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

the very middle. There, a shining wheel with six spokes and three concentric rings glows up into the eternal night.

Asari Carousel is a multi-kilometer rotating space station ring set on its side on the surface. Ceres gravity is barely enough to keep things from floating off the ground, so the carousels are the only places on Ceres where a visitor can get any useful gravity at all. Radiating out from the docking station in its hub, it has rotational rings for Lunar, Martian, and even Terran gravity. There’s no ring for full Jovian gravity; we have to go back to our ship’s spinning wheel for that. The inner span of the rings glows yellow and green with the lights of the halls, rooms, and parks within, while the outer surfaces shine garishly in red, purple, and bright blue, with ever-shifting advertisements. Glowing space-dragons, celebrities, and animated characters compete to showcase the latest products, services, amusements, or gambling dens within.

That center hub is our destination. Asari is used to having Navy servicemen in port, and this is a pretty standard port of call for sailors of all types. You’ll find pretty much all the usual (or even some very, very unusual) forms of entertainment here. It’s also the safest choice. With Marines already on station—and a lot of our own people around—it’s a little less easy for trouble to find us, even if we’re out looking for trouble. Since it’s used to catering to Jovians and other off-worlders with money to spend, you’ll also find some of the highest quality food, drink, and air that’s way less likely to get you sick.

Sure, we could just wander around the various domes and deep tunnels that make up most of Ceres. We could also split up and wear giant targets on our backs. All it takes is one disgruntled native to cause an incident. Still, while an exploratory run into the garden domes, or even the freezing cold inner tunnels of Ceres might be interesting, I’ve got my flight to look out for. The days when I could get into fun and trouble entirely on my own are gone, now. I’ll make sure my men have a good time and keep them from getting into too much trouble on Ceres.

Should be easy enough.

* * *

Staying out of trouble is going to be hard.

The four of us emerge from the tube capsule out on the promenade of D-Ring, the highest gravity ring on Asari Carousel. Greensport gasps, Ford takes a half step back, and Martin, of course, grins. I’ve been here before, but it hits me almost as hard as the last time I was here, and now I have to keep my junior officers from getting into the kinds of trouble I used to get into here.

Light, sound, and scent blast into the elevator capsule in an avalanche of sensations, each designed to overwhelm and drown out all the others in a brutal battle for sensory overload domination. Holographic light sculptures and twisting designs of color along the curving ring walls present an ever-changing and impossibly shifting universe of creatures and landscapes of every type imaginable. The glowing collage of lewd and enticing panoramas fade into a shifting, glowing, violet fog in the distance, obscuring the upward bend of the hoop. Voices in a thousand languages vie for our attention. Musical styles from every time and place blend together in an ever-shifting wash of sound. Gongs, chimes, and explosions punctuate the bedlam to get our attention momentarily, until we’re drawn away to the next spectacle. The scents range from the comparatively innocent aromas of hundreds of delicious foods blended together, down to the insidious pheromone cocktails trying to bypass our internal chemical blockers. The whole of Asari Carousel had been designed with one thing in mind—to separate spacers from their money and have them come back for more.

“Don’t!” I try to warn Martin before he activates his cyber-sensorium.

Too late.

As the augmented reality programs hit, he’s in a whole different world. His security systems will keep the worst of the intrusive programs from hijacking any of his higher functions, and most of the other programs are going to be limited in scope or stopped altogether. Still, what’s getting through is probably enough that he’s in three to a dozen different phantom worlds at the same time, all as outrageous as possible in order to lure his attention away from the others.

I activate my override and cancel the feed to his cyber-augments. I can’t have my men turned into sleepwalkers in a foreign port. They get into enough trouble when lucid. He shakes himself when he comes back to reality and gives me a look.

“You can go off into another world when we get home, but not here!” I scream over the chaos.

He nods, and we step out into the phantasmal lightscape in loose formation. Every possible avenue for entertainment beckons, but I need my men to be functional the next day. There’s also reputation to consider, because what happens in Ceres most certainly doesn’t stay in Ceres.

* * *

Cygnus Tavern is the usual hangout for spacers in the D-Ring. The booze is good and not too expensive, with a wide variety to choose from. They’re also used to spacers and other outsiders, so we’re less likely to get into too much trouble with the locals.

Less likely still isn’t impossible, though.

A shining holographic swan spreads its wings over the glowing doorway ahead. As we close in, the white shimmering feathers of its wings scatter into a shining spectrum of color, revealing the star pattern of Cygnus the Swan as a hologram within a hologram. We pass under the wings and through a static air curtain that keeps out the rich miasma of the rest of Asari, while keeping the air of Cygnus from wandering out, as well.

Inside, the familiar bass drums of Jovian Thunder Opera greet