The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  “Most of the time,” Estelle said, her eyes flickering to Chaz. There wasn’t the slightest hint of acknowledgement from the big man, who was still looking carefully over the party that had surprised them.

  “And you came here looking for the rest of your squadron?” the group leader asked.

  Estelle nodded. “We intended to regroup on the beach and then find a place to await extraction. The ship’s captain sent out a distress call to CSN HQ before he brought the carrier down.”

  “You were lucky not to be there,” the leader nodded back the way they had come. “The moment that blazing fireball of a ship of yours passed over the city, it drew soldiers to the beach like ants to a picnic. We got there a short time after they had done their work. They left no one alive, we already checked.”

  Estelle’s heart sank. They were too late. She fought the urge to turn around and head back to the beach, to disprove him; Dodds, Enrique and Kelly had to be alive there somewhere.

  “So, now you know who we are, who are you?” Chaz said.

  “Major John Stafford, Mythos Territorial Guard,” the leader said, “member of the Coalition of Independent Armed Forces. This is Captain Thompson,” he indicated the bald woman. “Lieutenant Milligan,” to the man with the large rifle, who hadn’t spoken. “And he’s Lieutenant Smith,” he nodded the stout man who had frisked both Estelle and Chaz. “Although, we usually call him Tank.”

  “What are you doing here? Are you a scouting party or something?” Chaz asked.

  “No,” Stafford shook his head. “We’re apparently all that’s left of a much larger unit, which was attempting to contain the Enemy within the financial district. We got separated when the bombs started to come down about us. We tried to regroup, but were forced to find another way around when a building collapsed, cutting off our most direct route. We were then ambushed by the Enemy when they came after your friends. We were twenty-one strong before that encounter. Lost some good men after that.” He looked over at Thompson as he finished. His words appeared to have evoked an air of despondence in the woman.

  “You can’t just shoot ‘em down,” Smith said. “They just get back up again. You have to hit ‘em square in the head or put a hell of a lot into ‘em.”

  Stafford went on, “We’re heading to the north of the city. We have received word that several battalions are gathered there, trying to hold the bastards off. If you couldn’t find your friends on the beach, then it’s possible that they may have headed there, if they’re not dead already. You might as well come with us – God knows you’ll be better off that way than on your own. Once we get there, we’ll take you to see Brigadier Potter.”

  Estelle glanced to Chaz, who seemed to be in agreement. Though Commodore Hail had sent for help, it wasn’t likely to arrive before Jenkins was both able to cut through red tape and actually organise a rescue effort. Even then, the Confederation forces would still have to make their way to Coyote and then fight their way through whatever lay in wait for them around the planet itself. With all that in mind, they were looking at a minimum of twenty-four hours before they saw the first signs of rescue. And that didn’t include salvaging the ATAFs.

  “Could we have our guns back?” Chaz asked. “Seems only fair that we should be able to defend ourselves. Otherwise we’re just decoration.”

  Stafford mulled it over for a few moments before ordering the return of the pistols. “Just stay where I can see you,” he said, a trace of mistrust still in his voice. “Right everyone, check your weapons, we’re moving out.”

  “Yes, sir,” the three others answered.

  “We’ve got a set of wheels a little further up,” Stafford said to Chaz and Estelle. “We’ll take it up the coast and then as far into the city as we can. We won’t have much luck on the roads of the inner city – the place is clogged thicker than a fat man’s arteries. No offence, Lieutenant,” he added to Smith.

  “None taken, sir. I lost nearly eight pounds last month,” Smith said, patting his belly.

  “Good for you. Keep it up.”

  Estelle felt a little concerned. “Isn’t driving out in the open a little risky?” she said.

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take. It’ll get us there quicker than walking. Right, Tank, take point.”

  The stout Smith saluted and headed off.

  “After you,” Stafford gestured to Estelle and Chaz. They followed after the man who was lumbering north, the other three taking up the rear.

  Two left, Estelle thought, as she swallowed down the little pill.

  XII

  — Yours —

  The Sabretooth skidded around another corner, as Natalia swung the steering hard. Dodds felt the vehicle momentarily ride up on two wheels, as the left-hand side came up off the road. He steadied himself in the passenger seat, lunging at the bars of the roll cage above. A second later, the world began to right itself and there was a heavy bounce as they returned to the road.

  He gave the blonde woman next to him a disapproving look.

  “Sorry,” Natalia said.

  “Seriously, can I drive?”

  “Drive? You told me you’ve never even seen one of these before.”

  That was a no, then. But given the way she was driving, it didn’t seem as though she had either. “Just ease up on the accelerator a bit more and brake earlier; this isn’t a race,” he said, though he didn’t release his hands from the part of the frame he was holding on to.

  Natalia had conducted the vast majority of their journey in a similarly chaotic fashion. Dodds had convinced himself that this was simply down to her desire to reach the extraction point as soon as possible, rather than her poor command of the vehicle. No one was that bad a driver.

  They had been forced to turn off from the main roads, due to the unrelenting clog of vehicles. At certain points, it appeared that bombs or other explosives had collapsed higher walkways and roads, sending concrete, masonry and vehicles crashing down onto the unfortunates below. Even the junctions leading to higher and lower levels were swollen with the traffic of those who had tried to escape. Despite all this, they had managed to weave – and in some cases barge – their way through, until they had found an easier passage to the residential areas.

  Just like the inner city, it appeared that most people had fled, leaving their cars to block the roads.

  “Where is everyone?” Dodds said. “Have you seen anyone else?”

  “No,” Natalia said, looking from the road to the electronic map displayed on the dashboard. “Most of them are probably dead already. Some are probably still hiding in their homes.”

  “They’re probably safer there, to be honest.”

  “Not if the Enemy forces decide to start nuking the city.”

  Dodds could almost feel the silence that followed. “Sorry, did you just say they’ll nuke the city?”

  “We should count ourselves lucky that they haven’t done so already,” Natalia said. “They’re either looking for something, or they have bigger plans for the planet as a whole. Coyote might form part of the strategy for their push into Independent World systems.”

  “Their push? What—”

  Natalia swore and braked hard, testing the effectiveness of their seatbelts as she did so.

  “What’s wrong?” Dodds said, once the vehicle had settled.

  “The underpass is totally blocked,” Natalia said, nodding ahead of them.

  Further up, the road dipped down into a wide, six-lane tunnel. Cars plugged the road, all the way from the entrance, down into the darkening passage. The lights of the tunnel themselves were out, but a handful of the cars’ own highlights still shone, brightly illuminating the vehicles around them. Many of the passenger doors were swinging open, as well as the boots. Items littered the ground between the cars, where it appeared the would-be escapees had urgently pulled out precious belongings, before fleeing the scene.

  Natalia stepped down lightly on the Sabretooth’s accelerator and rolled it up as close to the entrance o
f the tunnel as it could go. She sat up as straight as she could in the driver’s seat, scanning the jam of traffic. “Can you see any way past?” she asked.

  Dodds unbuckled himself and stood up, trying to see over the tops of the cars in front of them. If anything, the tunnel was even more densely packed the further down he looked, coaches and vans obscuring the scene beyond. “No, totally jammed,” he said.

  Natalia swore again. “We’ll have to find another way around.” She turned to the electronic display on the dashboard and began to tap away at the map, exploring their next set of options. Dodds watched her manipulate the map, zooming in and out, and scrolling it this way and that, as she tried to work out a better route for them to take. She began to steadily become more and more agitated with the system, as every new route the map suggested wanted to take them back through the inaccessible tunnel.

  “For crying out loud—” she started.

  “Hey, come on, let me try,” Dodds suggested. He reached over and gently removed her hand from the touchscreen. As he did so, he couldn’t help but notice how soft her skin felt. He found it hard to believe that this was one of the hands that had only hours earlier been punching him in the face. Her fingers lingered on his hand for a brief moment before slipping away.

  “You can normally tell these things to avoid certain routes,” he said, as he began flipping through various menus and options on the screen. He soon found the settings he was after, and a short time later he had succeeded in telling the system to re-plot the route. It was far from ideal – the yellow line describing their new path was snaking its way through a number of different roads and, for the most part, taking them further out west, instead of north. At some points it was even turning back south. Even so, Natalia seemed impressed.

  “Good one,” she said.

  “I could give it another go and see if I can improve it?” Dodds offered.

  Natalia shook her head. “No, I doubt we can make it much better. The tunnel was the fastest route; it could’ve cut our journey time by a good half-hour or more. Which is why that lot were so keen to use it,” she added, nodding towards the abandoned vehicles. “Let’s hope that we don’t have to take many other diversions.”

  She shifted the Sabretooth into reverse and had begun to head out of the tunnel when a thunderous clamour came from overhead. Dodds and Natalia exchanged disquieted looks and Natalia quickly killed the engine as the sound grew louder. Moments later, seven triangular shapes hurtled into view, passing quickly overhead. Aircraft. They remained visible for only a few seconds before they disappeared from sight, into the distance.

  “Fireflies,” Dodds said, recognising the contours of the common UNF fighter craft that had flown past.

  “We’d better hurry,” Natalia said. “They may be providing aerial assistance to ground forces who are attempting to pull back. I doubt it will be long before local forces abandon the city.”

  She restarted the Sabretooth, reversed away from the entrance of the tunnel, and began chasing the yellow line across the map.

  *

  Something had started to bother Dodds about the new route they were pursuing. Though the volume of traffic and concentration of debris and destruction were as heavy as on the other roads they had previously travelled, these were far easier to negotiate than those before. A path had been cut through the sea of abandoned cars, buses and trucks. They lay on the sides of the road, crushed and flipped over onto their roofs. It was as if a giant snake had forced its way down the street, swallowing all that lay directly in its path, and shoving all else aside.

  The scene didn’t fill him with much confidence. Less so when he noticed how, in various places, the paving stones and tarmac were cracked and dented. The snake had apparently grown legs.

  “Something heavy’s been down this way,” he said.

  “With any luck, it’s long gone,” Natalia said.

  Down one of the tight streets that passed by on his left-hand side, Dodds glimpsed something moving toward the plaza up ahead. The view was gone an instant later. Just as he began to think he had imagined it, he saw down another street. People were moving, running quickly. The next street they passed by confirmed his suspicions, and what he had at first believed to be the noise of the tyres of their vehicle, crunching across the gravel and debris that littered their path, turned out to be gunfire. Natalia seemed oblivious to the danger, and as the Sabretooth hit the approaching crossroads, she swung the vehicle hard to the left.

  “No! Turn around! Turn around!” Dodds exclaimed. The world tilted and Dodds quickly discovered that Natalia had ignored his driving advice, allowing the vehicle to once again ride up onto two wheels, in yet another misguided attempt to take the corner at speed. He heard her swear as she fought for control over the steering, but his eyes were now fixed on the scene ahead of them.

  Up ahead lay the plaza. What appeared to be a large number of men and women were crouched behind walls and other crudely erected barricades. They were firing on a number of fast-moving targets, all of whom were clothed in black. Great lumps of concrete lay everywhere, having been torn from walls, and monuments, and pillars were intermixed with the remains of what looked like statues. A large, central fountain sat dormant, water no longer gushing from its spout. A torrent of plasma, laser, and bullet fire was flying in all directions, as the two sides attempted to cut one another down. Those closest to the road that Dodds and Natalia had accelerated up appeared to be vastly outnumbered. Dodds was able to count maybe twenty or so people taking cover. And, whilst he couldn’t count the total opposition, the amount of fire coming towards them suggested their numbers were far greater.

  His eyes then passed beyond the fountain, to the object rising up behind it. An armoured vehicle, suspended on several pairs of legs that jutted out of the sides, was stomping its way across the expansive plaza. A set of cannons, affixed to the front like a pair of mandibles, spun rapidly as it sprayed its targets. An Imperial Spider Walker. Dodds had seen such a vehicle several times before, but had always been several hundred metres above it, safely enclosed within the cockpit of a TAF, the fighter itself surrounded by a defensive energy shield. Gazing up at the hulking form, he felt more naked and vulnerable than ever before.

  “Natalia! Spider!” was all he could manage.

  Natalia said nothing, studying the scene ahead and leaving Dodds with the frightening thought that she might be contemplating powering forward, into and through the battle. She couldn’t possibly be thinking that! She had no idea of what lay beyond, or what was happening elsewhere in the plaza. A second later, Natalia pulled down on the handbrake, causing the vehicle to skid once more. It spun about, slowing and coming to a complete stop, facing in the opposite direction to which they had been going. Natalia then released the brake and pressed down hard on the accelerator, the wheels of the Sabretooth spinning madly as they sought to reaffirm their purchase on the road surface. It sounded to Dodds as though the amount of skidding the woman had done, coupled with the less than ideal condition of the Sabretooth before the two had taken it, meant that the tread on the tyres was starting to suffer.

  “We’ll have to find another way around,” Natalia said.

  “Aren’t these the guys we’re coming up here to meet?” Dodds asked.

  “No,” Natalia said, fighting against the steering as she attempted to get the Sabretooth straight. “We’re still miles away from the extraction point.”

  Dodds considered their options as the Sabretooth hit the crossroads once more, and found that their alternative routes were not as clear as he had once imagined. A number of figures, moving ahead of a multitude of different vehicles, were making their way over to join those within the plaza. Dodds made out a number of stilted legs rising several metres high behind them.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed Natalia was already well aware of the approaching army, carrying on straight across the road, heading south. They went only one hundred metres or so before she slammed on the brakes once more
. Beyond, the road was blocked by a non-negotiable pile of rubble, the remnants of a number of coffee houses, restaurants and theatres, that had been prominent in this part of the inner city. Natalia glanced around for a moment, before she threw the Sabretooth into reverse and swung back around.

  “This wasn’t such a good idea,” she said, her foot slamming down again on the accelerator and taking them back towards the crossroads. “We’ll have to head back west and try to dodge the traffic.”

  “It might be better if we just—” Dodds began, before a sight cut him off. A black suit had stepped out, directly in their path. Apparently unperturbed by the three tons of metal that was speeding towards him, the solider raised their weapon and trained it on the two largely-unprotected occupants of the vehicle.

  “Natalia! Turn around!” Dodds called, hoping the woman might listen to him this time, and take them out of the line of fire.

  “No time. Get your head down.” she said. She slid down into her seat, low enough to offer her some protection, but not enough that her vision was completely obscured. It was clear that she intended on sticking to her chosen route, and that involved running down anything that got in her way.

  Dodds followed suit, getting as low down in his seat as he could. An instant later, the soldier up ahead began to pepper the already cracked windshield with bullets. The toughened glass cracked and Dodds saw it start to buckle before the continuous onslaught of bullets. Even so, it didn’t break, shatter, or collapse, and Natalia kept her foot down, closing the gap. The soldier, it seemed, had been aiming for the Sabretooth’s driver. With it now becoming evident that he wasn’t going to be able to defeat the protection of the toughened windshield, he turned his attention to the vehicle’s wheels.

  Dodds heard the two front tyres burst, the torn rubber flapping about the wheels. He felt the Sabretooth begin to slide, a sensation that he had grown very accustomed to over the course of the past hour – though now with Natalia in even less control of its motion, careening full speed towards the soldier, who held his ground before it.