Estelle unclasped the woman’s necklace and slipped it into her pocket, before rising. Chaz was considerably taller than she was, so she was forced to look up. “We may well be in the middle of a war zone, and in unfamiliar surroundings, Lieutenant, but you are still in the service of the Confederation Stellar Navy, and I am still your commanding officer. Do you understand that?”
Chaz glared down at her, but said nothing.
Dear God, the man was insufferable. “I said, am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, Commander,” Chaz said after a pause.
Good, he finally got it.
“So, where do you suggest we go from here?” he said.
Estelle looked up and down the beach, trying to think. They had attempted to contact local forces and failed, they’d had to hide themselves from hostile forces, and their journey through the city had been a monotonous slog. On top of that, they had barely seen another living human being the whole time. She looked out across the clear blue sea, which stretched out to the horizon. Somewhere out there was Ifrit, and maybe even Dodds, Enrique and Kelly. With heavy reluctance she admitted Chaz was right – for all intents and purposes, they were alone. Their priority now was to find a way to escape the planet, or at least survive until help arrived. If it ever did. Remaining on the beach wouldn’t do them any good.
“Let’s find a way off the planet,” she said.
Chaz nodded. “There should be an airport further up the coast, north of here. I’m guessing maybe eight or nine miles. We’ll have to go slowly, but if we start now then we should be able to reach it sometime before sundown. If it’s still standing, that is.”
Estelle nodded. That was exactly what they needed. And though she found the man difficult, she had to admit that she needed him now. It was like he always said – a little bit of knowledge was a dangerous thing. “Okay. Let’s get going.”
*
They started off into the cluster of eucalyptus trees that separated the beach from the roadside, walking under the thick canopy of leaves for a time, favouring the denser areas. They looked about a lot as they moved, keeping an eye out for the sudden appearance of black suits and red eyes. None came, and for the most part their journey was accompanied only by the sound of their own boots upon the dirt, sand and bracken beneath them, as well as the gentle noise of the surf, rolling up and down the shoreline.
The path they followed rose steadily, the ground to their right beginning to plunge away into a steep cliff side, the sandy beach below narrowing until it was gone altogether. A road ran parallel to the tree line, and at the top of the rise they stopped, coming across the bodies of what appeared to be local military forces. Gunfire had severed branches and torn into the trunks of the surrounding trees, shell casings scattered about the ground and in the nearby foliage. Cautious investigation revealed that a battle had taken place on the roadside, by the entrance to a suspension bridge. The remnants of the encounter were nothing more than a pile of bodies, destroyed vehicles and the ad hoc barricades the defenders had erected to protect themselves. Chaz headed off to investigate, but spent only a scant few seconds looking about the scene, before declaring that the dead had been liberated of any useful items already.
He returned to the cover of the trees and the two continued walking towards the airport as the sunlight continued to fade.
*
Over an hour later, having left the sleds and the bodies of Ifrit’s former crew far behind them, and within the relative silence of their journey, Estelle’s mind began to wander. She couldn’t help but feel that Chaz wasn’t being at all sympathetic to her, following the discovery on the beach. He was acting far too cold for her liking. She fished about in her pocket and drew out the capsule of pills. Three left. She swore under her breath. How could she control her stress levels with so few remaining and under such grim circumstances as these? She was now aware of how much of a dependency she had on them, and was starting to regret her decision to ever start taking them.
The pills she took were a type of benzodiazepine, designed to help her control her anxiety and stress levels. It was something she always knew she suffered from, but had always tried to ignore as best as she could. At one stage, she had thought that she was suffering from depression, but had fought her way past that, too. She was all too proud to give in to what she considered to be such a simple, easily conquered failing. But the events of recent months had aggravated her far too much, and she foresaw a time coming when the stress might begin to overcome her, despite her own efforts.
And so she had turned to chemical control, in the form of a regular supply of drugs of dubiously legality, that she had discovered whilst trawling various networks’ social forums and discussing her condition anonymously online with others. Not that she was actually ashamed of what she was doing. Taking the drugs wasn’t giving in or admitting anything – it was just a helping hand for a very normal condition.
She was paying through the nose to get them, though. Not because they were overly expensive, but because she was trying to do it on the sly. For someone in her position – Lieutenant Commander de Winter, ATAF pilot, hero of Operation Menelaus, someone to whom a lot of men and women throughout the CSN now looked up to and admired – open knowledge of her ‘flaw’ could signal the early death of her career. She couldn’t afford to let something as trivial as stress get in her way.
After identifying what she was after, she had found someone in the navy who – for lack of a better description – had a way of getting things. And after some negotiation, he had agreed to bring them in for her, but not before he had requested a mark up of more than three times the normal price when she had come to collect. They hadn’t been all that cheap to begin with, but Estelle had found herself in the difficult position of refusing to pay and leaving the man with her dirty little secret, or meeting his asking price and parting amicably. She had opted for the latter, and since then had bought a total of three bottles of the pills from him.
But now they were almost gone and she needed to keep calm. She tried to think of other things as she and Chaz walked, but the hours spent with the man were not helping; they were making it difficult for her to consider anything other than exactly who he was.
Following the events at Arlos starport and the man’s unusual behaviour, Estelle had hoped that she would get answers to all of her questions once the reports were filled. The reports had never appeared, not even her own. It was as if the events of that day had been wiped clean. Neither Parks, Turner, nor Jenkins seemed to know anything about the apparent missing details of the events at Arlos, either. It had come as a surprise to not only herself, but also her fellow wingmates, though Chaz had hardly seemed bothered by it at all. The man was clearly hiding things, far too many for her liking. Where had he gone that night, following on from Operation Menelaus, when they had returned to Spirit? She and the other Knights had spent the night celebrating in the bar, but Chaz had mysteriously vanished. He hadn’t reappeared for several days.
He also seemed to know a lot more about those black-uniformed Imperial soldiers than he was willing to let on. He’d had dealings with them before, that was obvious. In Arlos’ morgue, he had suspected that the one who had attacked them might not really be dead, and he had seemed all too well-versed in their tricks and tactics, and how best to handle them.
And, come to think about it, it was also funny how he’d shown up around the same time that Dragon had been hijacked, around the same time that Hawke had turned traitor. Well, he might have pulled the wool over Parks’ eyes, but he wouldn’t be getting the better of her. Enough was enough, it was time for her to get some answers.
With Chaz walking just up ahead of her, she raised her pistol and pointed it at his back. “That’s far enough, Lieutenant,” she said.
Chaz stopped and looked about at her with a slightly baffled expression on his face. “What gives?”
“I think it’s time for us to have a little chat.”
“Now is not the time for anyt
hing, except getting to the airport and finding a way out of here.”
“I need you to answer some questions,” Estelle pushed.
“Questions? About what?” Chaz asked incredulously. He stared at her for a moment before turning around and starting off again.
“I said stop!”
Chaz stopped, turned around and let out a long sigh, his shoulders slumping. “Estelle, what are you doing?” he asked. “We have to get to the airport before it gets dark.”
“I’ll ask the questions, Lieutenant!” Estelle snapped. “Something’s been bugging me ever since we got here—”
“Just one thing?”
She chose to ignore that. “You seem to be awfully well prepared for handling our current predicament. More so than I would expect even from someone who has been in the service for as long as you. Who or what are those people really?”
“Who?”
“The ones that attacked us back on Arlos; the ones that took down Ifrit; the ones that we are currently running from. And in fact, who are you?” She noticed that her hands were beginning to shake. She made an effort to keep them steady and her mind focused.
Chaz said nothing. He sighed again, and for a moment all was quiet between the two, the only sound being that of water breaking at the base of the low cliffs beneath and the gentle rustle of the leaves about them. Chaz looked to be considering his answer. Estelle waited.
“We really don’t have time for this,” Chaz said finally. “Now, put the gun down and let’s keep moving.”
“I did some research into your previous squadron, the Copper Beetles—”
Chaz swore.
Ah Ha! Got you. Estelle raised a satisfied eyebrow. “Funny thing – there’s a lot of information about them, but there were a few discrepancies, too. According to their profile, you were flying with the Copper Beetles from 2609 until 2617, but according to one of your own records, you didn’t join the navy till 2612.”
“Clerical error,” Chaz said dismissively.
“That’s not exactly a typo, it’s more like three years unaccounted for!”
“Listen, stuff like that happens all the time. You can throw as much technology at a problem as you want, but as long as you’ve still got some monkey banging away at a keyboard, you’ve got a weak link. And speaking of which, you’re holding us up. The longer we stand here and—”
“But what is really interesting is that the Copper Beetles have been in reserve for the past six years. They haven’t been involved in any activity since 2611. How can you fly in a squadron that is confined to a database?”
Chaz let out another long sigh. Then a comical smile appeared on his face and he relaxed. “Okay, Estelle, you got me. You want to know the truth?”
Yes! She had him. “Oh, yes!” she nodded enthusiastically.
He shrugged. “I’m a spy—”
“Ah ha!” she declared, unable to help herself.
“—working for the Confederation Secret Service.”
Eh?
“I spent four years working as a government agent, assigned to investigations within the Mitikas Empire. I know so much about the Imperial soldiers because they were part of what I had been assigned to investigate. I was pulled out of the empire just over nine months ago, and I was assigned to the White Knights. Though for what reason, I still don’t know.”
Estelle didn’t know what to say. It sounded just like what she wanted to hear, what she wanted him to admit. But at the same time, exactly not. No, he was a spy, alright. But one that had to be working against the Confederacy. A double agent, perhaps?
The big man looked away from her for a moment, his eyes watching the trees.
Estelle’s trigger finger twitched, but she managed to refrain from discharging the pistol. He must be planning to run. She decided to press him now, whilst she could.
“No, that’s a lie,” she said. “Tell me the truth, Koonan.” She was breathing hard, her heart thumping in her chest.
Chaz’s eyes were still searching the trees, the smile gone from his face.
“Answer me!” she said.
“Estelle—” Chaz began, starting to raise his pistol.
“Drop the guns,” a voice came. “Both of you.”
Estelle looked about herself in shock, as three figures emerged from the undergrowth, rifles and pistols pointing toward her and Chaz. She spun around, aiming her gun at one.
“Drop it,” the same man who had spoken repeated himself.
Estelle saw Chaz glaring at her, his eyes seeming to blame her for allowing them to be ambushed. His pistol already lay at his feet. Estelle said nothing and did as she was told, letting the pistol tumble from her grasp.
“Put your hands up and don’t move,” came another order.
As Estelle raised her hands and looked over their captors, another one emerged. There were four in total, three men and one woman. The woman was fair-skinned, with a smooth, shaved head. The men were a mixed bunch – two were also fair-skinned, one heavy-set and as tall as Chaz; the last man, the one who had spoken, was of an olive complexion. He came around to face Estelle, keeping his gun trained on her and looking her up and down.
Estelle opened her mouth to speak.
“Quiet,” the man said. He appeared to be the group leader. “Edie, get the guns. Tank, frisk them.”
The woman started over, retrieving the pistol from where it lay at Estelle’s feet, not taking her eyes off Estelle for one second. The heavy-set man, who had been referred to as Tank, came next and began patting the two down, meticulously checking their arms, legs, chests and backs.
Estelle studied the group as he did so. Each one was armed with a weapon or rifle of some kind. The near-bald woman wore a sash-style equipment belt, which held a few clips of ammunition, as well as what appeared to be a comms device. Tank and the leader were also stocked with ammunition, though theirs resided in belts around their waists, where a couple of grenades also hung. The fourth man had a long barrelled weapon slung over his back – it looked like a sniper rifle. Like the woman, he wore a sash-style ammunition belt, with a number of large bullets, divided into groups of five, running its length. Estelle got the feeling that they were there for reasons of practicality, rather than because the owners wished to show potential adversaries just how well-armed they were.
Tank was rough with his work, but eventually he finished and came up empty-handed. “They’re clean,” he reported.
“Sure?” the leader asked.
“Yeah.”
The leader nodded, though he didn’t lower his weapon. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Lieutenant Commander Estelle de Winter, Confederation Stellar Navy,” Estelle said. “We’re trying to locate our team-mates.”
“CSN?” The man sounded a little surprised.
Estelle nodded and began to lower her arms.
“Keep your hands up!” the man barked. “You mind telling us how you two came to be prowling the coastline of a planet outside of the Confederacy?”
“It’s a long story,” Chaz said.
“Yeah, well I want to hear it,” the leader shot back at him. He sounded stressed.
Very well, Estelle thought, and began to recount the events of Ifrit’s invasion.
*
The White Knights had been gathered together in Ifrit’s bar, waiting for the carrier to arrive at its destination. Dodds, as always, had been staring out of the window, exchanging occasional words with Enrique; Kelly had been working at her journal, barely taking notice of anything else as she did so; Chaz had had his head buried in a book, holding on tight to the same old makeshift paper bookmark he tended to favour. Estelle herself had been speaking to a number of female pilots and service personnel, taking on a round-table discussion where many of the questions were directed at her.
Their journey had been as routine as always, until the alarms had sounded. Just before they started, Dodds had sworn that he had seen something pass them by, something ship-like. Estelle had d
ismissed his concerns, but a short time later the bar had been bathed in pulsing red hues, accompanied by the noise of a loud klaxon.
A heavily-numbered and armed force had invaded the ship – yes, whilst they had been in jump – and had begun storming the vessel’s major divisions. The security detail had been almost helpless to stop them – the invaders seemed invulnerable to just about anything brought against them, jumping back to their feet after sustaining wounds that would have killed an ordinary human being.
The invaders had fought their way to the engine rooms and taken over Ifrit’s navigation systems, routing control away from the bridge, forcing it out of jump, and into the Coyote system. Upon its arrival, the ship had been met by a fleet of Imperial warships, which seemed to have been lying in wait for them. Against such a force, Ifrit hadn’t stood a chance.
Hail had summoned the Knights to the bridge and given them the news that the carrier was lost.
*
“… we abandoned ship, taking a bunch of sleds down to the surface. We were meant to come down on the beach, but we suffered a malfunction and overshot our destination. Our sled ditched in the park to the west.”
A flicker of recognition moved over the group as Estelle concluded her explanation, a couple of them nodding to one another. The leader relaxed and took a step back, lowering his gun for the first time.
“That explains what that ship was,” he said.
“And those look like Confederation uniforms,” Edie added. She turned to Chaz. “And what’s your name?”
“What’s yours?” Chaz glared back.
“Answer the damn question.” Edie spat back, pushing her weapon forward.
“Koonan,” Chaz said. “Can I put my hands down yet? Or would you prefer us to stand around here all day, flapping our lips?”
“Story seems to check out; they don’t seem like a threat,” Tank said. “And they don’t have any other weapons on them.”
The leader of the group seemed to consider the evidence for a moment, before indicating to the others that it was safe for them to lower their weapons. He gestured for the two pilots to put their hands down, then to Estelle said, “I take it you’re the one in charge?”
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 63