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

and jamming. Every once in a while, a radio burst indicates a beam weapon firing, or there’s the flash of an explosion.

The fleet comes out from the shadow of the Earth. Sunlight catches the clouds of countermeasure dust and is refracted into a hazy, glimmering mist. Out there, somewhere in those clouds, the battle goes on. We fly on, still decelerating, and leave the Earth–Luna system momentarily behind.

* * *

Out of the battlespace, even with all the chaos of the war left behind, Earth and the Moon actually look peaceful. Both are almost completely full, from my current perspective, and deceptively serene. A slight haze seems to drift around the two worlds, and the occasional pinpoint of light flashes among slowly moving faint blue lights. It doesn’t look anything like the war did up close from way out here.

We’re all going back into that soon. The task force is still under thrust, burning plasma to swing around, kill our velocity, and come back to the Earth–Luna system to carry on the fight.

For the moment, though, we have a breather, so we’re lining up our Angel squadron to dock with the Westie for resupply. Our squadron took it hardest, so we’re lined up to go in first. Each of the rest of my squadron will dock before I do, then Commander Rackham will dock last.

Up close to the Westie, it’s clear that the host carrier has seen better days. Her outer hull is a patchwork of mottled shades and colors where armor has been ablated away by multiple near hits. Most of the antennae have been burned away, replaced automatically with the new ones that kept her seeing and talking throughout the fight. It doesn’t look like there’s any major structural damage, but I can see the work teams with their drones and power-suits standing on the ship, patching her up even while under acceleration. At least the habitation wheel isn’t turning right now, but they still have to deal with the ship pitching this way and that during its maneuvering.

Even this far out, there’s a chance an enemy beam attack might hit us. So all the ships in the fleet have to maneuver somewhat instead of decelerating in a predictable path. This far out, there’s enough light delay that only a freakishly lucky shot would hit us.

Unfortunately, that means docking Angels have to deal with not only the 3G acceleration that the host carrier is under, but also the random maneuvers of the giant ship, as well. To handle that, each docking frame gets a tight-beam communication telling their frame exactly how to maneuver on approach.

Personally, I prefer to land on my own skill alone…uh, supplemented by my cyber-augments, my Angel’s core, and numerous other systems, of course. But still, that’s all under my control. If I’d wanted to fly as a passenger, I wouldn’t be an Angel pilot.

One of the frames has an engine flutter at the last second while coming in, scrapes alongside the hull of the Westie, and then tumbles into space. Once he clears the engine plasma of the massive ship on his fall, he transmits to let us know he’s OK, but the carrier’s engine plasma wash has ruined his maneuvering and other systems. The Weston launches another Search and Rescue craft to go after him in addition to the SAR on the way to help repair the Mackenzie.

Soon enough, it’s my turn. I maneuver in close to the massive bulk of the host carrier. The ship becomes a wall of scoured metal and composites. As she maneuvers, the great vessel pitches and rolls slowly in front of me like an ancient sea-going ship in a storm. I get the landing signal and relinquish control to the Weston’s landing controller.

My frame jets in even closer, just about in contact. Then freefall as my engines cut out, and I fall down toward the capture net. The wall of the great ship races by, growing closer until it looks like I’ll hit and bounce right off. Then it retreats away, and it looks like I’ll miss the net entirely and fall into the plasma flames of the main engines.

My whole frame shudders with impact as the capture net slams into me. Smart cables curl around to secure my frame properly, and then the whole net is withdrawn into the landing bay.

Back aboard. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

* * *

In the hanger, they take Chimera away from me. I get it. He’s banged up pretty badly. My Angel’s exterior looks like it’s been scorched and sand-blasted (and he has), and most of his armor packages have been burned away and expended, leaving ugly, block-shaped gaps in his protection. Also, there’s no way the maintenance teams are going to want to work on a frame with a pilot still inside if they can help it.

So I get out and stretch my legs in the hanger while the metal arms of a crane descend from the ceiling to carry my frame away. I’m staying in my flight suit, though; there’s no point in removing and then reattaching all the cables and tubes and doing the pre-flight and pre-breathing exercises that come with that. I’ll be going back out all too soon.

I do top off my suit’s reserves, though. Then I sit down and take a drink of the blue-flavored electrolyte drink in my helmet. It’s labeled “Fruit Filled Pie.” Not bad, but it doesn’t really taste like any pie I’ve ever had. Instead, we usually just name the drink packs by their color.

A file comes up on my cyber-sensorium from the maintenance section. It’s a long list of the things they need to do to Chimera to get him ready for battle again. He’s going to need a whole new armor package, a new x-ray lance, replacement of a couple strained thrusters, refueling, and rearming.