Project Starfighter (35 page)

Based on their numbers, the
Immortal League have the upper hand
, Athena told him.
But
their pilots are less skilful than those of the Wolf Pack.

Chris saw that she was right, the
Immortal League’s flying skills lacking the finesse of the Wolf
Pack. It seemed that the League had attracted pilots of massively
divergent skill levels, whereas Tyler had been a lot more selective
about who he allowed to get behind the stick. Chris gripped the
Firefly’s flight stick tightly, preparing to engage the nearest
target to him. As much as he had tried to avoid it, it seemed that
the time had finally come for him to take down his first human
opponent. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to. Maybe he would be about to
scare them off, instead ...

Chris, I’m detecting a jump
signature
, Athena said.

“Where?” Chris asked.

Behind us.

Chris swung around, seeing the
whirlpool-like form of the jump point swirling into existence, a
number of fighters, as well as a warship, streaming immediately from
it. WEAPCO.

“If they’re here to stop us from
doing any further damage to the shipyard,” Chris said, “they’re
far too late.”

The warship that had emerged from
the point was identifying itself as the
Alchemist’s Son
. The
fighters were the usual suspects – Talons and Mirages. Leading
them, however, was a type of fighter that Chris has never seen
before.

“What class of fighter is that?”
he asked.

A Fer-de-Lance, a heavy-class
fighter
, Athena said.
According to my records, it is a unique
starfighter, constructed around thirteen years ago.

“Then it’s either a heap of junk
that WEAPCO want shot of, or a chariot for one of their champions,”
Chris said. “Whatever it is, I don’t think we should stick around
to find out. Sid,” he contacted the man aboard the
Dodger
,
“Phoebe and I are coming home. Get ready to take us out of here.”

As he spoke, the fighters that had
jumped into the system started to peel away from the
Alchemist’s
Son
, heading in the direction of the scrapping mercenaries, who
showed no signs of stopping despite the appearance of WEAPCO.

“Phoebe, can you take control of
any more of those fighters?” Chris asked.

“No,” Phoebe said. “I’m
already at my limit.”

Chris then saw the
Alchemist’s
Son
starting to turn in the direction of the
Dodger
, its
engines coming fully online, and propelling the warship forward.
Already in range of the
Dodger
with its cannons, the
Alchemist’s Son
opened up, spraying gunfire all over the
freighter. Chris felt a stab of panic. Short of siding with one of
the groups of mercenaries or surrendering to WEAPCO (and Chris would
never
surrender to WEAPCO) the
Dodger
was their only
way out of the system.

“They’re trying to cut off our
escape route!” Chris cried.

Chris, we need to stop that
warship from causing any serious damage to the
Dodger, Athena
said.
Neither the Firefly nor the Valkyrie are equipped with any
sort of jump or faster-than-light technology. If you do not act, Sid
will die, and you and Phoebe will be stranded here until your oxygen
runs out.

Before Chris could answer the
console before him started to jingle.

We are being hailed by the
Fer-de-Lance.

“Phoebe, send your fighters over
to that warship and take it down,” Chris said. “Apparently,
someone at the Corporation wants a word with me.”

Phoebe acknowledged him, powering
away from his side and towards the
Alchemist’s Son
, Chris
acknowledging the hail from the Fer-de-Lance and seeing a man’s
face pop up on his cockpit display.

“So, I finally meet the ones who
have been causing us so much trouble,” the pilot of the
Fer-de-Lance said.

Like Chris, the man wore a flight
suit and a helmet. He had slicked back, jet-black hair, and was
sporting a goatee, tapered into a point. Chris thought he looked a
little like a devil. Somewhat amusing, Chris thought, that the first
human member of WEAPCO he should come into direct contact with should
appear so.

“Who are you?” Chris asked.

“My name is Kline Kethlan,” the
pilot of the Fer-de-Lance said, “and I have come here to put an end
to your pathetic little crusade, Mr Bainfield.”

Kethlan said nothing more, the
communication shutting off immediately, the Fer-de-Lance screaming
forward. Chris heard the blare of the missile lock warning siren an
instant later, the octaves of the sound falling as Athena engaged the
timeslip.

Chris saw the blips representing the
missiles Kethlan had just dispatched appear on the radar screen,
crawling forward from the Fer-de-Lance. Athena activated the
countermeasures not moments later, the two blips vanishing as the
missiles exploded like fireworks.

Kethlan continued forward, the tips
of the cannons of his Fer-de-Lance igniting as he fired again. Far
enough away from the WEAPCO fighter, Chris had plenty of time to
react to the shots, banking enough both to evade them and anticipate
Kethlan’s next move. He tailed the Fer-de-Lance as it began to
dive, making minute adjustments to his speed to keep the fighter
locked in his crosshairs as he fired his cannons. He was surprised to
discover just how well shielded the Fer-de-Lance was.

That would easily have taken down
a Talon
, Chris said to Athena, as the Firefly’s cannons’
temperature began to stray into the upper quarter. He eased off the
trigger. He couldn’t do with them overheating, not here, not now.

The power rating for that
fighter’s shields are off the scale
, Athena said. Whoever this
Kethlan is, he is certainly very important.

“Sid—” Chris began, intending
to contact the man and ask him to find out what he could about the
weaknesses of the Fer-de-Lance. Something cut him off. He felt
himself surfacing from the timeslip, the world around him speeding
back up. He cast around to see what had happened, looking to the
console before him. It was behaving normally, no errors or warnings
being reported. Athena must have taken control. Chris waited for the
Firefly to start to move of its own accord.

Nothing happened.

“Athena, what’s going on?”
Chris said, his hand flying to the joystick in panic. “I’ve lost
the timeslip.” Kethlan was already coming back around to face him.

I can’t re-engage the system
,
Athena said.
I have just made over a hundred thousand unsuccessful
attempts
.

The comms in front of Chris jingled
once more.

“That should even the odds a
little,” Kethlan said, as his face popped up on the cockpit
display.

Chris started, and then yanked back
heavily on the flight stick as a barrage of plasma bolts issued from
the Fer-de-Lance’s cannons and hurtled towards him. Too slow to
react, every bolt struck the Firefly, Kethlan streaking past.

Chris swung around, attempting to
track Kethlan’s path and anticipate the man’s movements. More
used to fighting in slow motion, it was incredibly difficult to do so
in real time, several bursts of his cannons missing by a long way.
Kethlan, on the other hand, had no such problems, seeming to brake,
tilt and power towards him almost simultaneously, spraying plasma
cannon fire over the front of the Firefly as he came.

It was as the Fer-de-Lance shot past
him that Chris noticed that Athena had failed to adjust the power
weightings of the shields. The south, west, and east quadrants of the
display were indicating that the shields there were full, while the
northern quadrant, the front of the fighter, was nearly depleted.

“Athena, the power weightings!”
he prompted.

I can’t do it
, Athena told
him.
I have completely lost access to the Firefly.

Chris felt a knot form in his
stomach. He was sure that he could sense panic in the AI’s voice.
“Try again!”

Negative
, Athena answered him
not a second later,
I’ve been blocked.

“You’ve been blocked?!” Chris
asked. The knot tightened. Now the panic was his own, clear in his
own ears. “How? How can you lose access? You’re
embedded
!”

Chris, this is not the time –
you need to handle the weightings yourself. Do it quickly, or we will
both wind up dead!

Chris did so, one eye on the console
as he started to make adjustments to the weightings, the other
flicking between the radar and the view beyond the cockpit, tracking
the Fer-de-Lance.

Chris had only just finished when
the Fer-de-Lance was on him again. This time, however, Chris put full
power to his engines, boosting out of the way of the cannon fire that
was streaking his way, only one or two of the shots hitting home. He
then slowed, turned around and sprayed Kethlan’s fighter himself,
tracing the movement as best he could.

“Good shooting, Mr Bainfield,”
Kethlan laughed over the comms.

How are you doing that?
Chris
wondered. He hadn’t acknowledged the communication this time. Had
Kethlan somehow been responsible for the separation of Athena from
the Firefly?

He looked to where Phoebe’s
fighters were starting to engage the
Alchemist’s Son
, that
was continuing to fire upon the
Dodger
. Already, Chris knew
that he would be fleeing to the freighter as soon as the
Alchemist’s
Son
had either been routed or destroyed. He told Athena, Sid, and
Phoebe as much, to help ease their fears.

The very next moment, the Talons and
Mirages that Phoebe was controlling exploded, showering debris and
wreckage in every direction.

“Phoebe, what the hell just
happened?” Chris asked. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Phoebe said. “I ...
don’t know! I just lost control and they self-destructed!”

“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,
and no one to help you,” Kethlan’s voice once again invaded the
Firefly’s cockpit. “Now it’s getting interesting.”

Chris was unable to evade the
Fer-de-Lance’s attacks this time, or any of those that came after.
In the minutes that followed, the Firefly’s frontal shields were
completely stripped, followed by the rear, and one of the sides.
Chris’ heart was now thumping so hard that he thought it was going
to smash through his ribcage and burst out of his chest. Kethlan had
successfully reduced the Firefly’s defences by over seventy-five
percent, yet Chris had barely managed to dent the Fer-de-Lance’s
shields by even half that.

Chris ...
Athena’s voice
came in his head.

“I know, I know,” Chris said. He
was breathing hard, his hands starting to shake. His eyes flickered
briefly towards the eject handle. No, that would be a shameful action
to take. He focused on his fight with Kethlan.

Chris noted several explosions going
off all around him as he struggled to survive the engagement, the
continued result of the WEAPCO fighters engaging both the Wolf Pack
and the Immortal League. Each side was suffering losses, though
WEAPCO the least. The AI fighters were attacking far more
aggressively than usual, almost as if the presence of the man in the
Fer-de-Lance was causing them to battle harder. Chris heard calls and
orders from Tyler, Eve, Dar, and Clayton, the words making it very
clear that the Pack were fighting a losing battle here, their numbers
heavily reduced. He made snap glances to the
Dodger
and the
A.B.C.
, the
Dodger
continuing to suffer at the hands of
the
Alchemist’s Son
.

A flash caught his attention a short
time later, and Chris looked about his cockpit just in time to see a
jump point snapping shut. Something had fled the system, no doubt the
A.B.C
., likely taking Tyler and his most trusted along with
it. Chris had little time to consider things further; Kethlan was on
him yet again, Chris weaving in a failed attempt to evade the man’s
guns.

As he accelerated away from Kethlan,
hoping to get away from the man for long enough to grant the
Firefly’s shields a reprieve, Chris saw a fighter of distinct shape
and configuration tumble past him. He recognised it as Mal’s. Two
Mirages were peppering the armour with plasma cannon fire, the
shields gone. There was little hope left for it in such a state.

Cannon fire from Kethlan’s guns
then stripped what defensive shield energy the Firefly had managed to
regain, causing Chris to bank hard in an attempt to shake the man
off. He came around in time to see Mal’s fighter explode, the
Mirages that had downed it peeling off and immediately seeking out
new targets. Human pilots might have basked in the glory of having
bested and eradicated one of the galaxy’s most wanted and dangerous
men. To these AIs, however, Mal was just another enemy unit
registering on a radar system. Chris considered for a scant moment
whether the Immortal League’s leader was truly dead this time or if
he would be resurrected at some point in the future, before returning
his attention to Kethlan.

Having now fought him for a time,
Chris was beginning to recognise the man’s tactics. At least in
this encounter, Kethlan seemed to prefer to make strafing runs,
slowing as he passed by so that he could turn and strafe his opponent
another time, before speeding away in a different direction.
Strangely, Chris had noticed, the man had had a chance to destroy the
Firefly on several occasions, yet he had failed to do so. The same
was true for the
Dodger
. The
Alchemist’s Son
should
have eliminated the freighter by now. WEAPCO’s AI fighters were
also completely ignoring Chris, leaving the task of taking down the
Firefly to Kethlan alone, something the man didn’t seem willing to
do.