Star Trek The Original Series From History's Shadow (26 page)

More gunfire echoed across the warehouse, and Cynthia saw Ian sag against the railing, crying out in pain. The rifle fell from his grip as Ian flailed for something to hold before his body rolled over the handrail and tumbled to the floor.

“Ian!” Disregarding her own safety and the pain in her side, Cynthia bolted from her hiding place, rushing across the
open floor to where Ian now lay strewn on the concrete. He was on his back, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle, and she saw at least three bloody holes in his chest. Ignoring the approaching footsteps behind her, she dropped to her knees next to Ian, reaching for his face but freezing at the sight of his open, unseeing eyes.

“No,” she whispered, tears clouding her vision. There was nothing she could do for him, but her body refused to heed the warnings her mind sent, screaming for her to remain focused on the dangerous situation still unfolding before her. Then a hand on her shoulder snapped her out of her shock and Cynthia whirled around, lashing out with her right fist. The punch caught the male intruder across his temple with enough force to make him stagger back, his service cap falling from his head and giving Cynthia the opening she needed to regain her feet. She saw the man’s female companion coming up behind him but ignored her as she pressed her attack.

“You
bastard
 !” she hissed between gritted teeth, landing a kick to the center of his chest. He released a grunt of pain and surprise that was accompanied by an electronic snapping sound, followed by the bizarre sight of the man’s entire body wavering and stretching before his appearance underwent an abrupt, startling change.

He was an alien.

Dressed in a black bodysuit and wearing a metallic harness across his chest, the figure now possessed dark, unfamiliar humanoid features. Cynthia could not even begin to place the being’s species.

“Leave her!” shouted the alien’s companion, still appearing as a human female.

The alien did not heed her, instead setting himself to lunge at Cynthia, but she and both intruders cringed at the
abrupt flash of light illuminating the entire warehouse an instant before the explosion.

Holy . . .

Instinct made Cynthia throw herself behind a nearby cargo crate, wincing again at the pain from her ribs as the shockwave rolled past them. Shrapnel and whatever else peppered the walls, shelves, and other crates. Waiting for the storm of debris to subside, Cynthia peered out from her momentary place of safety. The alien and his companion were gone. Their bodies were not lying anywhere on the warehouse floor, leading Cynthia to believe they somehow had escaped the blast. When she looked toward the center of the open work area, she saw only scattered pieces of smoldering metal where the Vulcan probe once had been. The worktables and lights positioned around it also had been destroyed, littering the floor with scorched debris. What could have caused that?

The sirens were very loud outside the building now, and Cynthia also heard frantic voices beyond the warehouse’s metal walls. She had to make her escape, but she also could not leave Ian to be discovered or taken into custody. Though the almost perfect product of selective breeding that was Ian Pendleton’s human physiology likely would astound whatever doctor was tasked with conducting an autopsy, the devices he carried would attract unwanted attention. Cynthia would have to carry him out of here, with help from the translocator in their office back in Washington. Wiping away new tears, she reached into her pocket for her servo in order to contact the Beta 4 for exfiltration, but the device was not there. She patted her pockets but found nothing.

Damn it!
A frantic search around her did not produce the servo, but she felt Ian’s in one of his trouser pockets. She tore at the clothing, trying to retrieve the tool when a shadow fell
across Ian’s body, and she jerked around to see not either of the intruders but instead a man, dressed in a black business suit. He looked to be in his thirties and despite his civilian attire there was a definite military air about him. Another figure stood nearby, wearing a similar suit but also a fedora that cloaked his face in shadow. When the man extended his right hand, Cynthia saw that he was holding her servo.

“You’ll need this,” he said, tapping one of the controls hidden in the servo’s pocket clip. The device emitted a string of high-pitched beeps before Cynthia heard a familiar, almost musical warbling sound from behind her. She turned to see the familiar blue-black mist forming behind the nearest row of cargo crates.

Dumfounded at her bizarre turn of good fortune, Cynthia turned back to her mysterious savior. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“There’s no time,” he replied. “You have to go,
now
. Come on, I’ll help you.” Thanks to her enhanced strength, Cynthia did not require assistance to lift Ian’s body and lay it across her shoulders, but she still accepted the offer. That done, the man regarded her with a saddened expression. “I’m sorry about Agent 42. I know you were close.”

“You’re one of us?” Cynthia asked, just before gunfire echoed from the front door leading to the warehouse’s main floor. Someone must be shooting off a lock, she reasoned. Only seconds remained until she was discovered.

“Yes and no,” said the man. “It’s a long story. Maybe later. Now
go
!”

Cynthia glanced to the dark blue cloud, her escape hatch, before thinking to ask the men to come with her, but when she turned back, her benefactors were gone.

“Where . . . ?”

“Secure every door!” a new voice barked. The order had come from someone Cynthia could not see. “I want this whole place locked down!” She caught sight of an Air Force officer, a major, pointing at various airmen and other personnel, deploying them around the warehouse, and she knew it was time to go. With a final look at the room’s center to verify that the Vulcan probe had been destroyed, Agent 6 turned and, holding the body of her lover tight across her shoulders, plunged into the blue fog.

TWENTY-ONE

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio

September 27, 1963

More than four years had passed since James Wainwright last had seen Jeffrey Carlson, but in that brief period the professor seemed to have aged a decade. His black hair had long since been replaced with gray, the same color as the full beard he now sported which, along with the wire-rimmed glasses and their circular lenses, made the man a dead ringer for Santa Claus. The only real distinction was his weight, in that Carlson seemed to have lost a great deal of his. He was stoop-shouldered as he paced a circuit around the meeting room’s conference table, which, like the chairs and other furniture, was metal and painted the same shade of standard, military-issue flat gray. The obvious visual evidence suggested the professor was much older than his fifty-five years.

What the hell are they doing to you out there in Nevada?

Carlson walked in circles around the room, his hands buried in the pockets of a worn, beige cardigan button-down sweater that to Wainwright looked as though it had seen better days. In fact, he was sure he remembered the professor wearing it during one of their infrequent meetings at least ten years earlier.

Don’t they ever let you out once in a while, at least to buy some new clothes?

“And the device was completely destroyed?” Carlson asked, his voice soft and possessing a raspy quality.

From where he stood at one end of the table, Major Lucas Fellini replied, “That’s right, Professor. There’s not much left, but it’s been collected and sealed in a packing container per your instructions and ready to ship out when you are.” Fellini was a tall, broad-chested man, with what Wainwright considered “classical tough guy” looks—square jaw, thin nose, and piercing eyes that seemed to take in everyone and everything in a room in cold, calculating fashion. The major wore his Air Force officer’s uniform in a manner as close to picture-perfect as Wainwright had seen on anyone, himself included. Every button, every device above the pocket of his uniform jacket, was precisely positioned and polished to a high luster that reflected the room’s lighting. His jacket and trousers seemed tailored with mathematical exactitude to his muscled frame, and his shoes were like mirrors. Even the handgrips of the service pistol holstered at his waist, a revolver from what Wainwright could see, were a glossy bone white. Fellini wore his officer’s cap cocked slightly to the left, and while that was a bit outside of accepted regulations, it gave the major a confident, almost arrogant air that seemed to fit him. By all accounts, he was a capable, by-the-book officer who took with all seriousness his assignment as one of Wright-Patterson’s three security division commanders. Wainwright already knew that the events of the previous evening which had taken place while Fellini was on duty were—at the moment—nothing short of a sore spot with the major.

Carlson, continuing to pace around the room, paused as he came abreast of Fellini. “And you still have no indications as to what happened?”

Shaking his head, the major looked to the floor for a
moment, as though embarrassed by his answer. “No, Professor. Our first guess is that the satellite had a time-delay explosive planted inside it, or some other self-destruct mechanism that might even have been damaged when it crashed. We were lucky that warehouse wasn’t filled with brass or other VIPs trying to get a good look at it before it went off.”

“Yes, that would’ve been most unfortunate,” Carlson said, nodding in agreement.

Casting a knowing glance at the professor, Wainwright asked, “Major, do you still think this thing was a Russian spy satellite?”

“That’s the most likely explanation, Mister Wainwright,” Fellini answered, seeming to regain at least a bit of the confidence Wainwright had seen him exhibit on other occasions. “What else could it be? It’s definitely not one of ours. We’ve already had people calling the space agency and the Pentagon, and neither of them has reported losing anything.”

Even though he had not been an active Air Force officer for nearly a year, Wainwright still felt odd whenever another service member addressed him as “Mister.” His and Allison Marshall’s continued involvement in Project Blue Book—and Majestic 12, to a somewhat lesser, discreet degree—had begun to have detrimental effects on their prospects for advancement. Neither he nor Marshall had any desire to leave the program, so Wainwright had accepted official retirement from the Air Force while Marshall was allowed to transfer to the Air Force Reserves. Both now worked as civilian employees for the Department of Defense. Whereas Marshall still had the option to return to active service, Wainwright decided he had spent enough time in uniform. His son, Michael, was coming up on his seventeenth birthday and already was talking about joining the Air Force and carrying
on the family service tradition. The boy’s mother had not been happy with this news, judging from the last terse phone conversation with her Wainwright had endured.

She’ll get over it,
he mused.
Maybe
.

“And what about the intruders?” Carlson asked, keeping his attention on the major as he resumed his pacing. “Are you of the belief that they were Russian spies?”

Fellini replied, “That, or someone they recruited to do their dirty work for them. According to the sentries they got past, it was a man and a woman dressed in Air Force officer’s uniforms. The guards don’t remember anything after that.”

“What about the guards?” Wainwright asked. “How are they doing?”

For the first time, the major reached up to remove his officer’s cap. “This is the part where things start to get confusing, Mister Wainwright. These two spies, or whatever they were, incapacitated two sentries outside Warehouse 13B and two more inside. We don’t know how, but we think it could’ve been some kind of tranquilizer. The men are being given the once-over to check for signs of injection or gas exposure. Three more men inside the building were shot. Two are dead, and the other one’s in critical condition. The doctors don’t have a prognosis for him yet.”

“I hope he pulls through, Major,” Marshall said, “and I’m sorry about what happened to your other men.”

Offering her an appreciative nod, Fellini replied, “Thank you, Miss Marshall.” He frowned, his expression growing hard, with a touch of anger. “What I don’t understand is why they’d go to the trouble of knocking out four guards without killing them, but then turn around and shoot three others. Seems like they could’ve easily killed the other men, so why didn’t they?”

“Maybe they were trying to keep things quiet,” Wainwright said, “but the guards inside the warehouse spooked them while they were working to do . . . whatever it was they were trying to do with the satellite.” He had at least as many questions as Fellini, but for very different reasons. The security cordon surrounding the downed satellite had been tight, with fewer than a dozen people even knowing the object had been retrieved from the crash site outside Lima, Ohio. No one else should even have known of its existence.

The folder beneath his hand told Wainwright a different story. He had only been able to examine its contents for a moment prior to the start of the meeting, but even that cursory review had been enough to seize his attention, and he wanted—he
needed
—to let Marshall and Professor Carlson see it for themselves.

“And we don’t know how the intruders got away?” Carlson asked.

An expression of obvious embarrassment clouded Fellini’s features. “No, Professor. We had the building surrounded, and all vehicles in and around the warehouse area were accounted for. No reports of unauthorized vehicles or personnel leaving the base. Either they’re still hiding somewhere, or they got past us. We cordoned off that entire section of the base, and my men are conducting a thorough search of the entire area. If they’re still here, we’ll find them.”

Wainwright exchanged knowing glances with Marshall. The intruders, he knew, were long gone, or else their methods of concealment would trump whatever search methods Fellini and his men might employ.