STAR RAY HERO
by ardavenport
The man in the middle sat calmly between two sides.
"Bill, they know about the suit." Ralph Hinkley held up his hands to emphasize the red and black super-suit he wore." I could just break us out of here - - - "
"No, Ralph! We have to sit tight. These guys are serious."
"What? Are they worse than the military? Worse than the CIA?"
"Yes, Ralph, yes they are!" Bill Maxwell came down hard on his younger partner. "These NSA guys have got their tentacles all through the government, including the FBI. They are the military, they've got resources you've never heard of and anything they're into is black as the ace of spades. You don't cross these guys, Ralph."
"Well, what do we do when they cross us, Bill?" He gestured at the plain gray room they sat in, bare-blub light fixture overhead; they were lined up at a table, seated in folding metal chairs, two metal chairs sat empty opposite them, all ready for their interrogators.
"To start with, we don't fly off the handle, Ralph. Not until we know what we're up against." Maxwell's tone lowered to a near feral, scheming mutter. "I should of seen this coming when they got me busted to listening to surveillance tapes of mobsters - - oh, Carlyle, he's kissing these guys' asses with that smirk on his - - -"
"Bill! We don't have time for your office politics!"
"Uh, Ralph." A tentative voice interrupted the argument from the other side of the table.
"Paul?" Ralph answered immediately.
"I apologize for getting you in trouble with Agent Fox and his people."
"It's okay, Paul, we'll figure out a way to get out of this. We're going to help you and Scott."
"Thank-you."
Bill Maxwell opened his mouth but his sarcasm was cut off by a larger outrage on the other side of the table.
"Dad! He can't help us! They took our spheres, they took his gun," Scott Hayden waved a dismissive hand toward Bill Maxwell. "Fox has got us this time!"
"Scott," Hinkley pleaded. "We'll get you two out of this. I promise. We just . . . need to work out a plan. A scenario, Bill." he shot at his partner. Ralph Hinkley's promise was sincerely spoken and backed up by the super-power suit he wore and its capabilities (at least the ones he had figured out by trial-stumble-and-accident without the instruction book), but regrettably, the alien civilization that had created that suit had zero sense about what looked heroic on a Human body; Ralph looked silly in it and it never inspired confidence in anyone, including teenage boys like Scott Hayden who rolled his eyes and slumped back in his seat.
"Yeah, right. If we need any help crashing into things, I know; you've got it covered."
The discord was interrupted by the windowless room's only door opening and two people entering. A big guard in military black fatigues and no insignia closed and locked it behind them. The woman rushed to her husband.
"Ralph, what's going on?" Pam Davidson grabbed his hands.
"Pam! What are you doing here?!"
"They picked me up, Ralph. All of a sudden I'm surrounded by men in black uniforms black vans and they take me here. Wherever this is," she added with a worried look at their surroundings.
"They can't do that! They can't just pick people up like that! We don't live in a police state. Pam's a lawyer!"
Bill Maxwell grit his teeth over how slow his partner could be. "Ralph, these aren't the kind of people who care about lawyers."
Pam backed him up. "I gave them my card, Ralph. I don't think they were impressed."
The man in the middle suddenly got up, metal chair legs scraping harshly on the concrete floor. Pushing it next to her husband, he offered it to Pam, who warily accepted.
The man took a new place in the middle by the wall behind the table and chairs and the other newcomer, a young man in a leather jacket, went to a place at the wall beside him; they looked surprisingly similar, like younger and older versions of the same thing.
"Hey, it happened to me, too, Mr. H." Tony Villacana drawled in his east-coast tough-guy accent. "I was just minding my own business and then there's these ninja cops hustling me into a black van, driving me around nowhere for hours before they bring me here with Mrs. H."
"Why did they bring you, Tony?" Ralph wondered aloud, "Is it because you sere studying with Scott? "He pointed at the boy on the other side of the table and then belatedly looked down at his super-power suit, now revealed to one of his ordinary students.
Tony caught the gesture from his high-school teacher and grinned. "Hey, Mr. H., we know about the whole super-hero thing you got going with the space aliens. You're not that good at hiding it. And that's about the only thing that explains why you'd hang out with a hard case like Maxwell here."
"We know?" Ralph asked incredulously. "Who's we?"
"We're getting off track here, Ralph!" Bill interrupted. "You haven't answered the question, Villacna. Why are you here?"
Tony gestured to the man next to him. "It's on account of this guy, I think. See, Mr. H." He addressed a more sympathetic listener. "I need to figure out what I got to do with myself when I get my diploma. Me and Rhonda don't got nothing. And I figure I got one uncle who did good, and he joined the Marines, so maybe I can do the same thing. But I need some kind of special recommendation to get in from a Fed like Maxwell here on account of my record. But Maxwell tells me I've got to earn it."
"The Marines? Is - - is that why you've been doing your homework? And all that stuff for Bill? Tony, why would you want to join the military? And why wouldn't you come to me about it? "
Tony shook his head. "See, I knew you wouldn't understand, Mr. H. But Maxwell here, he might be Archie Bunker in a Fed Suit, but he still knows what a man has gotta do to, y'know, be a man."
"You are going to miss me when you get your first drill sergeant, Villacana." Maxwell warned. "You think I've been tough? You're going to find out its been all flowers and kittens - - "
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, but I done everything you told me to." Villacana pointed back at the Fed. "But when things went sideways for you, and you're in the basement all the time and it's looking like I'm not getting my letter, I went out on my own got some help," He leaned back against the wall and gestured toward the middle, "from this guy.
Everyone looked at the man in the middle.
"Word on the street," Tony continued, "is that if you've got trouble, this guy, Stingray here, has got some pretty scary connections and can get you out of it. All you have to do for it is do him a favor back down the line when he asks. To help someone else in trouble."
Tony folded his arms before him. "But right now, it don't look like it's working out.
The man in the middle, Ray, confidently smiled back. "Wait for it, Tony."
"Yeah, right," Tony scoffed.
"So, you called in some private dick to - - -"
Ray cut into Maxwell's emerging tirade. "I pointed out to Mr. Villacana here that I could get his letter of recommendation from another source, but he seemed to think that you were in trouble and needed some help." He pointed to the other side of the table. "When I looked into things, I came across the people who were watching Mr. Forrester and his son, Scott there, who Mr. Villacana was studying with, and I suspected that there was a lot more going on than Mr. Maxwell's supervisor having a grudge against him. Now as near as I can tell, " he pointed to the Maxwell-Hickley-Davidson side of the table, "the . . . " Ray paused, grasping for an appropriate term because he did not want to say 'space aliens' out loud, " . . . the higher authorities that you . . . do favors for, asked you to help Mr. Forrester and his son with their problem with the government. So, you enrolled Scott in Mr. Hinkley's high school class, so he could keep an eye on him."
"Yeah, great favor."
"Scott," Forrester admonished his son's obvious - even for a 'man' from another world - derision.
"Dad, he's the Special Ed teacher! I'm stuck in a class where all the other kids are retards and juvies!"
"Scott," Mr. Hinkley admonished.
"Hey, he's not wrong about that, Mr. H." Tony gave Scott a thumbs up; Scott shrugged back at the older kid whose acquaintance he knew had been based on his help getting Tony's grades up enough to graduate, but he had hoped there was some real friendship mixed in.
"Mr. Forrester here saw me with Tony and he asked about our arrangement. That's when he also asked me for a favor."
"Have you found her?" Paul Forrester's wide, innocent blue eyes looked hopeful.
"These people know where Jenny Hayden is. They've been following her since you escaped from them in Arizona. They're just watching her because someone else took over this program when Agent Fox went into the hospital . . . and miraculously recovered."
Paul Forrester's eyes widened, surprised by how much this mysterious Ray knew.
"Wait! This guy knows where Mom is?" Scott looked back and forth between Ray and his father.
"I don't know where she is," Ray affirmed, "but the person running this program does. And it's not George Fox."
The door to the gray room opened.
Ray smiled crookedly. "Right on time," he noted to no one as he glanced up at the place where he knew the hidden camera and microphone were.
Agent George Fox stormed in; his aide, big and burly, closed the door and took a place in front of it like a guard dog.
"I don't know who you think you are . . . " Fox snarled toward Ray who smirked benignly back.
The Hinkleys immediately launched into a rapid-fire protest about false arrest, government goons, civil rights and lawsuits.
"Shut up!" Fox slammed the gray metal tabletop. "You don't have any rights to threaten the national security of this country!" His arm shot out, pointing his accusation at Paul Forrester. "We are being invaded!"
Fox leaned forward toward Maxwell over the table. "And traitors don't have rights."
Bill Maxwell drew back in shock and then leaned forward. "The only things endangering this country are pin-head, special ops goons going rogue - -."
"Shut up, Maxwell!" Fox's face was red with fury. "Do you know what this thing is!" His ire returned to Forrester. "They can masquerade as our people. Take over and we won't even know it!"
"Then why haven't they?" Ray spoke into the silence that followed Fox's demands. "You've been chasing Paul Forrester for over a year. If Paul Forrester is leading an invasion, he's doing a pretty crappy job of it, don't you think? Why hasn't he just changed bodies to throw you off his trail?"
"Maybe because he can't," Ray answered his own question. "Maybe because he has limited resources. Maybe because he just came here to look around. And doesn't care about our petty global politics."
"Petty?" Fox looked incredulous at Ray's challenge.
"Have you learned nothing?" Paul Forrester asked, also looking incredulous. "Is your world still so small that you only see threats? Even after . . . " His words trailed and off.
"He's got a point there, George," Ray broke in. "There are a lot bigger issues we could ask him about. Is there life on other planets? Civilizations that travel between stars? How do they communicate? Is there a god?
"There are bigger things here than national security."
The door opened. The FSA agent whirled about, but there more guards outside and more important people to come in.
"Right on time." Ray's smile broadened.
Tony turned to him. "Is this what I'm s'posed to be waiting for?"
A man in black coveralls came in with a red telephone, put it on the table, picked up the receiver, and pressed a few buttons on it.
"What is this?" Fox demanded, but the technician ignored him. Satisfied with the phone, he left. A woman in a broad-shouldered navy blue suit entered.
"Wiley," she addressed Fox's aide. "Get out of here."
"Director." George Fox addressed her as Wiley exited and a man in a black, unmarked military uniform closed the door again.
A stern-looking middle-aged woman with graying, curled hair, she slapped a file folder on the table and pulled out one of the chairs. She paused to consider Stingray.
"You are good," she announced in a voice that was accustomed to giving orders.
Ray inclined his head to her, accepting the compliment.
"Have a seat, George."
"But Director - - -."
"Sit," she ordered, "and give me your weapons."
He hesitated.
"Now, George." She looked up at him. "I know that guys like you in the field call me BattleAxe. You really don't want to experience, first-hand, why."
Fox took his gun out of his shoulder holster and laid it on the table.
"Weapons, George. Your back-up, too."
Unhappily, Fox put a foot on the metal chair and removed a smaller gun from an ankle holster and lay than next to his regular side arm.
"Sit."
Fox sat while the Direct removed clip and bullets, leaving guns and ammo on the table between the two sides. Ralph and Bill glanced around their shoulders at Ray. Next to him, Tony was starting to enjoy the show.
"And just to make sure we've got all our cards on the table here." From an inside pocket, the Director produced two small shiny silver spheres and lay them on the table among the guns and ammo to keep them from rolling away. Paul Forrester's blue eyes went wide as both he and his son stared at them.
Fox's face went red again. "What are you doing?" He started to jump up.
"I think you need should start worrying about your pension right now, George. And possibly retiring without it. In the very near future."
The Director's threat put real fear in Fox's eyes. Bill Maxwell cringed at the magnitude of the threat. Fox sat down again.
"You're not in charge here George. As Mr. Stingray has pointed out. You haven't been in charge since Arizona. And he's brought this operation to light to some people high up in the government who remember having a more cordial relationship with Mr. Hinkley and Agent Maxwells' predecessors and their . . . allies."
Bill and Ralph looked at each, wondering how much she knew about J.J. Beck, his partner, Marshall, and what 'a more cordial relationship' with the government was.
"So, we're going to start this inquiry on a fresh page. But first a little business."
She took a typed page on crisp white stationary emblazoned with the FBI seal and slid it and a pen over to Bill. "I think, Agent Maxwell, that we can agree that Mr. Villacana has earned this letter of recommendation. I think we want him working on our side and not out on the street."
"Hey!" Tony gave Ray a smooth high five as Maxwell signed the letter.
"And this." She slid over new pages titled 'NOTIFICATION OF PERSONNEL ACTION FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' but Maxwell's eyes immediately focused on the box with the words 'SPECIAL AGENT' in it.
"Uuuh, uuh, uuh." Maxwell's brain tried to absorb those two words that he had long ago accepted would never be applied to his career.
Ralph saw it, too. "That's great, Bill." He slapped his partner's back.
"Ow, Ralph, you're wearing the suit."
Ralph held his hands up. "Sorry, sorry." Maxwell rubbed his shoulder, but there wasn't any damage.
"Your supervisor make noises like that when I had him sign these," the Director mentioned conversationally. Maxwell looked down at the bottom of the form and a broad smile broke out as he noted how shaky the signature was.
"And now Mr. Forrester." The Director turned to the other side of the table.
"Call me Paul."
George Fox gagged. The Director merely nodded. "Paul, then." She sighed and consulted a stack of pages left in her folder.
"Is it safe to say that you are an extraterrestrial in a human form that you have created from available DNA from a deceased individual?"
Paul blinked. "It's . . . possible."
"And that, as Mr. Stingray here stated, you do not have the resources to do it again, to evade Agent Fox here?"
Fox glared daggers at Forrester.
Paul shrugged. "It's . . . possible."
The Director leaned on the table, a deceptively casual motion that did not ease the suspicion in Paul Forrester's eyes.
"And you are part of a civilization that can travel the vast distances between the stars, that is much more technologically advanced, and possibly much, much older than ours?"
"It's . . . possible."
She shrugged. "I suppose that would be nice to know." She consulted her folder.
"When you first appeared here, almost sixteen years ago, an F-15 Eagle shot down a confirmed unidentified aircraft over U.S. territory with an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile." She looked up from the file. "The kill was confirmed; we were picking up pieces of it over six square miles in Wisconsin. None of it was terrestrial. Our scientists still haven't identified what the pieces are even made of. But I've always wondered . . ." Her voice lowered and she looked down at the two spheres among the guns. " . . . how our limited technology could ever take down a ship that is capable of traveling between the stars?" Her eyes looked up at Forrester. She waited.
"I - - I'd never encountered anything like that. I was not prepared for it."
"No one has ever fired a weapon at you. For any reason?"
He shook his head. "Not before I came here." His head turned toward Agent Fox, who looked like he would have fired a missile at him right then, if he had one.
"Director, why are we wasting time with this! We have him! We need to - - - "
The Director slammed the table hard. "You had him in Arizona, George! Military support, full team of doctors and researchers and you got butkis out of him!" Fox drew back with a grimace of the reminder of his failure. "And a lot of expensive equipment got destroyed in the process, too."
"I'm sorry about that. I do not like to destroy," Paul apologized.
"We should have known better." The Director shrugged. "And the damages didn't come out of my budget.
The phone rang, a bell with a loud jangle. Everyone in the room, except for Ray and the Director, jumped.
"That's for you George. You should get it. It's your new boss. And mine." The Director slid the ringing phone over to him and sat back folding her arms before her. "You really do have the most amazing connections, Mr. Stingray."
Sill in the middle, at the wall, Ray's smile carried a strong hint of false modesty. He wondered, what kind of favor he could ask of an extraterrestrial being? What would call for something that extraordinary? He did not know, but he supposed that something may turn up in the future. Just as an earlier favor was being returned today.
George put the red phone receiver up to his ear. "Fox here."
Then Agent Fox jolted in his seat to something like attention, the color drained from his face and he gulped.
"Yes, Mister Vice-President."
o o END o o
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Stephen J. Cannell Productions (and/or its successor), Columbia Pictures Television, Henerson/Hirsch Productions (and/or their successor); I am just playing in their sandbox.