The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  His targets fell swiftly, some faster than others, the ones that were harder to take down testing his patience with their evasive flight, almost as if they were aware of the advantages the ATAF’s targeting systems granted him and were working especially hard to throw them off. One, a Sphinx, sporting what appeared to be a unique colour scheme, seemed to be forever within his line of fire, yet was unwilling to yield to his cannons. Others seemed totally unaware that he was coming after them.

  He then saw an enemy fighter wander into his path, blundering its way around. It flew considerably worse than those he had witnessed in the past, sloppily, quite uncoordinated. It was as though the pilot was randomly stabbing at the controls to discover what each did, and pulling the stick to see just how hard he could before it snapped off in his hand. Dodds swung his ATAF to follow it, opening fire and dispatching it in moments. The pilot made no effort to evade his guns, almost completely oblivious to his presence. Estelle had been right. The Pandoran soldiers could no more coordinate their fighters than they could their guns on the ground. He thought momentarily of the soldier he had met on the ground at Kethlan – Tim, the school teacher. He hadn’t known where he was or what he’d been doing, and neither, it seemed, did some of the Pandoran pilots here. The radio chatter from allied pilots seemed to corroborate his feeling.

  “What are these guys doing? Why are they flying like that?”

  “They’re dying, remember? They can’t fight back any more!”

  “Tell that to these—” The transmission cut out.

  “Concentrate on the helpless ones.”

  “No, concentrate on the ones that are still dangerous!”

  “You guys hearing that?” Dodds asked the rest of his team. He couldn’t see them anywhere, there was too much happening.

  “For a while now,” Enrique said.

  “Estelle, how should we proceed?” Dodds asked.

  “Active fighters and bombers, capital ships, and then dreadnoughts, in that order,” Estelle replied. “Of those, target the active ones first and leave the weakened ones to the others. We have a better chance against the stronger ones than anyone else.”

  The team confirmed Estelle’s orders and went to it, concentrating their efforts against those that were of the greatest threat to the defence line. Even so, Dodds saw that the number of less-capable enemies wasn’t nearly as high as any of them would’ve liked. Earth appeared to be growing larger with every passing moment, the orbital station and ring far more detailed at this distance than when he had joined the frontline. The enemy were having no trouble pushing the allies back, and now he could see the beginnings of the divide that always preceded Dragon’s approach.

  It wasn’t long before the first ODP fell, the enemy fighters and bombers having managed to penetrate the line and filter deep into the defence. More and more of the platforms began going up as Dodds fought to drive back the still seemingly unstoppable opponents. Already, his micro-missiles had been spent and his accelerator was commencing its third wind down. Before today he’d never considered whether or not the weapon could actually burn out or overheat.

  Jenkins was quick to deliver new orders, instructing what now remained of the starfighter squadrons to concentrate on the defence of the ODPs, which were increasingly becoming the one thing capable of slowing the enemy advancement. Dodds was certain as he weaved his way towards them that they had lost close to half of the battleships that had made up the frontline. He was quick to identify what was targeting the platforms – a variety of bombers, escorted by a number of fighters, loosing torpedoes and large quantities of missiles toward them.

  Dodds turned to follow the Scarabs he had sighted, an ATAF darting into his view at the same instant. There were nine of the bombers, all likely stacked to the gills with rockets, torpedoes and other high-yield weaponry. With their escorts having already been dealt with, it wasn’t hard to take them down. Despite this, several more platforms were lost before he was done.

  “Has anyone seen Dragon?” Estelle asked.

  Good point. Dodds looked around, briefly reconfiguring his radar to filter through the current enemy line-up, in an attempt to locate the huge battleship. The brief search came up empty, though he continued to make an effort to seek out the vessel as he struck down the fighters that swarmed around him. It was nowhere to be found. Where the hell was it?

  “Can’t see it,” he answered.

  “Negative,” Kelly said.

  “I haven’t seen it, either,” Enrique said.

  “They must be holding it back,” Chaz said. “They don’t want to bring her in until the way is either clear or they decide to end things quickly, should they start experiencing significant losses.”

  That made sense, Dodds thought. “In that case, we’d better give them some encouragement,” he said, swinging around and plunging his way back up the field, and towards the two frigates that Amarok had struck with torpedoes, but never finished off – Silversmith’s Repoussé and Alysha’s Calling. The latter sounded familiar, he was sure that he had heard mention of that ship a number of times in the past. He brought the plasma accelerator online once more as he approached, broadcasting his intentions to all allies close by, before initiating the wind-up process. Enrique joined him, and the two directed the beams over the already crippled frigates, sweeping the concentrated plasma across the surfaces and more exposed structures, pruning them and separating the vulnerable parts from the vessels. There was no attempt at return fire from either of them, and after only one well-placed sweep the resultant explosions from within began to haemorrhage the ships and pull them apart.

  “Been a long time since I’ve seen you fly like that, Dodds,” Enrique said to him.

  “Two down, a few hundred to go …” Dodds answered, smiling to himself and directing his attentions towards their next target. “And the next one’s a biggie,” he added, looking over the dreadnought that was approaching.

  It was dispatched almost as easily as the two frigates that had preceded it, Estelle, Chaz and Kelly powering past the mighty vessel, only to swing around and target the vulnerable rear with their accelerators. The beams broke through both the reinforced shielding and engine block, and into the main body of the ship itself, halting its advance there and then. That was only the second time that Dodds had ever seen a dreadnought being dispatched in such a manner. Still, looking over the players that remained on the field, he was certain there would be at least one more to come.

  The far more aggressive strikes against the larger warships appeared not to have gone unnoticed, and as Estelle ordered the Knights to continue pushing themselves forward other allied fighters joined the team, lending their support where they could. Dodds knew that this wasn’t a tactic with a great deal of longevity to it. Taking on larger vessels without first dispatching their escorts and support fighters was tantamount to suicide. He reminded himself that the point of this was to encourage the elusive Dragon to put in its appearance, and so the Knights repeated their assertive push, striking deep into their opponents’ line and felling several more warships as they did so. They lost much of their backup as they plunged on, but knew, as those pilots had, what the sacrifices made here today meant.

  “Sorry, everyone, but it’s time for me to bow out,” Dodds then heard a familiar-sounding voice over his comms. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  Meyers, Leviathan! He filtered his radar, seeking out the carrier, locating her and swinging around. He saw the ship there, not far from where he was now. Leviathan had apparently also moved up the field, to lend its firepower where it could. Its participation hadn’t lasted long. Dodds remained motionless, for a time oblivious to the fire striking him and only looking over the carrier for as long as he could, seeing the continuing bloom of weapons fire striking the ship, the booms of explosions blowing sections out of it, the running lights flickering and extinguishing, like one final breath. He looked away as the vessel began to come apart, snapping in two about the middle. The front half went up quickly,
the rear tumbling away. He felt a lump form in his throat. Leviathan was a ship he had hoped would survive the war, Meyers forever at its helm. He knew the man would still be on the bridge, preparing to go down with her and see his captaincy through to the very end.

  “Commodore,” he transmitted, the bedlam about him fading away into background noise.

  No response.

  “Commodore,” he repeated.

  “Forget it, Dodds,” Estelle said. “I know it’s hard to say, but we need to keep on going. We all knew that many of us wouldn’t be around tomorrow.” Her tone was hot, laced with anger as well as determination.

  Dodds acquiesced with some reluctance, being brought back to the fight with a jolt as a missile struck him, hard. He reacted immediately, moving out of the way as a starfighter thundered its way across his cockpit view. He caught the fleeting form of a Sphinx, seeing snatches of blues and whites before it was away from him again. He saw that his shield was dangerously close to dipping below the halfway mark. He’d either have to consider falling back or begin making a more concerted effort to evade enemy fire.

  He then heard his console jingle. A large jump point was forming. It was all too clear that only one ship would be coming through there – CSN Dragon. A few moments later he was proved correct, the bow of the massive battleship seeming to emerge slowly at first, followed quickly thereafter by the remainder. He and his wingmates’ efforts had clearly done their job of encouraging Zackaria to enter the fray.

  “The bow’s already split,” he heard over his comms. “Dragon’s going to make its move as soon as it’s able.”

  Dodds wasn’t sure how he’d missed that, but sure enough the frontal portion of the battleship was open, the two parts of the bow apart, making ready for the main cannon to fire.

  “Get the Dumb Waiter into position,” Jenkins called.

  “Dumb Waiter is ready,” the team on the orbital station responded. “Will begin approach to target in thirty seconds.”

  Dodds tore himself away from the scene of Dragon, reacting to the cannon fire that was still smashing into his shields, and resuming his pursuit of the starfighters that were buzzing around him. He both saw and heard that the ODPs were starting to take a pounding, many of the platforms beginning to burst and explode in succession, like a falling line of dominoes. As more fell, he saw several dozen battleships belonging to the enemy fire up their engines and start forward. Beam weapons ignited from their cannons as they came in range of targets, striking shields of allied capital ships, as well as taking down starfighters unfortunate enough to move into their path. Explosions began to dot the orbital ring, concentrated around the same point. That would be the next thing to go, Dodds was sure. He once again joined up with his team-mates, forming partnerships with Estelle, Kelly, Enrique and Chaz, as well as random assortments of close-by fighters, to take on the battleships, punching enough holes in their defence to permit the allied warships to take them down using long-range fire.

  “Dumb Waiter is on its way,” the orbital station declared.

  It took a while for Dodds to locate the craft on his radar. It was tiny, little larger than a rocket. It was also transmitting an ID intended to deceive the enemy. It simply said ‘MISSILE-DW’.

  It was still a considerable distance from Dragon, but it was at least advancing. He turned his attention to other things, looking now for Griffin and Amarok. He couldn’t stand to see the last of the CSN’s Cobra-class carriers meet her end here, not now. Moreover, Griffin had been Parks’ ship for many years, a ship that Dodds himself had spent a great deal of time aboard. He owed the man that much to ensure that both it and its crew survived this day.

  He declared his intentions to his team-mates, who immediately opted to join him. Griffin’s shielding was struggling when he made it over to the carrier, the hull scorched and blackened from where it had taken hits. Unlike Meyers and Mandeep, Jenkins hadn’t moved the vessel very far up the field, holding Griffin on the back row. Enemy bombers and fighters had seeped through, attacking both it and the ODPs further behind.

  Dodds and Chaz were soon directed to take down Griffin’s most aggressive opponent – the Draugr, a carrier from a historically unstable Independent nation that had been lost to the enemy during their early invasion of Independent space. Chaz was just ahead of him as the two sped towards it, charging up their accelerators and preparing to start their own offensive, when a distress cry grabbed Dodds’ attention. There had been many such a cry during the battle, but the words here were impossible to ignore.

  “Waiter is down! Waiter is down!” the coordinator at the orbital cried.

  No! Dodds checked for the bomb on his radar, but was unable to find it anywhere. It was no longer visible, no matter how he configured the system. He shot past the Draugr, his accelerator silent, even as Chaz applied his own against the ship, sweeping one of the elevated portions and severing it from the main body.

  “What happened?” Jenkins demanded.

  “Something collided with it!” the operator answered. “We’ve lost both control and signal!”

  That didn’t surprise Dodds. The thick debris clouds that clotted much of the battlefield made it almost a certainty. Wreckage was striking him all the time, buffeting off his shields as he passed it. He slowed, looking about the chaos that surrounded him. His attention focused on Dragon for a brief moment, seeing its engines now fully online. Having initially held back, the battleship was stepping up to the plate. Had the Pandoran army somehow guessed their plans? Had they known that the allied forces might somehow try to deliver a high-yield weapon directly against the battleship and therefore waited to thwart it?

  “Has it been destroyed?” Jenkins asked.

  “We don’t believe so,” the station operators responded. “We’d have seen the result from here.”

  So, it was still out there somewhere, Dodds thought. They needed to find it as soon as possible. But what to do when they did? They couldn’t repair it right here and now, that could prove next to impossible. And even if they could somehow locate it and get it back to the orbital for repairs, the turnaround time would almost certainly result in them conceding victory to the Enemy.

  “Dragon will be within firing range in under fifteen minutes,” a voice came over his comms.

  Hell! He felt his stress levels suddenly spike, and he swung his fighter around, looking around the continuing maelstrom. There were fewer ODPs now than ever, and the allied capital ships were falling just as fast. It also appeared that a chuck has been blasted out of the orbital ring, almost right through to the other side. In minutes, it would be like Spirit all over again. They had to find the Dumb Waiter!

  “Dodds, what gives? Are you with me? We need to hit this one both at the same time.”

  Dodds returned his attention to the battle as he heard Chaz’s voice summoning him to continue with their strike against the Draugr. Having already output his charge, Chaz would need to wait for the accelerator unit to complete its wind down, before attempting again. Then again, there might be time for him to strike it himself, the carrier’s defences weakened enough by Chaz’s previous run to allow his own to fatally damage it. Despite all that, he should still seek out Chaz and rejoin him, in case the carrier’s remaining defences called for a simultaneous strike.

  He tweaked his radar, cycling through all the friendly craft nearby, looking for Chaz’s ATAF. Identifiers and schematics flashed on his HUD. TAF-1022, TAF-4444, TAF-488, RAY-874, FIREFLY-599, ROOK-89, FIREFLY-7821, MISSILE-DW, TAF-481, FIREFLY-6111, ROOK-388 … He stopped, did a double take, cycled backward three steps and stared at the craft now being tracked by his targeting systems. MISSILE-DW. It was the Dumb Waiter! The tracking was then lost and Dodds felt a stab of panic. Where had it gone? He shifted his heading, turning to where his targeting matrix had just pointed him, fiddling with his radar. The device popped back up a few seconds later, and now he could see it, being tracked visibly in his HUD. It was spinning over and over, catapulted away from where it
had been flung in the collision. He couldn’t tell how badly it was damaged, but like the operator had said, it clearly hadn’t detonated yet.

  How was it that he could see it when the operators couldn’t? Had the damage it had suffered meant it was now broadcasting a very short-range signal? Could anyone else see it or just his ATAF’s advan … No, don’t worry about all of that! Just get it! But how?

  “I can see the bomb, I can see the Waiter!” he cried.

  “What?” He wasn’t sure who had asked the question.

  “I can see the bomb!” he repeated, desperation building in his voice as he adjusted his flight path to chase after it. Cannon fire and rockets were flying all about, some of it striking him. He suddenly felt more afraid of the enemy fire than ever, aware that it could hit the precious device that tumbled ahead of him.

  “Dodds, are you sure?” Estelle wanted to know.

  “Positive!”

  “Commander, where is it?” Jenkins demanded.

  “Right in front of me, Admiral,” Dodds said, shifting to dodge fire, whilst keeping an eye on the bomb. A squadron of enemy fighters were hurtling his way, his heading now carrying him into the midst of several battleships.

  “What’s its condition?”

  “It’s damaged, but it looks like the warhead is still attached.” He was speaking quickly, his finger racing instinctively across his cockpit’s targeting systems to gather more information. There wasn’t much else he could actually tell from the readings – the device was damaged, though not fatally.

  “Is there anything you can do to bring it home?” Jenkins wanted to know.

  Dodds’ mind ticked over. He felt like he was trying to do several dozen things at once, all of which were a race against time. With fighter groups still closing, he diverted his course, so as not to endanger the Waiter further by putting it into the line of fire. The Mantises, Fireflies, Hyenas, and Sphinxes shot by, their cannons blazing as they did so. Dodds ignored them, refusing to give chase or give up his lock on the TSB.