Project Starfighter (52 page)

“Always have to be the hero, don’t
you, Bainfield?” Kethlan answered.

“I mean it, Kline. Surrender. It’s
over.”

“Never.”

He’s not going to respond to
threats
, Athena told Chris.

“I’m not threatening him,”
Chris said.

He thinks you are. Try something
else
.

Chris thought for a moment then
addressed Kethlan. “Why did you betray your brother, Kline? Why did
you turn him over to WEAPCO?”

“He was a threat to the
Corporation—” Kethlan started.

“Before that,” Chris said. “You
fell out with him before you joined them. Why did you do it?”

“He was weak. He was wasting his
gift, and didn’t understand the power that he possessed. We could
have been strong together. But instead, he shied away and hid from
the world. He didn’t deserve to live. He was a fool.”

Chris was exasperated. “Kline, he
was your
brother
!”

“He was nothing to me.”

“I’m getting nowhere,” Chris
said to Athena. “He’s been too badly corrupted.”

Keep trying
, Athena said.
He
wasn’t always this way.

Chris did so. “Your brother—”

“I have no brother,” Kethlan
said, dismissively.

“You weren’t always this way,
Commander. You had some humanity once and were a decent man.”

“I was nothing. I was weak. I’m
not anymore.”

This wasn’t working at all.
Kethlan was too far gone. Chris felt himself once again detach from
Athena as Kethlan directed his gift towards the Firefly and the
Fer-de-Lance’s engines came online. Kethlan was done talking.

“I don’t want to fight you,
Commander,” Chris said.

I doubt he’s going to give us
any choice
, Athena said.

Chris wasn’t sure that Kethlan
fully appreciated how the last encounter had gone. Chris had bested
him, certain that he would have done so even in a similarly powered
fighter to the Fer-de-Lance. As it was, the Firefly’s modifications
put it a notch higher on the scale.

“You’re outmatched, Kline,”
Chris said. “Even without the timeslip, my fighter has been
massively upgraded – it’s more powerful than yours. I’ll give
you one more chance – surrender and come quietly.”

Kethlan did not respond. Maybe he
wanted to die a warrior’s death, to go down in glory? Chris was
forced to bank hard as he saw the tips of the Fer-de-Lance’s
cannons light up. Several of the bolts struck home, forcing Chris to
make quick adjustments to the weightings to compensate.

“Very well,” Chris said to
himself. He knew before it started that the battle would not last
long, and it didn’t. Kethlan’s reactions might have been sharp,
his tactics solid, but Chris was simply a better pilot than the
commander. That, coupled with Firefly’s boosted offensive and
defensive capabilities, meant that victory had always been his for
the taking. But Kethlan fought on regardless.

Why? Why?
Chris wondered.
Does he want to die? I won’t kill you, Kline! I won’t!

Four people he had killed – Dar,
Clayton, Eve, and Tyler. He wouldn’t add another to that list. But
Kethlan didn’t back down, forcing Chris to battle him harder and
harder, for the sake of both his own life and Athena’s. And after
only a few minutes of intense combat the Fer-de-Lance was tumbling,
its core systems damaged, the engines and weapons no longer
functioning.

Chris wondered if he might be able
to tow the Fer-de-Lance back through the jumpgate before it went up.
Or whether Kethlan would bail out. He doubted that, however. The man
had made it clear he was not willing to surrender.

“It was an honour to fight you,
Bainfield,” Chris barely heard over his comms. “A parting gift to
you ...”

The Fer-de-Lance went up, Kethlan’s
words cut short. It was over.

For a time, Chris did nothing but
stare at the spot where Kethlan’s fighter had been. Then, with
nothing more to do, he shifted the flight stick to take the Firefly
back through the jumpgate, and return to Earth.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, waggling the
control. He then saw that the main instrument panel was dull, and
that the fighter’s engines had cut out. Chris stabbed at the panel,
to no effect. He grabbed at the stick with both hands, tilting it
this way and that, pulling the triggers, trying to do anything to
provoke a response. The entire system was dead.

“Athena?” he asked.

Chris ...

Not every system; one was clear
still working. He prepared to ask Athena what had happened, when
something grabbed his attention. A single screen had lit up in front
of him. There was a number on it. 10. Exactly one second later, it
counted down to 9. A knot formed in Chris’ stomach.

“Athena, what’s happening?!”
he asked, jabbing at the consoles and instrument panels in front of
him for all his worth. It remained unresponsive.

8.

Kethlan has broadcast a
self-destruct signal
, Athena answered.

7.

The knot tightened, Chris felt his
breathing coming hard. “Override it!” he shouted, still trying to
coax some sort of response out of the Firefly. It was tumbling
gently, as Kethlan’s Fer-de-Lance had been.

6.

I can’t
, Athena said.
Once
started, the self-destruct cannot be stopped.
Her voice was
surprisingly calm.

5.

Chris looked at the number in
terror. They were about to die. “Athena, there must be something
you can do!” he yelled.

4.

There is one thing ...

3.

Chris saw the canopy above him
suddenly blow, and the next moment he was flung out into the vacuum
of space, still strapped into the seat, speeding away from the
Firefly that now tumbled beneath him.

“Athena!” he cried. He still had
the helmet on, was still protected by his flight suit. He wasn’t
sure that his words would be heard by Athena, but they were. And he
could hear hers.

Thank you for everything, Chris.
You have made me feel more alive than I ever dreamed of. I’m sorry
I couldn’t have spent more time with you. Please don’t forget me.

“Athena ...”

The Firefly exploded ... and Athena
was gone.

Chris felt he had lost everything
that mattered. Asked several months ago, he would have denied that
such feelings were possible. But in this moment, something had been
torn from him, something that he knew was irreplaceable. He reached
out a hand towards the dissipating explosion, as if attempting to
grab hold of any little strand of Athena that might remain. But there
was nothing left. Nothing at all.

“I won’t forget you,” Chris
said. “I promise.”

~

Having
not heard from Chris since his departure nearly an hour before, Sid
arrived at Mars to discover what had become of him. Sid found just a
single pilot ejected from a starfighter. But no Firefly,
Fer-de-Lance, or Kethlan.

Sid asked no questions, the scene
that had greeted his arrival making it plain what had happened. He
brought Chris aboard the
Dodger
, and the two returned to
Earth.

I
n
the months that followed the defeat of the Upper Circle, Ursula Lexx
declared herself the temporary ruler of WEAPCO, aided in the task by
her twin sister. Those former members of the Corporation who had been
placed in charge of the various outposts, cities, and worlds
throughout the known galaxy were fired, their services to the
Corporation terminated. Lexx did not, however, end their lives.
Instead, Ursula confined them, along with Overlook, to an artificial
world in which they would live out the rest of their – now mortal –
lives. It was not such a terrible existence, and many would live for
another fifty years or so. None were permitted to return to the real
world as avatars, however.

The ubiquitous drones and war bots
were assigned new roles and responsibility – overseeing the
transition of the money-driven human society into the oft-promised
post-scarcity one. The journey would be troublesome, Sid, Chris, and
many others knew, as people would initially struggle to cope with
their newfound freedom, the devaluation of money, property, and other
material possessions that they had once cherished and held in high
regard. They would get used to the idea, though. The focus would
instead be on culture and society. In the meanwhile, the bots, AI
warships, and fighters would act as a policing and peacekeeping
service, favouring the carrot over the stick.

As all this went on, Ursula and
Phoebe worked on training new AI systems which would ultimately
replace the two of them. Neither had any desire to rule over this new
world forever, and preferred to appoint a non-corruptible supreme AI
governor to do so, instead. Both women faded gradually into the
background over the course of the next two years, finally returning
home to Spirit.

The new world was just as Chris had
always envisioned, and he was happy with what had become of things.
For the most part, anyway. His desolation after Athena’s death had
diminished, but it was still there. Was this what it was like to lose
a loved one? he wondered. Did the pain ever go away? His parents were
alive and well, and he saw more of them now than ever before, but he
couldn’t imagine losing one of them – or any of his other friends
– not if he must feel again this anguish. Perhaps that was
something that had at one time motivated the Upper Circle to create
the Eternal Engine.

Perhaps in a way they had,
originally, actually been driven by love.

~

Chris
came to see Ursula one day. The young woman lived on her own on
Ceradse, in a rustic little house by a lake, specially built for her
by some bots. She was having trouble trusting people, a result of
seeing into so many minds when she had invaded WEAPCO’s core
systems. Aside from a drone and war bot for protection, and a cat and
a dog for company, she mostly avoided interaction with other people.

“The mistrust will pass one day,
I’m sure,” Ursula said, smiling a little sadly as she and Chris
sat on her porch, looking out over the lake. It was early autumn and
the evening a little chilly. They were drinking hot chocolate. “I’m
still not ready to become a part of society, though. The thought of
living in a city, with all those people ... A few more years, I
think. But maybe not at all. It’s peaceful here. I like it.”

“I’m available any time you need
to talk,” Chris told her.

“Thank you.”

Her anger had faded, but Chris
wondered if the damage was permanent. All had suffered greatly at the
hands of that corporation, but she had been willing to not only throw
herself back into their world to take them down, but also to rebuild
it. And in so doing she had seen into every nook and cranny, however
dark, that had existed, of the human mind. An incredible sacrifice to
have made for the benefit of everyone else. But Ursula was young.
There was plenty of time for her to learn to trust again.

“How is Phoebe?” Chris asked.

“Happy with Sid,” Ursula said.
“She apparently finds his geeky mannerisms quite charming. They’re
both working at a school, now, and Phoebe’s said she would be
content to teach children for the rest of her life. Humble, low key
stuff, where no one would ask any questions about her past.” Ursula
smiled again. “What about you? Have you told anyone about what
happened?”

“No,” Chris said. “Like you, I
don’t want anyone to see me as a hero, or a messiah, or a god, or
anything like that. I just want to be known as Chris.”

“And what does Chris do with his
days?”

“He’s returned to his old job of
working in Leonardo’s Italian restaurant,” Chris said, grinning.

“Really?” Ursula looked
quizzically at him.

“Sure,” Chris shrugged. “Why
not? I was learning how to cook before I joined the Resistance. I
figured I will keep on doing that for a time, until I find out what
else to do with my life.”

“Yes,” Ursula said. “That’s
the trouble. With so much to do, where do you start?” She nodded to
the sun that was starting to set over the horizon, the sky there
turning red. “I’ve decided I’m going to paint that tomorrow.”

“I never knew you could paint?”
Chris said.

Now Ursula grinned. “I can’t.
Plenty of time for me to learn, though.”

Chris chuckled and sipped at his hot
chocolate.

“So why are you really here,
Chris?” Ursula asked. “You came to see me, to check up on how I
was. But there’s another reason, too, isn’t there?”

Chris smiled, though somewhat
ruefully. “Have your powers extended to reading people’s minds
now?”

“No. This is my basic intuition
speaking. It’s Athena, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Chris said, putting his
cup down on the porch step. “Just can’t stop thinking about her.
I miss her.”

“We all do. I dare say that,
although you spent the most amount of time with her, Phoebe and I
might have known her just as well, if not better. We saw into her
mind, heard her thoughts, felt her emotions, shared her dreams and
her desires. She loved you, you know.”

“I know,” Chris said, his
shoulders sagging. “That’s why she saved my life. She could have
done anything with her final permitted instruction. She could have
transmitted her consciousness to another one of WEAPCO’s ships
around Mars, sent it back through the jumpgate to you, or ejected her
mind core.”

“But instead she chose to put
someone else’s needs before her own,” Ursula said. “That’s
the true definition of love, Chris – caring deeply for someone else
and expecting nothing in return. She willingly sacrificed her life
for the sake of yours. There is no greater love. She was truly alive,
Chris.”

Chris felt his shoulders shaking,
tears beginning to gather in the corner of his eyes. He wiped them
quickly away, in case Ursula should see. It was too late, however,
and the woman reached out and rubbed him on the back.