That seemed to perk her father’s interest a little more. “How much?”
Estelle told him.
Her father’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
“That’s more than your mother and I brought in last year, even with the state benefits.”
“Which means I can send money home.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that—” her mother began.
“And it more than doubles as you approach the middle ranks—”
“Doubles?” Marc said.
Estelle could feel herself starting to smile. It sounded like she was winning support for her decision. “Hold on, hold on,” she said. “I still have to qualify as a pilot, of course. I won’t earn anything near that to begin with; it’s not automatic. It’ll probably take years, but I’ll make sure I get there. And it’s also possible that I could end up being on a different increment, compared to others; opposite ends of the spectrum and that.”
A silence descended upon the living room. Estelle waited for her father’s permission – no, confirmation of his support – to go through with her decision. Marie said nothing. For once, it was entirely her father’s call.
“Okay,” he said after a long period of contemplation. “Give it a go and see what happens.”
Estelle let the smile out. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, grinning like a maniac. She then saw her father’s face turn serious once more.
“But just you make sure you know what you’re doing,” he said, with an admonitory finger and a hard stare. “I don’t want you to come and regret this once you find yourself stranded in the middle of some war zone, with a broken leg and bullets flying over your head …”
War zone.
Stranded.
War zone. WAR ZONE!
You’re stranded in the middle of a war zone! Get up, Estelle! GET UP, NOW!
*
Estelle’s eyes flew open. Waking from her dream, she fought to comprehend her situation as quickly as possible. She was boxed into something, feeling rather cramped. Recollection of what had happened slowly began to build as she looked about herself. She was sat in a cockpit, though one too small to belong to a TAF or an ATAF. The seat she found herself wedged into was far too uncomfortable to belong to a fighter. The canopy above her was dented and cracked. This definitely wasn’t any combat-worthy craft she knew of …
A sled! She was in a sled!
It all came flooding back – her sled had collided with something, perhaps a small satellite, a piece of debris or possibly even another of Ifrit’s escapees. The sled’s heat shield had been damaged and become stuck in place, leaving her with only the craft’s small screen with which to navigate. After a lot of wrestling and cursing, she had managed to persuade the onboard computer to lower the protective shell, only to discover that they were significantly off course. They were nowhere near the beach that Hail had designated as their landing zone, and were instead speeding towards New Malaga’s heavily built-up city centre.
She had judged it too late to attempt to realign their position, the obstacle course of the cityscape, with its tall buildings and crisscrossing suspended walkways and transit routes, representing too much of a risk for her to attempt to negotiate. Instead, she had nimbly guided the little capsule into a wide street, aware of, but not really taking in, the carnage that lay all around. The end of the road had loomed before her, leading towards two magnificent stone pillars, marking the entrance to an enormous park. The last thing she had experienced before blacking out was the sled ploughing heavily into the soft, grassy soil, bouncing and juddering along as it went.
But now she was awake and needed to take action. Her hands flew to the buckle at her waist, still fastening her into the seat, and prised it apart. She looked at the navicom screen before her. It appeared dead. She stabbed at it regardless. It was. She would have to open the canopy manually. She reached up and gave the release handle a generous tug, then yanked at the canopy latches, detaching them from where they were still fastened, before finally heaving aside the canopy itself. Damn that thing was heavy. For a moment, she was afraid she might not be able to lift it.
Standing up, she looked around at Chaz, the big man slumped in the seat behind her. She could see that he was still breathing – not dead, and hopefully not too badly injured, either. He must’ve blacked out around the same time as she had. She tested her arms and legs for injury, anticipating a broken bone here or there. But aside from stiffness and bruising, nothing appeared to be damaged.
With Chaz still out for the count, she took the opportunity to check on the next most important thing to her, reaching into her jacket and removing the little plastic bottle inside. It was still in one piece and-Oh no! She felt her heart almost stop. The cap had come off. How? Had she not fastened it correctly the last time? She counted the contents – four. Two had gone missing! Her hand worked around her inside jacket pocket, seeking out the ones that had escaped.
Her fingers explored every corner of the pocket, but she couldn’t feel the little pills anywhere. They must’ve fallen out into the sled. She crouched down and began searching the floor of the capsule, for any sign of where they might have gone. She felt like a desperate junkie, hunting out the merest scrap of that which she needed to placate her need. She came up empty-handed and she silently cursed herself, feeling anger beginning to build.
No, stay calm. At least you didn’t lose all of them. She looked at what remained of her stock in the bottle, before popping the lid back on. Properly this time. She tucked it safely back into her jacket and then considered the scene about her. They were in the middle of God-only-knew-what and far from their agreed rendezvous point. Time to move.
“Chaz!” she called.
Nothing.
“Hey! Lieutenant! We have to move! Wake up! Now!”
The big man groaned and began to stir.
“Koonan!”
Chaz opened his eyes. He seemed to focus a lot quicker and become much more aware of their situation than Estelle herself had done. Estelle stepped out of the sled, a small drop to the ground, and noted how the craft had embedded itself partway into the earth. That thing was never going to fly again. Though now awake, Chaz still hadn’t moved.
“Come on, Chaz, we need to move,” she said, a little cooler this time; getting stressed at Chaz wouldn’t help things.
Chaz said nothing, but picked himself up out of his seat, wincing with the effort. A moment later, he gave a cry and clutched at his upper left arm.
“What’s wrong?” Estelle said, as he exited the capsule and propped himself up against the side.
“I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder,” he growled.
“Really?”
Chaz glared at her, as though she had called him a liar. “Yes, really.”
What to do? They needed to head out, but they couldn’t with Chaz in such a state. She would have to help him do something about it. “Let me take a look,” she began, starting over to him.
“No, I’ve got it,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Just give me a second.” Chaz stood in silence for a moment, looking as though he was going through some kind of mental preparation. Then, gripping the injured arm with his good one, he began to twist and manipulate it, moving it about at various angles. It was neither a fast nor comfortable-looking process, and Estelle didn’t need to see the look on the man’s face or the sudden cry of pain to realise that he had successfully reset his shoulder. She stood watching him as he took several long, deep breaths, between a number of almost inaudible, but clearly colourful phrases.
Sweat had appeared on his brow as he looked up at her. “Not the first time,” he said, through the frequent inhalations.
Estelle could almost feel her own shoulder burning in response. “You okay?”
“Give me five minutes,” he said, rubbing his left shoulder and gently moving the arm and flexing his fingers.
Estelle nodded, her attention leaving Chaz for the time being and focusi
ng instead on the devastation all about them. The piles of dead bodies, burnt grass and scattered belongings that littered the ground brought back memories of Arlos starport. The thought brought her no comfort. Blood was caked to the faces and bodies of people who lay on the grass. Children and the elderly had been fair game to whoever had attacked them. Abandoned and overturned vehicles sat in silence, never to be driven again. Those that were undamaged sat there lonely, their doors left swinging open after their passengers had fled. Others were a charred and burnt-out memory of what they had been before, almost unrecognisable after having been struck and set alight by some powerful weapon or other.
Further afield, around the park in all directions, she could see smoke rising, drifting directly up in a thick column, undisturbed by the slight breeze that blew through the city. Below the dark columns stood many rectangular and cylindrical buildings. A great number of them had had sections torn out, looking as though someone had taken a wrecking ball to their sides.
“Where are we?” Estelle wondered out loud. She remembered that their original course was supposed to be taking them somewhere near the coast of a city called New Malaga. As far as she was aware, they had come down in that city, but not where they had originally intended.
“Check the sled’s navicom,” Chaz suggested, continuing to massage and exercise his arm.
“Navicom’s dead; the entire sled’s down,” Estelle said. Nevertheless, she started to root through the rest of the small escape capsule, to see if there was anything that might be of use to them in their current predicament. She found nothing – and still no sign of the rogue pills – and looked up to see Chaz scanning the horizon and surrounding area.
“Okay,” he said after a short time. “This is New Malaga, a coastal city popular with holiday makers, and home to two resorts. The more popular one is based close to the central business and retail district of the city, where all the tourists hang out. The other is a little more on the rural side and where they do all the extreme sports and adventure holidays.”
The man was being a lot more talkative than he normally was. Estelle’s experience of working with him over the past few months was that he didn’t normally speak until he needed to, and usually it paid dividends to listen to what he had to say.
“It’s pretty clear we’re somewhere within the heart of the city, which means that from here we need to head east to reach the coast,” Chaz continued. “The South Circular motorway divides the commercial districts and the seafront. There should be a number of pedestrianised walkways and bridges that will take us down towards the main boulevard and onto the beach. But given what’s happening here,” he nodded to the smoke, “we need to try and stay out of the open, otherwise we’ll expose ourselves.” The big man pushed off from the sled, finally stopping the massage of his arm and shoulder.
“That was rather detailed, Lieutenant,” Estelle said. Especially for someone who had just woken up on a foreign planet, following the evacuation of a carrier in the wake of an attack by hostile forces. She felt like she was back in the morgue at Arlos.
“I read a lot, remember?” Chaz said. “Travel books – comes in useful sometimes.”
Yes, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, he’d once said. Fair enough. The explanation would do for now. She nodded. “Let’s get moving,” she said, before hesitating and adding, “Probably best you lead the way.”
*
Much of the journey through the park was spent attempting to travel beneath the canopy of trees, within the more secluded parts. Every now and again they would have to rethink their journey as either the trees on one side gave way to openings, or they found the need to cross an open bridge.
Looking around herself as they went, Estelle found that Chaz had been right to suggest they keep from walking out in the open. Many of the bodies they saw lay exposed on the grass, next to winding paths. As well as the corpses of victims, there were also scatterings of other items – blankets, picnic baskets, children’s toys, towels and other items that sunbathers had left behind as they had run.
The ground was churned up in a number of places, the result of civilians having attempted to flee across the park in cars and other vehicles, to escape the destruction laying waste to the city. Estelle spied the crumpled forms of two small children as they walked, heavy tyre tracks close to their bodies. It looked as though they might have been hit by a car as they ran looking for safety. The path of the tyres continued onward past them, disappearing up a hillside. The driver had clearly not stopped for even a second to consider the lives of those they had taken, the need to preserve their own life far greater. She wondered just how many people had been killed in the panic that had ensued when the Imperial forces had begun their attack.
“Hold up,” Chaz turned to her and waved a hand down, to indicate that she should stay put. His face was marred in concern and she moved to better cover, crouching down low. She watched him creep cautiously forward, all the while keeping himself in the shade of the canopy of trees. After a while, he beckoned her forward. “Landers,” he pointed.
She looked to where he indicated, to a portion of open parkland not one hundred metres from where they stood. Though the crafts were no longer present, they had left a lasting impression of where they had set down. A large area had been blackened by the engines, and for each craft there were three deep depressions in the ground where the landing struts had sunk into the soil. The ground around them was slightly muddied and torn up, presumably where the Imperial soldiers had spent time around them.
“Think they were here recently?” Estelle said, fingering the pistol she held.
“Can’t be sure; might be more of them. We’ll have to go a lot slower.”
They stopped again on a number of occasions, Chaz spotting more of the telltale signs of landers. Finally, they passed the two tall stone pillars that marked the park’s entrance and started out into a long approaching road.
*
“It’s like a ghost town,” Estelle said, looking up around her, to the seemingly deserted buildings. It was deathly quiet. It had been so in the park, also, but at least then there had been the subtle rustle of trees and bushes as the wind had ruffled them. Here, there was nothing for the wind to touch, except for dust and papers, that danced their way down the streets. All else lay still and undisturbed.
Though Chaz walked by her side, Estelle felt alone. She had yet to see another living human being; even animals seemed to be avoiding the open streets, there being no sign of even the smallest bird. The roads were jammed solid with vehicles, many crushed tightly against one another, others piled on top of them. They must’ve fallen from some place above. Further up, the road was blocked by a collapsed monorail track. The cars of the train itself hung down from where the track had been severed, like a long, dead centipede.
“Best thing for it,” Chaz said in hushed tones, as they began down a side street, off the main road. “We want to keep ourselves hidden.” But only a short while later, they found their path once again blocked, this time by an enormous pile of steel and masonry. It looked like one of the buildings had come down. Girders and struts stuck out of it, as though it had been impaled upon a great number of spears and pikes.
“The subway,” Estelle called, starting towards the flights of stairs leading underground. Chaz grabbed her arm as she passed by him.
“One – keep your voice down; and two – we have no torches,” Chaz said. “If any soldiers are down there and the lights are out, then the advantage is theirs. Did you forget what happened at Arlos?”
Who could? Estelle thought, remembering how the White Knights had emerged from the medical wing, to find the main hall of the starport shrouded in near-darkness. A good job Chaz had been there to guide them out, but how had he known that the loss of light had been the Enemy’s doing in the first place? There was still too much about this man she didn’t know.
She shrugged Chaz’s grip from her arm. “Okay. Guess we’ll have to find another way ar
ound, then.”
The two returned to the main road, continuing to clamber over cars and squeeze past buses, on their quest to reach the beach. More dust and paper blew past them on a warm early-afternoon breeze, carrying with it a stench that made Estelle’s nose wrinkle. It was disgusting; it absolutely reeked.
“That smell,” she said.
“It’s all the bodies, rotting in the sun. If the city was only attacked recently, then it’ll get much worse in the next day or so.”
Estelle caught the sight of a woman slumped up against a wall, a splatter of blood on the bricks behind her. She was barefoot, dressed in a light blue shirt and a knee-length, black skirt. She looked like an office worker. She must’ve discarded her heels, to enable her to run faster. She recalled herself having dressed like that once, many years ago, wearing an old pair of trainers during her walk to work, to stop the one good pair of shoes she owned from getting spoiled by the elements. Not far from the dead woman, she sighted two more victims – both men, each wearing shirts and ties, and trousers and black shoes.
It was the starport all over again – Chaz leading the way, whilst they made an effort to evade the black-suited soldiers, who were hunting them down. She felt her heart start to thump harder with each face she saw, and tried to think of other things.
Further down the main road, heading back towards the wreckage of the monorail, they took another turn. The street they walked down was narrower than that blocked by the monorail, but not a whole lot different from the last they had trod. Small trees lined the pavement, with yet more cars, buses and other vehicles jammed up against one another. A spent shell casing from a projectile weapon skittered away down the road as Estelle kicked it with her boot.
Estelle noticed that the windscreen of one of the cars she passed had great web-like cracks on the driver’s side. Walking past it, she saw that it had crashed into one of the thick lamp posts that lined the road, along with the trees. The driver had neglected to wear a seatbelt and had cracked his head on the glass in the collision. His eyes were wide, vacant and staring. She tore herself away from staring at his face.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 55