Project Starfighter (7 page)

Chris had little time to ponder. Sid
had spotted a taxi hover parked near the square, the driver observing
the drones’ chase. The two men jumped in, asking the driver to take
them to the starport, and soon left the inner city behind.

~

“Is
it broken or fractured?” Chris asked the doctor who was examining
his foot.

“Fractures and breaks are the same
thing,” the doctor said.

“Ow!” Chris cried, as the doctor
gripped his foot harder than before.

“You’re suffering from an acute
metatarsal fracture,” the doctor concluded. “A fairly common
injury, I might add.”

“So, it’s simple for you to fix,
then?”

“Standard surgery can have this
fixed in a week,” the doctor said, releasing Chris’ foot and
standing up. “Advanced surgery in about two or three days. Neither
procedure is cheap.”

“How much?” Chris asked.

“Eight thousand, and twenty
thousand, respectively.”

“Bloody hell,” Chris said,
unable to help himself. Eight was extortionate, and twenty thousand
was well above the average annual income for most of the working
class inhabitants of the Spirit system. He glanced at Sid, who was
shaking his head.

“We can’t raise that now,” Sid
said. “Not in our position.”

“We’re starting up a business
and it’s taking up all our cash,” Chris explained as the doctor
looked on curiously.

The doctor nodded. “In that case,
the best I can do is prescribe you some drugs to take away the pain
and reduce the swelling, and outfit you with a special shoe to
minimise pressure on the bone and keep it in place. You’ll be able
to walk on it, but I suggest you do so as little as possible and keep
your foot elevated as often as you can until it’s healed.”

“How long until I can walk on it
normally again?” Chris asked.

“Eight to twelve weeks with the
normal course of drugs, four to six with the newer ones. The newer
ones cost double and aren’t guaranteed to work any better, or even
at all. It all depends on you, everyone responds differently.”

Chris sighed. He needed to get back
to walking – and running! – as soon as possible. He could
probably just about pay for the more expensive of the drug doses. He
gave the doctor the go-ahead to fit the shoe and prescribe him the
drugs, sending Sid off to reserve them seats on the next transport
off the planet heading for Hail.

When Sid returned an hour later,
Chris was just about sorted. They had exhausted almost all of Sid’s
neighbour’s money now, Chris blowing most of it on his treatment.
They had enough left for little more than food and life essentials.
At least Chris still had his savings to draw upon.

He took out his phone to check
exactly what was left in his savings account. Twelve or thirteen
thousand, he was certain.

“What’s wrong?” Sid asked, as
Chris swore.

“My bank account’s been frozen,”
Chris said, lowering his phone.

“Chris, you didn’t ...?!” Sid
breathed, looking horrified.

“Didn’t what?”

“Log into your bank account?”

“Why? What’s the big ... oh,”
Chris suddenly realised.

“WEAPCO’ll be monitoring it,”
Sid said. “They’ll see that someone tried to access it and will
also know exactly from where the attempt was made,” he added,
pointing to the phone.

Chris swore again. “Sorry. I’ll
switch it off for now.”

“Too late,” Sid shook his head.
“You’ll have to get rid of it.”

“Why?” Chris wanted to know.

“It’s as good as a beacon.
WEAPCO might be able to pin point us using its broadcast signal when
it’s on. Any time, anywhere.” Sid looked around, as if expecting
a host of drones and bots to be coming rushing at them. “I suggest
you either flush it down a toilet or plant it on someone else.”

“Sid, we can’t implicate anyone
else in this,” Chris started.

“Don’t worry. WEAPCO won’t do
anything bad to the person we plant it on,” Sid said. “We pick
the right person, and they’ll just assume it’s stolen. They’ll
be too interested in trying to find us to bother to punish the
thief.”

Chris nodded and glanced back the
way they had come, in the direction of a recreation room where a
number of children and teenagers were playing holographic video games
and enjoying other table-top activities. A few gambling machines were
dotted about, some of the older youths striking them in an attempt to
exploit any physical faults that might result in a payout.

“Them,” Chris said, nodding at
the group.

“Them,” Sid agreed.

The two made their way over, their
aged appearance drawing some sneers from the youths as they sat down
at a car racing simulator and made a show of attempting to play the
game. Having finished, Chris left, deliberately leaving his phone
where he had deposited it on the side of the machine for the duration
of the game. He glanced back as he and Sid headed for a restaurant to
get some food. As expected, both the phone and the youths were gone.

“What time’s our flight?”
Chris asked Sid, as the two settled into a corner booth of the
restaurant where they could talk with a little more privacy.

“In three hours,” Sid said,
handing him the flight ticket. “Boarding under the names of Gregory
Jenson and Samson Albright. Given these tickets are non-refundable,
maybe we shouldn’t miss our flight.”

Chris appreciated the grim humour.
But they had time enough to eat and maybe get a drink. He was
starving. He had barely eaten since that morning, the offerings at
the diner being nothing more than light snacks. He could do with a
good filling meal.

A waitress presently stopped by and
took their order. Chris, deciding not to risk consuming any alcohol
in case it should interfere with his course of drugs, settled for
orange juice. He didn’t begrudge Sid his order of a pint of lager,
half of which he downed in under ten seconds.

A television was broadcasting the
news, though it was drowned out by music playing over the
restaurant’s speakers. Usefully replacing the audio, subtitles
appeared on screen as the reporter spoke. The report was focusing on
the hunt for two wanted criminals – Sid Wilson and Tyrone Vin.

Only two, now?
Chris thought.
Had all the others been eliminated already? Hell, that was quick.
WEAPCO wasn’t messing around. He saw that Sid was staring at the
display, looking agitated as his profile came up, displaying an image
of his face, as well as giving his age, height, and last known
location – the Watergardens. WEAPCO had clearly already found the
body of Sid’s neighbour.

“It’s okay,” Chris said,
reassuringly. “You don’t look a thing like that right now.”

‘Shooting at the Watergardens’
the news subtitle then read, over an image of the residence. Chris
focused on the food menu. Sid focused on his beer.

“You know what I always wanted in
life?” Sid muttered. “Just to meet a nice girl. I always thought
I had a lot of skills – working with computers and electronics and
that. It got me by, paying enough to live on. Well, as much as any of
us are able to make after the tax is grabbed. Before my mum and dad
died, I thought that if I could find myself a nice girl, I would be
set up for life; I would have everything that I wanted. I never
imagined something like this would ever happen.”

Sid was babbling, clearly still very
nervous. Chris could hardly think of what to say in response. But
right now, Sid clearly needed his support.

“You can still have it all, Sid,”
Chris said. “This will all settle down eventually, and we’ll be
free to do as we wish. Don’t worry, the right girl’s out there.
We just have to find her.”

Sid nodded, and took another drink
of beer. The news topic on the TV soon changed, turning to yet
another subject that both Chris and Sid were also familiar with –
the Immortal League, the mercenary group turned cult, their leader,
Mal. The man had apparently broadcast another message to his
followers, speaking about how the doors to Heaven would only open
once they had finished destroying the great evils of the universe.
When the time came, he would be leading them forward to do so.

“He means WEAPCO, right?” Sid
said.

Chris nodded. “More or less. But I
think he stands against the usual suspects as well – greed,
adultery, lust, gluttony, that sort of thing. It’s meant to have
been written down on some ancient stone tablets he found, or
something. Supposed to be of divine origin. He claims he’s the only
one who can read them.”

“Sounds like the Ten
Commandments,” Sid said.

Chris thought for a moment. “Yes.
I think that might be what he’s claiming they are. He’s likely
telling his followers and everyone else that they’re a doorway or
passage to the one true Heaven.”

“Whatever they are, he’s sure
upset WEAPCO a lot with them over the past year or so.”

“So long as he keeps it up,”
Chris said. “Diverts attention away from us, at least.”

The waitress showed up a short time
later. The two plates of food she carried drew the two men’s
attentions from the screen.

“So, what happened to you?” Sid
asked. “When WEAPCO hit the fleet, I mean.”

“I was on
The Eye of the Storm
,
the battlecruiser,” Chris explained. “Like everyone else, we were
preparing to jump out of Spirit and head for Eyananth, and begin the
assault on the shipyards and mining plants there, to deal damage to
two major supply lines in one go.

“When the AI bots and starfighters
came by, I tried to get to the fighter bays to repel them. I didn’t
get the chance. They hit us so quickly that I wasn’t even able to
get to the launch bays before they were tearing the
Eye
apart.
My route was totally cut off. A few people got spaced.”

Sid stopped eating at that moment,
his mouth hanging open. “You saw it happening?”

Chris nodded. “Almost right in
front of me.”

“How did you escape?”

“The captain sounded the call to
abandon ship, and I ran for the escape pods. I managed to get into
one of the last ones remaining. I remember looking out the window of
the capsule before it sealed itself and seeing the faces of those who
were about to be left behind.” He shook his head, looking down at
his food, for the moment losing his appetite. “It was horrible. I
knew they were going to die and there was nothing I could do about
it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sid said. “Did
you know many of them well?”

“Not really, but I wish I could’ve
done something.”

“It sounds like there was nothing
you could do,” Sid said. “You didn’t abandon them on purpose.
I’m sure if they had been first to the pods, they wouldn’t have
waited for you, either.”

“I know,” Chris said. He carried
on eating despite no longer feeling hungry. They had all but spent
their last few credits on this meal. “But what I want to do now is
to make sure that they didn’t die in vain. I will find a way to
fight back against that damn corporation. I know where to get a
starfighter from; a Firefly. It’s still in a cargo unit at Hail,
where—”

Sid coughed suddenly, his eyes
offering explanation.

Chris didn’t look immediately, but
when he did, he saw a drone passing nearby. The damn things were
everywhere! He hoped that when they got to Hail things would be
different. They couldn’t keep wearing prosthetics and falling
silent whenever one of WEAPCO’s machines was around.

Chris watched the drone as it
hovered outside the restaurant. It seemed to be scanning the patrons.
It didn’t stay there long, moving off again. Chris wondered if it
was searching for the phone he had recently ‘lost’. As Sid had
said, if WEAPCO were monitoring his bank account, they would know
that the access attempt had originated from somewhere in the
starport.

“How many hours starfighter
training did you put in?” Sid continued, once the drone was well
out of earshot.

“Three hundred, maybe?” Chris
hazarded. He wasn’t too sure. He had lost count.

“How much of that was simulated,
though?”

“Almost all of it.” Chris felt a
little despondent about that. He had no idea whether he would have
been much good as a fighter pilot, or of much use to the Resistance
at the end of the day. The times he had been in an actual craft in
space he had been good, but far from exceptional.

“Do you have a plan? For when we
get to Hail, I mean,” Sid was pressing.

Not really
, Chris thought to
himself. He was winging it, making it up as he went along, and hoping
for a spark of inspiration. The first thing he wanted to do was
attempt to contact any remaining members of the Resistance that were
still gathered in Spirit, and get the movement started again. He told
Sid as much.

“You don’t have to come with me
if you don’t want to,” Chris added as they finished up and exited
the restaurant. “I’m not going to force you to do anything that
you don’t want to. I think right now that you’re one of the few
people I can trust, though.”

“No, that’s why I
am
coming along,” Sid said. “You’re probably one of the few people
that I know of right now that wouldn’t try to turn me in.”

Chris smiled. At least he had one
ally. “Come on. Let’s go wait for our shuttle,” he said.

T
hey
had no money. They needed money. Chris wondered what he possessed
that he could sell. Nothing of any real value. The phone might have
gotten him something, but that was lost to him now. He and Sid still
had the chameleon suit with them, though. That could fetch quite a
lot of money. Yet it didn’t feel right to sell it. Something told
him he should hold onto it for the time being.

“Thoughts?” Chris asked Sid, as
they disembarked from the shuttle and onto the platform at the space
station.

“I could try hacking something,”
Sid suggested. “If I can get to a terminal, maybe I could rig us up
some fake bank accounts, put some money in there, load it on to the
cash cards, and then close everything up again. Risky as hell,
though. Could result in WEAPCO tracking us.”