The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  The camera that fed Storm’s image was still tracking the man, and as he moved about it could be seen that Phoenix’s blast screens had shuttered the viewport. Even so, it didn’t appear as though it was doing much good. Not long after they had armed themselves, the bridge crew began firing at unseen targets. There was a bang as something powerful ruptured the blast screen. Crew were yanked from their positions as depressurization commenced. Storm himself could be seen struggling to keep himself steady. Plasma fire flew past him, and finally one of the invaders was seen. They were wearing a different type of suit from the ones that Parks was accustomed to, this being a combat spacesuit, as once used by the Imperial Naval Forces.

  Storm turned to face the opponents who were streaming into the bridge, the camera tracking system zooming in on his face as he did so. An instant later, Parks caught the flare of a plasma gun, the sudden explosion of red in the location of Storm’s head, and the loss of tracking to Phoenix’s captain.

  “Bridge has been lost,” he was told.

  “Commodore! The chain of command has fallen to you!” It was Meyers. The man looked a little desperate. If he was trying to hide his feeling from the rest of the crew, then he was doing an exceptionally poor job of it. There was a boom from his feed, and Meyers fell out of the projection for a moment. The tracking system wobbled as it attempted to recalibrate itself and locate him, finally returning as Meyers pulled himself up. The man resumed talking, but no sound came.

  A feeling of acceptance then washed over Parks. He knew now that there was only one thing to do. He looked at Leviathan and Amarok, seeing the four Knights there attempting to keep the ships and the crew alive for as long as they could. He would leave those four there. For this task, he needed only one.

  “Weathers, send a signal to the remaining fleet to tell them to commence emergency jump procedures as soon as possible. Any destination.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Weathers said, giving the orders.

  “And put me in touch with de Winter. Commander,” he started, as the communication was established, “are you in a position to bring your accelerator online?”

  “Yes, sir,” the woman respond.

  “Do so, and wait for my order.” He turned to Griffin’s navigator. “Mr Liu, bring us to within five kilometres of Phoenix, so that she is directly in line with our heading.”

  “Yes, sir,” Liu said, working at his console and starting them forward. They didn’t have all that far to go, just close enough to make things difficult for the Pandoran forces to undo his next step. “Prepare torpedoes,” he then called to the bridge. “Arm every launch tube.”

  Liu swung around in his chair, as did Weathers. “Captain—” the helmsman started, his face one of total horror.

  “You will do as you have been ordered, Commander,” Parks said, not prepared to argue with the man for even one instant. “DO NOT TOUCH THAT CONTROL, MISTER!” he snapped, as he saw Liu make to halt Griffin’s advance.

  “Sir, there are people—” Liu tried again.

  “If you so much as even think to countermand my orders, I will see to it that you spend the remaining days of this campaign in a prison cell! Now, keep us going and divert power to shields as necessary. Take it from the weapons arrays if need be.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Liu said, with unmistakable reluctance.

  I’m sorry, Ali.

  “In range, Captain.”

  “Target Phoenix with medium torpedo spread.”

  “Targeted.”

  “Fire.”

  He heard the word, a part of him not believing that he had uttered it. From both sides of Griffin he saw the glow of the torpedo engines as they sped away from the carrier, tens of them, streaking towards their fellow warship. Parks wished it had been a harder decision to make.

  “de Winter,” he said to the wing commander of the White Knights, “sweep Phoenix’s starboard side with your accelerator, to allow the torpedoes to land quicker.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Parks watched as de Winter did as instructed, ignoring the chatter from her fellow team-mates as to the reason for her actions. What remained of Phoenix’s shielding buckled quickly to the concentrated beam of plasma, long before the supply was exhausted. Not long after, the dozens of torpedoes that had issued from Griffin struck. Parks observed only long enough to confirm that his actions had pushed the ship to the brink of destruction, before reiterating his orders that the fleet should retreat.

  “Have the four ATAFs assisting Leviathan and Amarok proceed with them into jump point and take out any enemy craft that follow them inside.” An extremely risky move, yes. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. “Order de Winter to form up next to Griffin and prepare to follow immediately.”

  “Captain – Chimera!”

  Parks wasn’t sure who had issued the warning, and saw only briefly the instantaneous flash originating from the huge vessel approaching them, an almost blinding spike of green as the Imperial carrier’s accelerators prepared to fire.

  “Hard to port!” he shouted to Liu. The navigator reacted quickly, though not as quickly as Parks would’ve liked.

  With little shielding to deflect it, the beam raked Griffin’s bow, sliding up the top side of the body and searing the elevated portions, racing towards its intended target – the bridge. Part of the frontal viewport shattered as the powerful beam of plasma energy struck home, one of the sections on the right-hand side, several square metres in size. The beam itself entered the bridge for but a fraction of a second, though long enough to incinerate whatever lay in its path, including several of the crew. Parks instinctively grabbed hold of his chair with all his might, to stop himself from being dragged out of that shattered window, somehow managing to keep his place. At least two of the crew were not so fortunate. He caught the shock and terror on their faces as they were yanked from their seats and jettisoned out into the vacuum.

  “Open a jump point!” Parks called over the sound of air howling in his ears.

  “Sir, destination?” Liu called, trying to both work at his console and prevent himself from being dragged into open space.

  “Anywhere that’s not here!” Parks shouted back, as the blast screens came down, sealing off the sight of the battle beyond.

  “Point open …” Liu said. “Route to Gabriel established … Crossing event horizon … We’re in … Entrance sealed.”

  “How many followed?” Parks breathed. His hands were shaking, his brow wet, his heart thumping hard in his chest.

  “Registering only one accompanying craft,” came the response. “An ATAF, Captain. Commander Estelle de Winter.”

  Parks took a few moments to calm himself, before turning to the bridge crew. They were all staring at him, looking shocked, terrified, and utterly defeated. No one had expected anything like this. No one at all.

  What do we do? their eyes asked him. What the hell are we going to do now?

  I don’t know, Parks’ gaze answered them. I don’t know.

  *

  An excerpt from A GIFT FROM THE GODS by Kelly Taylor

  7th November 2621

  The size of the Pandoran forces that arrived at Adetton to meet the combined CSN and Independent navies was more than four times heavier than that which jumped into Temper, during the initial phase of Black Widow, and ultimately many thousands of units greater than that which the allies had expected to face.

  Of the thirty major vessels that travelled to the system to commence the mop-up, only five returned – CSN Griffin, CSN Leviathan, UNF Amarok, UNF Talos, and the UNF Vortex of Justice. Major losses included CSN Phoenix, CSN Ironside, UNF Cratos, UNF Ice Storm, UNF Caledfwlch, CSN Churchill, CSN Livingstone, CSN Sussex, UNF Black Orchid, and a trio of Independent battleships known as The Three Colours.

  Within a day of their arrival in the Gabriel system, both Parks and Estelle were brought before a court-martial, where they were charged with and found guilty of treason. They were convicted of the intentional destruction of Phoenix and the s
ubsequent deaths of all those surviving aboard her. Both Parks and de Winter were stripped of their command and taken to Huntington, Al-Elfia’s military prison.

  The very same week, Amanda Jenkins and Helios President Fairbanks had both convictions overturned, granting Parks and de Winter a pardon and returning them to duty immediately. In light of the tremendous losses that the allies had suffered during phase two of Black Widow, hurried promotions were made to restore the gaps in command, Parks rising to Rear Admiral and Estelle becoming Captain.

  Less than ten days later, the Pandoran forces returned to Temper to finish what they had started. It took them only fourteen hours to overrun the fleet that had gathered there to defend Spirit.

  Parks made good on the promise he had made to himself, marrying Sima Mandeep and promising to do everything he could to give her a long and happy life. He then divided the allied forces, leaving one half in defence of the inner Confederacy and taking the rest to once again attempt to halt the Pandoran war machine by means of force.

  Their efforts proved as ineffective as always.

  XIII

  — Voices in the Dark —

  “I was aboard Cratos as everyone began jumping out,” Natalia said. “The Black Orchid was crippled and the crew sacrificed themselves to allow us to escape. They moved themselves between us and two Pandoran frigates, and let themselves get blown to pieces as we initiated jump. None of the crew even attempted to get off the ship.” She went quiet, still gazing out the window at the blue clouds of jump space tumbling by.

  “That must’ve been hard to watch,” Dodds said.

  “They did it so that we could get away. They must’ve known they weren’t going to make it themselves.”

  “From what I understand, a lot of people did the same.”

  Natalia nodded, but said nothing. Black Widow had been a traumatic time for all of them, a tipping point in the war, a realisation that the battle was lost. Dodds remembered how, at that moment, as he had seen everything that he had believed in, fought for and struggled to maintain come crashing down before his eyes, a cloak of emotional agony had descended upon him. There it had remained, consuming his soul, rotting his beliefs, tearing apart his spirit, and leaving him with nothing but crushing despair. It had wrapped itself around him, filling his waking hours with negative thoughts and polluting his sleep with terrible nightmares. It hadn’t let go in almost three years.

  It seemed just the same for Natalia. He wondered if maybe she had lost someone very close to herself? Maybe a lover or a husband, or someone else of equal significance in her life? Whatever it was, Dodds hoped that she would share it with him – it might alleviate her pain.

  “Where did you jump to?” Dodds asked.

  “We intended to jump to Temper,” Natalia started, “but we were chased into the point by a number of enemy starfighters. They were brutal, Simon, I’d never seen anything like it. It was as if they’d gone insane. Lovejoy tried to take them out, but combat in jump is so very dangerous.”

  Dodds understood perfectly. He’d experienced the very same thing when Leviathan had opened its own jump point and made to exit the system. At the very moment the conduit had spiralled into existence, a hoard of starfighters had leapt into it, curtailing the carrier’s attempts at a painless escape and knowing full well that they wouldn’t abort the sequence. Dodds and Chaz had spent many edge-of-the-seat minutes attempting to shoot down the fighters, without straying outside the confines of the jump space containment field or allowing any further damage to come to Leviathan, lest it lead to a premature disengagement from jump.

  “So, you managed to get rid of all of them?” he asked.

  “No,” Natalia said. “They unloaded every missile they had into the back of the ship – the one place we were vulnerable – and caused us to revert to normal space.”

  Dodds saw the shock on his face in the soft reflection of the glass window. “Where did you come out?”

  “Three hundred and seventy-eight days from the edge of the Adetton system,” Natalia said, shaking her head.

  Dodds was totally dumbstruck. “You were over a year beyond the edge of the system?”

  “We were lucky we were that close. We thought that we were going to drop out between star systems, light years from anywhere and with no points of reference; with no way to get home. It was lucky they hit us so soon after we commenced jump. A few minutes more …”

  “Seconds,” Dodds said, still flabbergasted. “You got very, very lucky,” he added.

  “Tell me about it. A good thing that Cratos was still stocked full of cereals and water. Although, I’ll tell you right now that I’m actually no longer a fan of biscuits.”

  Dodds expected the remark to be accompanied by an amused grin from Natalia, but her expression and tone remained downbeat. A year stuck aboard a ship? A dreadnought, too. They might be colossal vessels, but they were hardly big on the inside. Most of it was armour and munitions. He imagined things must’ve gotten quite intense at times. Things sometimes did on Griffin, but at least here there was space for people to escape to.

  “So, you travelled back to Adetton?”

  “We had to. We needed to get close enough to allow our navigation systems to detect the buoys and sync the location data required for the return jump. We detected the starfighters that had attacked us as we made our way back towards Adetton. They were holding position, apparently waiting for us. I guess it was the last thing the pilots did before they ran out of oxygen. We didn’t go near them to try and find out. We then jumped to Constantinople, signalled our return and shifted our duties to something more covert.”

  “So, you’ve lived on Cratos ever since Widow?”

  “Have hardly left it since,” Natalia said. “Which is why I’m grateful that I’m over here for a change.” She still sounded down, no longer the upbeat and excitable woman who had first arrived here. Dodds took her hand, feeling her fingers closing around his, and squeezed it gently.

  “Thanks,” she said, a smile returning.

  “No problem,” Dodds said, giving her hand another little squeeze. They didn’t let go, and both sat in silence for a time, continuing to watch the clouds slip by. A part of Dodds began to ponder what it might be like to cross over the safety of that tunnel and into another dimension. He’d heard tales of one such vessel that had done so. The story varied wildly depending on who told it. Some held that the ship had arrived in a star system that was a true mirror of the intended destination. Others said that the crew had orbited a planet where the superior beings had been a species of cat-like people, on the verge of becoming a spacefaring race. Some even said that the crew had met with God himself; a variation on that retelling suggested that the ship had actually taken a trip down to Hell. The most concrete and oft repeated series of events told of how the vessel had ended up in what had been called ‘liquid space’. Nothing but water – or a water-like substance – for hundreds of thousands of miles around. What could’ve existed in such a place? Could it be that dimension’s equivalent of space, or had the ship simply emerged within a liquid planet?

  He thought to share the story with Natalia, to lift her spirits.

  “How long do you think it’ll be until we reach Sol?” Natalia asked, before he could do so.

  “I don’t know,” Dodds said, “maybe another few hours?”

  Natalia nodded. “I think I’d like to go and try and get my head down for a bit,” she said, standing.

  “Sorry,” Dodds said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “We shouldn’t pretend that it didn’t happen.”

  Maybe it was because Natalia had mentioned it, but Dodds now found himself sleepy. At last, he was ready to get some rest. “Where are you going sleep?” he said, getting up and starting after her. “There’s a spare bed in the quarters I share with Chaz and Enrique. Or I could see if I can find you something else if you’d rather not?”

  “Actually, that would be nice,” Natalia said.

  Dodds the
n saw a pair of men approaching them, two of Griffin’s security. He assumed at first that they were just part of a routine patrol.

  “Chief? We think we’ve got her,” one was saying into a comms device. “Yes, we’ve located Dodds, and he’s with a woman who matches Grace’s profile.”

  “Something wrong?” Dodds asked, as the two came to stand in front of them.

  “Natalia Grace?” the second security member asked.

  “Busted,” Natalia said, looking to Dodds.

  “Miss, you’re not supposed to be on this ship,” the security guard explained. “You should have returned to UNF Cratos before departure. You’re effectively trespassing on CSN property.”

  “Oh, hold on,” Dodds said, “she’s not doing any harm. We were just talking. We’ve not seen each other in years, so we’re just catching up.”

  “That’s all very nice,” the guard said, “but we’ve been given instructions to find Grace and hold her in the brig, until we arrive at Sol. These orders come from Admiral Parks,” the man added, as Dodds made to protest.

  “The brig?” Dodds said, incredulously.

  “She poses a security risk.”

  “Simon, don’t worry,” Natalia said, as the security detail indicated for her to come with them. “I’ll be fine.”

  What was it about Parks and Natalia? Dodds wondered. He remembered the rage the man had flown in to when Natalia had spilled the beans on the ATAF program and Operation Sudarberg, back on Mythos. He had been close to ordering her dead. “I’ll come fetch you when we get to Sol,” he said. “The chief of security knows me, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Natalia smiled. “See you later, Simon,” she said, before allowing the two men to escort her from the bar.

  He left soon after, taking the lift down to where his quarters were located.

  *

  He opened the door quietly, finding both Chaz and Enrique asleep on their bunks, and crept over to his bed, undressing silently and lying down. He began to wish that he hadn’t spoken about Black Widow, now. Despite all that they had uncovered in Kethlan, it had still managed to depress him. At least now he felt tired, though. He checked his Kyllini. 4:24am. Perhaps time enough for a nap. He rolled on to his side, pulled the sheet over himself and closed his eyes.