Project Starfighter (30 page)

“He is preparing to move from
Spirit to the Eyananth system. His number one objective is to take
down the Firefly, and deal with Chris Bainfield and Sid Wilson.”

“They’re getting closer, Erik,”
Skillman muttered.

“Yes, sir. I will ensure they do
not move in any further.”

Skillman nodded. “You had better
not disappoint me.”

Erik didn’t answer, but for a
brief moment, as Skillman stared at the floor, presented the CEO with
a look of contempt. In the same moment, he changed. He was hooded, as
he had been before, clothed in purple flowing robes, clutching
something in his hands. They looked like thick stone rectangles,
around a foot or so in size. Tablets, perhaps. Beneath the hood, his
face was scowling, his teeth bared.

One
day, this will all be mine. Your time at the top is coming to an end,
Lance.

The
words drifted through the room, filled with contempt. Ursula then
heard chanting, the sounds of many dozens of men and women. Skillman
did not seem to notice either the robed man or the many voices.
Ursula blinked and the apparition was gone, Overlook standing in its
place.

The discussion over, Skillman
dismissed the man, who vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He
turned back to Ursula, the woman seeing the pain and irritation in
the man’s eyes. She knew her own to be filled with glee at the
man’s new source of misery.

“Your sister and her new friends
are making me very unhappy, Ms Lexx,” Skillman said. “This isn’t
something that I can tolerate or allow to go unpunished.”

Ursula did not attempt to say
anything more, just watched the man closely. She had hoped that with
the news he had received of her sister being safe, and a minor
rebellion on his hands, the man would get dressed, end this
simulation, and leave her in peace, having lost the carnal desires he
had possessed before Overlook’s appearance. He had problems to deal
with, people to shout at, things to organise.

He did eventually leave to handle
all those issues, but not before he raped her, anyway.

“
C
hris!
Sid!”

Chris blinked awake as he heard the
sound of the desperate female voice, and the jingling of his
quarters’ door chime. He had locked the door before going to sleep,
a force of habit ever since he had expressed interest in joining the
Resistance. He didn’t want to wake in the middle of the night to
find himself surrounded by drones and WEAPCO personnel, and be
dragged away to God-only-knew where. At least here, on the
Dodger
,
he should be safe from such threats. He got out of bed and opened the
door, as the frantic jingling continued. On the other side was a
distraught Phoebe.

“What’s wrong?” Chris asked.

“It’s Ursula!” Phoebe said.
“She’s in trouble! She’s in pain!”

Chris tried to focus and wake up
faster. “How do you know? Did she send you a message? Has she
escaped from where she’s being held?”

“No,” Phoebe said. “I just
felt it.”

“Huh?” Chris saw Sid
approaching, coming out of the only other private cabin on the
freighter. Phoebe was sleeping alone in the main crew quarters, a
large room with a number of bunks in it. “How did you
feel
it?” Chris asked.

“I don’t know,” Phoebe said,
shaking her head. “But ... I just felt a sudden surge of pain and
distress.”

“Sure it wasn’t just a bad
dream?” Chris asked, unable to help from feeling dubious.

“A dream doesn’t normally cause
this much pain, or leave you feeling so violated.”

Chris remained unsure. He looked at
Sid, hoping that he might be able to offer up a reasonable
explanation.

“It’s possible that it has
something to do with you both unlocking your abilities,” Sid
shrugged. “If you’re both now sufficiently advanced, perhaps
you’re able to communicate over sub-space channels? Either that, or
the WEAPCO systems here on the
Dodger
are acting as a conduit
of some sort. I’m not sure, though.”

“We have to help her,” Phoebe
said.

“And we will,” Chris said. “But
we can’t do it yet. We can’t just charge in there without a plan.
This could end up being a massive operation, and we need time to
prepare ourselves. I’m not making excuses, but I think that going
in there all guns blazing would be the worst thing possible. William
Benedict tried it and ... well, it didn’t work out so well for him.
I’m sorry.”

Phoebe took some time to consider
Chris’ words, then nodded. “I understand. It’s just that ...
she was hurting. A lot. I’ve never experienced anything quite like
it. It was like whatever was happening to her was happening to me,
too.”

“We’ll do something for her
soon,” Chris said. It was all he could offer at the time.

Phoebe nodded again, her shoulders
sagging.

“Okay, come on,” Sid said to
Phoebe. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

“That sounds good,” Phoebe said,
and allowed Sid to walk her back to her quarters.

Now awake, Chris set about getting
washed and dressed, and getting some breakfast of his own from the
ship’s supplies. He joined Phoebe and Sid on the bridge a short
while later. Phoebe still looked agitated, and Chris hoped he would
be able to bring about something positive for her in the next few
hours.

“I was looking up information on
the status of any rebellions or resistance groups in Eyananth, late
last night,” Sid said, bringing up a holographic projection of the
star system. There were five major planets in total – Nerod, Allez,
Urusor, Dorim, and Elamale. “There are a few things that I think we
should do at this point. The first is to do as Chris suggested, which
is to work on honing our own skills. It’s only going to get harder
from here on out, and you could both do with more combat training.
Phoebe, you especially. You’re reliant on giving the Valkyrie
orders, which is fine, but you can probably improve and sharpen your
command of it.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Phoebe said.

She sounded more resolute and
determined today, Chris noted. Not as sprightly as yesterday, when
everything had been a game. The shock of feeling her sister’s
distress had brought the reality of their situation home to her.

“We also have the Talons and other
fighters that we acquired from WEAPCO,” Sid said. “It would be
well worth our while to help Phoebe improve her command of them. You
weren’t able to control as many of the fighters as you would have
liked, so in the meanwhile maybe refine your command over the ones we
have?”

“Absolutely,” Phoebe said,
nodding, fire in her eyes.

“What else?” Chris asked. “Are
there any signs of an uprising or a resistance here?”

“No,” Sid said. “I’m not
sure if the idea ever caught on, or if those who were interested
opted to travel to Spirit and join the movement there. We may have to
accept the fact that we will have very little help here.”

“We’ve done okay so far,”
Chris said.

“Chris, let’s be realistic –
we’ve downed a frigate and a corvette,” Sid said. “It’s not
something to keep crowing about.”

“It’s better than what we
managed back in Spirit, with a full force, though,” Chris said.

Sid tapped away at a control on the
freighter’s bridge, manipulating the system map and zooming in on
one of the planets. “Elamale is a gas giant, and one of the
principle planets where WEAPCO acquires elements for refinement. It’s
not critical to their operation, but makes up a fair amount of their
supply line here. Hitting that could cause them some grief.”

“So, that’s our first target?”
Phoebe asked.

“That’s
one
of our
targets,” Sid said. “There are shipyards here that might be worth
striking first. That’s where we will get some practice in. We can
start on the smaller ones, and work our way up.”

“So, no help in this system at
all?” Chris asked.

“There is a mercenary presence
here,” Sid said, tapping away at the console and highlighting parts
of the system map with splotches of colour, indicating the various
groups. “Quite a large one, in fact. Not as large as the one that
was back in Spirit, but significant enough. We can probably expect
many from Spirit to also have moved here, too, following the fall of
New Chile.”

Chris studied the map, seeing a
rather even distribution of mercenary groups around each of the
planets. He couldn’t be sure of how many mercenaries had managed to
escape Spirit before their base had been destroyed, but he imagined
that it was possible that the groups here could each have swelled
their numbers by as much as a quarter since then.

“I think that they will prove our
greatest allies in our fight against WEAPCO,” Sid concluded.

“Wait, hold on a minute,” Phoebe
said, standing up and backing away. “You want to work with
mercenaries?”

“Something wrong?” Chris asked.

“Yes! Mercenaries tried to turn me
in to WEAPCO at one point,” Phoebe said.

“Well ... that’s sort of
expected of them, I guess,” Chris said. “Mercenaries and bounty
hunters would have all had you on their radar, once WEAPCO were found
to be after you. Sid and I were on their watch list at one point,
too.”

“And you’re happy to just waltz
straight back over to them?” Phoebe asked, incredulously. “They’ll
turn us all over in a heartbeat.”

“No, they won’t,” Chris said.
“By now, every merc group in the galaxy will know that WEAPCO was
setting them up for a fall. None of them will want to deal with the
Corporation at all. If anything, they’ll be more than happy to help
us, seeing as we want to take WEAPCO down.”

“It doesn’t mean that they won’t
have thrashed out another deal and come to some sort of truce,”
Phoebe said.

Chris frowned. “Well, I suppose
it’s possible, but ... No, I doubt it.”

“Hmm, Phoebe does raise a good
point,” Sid admitted. “The ultimate purpose of mission 3412 was
to eliminate the mercenary groups, but WEAPCO knew that hitting them
all at once would be problematic. So, killing the Heads of the
Family, as they were called, would have created a power vacuum and
made things easier for them. I have no idea whether or not they
succeeded, but we should be careful.”

Chris considered it again for a
time. “They’re still our greatest ally, though. And until we can
get a chance to sharpen your skills, Phoebe, they are all we have.”

Silence between the three, as they
each studied the map. Chris was sure he knew what they were thinking
– they couldn’t back out now. Phoebe certainly wouldn’t, not
until she found her sister. Sid was quite set on seeking revenge for
the death of his parents. And as for Chris himself, he just wasn’t
one to back down from a fight. If he had been, he would have stayed
on Hail, with Hugo and all the other former members of the Resistance
who had settled for an easier life.

“Where exactly are we now?”
Chris asked.

Sid tweaked the system map, zooming
in on their position and showing that the
Dodger
was near the
planet Allez. There was something else, too.

“Is that a starport?” Chris
asked, pointing to the blip on the display.

Sid zeroed in on it. “The Hessian
Crucible,” he said. “It’s more of an array, than a port. It’s
home to around a quarter of a million people.”

“Oh, I know it,” Phoebe said.
“It was once a centre of great commerce in the system. Now it’s
frequented by low lifes, drug dealers, bounty hunters – all sorts.
Not the kind of place you take the family on holiday. It’s pretty
derelict, too. I’ve been there on a few occasions. Made a very
swift exit each time, I can tell you.”

“Sounds pretty dangerous,” Chris
said, “and not the kind of danger that we want to be inviting.
WEAPCO’s one thing, but they’re also predictable. We should
probably avoid it.”

“But having said that, it might be
the ideal place to meet your mercenary friends,” Phoebe said.

“Perhaps, but I think we should
come back to that one. What about actual starports? They will—”

The bridge’s comms system jingled,
cutting him off. All three turned to look at the console.

“What was that?” Chris asked.
He’d never heard that specific sound from the computers up here
before.

“I have no idea,” Sid said.

“Captain, you have received a new
message,” the voice of the
Dodger
’s AI system said.

“Wha ...?” Chris asked, baffled.
“A message?” Wasn’t the
Dodger
running covert? Did
WEAPCO have some sort of back door, even to their own covert systems?
Surely not? That would defeat the purpose of the idea.

“We
are
covert, right?”
Chris asked Sid.

“Since last night,” Sid said.

“Do you think it could be from
your sister?” Chris asked, looking at Phoebe.

“I ... don’t know,” Phoebe
said.

“Well, only one way to find out,”
Sid said, taking the seat at the main terminal. His fingers danced
over the console, redirecting the message to the central holographic
system. Chris at first thought that it might be a video message, but
it turned out to be nothing but text.

Nice of you to join us, Mr
Bainfield. I was wondering how long it might be before you decided to
show up. We could use your skills, if you are willing. Come to the
Hessian Crucible tonight, and meet me in the private rooms of the DNA
Lounge. I will be listed under my own name.

The
message was signed ‘Krass Tyler’.

Chris swore. “How the hell did he
manage to get a message to us?” he asked.

Sid shrugged. “I have no idea.
Perhaps he somehow recognised the
Dodger
and was able to do it
that way. And he’s a merc, after all. He probably has all sorts of
tricks up his sleeves.”

“If he can do it, WEAPCO probably
can, too,” Chris said. “We now need to be extra careful.”