Read Online The Guardians of Sol by Spencer Kettenring - Free Book Online Page A

How’d you guys get your greasy hands on this tech, anyway?”
    “We pulled it out of those Republic tanks you broke down by the California research base. One of the other bays reverse engineered and improved on it. They did good enough work that I snagged one of their techs for my team. Frankly, the whole system is inspired. With a little tweaking it could even be used to stabilize an Archimedes drives. If that happens, then the equations would get simpler, and the range should improve. Plus, the number of people lost to accidents from independent jumps would plummet. Unfortunately, we still have no real idea where the initial research and design came from, and there just isn’t any information about people working on this, not even rumors. There are some of people that think that it may have come from the Zulus… but as far as I understand, their technology is still lagging behind the Republics’. They have made some huge strides in the last few years though.”
    “So what are you calling this new system?” I asked, very curious now.
    “Well, since the obvious effects are obviously rather vicious, and because it uses sonic vibrations combined with various electromagnetic fields that reinforce each other… we’ve taken to calling the technology Destructive Harmonics. At least in the iteration that you’ll be using. We can set up the electromagnetic frequencies to do more than tear things apart, but those are in an even more experimental phase than the DH right now.”
    "Odd. But I like it. I'll look forward to breaking things with it."
    Ruiz gave me an appraising look again, “I’m sure you will, Captain.”
    *****
    “Boss, hey boss man, wake up.” Someone slapped me. I groaned incoherently, or so I was later told. They slapped me again. I think this time I swore, and opened my eyes to see a blurry image of Voodoo staring at me with his big creepy witch doctor grin. Voodoo is from the Caribbean, he also happens to be my squad’s medic. His sense of humor scares me sometimes. I waived him off. Looked around.
    “Where am I? And why aren’t I sucking vacuum?”
    Behind the witch doctor, Spicy and Squatter tried to stifle laughter, and the cadets just looked mortified and uncertain. Voodoo grinned again. “Look down, boss man.” I looked down. My instructor’s armor was crumpled and dented. “Ya drifted right into a shuttle, mon. Don’t know how or why but ya did. Right after ya saved dat kid. Luckily ya don’ got no broken bones, no internal injuries. Ye’ll probably be stiff for day or two while your body and da bots do dere work, but dat’s about it. So you be tellin’ dat girl of yors to take it easy on ya, yah?”
    “I only understood something about me not dying and a pie in all of that. I kind of want some pie now.”
    “Don’ be messing with yer docta now. Might be he makes a mistake and don’ realize it, mon.”
    “That’d be unfortunate. Because then I’d have to assign that poor confused doctor to latrine cleaning duty. Help me out of this thing. Cadets, get out of that armor. Go do twenty laps around the track then shower; we’re done for the day.”
    “Might be a serious mistake,” he grinned menacingly.
    They filed out, a few looking back uncertainly. Spicy and Squatter helped me up while Voodoo cracked the plates and exoskeleton of the armor to get me out. I turned to Spicy.
    “Which team won, anyway?”
    He gave me an incredulous look. “Does that really matter, Cap?” I just kept staring at him. “Ok fine, Red team snagged the Blues’ flag before we noticed that you got hit.”
    “Good, arrange for twelve-hour passes and some supervision for them. I promised the winning team some time away from the Academy and I like keep my promises.”
    “You sure do, Cap.” Squatter chipped in. “So don’t forget to give Haywire his twenty credits. Oh don’t look at me like that; I was there when you made the deal with him. You got hurt while we’re on the Forge, he gets the