Guardian (War Angel Book 1) by David Hallquist (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

I’m First Jovian Synod myself. The Synodic movement figured that a tough Council of Elders could prevent the church from splintering further. It turns out that Elders argue just like everyone else, so now there’s twelve different Synods (and two of them are arguing over who gets to be the First Synod).

So what did I pray for? Obviously for my family at home, for my buddies at Phobos, for the Navy, and Jupiter as a whole. Also for peace, that someday my job won’t be necessary anymore, though I think that time is a long, long ways off.

My confession? No one’s business but God’s, but it’s bad enough. I may be an Angel pilot, but I’m certainly no Angel.

* * *

At last it’s time to turn and burn. At the rate we’ve been accelerating, it only took a couple of days to reach the halfway point for the Weston to start deceleration. Pulling 3 Gs nearly constantly, the Westie can get wherever she wants to in a big hurry. We may not be as fast as the Saturnine ships, but we can pull more Gs than nearly anyone else out there, and for longer.

Sure, in the old days before we had proper fusion torch drives, it would take years to go from one planet to another, coasting through space, and using the gravitational tug of one planet to send you on to the next one. The early burst-fusion drives could get you up to enough speed that it would only take months, but they didn’t have the endurance to keep going like engines today. The Weston is a relic from those times, back when space travelers would have to stay weightless in zero-g for most of the trip. Even today, a lot of civilian ships are designed with rotating habitat sections to deal with the long periods of weightlessness. But not warships—a rotating ring or cylinder is just too much extra mass and another thing to break in a fight. None of our newer carriers have rotating sections, and certainly none of our smaller warships. But a host carrier is a big deal; you don’t just scrap those. So even with modern engines pushing us along for gravity, we’ve still got one of the few old wheel warships in the solar system.

I’m in my cabin at the moment. Normally, I’d be asleep, but most people don’t sleep through the world turning upside down. Besides, I like to watch the whole thing through my cyber-sensorium. I’ve been through scores of these, but it’s still something to break up the monotony of the trip.

I can clearly see the path of the Weston through my augments, on a slightly curving path to Ceres. When I zoom in, I can make out almost all the ships, except for the hidden attack ships and scouts. Stealthy ships exploit a loophole of quantum mechanics to throw off the location of their drive emissions and other signatures. They’re still there—you can’t hide a constantly running fusion torch in deep space—but the exact location is hard to pin down, especially when there are other ships moving about and sending out their own transmissions or interference.

When I switch to visual, the rest of the fleet looks like a formation of fierce blue stars from the carrier. They’re all close enough to support each other with laser point-defense fire, but far enough apart not to be taken out by a single warhead. All the planets and stars are just distant points of light now, and visual magnification would be needed to see anything more.

“Attention! All hands secure for zero-G and maneuvers!” the announcement comes through. I strap into my chair and grab onto a stanchion near my desk.

The drive cuts out, and just like that, it feels like I’m falling. It’s true in a way; we’re all falling in the direction of the Sun. Nothing floats up in my cabin; everything’s locked down of course. The holo-shows always have stuff floating around to let you know they’re in space, but really, even on civilian ships, no one just leaves stuff loosely floating around. It’s too much of a hazard if the ship needs to move quickly, and any number of other things could go wrong. It is just not done.

The stars swing around my view as we turn. The turnabout is going quickly, and the Weston is agile for a big old ship. I can feel the pull to the side as we turn about in a couple of minutes. The smaller warships could pull this off in seconds, of course.

“Attention! All hands, secure for acceleration!” the announcement comes through again.

Soon, the faint rumble of the drive comes back, and I’m sinking back into my chair.

Halfway there, and now the more dangerous part.

Deceleration toward a target is more dangerous than accelerating toward it.

If the target is ahead, you have all your active and passive sensors at the ready and can fire missiles or guns with a clear field of vision and no interference.

When you’re decelerating toward a target, it’s behind you, and your own engine is largely blinding you. Sure, sensor masts extended out on the side help, and you can always drop probes ahead of you, but you still lose a lot of vision. Finally, the glare of your fusion torch drive shines across space and tells the enemy exactly where you are.

It’s not all bad, though; the torch drive itself provides some protection, as a huge stream of plasma tends to break up beams, projectiles, and missiles. You can also hide a lot of what you’re doing behind the glaring artificial sun of a burning fusion drive. Of course, you can drop weapons or even small craft to fall ahead of you without any thrust or launch discharge to indicate that you’ve done so. Still, no one likes losing sight in a situation.

Because of that, the scouts