The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  Judging by the generous use of exclamation marks in the message, what they had uncovered had clearly left him very excited. He had said nothing about Dodds, Chaz or anyone else, and Kelly could only assume that they were in good health. She had sent him a short reply. “I love you. Please be careful.” There wasn’t anything more that needed saying. She would hopefully find out more about this revelation soon.

  Her brief inspection and show of presence over, she dropped back to the rear of the advancing craft, returning to her post behind the luxury liner. The journey towards the gate continued without incident and she began clicking through her ATAF’s comms system, listening to the radio chatter, while keeping one eye on her radar. She refreshed her message inbox a couple of times, to see if Enrique had left her any follow-up messages. There weren’t any.

  “… taken down four of the security team already and just about anyone else who gets in their way! They’re even gunning down the civilians! It’s turning into a bloodbath down here!”

  The voice drew Kelly’s attention and she looked about her cockpit. The scene around her remained normal, the craft she was charged with escorting continuing towards the gate with no apparent issues.

  “Looks like they’re not going to wait for takeoff clearance,” another voice came through. “We need to find a way to stop them, and I mean carefully!”

  “We can take their ship down before it can take off,” another added. More and more voices came over the line, adding their opinion of how to handle the situation.

  “We don’t have enough mag cannons or lasers in the immediate area, sir. Unless you want to bring one of the ATAFs down here, we’re going to have to wait on their demands.”

  “Kelly, we’ve got a situation,” Estelle’s voice came over the line.

  “I’ve just heard it on the channels,” Kelly replied. “What’s happening?” She glanced again to the vessels she continued to accompany. They remained none the wiser, even her fellow escorts appearing oblivious to the struggle that was unfolding planet-side.

  “A group at the airport have gotten fed up with waiting and have decided to skip the queue. Security teams are withdrawing. They don’t want to provoke anything, in case it’s not a bluff. I’m seeing a lot of panic down there. The perpetrators started a major firefight in the airport and have taken hostages, apparently about forty or fifty.”

  “Fifty?!” Kelly repeated. Hostage taking wasn’t a common occurrence, but it wasn’t altogether rare, either. The numbers normally only ever involved about three or four people, though.

  “Definitely more than fifty now; they’ve just forced a load more aboard. It was all the people waiting for the next public transport to Sol, and you’ve seen how big those queues are. At least twelve armed men and women grabbed them. They could have about sixty civilians now.”

  “Any idea what they want?”

  “Negative, but I’m hoping they just want to get out of the system as soon as possible. Whatever it is, we need to find a way to defuse this carefully, or we’ll have another Maria-Angelina to contend with.”

  Maria-Angelina, the time when a group of psychotic individuals had intentionally provoked panic, causing civilian craft to begin attacking one another, seemingly for no other reason than to create chaos.

  “Or another Kire, if military craft are seen opening fire on civilians, even if we had no choice back then,” Kelly added.

  “That we don’t want.”

  “What do you know about the hostage takers’ ship?”

  “It’s a big one. I’m just getting the details transmitted to me now. I’m going to hold my position here until we can hear their demands. I doubt anyone who takes that many hostages is just making idle threats.”

  The jumpgate loomed before Kelly, the massive circular structure with its multitude of glowing sections and running lights not more than a few hundred kilometres from her now. She had brought the convoy far enough. “I’m turning around,” she said, swinging about and boosting back towards Sky. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

  At the relative snail’s pace the group had been moving, the speed Kelly accelerated at caused them to shrink dramatically in only a few minutes, and it wasn’t long before details of the continents of Sky far below were coming back in to view, followed swiftly thereafter by the growing definition of the land itself. She could soon make out the location of the airport. The organised caravan of vessels was nowhere to be seen, many of the craft now wandering off in various different directions, clearly seeking to evade the destruction that had erupted just beneath them. She called for an update.

  “They’re taking off,” Estelle responded. “USID is IN-ELO-CB, formerly known as the Code Breaker, from the Independent nation Elopean. Shields are up. Mags won’t do a thing until we get past those.”

  “Got it,” Kelly answered, after filtering through a number of options on her radar. Having just lifted off, the vessel was still a considerable way below her, but was already accelerating hard. She held her position above the planet, not moving any lower, shifting her heading and making a guess at where the ship might emerge as it approached her height. She watched as the Code Breaker’s altitude slowly increased, her predictive targeting matrix becoming steadily more accurate as the distance decreased, and she soon saw Estelle chasing not far behind the craft.

  “Keep on them, Kelly,” Estelle said. “I’m going to try and establish contact and get a dialogue going.”

  Kelly listened as Estelle began ordering the ship down, using a series of non-confrontational justifications, before then moving on to issue warnings. All were ignored, and both the Code Breaker and Estelle’s ATAF soon commenced planet leave. Kelly pursued, bringing her weapons systems online and starting to determine the most appropriate locations about the ship to target, so as to bring it down without fatally damaging it. From its design, the Code Breaker appeared to be little more than one of the larger in-system transit vessels, though one that had been heavily modified. A number of non-standard components had been introduced, painted over and surrounded by reflective materials in an attempt to disguise their nature. She guessed that beneath those add-ons would be various bolted-on weapon arrays. She would have to react immediately to those, if they revealed themselves.

  “This is Commander Taylor to evac teams,” Kelly said. “Requesting permission to open fire on the Code Breaker. Will direct lasers against shielding and then target engines with mag cannons, only.”

  “That’s a negative, Taylor, de Winter. Do not fire on that ship,” Simpson’s voice came in reply. “We need to resolve this without offensive action. As you already know, that ship is believed to be carrying over fifty hostages. Attacking that ship could result in the hostages being killed by their captors. We need to resolve this peacefully and have the operators stand down. I’m getting updates from Commodore Meyers. Please stand by.”

  “Very well,” Kelly said, as she saw Estelle and the Code Breaker transitioning to open space, “will hold fire until instructed otherwise.” She hoped that Meyers had a better idea. Lasers to quickly cut down the shields and then disrupting the engines and vital systems with mag cannons would be the best way to prevent the ship from going any further. But there was indeed the fate of the hostages to consider. She would hate to bring down the Breaker, only to open her up and be faced with a pile of dead bodies. She accelerated to catch her wing commander and the Breaker.

  “Kelly, pull back,” Estelle communicated. “We might be too intimidating in the ATAFs. They’re going to send in a Ray and TAF to try to handle this. We’re to continue following, but not get in too close.”

  Kelly soon saw the Ray and a TAF pulling up alongside the front of the escaping vessel, so that they were parallel with the frontal viewport. Kelly could hear the pilots making similar demands of the ship to those of Estelle, telling them to cut their engines and hold position until they were boarded. The Code Breaker remained as silent as ever.

  Kelly was quite unsurprised by the vessel’s crew’s l
ack of cooperation. They were yet another example of those who were insistent on going it alone, unwilling to leave their fates in the hands of the allied forces. She could sort of understand why. The allies had completely failed to halt the advances of the Pandoran army so far, in some cases failing to protect the people who were depending on the navy to get them to safety. She caught herself glancing in the direction of the liner that was almost at the active jumpgate, now sustaining a conduit leading towards Sol. She tried not to think of the Calypso’s Fancy.

  “We can’t all go to Sol,” a voice suddenly came over her comms. It was coming from the Breaker. “There won’t be room on Earth! Lots of us have given everything to Helios and yet your priority is to help those that are nothing but a drain on society!”

  “Breaker, this is Lieutenant Commander Jameson of the Midnight Runners,” the Ray communicated. “Please shut down your engines and stand down. We understand that you want to get out of the system as soon as possible and ensure safe passage to Sol. No one is denying you that. No harm will come to you if you halt your ship now and allow your hosta—”

  “Not everyone deserves it!” the Breaker interrupted, without a hint of acknowledgement of the orders. “You’re giving the poor and the scroungers safe passage, and making us wait in line! They can’t even afford jump drives! They’ll just continue to be a burden!”

  “Code Breaker, I repeat – please shut down your engines—” Jameson began.

  Kelly’s computer then jingled, notifying her of the sudden appearance of the Breaker’s weapons system. Crude mechanical hatches popped open, panelling dropping away, from out of which gun turrets poked themselves. No, Kelly realised, the Breaker’s crew weren’t totally like those that had gone before them – these guys were quite clearly prepared to take a much more violent approach to dealing with the obstacles that stood between them and sanctuary.

  She heard the Ray and the TAF pilots swear, before both began dropping back and commencing evasive manoeuvres. It did them little good, the proximity of their fighters to the Breaker making the gunners’ job of hitting their pursuers all too easy. The TAF was the first to go down, a stream of particle and plasma cannon bolts striking it, rupturing its shields as the pilot made efforts to dodge. The engines cut out with a short flash and the fighter began to tumble.

  “Ejecting!” the pilot called over the open channel. He seemingly didn’t manage to reach the ejection handle in time, his TAF exploding as the chasing stream of plasma bolts slammed into the thin armour and blew it to smithereens.

  The Ray faired little better, turrets on the opposite side of the Breaker directing their fire at it. The Ray’s greater defensive shielding allowed it to survive longer than the TAF’s had and the fighter was able to fall back further, coming up behind the Breaker. The Breaker then spat a missile from its rear that hunted down its target the moment it was loosed. Kelly guessed that, like the TAF pilot, the two flyers of the Ray must’ve reached for their countermeasures too late. The missile smashed into its left wing, causing it to snap off and spin away. The Ray rolled over and over, sparking and trailing splinters of armour before it went up. Kelly thought she saw the two pilots eject from the fighter at the very last moment, but soon discovered that she had been mistaken.

  Her ATAF’s computer systems then whined and she reacted instantly to the missile that shot towards her, barely missing her by what must’ve been only a few metres, if that. She hit her countermeasures as soon as it was passed her and began moving up towards the Breaker. Kelly then banked hard as the cannons of her target opened up, the barrage directed at both ATAFs that now chased it.

  “Okay, now can we return fire?!” she asked.

  “Break and attack,” Estelle said, after conversing very briefly with Meyers. “Target engines and weapon systems only, until their shielding is exhausted. Once it’s down, hit them with the mags.”

  Kelly did so, sweeping the vessel with her lasers as she flew around it. The Breaker’s cannons were raging, the gunners spraying fire indiscriminately in every direction. There were a lot of guns on that ship, more than most other modified craft. Even so, a nagging feeling told her that those aboard the Breaker had other tricks up their sleeves; more than likely if they were willing to pit themselves against four starfighters, including two ATAFs. The trick revealed itself moments later, the sight of which made Kelly feel sick to her stomach. Hatches opened, from out of which began to tumble bodies. It was all too clear what was happening.

  “They’re spacing the hostages!” she called, releasing the trigger of her guns and pulling away from the Code Breaker.

  “Too late, they’re dead now,” Estelle said, continuing her own sweep. “Keep on it.”

  Kelly forced herself to return to the task at hand, doing her best to ignore the bodies that were streaming from the ship. The Breaker’s shields were almost down now and it wouldn’t be long before Kelly and Estelle could make use of their mag cannons and halt its escape. She was preparing to do so when she saw more hatches begin to drop at the rear of the ship, detaching themselves as if they were pieces of an unwanted shell. More did so from the sides, revealing internal components that began to slide out and unfold. Like the cannons, they appeared to have been packed in tight. To begin with, Kelly thought it was some kind of high-powered weapon, an accelerator cannon or mass driver, fitted specifically to fend off the sort of heavy duty attention that Estelle and herself were bringing against the Breaker. She then realised what she was looking at. A jump drive. The engines flared, the internal mechanisms that were once hidden behind heavily reinforced materials protecting it from damage and detection starting to pulse as they commenced their wind-up sequence.

  “No one else should be allowed to go! Just us!” the voice of the Breaker sounded, before a number of objects raced away from the ship, Kelly’s radar swiftly identifying them as rockets.

  She was quick to decipher their trajectory and intended targets, seeing them streaking towards the colonists still heading for the jumpgate. Kelly now knew what the Breaker’s crew’s intentions were. Seeing themselves as ‘privileged’, they wanted to ensure that only people such as themselves made it to and were accepted at Sol; everyone else was a burden. The Breaker was therefore seeking to take down both the fleeing colonists and the jumpgate, to make certain of that. She wasn’t about to give them that chance.

  “Kelly—” Estelle started.

  “I’m on them!” Kelly answered, needing no further prompting, swinging around and powering after the rockets, knowing that she had to find a way to bring them down. They were moving faster than she was, even with the speeds the ATAF granted her, the distance readings increasing rapidly as the rockets hurtled towards the colonists. As if shooting down a rocket wasn’t hard enough, now she also risked hitting friendly/innocent targets. She locked onto the first of the rockets, fine graining her targeting matrix to give her a better chance of success, as Estelle warned her of more rockets following after.

  Lasers would be needed here, the instantaneous beams catching up with the rockets far sooner than her other armaments. She would need to hit the rockets’ engines, too, those representing the only point that the lasers stood of causing damage. If at all. Aligned with her targets Kelly fired, favouring short bursts of the lasers over the heavy streams of plasma that she would normally direct against regular opponents. She wanted to ensure that as little stray fire hit the colonists as possible.

  Though she had had low expectations, explosions far ahead told of her success, her radar indicating that a good number of the rockets had been destroyed. Not all of them, though. Those, however, missed their intended targets, streaking past the colonists and the gate. A relief that none had actually entered that subspace conduit. The Breaker’s gunners must have fired the unguided rockets blind, in the hopes of hitting something. Kelly then saw the second batch of rockets streak past her. Closer than the first had been, they proved easier to shoot down.

  With the threat of the rockets eliminated, Kelly
looped around in time to see a bright slice appear ahead of the Breaker, the distortion settling quickly, taking on the familiar appearance of the subspace jump conduit, the entrance framed by a slow-turning whirlpool-like mouth. Just ahead of the Breaker, Estelle boosted immediately out of the way, not wishing to risk being drawn into that tunnel and be yanked off into the unknown, were she to cross the threshold of the event horizon.

  “What do we do?” Kelly said. The Breaker had stopped firing on both her, Estelle and the colonists, its propulsion engines coming up to full power and thrusting it towards the freshly-opened jump point at a rapid pace. It would be through the point and out of Alpha Centauri in only a few moments.

  “de Winter to fleet,” Estelle said over the open channel, “the Code Breaker is commencing jump sequencing, please advise.”

  “If there are still hostages aboard that ship then you need to stop it, de Winter,” Meyers answered quickly. “I’m authorising you to use whatever means you need to prevent that ship from leaving the system.”

  “Yes, sir,” Estelle answered.

  Away from the jump point, Estelle arced up and around, bringing herself into line with the Code Breaker and powering towards it, her ATAF’s lasers biting into what remained of the vessel’s shielding. Kelly saw the Breaker’s shield collapse just before Estelle completed her run, the illusion of an eruption of translucent blue splinters bursting forth from the point of the laser’s impact, the thin red beams striking the body of the ship beneath and doing little else but leaving tiny scorch marks in their wake.

  “Kelly, hit it with your mags!” Estelle called, as she shot by.

  Kelly did so, bringing the Breaker into line and aiming her mags at the exposed components on the side, squeezing off the shots just as the ship began to enter the jump point. A great number of mag bolts crashed into what must have been part of the jump drive, once packed in, now exposed and vulnerable. Even so, the Breaker started to accelerate rapidly.

  “Kelly!” Estelle’s voice was urgent.