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

our cruisers, attack ships, drones, mines, and exo-frames like us to open fire, all at once. It’ll be a light-speed wave of destruction radiating out to hit Saturnine bases and ships. Then we’ll take advantage of the chaos and pick our targets in the general battle to come.

The signal should come any time now…

Right about now…

Soon…

It has to happen now. We’re about to go right past Deimos. We’ve got to hit it!

It’s now or never.

Images of my friends flash into my memory. Friends from the past, now gone. My old Phobos posting wasn’t great, but it was home for a while, and now all that is gone.

If I fire right now, I might inflict enough damage to cripple the base, even on my own. The rest of my squadron will follow my lead and fire on it, finishing it off. All I have to do is fire now…it has to be now…it has to be…

NOW!

The moment passes.

Deimos flashes past us, not knowing that death has just brushed past them in the void.

NO!

I want to scream and pound the console of my frame. All of this for nothing! We’ve given up any element of surprise we worked so hard to achieve. We can be certain that Saturn won’t think twice about using a sneak attack to gain an advantage over us. Now we’re going to be exposed to enemy scans while we’re forced to decelerate and maneuver, breaking our stealth, separated from the task force so neither of us can support the other.

…and no justice for Phobos.

Finally, we get our orders from the host carrier, but they’re not what we expected. The attack is canceled. We’re being recalled back to the task force to provide a defensive screen. If that’s what we were going to do, then why didn’t they have us do that in the first place?

We light up our engines and active sensors and swing around to join back up with the approaching task force.

Deimos Base suddenly notices us and lights us up with targeting beams and weapons systems swinging our way.

Please, I think at them as hard as I can. Do it. Go ahead and fire at me. Give me an excuse. Go on…

They don’t open fire, of course. Why would they? Right now they’re sandwiched between our Angel squadrons and the oncoming task force. They’d be wiped out. Why attack now, when they can wait? Their forces are arriving now, and they can always choose another time to hit us, when the odds are in their favor.

So we have to let Deimos go for now. That’s a mistake; we should hit them now, because they will hit us later. Still, I’m not going to violate my orders and start a battle on my own. Maybe command thinks peace can still be salvaged from all of this. I doubt it. Sooner or later, Saturn will cross the line again, no matter how many chances we give them.

Countermeasure dust scrapes at my frame more violently now that I’m moving against its path. Soon enough, all the stealth coatings and active camouflage will be gone, and my frame is already heating up. Stealth is gone, and we’ve lost the element of surprise. The only thing we can do is return to patrol around the task force and try to keep people alive through what’s coming next.

We boost on toward the blue stars of the drives of our task force.

* * *

Back with the task force, I’d like to say we’re ready for anything, but we’re not. We should be loaded with anti-aerospace missiles to defend the big ships from enemy fighters and missiles, not these big, heavy weapons designed to crack fortifications. At least our SPG load-out is set mostly for countermeasures and anti-missile, with the idea that we’ll dump them to cover our retreat during a strike. Now, on escort, we can use them to help protect against an incoming missile strike. We’ve also used a lot of fuel in our rendezvous with the task force, which is itself still maneuvering, not only to enter orbit around Mars, but also constantly changing its vector in the increasingly complex paths and orbits developing around Mars as all of the fleets arrive.

The other fleets and task forces of Jupiter are here—most of them, anyway. Squadrons of our cruisers are taking up positions in various nested protective orbits. Nike-class heavy attack cruisers provide the firepower, while Achilles-class missile defense cruisers are the shields that keep the whole fleet alive to do its job. Our larger and newer host carriers are out here now, with squadrons of more advanced Cherubim-class Angel exo-frames, too. The four-winged exo-frames don’t look like chubby babies; these mechanical monsters are actually our most advanced frames: larger, faster, and much more heavily armed than my Guardian frame. Swarms of light attack craft and drones complete our fleet. Somewhere out there, our attack ships lurk, still able to maneuver unseen, with their highly specialized engine systems that are so secret, no one seems to even know the basic principles they work under.

Saturn’s ships are here now, with all their menace and mystery. Chronos-class heavy cruisers and Cyclops-class light attack frigates make up most of the heavy units of the fleet, bolstered by swarms of Hydra gunships. All the craft have a similar design—radially symmetrical structures of weirdly organic curves ending in sharp edges and protruding spines. They’re all black as space, their shadows only relieved by a few red glowing sensors, and the harsh ultra-violet light of their drives. They don’t have any carriers out here, but they don’t use carriers to transport the swarms of insectile cybernetic assault battleoids that are now swarming through space. All their ships carry a few of them, and they’re all out here now. They outnumber us by an extremely uncomfortable margin.

Then, there’s the ultimate unknown quantity—the Venusian