“Estelle, slow down. You’re going to choke,” Chaz said.
“I’m okay, Chaz, you don’t need to worry.”
“Cigarette good?”
“It was needed.”
“I could tell,” said Chaz. “Haven’t been doing so well ever since you ran out of pills, have you?”
“Wh … what?” Estelle spluttered. How did he know? Had someone told him? Who? She hadn’t let anyone know about those pills, not even Dodds. She looked from Chaz to the men keeping them company. Some were watching them, others were attending to their meals.
“I’ve noticed you taking them over the last couple of months. Didn’t know exactly what they were back then, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea now.” The big man reached into a trouser pocket and removed something from within, handing it over.
“What’s this?” Estelle asked. She held in her hand a small bottle, not unlike the one that had previously contained her pills. Other than the highly-detailed label on the front, it was otherwise plain white.
“Pareazepam,” Chaz said. “Got them off Milligan. He uses them to help relieve any anxiety and keep himself steady, while he’s working his sniper rifle. He doesn’t get on with the auto-leveller; finds it too stiff and prefers to do it himself. They might not be as good as the stuff you had, but it’ll probably do the job for the time being.”
Got them off Milligan, huh? Figures. With all they have to say to each other, they probably got along like a house on fire. She couldn’t recall Milligan having said one word since they had met nearly a day earlier, save for the obvious exceptions of “Yes”, “Sir” and maybe even “Yes, sir”, if he was feeling particularly talkative. Estelle cracked the top off the bottle, seeing a number of elliptical-shaped orange pills inside. She took one out, examining it closely. Tiny black lettering ran one side of it, the words Pareazepam (benzodiazepine) quite clear.
“Thank you, Chaz,” Estelle said, with genuine gratitude.
“Don’t mention it,” Chaz said. “Don’t take too many of them at once. Milligan said only two every couple of hours, at absolute most. Take any more than that and you could start to hallucinate. They’re only for short-term use, too, so don’t go relying on them.”
“Nothing much gets past you, does it?”
“You say that as if it’s a good thing. I always say that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, though most days, I often wish that I knew a lot less …” His voice remained warm, but with a trace of regret.
“Ignorance is bliss,” Estelle said.
“It is indeed.” Chaz picked up his MRE packet, gave it a stir and then went back to chatting with the Mythos Territorial Guard.
Estelle pocketed the bottle and stared down into her half-full can of beans and sausages. She once again didn’t feel like eating; she felt a little humiliated and stupid. For everything she didn’t like about Chaz, he had clearly made an effort to look out for her.
And after all, he had saved her life twice since they’d come down on Mythos – once outside the television studio, when the patrol had gone past; and again during the firefight, when she may well have been crushed to death, had it not been for his speedy intervention, pulling her to safety. Likely, there had been many other not so obvious occasions, too. Doubtful she would’ve survived more than a few hours without him.
Why did she do it? Why did she always view everyone else as wanting to pull some kind of one-upmanship against her? Life wasn’t a competition. Not everyone she met was someone that she had to prove herself to, to find a way to surpass. Now that she thought about it, Chaz was actually okay. He had clearly been through a lot in his life, which was why he was often so bitter. It wasn’t him or anyone else – it was always she who had burned the bridges. Maybe that had always been her problem …
“Estelle!”
The sound of her name dragged her from her contemplation. That voice! It sounded like … She turned in its direction, seeing, through the darkness, a pair of figures making their way towards her. Of one, she recognised the height, the gait. She didn’t need them to come any closer; she knew exactly who it was already.
*
Dodds saw what looked like a tin can and something else tumble from Estelle’s lap, as she shot up and ran over towards him.
“Simon!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around him with such vigour that she almost bowled him over.
“Hey, hey, calm down,” Dodds managed, as Estelle took his face in her hands and began kissing him enthusiastically.
“I thought you were dead!” Estelle exclaimed.
“No, I’m fine,” Dodds said, managing to wrench Estelle’s hands aside. He noticed that a few of the men whom Estelle had been sitting with were chuckling heartily at the display. “Are you?”
“I’m fine,” she nodded.
He noted how grubby her face was, covered in soot, ash and dirt. “Looks like you’ve been busy,” he started, then sniffed. “Are you smoking? You are smoking!” he added, catching sight of a cigarette nestled between her fingers.
“Just one,” she said. “I think I deserved it after today.” Despite her words, she dropped it to the ground and crushed it underfoot. “What happened to you?”
“I … Chaz!” Dodds said, as he saw the big man making his way over to join the three.
“Dodds. Good to see you made it,” Chaz said. Estelle moved aside as the two men shook hands, and gave one another a short embrace and a pat on the back.
“Glad to see that you took good care of Estelle,” Dodds added. Chaz gave a short, indecipherable chuckle and Dodds looked to Estelle, following her eyes to where they were staring behind him. She was regarding Natalia suspiciously.
“Who are you?” she said, a little curtly.
“Natalia Grace,” Natalia answered, coming forward and extending a hand to shake. “Simon and I ran into each other en route.”
Estelle took her hand and shook it, almost a little begrudgingly.
Dodds exchanged a glance with Chaz, then said, “Uh … Natalia this is Estelle de Winter and Chaz Koonan; Estelle, Chaz, this is Natalia.”
“Good job escorting a civilian to safety, Dodds—” Estelle started.
“Oh, I’m not a civilian,” Natalia interrupted. “I work for the IWC Secret Service.”
“You? The IWC?” Estelle said, looking the woman up and down.
“For nearly eight years,” Natalia said. “Estelle de Winter? You’re Simon’s wing commander, right?”
Estelle looked surprised. “Oh, you’ve heard of me?”
“Sort of. Dodds mentioned you in his sleep.”
Estelle’s jaw flopped open, her eyes starting to narrow. It was clear what she must’ve been thinking. Dodds then saw Chaz roll his eyes, before surreptitiously positioning himself between the two women, causing them to move apart. Dodds guessed that, like himself, Chaz was in no mood to let the predictable pantomime even start playing out.
“So what else happened to you, Dodds?” Chaz said.
“After we got separated, I managed to find a way down to the sled bay,” Dodds said. “I had two escorts, but unfortunately one was killed just as we got there. I got into a sled with the other guy and managed to get to the surface, but came down miles from the beach. The guy I was with died in the sled during the trip, too. Not exactly sure what happened to him – think he suffocated or something.”
“You missed the coast?” Estelle said. “That’s not like you at all.”
“Trust me, I went and picked the one bloody sled that was overdue for some scheduled maintenance. The damn thing’s rudder gave out about five or six hundred metres up. I ended up going straight through an office block, before finally putting down. I then started off towards the coast. I ran into Natalia sometime after that and we both started to make our way north. It wasn’t exactly the easiest journey I’ve ever made.” He flexed some of his muscles, feeling the pain and discomfort still quite prominent within them. “By the looks of things, you guys made it down okay.”
“Just,” Estelle said. “We hit something during re-entry and I couldn’t lower the heat shield. We ended up almost flying blind. By the time I managed to get the shield down, we were well on our way past the beach. We had to ditch in a park. Came to a stop just in front of a tree.”
The park! “So that was your sled!” Dodds said.
“You were there?”
“Yeah. That’s where I ran into Natalia.”
Estelle nodded. “After we set down, Chaz and I started towards the coast ourselves. We tried to send a signal to the CSN from a news station, but the power cut off before we could do so. We then met these guys,” she indicated the various soldiers sitting around the fire, “and they brought us up this way. They said that the best chance of survival was actually to head towards the fighting.”
“So, you and Chaz have been together this whole time?” Dodds said. He fought against the smile he could feel curling his lip. The thought of Estelle and Chaz wandering all over the city together was very entertaining. The pair weren’t exactly one another’s biggest fans. He was surprised that neither one of them had put their hands around the other’s throat by now. He thought it highly certain it would have happened if they’d not been intercepted by the forces they now stood amongst. He was sure that Enrique probably found this all very amusing. Come to think of it …
“Hey, where’s Enrique?” Dodds asked, eager to share the joke whilst it was still fresh and ripe in his mind. “Is he resting up?” He looked past Estelle and Chaz, expecting to see both Kelly and Enrique lying on the ground together, somewhere in the darkness.
“What?” Estelle said.
“Enrique and Kelly, where are they?”
“They’re not with you?” Chaz asked.
Dodds felt his smile slip, a horrible sinking feeling in his gut. “No. I thought they were with you and this lot?” He looked from Natalia, to Estelle, to Chaz. “Seriously, this isn’t funny! You mean they’re not with you?”
Estelle shook her head. “The last time we saw them was on Ifrit, just before it came down. We assumed they’d landed near the coast. But when we got to the beach, we found the Imperial soldiers had beaten us there. There were bodies everywhere.”
“But you didn’t find them?”
“We didn’t have time to search them all properly,” Chaz said.
Dodds felt his stomach tighten and a sense of urgency grip him. He knew they should’ve gone to search the beach properly! “We have to go back and look for them! They could be wounded or hiding somewhere. The Imperial soldiers could’ve taken them prisoner.”
“No, Simon, it’s too dangerous to go back there,” Natalia said, catching his arm as he started off. “Getting here was no easy task, especially on foot. Going back would be no easier, and tantamount to suicide.”
“But if you didn’t see them on the beach, then they could still be alive, right?” Dodds said. “They could’ve been taken hostage, are prisoners some place.”
“The Enemy don’t take prisoners,” Natalia said. “At least, they’ve never been known to.”
“We have to find them,” Dodds said. “We need to know what’s happened to them.”
“I’m going to find the brigadier,” Estelle said. “They may have had sightings.”
Dodds watched as she hurried off, skipping over the rubble and dodging around groups of people sat down on the ground. “You two been together since Ifrit?” he said to Chaz.
“Yep,” Chaz said.
“How did you both survive that?”
“We’ve … sort of come to an understanding,” the big man said, looking to where Estelle was vanishing off across the square. “But seriously dude, I still can’t believe she used to be your girlfriend.”
Dodds let out a small chuckle. He really should follow Estelle and find out what had happened to Enrique and Kelly. “I’ll go with her. I’ll see you guys back here in a bit.” He started off in the direction that Estelle had run, moving a little faster to catch up with her.
He couldn’t believe what had happened. He always thought that once he managed to catch up with Chaz, Estelle, Enrique or Kelly, the five would all be together again. The possibility that they might all have become separated had never been more than a lingering consideration in the back of his mind. The reality of their situation was far worse than he had ever let himself accept.
He was almost caught up with Estelle now. She was speaking to a man up ahead; presumably that was the brigadier. He looked around to where he had left Chaz, about to call the big man … Huh? He slowed down. Had he just seen Chaz and Natalia embracing? No, he couldn’t have. Even so, they were certainly standing a lot closer together than two strangers might, appearing very comfortable around one another. He watched the pair as they began speaking. He couldn’t hear the words, but judging from their body language, it appeared as though they were being quite familiar with one another. No, they couldn’t be. Could they? Come to think of it, hadn’t Natalia mentioned something about someone whilst they had eaten dinner, last night.
No, there were more important things to deal with right now.
“Anything?” he said, coming up next to Estelle.
“Nothing,” Estelle said. “Quite a few evacuees were loaded onto transports earlier, but there weren’t any reports of any CSN personnel. Not that that means anything – they didn’t immediately recognise me or Chaz, either. There are still a few others waiting to be moved on, but they’re apparently all civilians.”
“Can we send out a search party?” Dodds said.
“And search a city of this size for two people, in the middle of a war?” the man Estelle was speaking to said. “I’m sorry, but there are very few people that are worth that kind of effort, and we already have too much to contend with as it is. You should be counting yourself lucky that you’re still alive. And who are you, anyway?”
Estelle said, “Brigadier Potter, this is First Lieutenant Simon Dodds; Dodds, this is Brigadier Potter, of the Mythos Territorial Guard.”
Potter hesitated. “Wait. Dodds? Simon Dodds?”
“Yeah, Simon Dodds,” Dodds repeated. He noted the quizzical look that had just come across the brigadier’s face. The man looked from himself, to Estelle, and then behind them. Dodds became aware of two people approaching, and looked about to see Chaz and Natalia joining them.
“Wait a moment,” Potter said. “Simon Dodds, Estelle de Winter, Chaz Koonan …” He clicked his fingers, as if trying to coax his mind into completing his current train of thought. “Enrique Todd and Kelly Taylor; the White Knights!” he finished.
“That’s right,” Dodds said, feeling a little bemused. Odd reaction.
“I knew I’d heard your names somewhere before,” Potter said, looking between Estelle and Chaz. “You’re the ATAF pilots!”
“You’re an ATAF pilot?” Natalia exclaimed.
Dodds thought that Estelle and Chaz looked just as confused as he felt, himself. “Uh … yeah. We’ve been piloting those fighters since about June. Earlier, if you factor in the training.”
“You never told me that,” Natalia said. She looked shocked at the revelation.
No, he hadn’t. He’d intentionally kept that information to himself. It now seemed as though that hadn’t been the best decision. He opened his mouth to speak.
“This changes everything!” Potter cut in. “Dillinger,” he called, “get over here and get all of this down.” A man bounded over and unslung a rucksack from his back, extracting some kind of electronic tablet from within. Potter continued, “As of now, finding your two team-mates is our number one priority. Tell me again – where did you last see them, where do you believe they were? What do they look like? What are they wearing? I need to know everything.”
Dodds was flummoxed. A moment ago, Potter had steadfastly refused to assist them in their search for their wingmates. Now, it seemed as though he was dropping everything. As Estelle began to fill Potter in on the details of their last contact with Enrique and Kelly,
Dodds looked around at Chaz, mouthing his bewilderment. Chaz only shrugged. And what was with Natalia’s reaction? She had looked stunned by this sudden insight. He wondered whether if, at the time, she had known of his duty within the CSN, she would have been so reluctant to head to the coast and search for the other four.
“Natalia—” He stopped speaking as a sound filled his ears. He’d heard the same noise before, only hours earlier. The darkness around him suddenly lifted. Bright lights illuminated the square, throwing the surrounding rubble and barricades into sharp relief. From down an adjoining street he could make out the shape of a man, sprinting in the distance. He raised something to his mouth and a second later, Dillinger’s comms crackled into life.
“INCOMING!” came the bellow of the running figure.
Skybikes then hurtled down the street, followed by a multitude of black-suited figures, ruby-red, oval eyes glowing in the dark. The man’s warning came as his last word, a bright green bolt slamming into his back sending him crashing to the ground.
Another sound came from high above, the source obscured by the choking black clouds that had become a permanent layer between the sun and the ground. It was a high-pitched, whistling noise, like something dropping.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Potter said. The man looked unsure of how to react.
The noise didn’t let up for some time, until a bright orange and yellow flash forced its way through the clouds, followed by the crack of an explosion. A moment later, the square was dotted with booms and bright flashes, small pillars of flame leaping up into the air, pulling the ground and much else around it with them.
Bombs!
It seemed that no further hints were needed for the assembled allied soldiers, who sprang up from where they were, hoisting weapons to their sides. Food tumbled from laps and was trampled into the ground as people rose to meet the challenge. Orders were already being shouted up and down the camp, Potter delegating duties and urging people to seek cover.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 77
