Project Starfighter (11 page)

@SkillmanL
– Where was XS-0017811 when you last heard from it?

@XS-0981672
– XS-0017811 has not reported in since departing the Ceradse
orbital space station. XS-0017811 attached itself to a private
starship, along with one Sawtooth-class war bot, to continue its
investigation.

@SkillmanL
– Where was the ship heading?

@XS-0981672
– Unknown.

@SkillmanL
– Find out. Check the station flight logs.

@XS-0981672
– Immediately.

@SkillmanL
– Are there any updates on the whereabouts of Phoebe Lexx?

@XS-0981672
– Phoebe Lexx is believed to be in the Eyananth system. A woman
claiming to be her posted a message on the bulletin boards of space
stations throughout the Spirit system. XS-0551821 is travelling to
the system to apprehend the poster.

@SkillmanL
– Keep me updated. Erik, how is the progress on breaking the other
twin?

@OverlookE
– Ursula Lexx has been reset. Commander Kethlan is presently aiding
the effort. But in light of the information we have just received
about having possibly found her sister, might it not be useful for us
to see just how far the woman’s influence can extend?

@SkillmanL
– What, exactly, would be the point?

@OverlookE
– It could prove useful for future study, for combating others more
effectively; use their strengths against one another. You and I both
know it is possible already.

@SkillmanL
– I see what you’re saying. Okay, do it. Just make sure she
doesn’t kill anyone. Or herself.

~

Ursula
crashed down, her helmet smashing against the stony ground. She was
grateful it was still securely fastened, the headgear preventing her
from cracking her skull open on the large and dangerous rocks that
had been churned up all around her. Dirt showered her, sprinkling
down from where it had been blasted.

She rolled over in time to see the
massive foot of the Oynicon walker descending rapidly towards her. It
was huge. There was no way she was going to get clear in time. It was
going to crush her! She instinctively raised an arm in defence,
praying for a miracle, praying not to be crushed, willing the foot to
miss her, even if by only a fraction of an inch. She shut her eyes.

The ground around her shook, the
sound of the impact deafening. Yet she was still alive. She opened
her eyes, seeing the dark shadow of the walker above her, the foot
having missed her by what must have been mere inches. Clumps of dirt,
grass, and earth splattered down on top of her from where they had
been thrown into the air during the impact.

She heard the whine of gears and
mechanisms as the walker raised another of its three colossal feet
and continued forward. She saw the massive limb rise up and move a
tremendous distance through the air, before coming down on a WEAPCO
tank. Though the tank was heavily armoured, the Oynicon war machine
crushed it easily, as though it was made of nothing more than
cardboard. Ursula thought she had seen men trying to escape the tank
before it had been flattened, but even if they had been able to do
so, they wouldn’t have got very far. The foot was well over thirty
metres in diameter. They had never stood a chance.

The walker, along with the five
others Ursula could see, was marching towards the city. They were
well within firing range now, able to trash the buildings with their
powerful cannons. They wouldn’t do so yet, not until they had
extracted all the humans hiding there. Tentacle-like limbs could be
seen snaking out from the tops of the machine, snatching up people
and drawing them inside.

“Lexx, are you okay?” A man had
appeared at Ursula’s side and was helping her to her feet. Like
her, he was dressed in protective armour which, just like hers, was
scarred and pockmarked from where it had borne the brunt of many
attacks. The man sported a sharp, black goatee-style beard. His name
inscribed on the front of his armour, alongside various honours and
decorations: Commander Kethlan.

“Anything broken?” he asked.
“Are you bleeding anywhere?”

“I’m okay,” Ursula said,
managing to steady herself as she got to her feet. No pain anywhere;
nothing broken and no major bleeding. Some cuts to her face, but that
was it. Maybe a little shaken up, but otherwise fine.

“You got lucky,” Kethlan said,
eyes following the walker that had moved off. “That plasma charge
took out everyone within a ten metre radius. I think we should keep
well back whenever you see one of their bellies start to pulse.”

“I hear that,” Ursula breathed.
She checked her rifle. The display, though cracked, was still
readable.

She then became aware of a man
running towards her. He looked terrified. He was also unarmed, Ursula
getting the impression that he had discarded his weapon, to stop it
from weighing him down. He carried on past both Kethlan and Ursula
without stopping, his eyes as wide as saucers.

“We can’t stop them! They’re
going to kill us all!” he was yelling.

“Soldier! Get back here this
second! That’s an order!” Kethlan shouted after him. His words
fell on deaf ears; the man was running for all his worth.

“Coward,” Kethlan spat. “Yet
another not prepared to risk his life for the sake of others. He can
go. The rest of us will keep fighting for the future of the human
race.” He looked at Ursula. “Where is your sister? Is she still
in the city?”

Ursula hesitated in framing her
reply. She wasn’t sure why, but for some reason she knew she should
lie. As Kethlan waited for her to answer, Ursula watched a pair of
aerial craft streak towards the walker that had just crushed the
WEAPCO tank. Their guns were blazing, aiming for every part of the
machine, from the leg struts to the sphere-shaped main body at the
top. None of their weapons seemed to be having any effect on it.

As the craft raced by, one of the
walker’s tentacle-like appendages whipped out at them. The first
craft managed to escape, but the second wasn’t so lucky. It was
bowled from the sky, tumbling down to the ground, where it exploded
on impact. The walker carried on forward, completely unhindered. Fire
from both ground and air continued to pepper it, without, apparently,
making the smallest of dents in its armour.

“Lexx?” Kethlan repeated,
drawing her attention back to him. “Your sister?”

“I ... don’t know,” Ursula
responded to his continued enquiry.

The man stared at her for a moment,
before turning away and listening as someone spoke to him through his
earpiece. He nodded his head a few times, replying to the person on
the other end with one word answers. He soon signed off.

“Okay, not to worry,” he said.
“We’ll find her later.” He then indicated the massive machines.
“Let’s get moving. We have to find a way to take down those
walkers. Come on.”

~

Ursula
ran across the battlefield alongside Kethlan, bounding over the
churned up earth to catch up with the other troopers that were
chasing down the walkers. She passed the bodies of the fallen as she
went, saw the smashed wreckage of vehicles that had been trodden on
or blasted by the giant machines. Ursula looked up at the overcast
sky. The enemy had deployed nothing more than these walkers so far,
but the planet was apparently surrounded by all manner of warships.
She wondered what other terrible things lurked within those massive
battlecruisers.

Attempting to catch the walkers on
foot was near-impossible, Ursula soon realised. The things’
enormous strides were able to carry them much further and faster than
a human could possibly run. Only a hover tank could catch them, and
many of those had been shot to pieces.

Kethlan looked over his shoulder to
her, checking she was still following. His gaze then shifted to
something behind her, and Ursula turned to see an open-topped hover
speeding its way towards them. It slowed as it drew up close to them.

“Get in,” Kethlan instructed the
woman.

Ursula did so without question, the
WEAPCO commander jumping up alongside her and slipping into the
adjacent seat. The hover sped off as soon as the two were seated,
hurtling over the ground towards the nearest walker. Ursula saw that
the hover was actually being piloted by the drone in the front seat,
and not the man next to it. At some point, the human driver had been
shot through the head, and so the machine had taken charge.

“What do the Oyniconi want?”
Ursula asked Kethlan.

“We don’t know,” the commander
said, holding on tight to the hover’s rollcage. “They are
plundering all the major towns and cities, killing any who stand in
their way, and ‘kidnapping’ everyone else. Anyone they grab is
taken up into those walkers and transported back to the warships.”
He nodded skyward.

“What happens after that?”
Ursula asked.

“No one’s quite sure,” Kethlan
said. “All we know is that they are taking human beings and
animals. At first, we thought they were taking all organic life, but
they have left the trees and plants alone. We think it might have
something to do with blood or cell types. To tell you the truth, we
don’t even know what our uninvited guests look like.”

One of the walkers was now starting
to tramp its way down the city streets, casually brushing against
buildings as it did so. So big and powerful was the machine that it
was toppling most of the buildings it came into contact with. The
metal tentacles were deploying, sprouting from various parts of its
sphere-like body. Their numbers and lengths appeared almost infinite.
Ursula had her first glimpse of people being dragged up by them,
stuck to the tentacles like flies on flypaper. She felt suddenly
anxious that her sister might be somewhere in that city; that she
might soon be snatched up and taken for whatever purpose the alien
invaders had for the humans and animals they were abducting.

Ursula looked again to the sky as
the hover sped along. This was Allez, in the Eyananth system, for
sure. It was hard to ignore the gas giant the planet lay so close to.
This was the last place she had seen her sister. She might still be
here and, if so, she had to help her.

Confirmed. Phoebe Lexx believed
to be in the Eyananth system, on the planet Allez. Precise position
according to subject is the city of Elfon.

Huh? What was that? The thought had
entered her head for but a fraction of a second and was gone. It had
hung around long enough for her to acknowledge its existence, though.

“Approaching enemy unit,” the
drone driving the hover said, in its flat robotic tone. “Please
advise on strategy.”

Their target was the walker that had
almost crushed Ursula earlier. It was taking long strides towards the
city, only the hover’s speed allowing her and the WEAPCO commander
to catch it up.

“We need to see if we can locate a
weak spot,” Kethlan said, looking over his rifle and checking the
ammunition remaining in the clip. “There must be a way to take
these things down. What do you think, Lexx?”

“I don’t know,” Ursula
admitted. “Maybe we should look for a command module or something?
There must be a way for whoever is driving that thing to get inside
in the first place. Maybe a hatch or something?”

“A hatch, yes, that would make
sense. Where?”

“Beneath the main body, where it
would be better protected.”

“Precisely what I was thinking,”
the WEAPCO commander said. “Take us under it,” he instructed the
drone.

“Acknowledged,” the drone
replied, making minute course adjustments to the hover, to bring it
beneath the walker.

Ursula felt a spike of terror. They
would be putting themselves in a very dangerous place, right beneath
the machine; exposing themselves to its artillery and devastating
pulse ray, as well as the chances of being crushed underfoot. Even if
they got to the underside of the body, climbing the legs would be an
impossible feat. They needed something easier to hang onto, something
that would lead all the way to the base of the unit. Then Ursula saw
it – one of the tentacle-like appendages dangling down, quite
flaccid and unmoving, except for the sway caused by the machine’s
own motion. It appeared damaged. Ursula wondered if the sticky grip
responsible for plucking the victims from the city streets and
buildings was dependent on the tentacle functioning correctly, or
whether it was tied to some physical attribute of the material the
appendage was constructed from. She could see no spikes or hooks
anywhere about the tentacle’s extremities. She wished that the
walker would stop moving. Otherwise, any attempt to scale the
tentacle would prove far too tricky.

The walker took a few more paces
forward, then it actually came to a halt. Lucky.

“I’m going to climb the
tentacle,” Ursula declared.

“Lexx—” Kethlan seemed about
to protest.

“Don’t worry, Commander, I’ve
got this,” she cut him off. “Just draw their fire long enough for
me to get up there.”

The walker’s guns began to fire,
targeting the hover that was speeding towards it. Ursula rose from
her seat, slinging her rifle over her back and taking a grip on the
rollcage to steady herself as the drone swerved this way and that to
avoid the incoming fire. The flaccid, dangling tentacle loomed closer
and closer until the hover was almost right next to it.

“I will be unable to halt the
vehicle, Ms Lexx,” the drone informed her.

Ursula said nothing, and now, with
the tentacle right where she wanted it, she leapt from the hover. She
expected one of several things to happen as she did so – that the
tentacle would actually be electrified, frying her as she gripped it;
that the tentacle would abruptly come back to life, lash out
aggressively and strike the hover, killing them all; or that the
dangling appendage would sprout a number of spikes on which she would
impale herself.