The Guardians of Sol

The Guardians of Sol

To my family and friends.

I couldn’t have done this without you.

Prologue

August 17, 2137. Colony ship
Chiron,
Sol System, Outside the Kuiper Belt.

Spinning slowly in place, the smooth rounded cone of a ship had a quartet of huge cylindrical engines set at the rear; three curved bulges were set apart equidistantly near the front. These extended all the way from the bow of the ship to the aft near the engines. The bulging ridges were open to space at the front, though their purpose was not immediately clear. Altogether, the colony ship was almost four kilometers long. The vessel escorted by two smaller ships. The first resembled a shield, burnished silver and edged with red, bristling with the blisters of weapons emplacements along the edges of its top and bottom. The other vessel was half the size of the colony ship; it was ungainly with a pylon sloping back from the bottom, and three huge cargo bay doors on either side. It was a ship built for function rather than form. The lumpy ship was spinning as well, docked with the
Chiron
, filling it with final supplies.

Alexei Xerov led the Sentinel, the leader of the Guardians and mastermind behind the project, on a final tour of the
Chiron
. They were followed by the Sentinel's mostly ceremonial guard of heavily armored Castigars. Alexei, leanly built but as well muscled as any of the men under his command, was schooled under the Vindicator styles and couldn't stand the restrictiveness of the much bulkier Castigar armors.

They took a lift to the bridge where, set to either side, Castigar guards shifted slightly, uncomfortable in their new powered armor. Engineers were running around making last minute adjustments to the consoles and sensors. The Sentinel smiled proudly at the efficacy of the men, and the general state of his project.

The powerful, silver-bearded man clapped Alexei on the back saying, "You've got yourself a fine ship, Captain. Keep in touch."

Alexei took the proffered hand and replied, "We will, Sir."
As much as possible
, went unspoken. The courier ships aboard were almost as untested as the new faster than light Archimedes drives installed throughout the
Chiron
.

"Good luck." The Sentinel said as he abruptly left the bridge with his guard. But then, everything that needed to be said had been long ago. The Sentinel had his own appointments to make.

Alexei's executive officer came up to him, "Sir, only an hour before departure, may I begin disembarking the visiting personnel?"

"Do it, Bernie. I sincerely doubt that they would appreciate getting dragged along on our little trip."

"Yes, sir!" First Officer Bernard Abrams saluted before shouting orders into the communications console.

Scarcely half an hour later, everyone was where they were supposed to be. The
Consignment
began to undock from the
Chiron
. When they were a good 2500 meters apart, the High Sentinel started his speech from the
Redemption
, going on about the importance of this project and the destiny of mankind among the stars. The speech would be rebroadcast along with visuals of the
Chiron
once the
Redemption
returned to the more inhabited parts of the system. It was all quite nice but Alexei had a hard time paying full attention with all of the commotion of his engineers and their nearly constant techno-babble. As the Sentinel neared the speech's conclusion, Alexei rose from his command chair.

“Dial up the Archimedes drive, Lieutenant. We've got to give the Sentinel his dramatic finale," he ordered. "All officers, soldiers, and family members - strap in, we're finally going for our little ride. Wait for the signal.”

On the last word of the speech, Alexei gave the command, and the
Chiron
disappeared in a burst of brilliant color. Gone to history.

May 16, 2289. West Coast of North American continent,
California Territory

Have you ever noticed how some of the most important events of your life tend to happen on the most innocuous of days? Just another day on guard duty, just another battle, just another patrol… On it went. Ad infinitum. I don’t actually remember why my squad was put on guard duty at the California islands research base. We had performed well on countless missions, and in dozens of battles. Perhaps Command thought we deserved a break, although if that was true I would have much preferred somewhere with a somewhat larger female population. The beaches were nice, although I had yet to actually master surfing during my off hours. Regardless, this day was a definite turning point in my life.

I was making my rounds along the perimeter, stopping by the exercise area to check on a few of my off-duty brethren. At least if we were stuck out here there was plenty of space to move about. There were men playing basketball, soccer, football, and even wrestling. Speaking of wrestling… the Giant, a drunkard squad captain who had received his nickname because of his ridiculously large stature, was taking money from anyone who thought they could take him down.
Hope he’s still out here when I get off my shift.
I thought. I had lost credits to him the other week at a poker game and would have liked to make it up. He’d never been able to beat me in a wrestling match; although the result usually was closer than I'd like. The Giant laughed annoyingly loud as he threw another young Castigar out of the ring. Yes, I was looking forward to humbling my friend.

Making my way to the beach to see what was going on there; my heads up display brought something odd to my attention. An old airliner was flying overhead. There wasn't a supply run scheduled that day, and nothing that wasn’t from the Guardian Corps’ armory came out here anymore. Not since the end of the fourth World War and the final collapse of the United States, at least. Odd indeed.

I zoomed in on it, but before I could make out any details my visor polarized against sudden glare as flash that rivaled the sun in its intensity burst from it. The nanosecond delay before the polarization still left me dazed. Then my armor died. The electromagnetic pulse from the explosion, which could only have been a nuke, fried the primary circuits.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my visor remained polarized so I was in the dark when the overpressure wave slammed me into the ground. It is a good thing that I’m not prone to claustrophobia, because the Castigar variant of power armor is too heavy to move without any assistance, and those long seconds before the secondary systems came online seemed like an eternity.

My armor finally came back to life and I got back on my feet, surveying the carnage left behind. There would be no wrestling match with the Giant later. Ever. The carnage was quite gruesome. Even more so than I had seen on any battlefield. Pulped flesh, shattered bones… I opened a com channel. On my HUD eleven lights appeared, signifying the men in my Anvil squad.

“Squad, check in.” The lights began turning from red to green as their armor came back online.

“Haywire here, second team ready for action.” Haywire is my lieutenant and best friend. Even I don’t know all the little things he takes care of in my squad.

“Third team is lit and waiting for orders.” Shot-put piped in only seconds behind Haywire. My officers are an efficient bunch, aren’t they? My own team reported in as alive and kicking. I ordered the entire squad to check the perimeter. An attack like this could only be a prelude to something larger. Nuclear powered planes weren't exactly a 'thing' that anyone just built.

My team headed toward the beach. I couldn’t actually see any of them, but I was jumping from cover to cover. I hit the top of a ridge with a now severely dilapidated stone wall that overlooked the facility’s main beach about the same time as Squatter, my partner, and Tinker. Nutter was only a few seconds behind.

On the beach, enemy formations were already pouring out from transports, which themselves were streaming from gigantic submersible battlecarriers. The smooth jet black armors could only belong to Marines from the Oceanic Republics. Their third generation armor might be downright antiquated by Guardian standards, but there were hundreds of marines crowding the beach. For comparison sake, my own squad was outfitted with sixth generation heavy armor. The Republics were well behind the technological curve, but they made up for it with numbers and enthusiasm.

“Tinker, Nutter. Take out those transports. Squatter, we’re on crowd control,” I ordered my team. I switched com channels to address the rest of my squad. “Guys, get your asses over to the beach. We’ve got a massive incursion by Republic Marines,” I swore. “They’re unloading tanks and mechanoids now. Move it! Move it! Move it!”

Tinker and Nutter let loose with their back mounted cannons, destroying the enemy boats and scattering whatever marines that didn't move fast enough from the explosions. Squatter and I activated our Gatling guns and began mowing down whoever we could. Bullets from enemy rifles pinged and bounced off our armor. Fortunately, they weren’t close enough to let loose any grenades yet, though even that probably wouldn’t pierce the thick plates of our armor either.

My com buzzed and popped. “Castle, do you read me? This is O’Neal. My squad is suited up, but the exit is blocked. What’s the sit-rep?”

“I think a nuke was hidden on an old airliner. It knocked out the defenses and killed everyone else out here when it blew. Republic Marines are now attacking from the beach. We’re barely holding them off right now. Clear that entrance and see if you can’t draft some help from whoever’s just sitting around.”

“On it. We’ll be out in a few minutes. Try not to die, Captain.”

“Will do, Captain. See you soon.”

There were three Castigar squads assigned to the research base, but with the Giant’s Second Fiddle squad permanently out of commission, and O’Neal’s Hammer guys stuck twiddling their thumbs things weren’t looking that great for me and my boys.

The guns on my back clacked empty. I had dropped at least fifty marines but more were still coming ashore despite my team’s best efforts. I hit the command that detached the empty weapons from my back and began firing with my forearm mounted machine guns. Forty rounds in each arm. They clacked empty too, too fast. I pulled an ammo belt from a hidden slot in my thigh armor to reload at least one ranged weapon.

Before I could get it into my arm cannon, one of the marines came out of my blind spot and shoulder charged me. He actually pushed me back a step and I dealt a blow that, in retrospect, probably killed the man more brutally than I intended. But he did make me drop my ammo clip, and I had intended to kill him. Sighing, I grabbed the marine’s rifle from the misshapen corpse and pulled my sword from my backpack. I waded into the masses with the considerable piece of superheating metal and an insufficiently powerful gun.

The rest of my squad finally decided to show up and add their fire to the mix just as I was getting to the enemy line. Which I suppose is why the battlecarriers started launching some of their rockets and missiles at us. Of course, I was fairly distracted by the men trying to kill me and didn’t see one land right next to me until just before it exploded. I went flying. My sword went flying. Marines died. It was almost like the enemy commander hadn’t planned things out very well. Did he even consider what they would do if there were more than two active squads of Castigars here? Did he even try to equip his marines with weapons that could pierce our armor? Morons.

I got up and shook some of the sand out from between my armor plates. Tinker was a few dozen feet from me, but he was barely moving. A closer look didn’t reveal any obvious damage. A quick look at my HUD showed failing vitals and several small perforations from shrapnel in his suit’s integrity. This was one of those times when you swear with the most vehemence. His power source exploded. Tinker’s light turned red on my HUD.

I wasn’t very happy at this point. I popped the vibroblade from my right gauntlet. Nutter’s light went red too. Those tanks were finally in position and were beginning to make their presence known. I had to wonder about those tanks, their sort hadn’t been overly useful in combat for over a century. They were too slow and clumsy to keep up with men in power armor.

Even though I was out of ammo, still hadn’t had time to reload my arm guns, I decided that I had to do something about those tanks. I activated my jump jets and went flying into the air. A tank exploded to my left, courtesy of one of my boys. I took a half-second, aimed, and went flying into one of the metal monstrosities with my backpack going full throttle. The tank crumpled beneath me, and the hydraulics in my armor whined as I tore off its turret. I slammed it around into the men coming from either side to assist the ruined hulk. One of the other tanks was turning toward me. I jumped.

The damned thing hit me in the shoulder. Armor plates went flying, and so did I. I bowled over some more marines emerging from the water. The thought “
Just how many of these suckers are there?”
hit me. Then the pain from whatever the tank had hit me with struck my nervous system. It was like someone had stuck a white hot dagger in my eye, if my eye were in my left shoulder. The nanobots in my blood went to work and the pain slowly dulled to a few sharp needles of pain amidst a sea of dull throbbing pain. My vision began to clear and I could breathe again. I almost wanted to vomit.

The marines piled on top of me, pummeling my armor, and doing very minimal damage. From this close I could see why other veterans called the marines Beetles. Their armor was curved and ribbed and glossy black. I kicked and punched. Some of their stylized demon masks went flying even as their bodies crumpled under my blows. They fell back, giving the tank another clear shot. With timing that must have been ordained by angels, the tank exploded.

“We’re here, Castle. Glad to see you left us a few presents.”

“O’Neal, remind me to buy you a drink when there's a decent bar around,” I wheezed. Relief flooded me as Republic marines fell to the bullets of Hammer squad and the Vindicators who had been inside the base. “Castle to Bunker, come in Bunker.”

“Bunker here. What’s happenin’ Cap’n?” The voice was entirely too lighthearted for the situation.

“Watch your tone, boy,” I growled. “We have a battle out here and as long as those battlecarriers are out there we’re in trouble. Get someone from the fleet on the horn and – Oof!” An enterprising marine had hit me with a grenade, sending me flying for at least the third time this battle. My shoulder flared into a nova of hurt again. I was starting to feel other bruises already. I picked up a rifle from one of the marine's fallen comrades and calmly dispatched the upstart. “Get them on the horn and have them take those things out! Now, move it!”

I fired until the rifle ran out of bullets, then I picked up two more and started over again. I glanced upward to see the missiles from the battlecarriers exploding in midair as the Hammers who had taken over for my men blew them up. Two more lights on my HUD went red. I swore. My HUD decided now was a good time to tell me I only had twenty percent of my power left.

“Bunker to Castle,
Phoenix
fighters are inbound. They advise getting clear of the water, just in case. ETA five minutes. Bunker out”

I was grinning inside my helmet, even while I hop, skipped, and zigzagged back up the beach, along with half of the other Castigars who had made their way to the water’s edge. My borrowed rifles were empty again, so I gladly used them as bludgeons on any marines stupid enough to get in my way. The rifles were sturdier than the men wielding them.

A shriek filled the air. Everyone, Guardian and Republican looked up. The graceful, ovoid forms of the
Phoenix
strategic superiority fighters blew past us at hypersonic speeds, still glimmering with the heat of reentry. In their wake were the glowing orbs of plasma bombs. The first few went off where I had been only moments before, annihilating the marines, mechanoids, and tanks there. The next wave burned through the hulls of the battlecarriers before exploding. The monstrosities began sinking. Marines immediately threw down their arms. They and we both knew that without their ships for support the marines were doomed if they kept fighting.

“Squad, report in,” I wanted to know exactly who was gone, and who was just hurt.

“Squatter here, sir. I lost some plates but I’m green otherwise.”

“Third team reporting. We lost Gumption to those tanks.”

“Second team is good, sir. Voodoo got knocked out though.”

“It’s sad we lost any at all to these feebs, but I’m glad the rest of you are still safe. Let's not waste any more time. Squatter, get Voodoo to the top of the beach. Second and Third teams, make sure all of the Beetles are out of the tanks and mechanoids."

I walked over to where Captain O’Neal was calmly directing Vindicators and his squad in restraining the Marines.

“How bad did they hit you, old man?”

“I lost four. I think I might just take that desk job after this. They’re using third gen armor, Rhys. A decent handgun could pierce their plating. How could they even hurt us? We were only on the scene a few minutes and I lost four men! If I were a swearing man…”

I put a hand on his shoulder plate. “I lost five men myself, and all of my men are injured to some degree. You’re right that they shouldn’t have been able to touch us. I think it’s something to do with those tanks and mechanoids. Normal shells would have hurt me, sure, but they wouldn’t have damaged the armor that much,” I pointed to my own ragged shoulder with its badly fractured plating. “Let me tell you, I’m hurting like hell right now. So if you don’t mind I’m going to get the base to try and get some of the higher ups to give us orders while the engineers check out those pieces of scrap. Don’t lose faith, Jack. Something good has to come out of this much death, right?”