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

to Eros, they’re now trying to do, slowly and subtly, to Earth. They’ll try to do it everywhere. Their goal is a solar system where everyone is tormented by their nightmarish cyber-state, forever. That’s what we’re fighting against.

“Thank you all, and good hunting.”

I salute, and we break up. We’ve got a lot to get ready for, and not much time in which to do it.

* * *

I take Chimera through a few simulated runs in the hanger before the fighting starts. It’s essentially a brand-new frame after all the refurbishing, so it should be exactly like the standard factory model.

It’s not, somehow.

The difference is subtle, barely noticeable, and it vanishes when I try to examine it or think about it too hard, but it’s there. Every frame is a little different, and a good frame pilot can tell—like it has its own personality.

I’m not superstitious, but there are feelings and intuition you learn to pay attention to in combat. It’s like that feeling when someone is zooming in on you prior to firing…or the sensation of being watched…or the cold calm before an ambush hits…even the sensation of finding that one perfect moment to strike in the whirling cloud of chaos that is combat. These things just are, and I’ve learned to recognize them over time.

That feeling of closeness with a frame is, I think, one of the things that separates Angel pilots from the other vacuum-jockeys. There are talented and skilled pilots who just don’t see any difference between one machine and another. Still, there’s a difference between flying your frame and knowing your frame.

I need to figure out who Chimera really is.

Running the frame through standard exercises doesn’t tell me much, other than he’s in excellent condition and top form.

I raise the difficulty and use some of the most fiendishly difficult custom sims ever made. I flow into the total focus and concentration that only comes at the peak of effort. The concerns of the outside world and every other thought vanishes, and I become one with my frame in the maelstrom of chaos.

Time seems to disappear.

When I’m done, I relax in the seat and review the simulations. Chimera is different than Griffon was. He doesn’t have quite the reckless agility, speed, and ferocity of my old frame. Griffon had a fiery fury to him that was barely contained as I guided a destructive path in battle. Chimera, on the other hand, has a predatory, anticipatory patience about him, along with a nearly endless sense of resolve. While the maneuvering isn’t as instinctively fluid as Griffon’s, the sensory merger and awareness is easier, effortless even. The mental merger of dozens of cameras and sensors into my cyber-sensorium is easier and more complete than ever.

I’ll have to watch out for that. With so much more information coming in, I’ll have to make sure I don’t get lost in it. Is this why Bertrand got hit so hard with the Saturnine virus? Did that little bit of extra sensory connection make him more vulnerable to attack through his sensorium?

Chimera now has the latest patches and antivirus systems customized to that family of Saturnine viruses. Probably. It should be more resistant to viruses, but I don’t want to bet on being immune.

Is there anything left of that Saturnine program? There shouldn’t be. There’s a whole new core and sub-processors, and everything has been cleaned out. There shouldn’t be anything there…but still I’m left wondering at the back of my mind.

The new core means that this Chimera probably isn’t anything like Bertrand’s old frame. Maybe so; I’ve never flown it before. All I can tell for sure is that it’s different from Griffon—he moves differently, he thinks differently, and everything feels subtly different. Griffon was a wild thing, eager to blast into the fray, while Chimera is a cold and patient war machine, totally focused on the purpose of his existence: to find and destroy the enemy.

Now that I really know the nature of my Angel frame, I’ll be better prepared for the battle to come.

It probably won’t be as bad as last time; we’re only fighting Terrans.

* * * * *

 

Chapter 6 War of Terra

 

 

The briefing room is crowded with pilots in flight suits. Wing Commander Rackham has us crammed in here, and it looks like we’ll all be flying on this one.

The news we get is all kinds of ugly.

The long, cold war between the State of Terra and Luna has finally gone hot, and Luna has formally requested our assistance according to our treaty. Other ships should be on the way, but our task force near Eros happened to be the closest sizable force that could do any conceivable good in a fight of this scale.

So here we come.

It all started with a Terran sneak attack on an obscure mining town on Luna, for some unknown reason. We’ll probably never know the real reason. They shot down a passenger suborbital and then descended on the place with troop carriers and assault-battleoids. Finally, they nuked the place.

Putting it mildly, the Lunars are pissed.

It’s hard to have negotiations after blowing up a town. Maybe the State of Terra is just used to treating people like disposable assets on an item column and didn’t realize the Lunars would actually take this very, very personally. I’d have thought this would be a war neither side wanted, but here it is. The long, tense peace is broken, and the only thing that remains is to see how bad it gets.

Ultimately, it could get bad…really bad. Both worlds are right next to each other, with massive arsenals, including antimatter warheads aimed at each other. If they light it all off, they might wipe out life on both worlds forever.

So with all that firepower aimed at each