Heroes Rise: Tearing Through Space, #1

By Chris Bosman

The year is 2211. In the aftermath of a brutal war that brought the Solar System to its knees, Chris Thomson and his friends are just trying to survive in the run-down, nameless town they call home. But their routine is interrupted when Chris makes an exciting discovery that changes everything - a mysterious rock that lets them travel instantly through space. The four young adults are soon thrust into an unfolding plot with sinister implications: another war is brewing. One that could be even worse.

And with their newfound power, they hold the key to stopping it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Bosman
• Release date: Jan 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201813703

Book preview

PROLOGUE

NOVEMBER 16, 2206

Welcome, sir! May I see your ticket?

The man snapped to attention — his mind had been wandering again. He nodded to acknowledge the question and slid the small metallic ticket from his breast pocket, tapping it against the terminal on the gate.

Here you go.

Thank you! You may proceed.

The man ran his fingers nervously through his hair. He’d made it past stage one, and the venue was in view. It was a lavish sight. The exterior was a cross between a large mansion and a five-star restaurant. A holographic projector was mounted haphazardly above the columns surrounding the front porch, proudly flying a digital banner: Annual World Peace Dinner. He walked up the stairs, the front door now in sight. But first, the metal detector.

I’ll ask you to place your hands on your head and walk through here, please. The uniformed security guard made brief eye contact and nodded at him knowingly as he gestured at the frame.

The man held his breath. There was no real reason to be afraid, but what if the metal detector could read his intentions? He shook his head. The others had all made it through. Nothing to worry about. He stepped across the threshold. No beeps. He relaxed his shoulders and kept walking.

You’re clear, the guard said, walking up to shake his hand. That was unusual for a security guard to do, but there was a reason for this exchange. A small, metallic object slipped from the guard’s sleeve into his own. A miniature ray pistol. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, yet powerful enough to vaporize a human being in one shot. He stiffly stuffed it in his pocket and walked into the building, slipping quickly into his designated seat and placing his trembling hands under the oak table as he fought to keep his breathing under control. His eyes darted toward his targets sitting near the front wall. World leaders. Leaders from every country on Earth, and leaders from planets where humans had lived for several years. The World Peace Dinner was a celebrated affair, where people from across the solar system met and celebrated the lasting peace between all nations over the last sixty-odd years.

But peace was a shaky thing, and he was here to prove it.

We are going to start a war.

That’s what he had been told. That’s why he was here tonight - to push the foundations of peace and make it collapse. His leader, whom he only knew as ‘Boss’, was also in attendance. In total, there were ten members of his group in the room, including the two who were part of security and had slipped them their weapons. The infiltration had been laughably easy. These peace-lovers were obviously not anticipating anything.

He shuffled in his chair and sipped his wine, waiting for the signal. The speeches start at 7 o’clock. That’s when we strike, he had been informed earlier. He looked at the large wooden clock hanging behind the leaders’ chairs. The hands read 6:57. He smiled. No one knew what was about to happen.

6:58.

The System will exhaust itself from fighting, Boss had said. Then we will step in and take control. Tonight, we are lighting the refiner’s fire. Burn down the old world, and we will create perfection from the ashes.

6:59.

Perfection. That was Boss’s vision. To unify the world under one ruler – himself. One set of laws. One religion. And most of all, blending all cultures into one master society. Unfortunately, not many people agreed with his vision. The governments and the media had painted him as a danger, a menace to society. To them, Boss stood in the way of the mantra they repeated insufferably: To be human is to be unique.

7:00.

Their opinion no longer mattered. As the clock started chiming, the man’s eyes met Boss’s. He dug his hand into his pocket, clicked the safety off, pulled back the charging mechanism, and drew a breath, preparing himself. Boss narrowed his gaze.

It was go time.

In one smooth and quiet motion, eight guests stood up, drew their pistols, aimed at their designated target, and pulled the trigger. Eight blindingly white streams of light pulsed from the barrels. They hit their targets and vaporized them, a wisp of black smoke being the only evidence that someone had ever been sitting there. At the same time, the two rogue guards threw out smoke bombs and started a fire, obscuring the room in a murky cloud. The guests gasped and screamed, some running toward the leaders’ table to check for survivors, and others running to save themselves.

Security! Put your hands up! Through the haze the man could see the other guards running toward the scene. The pistol was ready to fire again, and he evaporated one of them in another brilliant flash of light. Then he ran, smashing through a window as he left the place. He looked behind him and smiled in cruel satisfaction as flames began to lick at the building.

War had been started. It was inevitable. His mission was over. Explosions rang out from across the city as other World Peace events were disrupted. Sirens echoed through the streets as the fire and rescue services rushed to respond to the chaos.

Earth was burning.

CHAPTER 1

THE NAMELESS TOWN

JULY 1, 2211

CHRIS

Sunrise.

My eyelids opened slowly and reluctantly to greet the morning. I pushed away my worn, muddy blanket and rolled off the sagging mattress that I used as a bed. As I ran a comb through my messy hair, I reached for a clean pair of clothes and threw them on, placing my dirty clothes in a plastic bin. I was running out of clean clothes, but I knew that my rain barrel outside wasn’t quite full enough to wash them yet. I grabbed a washcloth that was still slightly damp from the night before and rubbed it across my face. A tattered metal card on my nightstand caught my eye, like it did every morning, and I ran my fingers over it and sighed. It was my student identification and room key, my only surviving possession from a previous life. The younger, happier face on the card stared back at me.

Chris Thomson. Three long years ago, that name had been known across the solar system. My name. I was a promising cadet in the World Space Exploration Association — specifically, the highschool-age WSEA Academy — with a bright future in space travel ahead of me. I was flying ships, learning combat techniques, and visiting cities on other planets. It was all I had ever wanted, and it was amazing.

That was before the War.

It started November 16, 2206. A terrorist group known as the Refinery had attacked several World Peace events in major cities across Earth, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. With the political structure of the solar system already tense under their peaceful facades, everyone had blamed everyone else for the attacks. It was only three days before the first armed conflict started. Country after country declared war on each other, and the Refinery watched from a distance, occasionally joining in to further the conflict and destruction. The interplanetary war raged until February 2209. It was relatively short, just over two years, but it was long enough to cause catastrophic damage. Cities were reduced to twisted rubble. Billions of people died fighting a pointless war. And technology? It was all but lost. The only consolation was that the Refinery was destroyed, leaving no trace behind — an ironic casualty of the conflict they had created.

On Earth, what was left of modern technology was in the hands of the Protection, Earth’s governing body. The Protection claimed that once they were done studying, repairing, and replicating what they had, modern commodities would once again be placed on Earth. It had been two years since that promise, and all of us desperately hoped that the Protection was nearing the end of their study.

I snapped back to the present. It was nearly breakfast time, and I was hungry. I walked down the dirt floor to a rotting wood board that I used as a door and pushed it aside, blinking as the brightness of the outdoors met my eyes. The same familiar large circle of about thirty thrown-together shelters and holes in the ground greeted me as I walked out. These structures made up our ‘town’, one of thousands of small communities across Earth. After the War, nobody had known what to call our town. It remained nameless, and eventually became known as