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Soon, Kage came to the same cavernous entrance that had led to Ruben’s cave on the edge of the lunar highland. He parked Void X on a lofty crag cantilevered over the rugged, ancient, and heavily cratered terrain.
He typed a series of commands into Void X, which expanded the craft’s holo screens to show a detailed terrain map of the highlands. Location markers popped up, and his fingers flew across the screen as he directed the craft’s cameras to hunt for hostiles.
Soon a red alert popped up onscreen.
‘Now, what do we have here?’
He patched the feed into his HUD and stepped out of the flyer. He saw something glinting in the distance. Locking down his craft, he set it to stealth mode and charged for the crag’s edge. He threw himself off it, turning on his suit’s flight thrusters as he did, launching over the lunar plain. The flat, low-lying area had once been an ancient sea filled with lava, then water. There were a few impact craters, rocks, and rolling waves of silent silver regolith, their movement remaining eternally unheard in the soundless atmosphere. The only sounds Kage caught were his breathing and the hum of his suit equipment.
He glided high above the silver surface, looking for his quarry until he found the glinting object. One of the larger Sable security drones. He took a perimeter assessment and confirmed no other bogey was in theatre.
Kage landed softly beside the drone. He stepped gingerly towards it, searching for any obvious booby traps. Instead, he saw crumpled wreckage as if a great force had hit the device.
‘A missile,’ he said to himself. He looked up into the skies above. His HUD adjusted, scanning his view. Nothing untoward popped up. Yet he couldn’t shake a nagging feeling.Something significant was out there, hiding in plain sight.
He honed in on the broad mountain range in the distance. It reached high in the air for several kilometres on the far side of the flat crater. His eyes narrowed and focused in on a smaller, isolated peak that was an anomaly in the folds and faults of the moon’s hilly mounds. It was too far to get any readings, and he made a note to check it out when he finished his recce.
His HUD cam picked up a few more drones scattered across the sands. He could get nothing more from observing them closely, so he thrust back into the air and headed back to Void X.
He was about to board the flyer when he felt a slight vibration under his feet.
He swivelled sharply. His heads-up sonar sensor showed the pulses emanating from the cave tunnels behind him. Something or someone was in there.
He thrust into the air and made his way into the cave entrance passageway, floating above the ground, using his thrusters to silently make his way back to Ruben’s hidden lair, following the vibrational direction. He soared against the cave ceilings, over rocky ledges, over treacherous quicksand, bypassing any tight passages. Then, just as he passed a large pile of boulders, he caught movement at the corner of his eye.
Something hurled toward him. He tried to out-manoeuvre it and switch to stealth, but it was magnetic and zeroed in on every tiny directional shift he attempted. Suddenly, the charlie latched onto his back and he felt a massive surge of energy overwhelm his systems.
Then he wheeled through the air, moving fast towards the ground below. He violently hit the rock floor and groaned as his suit metanoids struggled to adjust.
He rolled on the ground. Trying to reach the bogey that was crawling over him. His HUD screen razzed over and flickered rapidly, malfunctioning as the rogue energy surges kept coming.
He felt, rather than saw, hands descend on him. He struggled, but he was up against many unseen bodies, and it didn’t help that the device crawling all over him was sending mini electric shocks that were sapping his power. He felt magnetic ropes thrown over him and cinched into a tight knot that immobilised him. Nevertheless, the strange device remained pulsing against his spine, sending unsettling pulsations through his body. For the first time in years, Kage felt out of control of his metanoids, and he felt a familiar rage rise, a wild emotion he’d suppressed since his escape from The Technocracy’s subjugation years ago.
Bound tightly, he was thrown once more to the ground. He heard the shuffle of feet, followed by hands ripping off his helmet. He looked up angrily into a face that eerily resembled Ruben Rinnax.
‘Well, finally, boys, looks like we’ve caught ourselves a real-life Rider,’ the man said. Blonde, shaggy hair slightly covered the strangely familiar face. Woeful green eyes, set high within their sockets, peered down at the fallen Edenite. ‘Didn’t expect you to drop in on us, but in any case, you’re the best bounty we could have received today.’
‘Ah, the hallmarks of a piss poor, desperate strategy,’ Kage murmured.
The green eyes above him flared with rage.
‘Like our disruptor?’ the man said, tapping his fingers. The action triggered the device, still crawling over Kage, sending a more potent jolt of electricity through him. He jerked as painful currents spidered all over him.
Kage clenched his jaw against the agony. ‘Faron Rinnax, I presume,’ he said, keeping his voice calm.
‘You presume correctly,’ Faron said. There was a sly callousness to his expression and tone. ‘Kage Sable. Been waiting for this moment for a long time.’
‘And why’s that?’ Kage asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Faron crouched, bringing his face closer to the downed man. ‘Payback, why else?’
Kage scoffed. ‘You brought it on yourself. You came into our backyard and tried to mess with us. You asked for it.’
‘You murdered Ruben,’ Faron said coldly.
‘He attacked us. We defended ourselves.’
‘He’s dead.’
