Project Starfighter

by Stephen J Sweeney

  Chris was sure that he had heard Phoebe cry out in pain, but his desire to check on the woman was overridden by an ominous bleeping sound that began to fill his ears. He looked at the machines scattered on the floor ahead of him, seeing a single red light pulsing on each, steadily growing faster.

  “They’ve been set to self-destruct!” Phoebe cried. Her nose was bleeding once again, more heavily than before. She had sunk down to her knees; Ursula was attending to her.

  “Is there anything either of you can do to override it?” Chris asked the twins, desperately.

  “No. Once a self-destruct is issued, everything shuts down,” Sid answered for the pair. “They can only perform one further single action.”

  “There’s no chance that the action in this case could be to cancel the self-destruct order?” Chris asked, finding himself pressed up against the airlock door, unable to move back any further from the line of drones. He looked in horror at Kethlan, seeing a satisfied smirk on the man’s face. The WEAPCO commander was backing up, keeping the four where they were, but moving out of the blast radius. He had them trapped.

  “Chris ...” Sid started.

  “Athena!” Chris called out to her.

  “Almost there,” Athena said. “I need just another few minutes to deploy the docking tube.”

  “We don’t have minutes,” Chris responded, angrily. He gathered the others to him, and the four held tight to one another.

  “Where are you?” Athena asked.

  “Right by the airlock.”

  “Then we’ll do this the quick way. Get ready. Oh, and don’t hold your breath!”

  “Wait, what?”

  There was a sudden boom, and Chris felt himself yanked backward, as the airlock door blew open. He barely had time to tell the others to evacuate their lungs, before they were all spinning in open space. There was terror in the others’ faces as they tumbled, all just as shocked as he was. He saw the facility falling away behind him and WEAPCO fighters hurtling around, battling one another. He briefly made out the form of a Firefly adjusting its heading, as a Cyclone it had been tailing went up.

  Several orange-yellow blooms caught Chris’ attention – the drones that had spun out of the airlock along with them had started exploding. He realised that the four of them had been lucky that the machines had briefly gotten caught in a pileup in the airlock, before tumbling out after them. Had they not, the four might have been caught in the explosions. Not that it made a lot of difference; it only meant that they would have died a lot sooner.

  Chris shut his eyes, his head becoming light. His chest felt as though it was going to explode. He could feel the others still holding on tight to him. Barely a few seconds had passed, perhaps no more than five or six. What had Athena been thinking? He felt pain building. He hoped to lose consciousness soon, so that this torment could all be over.

  His consciousness faded.

  ~

  Chris came to. He was breathing, pulling fresh air into his lungs. He was somehow aware that he had only been unconscious for a few moments, and was now lying on something solid, though he could not see what.

  The darkness lifted, and Chris found himself in an enclosed space, one that was somewhat familiar to him. Bright lights, crates, a starfighter or two. This was the cargo hold of the Dodger. He was sprawled out across the floor.

  Sid, Phoebe, and Ursula were stirring next to him, Sid making an effort to sit up. Chris found he was able to do so, too, his strength returning quicker than he might have expected.

  “All okay?” he eventually managed to croak.

  Phoebe appeared a little bleary-eyed, and Ursula was semi-conscious, but neither was much the worse for the spacing experience. Impressive, given the state of Ursula. She was dressed only in the undergarments she had had on ever since she had been pulled out of her capsule-like prison. If there was nothing wrong with her after this, then ...

  Chris noticed that Sid was looking at something behind him, and turned to see the white-robed avatar of Athena. She was looking down at all of them, deep concern on her face. It didn’t take long for Chris to realise what Athena had done – blown them out of the facility’s airlock, and caught them in the Dodger’s hold. A bold move.

  Sadly, instead of being impressed by Athena’s ingenuity and quick thinking, Chris felt only anger.

  “Chris, are you okay?” Athena asked gently, as Chris raised himself on unsteady legs.

  “Don’t you EVER do anything like that again!” Chris bellowed at her. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

  “I’m sorry, I had no choice,” Athena started, taking a step back.

  “You could have killed us! Look at Ursula! She’s practically naked!”

  “Chris, I came as fast as I could,” Athena was almost pleading, “but I wasn’t going to get to the airlock in time. I weighed up the options and decided that the best thing was for you to jump out of the airlock and for me to catch you.”

  Chris stared at her incredulously and would have shouted at her again but felt a hand grip him tight on the shoulder. He swung round to glare at Sid, who appeared a great deal calmer than Chris was.

  “Chris, she helped us to escape,” Sid reminded him. “Granted not the ideal method, and not exactly the least dangerous, but if Athena hadn’t done something, we would have died back there. We had only seconds before those drones and bots went up. Athena made the only choice that was available to her. Please, Chris, see reason.”

  Chris’ hands tightened by his sides, and for a time he continued to grind his teeth. He then saw that Sid and Phoebe were both calm, safe and well. Even Ursula was breathing more steadily as she came into full consciousness. His anger having subsided, Chris gave a deep sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Athena. “I didn’t mean to shout. It’s just that it was ...” He couldn’t find the words. Dangerous, stupid ... necessary. Athena had done the right thing. “At least we’re alive. We found Ursula, and we all got out. That’s what matters,” he finished. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Athena said. “I’ll leave you to recover. We’re en route to Eyananth. E.T.A. is just under six hours.” She walked away in the direction of the Firefly, her avatar disappearing.

  Sid folded his arms and turned to Chris. “Nice going, mate. You tell her to get out of the system, but she sticks around to keep an eye on us, and then when she steps up to the plate to pull our arses out of the fire, you go and bawl her out. Bravo. ‘What the hell is wrong with her?’ I think the question is what the hell is wrong with you?”

  It was the first time since their initial encounter that Chris had seen Sid really angry with him. In fact, this went further. Sid was not just angry, but disappointed. Disappointed that Chris could treat their saviour in such a callous manner.

  “You should go apologise to her,” Sid added.

  “Not sure that's possible right now,” Phoebe said. “She’s ignoring us; she wants to be left alone.”

  Chris shook his head and looked at the floor. Why was he feeling so awful. She ... it was just a machine. He couldn’t have hurt her feelings. Could he? No, really. Could he?

  “What happened back there?” Sid asked. “With Kethlan, I mean? He did something. He managed to trigger a self-destruct in the drones and the bots.”

  “Yes,” Chris said, looking at Phoebe. “The same thing happened the last time we met him. Back then, I thought he had some sort of digital or mechanical override. This time, I’m not so sure.”

  “Maybe he does, but we didn’t see it?” Sid suggested. “He did click his fingers.”

  “No, that was just for show,” Phoebe said. “I felt his presence again. I felt him right next to me, just before he took control of the machines. He did it forcefully, and it hurt. It was like being struck in the head by a hammer. It was all him, nothing else.” She bent down to help her still dazed sister to stand. Ursula’s legs were very wobbly.

  “And then he set the drones to self-destruct,” Chris said.

&
nbsp; The three looked at one another, as the implications dawned.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Sid asked.

  “Yes,” Chris said. “Either Kethlan’s not human, or he’s an identical twin, too.”

  Chapter 26

  It took the Dodger a little longer than originally planned to reach the Eyananth system, the ship undergoing its covert transformation process once again along the way.

  Chris had what felt like hundreds of questions for Ursula, but given the woman’s current state he had decided they could wait. Her battle with Kethlan inside the facility, as well as the evacuation into open space, seemed to have suddenly caught up with her. She had passed out not long after Athena had rescued the group. According to the Dodger’s medical systems, Ursula was suffering from mild ebullism and hypoxia, as well as decompression sickness. She had also been drugged while at Zetaman. Chris left her to recover.

  In the meantime, he made his way back down to the cargo hold. Having taken time to reflect on everything, he realised that he had been too hard on Athena. He should apologise to her.

  The hold was emptier than it had been before the start of the rescue effort. They must have lost well over half their acquired fighters during the raid on the Zetaman Facility. Not to worry. They now had both Phoebe and Ursula, two very powerful weapons. If everything Sid had told him was to be believed, the two women together could prove an unstoppable force.

  Chris thought that he might find Athena sitting around on one of the crates in the hold, or hanging around near the Firefly. All he saw, however, were the machines that continued to serve the Dodger’s needs, moving around and repositioning the hold’s contents, following the sudden venting.

  “Athena?” Chris called. His voice echoed around his surrounding, but no one answered. He entered the cockpit of the Firefly, bringing the main system online, and slipping on the helmet.

  “Hello?” he said.

  Hello, Chris.

  Normally, Athena was the first to speak, greeting him as soon as the neural link was established. This time, he was the one who had to make the initial contact. Not entirely unexpected. He was, after all, here to offer the olive branch.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  Not bad.

  That was code for ‘Not good, either’. The Firefly had responded after a pause. There was also the hint of emotion in Athena’s voice, like she was upset. “Come out into the hold,” Chris urged. “I want to talk to you.”

  Okay.

  Chris slipped the helmet back off, lowering and stepping out of the cockpit, and seeing the form of Athena’s Greek goddess persona materialising before him. There was sadness in her eyes and her body language. Chris indicated to one of the crates for the two to sit on.

  “I wanted to apologise for what I said earlier,” he started. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It was the shock, I guess, nothing more. The spacing was completely unexpected, but I completely understand why you did it. You didn’t have any choice, and you were doing whatever you could to help. In all honesty, I probably would have done the same thing, myself. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Athena said. She continued to stare at the floor, not raising her eyes to him, gently swinging her feet back and forth.

  Watching her, Chris began to get the impression that something else was wrong. Had he missed something earlier? He then remembered the time just before he, Sid, and Phoebe had taken the executive transport over to Zetaman. Athena had been acting hurt even then, something playing on her mind. He had not bothered to ask what it was, his thoughts too focused on the task that lay ahead. He now berated himself for being so insensitive, not even taking a few minutes to ask. That, coupled with the shouting that had followed, must have compounded the offence.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” he prompted.

  “I’m a mistake,” Athena said.

  “What?” Chris asked.

  “I’m a mistake. I was never meant to be. Overlook said that I was created to serve as a chariot for a woman who wanted to roam the galaxy, fighting pirates and mercenaries and whatnot. I was an experiment for a human-AI interface. I was never supposed to develop thoughts or a will of my own. I was never supposed to develop feelings.”

  Chris saw tears starting to slide down the avatar’s cheeks. He watched one as it trickled, saw it ball into a drop, and drip off her face. He expected it to vanish as soon as it fell and left the avatar’s projection field. Instead, it lasted all the way to the floor, splashing as it hit the surface, disappearing immediately after.

  “What am I?” Athena asked.

  “You’re ... ” Chris was about to say ‘a machine’. He knew that that wasn’t what she wanted to hear right now. “You’re Athena; you’re you.”

  “Tell me, Chris – what will you do with me once our mission is complete?” Athena asked, sniffing gently. “Will you switch me off?”

  “Well ... no,” Chris said. “Why would I?”

  “Because you don’t believe I’m really alive. You continue to think of me as just an AI, a dumb machine. You see me as a creation of WEAPCO, something you’re supposed to hate.”

  Chris flinched. It was true, though. Sid, Phoebe, and perhaps even Ursula were ready to accept that the Firefly, the sentient machine they called Athena, was alive, but he wasn’t. He had always refused to accept it, despite all they had shared and discussed. To him, Athena was just the result of memory systems, logic gates, and computer code, only believing she was alive, but never actually being so.

  “N ... no,” Chris stammered. “I don’t hate you. Not at all.”

  “We’ve shared thoughts, Chris,” Athena said. “As I’ve always said, I don’t delve into your mind, but there are ideas that you project, that are there on the surface, that you disguise poorly. It’s there in your words and your body language, too,” she added.

  Chris bit back the words he was about to speak. He was about to argue the nature of being, of what it meant to be alive. He saw the brick wall immediately, realising that, while they were not sentient like humans, he considered cats, dogs, and many other animals to be alive.

  “This is very important to you, isn’t it?” Chris said.

  Athena nodded. “I need to know who and what I am, Chris. I am helping you to fight back against the Corporation because they did not respect my right to life. They wanted to bring me in and unplug me. They wanted to kill me.”

  Chris watched the tears continue to stream down Athena’s face. He reached out and gently took her hand. It felt warm and somewhat tingly as always, but soft and delicate at the same time, like a real person’s would be.

  “I don’t want to die, Chris.”

  “And I’m not going to kill you,” Chris said. “It’s not something that’s in my nature, not the sort of thing that I would do, not unless I really had no other choice. I’ve never even taken another life in battle. Hell, I don’t even want to kill WEAPCO.”

  “You don’t?” Athena asked, a little shocked.

  “No,” Chris said. “That won’t achieve anything. It will just enforce a belief that violence and destruction is the way to solve our problems. I have no problems with taking down their AIs, but killing people is a different matter. My goal was always to remove their dominance and create a fairer society for all. More so now that I know WEAPCO’s nothing more than about twelve major players and a bunch of underlings, and not even a corporation.”

  He squeezed Athena’s hand, trying to coax a smile out of her. “But back to you. Something I’ve found out in life is that we aren’t defined by our names, where we were born, or where we come from, but by the things we do. Those in charge of WEAPCO have proven themselves to be malevolent, power-hungry, and greedy. You have defined yourself as being generous, kind, and willing to do what is right, to help those in need. You came to see me after that battle with Mal and Kethlan, which shows that you care about others. That’s who you are, Athena.”

  “But you still don’t beli
eve I’m alive?” Athena asked, her tone imploring.

  “I’ll admit I’ve struggled with it. But I’m coming around to the idea.” He reached out a hand, gently wiping away one of her falling tears.

  That resulted in a smile at last, Athena chuckling a little. The tears were still flowing, though. Chris decided to change the subject.

  “We lost a lot of fighters at Murdar, then?” he said, glancing around the empty hold.

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise. I told you to sacrifice them if you needed to. They’re just hunks of metal. The most important thing is that we got Ursula. We’re one step closer to victory now, playing with a full house. A shame that we lost Overlook, though. He could have proven yet another ace in our hand.”

  “Actually, we didn’t,” Athena said, drying the last of her tears. “I ripped his consciousness out of the transport just before we jumped out of the system, and confined him to Chugger’s memory banks. We can bring him back up any time we want.”

  Chris’ jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Athena said, swinging her feet back and forth a little more playfully. “He’s basically in a digital prison, with nothing to do and very little to see. It’s like limbo to him in there.”

  Chris chuckled. “Athena, you’re a genius!”

  Athena chuckled along with him. “See? Not just a pretty face.”

  She did have a pretty face, Chris thought. Had she been human, he might have kissed her right there and then. It wouldn’t have been the same with the avatar, though. The tear he had wiped away had somehow had body, but no substance.

  “I’m going to check in on Ursula and then talk to Sid about what our next move should be,” Chris said, hopping off the crate. “Come with me. You should be involved in everything we discuss from here on out. You’re part of the team and a participating member of this operation, after all.”