The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  The scan of his surroundings had come up empty. But, though he’d failed to spot any more of Ifrit’s escapees, what he had seen was the thick smoke and fires rising from the city far below him. Even at that distance, the levels of devastation were all too clear.

  No rudder, no idea where he was, and heading straight into what looked like a war zone. Great, just great! So, he’d escaped death at the hands of one of those black-suited freaks, made it to the sled bay in one piece, would likely survive a landing in a knackered little tin can of a craft, only to be shot to ribbons in crossfire!

  No; stop worrying. Deal with one problem at a time. First things first – he needed to find a good place to put down.

  He began scanning the scene before him once more, hoping that the concrete jungle he was passing over would give way to a softer landing zone. On his right-hand side he spied a river, cutting its way through the city and disappearing off somewhere into the distance. At various intervals either side of it lay spots of tree-lined grasslands. And, although he couldn’t turn the sled to immediately meet either the river or one of the little parks, he saw that his current course would allow him to put the sled down further up the river.

  It looked like everything was going to be okay, after all. He let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, he felt the sled give a sudden lurch, as if it had hit a pocket of turbulence. The craft then began to fall at a far greater rate. Dodds’ eyes widened as he saw the building that the sled had at one time promised to just skim over, now lay directly in his path. He yanked back hard on the stick, but was unable to gain any more altitude or further slow the rate of his descent. He tried the rudder again, forcing it as hard to the left as he could. It remained as unresponsive as ever. He tried swearing at it once more. The sled ignored him.

  Dodds weighed up his options. He couldn’t go around the building, nor over it. He therefore could only go into it … or through it. With precious little time to think, he decided to take another gamble, one he hoped would pay off this time.

  He was approaching the structure on the far left side at an incredible speed. From the look of it, he was heading towards an office block. Tall, thick glass windows lay ahead, seeming to run all the way around the entire structure. If he was right – and he prayed hard that he was – then that meant an open office space, unencumbered by walls, or thin plywood ones at the very most. Any pillars, thick walls or other support structures that did exist would hopefully not be this close to the side. But he could do little but guess; this was a true gamble.

  He dipped the sled just enough to align himself with the top of one of the windows. His thinking was that, should the craft give another spontaneous dip, it would hopefully mean that he would enter through a mid or lower part of the window, and not the thick concrete, stone and steel that lay between the floors.

  He cleared his mind to concentrate, keeping his grip on the stick steady. The sled’s descent remained constant. The window approached.

  Oh hell! he suddenly thought. I hope there isn’t anyone still in there! Surely they’d have seen him coming and gotten out of the way?

  An instant before he was due to make contact, he felt the sled’s height drop by several metres. For the briefest of seconds, Dodds saw that his route wasn’t as clear as he had originally hoped it to be – desks, chairs, vending machines and all manner of other office equipment and facilities standing in his path. The next moment, the sled crashed into the glass, far lower than he had originally compensated for in the event of a dip, and roared into the office, barely inches from the floor.

  It tore across the expansive floor space, colliding with desks and chairs, forcing them aside as a train might a car that had wandered into its path. It ripped apart and set fire to the carpet that lay beneath it, leaving a trail of blazing destruction in its wake. Woods and plastics splintered and bounced off the canopy. A stack of paper exploded in front of him, some of the sheets clinging briefly to the canopy before they peeled off and fluttered away.

  The journey was over almost as soon as it had begun, lasting mere seconds before the sled broke the glass window at the other end of the office, emerging from the opposite side of the building and continuing onward.

  Dodds heard himself exhale and realised that he had been holding his breath ever since the moment before the sled had hit the window. Invisible strings seemed to start tugging at his lips and his face split into a smile. He laughed out loud, feeling a mixture of shock, pure exhilaration and utter relief that his gamble had paid off. With no more obstacles standing in his way, he had only to hold his course steady for a little while longer and then he could bring the sled down into the river. All seemed good again. The climate within the sled complemented his mood. Compared with the ruckus of his trip through the office, his flight now seemed altogether very peaceful.

  Maybe a little too peaceful.

  He suddenly noticed that he was gliding – no longer flying – and he was falling faster than ever. Wrestling with the joystick was becoming an increasingly futile exercise and he knew that it wouldn’t be long before his fate lay solely in the hands of gravity. His brief office stint must’ve pushed the already damaged sled over the edge. The pitch of the craft was still under his control, however. That was at least something to be thankful for.

  He took stock of his situation. On the face of it, it looked like the chances of him reaching the river, or one of the soft grassy areas either side of it, were now non-existent. If the sled gave up on him altogether, then he would end up hitting the road. That is, if it wasn’t already clogged with vehicles. For a moment, he felt his throat tighten up. Then the anguish passed. He knew he had to maintain his composure if he wanted to make it down alive; now wasn’t the time for panic. He had been in tougher scrapes than this before and had still managed a ditch, even under those conditions. Of course, back then, he had been piloting a TAF, not a flimsy, tiny-winged, bobsleigh that had been intended only to be flown between starships.

  Despite all that, he held his resolve, keeping his head and the sled as steady as he could. He thought back over his time at flight school and what they had taught him about gliding – thrust in an aircraft was only required to create lift and that was something he didn’t need; he was going down. A stall would only occur if his airspeed dropped too much and he could no longer maintain a smooth descent. The tricky part would be ensuring he was able to do all of this and reach his desired location before he lost his nerve and the sled dropped from the sky like a brick.

  He set to work, dipping the nose just enough to keep it from stalling, but not so much that his descent was too fast. It was brutally fine work, making minute adjustments to find the ideal level at which to keep the nose. But with a great deal of patience, he closed in on his intended destination. All that remained between him and what he hoped was a soft landing were the trees. Like the office building before, it was unlikely that he would be able to skim the tops of them. He could only hope that any limbs he hit wouldn’t cause a fatal impact, but instead help him to slow down.

  The trees rushed forward.

  He braced himself. “Trees!” he warned his passenger.

  And then the sled hit.

  He flinched in his seat as the craft slammed into branch after branch, hearing the loud splintering and thunderous thwacks of wood around the tiny cockpit. There was a heavy thud as the capsule clipped a thick trunk. The world outside turned to chaos, his orientation confused, the true direction of up indecipherable against the non-stop barrelling. Finally, there came a crash and a heavy jolt as the sled hit the ground. His vision faded and the world turned to black.

  *

  Dodds forced himself to snap out of the daze that had followed the rough landing. It seemed to have lasted only a few seconds. His ears had still been picking up on the sounds around him as his vision had faded. He forced his eyes open and focused on the instrument panel before him, letting his vision adjust before raising his head to the canopy. He was relieved to find that the capsule was m
ore or less upright.

  “Johnson, we made it.” he declared.

  The man in the seat behind remained as silent as ever. Maybe he’d blacked out in the impact, too. Dodds turned his attention to evacuating the sled and soon managed to locate the handle for manually popping the canopy. The reinforced polycarbonate covering was laced with deep cracks and fractures, and Dodds was in little doubt that it would have shattered if the sled had hit any more branches. He unbuckled himself and tried to stand, quickly discovering pain and stiffness in almost every muscle of his body. He gritted his teeth against the discomfort and started to lift the heavy covering. Normally, the canopy could be opened via the computer console. But with that broken, he had to lift and push it aside. It took him several attempts to gather the necessary strength for the task, but eventually he managed to do so and tumbled out onto the grass as he escaped the capsule, his legs numb with cramp.

  “Hey, Johnson, come on, we made it!” he called once more, massaging his legs to try and get the circulation going again. Not a sound. Dodds had a bad feeling. Maybe Johnson wasn’t asleep after all. Ignoring the onset of pins and needles, he came to stand over the man, who remained unmoving in the back seat, still buckled in.

  “Johnson? Hey, wake up.” Dodds gave him a couple of slaps in the face. The man looked pale. Dodds reached under Johnson’s arms and started to lift him out. It was a struggle to say the least, and he could almost hear Enrique telling him that he needed to bench more. After a somewhat clumsy removal, accentuated by a number of grunts and cursing, he dragged Johnson away from the sled, over to a nearby tree.

  He considered administering CPR, but realised there was no point when he failed to find a pulse on the security guard. With his collar now undone, Dodds could see the heavy bruising around the man’s throat. It looked as though Johnson’s windpipe had been crushed by the Imperial soldier who had tried to strangle him earlier. The man must’ve suffocated on the way down.

  “Aw, hell. Sorry man,” Dodds said. He turned away, walking a short distance from where the sled had come down and looked about, for the first time able to appreciate the true extent of the destruction that was crippling the metropolis. Tall flames rose up, as they continued to engulf and gut the city; thick columns of smoke towered high in the sky, visible for miles around. No longer enclosed within the sled, Dodds could now hear the distant booms that seemed to come from the other side of the river. The river itself was also a scene of chaos – boats of various shapes and sizes having run aground as far as the eye could see. Numerous objects bobbed and floated within the waters, some of which looked like boxes, crates and containers. Multicoloured lily pads, formed by clothes spilled from suitcases, drifted across the surface. Other objects were clearly bodies.

  He could only guess that in their panic and efforts to escape the fighting within the city, too many people had attempted to board the vessels and caused them to capsize or sink. Fights had probably broken out between the stressed evacuees, some feeling they had a greater right to safe passage than others. It was as if he had escaped Ifrit and flown straight down to hell. It was clear that he was caught up in a war zone, one in which the aggressors were still very much at large.

  And there was very little doubt in his mind about who the attackers were.

  He studied his surrounding some more, aware that he was a long way from where he had originally intended to set down; a long way from the beach, where Hail and Cole had advised they regroup, once they had made it to the surface. If he was to make his way through all of this, then he would need to find a way to defend himself. He returned to where Johnson lay.

  “Sorry, mate,” he said as he removed the plasma pistol from Johnson’s holster, “but I’m going to need this a lot more than you.” He turned the weapon over in his hand, familiarizing himself with it. Standard-issue plasma pistol, the same he sometimes practised with at Spirit.

  For a moment, he wondered if there was any real point in taking the pistol with him at all. It would be of little use against any of those black-suited Imperial soldiers, who would likely shrug off the attacks as though they were little more than scratches. Still, he had to consider that he might be attacked by one of the locals. He activated the pistol, hearing the little whine as the power cells warmed up and the counter on the side illuminated. A little less than a full clip remained.

  Satisfied, he checked Johnson further, looking for any other ammunition reserves and items that may come in handy, before making his way back to the sled. Its light blue, cigar-shaped body was a great deal more crumpled and dented than he had originally noticed. Numerous gashes ran through it, stripping away the paint and opening up deep, ugly fissures, exposing the delicate innards beneath.

  He could remember nothing of the sled’s navigation screen before it had deactivated. He would have been too high up for it to be of any use to him anyhow; it wouldn’t have been able to synchronize with the local geographical services until he was much lower. Nevertheless, he knew his destination to have been a beach to the east of New Malaga. Unless there had been a last-minute change of plan, his wingmates would have been making for the same location.

  Dodds decided it was worth making another attempt to power up the sled and access the navigation screen, and after several attempts – involving a combination of pressing buttons, flipping switches, and striking the entire device in various places – both the instrument panel and the small screen sprang back into life. There was a jingle; the local geographical data had been found. The sled’s computer began to collate and process it, producing a map of notable locations and topography.

  Aware that it could shut off again at any moment, he wasted no time in putting the system to good use. A short time later, he had managed to pinpoint his location and, from there, where he needed to go. He had come down quite a way inland from the coast, and some way south of where he ought it be. Still, at least he knew where he was headed. He had begun to zoom the map in, to gain a more detailed impression of his surroundings, when the screen shut off. He made to try and bring the computer back online when he became aware of a loud noise, emanating from the region of the engines. It grew louder with each passing second, the pitch steadily increasing. It didn’t sound good.

  Dodds backed slowly away from the damaged vessel, before the increased volume prompted him to break into a run. He glanced back over his shoulder at the very moment it exploded, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground as debris, wood and soil were showered in every direction.

  Best get going, Dodds thought as he picked himself up. If any unfriendly forces hadn’t seen him when he had crashed through the office block earlier, then the destruction of the sled would surely have them flocking in his direction quite soon.

  He considered his situation. Once more alone behind enemy lines, he couldn’t help but feel that he had been through this all before. All he needed now was to have two civilians run into him whilst he was wielding the plasma pistol and still feeling a bit jumpy and—

  No, don’t think about it.

  Yet, he half-expected to look around and see Stefan Pitt and Poppy Castro, their clothes burnt and covered in blood, standing just behind him, their accusing eyes locked on his. He shook the thought from his head; though he knew they would always be there, in the back of his mind, never letting him forget.

  A loud boom made him turn towards the once beautiful and untarnished cityscape across the other side of the river. A tall building was collapsing. It fell straight down, as if its foundations had been pulled away beneath it. Bridges connecting it to other buildings severed and crumbled as they lost support. A huge shower of glass glinted in the sunlight as it fell like rain onto whatever lay below. Another boom followed quickly after, as did yet another. Several more of the buildings followed in the first one’s stead, toppling like a line of dominoes. Another tremendous boom, but the rest of the scene was lost in the hazy wall of dust that had been thrown up.

  Dodds swallowed. Then, with one last look at where he had com
e down, he began the long journey towards the coast, hastening toward it as fast as he could. He needed to get there quickly, but without exhausting himself in the heat he could already feel building under the gaze of the sun. And, though he hurried, he was fearful of the sight that might greet him once he arrived at the beach. Just what had he gotten himself into this time?

  One thing was for sure – if this wasn’t hell, it sure looked like it.

  V

  — Mine —

  Elliott Parks braced himself for what was looking increasingly likely to become a lengthy and difficult afternoon. He was sat in the huge assembly hall of the Independent World Council Headquarters, on the Independent world Torelli. The assembly he sat before was a gathering of a great number of representatives, delegates, ambassadors, ministers and presidents from each existing Independent world. The number of representatives weren’t limited to one per planet, but also included the individual nations that existed within.

  The dozens of men and women gathered centrally in the hall, the hall itself divided into four seating blocks, with those on the sides occupied by members of the Confederate states. A gallery circled the upper half, above the oval seating pattern. Normally reserved for press and media services, today it lay bare, apart from a scattering of security teams who watched over those below. Parks could see some of them trooping back and forth across the top, as if pacing impatiently. Others stood stock-still near the edge, like statues. They were each kitted out with rifles and a generous amount of body armour, as well as a number of other items stashed about their person; understandable, given whom they were charged with safekeeping. A handful more stood a little way behind him.