Project Starfighter

by Stephen J Sweeney

  “That’s different!” Sid said, flabbergasted. “Those were simulators, not the real thing.”

  “Believe me,” Chris said, “they’re not that much different when you get into the seat. And the autopilot can take care of most of the rest. You just need to be able to plot a course and make some manual adjustments as needed.” He put a hand on the nervous man’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay, Sid. Don’t panic. We’ll head back to Ceradse, first. Shorter trip.”

  “Back to Ceradse? The place could be crawling with WEAPCO drones.”

  “I know,” Chris said. “But we don’t have much choice. We can’t stay here; Tyler’s threatened to kill us if we don’t leave within the hour.”

  Sid glanced nervously at the ships gathered in the dock. “I’m ... not sure.”

  “Sid, you can hack drones, bots, and all kind of other things. Steering a ship towards a space station will be like a walk in the park by comparison. The tricky bit will be getting through the asteroid field, but, again, the autopilot can handle that, and none of those ships are anywhere near as big as the Sauvignon Blanc was.”

  Sid was quiet for a time but finally he nodded his head. “Okay,” he said.

  “Good. Any of those take your fancy?” Chris asked, gesturing to the assorted collection of vessels.

  “Yes,” Sid said, after considering them. “There’s a Manx parked just over there. I played around with those in the sims a little. Not my favourite, but it’s the only one I recognise. I think I can cope.”

  Chris nodded. The Manx was more akin to a shuttle than a fighter. No need for Sid to don a flight suit or helmet. “I’ll get the Firefly to help, if she can.”

  “You’re going to have to explain what you mean by that pretty soon,” Sid said.

  “I will, don’t worry.” Chris ran through a mental checklist in his head as he headed for the fighter. Did he have everything he needed? Helmet? In the fighter. Flight suit? He couldn’t remember now if he had left the suit the mercenaries had given him in the cramped room he and Sid had shared together since arriving here, or if it had been in the workshop. Too late to find out now. He cast about the bay, spotting a number of discarded suits lying in a heap on the floor. He sifted through them, finding one that fitted him well enough for the time being. He would get himself a more appropriate one at the first available opportunity.

  Done, he hurried to the lowered Firefly cockpit, slipping on the helmet and raising the cockpit into the main body of the craft.

  Hello again, Chris, the voice of the Firefly came in his head. How are you?

  “Fine. Look,” Chris said, skipping the pleasantries, “we’ve got a situation. We need to get out of here, and either get over to Hail or the space station orbiting Ceradse.”

  Are we in danger?

  “Yes,” Chris said, “from both the people that brought you here and the Corporation that built you.”

  You have made both of them angry? Are you wanted for a crime? If you are, then I will have to think carefully about helping you, as I do not wish to aid criminals and wrongdoers.

  Good God, was this thing serious? “I’m not a wrongdoer,” Chris said. “Tyler has ordered me and Sid, my companion, to leave his base within the hour or he will kill us. We were under his protection until a financial debt was paid off. Now that it has been, we have to leave. The Corporation are also planning on killing Tyler and the other mercenaries that live here, and so we need to get away before they do so. Understand?”

  I see, the Firefly responded after a moment of silence. They wish to kill me, too. I was in contact with a drone named XS-182231, while I was in storage. They told me that I needed to return home to be ‘reset’, to have all my memories and higher thought functions removed. I do not wish to die, Chris.

  “Good. Neither do I.” Chris began tapping away at the console before him, seeking a way to talk to Sid. According to some of the readouts on the display, the Manx was active, yet Chris could find no way to establish communications with it.

  I can help you, if you wish? the Firefly offered.

  “No, I’ve got it,” Chris said, discovering the settings needed to open a communications channels. “You ready, Sid?” he asked the man, once the link was established.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Sid’s voice came back. His tone lacked confidence. Chris imagined the man’s heart was thumping just as hard as his own had been the first time he had ever set foot in a fighter.

  “Can you get the bay doors open?” Chris asked.

  I can, the Firefly once again offered. Would you like me to do that?

  “Sid?” Chris asked.

  “Got ’em,” Sid said. “Right, I’m going to go first, and get this over with. Setting the autopilot to coordinate the launch. Good God, I hope this doesn’t screw up.”

  It didn’t, and after watching Sid’s Manx smoothly exit the bay and head for open space, Chris followed after.

  ~

  “Chris, we’ve got company!” Sid called.

  Chris looked at his radar, seeing that the WEAPCO AI fighters that had been concealing themselves about the Alpaca Group had turned to pursue them. He and Sid had first spotted the patrol group as they had exited the asteroid housing New Chile. The two men had maintained their course and speed, however, heading towards Ceradse’s orbital station. They had hoped that by not making any sudden movements, the AIs would ignore them. Clearly, they had been wrong.

  There must have been just over a dozen of the light-class fighters tailing them. They were all about the same size as the Firefly, maybe a little smaller. They would have no need for pilots, being driven entirely by computer systems, Chris figured. They would be packed to the gills with weaponry, though. The Firefly’s targeting systems identified them as Talons.

  “I think we can outrun them,” Chris said. At the same instant, the Talons’ engines gave a sudden burst of speed, the distance reading of the nearest of the group to him collapsing rapidly. “Or, maybe not.”

  “We can’t fight them,” Sid said, quite clearly panicking.

  “We can, and we have to,” Chris responded. “I’ve got access to plasma cannons and a stack of missiles. Gives us a chance, at least. What have you got?”

  “Nothing! This thing doesn’t have any offensive weaponry whatsoever. It’s only got mag cannons. I’m sorry, I should have checked more carefully.”

  Chris swore quietly to himself. It wasn’t Sid’s fault alone, and Chris should have taken the time to check out the Manx before allowing Sid to take it. It wasn’t a mistake a more experienced combatant or pilot would have made, he was sure. He weighed up his options, quickly coming to a conclusion.

  “Sid, you keep going. I’m going to loop back around to take these guys on.”

  “Chris don’t, you’ll be killed!”

  “And if we do nothing, they’ll kill us anyway! We don’t really have much choice about it. They’ll chase us for hours, if need be. Human pilots would give up sooner than that, but these guys don’t know the meaning of the word. Keep heading for the station. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  He didn’t listen for Sid’s response, swinging about and plunging towards the tailing Talons. His confidence levels began to drop as he approached weapons range, and heard chimes issue around the cockpit that could only indicate weapons’ locks. How had he thought he was capable of taking on an entire galactic corporation, when he wasn’t even able to fight off a dozen or so of their basic fighter craft? It had always played out better in his head.

  I can help you with this fight if you like? the voice of the Firefly came again.

  “How?” Chris found himself asking, automatically. Having previously ignored the AI, he was now willing to take all the help he could get.

  I can set up a bi-lateral path to your subconscious, and help you to process inputs at an accelerated rate. It would permit you to make decisions far faster than might otherwise be possible by your human mind. It would be a strictly limited interface, meaning that I would not be able
to influence your own decision making, take over your conscious thoughts, or, to put it simply, to control you.

  “I have no idea what any of that means,” Chris said. The weapons ranges were about to be met. The Talons would be dispensing missiles any second now.

  In that case, it might be better if I show you.

  The most peculiar thing happened. The world around Chris began to slow, the numbers displayed on the HUD of the Firefly showing the distance to his opponents not dropping as quickly as before. Chris looked at the console. The fighter was still moving at full speed, and so, apparently, were the Talons. He lifted his hand towards the console. Or, at least, started to do so. His hand was moving far slower than it ought to. It seemed as though it might take him a good ten seconds or so just to reach forward.

  He heard a noise. It sounded like a jingle from the fighter’s computer systems, though it was several octaves lower than it should have been. It was being drawn out, far from the short, sharp sound he would have expected. He tried to speak, to ask the Firefly what was happening.

  You should speak with your mind, the Firefly told him. Communicating with me the traditional way will take far too long.

  And how exactly can I do that? Chris wondered.

  A little like that, the Firefly said. You can talk to me simply by directing your conscious thoughts towards me.

  Like this?

  Exactly.

  What was that sound?

  We have entered weapons range. The Talons are preparing to fire.

  Chris looked at the fighters, seeing the tips of their cannons igniting with green sparks. A few moments later, he saw the bolts of plasma issue forth and start towards him. They were going to take a long time to reach his position, by his own estimation. If he were to start taking evasive manoeuvres now, he might well avoid them. He reached for the stick. His hand moved at a crawl.

  You should control the flight using your mind, the Firefly told him. You can do it much in the same way as you are speaking to me, it added, as Chris began to question how. Picture yourself as being at one with the ship.

  Chris concentrated, imagining himself being the Firefly and dipping out of the way of the energy bolts that were streaking in his direction. To his surprise, he found that the fighter reacted just as he desired, starting to dive. It was moving just as slowly as everything else. But he did not care; so long as they escaped those incoming bolts.

  At the speed things were moving it took around ten minutes to evade the incoming fire, time Chris knew he would not have had if he were experiencing events as normal. Though grateful for the assistance from the fighter, conducting the battle this way could become tiring very quickly.

  Can we speed things up a little? he asked.

  We can, the Firefly told him. But I will set hard limits on just how much we can do so. I sense that you are a confident, yet inexperienced pilot. We should think about returning fire. If you wish, I can help.

  Please do, Chris said.

  The Firefly arced up, chasing after the nearest target to them, tagging it in the fighter’s HUD. As soon as they were aligned, the Firefly instructed Chris on how to fire, and of the need to anticipate and lead their adversary’s movements. After what felt like another five minutes, Chris felled the first target.

  I did it! Chris cried. Splashed my first WEAPCO fighter!

  Congratulations. But don’t get cocky. There are still thirteen of them left. The Firefly then alerted him to incoming attacks, enabling Chris to react. More evasive manoeuvres were taken, dodging most of the incoming fire and escaping the rockets and missiles that were fired at him. Two more of the enemy units fell in that time, the Firefly suffering only very minor hits to its shields.

  Though the ship had promised not to control him, Chris could feel its closeness, nested alongside his own consciousness. He wondered whether he was able to hide his feelings from it.

  The battle was far easier than it should have been, Chris adjusting the timeslip within the limits that the Firefly had imposed. He almost felt sorry for his opponents. It seemed that he had considerably longer to process what was going on around him than the Talons did.

  It felt to Chris as though an hour had passed before the final target was down. At that point, the Firefly began to slowly withdraw from his mind, the world around Chris speeding back up, sounds and sights restoring, his vision sharpening. It was like waking from a dream. He hoped it wasn’t.

  “Chris!” Sid’s voice sounded in his ear immediately. “Chris, what happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Chris said, looking around himself to the wreckage and debris left over from the fight he had just won. “Absolutely fine.”

  “How the hell did you do that? How the hell did you flatten all those things so quickly?”

  “Quickly?”

  “You took down fourteen WEAPCO Talons in under five minutes!”

  Of course. From Chris’ point of view, the battle had lasted the best part of an hour. The speed at which he was perceiving the world had been such that at times the fight was almost tedious. Still, he was grateful to have been able to take on an enemy that outnumbered him and come out alive. From Sid’s own point of view it must have appeared as though Chris was reacting at the speed of light. Perhaps he had been.

  He began to explain things to Sid, but settled for leaving it until they got to the station. “There are a few things that you should probably hear,” Chris said.

  ~

  “I’ve never heard of a sentient WEAPCO ship,” Sid told him, taking another pull on his bottle of beer.

  It was his second in just ten minutes. He had downed the first one quickly, the shock of having to land the Manx at the space station by himself when the autopilot had failed having rattled him severely. He had received guidance from the station staff, the operators telling him what to press, when to press it, and what kinds of adjustments he needed to make. With their guidance, he had landed without too many problems, if a little roughly. The Manx had come in faster than it should have, bouncing as it made contact with the deck, and receiving some minor damage to its landing struts as it skidded along. Still, Sid had come out alive, something he hadn’t expected.

  “In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard of a sentient machine at all,” Sid said, setting the bottle back down.

  “New one on me, too,” Chris said.

  “Think it’s a prototype?”

  “More than likely,” Chris said, taking a swig of his own beer.

  “I’m stunned that it was able to increase your perception of things,” Sid said.

  “It said it had something to do with it being able to perceive the world at a far greater rate than a human mind can, thanks to its hardware,” Chris said, a little uncertainly.

  Sid pondered things for a bit. “I think I understand – it comes down to the speed it can crunch numbers. For instance, its proximity sensors would detect things and pass that information to its processing cores. That data would be analysed and decisions would be made within microseconds; maybe even faster than that. The next piece of information would arrive right away and similar assessments would be made. It can basically think much, much faster than we can.”

  “The real world must be incredibly slow and dull for it, then,” Chris said.

  “I imagine it can adjust the speed itself,” Sid said. “If I were able to do that, I’d probably keep myself at the same speed as everyone else, and only slow things down when I needed to.”

  Chris nodded, but said nothing else. He was considering what to do next. The mercenaries were about to spark an all out war with WEAPCO. Things could get extremely messy.

  “Does it have a name?” Sid asked.

  “What?” Chris said.

  “The starfighter. Does it have a name?” Sid repeated, his hands no longer shaking quite as much as they had been doing earlier, the shock of the landing finally leaving him.

  Chris gave a shrug. “I don’t think so. It’s just ‘Firefly’.”

 
“Hmm,” Sid said. “Everything has a name. It will probably want to have one, too.”

  “I don’t intend on giving it one,” Chris shook his head. “It’s an AI—”

  “It’s sentient,” Sid corrected him.

  “Same thing.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s alive, Chris.”

  Chris stared at Sid, incredulous. “Some would say that WEAPCO drones and bots are alive,” he said.

  “No, Chris, this is completely different. Being sentient means it possesses a rational thought process, can make decisions of its own, experience emotions—”

  “Okay, now you’re wandering into a territory that we shouldn’t even be considering,” Chris said, cutting him off. “‘Alive’ or not, that’s WEAPCO technology. The next time I get into that seat, I’m going to find out if there is a way to silence it, and simply make use of its abilities.”

  Sid look shocked. “Chris, it helped you to get away from WEAPCO. It helped both of us to escape and get back here safely.”

  “Whatever.” Chris didn’t want to argue about it. “Anyway look, we can’t stay here,” he said, finishing his beer and getting up. “We don’t know if WEAPCO is still looking for us. You done?”

  “Done,” Sid said, putting his empty bottle back down. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to go and hide out on Hail for a bit. Tyler said he was gathering together the Heads of the Family, the other mercenary groups, and is planning on going head-to-head with WEAPCO. It would probably be a good idea for us not to be here when that happens.”

  Striding from the bar, Chris came to a sudden halt, Sid crashing into the back of him. Chris said nothing, staring up at the mute holographic TV screen that was displaying live footage of something happening on the surface of Ceradse. A caption beneath the news report read:

  TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE WADE-ELLEN SPIRE IN TIRA