The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  The lift arrived at the station’s living area. Compared to what he had just seen, this part of the station appeared to have benefited from some long-overdue attention. The floors, walls and ceiling had been freshly painted, a distinctive feel of focused regeneration resonating throughout.

  Two framed glass doors parted, and the coastguard led Dodds down another narrow corridor. Towards the other end, Dodds spied two more security personnel, stood side by side and blocking the last stretch of the passageway. They moved aside as Dodds and his escort approached, the coastguard working the electronic lock to one of the staterooms and opening the door.

  “Am I being confined to quarters?” Dodds asked incredulously. His impromptu escort from the bar and the presence of the two other security personnel, keeping watch over this part of the living space like a pair of guard dogs, seemed to suggest so.

  “Not as such, no,” the coastguard answered him. “But neither the commodore nor the admiral wish you to go wandering about at this time. It’s also a part of your own personal safety and security.”

  Dodds frowned.

  “More will be explained tomorrow morning,” the coastguard finished.

  “I’m going to need my stuff,” Dodds said, glancing through the open door, into the sparse-looking room. During his time up in the bar, he had become quite aware of his two-day-old clothes – the underwear he still had on after crawling into bed following the drunken poker game, as well as his flight suit.

  “They are being gathered for you. It will all be here first thing tomorrow.”

  Dodds examined the room once more from the corridor. His eyes fell on the comfortable-looking bed, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to lie down and get some rest. Though he had slept on Griffin on the way back from Imperial space, it had been broken sleep – skewed with nightmarish thoughts and dreams that had either kept him awake or held him on the edge of a deep, proper sleep.

  “Fine,” Dodds said, walking almost trance-like into his new quarters.

  “Do you know where we can find Lieutenant Todd?” the coastguard asked, not crossing the threshold of the doorway.

  Dodds hesitated before answering him. He wasn’t about to disturb his friend’s evening. “No, I’ve not seen him. Perhaps he’s with Lieutenant Koonan or Lieutenant Taylor?”

  “We have them accounted for,” the man shook his head. “Can you think of anywhere else he may have gone?”

  “No, sorry,” Dodds said. “Maybe he fell asleep in a toilet or something? Try banging on a few of the stalls.”

  “Okay. If you can think of anything, please could you let either Desai or Steele know.” The guard indicated the man and woman, who remained a little further up the corridor.

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you. Sleep well, Lieutenant,” the guard said, tapping at the door control panel, closing it, and leaving Dodds alone.

  Dodds glanced around the room. It, like the bed sheets, was pristine white and appeared very clean. It was almost as if he was the first ever occupant in its newly constructed walls. He spared a brief thought for the previous resident. Just this morning, this room would likely have been full of the individual’s belongings. Like Dodds, that person had been called up to take part in a dangerous mission. But unlike Dodds, they had not returned. He supposed that their possessions had been removed and the room cleaned, leaving no trace or hint of who that person might have been.

  He pulled his boots off and threw them over into a corner, followed by his flight suit. He could’ve put it in the locker, but decided it was going to spend the night hanging off the back of a chair, instead. He was too tired to be bothered with that. At this time there weren’t many things that he would stay awake any longer for.

  He caught sight of himself in the tall mirror at the other end of the room as he made to pull back the bed sheets. Not bad, Dodds, he thought to himself, taking a moment to admire his own physique in the reflection. It looked like he’d managed to shed the weight he’d gained whilst living back on Earth – a result of his mother’s generous cooking. Maybe tomorrow he would shave his chest.

  He made to settle down into the bed, then changed his mind. He hadn’t showered since the day before. Best to wash off all the grime, sweat and grease that had accumulated, rather than dirty-up the bed and spend another six or seven hours rolling around in his own filth.

  He explored the room, activating a control panel on one of the walls, finding himself greeted by a washroom as a door slid back. His own private room and it was en-suite. Nice. Though the washroom was quite cramped, the architect had still succeeded in finding adequate space for a shower, sink and toilet. He spied a towel hanging on the rail next to the sink. A plastic orange bottle sat in the corner at the foot of the shower, which turned out to be a half-full bottle of shampoo. It must have belonged to the quarter’s previous occupant.

  He showered, savouring the feeling of the hot water and using a generous amount of the shampoo to scrub himself clean of the past twenty-four hours. Rinsing and towelling off, he felt relaxed and ready to enjoy a pleasant, nightmare-less and uninterrupted sleep. That would be good.

  He settled down into the bed, discovering the mattress to be considerably more comfortable than those of Mandelah and Griffin. He reached up for the light switch …

  The door jingled. He scowled over in its direction. Now what? He decided to ignore it and switched off the light. The door jingled twice more. Dodds glowered. The person who was ringing the bell would probably not give up until he had received them. Probably the coastguard, wanting more information on the whereabouts of Enrique. He snapped the light back on.

  “Yes?” he called out, making no attempt whatsoever to conceal the irritation in his voice.

  The door slid back and a slender figure darted inside. The door closed almost as quickly as it had opened, the figure groping for the control on the inside.

  Estelle?

  His commanding officer turned around with a sly smile on her face. “Oh, you’re in bed?” she said.

  “Just had enough to drink,” Dodds said. “Thought I’d come down here and get some rest.”

  Estelle’s smile grew. “Thought wrong then, didn’t you?” Her hand slid back to the control and Dodds heard the lock engage. She slinked over to the foot of the bed. “But, I know how you feel – it’s quite a day we’ve had.” She didn’t remain at the foot of the bed for long, and had already begun crawling her way up towards him. “High profile operation; ATAF flight run; Going above and beyond the call of duty—” She was right up next to him now, resting her hand upon his chest. “—promotions. I hope that after all that, you’re not too tired…?” She leaned forward and kissed him.

  Dodds responded, his fatigue sliding away from him, much like the sheet that he could feel Estelle pulling aside. She climbed atop him, still leaning down to kiss him.

  “I lost you in the bar,” Dodds said.

  “Mmm, I had to take Kelly to see the doctor.”

  “Is she okay?” Dodds asked, feeling genuine concern.

  “Her concussion’s just kicked in, that’s all,” Estelle said between the kisses, sounding untroubled. “She didn’t know what we were celebrating, where we were or what happened today. The doctor says she’ll be fine and not to worry.” She drew back up, her hair dangling around her face. “A shame to leave all the attention behind, but I think I’ll get more of the sort I want right now, down here.”

  Dodds chuckled.

  “You’re really warm,” she said, running a hand across his chest. “And,” she leaned down and sniffed gently. “You smell good, too.”

  “I just showered,” he smiled.

  “Good boy,” she said and returned to kissing him.

  They were gentle, teasing kissings, and Dodds cupped his hands around her face to hold her still.

  “No, don’t think so,” she said, pulling back and smiling down at him. “I’m your commanding officer, Lieutenant. You follow my lead.” She then leaned down again, offering her
lips once more, though she pulled away just as he moved to accept them. Twice more she did this, before she began to chuckle. “Missed my tongue, have you?”

  Dodds said nothing, but instead raised himself up to kiss her again. She allowed him to. Her eyes then shifted to the bruising around his eye. “That’s quite a shiner you’ve got there.”

  “Don’t worry, nothing else is damaged,” Dodds reassured her.

  “Hmm, okay,” she said, pushing him back down. “But how about I stay up here, just to make sure?”

  The visit to see him, Dodds realized, hadn’t been all that spontaneous. Estelle had already changed out of and discarded her flight suit, stripping down to a small white vest and her underwear. She, too, must have been escorted to her own quarters, probably right next to his own. He got the feeling that she had been awaiting his arrival ever since then.

  She bent down to kiss him some more, grabbing his hands and holding them where she wanted him, asserting her dominance. Dodds didn’t resist. After six years, he was used to her ways. She was straddling him now, smiling mischievously and reaching down to her white vest. Dodds watched as she pulled it up and over her head, revealing her small, milky-white breasts beneath. Dodds pulled himself up, holding her in his lap, their lips locking once more. His hands started to work their way around her body, as did hers around his. Her hands were all over him; they were everywhere, as though she had hands for every part of him.

  *

  Dodds blinked awake. There was a body right up next to him, wrapped around him. For an instant, he felt a terrible panic grip him. They’d found him! They had him pinned down!

  He then took in his surroundings, to see that he was back in the ruined café. He had fallen asleep on his back, on the hard floor. The body holding on to him was Natalia. She was snuggled up to his side, her head on his chest, an arm draped across him. He realised that he had an arm wrapped around her, too, holding her to him.

  She stirred a little as he shifted and she opened her eyes a little to meet his. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I was a little cold.”

  “It’s okay,” he answered. “I don’t mind.”

  She fell silent again.

  The brief panic subsided and Dodds closed his eyes again, letting his body relax once more. He could feel her gentle breathing against his body as he began to drift off. It felt good. His arm was still around her. He didn’t want to let go.

  *

  The thunderous booms woke him and he opened his eyes to find Natalia no longer by his side, now standing and looking out across the street they had walked the previous night. It was still dark.

  “What’s that?” he said, sitting up. “Cannon fire?”

  She looked around to him and nodded. “It started about ten minutes ago. We must be closer to the extraction point than I first thought,” she said.

  “What time is it?”

  “Just after five.”

  Five? He had half-expected the sun to be coming up by now. “It’s still dark out?”

  “Smoke.”

  Dodds pulled himself to his feet, joining the woman by the entrance to their night shelter. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing – smoke, high in the sky, was completely choking out the sun; the expected summer dawn more akin to that of an early-winter morning. Though he was sure that even those saw more sunlight than there was here.

  “We can’t stay here,” Natalia said. “The Enemy might decide it’s time to either nuke or carpet bomb the area, to catch any survivors.”

  She walked over to where they’d slept and started to sort through the food that was left, removing the heavier and more awkward items from the sack. “I don’t think we should take any more than we need – it’ll just slow us down.”

  Dodds nodded and started to sift through what remained, trying to make up his mind about what would be the most appropriate items to carry. He still felt a little hungry and decided they should eat a few of the things they weren’t going to carry, before setting off. He opened a box of muffins, offering one to Natalia. She declined.

  “Who’s Estelle?” she said.

  “Estelle?” Dodds said, swallowing a mouthful of the little cake.

  “You were mumbling her name in your sleep. Is she your girlfriend?”

  Dodds hesitated for moment, though he didn’t know why. “No … she’s a member of my squadron – she’s my wing commander.”

  “Okay.”

  “I … just had a dream about Ifrit, about the carrier,” Dodds said. “She was the last person I saw before I was separated from everyone.”

  Natalia nodded, but said nothing.

  “Any idea which way to go?” Dodds asked, once they had finished. A series of booms followed his question.

  “That way,” Natalia said.

  “Okay.”

  “Ready?”

  Dodds nodded, picked up their sack of provisions, and started off down the stairs of the restaurant and out into the grey, smoky canvas of New Malaga’s early morning.

  XVII

  — Smoke and Mirrors —

  From the front of Griffin’s bridge, Parks stood watching the progress of the conflict beyond, whilst fighting his own internal battle against bitter despair in the face of such odds.

  In recent hours, the number of participants in the struggle had swelled, more allied forces from both the Confederation and United Naval Forces arriving in the Coyote system, adding their weight to the proceedings. The Enemy, too, had received even more reinforcements. Not that they needed them – they had already been tearing the allies to pieces. Parks’ past experience had told him that the Enemy didn’t need the advantage of the radar blanketing to gain the upper hand in this battle; it had been theirs to begin with.

  Despite what he had said to Liu about moving them into optimal fighter deployment range, he had found himself very reluctant to bring Griffin too deep into the field. Whether this was due to his own absence from the battlefield in recent months, or whether he was being overly protective of Griffin, he didn’t know. For the moment, he was happy to remain where he was.

  A wing of Mantises had sped towards the carrier, rockets detaching from the lower strut of their Y-shaped frames and hurtled forward. In lieu of the automated defences, the crew had succeeded in bringing down only a handful of the missiles. The remainder had slammed heavily into the shields, which had – thankfully – held strong against the assault. The gunners had then focused their efforts on the defence of Griffin herself. However, with the radar still useless, they were having to target the enemy fighters with the aid of the carrier’s external camera systems, relying on visual confirmation of their targets before pulling the trigger. Parks didn’t need to speak to any of the gunners to appreciate just how difficult and frustrating a task that was.

  His eyes swept across the battlefield for a moment, taking stock of all the acting participants – the Imperial frigates, gunships and carriers; the allied capital ships of equal strength and class. Each could be seen trading long distance fire with one another as the opportunity arose. Beam weapons would flare for a time and the shielding of a target vessel would react. More often than not, the beam would stop before its job was done, most likely a result of starfighters or other craft leaping in to prevent the firing vessel from scoring any significant damage on its target. Not that they were always successful. A number of the larger allied vessels had been crippled or destroyed since Parks had joined the battle. The Enemy had taken far fewer causalities.

  Parks’ eyes shifted to the feeds, watching as squadrons of allied fighter craft were coordinated towards targets they couldn’t hope to identify on their own. He looked across the other feeds momentarily, then back to the frontal viewport. Something, no, someone was missing. Someone important to him.

  “Mr Liu, has there been any word from Grendel’s Mother?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” Liu said, looking up from his console. “But we are still having a lot of difficulty with the transmission and reception of communications into an
d out of the system. The last message we received indicated that the ship had been delayed at Alba.”

  Delayed at Alba? That was strange. Why? What could possibly be happening over there that was so important as to delay a rescue mission? With the inability to communicate with anyone outside of the system, Parks felt rather isolated. He couldn’t help thinking that he was missing out on something very important. An image of Parsons’ smug, interfering face crept into his mind. They needed to press forward.

  “Is Captain Bailey still in charge of the UNF fleet?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Put her on.”

  The holographic screen came up, Captain Bailey, a brown-haired woman in her early fifties, appearing on the screen.

  “How are you holding up, Captain?” Parks asked. Though she might be hiding it from her crew, Parks could quite clearly make out the stress hidden in her eyes and etched across her face.

  “Coping,” Bailey said. “Visual range is only useful up to a point. The Enemy have commandeered some of our own fighters, so we no longer know who we are going to open fire on. Unless we can find a way to restore use of our radar, we could soon find ourselves conceding victory to the Enemy.”

  “You know that’s not an option, Captain,” Parks said. “We have to find a way of getting down to the planet surface and reacquiring the assets, even at the expense of our own lives.”

  “Understood, Commodore,” Bailey said.

  Though he was only doing his job in service to the allied forces, Parks felt a twinge of guilt at what he had just said to the woman. The UNF had shown him tremendous support on his previous – disastrous – outing, and yet he was acting callous and reckless during this encounter. Had he learned nothing? He decided to atone for that mistake now. “One moment, Captain,” he said, then, to Liu, “put Leviathan on.”

  A second holographic display sprang up, parallel to the other. Captain Meyers looked no better than Bailey, and a brief exchange revealed that he, too, was finding the proceedings difficult.