Project Starfighter (28 page)

Chris’ eyes widened as he looked
from Leo, to William, and finally to Phoebe. “They’re both
twins.”

Phoebe appeared baffled. “Sid ...”
she started.

“As I said,” Sid said, “latent
psionic powers. Phoebe, were you and your sister ever asked if you
were telepathic?”

“All the time,” Phoebe chuckled,
without humour. “It’s part of the bane of being an identical
twin. People always assume that because you look alike, you can share
thoughts and feelings. They ask whether or not you know what the
other is thinking, and if you share the pain when one of you gets
hurt. That sort of crap.”

“Get slapped a lot at school, eh?”
Chris asked, facetiously.

“All the bloody time,” Phoebe
said, huffing and folding her arms. “They’d go and asked Ursula
if she felt the slap, and then do it to her, to see if I felt it!”

Sid nodded. “Chris, I know this is
a long shot, and might sound utterly ludicrous, but I think this
might be how Benedict was able to attack WEAPCO. Like Phoebe, he was
able to take control of a set of drones and bots, and use them to
build an army.”

Chris thought about it for a time,
before shaking his head. “I’m not sure. Phoebe wasn’t able to
control more than about twenty or thirty of those fighters at a time,
and even then, could only direct about half of those. That’s a far
cry from the fleet William Benedict was said to have commanded.”

“I imagine that he had had more
time to become proficient,” Sid said. “If everything else about
Benedict’s story is to be believed, he was in command of several
hundred drones and starfighters when he reached Murdar.”

“Do you think he was controlling
all of them, simultaneously?” Phoebe asked. “I don’t think I
could do that. The level of concentration would be mind-blowing.”

“If it were me, I would delegate
the duties to drones and manage them in groups,” Sid said. “Or
filter them down using some kind of spatial partitioning system. Or
something like that, anyway. It was how I used to play strategy
games, involving lots of units – split them into groups and treat
them as a single entity.”

Phoebe’s expression turned to one
of surprise and amusement. “You know, I never thought of doing
that.”

“In the heat of the moment, it can
be difficult to think straight. Your mind is focused on all kinds of
other things – mostly how to stay alive,” Sid said.

Chris examined the two projections
once more. Other than their clothes, the two men appeared to be
identical. He saw the ship’s records detailed the Benedicts as
having died well over a year apart. But other than their names and
parts of their personal histories, the two men were exactly the same.
Their faces were so similar that Chris doubted whether even their
mother had been able to tell them apart. Their height, eye and hair
colour, were identical. Their weight – how had WEAPCO got hold of
that? he wondered – was only slightly different, William weighing a
fraction more than Leo.

“Who would have thought,” he
said quietly to himself. “WEAPCO is scared of two people who look
and dress the same. If this power thing of yours is true, then you’re
their one weakness,” he added, looking at Phoebe.

Phoebe suddenly looked horrified.
“Ursula!”

“Where is your sister now?”
Chris asked. “Wait,” he interrupted before she could answer, “it
was
you
who left the advert on the message board in Spirit,
wasn’t it?”

“That was a mistake,” Phoebe
said, looking down at her feet. “It led WEAPCO right to me. I
wasn’t thinking straight. So, do you think that WEAPCO are
exterminating twins?”

“Can’t be,” Chris said. “That
would be next to impossible. There must be tens of millions of twins
alive in the galaxy. They could never get them all without someone
noticing.”

“They don’t want all twins,”
Sid said. “Only identical ones.”

“Even so ...” Chris said. He
thought for a moment. Did he know many other twins? Was Phoebe the
first identical twin he had ever met? No, of course she wasn’t. He
had seen others. He recalled two pairs having frequented the Italian
restaurant where he had once worked.

“I think they’re targeting them
once it is revealed that they have unlocked their latent abilities,
and that they have become strong enough to pose a threat,” Sid
fielded. “I don’t imagine that every set of identical twins ever
born can do this. Only some, and it’s those that WEAPCO are after.”

“Phoebe, we need to find your
sister. Where is she?” Chris repeated.

“I don’t know,” Phoebe said.
“She vanished three months ago and I haven’t been able to get in
touch with her. It’s unusual for her to just disappear like that.
We’re normally very close.”

“WEAPCO must already have her,”
Chris said. “If she’s anything like you, then they must’ve
recognised her as a threat.”

“You don’t suppose they’ve
...?” Phoebe asked. She looked as though she was about to burst
into tears.

“In all honesty, something tells
me no,” Sid said. “Knowing WEAPCO, if they have her then they
will want to keep her alive, so that you come and rescue her.”

“If they’re waiting for us to
come and rescue her, then that’s precisely what we should do,”
Chris said. “All we need to do is find out where she is, and we can
go get her.”

“As simple as that, eh?” Sid
said, sceptically. “She could be being held deep in the heart of
WEAPCO-controlled space, perhaps even on Earth itself. If that’s
the case, we’re not getting anywhere near her.”

Phoebe looked crushed by Sid’s
words. The man seemed to be accepting defeat before they had even
started.

“We’ll just have to see. Let’s
not presume anything just yet,” Chris said. “It could be that
she’s actually back in Spirit. First things first – we need to
find a reliable source that will point us in her direction. Sid, find
out what the
Dodger
’s databanks have to say, while I go talk
to Athena. She knew a few things about the
Grand Vizier
and
the
Duke of Wellington
, so she might be privy to some other
details.”

“Maybe the fighters I brought in
will know?” Phoebe suggested.

“Hmm, I’m guessing it will be
the same story as the war bots,” Chris said, looking to Sid, who
nodded.

“The drone we caught at the
mercenaries’ base was the most useful,” Sid said.

“A drone would be useful, you
say?” Phoebe asked. “I think I brought one in.”

“Really? Where is it?” Sid
asked.

“Down in the hold, with the
fighters. I told it to go on standby.”

“This could actually prove easier
than we first thought,” Chris said. “Athena would probably be
able to get the information out of it in a matter of seconds, and
without making it blow itself to kingdom come. Let’s go take a
look.”

~

The
drone was known as XS-0551821. It had been assigned the task of
finding Phoebe Lexx and bringing her back to a holding facility in
the Murdar system, where Phoebe’s twin sister, Ursula, was being
held.

“What are they doing to her?”
Phoebe asked Athena. Athena was projecting her Greek goddess persona
again, dressed in the same white Grecian robe. “Is Ursula hurt?”

“It doesn’t know,” Athena
said, referring to the drone.

“What do they want with her?”
Chris asked. “Are they going to kill her? Are they integrating her
into some system or other?”

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea,”
Athena said, shaking her head. “The drone can only tell me its
mission parameters, which involve finding and capturing Phoebe, and
bringing her back to the Zetaman Facility.”

“Hmm, sounds like WEAPCO have
restricted things a great deal more since the last time,” Chris
said. “We got a hell of a lot out of the one that told us about
mission 3412.” He rubbed his chin. The stubble there was
thickening; he hadn’t had time to shave recently. He would do so
soon enough. He didn’t want a beard, it remained him too much of
Krass Tyler. He wondered momentarily what had become of the leader of
the Wolf Pack. Had they all died out there in Spirit?

“What can you tell us about the
facility?” Chris asked Athena.

“It can hold up to one thousand
and twenty-four subjects, and is run and monitored twenty-four seven
by a large number of drones.”

“Defences?”

“Mobile ray cannons and rocket
emplacements, as well as several light and medium-class
starfighters,” Athena said.

“Numbers?” Chris asked.

“According to the drone, there are
currently thirty-eight mobile turrets, equipped with dual particle
beams, fourteen Talons, eight Mirages and four Tomcats. This being
Murdar, it is well within hop range of WEAPCO naval shipyards.”

Chris swore. “So, we can’t just
blast our way inside in the Firefly, then?”

“I would strongly advise against
it,” Athena said. “For my sake, as well as your own.”

Chris fell silent for a time,
contemplating. He was aware that Athena, Phoebe, and Sid were
watching him, waiting for him to make a call. He didn’t have much
of a clue right now. The Firefly might permit him to timeslip, but
even that had its limits. To their name they had the Firefly, a
Valkyrie, the Manx – more of a transport vessel with a moderate
amount of customisation, than a fully fledged military craft – the
freighter, and around twenty or so WEAPCO Talons. With those, they
could probably take on the fighters around the facility, but the
mobile turrets would blow them to pieces with ease. And that said
nothing about who or what they might find once they actually got
inside the facility.

“I need time to think,” Chris
said. “Sorry,” he added to Phoebe. “I
do
want to rescue
your sister, but we need a plan. We might have been able to down a
WEAPCO corvette without too many problems, but ultimately we will
need to get into that facility, which means beating its defences.”

“Okay,” Phoebe nodded,
reluctantly.

He looked at the Valkyrie the woman
had been piloting, wondering whether the
Dodger
’s bots and
worker machines would be able to upgrade it in the same way that they
had upgraded the Firefly. So long as the Valkyrie had the power and
resources available, he couldn’t see why not. It would probably
just be a case of shoving in a bigger or more efficient battery. He
proposed the idea to Sid, who largely agreed with his assessment.

“How are your flight combat
skills?” Chris then asked Phoebe. “Honestly.”

“Not bad,” the small woman
answered.

“But not good, either,” Chris
finished for her.

“The ship does what I tell it –
where to go and when to fire.”

“But it’s up to you to decide
how best to approach a combat situation. I think we should work on
that, too. Getting that right makes all the difference when it comes
to staying alive.”

“How?” Sid asked.

“Practice,” Chris said. “WEAPCO
have a number of shipyards in the region, right? We could do two
things – disrupt their operations, to allow the locals a chance to
take back what is rightfully theirs and overcome the Corporation’s
sanctions, and also allow Phoebe to practise her skills.”

“Dangerous,” Sid said.

“It’s not going to get any
easier, unfortunately,” Chris said.

“Sounds like a plan to me,”
Phoebe admitted.

Sid nodded, somewhat reluctantly.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can find out about recent WEAPCO activity
in the system from the drone.”

“Make use of Athena as much as you
need,” Chris said. “I’m going to go and read up a little more
about William Benedict. I’m curious to know exactly what it was
that he did. And, more importantly, what he did wrong.”

U
rsula
was cuffed to a bed, fastened about the wrists and ankles to the
posts, spread out like a starfish. She lay on black satin sheets. Two
bedside tables held lamps and a book of some sort. The lighting was
low, seemingly intentionally so, to create some kind of ambiance. The
room was spinning a little, too, warping in her vision. She tried to
focus but found it incredibly difficult to do so.

She knew immediately what was
happening. This wasn’t real, this was another simulation. She
looked at her bindings, to the handcuffs enclosing her wrists,
willing them to break apart and release her. They did not. She turned
her attention to the straps that were fastened to her ankles, and
focused her thoughts to make them snap, split, or fray. Nothing.

How could that be? She had held
power over all of her past simulation settings as soon as she became
aware of where she was. She had been able to take on armies, fly,
break the very fabric of those false realities. Now, she couldn’t
even undo some simple bindings.

“Are you sure you’re doing it
right?” a voice asked.

At the foot of the bed, Ursula saw a
man dressed in a pristine black suit. It was clearly tailormade,
fitting him perfectly, and radiating wealth and power. She recognised
him immediately.

“Skillman.” Ursula glared. She
tugged at the cuffs again, feeling them biting into her wrists as she
did so. They held fast, no matter how hard she pulled. “Decided to
come yourself today, instead of sending your lackeys, eh?”

The WEAPCO CEO observed her
struggles for a time, before answering her. “Today is special,”
he said. “Today is the day that I can rest assured that I can rid
myself of two interfering pests.”

“You’ve found my sister, then?”
Ursula said.

Skillman smiled. “Thanks to you,
yes.”

Ursula flared. “If you so much as
touch her ...”

“Oh, please,” Skillman said,
dismissing her threat with a casual wave. He then smiled a devilish
smile, eyeing the handcuffs that fixed her to the bed frame. “You’re
hardly in the position.”

Ursula screamed at him, before
resuming her attempts to free herself from her bindings. Her head was
still swimming, her thoughts sluggish, her vision swirling as though
she was drunk.