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Kage then swivelled his head, allowing his neural node to take images of his new companions. He also attached a note that he estimated the frigate as a 30-crew ship and included the docking port location to the top of its bow.
He sent the images via his limited neural narrow-band window to his flyer’s onboard system, which he hoped was still close by. Also tagged were instructions for the craft to send the images to Mirage and the Raiders as soon as it was near them.
Moments later, a neural ping told him Void X had received the data and was on its way to get support.
A metallic air bridge extended from the frigate’s hangar bay area on its ventral side. As soon as it touched the ground, the clones dragged Kage into their ship, pulling him past three stout shuttles and darkened cargo holds.
They took him past a few corridors until they pushed him through a set of swinging doors and threw him onto the ship’s bridge in the middle of the bow area, in view of the sensor control room.
He fell heavily. His stabilising metanoids took the brunt of the impact, but he could feel them returning to full power as they drained the limpet disruptor device on his back of its energy.
Kage felt the frigate’s engines rumble as it lifted into the skies and cruised away. He slumped to the floor, conserving as much energy for the fight he sensed was yet to come.
Kainan
The Sable Riders’khosibarged past the sliding doors at The Osirian. Close behind him was Zane, who’d exited from the Sable offices across the road and was now sprinting towards the bar.
Both men exchanged concerned looks as they silently and swiftly moved through the lunchtime crowd. They charged into the lifts, where Kainan swiped his wrist comm and punched a floor number into the panel. The lift smoothly detached and headed upward into the recesses of the Sable 498 building.
‘Know anything?’ Zane asked.
‘Just an urgent comm from Mirage to meet here. And to stay off all comms including neural.’
‘But it’s a private network!’
Kainan shrugged. ‘Mirage wouldn’t ask it if she didn’t think we were in danger. Plus, we’re getting reports of tunnel collapses in the northern Pikani territory. So something’s up, and it ain’t good.’
Zane nodded, letting his head fall back against the mirrored lift wall. ‘Getting sick of this negative shit, brother. Need some peace so I can get the good shit done.’
‘Right there with you,’ Kainan muttered.
Soon, the lift doors slid open, and they charged out, stalking through a dizzying maze of corridors, finally stopping before a nondescript grey entrance. Kainan punched a code into a keypad beside the door and used his wrist comm once more for further authentication. The keypad gave a soft beep, and the doorway smoothly slid open.
They stepped into the Riders’ large, expansive conference room.
Riv looked up from the comm tab he’d been scanning. He was seated beside the huge dark textured altiphyte wood table polished to a mirror sheen. Next to him, on a perch, was a silver feathered gyrfalcon, and on the couch in the corner was slumped Xion, half asleep after a long night shift.
‘Where’s the fire?’ Kainan asked. ‘Came soon as we got the summons.’
‘Kage’s in trouble,’ Mirage said, her gyrfalcon feathers ruffling.
The Riders gathered around the table as the AI updated the four Riders on the current situation.
‘So Kage has been captured. We don’t have a link to him by private net, Sysnet or via our nodes. However, he managed to connect via a narrow band with Void X just before they took him. He sent quite a bit of data. I’ve deduced he’s on a ship called The Haiku. The exact position is unknown, but I believe it’s somewhere over the northern badlands. Incidentally, close to where Ruben Rinnax called home. Sysnet is malfunctioning, but a few connections and servers are still working fine. The ship seems responsible for our downed drones, and also for distributing the malware attack on our systems. We’re also getting sporadic Sysnet reports of tunnel collapses in that region.’
‘Who’s got him, and how did they capture him?’
‘The Haiku is registered to Rinnax Holdings. The Rinnax clones infiltrated the rock and must have nabbed him when he went out there to check on strange readings I was getting.’
Kainan huffed out in frustration. ‘How about the Sable-Net comms and node attack? How are they hitting us?’
‘Our systems, security and comms are composed of feedback loops. Our attackers have somehow worked out how to generate malware designed to inflict critical damage and are trying to shake the system apart. There’s zero physical damage. It’s all focused on disrupting the feedback loops. You can do this by destroying key nodes that are routes for feedback, or you can do it by inducing oscillations in the feedback loops until they fly apart under strain.’
‘So how do we stop the attack? And stop this reckless feedback loop?’ Riv said.
Mirage’s meta-silver feathers fluttered. ‘First, I’m on top of the loop - I’m using an army of worms to fight back the hack. It’s slow, but I’m taking ground and about to launch a counterattack. Meantime, we use the one weapon stronger than anything they can throw at us.’
All eyes turned to Zane. The elegantly dressed Rider sighed and rubbed his forehead. ‘Fokk, I hate this. But needs must.’
