Now in trade paperback, the military sci-fi classic of courage on a dangerous alien planet. The planet is called Banshee. The air is unbreathable, the water is poisonous. It is home to the most implacable enemies that humanity, in all its interstellar expansion, has ever encountered. Body armor has been devised for the commando forces that are to be dropped on Banshee--the culmination of ten thousand years of the armorers’ craft. A trooper in this armor is a one-man, atomic powered battle fortress. But he will have to fight a nearly endless horde of berserk, hard-shelled monsters--the fighting arm of a species which uses biological technology to design perfect, mindless war minions. Felix is a scout in A-team Two. Highly competent, he is the sole survivor of mission after mission. Yet he is a man consumed by fear and hatred. And he is protected, not only by his custom-fitted body armor, but by an odd being which seems to live within him, a cold killing machine he calls “The Engine.” This is Felix’s story--a story of the horror, the courage, and the aftermath of combat, and the story, too, of how strength of spirit can be the greatest armor of all.

Praise for Armor

“Armor is a fascinating war-story, a unique take on the military SF genre.... Well worth a read.”—Jamie Sawyer, author of The Lazarus War series

“This is a serious book which shows the violence and brutality of war, the cynicism and hypocrisy with which it is waged, and the real and terrible fears of the combatants.” —*VOYA

• “The book is gripping, forceful, and compelling. The evolution of the characters is a tour-de-force.” —*Kliatt
• “Well-worth reading.” —*Analog
• “Steakley’s writing is quite good. He has smoothness and polish that are rare in first novels.... the action is so well-paced that the reader’s interest is continually held.” —*Other Realms

•  “This book is a must read…. It’s one of those stories where the author understood the human heart and soul so much that there could never be a complete adaptation in any other medium.” —Bleeding Edge Gaming

  Autorentext

  John Steakley was best known for his science fiction writing. He published two novels, including his acclaimed military science fiction novel Armor, as well as four short science fiction and fantasy stories.

  Leseprobe

PART ONE

FELIX

He drank alone.

Which was odd since he didn’t have trouble with people. He had always managed to make acquaintances without much effort. And, despite what had happened, he still liked people. Recently, he had even grown to miss them again. Yet here he was, drinking alone.

Maybe I’m just shy, he thought to himself and then laughed at such a feeble attempt at self-delusion. For he knew what it was.

From his place at the end of the long bar he examined the others in the crowded lounge. He recognized a handful from training. Training was where it had begun. Where he had felt that odd sensation descending upon him like mist, separating him from all those thousands of others around him in the mess hall. It was a dull kind of temporal shock at first, a reaction reverberating from somewhere deep within him. He had somehow felt . . . No, he had somehow known that they all would die.

He shook his head, drained his glass. If he was in the mood for honesty he would have to admit that his chances were no better. No better at all. . . .

He paid the credits for a full bottle and then paid the extra credits to take it out of the lounge. It was strictly against orders on a battle cruiser to have a bottle in one’s personal possession. But on the night before a drop a lot of things were possible. And as the hour for the drop grew nearer, he noticed that his fellows were beginning to take their drinking more seriously.

Outside the lounge wasn’t much better. Lots of bottles had been smuggled out tonight. The ship wasn’t exactly a giant party, but there were enough get-togethers here and there, and enough legitimate crew business here and there, to make it almost impossible to find a quiet place to sit and think. After a while he had settled into an idle rhythm of walking, sipping, smoking, and hunting.

After most of an hour of wandering about the corridors of the immense ship he found himself standing beside the center template strut of Drop Bay One. Drop Bay One was the largest single room in the ship and, since the Terra was the largest warship, the largest single room in space. It was over a hundred meters long and sixty wide. Around him in a checkerboard style were the little square spaces for drop assignment. From here it all began. Thousands of men and women would go into battle from this room. At the same moment, if necessary. The overhead was ten stories above him, criss-crossed with the immense cranes that lowered the equipment of war into position. A hell of a big room, he thought. Bigger even than the Hall of Gold back home where he had first stood at age ten beside the boys and girls of the other nobles and watched the coronation. He and the other children had had a tendency to giggle, he remembered, and so had been placed at the far end of the Hall, away from the throne.

Enough of this, he said to himself. That’s over for me now. It’s far, far away . . .

He sighed, shook his head. He perched himself atop the center strut and lay down on his back and stared up at the distant overhead and didn’t see it.

“Enough sentiment,” he said aloud. “It’s time for brainwork. Time, in fact, for a cold logical assessment of the situation.” He took a sip from the bottle, lit a smoke, and laughed again. “Fact is, we haven’t got a prayer.”

Fact was, most everybody in Fleet nowadays was a rookie. Over sixty percent and rising. That meant six months of advanced training. Nine months tops in the military altogether.

Not much hope there.

Still, the equipment was marvelous and many were surprisingly good with it. He remembered his astonishment at discovering clearly apparent aptitude for, of all things, the battle armor. Most found the power suits almost impossibly alien in practice and couldn’t bring themselves to react in a sufficiently normal fashion. But he, and a few others, had taken to them easily, readily utilizing their potential as the long-sought key to a machine as extension of man’s own puny form.

How odd, he thought, that he should have such bizarre talents. He, of all people, had fit with Fleet’s hopes. . . .

And from there his drunken thoughts slipped into the past like most drunken thoughts of terrified humans. He lay back on the template and blew smoke at the distant cranes. He sipped steadily from the bottle.

He feared.

The hours passed.

Lovers in niches surrounding the perimeter of the Bay took advantage of the sexually integrated warrior class. They rocked and moaned and grasped one another. It was a united, if unorganized, effort by each and all to push the tension-taut present far ahead into the horrors of the future. After a while they would rest from their labors, draining the last of the bottles and lighting the last of the cigarettes. And before thoughts turned inward each and all would notice the glow of the cigarette coal coming from the lone figure who lay on the center template strut in the middle of the vastness of Drop Bay One. They would wonder what the hell it was he was doing there.

Felix, alone and unaware of their curiosity, wondered the very same thing.

        *

Drop was just under four hours away when Felix reached the chow line. The turnout was sparse this morning. N…