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

The colonel gives the signal, and we let them have it with our full load of missiles and SPGs. The chamber beyond seems to dissolve into a sea of blinding fire. Hot winds blast out into the tunnel. Nothing could have taken that in the face. Then, still firing, we advance into the flames and pursue the retreating enemy.

We take back the central chamber and intend to hold it this time. The fleeing Terrans finally regroup in the other tunnels and start shooting back.

From above, SPGs and improvised explosives rain down on us. Our defensive laser clusters take out most of them. Streams of flaming liquids and black, tarry stuff is also being dumped on us from above. There’s also a lot of rail fire pouring down from the balconies and galleries in the walls above. We pour suppression fire into those positions and send SPGs into those balconies and galleries to explode and clear them out.

Some kind of flaming gunk lands all over my frame, engulfing me in a giant ball of fire. The fire doesn’t actually hurt anything—my frame is built to take way higher temperatures than this—but it’s still a problem. My IR sensors are useless, and heatsinks are going to be less effective. It’s also leaving behind some kind of tarry gunk that’s making my laser emitters and most camera eyes useless.

I signal Lee to take over while I stagger back into the tunnel. There, our logistics team locks my frame into a portable repair rack set up for field work. They clean the stuff off with something that can strip skin and get to work. They replace my laser emitters, sensor eyes, and armor facings, while others reload my munitions. All the time I’m here, my people are getting shot at, and I can’t help. Come on, hurry up! I think at them. I know they’re going as fast as they can, faster than anyone else could, and on a battlefield, no less. Still…hurry.

The lead tech gives me the thumbs-up. “Chimera: diagnostics,” I order my frame. It takes less than a second; everything is functional. “Drop my frame,” I order, and my exo-frame drops out of the repair rack, ready for battle. I race past the next one awaiting resupply and fly along near the ceiling of the tunnel to get back into the fight.

It’s still going on. The floor is clear of hostiles, but we’re still taking fire from some of those tunnel entrances and from overhead. Our Guardians are the main anti-missile support for the Marines, but it looks like the incoming missiles have died down to almost nothing. Mostly, we’ve got improvised weapons and rail or laser fire coming in now.

Should we clear out the tunnels and the overhead positions, or stay here and shield the Marines? This one is their show; we’re here to help. “Colonel Stark. Request that we clear out those tunnels by flight, then clear the overhead positions.”

“By all means, do so,” comes his crisp reply.

We’re off. I send a flight to each of the tunnel entrances to clear them out and hold the rest of us here in the middle on anti-missile defense. I’ve got to stay here because of command, but we all send off a volley of missiles ahead of our flights to help clear the way. Fire erupts out of the wide tunnel entrances just before our flights arrive to clear the way with SPGs, rail cannon, x-ray lances, and laser clusters.

The firing goes on a lot longer than I would have expected. Are they in trouble? No. It’s just a desperate Terran last stand. They know they’ve lost, but they’re still fighting to the last. The colonel sends Marines over on jump-jets to help clear the way and then occupy those positions.

Now we can clear out those balconies—what’s left of them, anyway. Right now they kind of resemble craters belching smoke more than balconies and broad galleries. Still, fire and bombs are coming out, so we’re going to put a stop to that.

We split up and choose our targets. I’m heading toward what used to be a broad, overhanging shelf with some gardens along the edges. It’s now a long, blackened, gaping gash in the wall, expelling smoke from a few small fires, surrounded with scorched and pockmarked walls.

A crude missile comes spiraling out of the smoke, and I easily shoot it down. Rail fire rakes across my armor, and a few laser shots get through, highly attenuated by all the smoke. I clear the way with an SPG cluster, and those explosions make the entrance breathe out a cloud of flames.

I’m in.

Scorched walls, broken glass, and fried plastic is everywhere, scattered across what’s left of the enemy. The various walls that used to section off this gallery are long gone, destroyed by my SPGs or cleared out by the Terrans who had turned the place into a machine gun nest. I don’t know which. Dead Terrans are scattered everywhere.

I stop breathing as I see that none of them are in combat armor.

What have I done?

On closer look, they’re all armed. Lasers, railguns, launchers, and carts to push bombs are all around them. Some of them have the burned uniforms of the Tower Guard, not soldiers really, but they were shooting at us just the same. Others have on a uniform Chimera identifies as a cadet uniform. Full of eagerness to go out and fight the enemy from space, with nothing but a pistol and sheer determination, no doubt. Without breathing apparatus, many must have succumbed to the smoke and fire up here. It looks like my SPGs took out most of the booby-traps the Terrans rigged, and I fire my laser clusters to take out the rest of the mines.

The heat, smoke, and crude barricades make it hard to