The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  Estelle nodded, Dodds’ words finally seeming to make sense. “Okay,” she said. “But at least allow me this.” She reached up and kissed him. Dodds didn’t pull back, but returned a long, lingering kiss that he found stirring some small emotions within him.

  “Are you kissing me goodbye?” Dodds asked.

  “No. I just wanted you to know that I will always be here for you,” Estelle said. “And that if Natalia ever breaks your heart, she should worry about a visit from me.”

  Dodds chuckled. “Thank you,” he said. “So, are we cool now?”

  Estelle smiled. “Yes.”

  “Good, because we’re holding up the lift.”

  Estelle looked to the control, it dawning on her that they had been here for quite some time. Pushing the release button she allowed the car to continue its descent.

  “I’d best get back to my assigned task,” Estelle said, as the lift doors opened at the engineering deck. “I don’t want to appear tardy in front of Parks at a time like this.”

  “Okay,” Dodds said. “I’ll see you back on the bridge after we’re all done.”

  “Go find your princess, Simon,” Estelle smiled.

  *

  It took him a while to track Natalia down. She wasn’t anywhere about the crews’ quarters, and he eventually found her in the main hangar, not doing anything in particular. She didn’t appear to have heard him enter the hangar, seemingly off in a world of her own. Chaz was nowhere to be seen.

  “Natalia?” said Dodds, his voice echoing about the empty chamber.

  Natalia jumped, quite startled, and turned to face him. “Oh! Simon,” she said, wiping quickly at her eyes.

  Dodds eyed her for a moment. He had come to talk to her about what had just happened on the bridge, keen to find out exactly what was the issue between her and Parks. Having now found her, quite distracted, in the hangar, he was sure that there was something else playing on the woman’s mind. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, looking away from him, her attention moving to other things.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I … I just thought I’d come down here and take inventory, in case we needed it.”

  Dodds looked about himself. There wasn’t a great deal to count, unless she was going to start opening up all the tool boxes and making a list of all the individual grub screws. “Uh huh. Why are you really down here?” he asked.

  “Do you remember I told you how I once spent three weeks in an escape pod?” she said. “This hangar is where my pod was brought when I was eventually picked up. I was rescued by Cratos. I remember waking up from hibernation and finding myself here. I thought I’d been picked up by the Enemy. I thought that I was going to step out of the pod and be shot to ribbons.”

  As she spoke, she looked up at a number of gangways that ran round the perimeter. Dodds pictured the scene, the single retrieved escape pod sitting in the middle of the hangar, and many black-clad soldiers training guns on it, ready to dispatch whoever emerged.

  “It turned out that I’d been found by friends of mine, who were performing sweeps of some of the evacuated systems. Ironically, I think that they were just as scared of what they were going to find when those doors opened as I was. It all feels like a lifetime ago, now,” she tailed off.

  “They’re not here now?” Dodds asked. “Serving aboard, I mean.”

  “No,” Natalia shook her head. “I think they’re all dead.” She went quiet again, and just continued looking about the hangar. Dodds couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I left them all behind,” she volunteered, as Dodds moved to speak. “I was the one that got away.”

  “Left who behind?” Dodds asked.

  “The other agents,” she said, finally turning to face him. There was sadness in her eyes, as well as moistness. She had clearly been weeping. “We were ambushed by Pandoran forces as we were preparing to jump back across the Imperial border, after my final assignment in Mitikas. A load of fighters and a frigate came for our convoy, shooting us down. I was entrusted with the intel. The others died so that I could get away.”

  “Do you feel guilty about that?” Dodds ventured.

  “Yes,” Natalia nodded, the word almost inaudible.

  “Why?” Dodds said. “You had no choice; you just had to do your job. Those people put their faith in you. It’s not as if you had callously abandoned them.”

  Natalia said something that Dodds didn’t quite catch.

  “Pardon?” he asked.

  “No, it’s nothing,” she said, turning away and dabbing at her eyes again. Dodds reached out a hand, placing it on her back. She moved away as he did so, and so he let his arm drop back to his side.

  “So … what was that all about with Parks?” Dodds asked. “Why doesn’t he want you on the ship?” He wasn’t entirely sure it was the right time to be asking such questions, with Natalia in such an emotional state. He could at least try and comfort her, however.

  Natalia let out a long sigh. “I’ve known Parks for almost as long as I’ve been in the service,” she said. “We used to get on fine, but after the troubles in Mitikas began to escalate and more and more pressure was piled on us, our relationship became very strained.”

  “Did you … get involved together?” he ventured.

  “No, nothing like that,” Natalia said. “Do you remember how I told you I’ve wanted to get out of the service for a while now, and just go back to having a normal life? That desire began to affect my work. I wasn’t performing at a level the service could consider either useful or dependable.”

  “So, why didn’t they just let you go?” Dodds wanted to know. After all, wasn’t that the best thing to do?

  “They never let you go,” Natalia said. “Parks actually advised that I was pulled out of intelligence gathering work, as he thought that I was starting to become something of a liability. He stopped trusting me with important tasks and didn’t like me being involved in critical operations. Given all that, he wasn’t too happy with me knowing what I did, either. You of course know of the Grace Report?”

  “Yes,” Dodds nodded. “It’s based on the information and findings that you brought back from Mitikas.”

  Natalia nodded. “I knew everything there was to know about the Pandorans, as well as all the proposed strategies for dealing with them.”

  “Which is why Parks reacted the way he did back on Mythos, when you told us about the exact nature of the ATAFs and the Pandoran army, and the suicide nature of our mission,” Dodds finished.

  “It was easier before we met, Simon,” Natalia said. “I never counted on actually meeting someone directly involved; never counted on meeting you,” she added, turning to face him once more. Tears were running down her cheeks. “You’re not supposed to let your own feelings for someone get in the way of your mission or your objectives; not allow your emotions to cloud your judgement. It’s part of the job description, you know?” She sniffled. “Like I said – liability.”

  “I’m sure that Parks doesn’t actually hate you.”

  “I know,” Natalia said. “But I think he would rather I performed better.”

  And from the sound of it, so do you, Dodds thought. “But what you did is totally understandable,” he said, reassuringly. “I couldn’t do it, either. I couldn’t stand there and knowingly let people like us go off to their deaths without at least warning them.”

  “But that’s what makes the difference between a good agent and a bad one,” Natalia said. “You mustn’t ever get attached to the people you work with. And I’ve failed on that one.” She gave a weak smile, one that Dodds somehow managed to return. “Thank you for coming to look for me, Simon.”

  “Not a problem,” he said.

  “You’d better go handle your assignment,” she prompted. “I don’t think we’re short of serving crew – I recognise some faces – but it might be good if you get up to speed on flying a shuttle. God knows I could never handle on
e. I’ll talk to the crew and see if there is anything that needs dealing with.”

  “Okay,” Dodds said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  *

  “You found her, then?” Chaz asked, tapping through the transport’s console configuration.

  “In the main hangar,” Dodds said, doing likewise at his own screen.

  “She was there when I arrived,” Chaz said, as he continued to familiarise himself with the screens and controls. “She wanted to be left alone, but I took that to mean that she actually wanted to see you.”

  “It seemed so,” Dodds said, half to Chaz and half to himself. “She needed a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to about something that was very close to her heart.”

  “A good thing you were there for her, then,” Chaz said. “She always seemed to need someone when I knew her, but never quite found them.”

  “She opened up a bit to me,” Dodds said, restarting the process he was working through, to help reinforce it in his mind. “She told me a few things about Parks and that. Stuff you probably already knew.” He glanced over to Chaz, seeing him nod. It was clear that he knew what Dodds meant.

  “And how about Estelle?” Chaz wanted to know. “Get everything settled with her?”

  Wow, Dodds thought, a little stunned. It wasn’t like Chaz to either gossip or take too much interest in others’ personal lives. Though he had come out of his shell considerably in the last few years, Chaz could still be quite insular when it came to personal matters. Today he seemed different. Was he just looking out for those close to him? Was this how he spoke to Enrique? Dodds wondered. “Don’t miss a trick, do you?” he said.

  “No,” Chaz replied, after a noticeable pause.

  The thorn of his coercement was still there, Dodds realised. He wondered if, due to his training and immersion in the spying game, Chaz would always be sensitive to the smallest details, living a life of near-paranoia. Would it catch up with him in later life, haunting him so that he thought people were always watching or following him?

  “Estelle and I have made our peace,” Dodds said. “It’s … sort of complicated, though. We’re friends; we’ll always be there for one another.”

  “I understand,” Chaz said. “How are you getting on there? Any problems?” he asked, looking towards Dodds’ screens.

  “So-so,” Dodds said, falling behind for a moment as he tried to understand the configuration that he was working his way through.

  Parks hadn’t been far wrong in his assumption that Cratos’ hangars might contain an array of different vessels. The main hangar, as Dodds had discovered, was empty, with the sub-hangars making only small offerings. No starfighters, as would be expected of a dreadnought, and only a handful of other craft, along with a smattering of escape pods. Out of all the vessels here, it seemed to Dodds that only one met their needs, this being a transit shuttle not unlike the one that had carried him, Enrique and Chaz to the surface of Kethlan, not that long before. Making his way towards it, Dodds found Chaz already inside, seated with one other member of Cratos’ crew, learning the ins and outs of the handling, screens and other nuances of the vessel. Chaz, being more familiar with such transits, had picked up things far more quickly than Dodds had, but even he was getting it now.

  “Rudder?” Dodds asked over his shoulder.

  “Not as such,” Colin Wood, the officer standing behind him, replied, leaning forward and showing him how the mechanism was used. “The main engine is only composed of four separate thrusters, which are controlled like this. It’s probably not as fine-grained as what you’re used to.”

  “Any way to route it differently?” Dodds asked.

  “Unfortunately not,” Wood said. “And, yeah, I find it a total pain in the arse, too. It’s not really designed for anything more than short space hops. These models have been known to rupture from time to time when attempting atmospheric re-entry.”

  “Let’s hope we won’t be doing that, then,” Dodds remarked.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Wood said as his comms jingled, summoning him away to some other task.

  Dodds watched him go, seeing Chaz continuing to work silently through his tasks. His expression was largely unreadable, though Dodds was sure he knew what might be going on in the man’s head. “You … you’re still not getting on with Parks, then?” he asked. The big man was quiet for a time, and Dodds wondered if he was going to ignore the question and let the subject slip.

  “He ruined my life,” Chaz said. “I missed out on the greatest parts of it. I married the woman of my dreams, only never to spend time with her. I have two sons, whom I’ve been denied the joy of seeing grow up. I’ve missed their first words, their first steps, their first birthday … They call me Dad, but sometimes I wonder if they really know what that means. I sure as hell sometimes think that I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dodds said. “I can’t even begin to imagine what that must feel like.”

  “Bastard should’ve just locked me up.”

  Dodds glanced to him, seeing him more sorrowful than he had expected. No furious anger, just regret. “It would probably have ended up the same if they had,” he said.

  “I’d have been out in five years,” Chaz replied, bitterly.

  “You gained survival skills, though,” Dodds said. “You never know what might’ve actually happened if you’d not had those.”

  “No,” Chaz said, after a time. “I guess not.”

  Dodds figured it was time to end this conversation. Satisfied with the progress they’d made on familiarizing themselves with the shuttle, he turned to the side door as he heard someone approaching, expecting to see the officer who had given them their initial course in the handling of the craft and workings of the instrument panel returning.

  “Hey, how’s it looking?” It was Enrique. He studied the interior for a time, before leaning out again to look about the outside of the craft. “This it?” He sounded rather doubtful.

  “I think we’re all good,” Dodds said, with a sideways glance at Chaz. “It’s got a couple of guns affixed to the front, but they look like they’ve only been bolted on recently, so probably have pretty poor calibration and power consumption.”

  “Missiles?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’s the handling?”

  “Standard for this sort of craft,” Chaz said, finishing up what he’d been working through and starting out of his seat. “Good enough for short hops, but that’s about it. Probably a little better than a sled, if you want a comparison. Not that we’ll be flying this thing ourselves. We’re just doing this in case something happens to the actual pilots.”

  “Oh, we’ve got two volunteers?”

  “Guy called Colin Wood and a girl called Bree Roberts,” Dodds said, extricating himself from his seat and starting to make his way from the shuttle. “What did you find in the way of armour and armaments?” he asked.

  “Basics,” Enrique answered. “Mostly things that we can scavenge from the security teams. We might be able to cobble together some other bits, but it’s not going to be anything like what we had for the drop down to Kethlan.”

  “Flak jackets?” Chaz asked.

  “Enough for all of us,” Enrique said. “Leg or arm protection, too. No helmets, though.”

  “It’ll do,” Chaz said. “Let’s go up and see what we can do with what you’ve found.”

  *

  They met Estelle on the way, and together the four investigated what Enrique had managed to procure from the vessel’s supplies. As promised, they found flak jackets, as well as adequate protection for their arms and legs. Enrique picked out what he could for Kelly, who was still on the bridge, working through things with Parks. The four measured pieces up on Estelle, and were more than happy with what they had found.

  Where Cratos’ offerings of body armour were merely adequate, weaponry was in greater abundance – plasma rifles and pistols, laser pistols and rifles (a rarity), as well as many conventional pistols, mac
hine guns, shotguns and rifles. They also found combat knives, standard grenades, flashbangs and a number of other items that Chaz was quick to discard, stating that they had little use for them.

  Still no helmets though, despite Chaz’s efforts to find something suitable. Dodds was less bothered. He hoped they would only need to get aboard the ship, retrieve the TSB and return to the shuttle. They might have to deal with some areas of low life support, but that should be it. If they did happen to encounter any adversaries, at least they had some protection. They’d all come through worse before.

  Kelly joined them as they were finishing up, having completed her discussions with Parks. By the admiral’s reckoning, they were still at least over an hour away from their destination, and so the five took to wandering the ship and talking to the crew, to see if anything else needed dealing with.

  Dodds began exploring the vessel himself. Cratos was a far smaller vessel inside than he had thought. Only half the length of Griffin, and with so much of that space being taken up by its armaments and destructive capabilities that less than a quarter of it was available to the crew. It felt very confined.

  Dodds saw many things as he walked about the ship – the messdeck, again much smaller than that on Griffin; what appeared to be a rec room, occupied by three of the crew, reading books and playing games; a ready room and a war room, both empty; a bay containing the escape pods; and a sealed off room containing what were clearly suspended animation modules. He wondered again about those who had fled to unknown regions of the galaxy, encased in the SA modules that would keep them alive indefinitely, only awakening them after a prescribed period of time or when power on the ship itself eventually ran out. That could be centuries from now. Dodds remembered how, briefly, even he had been tempted to escape this way when at his lowest ebb, directly after Black Widow.

  He searched unsuccessfully for Natalia as he walked, finally deciding she must’ve disappeared off to some other part of the vessel that he didn’t know about. She had, after all, spent almost a year onboard and would be more familiar with the ins and outs of the dreadnought.