Read Online Project Starfighter by Stephen J Sweeney - Free Book Online

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?”