode in with Lainne and Heck in tow. Lainne gawked at the contents of the room like a tourist. It was a command center for the Israeli Police and the Defense Ministry. There were massive vid screens and holodisplays everywhere. Computer stations were manned across the room by Israelis uniformed similarly to the men who walked with Gelad. Operations happening in real time across the Solar System, some Israeli and some not, were being monitored closely.
"Quite an operation you have here, Gelad."
"You were never here, Mr. Thomas. Understood?"
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 21st 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.
The Orion Deception Page 15