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

whoever the strongest power of the day happened to be and provided various services: ship supply, repairs, quartering, warehousing, and…well…other services.

While the adjective “erotic” goes way back before the colonization of Eros, it fits to describe them today. The asteroid colony eventually became the place where anything, or anyone, could be bought or sold—for a price.

Technically, Eros is part of the Free Belt Alliance, and Jupiter helps support that, so we’re supposed to protect them from pirates and hostile powers. All these years we’ve protected them and turned a blind eye to the things going on inside those twisting tunnels. Maybe that’ll change, now that we’re going in.

Eros falling into Saturnine hands (or tentacles, or manipulators, or whatever) isn’t something we can let happen. Not only does that violate the letter of the Free Belt Alliance (the spirit of the Alliance was broken a long time ago), but there’s also the asteroid’s strategic position. Eros’s orbit makes it the perfect location to menace either Earth or Mars, and we can’t allow Saturn to get a base like that.

The briefing is short and to the point—we don’t know very much. A violent insurgency is in progress at Eros. The fighters appear to be armed with modern, sophisticated gear, and the programs they used to take over the host computers are Saturnine in origin. There seem to be neither a long buildup of hostilities nor a specific instigating incident. There were no demands and no ultimatums. The revolt was swift and well-coordinated, and they’ve seized control of the central computers, life support, communications, and the primary hanger bay. With those in their control, a small team could hold the entire asteroid hostage. It appears to be the work of a small body of highly trained personnel, not a disorganized mob, though there were reports of riots and looting before communications were cut off.

Eerie, ominous silence now reigns at Eros. The whole asteroid is now a big, dark object in space with a mystery locked inside.

We’re off to open up this mystery. Our scout craft and probes will be leading the way, of course, making sure there are no Saturnine space vessels in the area first. Then we’ll be going in. Our frames will have to be cooled way down for a stealthy approach, so we can get into position. Some will fly past the asteroid or orbit it once in position. My flight will be going in close to remove any external weapons or sensors that could provide a threat. Then, for the next phase, we’ll be close space support for the Marines as they breach the hanger bay and take the asteroid. We’ll continue orbiting under thrust nearby to see what pops out, to repel anything that comes to attack us from deep space, in case we’re needed inside, or for whatever other unfortunate surprises might pop up.

Our frames are already being chilled down to 4° Kelvin for the cold drop. The chilled outer hull is the only way to do stealth in space right, and it’s only good for a short time. Heat builds up in the frame while the coolers run, as there’s no place for it to go; it’s not a whole lot of fun. Also, active sensors, maneuvering thrusters, and everything else will have to be quiet and cold. After that, it’ll just be the long, silent drop through space, freefalling toward a target with no idea of what’s waiting in the darkness ahead.

* * *

In the cold and dark, our Angels fall through the endless void toward Eros. Cooled down to the background temperature of deep space, our frames are infrared holes in darkness, utterly undetectable. Optically black, our adaptive camouflage mimics the star-patterns from the other side perfectly, so even if we should by chance pass in front of a star or asteroid, it won’t wink out to an observer. No radio frequency scans, communications, or beacons shine from our night-black Angels, as they stay cloaked in perfect silence. Even ghost-like neutrinos which can escape any containment are quenched as we keep our fusion reactors on standby.

Except it isn’t really cold or dark inside my frame. Frankly, I feel like I’m being slow cooked to keep all my juices inside. Every single micro-calorie of heat generated by the frame’s systems or my body has to stay inside the frame, where it builds up relentlessly. The helium heat-sinks aboard Griffon are amazing; they can take the distributed heat of a UV laser and barely boil. But that’s one instant of heat—this is a continuous and building strain. If there was some way to bleed it off without betraying my position, that would be OK, but there is none. So it keeps building up. Without a way to dump heat, I can only focus on cooling some parts of the frame at the expense of heating something else up. Human neurons can only take so much extra heat before something goes wrong, but I have to balance heat-stroke with the dangers of superconducting computers crashing or the magnetic bottle for my fusion reactor getting too warm and losing containment. If any of those get too hot, bad things will happen.

So I’m using my flight suit and my cyber-augments to keep my body cool. Almost cool…coolish? Anyway, it’s cooler in my suit than the sweltering sauna inside my frame right now. I can’t dump any of this heat either; any heat I radiate from my suit to cool it down will just heat up my frame. So I’m sweating a lot, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the potential threat we’re facing ahead.

OK, some of the sweat might be from what’s coming up.

The passive sensors on a Guardian are great, but not perfect. There’s always the chance we’ll run into something without seeing it, and it’s not just a loose wrench I’m worried about right now. No, I’m worried about a fusion warhead,