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

Commander “Hammer” Rackham is out here in front with us in his Guardian, Lion. Having the wing commander out here with the rest of us helps morale. It’s also nice to have a full-on decorated war veteran and combat ace with you.

I’ll take all the help I can get when we’re falling nearly blind. In addition to the Sun blasting away at us with the full spectrum of light plus radiation, we’ve got our plasma thrusters aimed where we’re going. We’re decelerating at 3 Gs, just like the rest of the fleet, and there’s no easy way to see through the searing tongue of plasma we’re sending ahead of us. It’s kind of like the problem we had at Ceres, but it probably won’t be a wrench thrown in our way that we’ll have to be on the lookout for. Mines, drones, loiter missiles…anything could be out there. Working with the networked sensors of the rest of the squadron, we can see mostly past our engine thrust, so we’re only half-blind. Finally, there’s all the jamming going on. Everyone’s jamming; Terrans…Lunars…us…and maybe even a little from Saturn’s ships out there somewhere. Most of the jamming systems are far more primitive than our sensors, but they make up for it with volume; almost nothing but tight-beam communications and scans can get through. Mixed in with the thick stew of electronic hash are a wide assortment of viruses and worms. My updated Guardian sheds the electronic intruders like rain, but I’m worried a more sophisticated program might slip in undetected.

It’s a worry I can’t do anything about, though, much like the constant, blaring ultimatum from the State of Terra that’s been blasting away at us.

“ATTENTION! ATTENTION! You are entering the Terran Exclusionary Zone. You are to power down your engines, weapons, and reactors and prepare to be boarded! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! You are entering…” It’s gotten boring and repetitive. Still, I’m not too eager for the Terrans to mix it up with something else to send at us, as that something else is likely to be a gamma-ray burst.

Another thing I can’t do too much about is whether they mined the space ahead of us. Sure, we could probably see a cold stealth object to dodge it in time, but that won’t help. A plasma warhead could still get a lucky hit, and a hundred megaton mine could really ruin my day. I’ve read that the Terrans are now using laser-cluster warhead technology supplied by Saturn. Anywhere in the Earth–Luna system is nearly point-blank range for one of those. I’m hoping even the State of Terra wouldn’t mine the close approaches of space around Earth, as those weapons would endanger everyone, but you never know.

Space below is us a target-rich environment, to say the least. With all the spacecraft and weapons platforms out there, packed together at close range for beam weapons, it could get really nasty, really quickly. Our rules of engagement are to return fire if fired upon, and to engage all enemy forces at will in the event of a general conflict. Everyone everywhere is ready to pull the trigger on what might be the most violent space battle Earth has ever seen.

Can there be peace even at this late stage? The Terrans nuked a Lunar town, so it’ll take a lot more than a diplomatic apology to deal with their anger. Still, the Lunars would rather not have a fight to the death with Terra, or they’d be shooting right now. Can the Terrans be talked into a less threatening posture, guaranteeing Lunar safety? I’m guessing they don’t want to die either, or they’d be shooting right now, too.

I don’t want to be the one to start the fighting. Ultimately, this is a dispute between Lunars and Terrans; one of them is going to have to fire the first shot. If the shooting starts, my objectives are clear: first, protect the fleet, and second, protect the Lunar cities. Our own personal survival is way down on the list, but that’s what we signed up for—to protect others. If the fighting starts, I’m not going to stop until our fleet and those cities are safe. I won’t start the fighting, but I’ll do my best to end it.

* * *

We’re almost between Earth and its moon now. Luna is huge and almost fully lit by the Sun from this angle, and I can actually see the giant satellite move past slowly. Terra, on my opposite side, is mostly in shadow from my perspective. The Sun seems to turn red and fade away as it falls behind the Earth, lighting up the planet’s atmosphere in a glowing, blood red ring before disappearing behind the world entirely. The actual eclipse was days ago, but it’s still a sight to fly into the shadow of Earth.

Eerie and foreboding as the sight is, it dramatically improves our flying conditions. With the radio interference and visible glare of the Sun blocked out, I can now get a much better view of everything. Not a great view, because my own drive flames are still blocking part of my sight, and space is still full of jamming, but better.

Our fleet is scorching through the space between the Earth and the Moon, and the L1 station is just over there. Without magnification, it’s a steadily moving bright dot surrounded by the blue stars of ships’ engines. Under magnification, the dot becomes a rotating cylinder two kilometers in diameter and ten long. Inside are the cities, parks, and docking facilities of the hub port of the whole Earth–Luna system. The whole thing was supposed to have been built as a cooperative project between Luna and the State of Terra. In reality, Luna paid for and built most of it, while Terra defaulted on the funds they were supposed to supply, and then Luna had to repair and