Project Starfighter (42 page)

“I wouldn’t keep doing that if I
were you,” Kethlan said. “You could give yourself an aneurysm.
So, as you can see, Mr Bainfield, there is no way out of here.”

Chris saw that Kethlan was right.
The man and his troop of machines were blocking the only exit. Chris
wasn’t sure that recalling Athena would help. This battle was
happening on the inside of the facility, not in the space beyond it.

“I must admit,” Kethlan said,
“you’ve accomplished one hell of a lot in such a short space of
time: evading capture back in Spirit, earning the trust of a group of
mercenaries, downing the
Grand Vizier
, destroying one of our
major shipyards ...” He stopped, looked up. “You’re a good
pilot, too. Your skills are certainly very advanced for someone of
your age. Our encounter at Elamale certainly showed you have a lot of
promise.”

“I’ll promise you one thing,”
Chris snarled, “give me another chance like that and you won’t be
walking away from the fight.”

“An interesting offer, and a
challenge that at another time I would be willing to accept. A shame
then that my mission directives don’t permit me the opportunity. My
superiors were baffled that I took so long to capture you, and that I
passed over the opportunity to kill you back in the Eyananth system.
But as you can see, I did it all to bring you here, so that I could
finish this in one single move.”

“Chris, I think I can do
something,” Phoebe said. It came out as a bare whisper, the woman
feigning pain and turning her back on Kethlan, so that the man would
not see her speak. “But you need to keep him distracted for a
little longer.”

Chris tried to think of a way to
keep Kethlan talking. A genuine question then sprang to mind. “Why
are you still human? Why are you human, when everyone else in your
little empire has digitised themselves and ... transcended? Why are
you not a part of their world? Who cast you out of Olympus and why?”

To Chris’ astonishment, Kethlan’s
spiteful expression completely vanished, and the man stumbled to a
halt. He appeared genuinely amazed by Chris’ question. The surprise
left him quickly, however, calm returning, mostly. “Who told you
this? Mal? Tyler?”

“No,” Sid said, nodding to the
executive transport. “Erik Overlook. His consciousness is consigned
to that transport. Something malfunctioned when he tried to send
himself home, and we captured him.”

“I did wonder if he had escaped or
not.” Kethlan appraised the vessel behind him. He turned back to
Chris. “And he spoke willingly?”

“No,” Chris said. “Athena got
it out of him. The Firefly,” he clarified. He glanced quickly to
Phoebe, to see if the woman was ready for whatever it was she was
going to attempt. She didn’t seem quite so.

“Athena’s fully sentient, you
know,” Chris said, hoping to open up a new avenue of conversation,
with which to stall the commander further.

“So I hear,” Kethlan nodded.
“Overlook will be dealt with, as will the Firefly. But first ...”
The man raised a hand and pointed to the four men and women ahead of
him. “Kill them.”

Or at least, that’s what Chris
thought he said. The words the man uttered were lost over the cry
that Phoebe gave. It was far more of a roar of anger and hatred than
one of fear or terror, directed towards Kethlan and the drones and
war bots behind him. The lights on the bots and drones extinguished,
their anti-gravity suspension systems cutting out and dropping them
to the ground. A loud bleeping then started, coming from each of the
machines, slightly out of time with one another.

“Run,” Phoebe said. “Get away
from the bots.” She had fallen to her knees, the act of smashing
through whatever barrier had been protecting the drones and bots
sapping her strength. Her nose was bleeding.

Chris did not pause for even one
moment, taking sole custody of Ursula, and lifting the limp woman
over his shoulder, while directing Sid to assist Phoebe. He turned
and started retreating with Ursula past the central lift, moving as
quickly as he could away from the bots. Sid followed after him, half
dragging Phoebe along with him. Chris wasn’t sure exactly how far
they needed to run, but was satisfied that he had judged it correctly
when the first bot went up.

The explosion was deafening, the
combination of so many machines going up almost at once far louder
than the one that had detonated in the mercenaries’ workshop.
There, the explosion had been contained. Here, in the bay, it had
been free to spread as far and wide as it desired. That was perhaps
what saved their lives. That, and the sprinklers that began to dump
water all over the bay within seconds.

“Good work, Phoebe,” Chris
shouted to the woman, who was still recovering. His ears were ringing
from the sound of the explosion, and he could barely even hear
himself. Phoebe only nodded in response. She looked exhausted.

“How are we going to get out?”
Sid shouted.

“The same way we got in,” Chris
shouted back.

“So long as the transport
survived!”

Yes, that was the clear flaw in
Phoebe’s plan. While she might have saved their lives, she had
potentially cut off their most direct route of escape. At least they
still had their bots and drones with them. Phoebe had somehow managed
to maintain control over them. And there was one less problem –
Kethlan was dead.

Chris looked back in the direction
of the smoke and flames, considering how long it might be before they
could reach the transport. He nearly swallowed his tongue as he saw a
figure emerging from the fire. “You’ve got to be kidding me,”
he breathed.

Kethlan strode from the fire,
appearing as fresh as when Chris had first seen him. He did not
appear to have suffered at all at the hands of the explosion. How?
The skin on his face and hands was untouched, not even a single
thread of his uniform singed.

“Clever, Bainfield,” Kethlan
said as he came closer. “That would be another fault of being human
– talking too much. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“Neither will I,” Chris said,
and with that he raised his rifle and fired, sending a bolt of plasma
directly at Kethlan. The bolt passed straight through him.

“Good shot,” Kethlan said. “Just
a pity that I chose to use a temporal-state avatar for this meeting.”

Sid fired his own weapon, each shot
as accurate as Chris’ own, but each also meeting failure.
“Although, if he’s a temporal-state avatar, that means he can’t
hurt us,” Sid said, lowering his weapon.

Kethlan grinned, and in an instant
had sped forward, punched Sid in the gut with such force that it sent
him flying backwards several metres.

“The hint there was the word
‘temporal’, Mr Wilson.” Kethlan smirked, and rounded on Chris.

Chris jumped back as best he could
to avoid Kethlan’s punch, the weight of Ursula on his shoulder
making it more difficult. The slippery film of water that was now
covering the floor wasn’t helping much, either. Chris prepared to
deal with the follow-up, but he overbalanced and went down, the
semi-conscious woman slipping from his shoulder, crashing down onto
the floor.

For a moment, Kethlan seemed torn
over whom to deal with first – Chris, Phoebe or Ursula. In that
moment, Chris got up on one knee and loosed off another handful of
rounds from the rifle. As before, each shot passed straight through
Kethlan’s avatar. The man’s projection must have been capable of
shifting from a solid to a non-solid state at will. That was the only
way to explain how he was able to prevent Chris from shooting him
while he remained able to hurt others. The only way to damage the
avatar would be to locate its source, or wait until Kethlan shifted
to a solid state.

Kethlan had made up his mind. In
response to Chris’ attempts to shoot him, he kicked out, catching
Chris on the wrist and sending his gun flying from his grasp. An
instant later, he had returned his focus to Phoebe, punching the
young woman in the face. She had been raising her own gun, preparing
to fire, hoping to catch the avatar in that moment of vulnerability.
Phoebe staggered backward, slipped on the floor, and fell.

Chris noticed something then. The
lights on the drones and bots under Phoebe’s control briefly
flickering, as though they were coming out of some kind of trance.
The flickering ceased as soon as Phoebe had regained focus, but by
then it was clear to Chris that if Kethlan succeeded in knocking her
out, the drones and bots would revert to their original behaviour.
Chris couldn’t allow that to happen.

He dived for Kethlan as the man went
to follow up his assault on Phoebe, finding the avatar once again
solid. He held on for a time, trying to put the commander in a
headlock, before he felt himself slip through the projection and onto
the ground. Kethlan had changed state once more.

Chris was trying to stand, when a
force flung him aside. He knew without having to be told that
Kethlan’s solidifying had most likely done that, pushing matter out
of the way as his avatar took form and forced aside everything within
the space it wished to occupy.

The commander smirked as Chris
skidded along the floor, before quickly turning back to dealing with
Phoebe. A plasma bolt then streaked through the air, striking Kethlan
in the chest. It was Sid that had fired the shot, Chris saw, the man
still clutching at his stomach where he had been punched. The impact
of the bolt caused Kethlan to stagger backward, but that was all. The
bolt dissipated where it hit, bursting in a fashion similar to
striking any other solid object. It did nothing else, didn’t even
leave a scorch mark.

Kethlan looked down to where the
bolt had struck him, confirming he had suffered no harm or damage. He
looked between the baffled Chris and Sid. “Well, what did you think
was going to happen?” he asked. The gunfire avoidance had all been
a feint.

Chris once more lunged for Kethlan,
the commander batting him away fiercely, knocking him to the ground
before trying to stamp on his throat. Chris rolled out of the way
just in time. Chris’ further attempts to stop Kethlan were in vain,
the man was focused exclusively on Phoebe. At Chris’ instruction,
she began to run, to put as much distance between herself and Kethlan
as possible. The attempt proved worthless, Kethlan’s avatar
disappearing and reappearing in front of her, causing her to change
direction and run haphazardly. It was only a matter of time before
she was caught, and very soon Kethlan’s hands were around the
woman’s throat.

“Put her down,” Chris ordered,
training his gun on the man.

“Or what?” Kethlan asked.
“Weren’t you paying attention earlier? You can’t hurt me with
that; you can’t hurt me at all!”

Phoebe began to choke as Kethlan
tightened his grip on her throat. Chris had no idea what to do. He
couldn’t harm a projection, and unless he or Sid could somehow
locate the source, Kethlan was going to choke Phoebe to death.

He saw that Phoebe’s drones and
war bots seemed to be leaving their controlled state, returning to
their normal functions. How soon before they opened fire on the
intruders they saw? Chris considered whether he should start shooting
them down now? Likewise, Sid was sweeping his rifle between the
bobbing machines, readying himself to gun down as many as possible.
It likely wouldn’t be possible, Chris knew. The machines would
raise their shields in a heartbeat, and open fire the very next
moment. He would barely have time to destroy one, let alone the
number that had followed them through the facility. Chris felt
defeated, almost completely helpless.

Kethlan then cried out, his grip on
Phoebe loosening.

“Put ... my sister ... down! Now!”

Walking slowly up behind Chris was
Ursula. She appeared to have recovered from her comatose state, and
just in time, too. Her eyes were alight, fire most definitely in her
belly. Had she sensed Phoebe’s plight? Chris wondered.

“I’ll crush her throat,”
Kethlan said, glaring at the woman over his shoulder.

“Try,” Ursula said.

Kethlan did not move. It was as
though he was suddenly frozen. Chris then realised – it wasn’t
because Kethlan was fearful of the consequences, but because of
Ursula’s natural ability to influence the avatar. Phoebe had been
unable to achieve this, but that did not mean it wasn’t possible.
Likely, Ursula was simply more powerful.

“See?” Ursula said. “Now, if
you’re not going to let her go willingly ...”

Kethlan’s hands opened and Phoebe
slipped to the floor, gasping for breath. Sid was quick to move to
her side and help her up. Just as Chris wondered what Ursula might do
next, Kethlan’s avatar vanished from sight. Chris readied himself
for Kethlan to come at him, for the commander to pop out of thin air
and attack. Nothing. Kethlan was gone.

“Ursula Lexx?” Chris turned to
the angry woman. Ursula nodded. “My name’s Chris Bainfield. Sid
Wilson, your sister, and I have come here to rescue you. Although, in
all fairness, we probably should be thanking you for saving us.”

“You’re welcome,” Ursula said.
There was little warmth in the woman’s voice, understandable
considering what she must have been through while here. Phoebe had
said she had felt suffering.

Sid was helping Phoebe up. “Chris,
how are we going to get out of here?” he asked.

Chris looked back the way they had
come. The fires were still raging, even with the sprinklers
continuing to dump water down throughout the bay. There would be
little chance of them returning to the executive transport until the
flames died down.

“Is there another way out of
here?” he asked.

“There is,” Ursula said.
“There’s another airlock at the far end of the bay.”

“We need a ship,” Chris said.
“Ursula, can you control ships?” Phoebe still had her hands full
controlling the drones and bots.