Under A Winter Sun (Worldburner Book 2)

Book summary

Asher Perez, a hunter of immortals, is recruited for a mission on Nifelheim, an unwelcoming icy moon. His task: to find a missing agent amidst escalating civil war. As dangers mount, Perez uncovers a deeper, deadly plot threatening their survival.

Excerpt from Under A Winter Sun (Worldburner Book 2)

You Can't Save The World

Every morning you wake up a day closer to your own death.

The cops on the ground should have stayed in bed.

They were shot in the back at close range from the looks of it. The Front laid an ambush for them, and they walked right into it. Wankers. Send local talent to do a grown-up's job, and this is what you get.

Ignoring the glassy-eyed stares of the corpses, I step over them and continue down the dimly lit tunnel. The big boys will be here any minute, and I need to be in position by then.

The gear I'm hauling slows me down, but you can never carry too much hardware, as Wagner used to say. Especially on a job like this. With the assault rifle in my hands, the pistol on my hip and the huge Lensfield sniper rifle on my back, I should have all eventualities covered.

Famous last words. It's a good thing I have a knife for contingencies.

I spit on the dusty floor and trudge on.

"You have to go deeper, Perez."

Aeryn's voice in my ear is a reassuring presence. "Three levels down is the auditorium. According to Winger's source, that's where she is."

Everyone knows Aeryn Winger's sources are the best.

Yesterday morning, the Terrans agreed to the demands of the Revolutionary Utopian Front. That's as good as a death sentence for all involved. Everyone knows the government doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Not even when threatened with local nuclear holocaust.

This is the third incident featuring weapons of mass destruction in the last couple of months, and every time, the authorities have dealt with the situation in their own heavy-handed way. Terran special ops are competent but famously trigger-happy. They love to go in shooting, and more often than not, they get people killed. Including the hostage.

"Got it," I subvocalise. The bone induction microphone hurt like a bitch to instal, but Winger insisted. In hindsight, I've got to admit it was an excellent idea. This way I can communicate with Aeryn with no one able to eavesdrop. Knowing a hi-tech lowlife like Winger is not a disadvantage. Not that anyone's around to listen to our conversation, anyway. This place is quieter than a library on a Saturday night. I move three levels down into the old Utopian mine without incident.

It wasn't hard to figure out when the black ops team from Earth would strike. A fistful of credits in a traffic controller's pocket got me the time and place an unlisted shuttle docked at the Utopian beanstalk. Another fistful told me the ship had no registered point of origin. A sure sign of black ops. They're here, and they're on their way in. I plan to do my thing while the terrorists are busy fighting the strike team and then slip away unseen in the chaos. It's a simple plan, and that's the way I like it. Simple plans have a sporting chance to play out as intended.

"Someone's coming."

I freeze. So much for playing out as intended.

A door opens up ahead, and a man backs into the tunnel.

Shit.

He's thin. Early twenties, maybe. Twitchy. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. He could be anybody anywhere. He carries an ancient hunting rifle that looks like it would explode in his hands if he should ever have to fire it. The extremists here on Utopia have an endless supply of frustrated young men from the miners' ranks. Their supply of firearms, it would seem, is not so endless.

The man grabs the door to steady himself.

"Hey, Ramirez," he calls to someone back in the room. "Save me some of that cerveza, will you?"

He's had a few already.

"Fuck you, Diaz. I can't promise anything," comes the reply.

"Doorway on your left." Aeryn has direct access to the feed from my retinas. That's another tactical neural implant that hurt like hell. It took a while to adapt to, but now I don't even think about that whatever I see, Aeryn sees. Which has resulted in some awkward moments, usually related to bodily functions.

Diaz has still got his back to me, laughing at something Ramirez is doing. I slip into the recessed doorway and keep my fingers crossed Diaz won't come my way. Carefully, I release the Aitchenkai to let it dangle on its strap and pull my knife. I open the short, hyper-sharp blade and the familiar buzz as the knife grinds a few atoms off the monomolecular edge sends shivers of anticipation up my arm.

"Mission parameters specify no unnecessary death. Play with yourself later if you need to reduce your adrenaline levels."

"I won't kill him unless I have to. And I'll play with myself whenever I damn well please."

"Don't make me watch this time."

"You could have switched off the feed. Now hush."

They say a monomolecular knife is sharp enough to nick a man's soul, and if we had one, I think it would. The edge is so sharp that weird quantum effects occur there. People say strange things happen when you use one of these. Like the time I used this blade to kill Oddgrim Morgenstern and became the saviour of humanity.

What is not so strange is that Diaz comes my way. That's just my usual bad luck playing up.

"Shit, I need to piss," the man informs the darkness. Why do some have to advertise their every intention when they're drunk?

I glance behind me and notice the symbol on the door. Oh, fuck. I'm standing in the door to the toilet.

"Brilliant plan, Aeryn. Thanks," I whisper and grip the knife harder.

"There was no way for me to know he needed to urinate."

"Couldn't you tell from his walking pattern or something?"

"I'm not that good."

"Remind me why you're on board at all?"

"You need Winger's intel on this place. I can provide that for you."

I sigh. Sarcasm and rhetorical questions are not something a construct handles well.

Embedding a brain image in your head is dangerous, not to mention highly illegal. Despite the risk of overpopulation in my head, a scan and implant were the only ways to give me instant access to the intel in Winger's head. The six-minute time delay between Elysium and Utopia renders real-time communication impossible, even disregarding the shitty reception down here under kilometres of rock. Besides, I enjoy having Aeryn around. Now that Finn is gone, it's nice to have someone to talk to, and Aeryn reminds me of him. They are at about the same level when it comes to social interaction.

Diaz stumbles and supports himself on the wall to keep from falling over. The guy is pretty far gone, and I raise the knife in preparation. He mutters something about beer and small bladders as he lurches closer. He's younger than I thought. No more than sixteen, with his whole sorry life ahead of him. Fuck.

Maybe I can still avoid bloodshed.

"Thank you."

"You owe me one, Aeryn."

I crack the door behind me and inch inside. As he comes up, I push the door wide and stumble into him.

He swears. "Hey, man. Watch where you're going."

Judging by the bleary eyes and pinprick pupils, beer is not the only thing he's ingested tonight. And here I was, thinking religious extremists were against all earthly pleasures. Perhaps endorsing intoxicants is the unique selling point of the RUF.

"Asshole," he mutters.

"Sorry." I push past him into the corridor with my head down.

For once, the universe has my back. As I exit, the crude lights bolted to the rock ceiling waver and go out. The newsfeeds assure us the authorities are looking into the recent power failures, but it would surprise me if they were. The electrical systems in Subburbia are ancient. It was only a question of time before they started acting up. Too bad they had to act up now when I'm here. The lights flicker back on with an unhealthy electrical buzz.

"No bloody manners these days," the man says as the restroom door swings shut behind him. "And the fucking lights."

"Yeah, the fucking lights," I agree to the closed door and breathe a sigh of relief.

"That was close, Perez. Stay frosty."

Frosty? Who even talks that way? "Mm-hm."

"Say again?"

I fold the knife closed and pick up the Aitchenkai again. "Never mind. Let's go."

It's good to hear someone still gives a damn about manners here on Utopia because this place is a shithole. It's the planet closest to our twin suns, and it's tidally locked to them. The planet's dayside is a radiation-blasted nightmare that will melt the flesh from your bones in a minute, while the nightside is one of the coldest places in the system. Right on the terminator between night and day is the only area even remotely habitable.

Except for the cloud cities, that is. Suspended on enormous cables from asteroids in orbit, those aerial metropolises are supposed to be impenetrable. I bet Lady Shadow thought she was safe up there with her minions and WMDs, but boy, was she wrong. She's held her city in the clouds in a well-manicured iron fist for over five decades, but somehow, she got herself taken hostage by these tossers. The Front either have well-informed friends or they got lucky, and in my experience, luck has nothing to do with success in this line of business. Someone must have tipped them off on her whereabouts. Someone who doesn't care about his skin. Lady Shadow is infamous for the creative ways she hurts people. Someone who sold her out like this is likely to become a mythical example of pain. Along with his extended family, friends, and distant acquaintances. If the Shady Lady survives, that is.

Whatever the context of her abduction, the Front now has her launch codes.

"We're close. Make a left here."

I turn a corner and pass an open door. Inside is a large storage room with crates of varying sizes filling the space from floor to ceiling. They all bear the unmistakable markings of Terran military hardware. I've seen those with a lot of extremist groups recently. It's like they're stockpiling for Armageddon or something. Not my business. Just saying it's odd, that's all. I'll leave it to the cops to wipe up after this mess is over.

A few twists and turns later, I arrive at the auditorium. The staff access at the back is my designated point of entry, and I make haste down the corridor. I risk a glance through the open double doors as I pass, and there she is. Lady Shadow stands chained on a circular dais, centre stage in the vast, spherical chamber. In her sheer, crimson gown she looks like a dragon sacrifice. How apt. Ascending rows of seats circle the deep-set stage, like an ancient amphitheatre.

The Lady stands amid a group of bearded arseholes who look like they won the lottery. They think they are about to receive a king's ransom in a matter of minutes, and there's at least one snake-grass pipe doing the rounds. Amateurs. The weed makes them slow, and when you're slow, you're dead.

Lady Shadow is short a hand. The stump has been crudely bandaged, and there's a mess of blood on her gown. To her credit, the pain is almost indiscernible on her smooth, aristocratic features. Having a hand cut off hurts. I know.

"She had the codes implanted in her palm," the construct notifies me.

"Thanks, but I figured that out myself, Aeryn."

"I'm only here to help."

There's an oven-sized cryogenic container on the stage, next to the hostage. Something resembling a tan glove floats in the slush inside. I hope they were careful when they froze it, or they will have destroyed the codes. No matter. They will not get the chance to use them.

There's a hint of a sneer on Lady Shadow’s thin lips. She knows she's getting rescued. The Utopian Front does not understand who their hostage is. Stealing the launch codes to an orbital nuclear arms platform might sound like a large-scale operation to them, but it's not. Not compared to what's going on behind the curtains right now.

"There are twelve of them. Small arms only. No heavy gear."

"Good."

I don't plan to take them on myself, but the absence of heavy weapons means less risk of me taking a stray bullet. My body may be immortal, but a high velocity round through the spine will still incapacitate me. That would put a major dent in my self-esteem and bring awkward questions from the paramedics when they try to zip me into a body bag later.

The back entrance is right where Aeryn told me it would be. It's locked, but the access code the construct whispers in my ear opens the door on the first try. Remind me to buy Winger a good bottle of whisky when I return to Masada.

"Open Sesame."

Inside is a storage area behind the top row of seats, filled with stacks of crates and miscellaneous stage equipment.

"Open what?"

I slip inside and take up position behind the crates. There's a perfect view of the auditorium from here.

"It's a literary reference."

I drop the Aitchenkai on its sling and get the Lensfield off my back. It's solid and perfectly balanced, the way well-designed hardware should be. "I read, Aeryn." The rifle smells of gun oil.

"You read horoscopes and beer bottle labels, Perez."

"So what?" I start to assemble the enormous weapon. "The labels are way more accurate in foretelling the future."

"They foretell you will spend another night sleeping it off in a back alley?"

"Always reliable, those labels. None of that 'Today could be your lucky day, and if you play, you might win' wank."

"Why do you read the horoscopes?"

I unfold the rifle's stand and set it on top of a crate. The stage is only fifty metres away. I peer through the scope. Ducks in a pond.

"To pretend there's a grand plan to the universe. And that my life isn't a sequence of chance events on the one-way road to the dirt."

The Lensfield's high-end optics tag a couple of notable terrorists among the prats surrounding the Lady. This will be a nice catch for the Terrans.

"Eloquent, Perez."

"Thanks. Now shut up and let me concentrate." I pull the bolt and load a bullet into the breach. "I have work to do."

You can't save the world. The best you can hope for is a chance to waste a bad guy or two, to give the universe a breather before another arsehole steps in to fill their shoes.

That works for me.

Now we wait for the clowns to show up to get this party started.

The Centre of Her Being

The Terrans are late.

It's a miracle they can run their empire in anything resembling working order. It's another miracle they reconquered the Hope system as quickly as they did. But then, we had a hand in that ourselves. They say the quickest way to end a war is to lose it, so that's what we did. We lost spectacularly, and, once more, the Hope system is under the Terran boot. All except Nifelheim and Utopia. No one conquers Nifelheim. And Utopia … Well. The first explorers who came here found immense wealth below the surface. They dug down to find refuge from the hostile surface and struck metaphorical gold when they discovered an underground ocean of fresh water. Now, the planet is like a Swiss cheese, riddled with caves, both natural and man-made. The population of Subburbia is as diverse as they come. It's like someone kicked the universe over on its side, shook it around, and everything loose ended up down here. Over the centuries, hundreds of thousands of miscreants and down-at-luck citizens from all corners of the system moved in and set up shop. Subburbia is us, boiled down to a rich broth of the essence of what makes us human. All the hate, the hope, and the anger. The fear, the love, and the lust. Whatever you can think of, you'll find it here. Everything is for sale down here. The Terrans need all that shit too, so they let it go. For now.

Subburbia is the perfect place for groups like the Revolutionary Utopian Front to make their hangout. There are countless more or less revolutionary groups operating down here. They all have names that remind you of some ancient comedy sketch, but the RUF is no laughing matter. They are one of the innumerable neo-libertarian groups who fight for independence from Earth. I guess you could call them Terrarists if you felt the need to be funny. The goal of the RUF is to destroy the Eternal Patriarchy. According to their holy scriptures, the Patriarchy has been yanking humanity's balls since we left the oceans, with the single purpose to oppress women, free thinkers, homosexuals, and people of colour. Probably mimes and accordion players too. If only the Front knew how close to the truth they are. Not about the mimes and the accordion players, but the Eternal Patriarchy. The ones pulling the strings. Had the RUF not been such sadistic homicidal maniacs I might even have rooted for them, but I draw the line at killing women and children. At least killing women and children not actively shooting at me. The Front has no such compunctions.

The room goes black.

"Contact."

Shit. They're already here.

Muzzle flashes light the place up like a dance floor, accompanied by the staccato bark of assault rifles and a chorus of screams. I switch to the thermal scope on the Lensfield. All the cultists are dead or dying.

"All targets neutralised." They waste no time. The Shady Lady knows some very important people.

"Thanks for the heads-up, Aeryn, but I have eyes in my head."

"I'm only here to help."

The room reeks of gunpowder and death. Not an appealing mix, but one I know far too well.

The lights come back on, and a lone soldier in heavy body armour walks up to Lady Shadow. She stands stiff as a board amid the dead. I've got to admire her composure. Most people would scream their lungs out in a situation like this, but not The Shady Lady. From the way the soldier walks, I can tell he's pleased with himself and I can't help being a little impressed. They got into the room under my radar, and few people can do that. I'd toast them if I had a drink on hand, and they weren't Terran bastards. I always knew the special operations soldiers of Earth were good, but I didn't think they had the balls to pull off something like this. They usually worry too much about the negative press generated by mass murder.

The soldier tips his head in greeting to Lady Shadow. He's got a skull painted on his helmet. What a twat. Even with my enhanced hearing, I can't make out what he says to her, but I bet it's "Come with me if you want to live." They always say that.

He reaches out a gloved hand to her, and I hook my finger around the Lensfield's feather-light trigger. Oh, no. She's mine.

I squint through the scope, crack my neck, and take aim.

I click up the magnification as far as it will go.

The Shady Lady's face fills the scope. She's beautiful. Angular, Slavic features with alabaster skin and full, blood-red lips. With an eternity to perfect your looks, anyone can be beautiful. She smiles at the soldier. It's a smile that has started wars and driven men insane.

They are not truly immortal, you know.

I squeeze the trigger and her smile disappears along with her exquisite face. The back of her head explodes as the hypervelocity bullet tears through the centre of her being.

They may live forever if left to their own devices, but they die by violent means like the rest of us.

What? Didn't think I'd kill a woman?

I can't go around letting immortals live because they sport a set of tits. Where's the gender equality in that? Winger's hard-ass feminista girlfriend would applaud my progressive attitude if she didn't also want to kill me for banging her girlfriend. They have a strange relationship, those two. And that's without adding Christine into the equation.

The Terran soldier doesn't even flinch. He spins around and opens fire on my position while he sprints for cover. Impressive cool. His rounds are eerily accurate, and I drop behind the crates to avoid having my head blown off.

I peer around the box, but he's gone. There's still no sign of his team.

Shit.

They are a little too good, even for Terran black ops. Something's wrong.

Well, they're not on my list, and I need to leave before the Utopian Police Department drops on this place like a ton of bricks. I set the Lensfield on the concrete floor. It's a fine rifle, and it stings my heart to leave it behind, but it's an enormous weapon and it would slow me down. Besides, I could never smuggle it off-world. I hope someone who understands its value finds it and makes good use of it.

There's a shuttle leaving for Elysium in less than an hour. The Utopian Police Department may be corrupt and incompetent, but even they can close the spaceports.

Time to go.