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I've been looking for a Sci-fi book trilogy that I'm pretty sure was published 2000-2004. Almost positive I read it in high school, think it might fall under YA or something but anyway details that I remember:

The first book starts out with us getting details about the protagonist via dreams I believe. Something about his ship being damaged or lost during the transit home after the war and the soldiers are debriefed during hypersleep. Well, because his ship was damaged/lost, the system never stops the debriefing and forces him to relive the experiences over and over again which causes a lot of trauma to the point where he has constantly recurring nightmares involving those memories.

Anyway, you find out he was a soldier who fought with a power suit of some kind and his branch of the military didn't believe in harming the environment. They fought what he called a "Pure War", only causing destruction to the enemy never the surrounding life. The last war he fought was against some kind of bugs.

Apparently his unit was sabotaged by the local populace who were supposedly helping them with upkeep. The mechanics were putting some kind of alien eggs inside the suits so that they would cause the wearer to go battle crazy and then the suits would explode from the inside out as the alien bug ripped out from their bodies.

He later meets some kind of orphan/thief/beggar girl who you believe is super young at the time. She helps him out because at some point, I don't remember why or how, he has to go on the run from the government.

That's a lot from the beginning of the first book. I don't really remember how it ends but the girl ends up having special abilities later in the series, and you find out that there is an alien inside the protagonist's suit but it's not the bug alien but a different kind/species. Last but not least, the girl and protagonist end up as lovers at some point during end of the first or middle of the second book. I'm not too sure.

Anyways, I hope someone can help me out with this, it's been driving me bonkers. I remember some other stuff, like specific scenes if you think those would help.

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  • Any additional information you can add is welcome. If your memories are vague or uncertain, just indicate them as such.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 11:02
  • Do you remember anything about the cover of the book?
    – Dreamwalker
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 14:37
  • I believe at least one of the covers had a picture of him in his powersuit, the art was of a typical scifi space suit and his is crouching with his hand curled like a gun firing a laser from his finger. That seems specific but honestly the image is hazy in my memory so that might not be 100% accurate.
    – Joshua Dennis
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 17:57
  • Couple of specific parts I remember. I think its in the second book were he starts working on a mining planet. Not sure if he is hiding there or what but the suits that they use for mining are similar to his powersuit so he is able to work well in them. Gets into a brawl with one of the miners. I remember this in particular because in his mind he is fighting the guy as if he still wears his powersuit which allows him to be super effective for some reason.
    – Joshua Dennis
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 18:38
  • Another specific would be that the girl is also being chased and eventually caught, I believe its the end of the second book. Anyway, she is tattooed all over her body which allows her to fully harness her powers.
    – Joshua Dennis
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 18:39

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I'm pretty sure you are thinking of Solar Kill by Charles Ingrid (Book 1 of the Sand Wars series).

It was published in 1987, so it is a lot older than 2000, but the description fits exactly.

  • Protoganist is Jack Storm, a "Knight" trained to fight a "Pure" war in high tech battle suits
  • Jack is the only survivor of the Sand Wars - a fight against the alien, insect like Thrak who invaded human worlds and terraformed them into sand
  • Jack survived last battle and drifted in cold sleep for 17 years, locked in debriefing loop and reliving the battles over and over
  • In battle for last world (Milos), something was planted in the battle suits (by natives) which would hatch into a "beserker"
  • "Knights" have now been disbanded and all their suits destroyed

That is the opening, then the story follows Jack as he tries to find out what happened on Milos, why the Knights were abandoned and left to die, why someone is trying to kill him and why his suit now seems to be talking to him....

Along the way he meets a street girl called Amber whom helps him and ends up travelling with him as a friend/lover. Amber has some kind of mental power that is not under her control (she has killed men when they assaulted her)

At the start of the second book Jack has joined up with an new "Knights" unit (the Emperor's personal guard). After various attempts to kill him and the emperor, he ends up being kidnapped and transported to a mining colony, losing his memory in the process due to cold sleep.

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  • Omg, thank you so much! Yea, I was way off on the target date. For some reason I thought that the rest of the series came out after I started reading it but obviously I was wrong.
    – Joshua Dennis
    Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 7:13

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