Project Starfighter

Project Starfighter

A
Novel

06.14

Copyright
2014, Stephen J Sweeney

All Rights Reserved

The right of Stephen J Sweeney to be
identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

All characters in this
publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are
fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.

ISBN 13: 9780955856112

ISBN 10: 0955856116

www.stephenjsweeney.com

Books
by Stephen J Sweeney

THE BATTLE FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM
TRILOGY

The Honour of the Knights (First
Edition)

The Honour of the Knights (Second
Edition)

The Third Side

The Attribute of the Strong

H1NZ Series

H1NZ-0 (Abby and Phil’s
Stories)

H1NZ

FIRMWARE Series

Firmware

Malware

STANDALONE NOVELS

The Red Road

Author’s Note

This novel is based on the 2001
video game
Project: Starfighter
by Parallel Realities. Many of
the characters and key events from the game have been retained,
though the universe and overall plot has been greatly expanded upon.

• Copyright
  
• Books by Stephen J Sweeney
  
• Author’s Note
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Epilogue
  
• About the Author
  

C
hris
Bainfield watched as the fragments continued to fall from the sky,
leaving fiery trails behind them as they did so, hurtling down and
splashing soundlessly into the ocean; wreckage from the battleships
that had been blasted to smithereens by their opponents and tumbled
from the orbits they had once maintained.
The Eye of the Storm
,
the Goliath-class battlecruiser, had come down a few hours earlier.
Or what was left of it, at any rate.

“That’s it,” the voice of the
man sitting behind Chris said. “We’re all completely screwed,
now.” There was a pause, the sound of swigging from a bottle as the
man drank. “WEAPCO’ll come down here in the next couple of hours
and bomb us to oblivion.” The sound of more drinking, before the
man swore and tossed the bottle away. Chris watched it sail past him,
over the cliff edge and down into the surging waters below.

“We can’t give up that easily,”
Chris started, turning to face the man. Chris wasn’t sure of his
name. Jacob, he thought he’d heard someone call him. He had been
part of the shattered rebellion fleet, the Resistance, for certain.
Now, like Chris himself, he was a survivor of that short-lived
conflict. Some might use a different word, calling them cowards for
not standing and fighting to the death.

“Oh yeah?” Jacob said, getting
to his feet. “So what exactly are we meant to do? They completely
buried us in just a few hours. Nearly four decades it took us to
build that bloody fleet, and their AIs tore us a new one before we
even jumped out of the system.”

“If we give up now, we’ll never
beat the Corporation and the galaxy will remain slaves to them
forever,” Chris said. “We can’t let a little setback like
this—”

“A
little setback
?” Jacob
said, incredulously. “Do you live in a dream world or something,
kid? Ah well, of course you do. You’re only twenty or whatever. You
still think life is easy, that you can do anything.” He dismissed
Chris with a flick of his wrist.

“We can try again,” Chris said.
He turned back to the ocean as a loud noise filled his ears and saw a
significantly large piece of flaming wreckage spiralling down from
the sky. It struck the water hard, creating a wave so large it seemed
the two men risked being swept from the edge of the cliff. It did
not, however, rise as high as Chris feared, crashing several metres
below the outcrop on which they stood.

“We just have to get everyone
together to try again,” Chris continued, looking back at Jacob. “It
doesn’t matter how long it takes. Years, decades, centuries. We
have to continue the fight. We couldn’t expect to be victorious on
our very first attempt.”

Jacob muttered something and waved
him away again.

“And we haven’t lost it all,”
Chris persisted. “I know where we can get arms. There’s still a
starfighter left – a Firefly.”

At that, Jacob began to roar with
laughter. “No kidding? One whole starfighter? Well, if that’s all
it takes, why did we bother building all those damn battleships?”
He thrust a finger towards the sky, from which the rain of metals and
wreckage continued to fall. “Face it, kid, it’s over; there’s
no one left to fight.”

“My name’s not ‘kid’.”

“Well then, Brainbench, Bains—”

“Bainfield,” Chris told him.

“Whatever. There’s no one left
to join this cause. Like I said, we’re screwed. We’ll be lucky if
WEAPCO don’t total the entire sodding planet, just to teach the
rest of the galaxy some respect.”

“There are still people who are
willing to fight,” Chris tried again.

“Really?” Jacob laughed, looking
past Chris to the grotesque black shards, the falling debris of
dozens of warships, that continued to slide across the sky against
the setting sun. “
Those
people?” The man gestured
dismissively before walking away, back to the beach diner where a
handful of others were sitting around despondently.

“
I
am still willing to
fight,” Chris said.

Jacob stopped and turned around, his
face split into a sarcastic grin. “What, you going to do it all
yourself?” he jeered. “You going to take on the military might of
WEAPCO, their AI navy, and their superior technology using one whole
Firefly?” He circled a finger around his temple. “Good luck, kid.
You ask me, you’re crazy. Crazier than me for joining this
ridiculous cause in the first place.” He cursed and kicked at some
stones. “Might as well go and join Mal’s lot; the Immortal League
or whatever those cultists call themselves.”

Chris followed Jacob without further
comment. He was halfway to the diner when he saw a commotion
starting. Several people began roving hurriedly, jumping up from
their seats and retreating from the tables, backing away from a small
area. Chris soon discovered the source of the panic – a WEAPCO
drone was descending from the sky, pieces of its drop shell casing
bouncing on the ground as it detached.

About half the size of a grown man
and bearing a resemblance to a spark plug, the thing hovered several
feet off the ground, turning this way and that. From somewhere
nearby, there came the sound of gunfire. A small area around the
drone lit up, giving off a soft blue glow, but the machine itself did
not otherwise react. As two further shotgun blasts followed, the same
blue glows as before came streaking across the drone. Someone was
trying to destroy it, Chris realised. He couldn’t see the shooter,
but it mattered little. They were having no luck getting past the
drone’s defences.

“See?” Jacob said to Chris.
“They’re sending their death bots already.”

Chris ignored him, moving as close
as he dared to the drone. Most of the others were doing the opposite,
but Chris felt, somehow, that the drone wasn’t actually hostile.
Not yet, anyway. Presently, the drone sounded a chirp and a
holographic screen materialised from a projector on its head,
displaying the cog-like emblem of WEAPCO.

“Greetings, citizens of Ceradse,”
a placid female voice began. “I am here as a representative of the
Wade-Ellen Asset Protection Corporation, otherwise known as WEAPCO. I
have come to inform you of the Corporation’s latest advice,
desires, goals, and steps, following the recent terrorist attack
within Spirit.” The drone’s words appeared on the holographic
projection as it spoke, scrolling horizontally in the three most
common languages of the Spirit system.

“Smug little bitch, isn’t it?”
Jacob snarled.

“After considering recent events,
the Corporation is offering asylum to all who were part of the
uprising. As long as they surrender now, they will not be subject to
reprisals. They will be transported to new locations and given new
identities, both for the safety of everyone involved, and also to
allow the Corporation to continue to operate competitively and
fairly.”

“Asylum?” someone asked.
“Really?”

“Don’t trust it,” Chris said.

“Sounds fair to me,” Jacob said,
half-glaring at Chris. “Isn’t it obvious that they knew we never
had a hope in hell? If they’re going to let us off the hook then
fine, I’m in. Sod the crusade.”

“Continue to operate competitively
and fairly? Ha!” exclaimed an angry man, moving up close to the
drone. “Who exactly are your competitors? You scumbags stamped out
everyone that you didn’t want to compete with! Billions suffer
while you and your blasted AI machines grow fat and rich.”

“The Wade-Ellen Asset Protection
Corporation offers more than just defence armaments,” the drone
said, as placid as before. “It also offers agricultural equipment,
building materials, textiles, minerals, starships, jumpgates, and
starports. Additionally, the Corporation is working towards a
post-scarcity society, to allow people the opportunity to focus on
their own personal development and culture without interference from
the distraction of work, labour and—”

The angry man produced a gun at that
point, attempting to shoot the drone at close range. The ripple of
blue surrounded the body of the drone as the shot struck, and the
bullet slid harmless down to the ground, blocked and slowed by the
drone’s defences. The angry man fired twice more, each shot as
ineffective as the last.

“Please, Mr Sanderson,” the
drone addressed the man, “I am not here to fight or harm you; I am
here to offer you safety, and a chance to start your life over,
without consequences. Any and all transgressions will be forgotten,
if you abide by the terms laid out by the Corporation.”

“Terms? What terms?” Chris
demanded. “And at what price?”

The drone turned to face him, a
series of red and yellow lights flickering across its top half. It
was scanning him, determining his identify. It always unnerved Chris
the way they were able to do that. That was why some people –
particularly members of the Immortal League – took to wearing
masks, to hide their faces. It didn’t always work, and sometimes
they would simply attract more AIs, who were keen to discover the
identity of the person beneath the mask and find out what they were
hiding. The drone’s own identification was written along the top in
bold white type. XS-0017811.

“The terms, Mr Bainfield,” the
drone said, completing its scan, “are the surrenders of Tyrone Vin,
Jasmine Wooding, Keto Nu, Sid Wilson, Farley Ross, and Wesley London.
Otherwise known as Scarface, Tigger, Morning Star, The Doc, Marsha-J,
and Catalina.” The drone spoke the words phonetically, but
displayed the individuals’ aliases as they were known to the
underground movement – Sc4r=Face, Tiggggger, M0rning-~*, DA D0C,
{Marsha-J}, C4t4l1n4.

“And what will happen to them?”
a woman asked.

The drone scanned her. “Hello,
Nicola Beechwood. All six will be put on trial before a neutral
court. If found innocent, they will go free. Otherwise, they will
face time in prison.”

“Bull!” Chris started. “You
intend to kill them, regardless.” He looked at the men and women
clustered nearby. “Don’t listen to it, anyone. It’s just trying
to get you onside and make you think that WEAPCO isn’t all that
bad. It’s a tactic they’ve used for years.”

“What about the rest of us? What
do we get from this?” Beechwood enquired of the drone, ignoring
Chris.

“As already outlined, your
compensation will come in the form of having all charges for your
participation in the uprising dropped,” the drone said.