WAR DOGS

In Duda’s SF novel, a cybernetically enhanced mercenary uncovers a corporate conspiracy to use alien technology to develop fearsomely weaponized androids.

Over a decade has passed since the end of the war between humankind and the body-possessing aliens of the “Celestrion Drift,” a conflict that left Earth victorious (technically) and whose aftereffects have ruptured the cosmos itself. Tiberius Novak is a veteran of the clash, scarred physically, emotionally, and psychologically by its horrors, and he’s subject to surveillance and monitoring via his numerous bodily implants. He now works as a licensed freelance mercenary, fulfilling commissions for the giant corporations that effectively run the planet after politicians have been accused of collaborating with the invaders. Novak’s array of AI drones, built into his “Pit Bull” mecha-armor, make him a formidable fighter, but at times his desperate financial circumstances and the greed of the weapons manufacturers compel him to skip maintenance and push his assets beyond their tolerances. One day, he’s contacted by a shadowy benefactor who offers an especially lucrative commission: Novak is to extract a vital scientist from the bowels of Aegis Solutions, a firm devoted to bio-machine interfaces and life extension. Carrying out the assignment, Novak learns that the stakes are much higher than corporate profit and espionage—Aegis has been reverse-engineering and weaponizing captured Celestrion inventions, a major violation. Their factory is being repurposed to develop shape-shifting combat androids (“Flesh Tech”) that are adaptive and fiendishly hard to destroy. With a small band of allies, Novak embarks on his task, even as accumulating evidence suggests that he’s being used as a disposable tool in an even bigger game of betrayal and imposture. His adversaries are faster and deadlier than he ever imagined, but his anonymous employer may literally be his worst enemy.

In his first full-length novel, SF/horror author Duda splices hard-combat SF with the type of industrial techno-noir that’s familiar from such cinematic offerings as Blade Runner (in a lengthy afterword, the author acknowledges his debt to Hollywood visionaries of post-apocalyptic dystopian tomorrows). He might also well credit stunt coordinators and slam-bang video games, as the action kicks off early and seldom takes a respite. The fatalistic, tragedy-scarred hero (and his loyal retinue of drones) mixes it up in a number of boss battles and cyber-clashes that may remind readers of Marvel Comics’ Iron Man franchise. (Spark, a heroic little drone, should also spur recognition among fans of the Star Wars franchise’s R2-D2.) Suit-status percentages, life-bar displays, lovingly described cybernetics (“Biokinetic wings spread from its central mass. Not rotors—wings, membranes flexing with organic fluidity despite being synthetic muscle tissue wrapped around carbon nanofiber frames”), and narrow escapes from certain oblivion will hold readers transfixed—and hopefully keep them distracted from the very sketchily drawn backstory of the Celestrion Drift war, evidently a sort of 25th-century body-snatchers invasion that constituted humanity’s nightmarish alien first contact. Epilogues and backmatter timelines fill some of the maddening future-history gaps. An ending that dangles with more loose ends than a broken RS232 ribbon cable suggests a sequel, or several, looming in the target-acquisition grid.

Cynical and savage post-Armageddon SF.