Sol in Flames (Battleborn c23 Book 1), page 1
SOL IN FLAMES
Battleborn c23
Book 1
RALPH C. EDENHOFER
Contents
Freeborn
The Hunt
Occupation
Epilogue
Publisher's afterword
What happens next?
Acknowledgements
About the author
Helpful resources
Extract: Balance of Power
Other interesting SciFi reads
Freeborn
10-11-2210, Elysium City, Ares Corporate Republic, Mars
The soft sounds of music caressed Kareena Toran's auditory center, freeing her neurons from the hectic activity of the previous workday. All the dossiers, status reports and crisis meetings gradually disappeared from her typically hyperactive mind. A majority of her colleagues used Lullaby or other tranquilizers to quiet their synapses tormented by the constant flood of information. Kareena resorted to the blessings of modern pharmacy only in emergencies. She doubted the product reviews from the advertising strategists, according to which the development of any physical or psychological addiction had been completely ruled out, even with regular use. Observation of her milieu fueled her mistrust, as many of her acquaintances could not sleep at all without sedatives. Kareena preferred music in order to put the stress and strain of the past shift behind her. Preferably, neoclassical works like Janarov's symphony 'Lost World', which she was listening to now. It was one of her favorite pieces. She had stored it directly on the internal memory of her cortex implant. This was not technically permitted since the implant was property of the Cynarian Corporation, but she allowed herself this little insubordination with a reasonably clear conscience. Her job occasionally took her to areas where she could not access the ComNet from which she normally downloaded her music. In such remote places, she did not want to miss out on a few cultural comforts.
The tranquil harmonies of the Polish composer fed directly into the auditory cortex of her brain without a detour via the ears. True music connoisseurs branded this procedure a barbaric sacrilege, but Kareena did not especially care. She just wanted to relax after more than twelve hours on duty, and the neural interface certainly served that purpose.
She had closed her eyes and turned off all visual input from the interface, giving herself completely over to the melodies. Images of endless, untouched forests, meadows on gently rolling hills, villages scattered across the landscape with red gabled roofs and pointed church steeples appeared in her mind's eye. The whole scenery spanned by a blue sky over which the fluffy white swabs of fair-weather clouds drifted. She had once seen an interview with Ilian Janarov, in which the composer described how he had been inspired to write his music by old films and records. Although he passed away decades ago, he too had never seen with his own eyes the idyll whose indescribable beauty he wanted to reproduce with his compositions. Already in the early 22nd century, when Janarov had created his works, that world was irretrievably lost. Kareena herself knew it only from films and documentaries. She had already visited Earth, and what she saw there had made it seem impossible that the wonders the records showed had ever existed. The very title the Pole had given his symphony summed it up rather concisely. The song 'Lost World' had struck a chord and made his name immortal. Unlike Janarov himself, who, despite the wealth he acquired, refused up to the end of his life to submit to the cell refreshers and gene modifications that would have enabled him to continue his work even now. Instead, he had freely surrendered to the deterioration of old age and eventually death. His popularity had not diminished with his demise. Quite the contrary. He became the idol of the Naturalist movement, which labeled him the champion of their war against the alienation of humankind from its origins.
Kareena did not think much of these archaic ideologies. She had been born on Mars, and from early childhood involved in the world of the corporations, who pushed with all their might for the technological progress that the naturalists rejected. Of course, she too regretted that the paradise of Earth’s past no longer existed. It would be nice to know that somewhere in the solar system there was a place where one could walk barefoot across dew-damp meadows, under the warming rays of the morning sun. But it was now in the past. And moreover, the past of a distant celestial body, far from her. Kareena did not approve of the militant enthusiasm of the naturalists. It was a pure waste of time and other precious resources.
The lovely sounds of the symphony faded away from one moment to the next. In its place, the implant fed a call signal into her audio center that abruptly ended the wandering of her thoughts. For a moment, Kareena felt disoriented. She had been on the verge of dozing off for good, and now she abruptly snapped back into reality out of the world of dreams. She had limited her accessibility status to emergencies only, so whoever contacted her had better have a good reason.
She opened her eyes, but only dimly perceived her surroundings. Sleep, which she had already halfway approached, would not let her go without a fight.
All right. The hard way, then.
With minimal concentration, Kareena sent a nerve impulse to the drug dispenser in her abdomen. Immediately, a cocktail of stimulants poured into her veins, spreading across muscles, organs, and brain with each beat of her heart. Within seconds, any semblance of fatigue and disorientation fell away from her. Her vision cleared, showing her the disarray in her quarters. She hoped no one would show up unannounced. It would take more than a few minutes to clean up enough to let guests in.
Pensively, she opened the call channel.
Her voice had not quite recovered from the wake-up call. The brusque "Yes?" left her throat with a harsh, ominous undertone that her throat microphone relayed unfiltered to the caller.
"Please excuse me, ma'am." She recognized the voice of Lieutenant Carrough, who had replaced her as shift supervisor about an hour ago. Following his voice, his image also appeared in the data stream. The implant projected it directly into her visual cortex. Carrough had the same radio implant as she did, but he used his workstation's ComLink, including the camera. The call's signature confirmed that he was in the Department of Internal Security's communications center. An official emergency call of the highest priority - it must be something extremely important.
"It's okay, Steve," she reassured her obviously flustered subordinate. He knew how she could react to unwelcome disturbances of her quiet time. She assumed he had thought it through before disturbing her. "What's going on?"
"We have a request from a task force from Sector Eight."
Sector Eight. Better known as Hades. The worst sector in the entire colony - a nest of squalor and rampant crime. A world of its own that gave the city's administration the finger. Not even the security forces went in there without a good reason.
"Which task force?", Kareena inquired. "The one that was supposed to be looking for the runaway mutant?"
"Affirmative."
She had supervised the launch of the operation herself. The sergeant in charge had years of experience and should have no problems with such a routine task. She had turned over responsibility for the proper execution of the job to Lieutenant Carrough without hesitation. It seemed that everything was not going according to plan after all.
"What happened? Is the squad in trouble?"
"No, ma'am, no casualties. And no difficulties. At least not in terms of its safety. But they did discover something ... unexpected. I think you should take a look for yourself."
"All right. Send it over to me!"
"It's better if you come here. The matter is potentially ... volatile. I recommend using only the highest security channel for this."
That meant the message could not be sent over public lines. This ruled out Kareena's radio implant as well as the ComLink in her private quarters. The highest security level was typically used only for messages that called into question the security of the colony itself. In her entire career, Kareena had experienced only a handful of such messages. And none of them had been addressed directly to her. For a moment she doubted Carrough's judgment, but the young lieutenant was one of the most conscientious members of her unit. He must have really come across something out of the ordinary.
"I'm on my way," she said as she rose from the bed. Then she disconnected.
Hastily, she once again donned the service uniform that she had carelessly thrown over the back of the chair when she arrived home. Fresh clothes would have been in order, but she was seriously perturbed by the distress call and did not want to waste time trying to gather new things in the general chaos of her quarters. She felt uncomfortable in the uniform she was wearing, as she always attached significant importance to an impeccable appearance. But an emergency was indeed an emergency.
Leaving her quarters, she dialed into the transport system via the ComLink in her head and ordered a top priority transport pod. Not cheap, but in such cases the corporation reimbursed the cost. With long strides, she hurried along the corridors. At this hour, the lights had dimmed. If there was no access to daylight, it was at least possible to maintain the illusion of day and night.
Upon her arrival at the terminal of the apartment block, the capsule was already waiting. The group of three standing in front of the boarding gate blatantly scowled at her. Because of Kareena's priority capsule, their transport was delayed. But none of the waiting people dared to say anything. The Internal Security uniform instilled enough respect in any civilian to keep their own
In a practiced motion, Kareena held her forearm with the implanted ID chip up to the scanner. Within half a second, it confirmed her identity and cleared access to the pod. She took a seat on one of the two opposite benches and gave the three civilians another apologetic smile as the hatch closed again. She had already set the destination when she ordered the transport, so the capsule began moving immediately.
"Maximum speed," she ordered. The controls of the transport tube responded immediately to her command. The capsule did its best to make the ride as bearable as possible for Kareena. With each acceleration and braking maneuver, it turned in such a way that the passenger was merely pressed into the seat and not thrown around wildly. Nevertheless, it required a stable stomach to endure such a ride unscathed. Kareena was fully occupied with keeping her dinner down while the capsule raced in a confusing zigzag course through the tube labyrinth of Elysium City.
Elysium City. The uncrowned metropolis of the Ares Corporate Republic. Home to nine million people, almost a tenth of the total population of Mars. Next to Selene City on Luna, it was one of the largest cities beyond Earth's surface. A sprawling collection of mostly subterranean habitats whose lack of urban planning revealed itself, among other things, in the wildly branching tunnels of the ever-expanding transportation system through which Kareena sped.
Four minutes later, the final braking maneuver indicated the end of the torture. Kareena rose from the seat and squeezed out as soon as the hatch opened. Two heavily armored guardsmen from the USI affiliate InterSec watched her closely. The one on the right raised his hand in salute.
"Captain Toran," sounded from the helmet speaker.
She knew the voice but could not assign a name to it offhand. To use her internal memory would have taken several seconds, which she did not want to invest currently. She limited her answer to a curt nod and strode toward the entrance to the communications center. The ID scanner once again scanned her forearm and released the door when it was sure that she had the necessary authorization level.
There was obvious commotion inside the control center. Typically, only the low hum of the air conditioning filled the room, as all communication took place via the implants that every employee possessed. But today, more than half of those present had left the ergonomic recliners, and were standing in a frantic cluster around the workstation of the shift supervisor on duty. The animated discussion died down when Kareena entered the room. All faces turned toward her. Deep relief showed on Steve Carrough's features. So far, she had come to know the young officer as exceptionally competent. Seeing him display such emotion troubled her.
Briskly, she approached the group. "Ladies and gentlemen. What seems to be the problem?"
Lieutenant Carrough saluted curtly. Some of the others also straightened themselves halfheartedly. As Kareena ignored the salute, the rest of the security team also put protocol aside.
"It's best if you look at it for yourself." Carrough pulled a data cable from the headrest of his chair and offered it to her. She took it and, without hesitation, plugged it into the jack behind her ear. It was a bit reckless to start a full sensory simulation while standing. But it seemed inappropriate for her to sit down in the chair while everyone was standing around her. She held onto the neck rest with one hand. That would have to do.
The interface recognized her after a quick neural scan and transferred the overview menu to her brain. The priority message from the patrol in Sector Eight dominated the display. She opened the channel and was immediately connected to the patrol leader. The image from his helmet camera fed into her visual center. The connection was not good at all. Amongst the constant image interference, she made out the heavy body armor of the security team. The cones of light from their helmet lamps fell on the walls of a narrow room crammed with all sorts of objects that she could not identify at first.
"Captain Toran," the patrol commander greeted her. The nervousness in his voice was unmistakable. "Sergeant Martinez here. Good to see you."
"What's going on, Martinez? Have you found the fugitive?"
"No. Not yet. But we've made a discovery here ... I've prioritized this and called off the search for the fugitive for now."
Slowly, Kareena grew impatient. "What did you discover?"
"It's best if I just show you."
He pushed one of his men aside. Several people became visible from behind the hulking body armor. They squatted on the bare floor of the room among stacks of empty fast-food wrappers and other nondescript clutter. Foremost, a woman sat there. The loose coveralls she wore could not hide her stocky physique. Her nearly hairless, angular skull covered with grayish skin left no doubt. She was a mutant. Beta-class. A worker, and possibly an escapee as well. Many escaped mutants hid in Sector Eight. However, she was not the person the patrol had been looking for, as Kareena remembered that it had been a man. So far, still nothing special.
Behind the woman, two other figures crouched, looking fearfully into the policeman's spotlight. They were smaller and wore little more than rags on their bodies. Their skulls were also covered only by a few hairs. Their skin possessed the typical gray coloring. A thin plaited braid fell over the high forehead of one of the two. Kareena had seen mutant children before. But so far, only in the breeding farms of the corporations that produced them. A terrible suspicion took hold of her.
Her eyes fell on the woman again. She was carrying something in her arms. A bundle of rags and plastic. She held it close to her chest, trying to hide it from the beam of the spotlight that shone in her face. Sergeant Martinez's armored hand came into view. Relentlessly, his steel gloves grasped the bundle. The woman struggled, twisting to the side to protect the thing in her arms. Martinez grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her forward again. "Easy. I'm not going to hurt him," his tinny voice rang out from the helmet's speaker. Gingerly, he reached out two fingers to the bundle and carefully pushed aside the top layers of plastic wrapping. A small nose emerged, a pair of narrowed eyes. With a distorted grimace, the tiny creature complained about the harsh lighting. A tortured mewl sounded from the toothless mouth. Martinez had now fully exposed the baby's head. The angular skull shape was unmistakable. The gray skin stifled even the last doubt. "Shit," was all Kareena could say. "Fucking shit!"
10-13-2210, King Christian X Country, Greenland, Earth
The rain pounded relentlessly upon Skip as he marched across the bare rocks. Each of the freezing drops bounced against his skin like a projectile, driven by the hurricane-like storm that swept over the prospectors' camp. Like his two companions, he was clad in thick protective clothing, but unlike the others, he had not closed the visor of his helmet. At the beginning, his inclination to subject himself to the unleashed elements of the earth without necessity had been met with a general lack of understanding. Some had smiled at him; others had thought him downright mad. Meanwhile, most accepted that he simply wanted it that way. That he wanted to feel the world that surrounded him with all his senses. For that, he was also willing to endure pain - only to a certain extent, of course. He was not a masochist. The pinpricks of the raindrops on his face, however, still belonged to the category that he found distinctly pleasant. The water on his skin connected him to the rain, to the wind that swept the drops almost horizontally across the land, to the low-hanging clouds that the storm swept overhead. Even to the sea from which the clouds had been created. He was part of a world in which everything was interconnected. He felt this world so directly that it made him shudder.
He set the welder down next to one of the truck's eight man-sized tires. Mace silently lowered the new drill bit next to it. The giant swayed his head left and right. The cracking of his neck vertebrae drowned out even the whistling wind. Jorge, meanwhile, climbed silently into the cab of the crane, started the electric motor and swung the boom to the side. He lowered the boom until it dangled above the ground at head level. Skip gave him a thumbs up. The hum of the engine died, and Jorge came back down. He paused briefly as a particularly strong gust nearly blew his helmet off his head.
