Burden of Solace: Book 1 of the Starforce Saga

by Richard L. Wright

  Ballantine had done this. The blasts had come from her, but that grinning monster bore the responsibility. He was even the reason she’d been exposed as an exo. Once he had thrown her off the deck there was no turning back. Everything was his fault - her ‘death’, the Enforcers, all of it. He had even orphaned little Marissa.

  He had killed Nate.

  The fire was building. She felt it collecting. And she knew that her control was slipping away. Soon it would erupt. It would leap from her hands and burn the flesh from Ballantine’s bones. She smiled. There was no humor or pleasure in that smile, but she smiled, nonetheless.

  Ballantine backed up, shielding himself behind the bodies he dominated, pushing them forward, pressing them to attack. He couldn’t control her and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him close enough to do his body-swapping trick again. He couldn’t beat her, but he could force her to fight this mindless and defenseless crowd. No matter how hard she tried to rein in the power, sooner or later she’d slip. The blasts would kill someone. And then… Then she’d be damned.

  A boy, no more than ten, threw a rock at her, striking her in the leg. Pain shot through her and she nearly dropped to her knees. She had no protection now. The force field belt was ruined, crushed by Ballantine as he clawed his way up to strangle her. Her healing power automatically repaired the bruise. Another one of Ballantine’s puppets lunged, teeth bared. She flicked a finger, unleashing the smallest of bursts, and the attacker went flying several yards. The man shook it off and came after her again. His eyes were crazed, like the drug-addled maniac who had attacked her in the hospital.

  That memory sparked an idea. She had seen the damage done by the mystery drugs in that woman’s system and somehow managed to fix it. Maybe the effect of Ballantine’s control was like damage, a foreign influence? Maybe, just maybe, she could ‘heal’ these people of Ballantine’s domination.

  A young Asian man came at her, well-dressed and with the trappings of affluence. She plunged her diagnostic senses into him as they grappled, looking for telltales of Ballantine’s control. Hotspots flared throughout the man’s body, topped by a brighter light at his brain. It wasn’t just similar to what she’d seen in that drug-crazed woman; it was exactly the same.

  Realization exploded in her mind. It all came together in one crystalline instant. It wasn’t drugs that had caused those women to lose their minds, it was Ballantine. It all made sense now. Even the insane woman who had attacked her during her run, the one that had provoked her Emergence, she was also a product of Ballantine’s mind-fuckery. He wasn’t just responsible for her being revealed as an exo, he was the reason she was an exo.

  All of this, everything that had ripped her from her old life, was his fault.

  The young man clawed her throat. The shock of discovery had distracted her from the danger at hand. She refocused on her attacker, flicking him away from with the tightest of energy bursts.

  All around her, she saw the blocked neural pathways and the hotwiring that made up Ballantine’s programming. She could fix this, given time. The problem was that she was under constant attack, which made it impossible to concentrate on one individual long enough to do what needed doing.

  Wait. I don’t have to sweat the small stuff.

  Her power wasn’t solely an instrument of her conscious will. It was an extension of her, powered by her fundamental core as a healer. She’d seen before how it was capable of accomplishing a myriad of small tasks to achieve a greater goal. Like the emergency room staff, it was capable of doing its job without micro-management on her part. All she had to do was trust in her abilities.

  Great, but I’ve still got a park full of psycho zombies trying to kill me.

  A teen girl swung a fist at her face, and she reeled from the blow. Cassie grabbed the girl and willed her to be healed. The green power flowed down her arm and into the girl. Awareness returned to the victim and her eyes grew wide. She broke away and tried to run from the fight.

  Off to the side, at a safe distance, Martin Ballantine recoiled as the connection to his slave was suddenly broken. His eyes narrowed and the girl stiffened, turning once again to attack Cassie.

  Maybe if I could free them all at one time, it might overload his ability to recover. But that would require touching every one of them at once.

  More of Ballantine’s mindless minions pressed in on her, rushing at once. She thought about how she had opened herself and allowed the white fire to pour through her in a massive burst. Was it possible to do that with her other power? There was only one way to find out. Cassie closed her eyes and spread her arms wide.

  The healing green inside her exploded, like a sun going nova. It spread from her as a wave, passing through the crowd and extending throughout the park. Streetlights flared as the energy wave passed.

  The crowd stopped their advance.

  Later she would hear stories about people who were in the park that night, nowhere near the crowd controlled by Ballantine. Folks would talk about how old pains had suddenly subsided. Inflamed joints stopped troubling elderly attendees for one night. Drug addicts lost their cravings and drunks found themselves clear-headed in that moment. And the victims of Ballantine’s control all found their own will again.

  The spell had been broken. Everyone was healed, and Cassie hadn’t touched a single one of them. Now, her immediate concern was the architect of all this misery, the person who set in motion the wheels that had crushed her life and killed a good man.

  It was time for Ballantine to suffer.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Impressive,” he said. He was visibly rocked, almost losing his feet from under him. “But anything you can do, I can do better.”

  Cassie really wished Ballantine would shut the fuck up. If there was a reason she had been attracted to him in the first place, then it escaped her now. She looked past the fleeing crowd to where Ballantine gathered the strength to coalesce his army once again. Then she looked in the other direction - to Nate’s body. A few of the crowd hadn’t run. They gathered beside him, crying for the man who had been their hero, the one who had adopted their city as his own. They mourned for the one who had stayed.

  Cassie turned to face Ballantine again and something inside her broke. She leaned forward and screamed, punching the thrusters in the rocket boots. Only one responded, the other had been damaged during their aerial grappling. She shot forward, aiming for Ballantine’s gut. They collided like hawk and sparrow. Arching her back, she scooped him up and away from the ground. Upwards she carried him - one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet. His fists pounded on her back as she drove him ever higher into the night sky.

  And then she released the thrust. She let him go and they both hung there in the air, suspended for that moment by inertia. Her eyes held him, frozen in that instant, meeting his mad gaze with her own. She hated him for what he had done, and always would. His contemptuous sneer lasted less than half of the moment before realization dawned on him.

  For all of his supposed superiority, his rightful due to rule over the ones who stood below him, he had no power over the gravity of his situation. He was going to fall, like a normal human being. He was going to fall to the earth, and he was going to die. And the woman in front of him, the angel of life and death, gold and black, had no intention of saving him.

  “You can’t,” he gasped. “You won’t.”

  She grabbed him by the throat. He hung suspended by his head, the source of his supposed superiority. He clutched at her hand, not to loosen her grip but to support his weight. Cassie didn’t notice how strong that grip had become.

  “You don’t get to talk. You’ve murdered and made other people murder. You’ve done more evil than I can even count. And you’ve ended the life of a man that you weren’t even worthy to look at.”

  He tried to speak, but her grip prevented it. She felt the pressure of his mind against hers, but Etienne’s shields stopped him cold. She felt his darkness trying to invade her mind, but the green
force pushed it back, recognizing it for what it was - a foreign object invading her body. This child of privilege, the man who would rule them all, was powerless in the grip of a small redheaded woman. She held his fate in her slender hand.

  “He created things, you know. Incredible things. All you do is destroy. He wanted to protect, but all you wanted was to take. You’ve robbed this world of a good soul, a good man - a man worthy of trust. That’s a rare thing, and now you’re going to pay for stealing him from me, from all of us. You’re a cancer, Martin Ballantine. And I’m a surgeon.”

  She steeled herself. She’d sworn an oath - to do no harm. But there came a time when a doctor had to choose - between the life that lay before her and the corruption that threatened it. A bacterium, another form of life, could seep inside a patient and suck the life from the host it sought to dominate. All it cared about was its own selfish needs. Healers since the beginning of time had faced that choice - one life form or another. And those practitioners had always sided with the greater good, with the being who was capable of doing good. The entity that could only do harm, the parasite, was of lesser value. Ballantine was no different. He was a parasite and her profession had no qualms about extinguishing parasites.

  Still she held him, suspended above his deserved doom. Her fingers would not let him fall. Nate’s voice came to her, soft and gentle.

  “You’re a healer, Cass, not a killer.”

  The voice filled her, and she felt his presence. She closed her eyes and felt his spirit. If only he were truly there. Her world had changed forever, and she needed him to guide her, to be with her in this frightening new life. Would his ghost always come to her in times of need, offering his strength? Was that what made heroes pursue their selfless paths - the guilty onus laid on them by the ones they couldn’t save?

  “I wasn’t a killer before,” she said to the night. “But everything has changed. I’ve been remade. I don’t know what I am anymore.”

  The loss and grief overwhelmed her, and the tears couldn’t be held anymore. Her vision rippled through the mist that filled them. His presence was so strong. She imagined his hand on her shoulder, steadying her. The hand slid down her arm, past the fist she held at Ballantine’s throat. It gathered the shirt on Ballantine’s shoulder, taking the weight from her. He seemed to be relieving her of this burden, doing what needed to be done so she wouldn’t have to. She eased her grip and let her arm fall to her side.

  There. It’s done. I’ve crossed the line and there’s no turning back. XAC and their Enforcers will own me, holding this over me for the rest of my life.

  Her hands came up to cover her face, wiping away the tears that clouded her sight. She should go down now, down to the fate that awaited her. Down to the fate she’d earned.

  She looked up as she ran the back of her hand across her face, smearing snot and salty droplets away. Ballantine hovered there still, hanging limp and defeated in the grasp of an arm, an arm that extended from behind her. It was a strong arm, finely muscled. A tattered and burned sleeve of steel gray covered the arm and hand.

  She fought the urge to turn around, to follow that arm with her eyes. Turning around would break the spell, banishing the apparition. She clung to his essence, pulled it into her soul. She didn’t want to let him go, and if she looked, then he would really be gone.

  “You’re not a killer, Cass. That part of you hasn’t changed. And you’ve helped me to see that I’m not a killer either. I’m stronger with you, better.”

  The voice was close in her ear, his breath stirring her hair. She closed her eyes and turned, reaching out to hold him. Her arms went to his neck, pulling him close. She felt his warmth as she buried her face in his shoulder. His hair tickled her nose. She whispered in his ear. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  His free arm slipped around her waist. “I’m kind of invulnerable, remember?”

  She pulled her face back to look into his eyes. They burned her and soothed her at the same time. She surrendered to the blue and kissed him. She tasted his lips and devoured his kiss with a hunger she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge in many years. Only the shock of realization broke the moment.

  “Your face...”

  He smiled. It was a good smile. It was a gentle and generous smile. The helmet that had hidden his features was gone, discarded like a chrysalis after the butterfly had emerged.

  “Yeah. Not just the face. All of the scars are gone. I guess you’re not the only one who’s changed today.”

  Ballantine squirmed in Nate’s grasp. “Oh my God, I think I’m going to throw up. Please, just let me drop. I’d rather die than listen to any more of this.”

  Cassie cut her eyes, angling toward Nate’s right arm. When she looked back at Nate, she knew that his eyes had never left hers, a romantic down to his bones.

  “Still… Can we kill him just a little bit?” Nate laughed.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was a relief to have the bracelets back in place, well worth the side trip to the hotel roof. The strain of constantly controlling her powers was starting to give Cassie a tension headache. Nate thought that was funny for some reason – a healer with a headache.

  As they approached the park, she could see it was still crawling with emergency personnel. Police had cordoned off the area while paramedics finished up with the last of the minor injuries. Cassie expanded her senses, checking each patient below for serious injuries. She hoped for the chance to treat every one of those injured, to make them whole again, before the night was done. Then she realized that wasn’t possible for one of them - the old man she’d been unable to save. She’d lost her first patient.

  She watched as a large contingent of XAC Enforcers arrived, spilling from several armored vehicles. They appeared to be in a standoff with Bill Walsh and a mass of police officers and SWAT. Nate and Cassie moved to join them, careful to keep Ballantine high enough and out of range to use his power.

  “How can we turn him over to the Enforcers?” Cassie said. “He’ll just take them over.”

  Nate concentrated on the assemblage below - intent, as if looking for something in particular. “We have a plan.”

  “We?” Cassie tried to suppress a smile. “Oh, so that’s how this relationship is going to work? Keeping secrets from each other?”

  Nate smiled and winked. She felt an emotional spike in him at the word ‘relationship’ and her own smile grew to a grin.

  “More a surprise than a secret,” he said. “I think you’ll like this one. But first, our crazy friend here needs to take a nap.”

  Ballantine’s eyes glared at Nate, impotent fury burning in them. “I should have killed you both as soon as we swapped. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “You won’t get that chance,” Nate said. He moved a fist in front of Ballantine’s face and then drew it back. “This will probably hurt a bit. Hopefully.”

  Cassie covered Nate’s cocked fist with her hand. “Allow me.”

  Her mind reached into his throat and pinched, slowing the flow of blood headed for his brain down to a trickle. His eyes fluttered, the rage in them slowly fading until he hung limp in Nate’s grasp.

  “Nice.” Nate nodded to the gathering below. “Shall we?”

  As the trio descended, the two groups of uniforms separated, opening a space for them to land. Their arrival seemed to bolster the morale of the police, while the Enforcers took a step back, defensive.

  Beyond the Enforcers and police, a swarm of reporters and cameramen had coalesced, all straining to capture the story. Detective Walsh was being grilled on-camera by several reporters, some with international logos emblazoned on their equipment. As the flyers arrived, the reporters stepped aside to let their cameramen cover the unfolding story.

  A buzz of voices could be heard - narration half-shouted into microphones.

  “... clearly see Guardian 175 without his helmet. This is coming to you live--”

  “... appears to be, yes, millionaire Martin Ballantine. His p
art in this is still--”

  “... sources tell us the woman is Dr. Cassidy Whelan, thought to have died last week in a tragic fall from--”

  Eyes all around seemed focused on Cassie and her stage fright surged. For a second, she wished she still had the black helmet Nate had made. She reminded herself of the long years Nate had spent stuck inside such a thing and a shiver ran through her.

  Too late, anyway, she thought. They all know who I am.

  Walsh broke away from the reporters. Cassie picked up an emotional exhalation from the detective, relieved at the excuse to get away from the press and their questions. Nate shifted the limp form of Ballantine to his left hand and offered his friend the other. As they shook, Cassie got the feeling the detective might have actually hugged him had there not been so many eyes on them. Walsh grinned as he turned to Cassie.

  “Nice work, Doc. It’s good to see that face again.”

  “He’s a lousy patient,” Cassie shrugged. “I had to rough him up a little first.”

  Nate gave her a little smirk. “At least the important parts of my uniform survived this time.”

  After a brief consultation, Walsh motioned for a pair of SWAT officers to come and take custody of Ballantine. Nate went to speak with the Enforcers. As much as she’d have preferred to accompany him, Cassie stayed behind to monitor their captive and ensure he remained unconscious. She divided her attention between Ballantine and straining to hear Nate’s exchange with the leader of the XAC forces, their old friend Sergeant Alfaro.

  The conversation didn’t appear friendly, nor was it quickly concluded. At one point, Nate moved right up in front of Alfaro, looming over him and tapping a finger on the man’s chest to punctuate his words. One zealous young Enforcer shouldered his weapon and leveled it point-blank against Nate, who simply reached up and bent the barrel into a steel twisty-straw without ever taking his eyes off the sergeant. Then Nate pointed over to Cassie. Whatever point Nate was making, Alfaro conceded. Orders were given and a pair of Enforcers walked over to one of their armored vehicles.