Dodds found it strange how, even though Parks and Turner looked over to Hawke to see what the cause of his sudden discomfort was, they gave his abrupt nosebleed no more than a common courtesy, before refocusing their attention on Dodds.
“We must press on, gentlemen,” Turner said. “Time is not a commodity we can currently afford to waste. Lieutenant Dodds, I am hereby reinstating you in active duty. Commodore Parks will brief you shortly.” He gestured to one of the guards standing by the door, who promptly strode forward to Dodds’ side. “Mr Sears here will escort you to a suitable waiting room, where the commodore will meet you. Should you need anything in the meantime, please inform him. You are dismissed, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, sir,” Dodds said, replacing his cap and saluting, before picking up his bag of meagre belongings and making to leave.
“Lieutenant Dodds,” the admiral’s voice called to him as he crossed the room.
“Sir?”
“With regard to the statement that Commodore Hawke gave – while the CSN does indeed need every good pilot it can get, I will have absolutely no qualms whatsoever with immediately dismissing from duty anyone whose actions put the lives of other service personnel at risk. Or whose reckless actions result in critical mission failures, directly or indirectly.” He pointed a stiff finger, as though speaking to a dissident schoolboy. “Do not let your selection into the ATAF project and the early end to your suspension make you believe you are invincible, Lieutenant. The day you do a good job, I will be the one to let you know. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir. Fully, sir,” Dodds saluted once more, before continuing out.
*
Dodds jumped to his feet as he heard the door of his assigned waiting room open, almost spilling the glass of water he held, and stood to attention as Parks entered.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” Parks said, allowing him to drop his salute. “Welcome back, Dodds. And welcome to the Indigo system, I might add.”
The room granted its occupants an impressive view of the planet below them, a view Dodds had spent the last half-hour staring out at. He often made a habit of looking out at the stars, sometimes just in appreciation, but most of the time because it helped him to think. He found the frequently tranquil views to be rather therapeutic.
“I trust you had a good journey here,” Parks said.
“Uneventful,” Dodds shrugged.
“You spent your entire suspension on Earth?”
“Yes, sir. With my parents. I was giving them a hand with the business. I felt it would do me some good to focus my mind on other things for a while.”
Parks nodded, but said nothing. There probably really wasn’t much to say to that. His eyes gave Dodds a once-over. “Good to see you didn’t come back soft and out of shape after all that time away. Too many do so after only a few weeks of leave.” He came to stand with Dodds by the window. “Xalan,” he nodded to the planet below, “where you will be spending the next three weeks training for the ATAF project. Both Admiral Turner and I will also be stationed there during that period, to oversee your progress.”
“Who else will be there?” Dodds asked, figuring that he wouldn’t be the sole participant in the training program. He had a hunch that his former wingmates were on the surface.
“Aside from yourself and your former squadron, there will be two other teams of five undergoing the evaluations. At the end of the three-week period, the team which has successfully completed all the evaluations and passed the final examination will be the one we select to pilot the ATAFs.”
“Can I ask what the overall purpose of the evaluations is, sir?” It was a slightly different approach to the usual test-piloting that Dodds was familiar with. It seemed to imply a greater intention.
“I’m afraid that’s classified, Dodds,” Parks said, “and I should also remind you that this isn’t an individual exercise, either. Your success or failure during these tests will be governed by your ability to work as a team and follow orders.”
Dodds could feel Parks’ stare boring into him, even before he turned to meet it.
“Don’t screw this up, Dodds,” Parks said, his mood suddenly quite serious.
“I won’t, sir,” Dodds said earnestly. Though he enjoyed a good relationship with Parks – or maybe it was that Parks just tolerated him better than most others – he knew that the commodore was only prepared to cut him so much slack.
“I sure hope you mean that, Lieutenant,” Parks said, walking towards the door.
“Sir, if I may ask another question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why the suspension? Why not prison?” After all, didn’t he at least now deserve an explanation?
Parks paused for a moment, as if mulling over his answer. “I’ll give you the same answer now as I did then – it’s complicated. The best I can tell you is that we thought that putting you in prison wasn’t the way we wished to respond to the incident, and that suspending you from duty was more appropriate.”
The questions remained; more were being added. Still no answers. An explanation for why he had spent five months on Earth was apparently unimportant. Dodds felt he was no closer to getting closure on the topic that continued to haunt him. He was sure his disappointment was showing, but Parks didn’t seem in any way bothered. “I—” he started.
“Now,” Parks said, as if not hearing him, “whilst you’re here, you may as well attend a medical examination before leaving for Xalan. Your squadron arrived a few days ago, so they will be able to show you around. de Winter will also introduce you to your new team-mate.”
“New team-mate?” Dodds said, starting after Parks. “Who quit?”
“No one, Dodds. Wells is dead.”
Dodds halted. “Jon’s dead?”
Parks nodded.
“What happened?”
“The Ray he was flying suffered a mid-air collision with another, which had suffered an engine failure. Wells blew his canopy, but didn’t manage to get out before the craft hit the ground. Both he and his co-pilot, your own replacement, were killed instantly in the impact.”
Dodds swore.
“The cause of the failure is still being investigated, but it is thought to be an isolated incident. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“I’ve being deliberately staying disconnected from anything to do with naval events,” Dodds responded, now he was wishing that he hadn’t.
“Well, I’m sorry that you had to find out this way. As I said, de Winter will introduce you to your new team-mate when you arrive at your assigned housing block.”
Dodds said nothing, he was still reeling from the news. Jon was dead; he’d never see him again. He’d known him for years. As he did with Enrique, Estelle and Kelly, he felt as if the man was part of his extended family.
“Come on, Lieutenant,” Parks said, hovering in the doorway, “we have a lot to get through before we leave.”
Dodds picked up his bag and followed the commodore out, his head swimming with thoughts. He got the feeling that a lot had happened while he had been away, and suspected that this wouldn’t be the only stirring news that he would be receiving. The deaths within his flight group had hit home particularly hard. The casual way Parks had delivered the news, acting as if there were far more pressing concerns than keeping pilots alive, had done anything but soften the blow.
He wondered what other important pieces of information Parks might be holding back.
III
— Reunion —
An excerpt from A GIFT FROM THE GODS by Kelly Taylor
Wednesday, 23rd April 2617
At the outset of our involvement in the ATAF program, we were transferred from our present post – Fort Dyas, Al-Elfia, Gabriel – to the Obex Research Centre, Xalan, Indigo. We were there for a good three days before Simon Dodds made his appearance. Elliott Parks had told us to expect a new addition to the team, but none of us had expected it to be Dodds. Estelle, Enrique and I had resigned ourselves to the fact that it
would be many years before we even heard from him again.
Estelle’s ambitious side made itself known from the very moment we arrived. Involvement in the ATAF project was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, the sort she had dreamed of since she had joined the service, almost ten years earlier (and, to some extent, a long time even before that). She wasn’t prepared to let us fail. She began cracking the whip immediately, making us hit the simulators hard. As I recall, we spent around sixteen hours on them on our second day, working from first thing in the morning, until last thing at night. She kept up this routine for the entire three week period that we were stationed at Xalan. There were even times during our meal breaks when she would shovel the food down her throat so fast that I scarcely thought she’d had time to chew, so eager was she to return to the training. I doubt that she would have been so keen to do so had she been aware of the true intentions of the ATAFs, Operation Sudarberg and the threats posed by the Pandoran army (otherwise known as the Enemy, a name that had spread from colloquial use to use even by the highest ranks).
We were pitted against two other squadrons of five during the evaluation period – the Red Devils and the Silver Panthers. Neither of the squadrons were known to me at the time. Estelle, however, was familiar with the wing leader of the Devils, a woman by the name of Andrea Kennedy. According to Estelle, we had all been at flight school together, but I can’t say I recall ever having met her. Estelle and Andrea had a history of rivalry that had started at flight school. It may have started off as a friendly game of one-upmanship, but Estelle’s ingrained neuroticism took it somewhat further than that, and she became almost intolerably jealous of Kennedy in the weeks following the fallout of the evaluation.
At this point, Chaz Koonan had been a part of our team for around three weeks, having originally transferred to the White Knights whilst we were still stationed at Al-Elfia. It was Elliott Parks’ idea to assign him to the squadron, and he rightly proved to be a good fit for the team. However, at the time of our assignment to the ATAF program, I was still trying to figure the man out (as, I expect, was everyone else). When we first met, he introduced himself with all the usual pleasantries, but wasn’t too keen on giving anything else away. With the exception of the incident at Arlos starport, he played his cards very close to his chest, and rarely spoke, even in the cockpit. He kept himself to himself in those days, spending a lot of his time reading. He never used to smile a great deal either, and didn’t come out of his shell until the end of 2617, around the time the Great Panic began. All in all, he was a very different man then to how he was towards the end of the Pandoran War.
It was Enrique who first spotted Dodds, as he jogged around the Obex Research centre’s campus. Enrique tailed Dodds into the dormitory, and must have looked as though he had just seen a ghost. I don’t expect the expression on my own face when I too saw Dodds was all that different …
*
“They suspended you?” Enrique asked Dodds, for what felt like the tenth time. It was barely all Enrique had said since following Dodds breathlessly into the dormitory. His face was red from the exhilaration of the run he’d been undertaking. He must’ve upped his pace from a considerable distance away to get back to the housing block.
“For six months,” Dodds answered him.
“But … why?” Enrique said. “We thought you were in prison.”
“I have no idea,” Dodds said. “Parks didn’t say anything, other than to suggest prison wasn’t what they wanted.”
Enrique looked utterly bewildered, as did Kelly Taylor. The small, mousey-brown-haired woman hadn’t moved from the bed she sat cross-legged on. The tablet-like device she had been hunched over when he had entered the room now lay neglected in her lap.
“So, you’re back?” Enrique said once more.
“Looks like it,” Dodds said.
“Good to have you back,” Enrique said, suddenly embracing Dodds and giving him a few slaps on the back. He was dripping in sweat from his run, but it didn’t matter. Dodds had changed out of his uniform for the medical examination, opting for something more casual. The smart uniform that his mother had pressed and ironed in preparation for his meeting with the CSN’s top brass now lay crumpled somewhere at the bottom of his bag. He had worn it twice now in the space of six months, both times for the purpose of formal meetings that were in some way linked to the incident on Peri. He wasn’t keen on putting it on again any time soon.
“How long’s it been?” Enrique said.
“About five months?”
“Feels like forever.”
Dodds thought it probably hadn’t felt nearly as long for Enrique as it had for him. Lying awake at night, always struggling to sleep, does tend to turn day into weeks, and weeks into months.
“Made it back okay, then?” Enrique asked.
“Just,” Dodds said. “Though I think I would have been on the next shuttle back home if Hawke’d had his way. Hadn’t been back hardly five minutes before he was on my case.”
“He’s a …” Enrique bit his tongue. “No, he was never going to be happy to see you again. Don’t let him wind you up. We’ve all had to put up with him at one point or another.”
Kelly untangled her legs and crawled off the bed, before making her way over to join the two men. “Good to see you again, Dodds,” she said, embracing him and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“How’re you doing?” he asked. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Still keeping the journal, then?” Dodds indicated the little tablet on the sheets.
“She’s never far from it at the moment,” Enrique commented.
“There’s just lots to write about,” Kelly said. “Things have gotten quite exciting recently.” Her voice lost its cheeriness. “Oh, did you hear about Jon?”
Dodds let slip a sigh. “Parks mentioned it, but didn’t exactly go into detail.”
“We tried to contact you, to let you know,” Enrique said. “We were sure they’d have let you attend the funeral, but they refused to relay any messages to you. If we’d known you were actually just on suspension …”
Dodds shook his head. “They told me not to attempt to contact anyone,” he said.
“Hell,” Enrique said.
Dodds nodded sadly. He took in the housing block’s accommodation once more. No separate rooms, but he hadn’t expected there to be. Still, here was a generously-sized dormitory that could comfortably sleep ten. Eight single beds were lined up against the walls, with one bunk bed thrown in for good measure. Only two people had been here when he had entered, one of whom was Kelly Taylor. The other was a dark-skinned man, lying on the top bunk with his head in a book, somehow seeming intentionally far removed from the rest of the dormitory’s occupants. Dodds’ eyes lingered on him for a moment, wondering who the stranger was.
“Oh, Dodds,” Enrique said, as if reading his mind, “this is Chaz, the latest addition to the White Knights.”
After briefly acknowledging Dodds’ appearance, the man had turned his attention back to his book, looking quite uninterested in what was going on. With the focus now on him, he set the book aside and jumped down off the bunk. As he approached, Dodds saw that Chaz was not only very tall, but built with it. His shaved head did not make his appearance any less intimidating.
“Pleased to finally meet you, Dodds,” he said. “My name’s Koonan; Chaz Koonan. Only been with the team for a few weeks, but I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Yeah?” Dodds said, as he shook the massive hand that Chaz extended towards him. He glanced sideways at Enrique and Kelly, hoping that whatever the exchange had been, it hadn’t been too slanderous.
“Estelle talks about you all the time. She mentioned that you’re a fine pilot,” Chaz clarified.
Dodds felt more relieved at that. Still, there was something in the man’s voice that Dodds couldn’t quite put his finger on. It wasn’t really that unfriendly, but … cool. It was as if he didn’t much care either f
or being here or for what he was involved with.
“Where have you been transferred from?” Dodds asked.
“That’s a long story—”
“Well then, I hope you’re not planning on telling it now,” a voice came from the doorway, “‘cause we’ve still got a lot to get through.”
A slender woman with long, jet-black hair that fell over her shoulders stood at the entrance to the dormitory. In one hand she clasped a number of sheets of paper, which she flicked through for a moment before looking up. “I’ve been going through the results and—” Her serious expression then dissolved into one of stunned amazement. “Dodds?”
“Hi, Estelle. How are you?” Dodds said.
“I …” she stammered, wearing the same dazed expression as Enrique and Kelly had only shortly before. “Wh … what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in prison?”
“No,” Dodds said. “It’s actually a little complicated. And a bit of a long story, too,” he added.
Estelle said nothing, seeming too stunned to talk.
“But I can give you the condensed version now, if you’d rather hear that?” Dodds said. Estelle acknowledged that she did. Dodds told her. It clearly didn’t answer all that she wanted to know, and she still looked as though she was struggling with several dozen questions. In that case, he hoped they were ones he’d be able to answer.
She looked to the others in the dormitory. “Is everything okay in here?”
“Uh, sure,” Enrique said, looking to the others before answering.
“Good. Look, I just need to speak to Dodds privately for a moment,” she said. “Enrique, get yourself showered,” she added, before indicating for Dodds to follow her out of the dormitory.
“Is everything really okay?” Dodds asked Enrique.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 6