Project Starfighter (29 page)

“What have you done to me?”
Ursula demanded of Skillman. “Have you drugged me?”

“Perhaps.”

Cryptic bastard. She looked at her
arms and hands again. Her fingernails were painted red, her skin ...
slightly tanned, as though she had recently spent a lot of time in
the sun. She frowned, taking in the sight of her body. She wasn’t
as skinny as she recalled having been when she had attempted to
escape the holding facility, when Kethlan had slipped up. Her body
was now more curvaceous. Her breasts, too, were plumper. Everything
about her was almost perfect. She noticed then that her normally
blonde hair was a silky black.

“I know this isn’t real,” she
said.

“How can you be so sure?”
Skillman asked, smoothly.

“This isn’t my body.”

Skillman nodded, slipping off his
jacket, folding it carefully, and setting it down neatly on the soft
chair that rested in one corner of the room. “So, what’s really
happening?”

“I’m back in a tank in that
facility I almost escaped from.”

Skillman paused as he reached for
his tie. “You almost escaped, you say? Is that how it happened?
You’ve been in and out of various scenarios constantly, from what I
understand. How do you know what is real and what isn’t? Maybe that
was also a simulation.”

“I can tell,” Ursula growled.
“People have a sixth sense about this sort of thing, you know? This
here,” she gesture around herself, “is some naughty Goth girl
fantasy you or one of your cronies has cooked up.”

“And what happens in this fantasy,
Ms Lexx?” Skillman loosened his tie, taking it off, folding it
neatly, and setting it down on the chair, where it joined his jacket.
Skillman seemed to be undressing with deliberate slowness.

“What happens is that I break out
of these cuffs, take you hostage, and negotiate my freedom in
exchange for your life,” Ursula said.

Skillman only laughed, now undoing
the top button of his shirt. He caught his reflection in a full
length mirror, observing it for a time. He ran his fingers over
collar button.

“Ties are nice, don’t you
think?” he said. “Neat little accessories that can add a splash
of colour and add a certain
je ne sais quoi
to an otherwise
plain shirt.”

“Wait until I get out of here, and
then I’ll show you a certain something.”

Skillman’s expression darkened.
“So, you believe that this is just another simulation, do you?”
The man suddenly had something in his hand. It looked like a riding
crop. “The funny thing about simulations is that you can still
sense a number of things. Such as pain.” And with that, he thrashed
Ursula’s stomach.

The pain was immediate and intense,
a sharp stinging sensation. Even if she had tried not to, she would
still have cried out.

“See?” Skillman said.

“Do that again and I will repay
you ten times in kind for each one,” Ursula threatened.

Skillman chuckled his reply, and
thrashed her three more times.

Ursula’s eyes began to water, and
through the tears she could see that her stomach had turned a bright
shade of red where each stroke had lashed her skin. “I mean it,”
she breathed. “When I get out of here, I will inflict such pain and
misery on you to make the seven levels of Hell look like a teacup
ride by comparison.”

Another three lashes followed,
before Skillman seemed to grow bored of the crop. He cast it aside,
the thing evaporating into thin air as it went.

“Pain is all present and correct,
then,” Skillman said.

Ursula swore at him, and once again
tugged hard against her restraints, trying to will the locks to snap
open and set her free. She bucked and jostled as much as she could on
the bed, but nothing gave.

“I see that your sense of spirit
is in no way diminished, either,” Skillman went on, bending down to
undo the laces of his shoes, and placing them next to the chair in
the room, out of the way. “You and your sister have a very special
talent, Ms Lexx, one that has been the source of some trouble for us
in the past. We can’t very well have two people such as yourselves
roaming freely about the galaxy and causing us all sorts of problems
now, can we?”

The pieces of a puzzle began to slot
together in Ursula’s mind, the picture becoming clearer. “You’re
worried that I can oppose you,” she said. “You’re worried that
I can take control of your robots and your machines and turn them
against you.”

“Oh, it goes much further than
that, my dear,” Skillman said. “Not that I feel like indulging
you right now. You may have been able to manipulate these scenarios
before, but I’m happy to say that here you have no power
whatsoever.”

“Now I know this place isn’t
real,” Ursula said. “You’ve drugged me back at that facility,
to suppress my abilities. You couldn’t be doing it here, in this
world, because I could just override it.”

“Very good,” Skillman said. “And
a good thing we found you and your sister when we did. You’re
clearly far more capable than William Benedict ever was. A repeat of
that little incident would have been unfortunate.”

“William Benedict?” Ursula
asked.

“Another troublemaker, long gone,”
Skillman said. “In a way, your predecessor.”

Ursula struggled again against her
bonds. “Whose body is this?”

“Why does it matter?” Skillman
asked, with a shrug. “A body is a body. Now, there is one sense
that we have not yet discussed – pleasure.” He bounded onto the
bed, crawling up, placing his hand on her stomach, running his
fingers gently across it. His touch made Ursula’s skin crawl.

“Is this what you do for fun when
no one is looking?” Ursula asked, turning her head away and not
looking at him.

Skillman grinned again, and Ursula
wished that she could kick him in that disgusting, leering face of
his. “You and I both know that you are hardly defenceless.” He
glanced to her restraints. “Well, except maybe at the moment.”

He returned his attention to her
stomach, now running his tongue across it, over the areas where he
had previously lashed her. He then worked his way up, undoing the
clasp of her bra and starting to knead, kiss, and lick her breasts.
Or rather, the breasts of the body that this was. Ursula tried to
think that this was not her body, her head or her mind. But the pain
had been real, and now the sensation of Skillman’s tongue and his
hands on her was real. She couldn’t extract herself from that,
couldn’t get away from it no matter how hard she tried.

“How was that? Do you like that?”
Skillman asked, looking up at her. Ursula did not answer, and so he
crawled up, grabbed her face in his hand and forced her to look at
him. “Yes?” he prompted.

“No. You’re a disgusting vile
old, balding, fat molester!” Ursula answered, before spitting in
his face.

“Oh, that’s not very nice,”
Skillman said, removing a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and
wiping away the spittle. He then bent down, and started to kiss and
lick her face.

Ursula gritted her teeth against the
revulsion she felt, until she found the man moving around to meet her
lips. No sooner had his lips met hers than his tongue was trying to
force its way into her mouth. She came to a swift decision, and bit
down on it. Hard.

Skillman gasped in pain, and
immediately tried to withdraw. His tongue managed to escape, but
Ursula’s teeth now snapped shut on his lower lip. There she held
him, biting down harder and harder, hoping for her teeth to pierce
his lip and rip it apart. Skillman groped around for a time, unsure
of what to do. The riding crop was then once again in his hand, and
he began using it to strike Ursula on any part of the body that he
could, until she released him.

Ursula grinned. “You’re right.
Pain
is
all present and correct. So is pleasure. I thoroughly
enjoyed that. Oh, look – blood. Now your Gothic fantasy is even
more complete.”

Skillman glowered, and instead of
the riding crop he now had in his hand a ball gag. He grabbed
Ursula’s head, attempting to force the ball into her mouth. She
clamped her jaw shut, refusing to allow him to do so. Skillman
instead pinched her nose, waiting patiently, knowing that she would
be forced to breathe eventually, no matter what. When she did, he
completed the task, fastening the straps tightly. He then removed the
handkerchief from his pocket once more, dabbing at his lip, checking
the amount of blood.

“I like a fighter,” he said,
pocketing the handkerchief. “It makes the victory all the sweeter
in the end.” He eyed the gag closely as Ursula glared at him. “You
know, I could have sewn your mouth shut or removed it altogether.
Perhaps even just take your teeth out. But that’s crude, prone to
errors, and ... not as fun. Now, just lie back and think of the Milky
Way ...”

“Sir?”

Skillman paused, appearing suddenly
irritated. Ursula wasn’t sure where the voice had come from; she
and Skillman were the only two people in the room. Skillman returned
his attention to her, meeting her eyes, and making it clear that he
intended to go on regardless.

“Sir,” the voice repeated.

“What?” Skillman demanded, after
a heavy sigh.

“We have an update that requires
your immediate attention.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“Not really, sir. It concerns the
Lexx woman.”

Skillman got off Ursula and sat on
the end of the bed, making a sign in the air. A man appeared – Erik
Overlook. Ursula had been sure she had recognised his voice earlier.
Overlook glanced from Skillman to the woman on the bed and back
again, appearing a little shocked by the scene that had greeted him.

“As you can see, Erik,” Skillman
said, waving a hand in Ursula’s direction, “I am
busy.
Now,
what is this all about? What has happened to the other one?”

“We’ve lost her, sir,”
Overlook said.

Skillman swore. “
How
? How
did you manage to lose
one woman
?”

“There were a number of factors
involved, sir,” Overlook said. “The first is that she seems to
have become more aware and in command of her abilities than when we
first began tracking her, and she has started to take advantage of
them. She managed to evade the drones sent to apprehend her, and has
also taken control of a Valkyrie starfighter.”

“So? Just send a squadron of
Talons after her.”

“We did, sir. She fought them
off.”

“How?” Skillman asked.

“She ... took control of them,”
Overlook said, his tone one of apology.

“Haw haw,” Ursula chuckled
through the ball gag. Skillman turned around and glared at the woman.
Though Ursula couldn’t smile with the gag in her mouth, she was
certain that her eyes were doing a fine job of conveying her
amusement.

Overlook continued, “We received a
notification from the
Duke of Wellington
that its fighter
squadron was no longer responding to orders. Lexx then used the
fighters to attack the
Duke
.”

“Ooooooo?” Ursula murmured
through her gag.

“And?” Skillman asked. He
sounded as if he already knew the answer.

“She ... destroyed it, sir,”
Overlook said.

“Eeeeeeeee!” Ursula squealed
with delight.

“The
Duke
attempted to jump
out of the system when it realised that its escorts were purposely
opening fire on it, but it never managed to engage its drive system.”

Skillman was quiet for a time,
grating his teeth, mumbling words beneath his breath. “You said she
has a Valkyrie fighter?”

“Yes, sir. We believe she had some
of the drones that were working for her summon one to her position.
She took control of it from there.”

“Haven’t all Valkyries been
recalled and withdrawn from duty?”

“Not all of them,” Overlook
said. “We still have around seventy in active service. It was
decided that we should keep some of them around ...” He paused and
glanced at Ursula. “ ... for show,” he finished.

Skillman sighed. “Who decided
that?”

“Owen Hancock.”

“Have him fired immediately. No,
wait. Delete him,” Skillman corrected himself.

“Sir?” Overlook hesitated.

“DELETE HIM! PERMANENTLY!”
Skillman shouted. He rubbed his chin. “Did she have any help, or
was she working alone?”

“According to the data we
received, she was being assisted by two more of the Corporation’s
starships, which arrived in response to a distress call she was
broadcasting. One of them was a scrap and salvage sweeping vessel
called
The Artful Dodger
, that was originally set to receive
full AI transformation and integration in the next few months.”

“Another one of Hancock’s ‘for
show’ ideas?”

“Sir, yes,” Overlook said.

Skillman sighed. “Does Hancock
have any family?”

“Sir?”

“Does. Hancock. Have. Any.
Family?”

“Yes, sir. A wife and a son.”

“Delete them, as well. What was
the second ship that assisted her?”

“A starfighter—”

“A Firefly by any chance?”
Skillman interrupted, in a low voice.

Overlook said something that Ursula
didn’t catch.

“What?” Skillman asked.

“I said, yes, sir.”

A Firefly? What was special about
that?
Ursula wondered. She knew little about WEAPCO’s naval
forces, many of the names and words being thrown around foreign to
her. Whatever this Firefly was, it sounded as though it was already
quite a thorn in Skillman’s side. Was it a rogue AI, or was it
being piloted by someone?

“I have told you once already,
Erik, that the elimination of that fighter and those two men are a
top priority for the future of both this company and ourselves. Our
wellbeing and very lives are dependent on the elimination of
Bainfield, Wilson, and that Firefly, and yet you continue to bring me
news such as this. How can you fail to apprehend one woman and
destroy one starfighter? What have you been
doing
? No, don’t
answer that,” Skillman waved Overlook’s explanation away. “Where
is Commander Kethlan?”