Cherubim

by David Hallquist

  “I’ll do what needs to be done, sir. We can’t allow Saturn to make our officers hide from their own shadows.”

  “True, but we also can’t have you dying on us, either.”

  Ah, no. Here it comes. I’m going to be stuck on restricted duty, flying all the safest missions, and locked away behind guarded doors all the rest of the time. No more combat missions, no more traveling the solar system, no more nothing. It’ll be a shadow of what I should be doing. Still, I’ll do it if it’s what I have to do.

  “Right, sir.”

  “So don’t take any stupid chances while you’re off-duty. I don’t want you getting knifed by a Venusian dancing-girl. We can’t hide you away or lock you up without making it look like we’re giving in to what Saturn wants. If that happens, we’ll have more assassins coming after our other officers, so that can’t happen. You’ll still be out and visible, but watch yourself. You might still die in battle, but you’re not allowed to die while away on world.”

  “Uh, I’ll do my best.” So I’ll be continuing on as best as I can, without any extra protection. Well…

  “You’re going to have help. There will be more guards in various areas aboard ship, as well as new routines for you and your senior staff to follow. Listen to the security procedures and follow them to the letter and spirit. Also, I’ll be assigning someone to you when you’re on world, no objections.”

  I nod. OK, I’m certainly not going to object. I haven’t the faintest idea how to deal with assassins or Saturnine super-spies. My education in that area comes mainly from holo-shows often featuring an invincible secret agent with irresistible charm and an array of hidden gadgets—

  “You’ll be receiving additional training in security procedures. Upgrades will be made to the security systems in your cabin, frame, armor, uniform, and even your cybernetic augmentation.”

  Visions of secret-agent training and hidden gadgets float up in my mind.

  “None of this is secret-agent stuff,” he says, interrupting my dream of Michael Vance, Super-Spy. “These will be improvements in your cyber security, as well as procedures to increase your safety. Most of all, you’ll be getting improvements in sensory augments and training in threat recognition. Think of it as your target recognition systems and training, but you may not get to shoot first, or even back, because the battlespace could be a crowded civilian hallway.”

  I nod again. It seems like Saturn should still pay for this.

  “If you’re wondering if Saturn is going to pay a price for this, the answer is, yes.” His eyes almost glow. “I’ve talked to some of my friends and colleagues in the Intelligence Division. I can’t tell you what’s going to be done, and you’ll probably never know what happened, but something is going to happen. Saturn crossed a line, and they need to know there’s a cost for this.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s not about you, Vance. This is about the Navy. We cannot allow this kind of thing. Work with your security team and let them or me know immediately if you see anything.”

  I nod again. “Sir? What about my family?”

  “There are security measures going into place back on Jupiter, as well.” His eyes soften with concern. “We’ll do everything we can to protect them.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I’m dismissed after that. There’s not much more to say.

  My entire life has changed forever…and my family’s, though they never asked for this. What can I say about that?

  * * *

  The ship seems to whirl around my cabin as I stare up at the ceiling through a hazy mental fog. My life has always been one of risk and danger, but it was well ordered, at least. Now, I’m having to change, prepare for something I don’t understand, against enemies I can’t predict.

  The upgrades to my cyber augments didn’t involve any new surgery, thankfully. Mostly it was a number of security software updates and upgrades, along with modifications to my communications systems and network. They also injected a whole new nanotech matrix into me, but that doesn’t really count as surgery. Then the stuff had to grow new structures inside me—anti-toxin and anti-biowar nodules, sophisticated anti-nano drones, and that sort of thing. That hurt, but not too much. No, what was really uncomfortable during the whole thing was the additional shielding patterns the nanotech grew in under my skin. Supposedly, that extra layer will prevent all kinds of electromagnetic cybernetic intrusion, while also bolstering me with additional protection from darts, blades, and other kinds of attacks. I hope it’s worth it; my skin still feels like there’s fire ants crawling around underneath.

  My real pain is entirely self-inflicted. I’ve stepped up my Gravcom bouts with Master Sergeant Randall Martin. Over the past year, I’ve gotten a lot better…but so has he. He helps keep me sharp, fit, and focused, and he also provides a dose of humility each session. I am going to take him in the ring someday…it will happen…just not today.

  I adjust to a slightly less painful position and consider tomorrow’s lessons.

  Just as well we learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses, since we could well be in a fight for our lives. Sgt. Martin will be assigned to me as a guard whenever I’m on a world other than Jupiter or the moons. While he’s a one-man demolition crew without any weapons at all, assigning a Marine to someone to keep them out of trouble has its own complications. You don’t want to see what kind of trouble a Navy pilot and a Marine can get into.

  The Intelligence Division spook who’s been training me goes by the name of “Dale Shackleford,” but no one knows what his real name is. That training has been weird. Instead of more unarmed combat and weapons training, which would have been interesting, it’s been lots of observation, memory, and psychology stuff. It’s things like how to recognize when someone’s lying, or in disguise, or working covertly with someone else. I’m doing well with all the memory and pattern recognition stuff; a lot of those tests were so easy, they were practically boring. The way to set up combat tactics in a crowded area and prevent ambushes was a lot of fun to learn. Still, the weird psychology stuff, reading people and understanding how criminal and intelligence services function—which can often be the same thing—is as dull as it gets.

  Still, I’ve got to know it all to keep doing my job.

  All this extra training fills up a lot of the day, and my schedule is already full. I need to keep training up my squadron, continue familiarizing myself with Talon and my frame, and get ready for the next mission.

  Vesta…Saturn’s old ally, now turned pirate again. We’ll be dealing with Saturn’s legacy and helping make space safe again—if everything goes right.

  But how often does that happen?

  So much could go wrong. There’s a native population who’s been educated to hate us with a generation of bad blood between them and our Belter allies. If it comes to a fight, it could get very, very nasty…and I have a feeling it will come to a fight.

  I just need to get some sleep…somehow…

  * * * * *

  Chapter 3

  Vestal Fires

  I hate pirates.

  Really, it’s not just the loathing and distaste all spacers have for space vermin. It goes beyond that. This is an actual, burning passion. The real enemies of any navy aren’t actually other navies—those are our adversaries as required by the affairs of state and policy, from time to time. No, our real enemies are the lawless scum of space—pirates.

  Pirates are not the cheerful, noble rogues of holo-videos; oh no, they’re not. They’re the worst form of scum ever to pilot a spacecraft—not that I’m opinionated or anything. Unlike the early pirates of the age of sail, pirates today aren’t after money or other booty—they’re after people. The point is to capture hostages and threaten shipping lines into paying protection money. Given time, they’ll threaten asteroid settlements and even worlds with nuclear strikes or asteroid impacts if they don’t get their blood money. They’re the modern-day extortionists and terrorists of space.


  During the bad old days, no unarmed spacecraft was safe, and unescorted mining colonies just disappeared. Every world had to upgrade their asteroid defense network, not to deflect random rocks, but deliberately aimed asteroids, thermonuclear warheads, and even projectiles with stealth coatings. Even worlds paying protection money got hit, as there were soon so many pirate organizations with demands that all it took was someone, somewhere, feeling they weren’t getting a big enough piece of the action to launch a brutal attack on a city. Major asteroid bases became shelters for such raiders, and eventually were taken over entirely by them. Before too long, each of the major asteroid settlements was in a contest to see who the ruler of the asteroids would be, and they sought to enforce their rule by attacking those paying protection to other raiders.

  It was an intolerable situation. The Belt raiders shut down all travel between the inner and outer solar system and threatened all shipping, and even lightly defended stations or settlements. All the various worlds agreed, something had to be done. Many powers helped arm raiders to harass their enemies, but now their pet snake had turned and bitten their hand, instead. Even Saturn wouldn’t put up with it.

  The worlds worked together for possibly the first and last time against a common enemy. Once major worlds stopped paying their blood money, stopped trading with them, and stopped giving them material assistance to ravage their enemies, the raiders deteriorated quickly out in their barren rocks. The Belters retaliated with all the savagery they could muster, dropping an asteroid on Earth, and raiding stations and settlements throughout the solar system.

  That gave the major worlds the motivation to go out into the Belt and get rid of such raiders for good, even amid some of the nastiest space combat the solar system had yet seen.

  Finally, to make sure they didn’t have to fly out there every decade or so, the major worlds established bases on the major asteroid settlements. We set up on Ceres, Terra took Eros, Venus got Pallas, and Saturn…they took over Vesta.

  For all this time, Saturn has kept raiders from basing at Vesta. They might be emotionless post-human monsters, but they like an orderly solar system. I can only imagine the kind of ruthlessness and brutality they used to keep order out there.

  Now, Saturn’s gone from Vesta.

  It didn’t take long for a new leader to pop up and declare a return to the old ways. There’s certainly enough resentment. After decades of Saturnine occupation, everyone at Vesta is no doubt eager to lash out at someone. So they announced they’re returning to raiding in the name of retaking a Belt that was rightfully theirs in the first place.

  We’re on the way to do something about that.

  We’re all seated around a meeting table with Wing Commander Rackham. With me are the other squadron leaders, and also the lead engineer for our frames. This isn’t the general flight briefing he’ll give to us all; that’ll come later. Now we’re meeting to work out the best way to help the commander carry out his orders.

  “We’ll be flying out in two days to end the Arga regime,” Commander Rackham announces. Everyone knew the Belter pirate-turned-dictator would have to go. Once he had all those captives publicly executed, the whole solar system knew we’d be coming.

  “Rather than engage his fleet piecemeal in the asteroid belt in a series of protracted operations, we’re going after their leadership and support base at Vesta directly.” That’s not a surprise either. Anyone could see where our task force was heading, and the rumor mill remains the fastest communications system aboard ship.

  “Our job will be to clear the space around Vesta of hostiles and keep it safe as the Marine transports arrive. We’ll then escort the landing craft, support them as they deploy on the surface, and assist them in gaining entry to the interior habitat. Then we’ll patrol the asteroid surface and keep it secure.”

  “Any chance we can ice up?” I ask hopefully. If we freeze our frames down to four degrees Kelvin, and apply a stealth coating, there’s no way their passive sensors will pick us up on the approach.

  “No, not this time,” he answers. “Admiral Stasia wants us to come in openly, declaring our intentions, not suddenly appearing out of the darkness.”

  Great. Well, it might not actually be her idea. Someone high up back at Jupiter probably thought this would make us look more like good guys rather than raiders or assassins striking from surprise. The last part about “appearing out of the darkness” sounded like part of a canned, prepared speech, also probably from the higher-ups. Still, I’d rather appear out of darkness than get shot on the way in.

  “For our defense, we’ll have full support from Invictus drones, as well as countermeasures dust and dazzlers launched from the fleet.” Well, that’s better. It’s not as good as being iced up on the way in, but once the shooting starts, all that stuff will help confuse the active sensors and any mines we’ll have to deal with.

  “I assume, since we won’t be using stealth coatings, that we should maximize our reflective coatings?” Engineering Chief Lancer asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Rackham replied.

  Well, that’s better than nothing. The reflective coatings on the Cherubim do more than just protect us from lasers. With thousands of microscopic mirror-prisms built in, radar and lidar beams scatter into useless chaos. In space, nothing’s darker than a mirror that’s reflecting light away from you. The enemy will know something is out there, through all the scattered sensor readings, but they won’t know exactly what, where it is, or where it’s going. It’s still not quite as stealthy as the absorptive coatings, nor as invisible as adaptive camouflage, but it’ll do. I hope.

  “What kind of opposition will we be facing?” I ask. Better to get the bad news out of the way.

  “A lot of Arga’s raider friends have already left Vesta to carry out operations, or maybe they don’t think standing up to the Jovian Navy is a good idea, after all. Still, there’s eight Belter ships that have been modified into raiders still there, and we expect they’ll fight.”

  That’s not too bad, actually. Eight ships sounds bad, but these are Belter craft, thrown together out of spare parts, adhesive tape, and desperation. The weapons on them will be nasty, I’m sure, but there’s not much that can be done to make a piecemeal civilian craft resistant to incoming fire. They’ll go down quickly against real opposition.

  “Unfortunately, it looks like Saturn left behind a lot of its military gear for the Vestals. We’ve detected Type-93 “Torch” anti-space maser cannon, and we suspect Type-50 mines as well.”

  There are groans around the table.

  Facing Belter craft and secondhand weapons bought on the black market is one thing. Facing modern Saturnine systems is something else entirely. The Type-93, or “Torch,” is a heavy maser cannon with enough punch to knock out a military spacecraft. Our armor’s coatings should reflect enough of the beam so it won’t instantly cook us, but it’ll still short out systems, and sitting in the beam will fry us all for sure. The fun doesn’t end there, as they have their own laser point-defense systems, and they’re usually deployed in interlocking fields of defensive fire, along with defensive drones. As for the Type-50 Mine, well those bad-boys have a thermonuclear bursting charge that powers the scores of x-ray anti-ship laser emitters on it. A glancing blow might only take off a wing—a direct hit will kill. All this stuff has to be cleared away before the landing ships and the rest of our fleet can get anywhere near this rock.

  It’s clear that Saturn did this to mess with us. They knew we’d have to stop piracy from Vesta, and they made it as difficult and dangerous as they could. Just another thing to remember when payback time comes.

  “Our first stage will be the approach, as we come in with Invictus drones, sensor dazzlers, decoys, and countermeasures dust. Everyone’s already been warned to leave the area or take shelter, so if there’s a ship moving out there, it’s a possible threat. We’re to clear out the hostile ships, as well as enemy space artillery emplacements and mines.” A hologram comes up, showing us approac
hing the large asteroid and breaking apart into smaller units to engage targets and circle around.

  “Then we neutralize surface weapons and enemy targets.” The hologram shows us circling the asteroid, firing down at possible pop-up guns and raiders on the surface.

  “Finally, we’ll escort the Marine landing ships to their destination, then support them in their operations on the surface and breaching into the interior.” Four main points are glowing on the asteroid, with our flights concentrated around them, while a few others remain on patrol around the asteroid.

  “Vance, you’ll be with me in taking Veneia.”

  Ohhhh…ok. “Sir.” I nod.

  Veneia is short for the Veneia/Rheasilvia crater complex that takes up most of one side of the flattened sphere that is Vesta. It’s the main concentration of surface structures on the rock, and the central peak in the middle of the crater is the headquarters for everything. It’s going to be the most heavily defended area on the whole rock, and also the most important target. It’s quite an honor, and it’ll be the most dangerous job. I hope I don’t screw it up.

  Together, we plan the assault for each of our areas.

  For Veneia, after passing over to hit obvious targets, we’ll come in low with support from drones and our ships. We’ll have to clear the crater rim mountains first, then make our way across the crater plain, while keeping enough fire concentrated on that central peak. Finally, we’ll help the Marines breach the command complex for the whole asteroid.

  After an hour of planning, and several cups of coffee, I’m beginning to think we might be OK.

  * * *

  Vesta is dead ahead.

  Through magnification, the asteroid looks like a grayish squashed ball covered in craters and rifts. The night side glows with lights here and there, though most of the asteroid surface is dark and barren. Only the Veneia crater complex shines abundantly with light, with the capital mountain in the center almost as developed as what you might see on Ceres or another deep-space settlement. The rest of the asteroid is almost as barren and desolate as when Saturn first moved in so long ago.