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

song of Jupiter and the eerie wavering howl of Saturn come in clear as well. Distant radio galaxies call out into the night with echoing thunder, and even the faint microwave song of Creation itself still echoes through space. Louder and more urgent come the radio broadcasts of spacecraft and stations, along with the drone of radar scans, and the roar of fusion engines.

With Griffon’s AI modulating all the data coming into my brain, I can hear and see the subtle Doppler shift of moving objects. Approaching Ceres is just the right amount of blue-shift, and its radio emissions are just enough higher that I can instantly pinpoint its exact location in space compared to me. The location, direction, and acceleration of everything in the solar system becomes as easy as knowing where everything is on a desk or in a room. It gives me the spatial awareness to know intuitively where everything is without having to think about it or query a computer.

There isn’t much need for active scans with all of this data coming in. Still, we’ve all got our anti-missile radar and lidar arrays on standby and have a search beam heading downrange of our path. Since everyone already knows we’re coming anyway, and everyone can see us, we can make sure the path ahead is clear. The beams will also give an additional warning to anyone who bumbles into our path.

Griffon’s telescopic array can bring anything into crystal clear sharp focus. With the dozens of telescopic camera eyes on my Angel, I can zoom in on anything with a thought.

Jupiter swells into the magnificent orb of home once more, surrounded by glittering clouds of space cities and the slowly moving constellations of blue engine flames of ships. Home. Even when it’s so far away, it’s reassuring to still be able to see it.

Saturn comes into view as well, also surrounded by clusters of spidery space stations and the hard-UV engine flare of the swarm of ships buzzing angrily about their central hive-world. What’s going on under those clouds? Does anyone truly know what the Saturn Undermind is planning?

Ceres below becomes a world, a cratered sphere dotted with glowing domes, cross-hatched with transit lines, and surrounded by its own cloud of traveling spacecraft. There’s a sense of urgency and unease in the movement of the Belter craft, as if everyone can feel the storm coming.

Mars comes into view, still mostly a reddish-brown desert, even after all the effort at terraforming. The planetary civil war there never really ended; it just died down for a while before starting up again, then again, and again. No wonder the terraforming project stopped halfway. Still, city lights gleam from the night-side in Valles Marineras, and both of the moons glitter with lights. I’ve got friends on Phobos Base, and I hope they’ll be OK. Saturn has a fortress crouching on Demos, threatening the whole world. Mars has always been split between various powers, and it’s likely things will heat up there if there’s fighting.

The Earth–Luna binary gleams close to the Sun. Astoundingly beautiful, with blue oceans and swirls of white clouds, it doesn’t look like any other planet in our system. Somehow, you can just look at it and know that it’s a living world. The night side is mostly dark, with a few points of light, and the orbital lanes have only a few ships moving about. There isn’t as much civilian traffic around the old home world ever since the State of Terra took over. My ancestors got out in the early days, but now the Terrans mostly use their Navy to keep refugees from leaving and to threaten their own rebellious moon. Cities and domes glitter on the stark surface of Luna, with trade ships coming and going to the exiles of Earth. Naturally, the Jupiter-Saturn rivalry is felt even there, with us supporting Luna, and Saturn aiding the State of Terra.

Venus, close to the Sun’s glare, is still covered in clouds, but they’re water vapor and not acid now. The Venusians managed to complete the terraforming the Martians never could, and they’re insufferably proud of it. Admittedly, the floating cities, great jungles, and oceans are a big accomplishment. They’ve also modified themselves to fit their world even more then we have, and the spiral-shaped ships and space stations in orbit are at least half made of living tissue. Strange as they are, I’d find Venusians easier to get along with if they weren’t so arrogant and didn’t tend to lie endlessly through their various teeth, gills, or mandibles.

Bringing it all together without being overwhelmed is what makes an Angel pilot different from the usual vacuum-jock. Griffon, my cyber-augments, and my own sense of spatial and sensory awareness come together to integrate into an intuitive understanding of everything around me. This is what it’s all about—being one with your frame on a deep level. Not everyone can link their mind with the flood of sensory information from an Angel-class mech. I understand the newer frames with their more complex AI are easier to use, but I hope pilot training doesn’t suffer too much because of it.

The other Guardians of my squadron are arrayed around me. The frames are currently in the blue and gold of the Jovian Navy on parade, since everyone knows we’re coming, and we aren’t bothering to hide. We’d be in more danger passing Ceres if a ship wandered into our flight path, so we’re coming in loud and clear. Occasional flashes of light from the wing thrusters would give us away anyway, and we didn’t cool the frames down first, so each one glows faintly in infrared. So variable camouflage and stealth is not going to do us much good out here, with us glowing in the radio and infrared frequencies. Still, I feel like I’ve got a target painted on me.

Bertrand dropped us all in a standard pattern, falling well ahead