Project Starfighter (19 page)

“
Centurion
team are ready
for first phase of union,” Chris caught over his comms, just as the
timeslip system descended. He fought the next group of Talons that
came for him, the battle testing him only a little more than the last
engagement. He saw the Firefly making adjustments to the power
weighting, noting at one point the fighter taking hits from behind.
He became grateful for the assistance at that point. Had he been
flying on his own, those strikes may well have ended his
participation in the battle right there and then.

An explosion came from his left-hand
side, one of the mercenary ships that had been aiding him in battle
having lost the fight. He watched it for a time as it went up, seeing
the bottom of the fighter rupture first, an angry yellow and white
explosion pushing outwards. Other sections of the fighter began to
break apart after that, pieces shattering and spinning away as the
force of the blasts catapulted them in different directions. To
Chris, the whole process lasted around twenty seconds. In real time,
likely less than one. The pilot never made it out.

“Stay away from the
Grand
Vizier
,” Sid told him. “I’m intercepting communications
from the mercenaries that they are going to attack it with the
Centurion
.”

With most of the frigate’s escort
dispatched, Chris took advantage of the brief lull to observe the
mercenaries’ great plan for dispatching the Star Killer. Around a
dozen mercenary vessels were moving into formation together,
converging only metres apart, linking themselves via what must have
been energy tethers, and forming a much larger craft. Separately,
they had held strange appearances, lacking the more aesthetically
pleasing aspects of other vessels; each describing a single part of a
whole.

Now together, they had begun to take
on a far grander appearance. Other craft continued to join up, their
own structures shifting to become guns, engines, and other
components. Chris was suitably impressed by what he was witnessing.
WEAPCO certainly did not possess anything approaching such a level of
achievement. The union complete, the vessel looked quite capable of
taking on an army single-handed.

It won’t stand a chance against
that frigate
, the Firefly said.

Don’t be so quick to dismiss
it
, Chris answered. The
Centurion
might be barely half the
size of the
Grand Vizier
, but that counted for little as far
as Chris was concerned. He watched as the unique vessel powered
towards the
Vizier
, a number of mercenary fighters, first wave
survivors and newcomers alike, joining up alongside it.

Let’s go
, Chris said to the
Firefly, bringing the fighter’s engines up to full power and
speeding after them.

Please exercise caution
, the
Firefly once again warned.

Relax. I’ve got this
.

Chris activated the timeslip as the
two sides began to clash once more, taking on the WEAPCO fighters
still defending the
Vizier
. It was a sight that he had only
ever witnessed once before – two colossal vessels going
head-to-head against one another, their cannons blazing, directing an
insane amount of fire towards each other. Chris had witnessed the
very same when the Resistance had been ambushed by the WEAPCO forces
that had entered Spirit. The need to preserve his own life had forced
him to leave the sight behind quickly, but now, beneath the timeslip,
he was able to soak it all in.

The
Centurion
was starting to
loose rockets against the weakening portions of the
Vizier
’s
shields, smashing into the armour beneath. The armour of the WEAPCO
vessel was tough, requiring a great concentration of rockets to
breach it. Still, Chris saw, the holes were starting to appear.

Slowing time a little more as laser
and plasma fire from the
Vizier
began to come his way, he
pulled back out of range and concentrated on finishing off what
remained of the frigate’s escort. There were few fighters left now.
Chris was sure that he had been responsible for eliminating the vast
majority of them. He would love to see Tyler, Dar, Clayton, and Eve’s
faces right now. It must have looked to them as though he had all the
time in the world.

“Chris, I’m reading an energy
spike from the
Vizier
,” a synthesised version of Sid’s
voice came in his head.

“Is it about to blow?” Chris
returned.

“I don’t think so. Its shields
have been weakened but not destroyed, and the hull has only been
breached in a few places. None of the breaches have occurred in any
known weak spots or critical locations, either.”

Chris studied the ship for a time,
trying to see what Sid couldn’t. “What is it, then?” he asked
finally. “Where’s the signature coming from?”

“The bow.”

At one time to make full use of
their starboard and port-side weapons arrays, the
Centurion
and the
Vizier
had been side on to one another. Now the
Vizier
had begun to yaw, turning about to face its opponent head-on.

Chris felt himself begin to detach
from control of the Firefly, resurfacing, the world around him
returning to normal speed. He panicked for a moment, wondering what
he had done to release himself from the timeslip and the
thought-control of the fighter. He tried to re-engage, but was unable
to do so. He grabbed at the joystick. It was unresponsive.

“What’s happening?” he asked
the Firefly, now speaking his words, no longer thinking them.

The
Vizier
is preparing to
use its rapier
, the fighter answered him.
It’s a high energy
weapon, intended to be fired from a planet’s orbit at targets on
the surface. At full power, it is capable of delivering the power of
several tens of nuclear strikes in a single, standard sweep. The
Vizier
is about to turn the weapon against the
Centurion.

Chris tried the joystick again,
finding that he had lost control of the fighter completely, and that
it was now acting of its own accord. “What are you doing?” he
demanded.

Getting us out of the way
,
the Firefly said.

“We’ve got to warn them,”
Chris said.

Nothing we do or say can save
them
.

Chris glanced around the cockpit as
they sped away from the
Centurion
and the
Vizier
. The
Centurion
was oblivious to the incoming threat as the
Vizier
completed turning to face it. An orangey-white pulse appeared at the
front of the frigate, building for a couple of seconds, before the
beam that the Firefly had warned of was unleashed.

The jet of highly concentrated
energy that was the rapier beam connected with the
Centurion
at its stern. The
Vizier
continued to turn, sweeping the beam
along the mercenaries’ prized vessel as it went. The
Centurion
’s
shield was obliterated in moments, the beam slicing into the armour
beneath, totally unhindered. It was exactly like watching a hot knife
plunging into butter. The
Vizier
did not terminate the beam
even after its sweep was complete, slowing and starting to turn back
the other way. It finally shut off around a third of the way back,
its power supply seemingly exhausted.

How deep the beam had penetrated,
Chris couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered – the
Centurion
had already started to come apart, each of the vessels that had
formed together to create it going up one after the other, in quick
succession, leaving behind a massive debris cloud. In less than a
minute, the WEAPCO Star Killer had defeated the one opponent that
stood a reasonable chance of taking it down.

Sid swore over the comms channel.

“So much for that,” Chris said.

I am returning control
, the
Firefly said, Chris feeling his world begin to slow once more.
I’m
sorry for interfering.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chris
said automatically before contacting Sid. “Sid, we need to find a
way to take that thing down. If it turns that weapon against Hail,
the Resistance is done for.”

“It’s changing course,” Sid
said. “It’s heading for the Alpaca Group. At full speed, it will
be in range in about two minutes.”

Chris heard Tyler and a number of
other mercenaries shouting to one another over the open comms
channel, ordering them to find a way to prevent the
Vizier
from getting close to their base of operations. The frigate might not
actually be capable of destroying stars, but, based on what Chris had
just witnessed, an asteroid would prove a much easier target.

Chris adjusted the timeslip,
resurfacing and turning after the vessel. With no other fighters to
deal with, he did not need to be under for the moment. Seemingly
sensing the same, the Firefly did not stop him from doing so.
Mercenary ships were streaming after the
Vizier
, but were
being cut down within moments of approaching its weapons range.

Chris pondered the weak spots once
again. Shots from the
Vizier
were being fired with deadly
precision. An AI was almost certainly in charge of that warship,
perhaps more than one. That ruled out attacking the bridge and
killing the crew, ending the threat quickly. But perhaps he was in
possession of armaments that could bring the thing down more easily.

“What have we got?” he asked the
Firefly.

We’re equipped with the
standard loadout: two plasma cannons, two rockets, and two missiles.

That would never do, Chris thought
to himself, looking over the
Vizier
. It would be like
attempting to take down an elephant with a blowgun. His eyes strayed
to the cluster of asteroids that were home to the mercenaries’
base. A shame they couldn’t just grab one of those asteroids and
hurl it into the frigate. No amount of shielding or armour could
withstand being struck by something such as that. Entire planets had
been destroyed by impacts from asteroids just a few kilometres
across. But again, they had nothing to hurl the asteroid
with
.
A thought then occurred to him.

“What is the
Vizier
equipped with?” he asked Sid. “What kind of propulsion systems, I
mean.”

“Standard systems to enable space
flight – multiple Hall thrusters, to act as dampers and aid
manoeuvrability, and the set of engines that you can see at the back.
Nothing else.”

“Good,” Chris said.

“You have an idea?”

“One. But it’s going to be
extremely risky. How’s your cyber warfare? Think you can access
that frigate’s systems remotely?”

“I’ll give it a shot. What do
you want me to do?”

“Kill its Hall thrusters. I want
to make sure that thing can’t slow itself down. Firefly ...”

That’s not my name ...

Not this again. “Tell me later,”
Chris said, bluntly. “How close will you let me get to the
Vizier
?”

It depends on from where you
approach.

“The rear. I’m going to knock
its engines out.”

You’ll never get through its
shields.

“Not on my own, no,” Chris said.
He opened a channel to Tyler. “Tyler, this is Bainfield. I think
I’ve found a way to take down that frigate, but I’m going to need
your help.”

“Let’s hear it, boy,” Tyler
said.

“We need to hit its engines, stop
it from being able to control its velocity.”

“And what good will that do? It
will stop moving, but we won’t be able to shoot it down. We can’t
get anything in close enough to it to bring it down after that, and
we’ll just spend a week trying to chip away at it ourselves with
long range fire. WEAPCO’ll send in backup within the hour.”

“That’s why we’re going to
take it down in just a few minutes,” Chris said, confidently. “We
need only destroy the engine block. Trust me, Tyler.”

“Ha!” Tyler snorted. Even so,
the man began to send instructions to the remaining mercenary
fighters on the field, telling them to concentrate their efforts on
attacking the
Vizier
’s engine block.

The mercenaries went to it, Chris
diving beneath the timeslip as he moved in closer to the WEAPCO
frigate, doing what he could to dodge the incoming fire. He could
feel the presence of the Firefly’s AI next to him. It felt tense,
perhaps even a little scared. He told himself that that was
ridiculous; the thing couldn’t feel emotions; it was simply
processing a huge number of inputs, recognising that it was under
threat from the warship’s guns, and was making assessments as to
how to react. It would likely seize control from him again and move
the fighter out of range of the guns if it calculated that it needed
to.

“Sid, how’s that hack coming?”
he asked.

“One moment,” Sid returned.
“Okay, I can talk to its Hall thrusters, and I have full control
over the entire damper system. I don’t know for how long, though.
It’s sure to notice the intrusion within just a few minutes, if not
sooner.”

“Hold on for just a little
longer,” Chris said, banking hard to avoid a pair of laser bolts
that he could see coming his way. “We need to do this at the exact
same time.”

The mercenaries were cutting through
the rear shields, directing their heavy weapons, missiles, and
rockets around the area of the engine block. Chris saw at least three
of their fighters go up as they were caught by fire from the
Vizier
’s
rear cannons. It was quite difficult to dodge the incoming fire, even
when perceiving the world at a far higher rate and having time to
avoid the laser blasts.

“I’m losing men here, boy,”
Tyler snarled.

Chris looked at his reading. “Just
a little longer. Once the engines are down, pull back.” He
continued to add his own fire to the proceedings, watching the
Vizier
carefully.