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

My leonine dance partner tightens his grip on my shoulder and is surprised when his claws fail to bite deep. The subdermal armor fiber under my skin can stop a rail dart and has no trouble at all stopping those claws, with only mild discomfort. He tries to pull me in. He’s fast and strong, with genetically enhanced reflexes and musculature, but my cyber-augments are better. As he pulls me in, I get control of his arm and use it as a lever to turn his attack into a flip. It’s amazing how far you can throw someone in a third of your native gravity. He goes sailing over to the table of Jovian Marines, who are already standing up and getting ready to join the action. They appreciate the gift and work over the Venusian who lands at their feet. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for the other services.

The ursine has Jack Martin in a crushing embrace, trying to maul him with his fangs and claws, but gets a set of broken teeth for his efforts. Jack is grinning. He doesn’t need or want help right now, and I leave him to his massive opponent.

Shane Greensport and Takashi Ford are dancing around their armored reptilian opponent, keeping him off balance, and staying out of the reach of those armor-piercing cybernetic talons. I hit him from behind, and that throws him off balance. The others finish taking the armored behemoth down. Shane and I restrain his limbs, while Takashi concentrates on applying a lot of pressure to all the right nerve clusters.

Martin’s opponent has crashed down on top of him, trying to crush him with sheer weight. That’s useless against a Jovian, of course; we deal with more weight than that every day back home. Jack gets his arms in a lock around the bear’s neck, and that takes all the fight out of the giant rug.

I take another look around the bar, while Shane and Takashi help pull the unconscious ursine off of Jack. The whole place is descending into chaos. The other Venusians have joined the fight, looking for any Jovian, Belter, Martian, or anyone else they’ve got a grievance with. Our Marines are already going at it, and the cybernetic Martians barely need an excuse to get into a brawl. Bottles, chairs, and tables fly through the air, along with semi-conscious combatants.

We wade into the melee as the brawl comes raging at us. The world turns into a sea of fists, claws, clubs, and knives, all seeming to move in slow motion due to my running neural augments. I focus on the Venusians and make sure they get the worst of it—they started it.

I’m having a good time, and Jack has barely gotten started, but both of my other flight teammates are a little too sensible for all this, I guess.

Fight, or leave? There are other Jovians still in the mix, so leaving is out.

We split the difference, forcing our way through to the front entrance and holding that position. Here, we can hit any reinforcements the Venusians might call in, and make sure none of them can flee, while making sure our own guys can get in or out. The Venusians aren’t entirely stupid; they see what we’re doing and rush us. That doesn’t go well for them at all; we hold against the crush with our backs safe, and the Marines hit them from behind, armed with an arsenal of broken furniture. A stream of Belters tries to rush us from outside next, and we send them sailing back out into the streets. After that, they think better of it.

I’m helping a few of our injured guys out the door when the security teams show up. Local Jovian base security, not from the ship. Looks like we might be spending some time in the local cells. I kneel, let them restrain me, and tell the others do so as well. We’ll be in enough trouble, no need to add to it. As they haul us off, several more security rush into the bar, where the fight is still going strong.

* * *

Wing Commander Rackham’s bright blue eyes bore through me like x-ray lasers. When he’d come to get us out of the brig in Ceres, I was relieved. Now, here in the wardroom, I’m less relieved…way less relieved.

“What were you thinking?” he asks quietly.

I don’t mention that they threw the first punch. I also don’t boast about the unarmed combat skill of my men or comment on the tactics of barroom brawling.

Instead, I say, “No excuses, sir.”

He goes back to staring for a while. Honestly, getting the expected chewing out would have been better.

“We’re too short of pilots to keel-haul any of you.”

I admit that I’m curious about how that would work on a host carrier. You’d have to avoid the rotating sections somehow, of course, maybe install a guidewire for the hauling cables in the space inside the ring, and then place the pulleys fore and aft on rotating gimbals. Or maybe you could swing the cables out past the rotating ring entirely, basically skipping rope around the whole carrier. Or…

“Sir,” I answer.

Another long pause.

“Do you want to make a formal statement?” he asks.

Ohhhh…The cold chill of deep space is at my back. We must have punched someone important. Somewhere in that collection of mutants, there was probably a nobleman or scion of one of the Venusian High Houses…and got his nose, or beak, or snout bent out of joint by my men. Now, I’m even more proud of my guys. Naturally, they’ve filed some kind of formal complaint, because they couldn’t just take losing in a fair fight.

“No, sir,” I answer.

“All right then.” His gaze wanders as he accesses some file or information from his cyber-augments, then comes back to bore into me.