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

one who’d clearly died covering another with his body. Twisted remnants of assault-battleoids, field guns, and light armored vehicles are everywhere, still smoking.

The walls of the broad tunnel curve overhead to form an arch, with the top still hidden by smoke. The walls are pockmarked in small craters, and soot covers most of the surfaces.

I can make out a stencil showing the outline of a spacecraft shooting beams at running figures. It reads, “BEWARE THE ENEMY ABOVE.”

Yeah, about that…

The thing they’d feared most had come to pass—an invasion from space. It didn’t have to happen. They didn’t have to fire antimatter at Luna and shoot at us, too. The Terrans made their own nightmare come true by the very act of trying to attack us first to prevent it.

It doesn’t help me deal with it, though.

These are brave, tough men we’re fighting, and they don’t know they’re fighting for the wrong side. They no doubt see us as monsters from space, here to pillage and destroy their home world. In a better world, we’d be fighting side by side against the real enemy, Saturn, instead of fighting each other.

I find a wounded man, desperately trying to move against the weight of his dead power armor. I take the pistol out of his hand, and the Marines take him prisoner. Maybe the medics can save him; I don’t know.

There aren’t many prisoners, only a handful, and they’re all men too wounded to fight. There are millions of people in this tower, and we’ve only just begun.

I’m not liking how this is starting out one bit.

We come to another set of massive doors. Beyond lays the central transit nexus for the tower, no doubt abundantly supplied with enemy forces.

Now we’ve got to do this all over again.

* * *

Enemy fire pours in as soon as the next set of doors are down. We give all we’ve got back, with missiles, rail-cannon, and plasma repeaters. The hallway fills with an echoing thunder, along with flame and smoke. Beyond the gateway it looks like a door into a volcanic landscape of fire and blinding flashes. With two heavily armed forces in close contact and without much cover, it doesn’t take long for the casualties to mount up.

Another member of my squadron goes down from a bunker-buster missile blast that knocks me flat just from being near the blast. There are pieces of frame everywhere; I don’t have to check to know he’s gone.

A mad, desperate charge of Terran assault-battleoids tries to rush us, straight into our fire. The writhing, tentacled carapaces soak up a lot of plasma and SPG fire before going down, only to be replaced by even more cybernetic monstrosities. They get closer, and closer…until finally something gives. They stop their furious charge and back away, and soon the enemy line dissolves under our overwhelming firepower. Even a brave and determined force can only take so much plasma explosives.

Marine Colonel Stark gives the signal, and we charge in, firing at the retreating foe.

Beyond is the vast central chamber of the tower. The gigantic hallway is currently dark, with the endless lights that would normally illuminate the plaza out, though that doesn’t impede either force, as we’ve all got night vision. The walls rise to a distant height and arch over to form a dome-like vault in the middle. Galleries and balconies are cut in the walls and curving ceiling overhead, also dark, and likely filled with threats. Great arched doorways lead off to the other surface entrances, ramps down lead to the various subterranean train stations, and four massive columns contain the banks of elevators that run up the tower itself. Here is where the various tunnels, trains, elevators, and everything else comes together. Whoever controls this chamber controls access to the tower, inside and out.

We charge into the mob of Terrans trying to guard the center, but they break and run. They’ve lost their momentum and morale, and we rush to push it as far as we can until—

We get hit from the other tunnels, hard. Particle lances, plasma bolts, lasers, and rail fire hammer into us from all sides. Our defensive laser clusters go to full cycle to keep up with the swarms of missiles, SPGs, and drones. Another of our frames goes down from a particle lance. Sparky picks him up and drags him clear while others cover him. We can’t keep this up long.

Stark gives the order to retreat to the entrance tunnel.

We send the wounded back first, then we pull back by platoon and flight, firing all the way. As we go, we salt the ground behind us with smart mines. The Terrans charge into our fire and mines, anyway, taking horrific casualties. They want us that bad.

They’re not going to get us, though.

We regroup in the entrance tunnel and pour fire back down the way. Our railgun darts, laser clusters, and x-ray lances strike with computer-guided precision that just can’t miss at this range. With no cover, proper jamming, or countermeasures, and massed together as they charge our hall, every single shot fired hits. There’s no possible way combat armor or crude Terran power armor can take that kind of massed, concentrated fire.

They try anyway.

The wave of enemy advances, slows, and crashes on the wall of our sustained fire. They break, recede, and then advance again…and again…and again. They’re that desperate to retake this part of the tower.

They are not going to get that, either.

Along the tunnel to our landing pad, mechanized walkers and technical staff are going back and forth. The wounded are being rolled out on powered stretchers while ammunition and replacement weapons are rolling in. We fall back by flight and platoon to rearm and replace overheated lasers and spent armor casings, while others move up to take our place on the line. Then, once we’re