Project Starfighter (12 page)

On the contrary, Ursula found that
she was able to grab hold of the tentacle unhindered, the thing’s
inherent stickiness helping her to maintain her grip. It wasn’t as
adhesive as it probably should have been, possibly due to the damage
it had already suffered. As the hover sped away, Ursula was already
climbing.

It was an incredible distance to
climb to reach the top, but she had to attempt it. Unless she could
find some weak spot in the walker, the city of Elfon would be
completely destroyed. The other walkers were continuing to trash the
city and abduct the helpless, fleeing citizens. At least for the
moment, this walker was occupied with other matters.

Ursula climbed as fast as she could,
trying not to exhaust herself. The tentacle appeared to be a kind of
cybernetic organism, a fusion of biological and mechanical
constructs. She wondered what she would find when she finally made it
to the top.

“I’m nearly at the hatch,” she
reported to Kethlan through her headset as she approached the root of
the tentacle.

“Can you see a way to get it
open?” he replied immediately.

Ursula checked, finding what she was
after in moments. “I can see a handle. It could end up being as
simple as that.”

What manner of entity might inhabit
a machine such as this? Ursula wondered. If there were living beings
in it at all. The walker could well be being controlled remotely. No,
there would be an operator within, of that Ursula was certain. That
would eliminate the threat of electrical disruption to remote control
systems. The aliens were stealing people and animals. As Kethlan had
said, one of the major things humans and animals had in common was
blood. Exactly what kind of creature would be needing to get blood?
Vampires?

A tug on the handle was all that was
required to open the hatch, and Ursula immediately came face to face
with the pilot of the walker, who was staring down at her, surprised
to see her there. The thing was human in appearance, male, if a
comparison was to be made. His skin was pale white, and, as his jaw
flapped open, two fangs
did
protrude from his mouth.

“No. Freaking. Way,” Ursula
gasped.

The thing lunged for her, and,
thinking quickly, Ursula grabbed hold of its outstretched arm and
pulled it out through the hatch, using its weight and momentum
against it. The thing screamed as it hurtled towards the ground.
Igniting a quarter of the way down, the body was consumed by flames
and exploded into a cloud of ash well before landing.

“Vampires?” Ursula said,
incredulously. “
Space
vampires?” What the hell? This was
making no sense. The thing had been just as she had imagined.

Exactly
as she had imagined.

She formed a hunch, climbed up into
the main body of the walker and found the self-destruct button where
she knew it would be. She activated it, and then jumped out through
the open hatch, taking with her the parachute she had retrieved from
behind the pilot’s chair.

She landed on the ground, directly
beneath the walker, standing motionless as it exploded above her,
knowing that not a single piece of the wreckage or debris would
strike her, not one tiny little screw. This wasn’t real. None of it
was. It was more like a lucid dream where she was in control of much
of the happenings. After all, that was how she had found the
parachute.

She looked at the walkers still
tramping around the city. A single thought was all it took, the
sphere-shaped bodies of each exploded at once, popping like balloons,
pieces of the shell and the insides spraying out from the erupting
fireball, raining down about where they stood. None of the walkers
remained upright for much longer, their legs giving way and
collapsing. She watched them for a while, seeing the troopers nearby
all looking on, quite bemused by events. They turned to her, asking
her questions that she didn’t hear. Something more important was on
her mind.

“William Benedict,” Ursula said.
Why had that name suddenly crept into her head? Who was William
Benedict? The man seemed important for some reason. Was there a
connection to herself? Did she know him?

The sound of someone clapping their
hands drew her attention. A man had materialised not far from her,
and was approaching, smiling.

“That was very impressive, Ms
Lexx,” he said. His face was round, his scalp bald as after a
tonsure.

“Erik Overlook,” Ursula said.

“Ah, so I don’t even need to be
introduced anymore,” Overlook said. “Fascinating. What else do
you remember about me?”

“You’re one of the vice
presidents of WEAPCO,” Ursula said. She looked about briefly as she
thought, delving deep to recall further details. Nothing. She turned
back to the man. Overlook was gone, and in his place stood a man in a
hood, dressed in flowing purple and white robes. He radiated power,
ambition, malice. Deceit. The phantom was gone in a blink of an eye.
Again, a letter drifted into Ursula’s head. M? Yes, M. Just like
that last time. That reminded her.

“No, wait,” Ursula said. “There
was a ball. I danced with you. No, not you. Skillman. Lance Skillman,
the CEO. You were there, too, Commander.” She turned to Kline
Kethlan, who had also appeared by her side. No, not appeared – been
summoned. The man seemed at first a little disorientated.

“Very, very impressive,”
Overlook said. “You have proven that you are able to influence an
artificial world. In the original scenario, the Oynicon were a
jellyfish-like race, inhabiting a liquid environment within their
walkers. Opening one of those command spheres would at one time have
resulted in you being battered by a flood of seawater. Quite amusing
that you changed them into vampires.”

Ursula said nothing, but glared at
the man. “What’s this all about, Overlook?”

“Tell me, is this a gift that you
share with your sister?” Overlook asked, ignoring her question.

“Gift?” Ursula asked.

“Yes,” Overlook said smoothly,
waving a hand towards the remnants of the walkers. “Your gift. Does
your sister share it?”

“First of all, I have no idea what
you’re talking about, and second, why the hell are you so
interested in my sister?” Ursula screamed at him.

“Hmm, not to worry,” Overlook
said, beginning to pace about. “We will soon have Phoebe Lexx and
be able to prove it for ourselves.”

No. Ursula looked about the
battlefield, trying to make it change in the same way she had
influenced the walkers. Many of the soldiers, vehicles, bots, and
drones vanished, but the city and the endless grasslands they had
fought the battle on remained. Overlook and Kethlan nodded their
satisfaction to one another. Ursula tried once more to remove the
city and the surrounding environment, but failed. Something was
blocking her.

“Where am I?” she demanded.

“The Zetaman Human Interface
Research Facility, at Murdar,” Overlook said.

“Murdar? I’m a
prisoner
?”

“In a way.” Overlook shrugged.

Ursula looked down at herself, to
the combat gear she wore here, and wondered how she really appeared
in real life. Hooked up to machines, suspended in some fluid tank?
Maybe not even that. Maybe she was little more than a brain, being
kept warm and alive somehow. It mattered not. She and Phoebe were
apparently of great interest to WEAPCO. Most likely a threat somehow.
In what way, she didn’t know. What was important was that Phoebe
was still free. For now. Unfortunately, Ursula had told WEAPCO where
to find her. There would be no more of that. They wouldn’t be
getting any more information out of her.

She raised a summoned pistol to her
temple, half-expecting Kethlan and Overlook to attempt to stop her.
They did nothing, however, their expressions remaining impassive as
she pulled the trigger.

William Benedict
, she
thought, as her life ended.
I have to find William Benedict
.

“
W
ho
was William Benedict?” Chris asked Sid.

“As far as I know, he is the only
person in history to have been able to take on WEAPCO,
single-handedly,” Sid said, making more adjustments to the drone he
had spent the past few weeks working at.

The task was taking a long time. The
mercenaries that formed the Heads of the Family would not tolerate
waiting for much longer. Chris had heard not-so-subtle mutterings
from Eve, Dar, and even Clayton – Clayton, being mostly a mute, but
speaking in a strange robotic voice whenever he opened his mouth –
that those in charge of the conglomerate of freelancers were
running low on patience with the young hacker, and believed him to be
simply stalling until he could plot a way to escape.

Chris had done his best in the
meanwhile to help see off the increased interest in the mercenaries’
home base from Mal’s Immortal League, though he had never quite
been able to bring himself to down any of the opposing fighter craft
that invaded the Alpaca Group. Not that any of those he flew
alongside seemed to have noticed, or even seemed to care. So long as
Mal’s lot were chased away, they appeared happy. All good training,
as far as Chris was concerned.

Sid continued, “William Benedict
amassed an army of drones, bots, and starfighters to turn on the
Corporation and attack it. No one quite knows how he did it.”

“How successful was he?” Chris
asked. Benedict had obviously failed in the end, but Chris was
curious to know exactly how much damage he had been able to inflict,
and how many problems he’d caused for WEAPCO.

“He almost managed to cripple the
Zetaman Human Interface Research Facility in Murdar,” Sid said,
turning to one of the many computers and consoles he had set up in
the workshop. “Before that, he caused some significant damage to
their shipyards and mining facilities in the Eyananth system. He
could have done more, but moved on to attacking the H.I.R.F. all of a
sudden. In the end, WEAPCO came at him with their most powerful
warships and he was overwhelmed.”

“Hmm,” Chris said. “What
prompted him to go straight for the H.I.R.F., do you think?”

“Pass,” Sid shrugged. “Maybe
he identified a weak spot and decided to exploit it as soon as
possible, to give himself an edge. Or maybe the name ‘Human
Interface’ made him feel uncomfortable, and he felt he had to do
something about it.

“Right, let’s see if this works
...”

Sid plugged something into the
drone’s body via an interface he had uncovered from deep within. He
then turned to one of the consoles and began typing in a handful of
commands. A holographic display sprang up on the drone.

“Looks promising,” Sid said,
brightly. “That was a lot less stable the last time.”

A piece of text appeared:

‘
Decrypting ...’

A hollow rectangular bar beneath
began to fill from left to right, the speed shifting at intervals.

“Almost. Come on, come on,” Sid
urged.

The projection changed abruptly,
displaying what Chris could only describe as garbage. Sid swore. He
had clearly been unsuccessful.

“This is one hard machine to
crack,” Sid said, ripping the cable out of the drone in
frustration. “The war bot was simple by comparison, but had nothing
in it except a load of combat tactics and data on weaponry. Obviously
WEAPCO only equip the bots with what they need to do their job.”

“But you’ve cracked drones in
the past, haven’t you?” Chris asked.

Sid shook his head. “That wasn’t
a real drone. It was more like an advanced war bot; a field commander
of sorts. It had a number of recent ‘peacekeeping’ objectives in
its memory. It was useful back then to the Resistance, but the true
drones, like this guy here, are something else entirely.”

Sid sounded almost ready to throw in
the towel. Chris wasn’t about to let him do that. The second the
mercenaries believed that Sid was no longer of any use to them, and
that they weren’t able to put him to work somewhere else, they
would likely throw both him and Chris out into space. Never mind all
the piloting and other work Chris had been doing for them. Their
number one priority now was finding out what the mercenaries’
current relationship with WEAPCO was.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Chris
asked.

“Shoot.”

“Can you get the war bot working
well enough to be able to interface with the drone? I mean, they have
to be able to talk to each other, right? It’s possible that the war
bot might be able to gain access to the drone’s storage. The war
bot need only convince the drone that it’s working legitimately.”

Sid brightened. “Yes. Yes, that
could work.” He stood up. “In fact ... that’s it! Genius!”

Chris chuckled. “Sounds like
you’ve been cooped up in here for so long that you’re unable to
see the wood for the trees. Maybe you and I should trade roles for a
day. You can go flying about with Clayton, Dar, and Eve, and I’ll
tinker about in here with all the gizmos.”

“Yeah, let me get back to you
about that,” Sid said, rolling his eyes theatrically. He quickly
sobered. “Wiring the bot into the drone carries a risk, though. But
hopefully I should be able to work around it.”

“What sort of risk?” Eve asked.

Chris and Sid turned to the woman,
who had made her way stealthily into the workshop. Chris wondered why
she had been so keen to get her hands on the chameleon suit when she
was so good at sneaking already. She was dressed, as always, in a
figure-hugging jumpsuit. During his time within the stronghold, Chris
had often found it hard to keep his eyes off the woman. He wondered
if she dressed the way she did on purpose, to distract her opponents
from her truly deadly nature.

“Well?” Eve prompted.

“The war bot might ... blow up,”
Sid said.

“What would the impact radius be?”