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They all nodded in shared agreement.
‘One favour, though,’ Kage said. ‘Xion, I’ve got Aran in Safe House 3. Please keep an eye on him. I’ll decide what needs to be done with him when I return. And Zane, please let Harlow know that I’ve had to go on a mission - and that it’s a blackout on comms. I want to lift off immediately, so I can’t message her to let her know. Too late in the night to trouble her.’
‘Will do, brother,’ Zane confirmed with a quick nod.
Kainan jerked his chin in agreement. ‘I’ll work with you, Zane, on who this blue falcon is in the Rhesian government. It’ll probably take getting all the bios of all key personnel, including the King himself. And then doing some old fashioned sleuthing to see whether we can nail who it or they are.’
‘Sounds good,khosi,’ Riv said.
‘We out,’ Kage added.
‘Good stalking,’ Kainan said to Kage and Riv as they rose from their seats.
Kage’s face tightened with barely sheathed rage. ‘No matter how high these burn bags think they can fly, we’ll tear them down from the skies. They messed with the wrongkalifusthis time.’
Kage
‘Your ship or mine?’ Riv asked Kage as they raced to the shuttle terminal above 517.
‘Yours,’ Kage said emphatically. ‘Mine has crazy rev, but it doesn’t have the infil gear we’ll need for Enia.’
They raced up the waiting shuttle’s gangway and settled into the cabin seats.
‘Get ready to see loads of shit all over the place,’ Riv warned his friend with a wry smile that never reached his eyes.
‘Still with the search, brother?’
‘Always. I’ll never stop til I find her.’
Kage nodded in empathy. Riv looked away, his eyes icing over as he pulled himself back into the past. Where he mostly lived in his head.
Kage felt for his brother. Twenty years ago, Riv had lost the love of his life. She’d disappeared just before their nuptials, last seen getting on an unknown ship that had vanished into FTL. Since then, he’d never stopped looking for her. He’d even turned his ship, Glimmer, into a hybrid surveillance ship, most of its surface covered in infrared security cameras.
To this day, he scoured the System for his lost love, moonlighting as a bounty hunter while his cameras captured millions of data as he sifted through the hundreds of millions of faces. Searching for her, only her.
His commitment to one woman was commendable. In stark contrast to some of his brothers. Like Kage, who’d had a serious girlfriend a few years ago. It hadn’t worked out, so he now discreetly dated Eden II’s beauties, always keeping it casual, dropping them within weeks. That song, though, was soon changing.
Xion was a playboy who juggled several women at the same time. Zane cycled through one beautiful model or socialite a year, changing them almost precisely at the 360-day mark.
The only one among them who was locked down was Kainan, and Kage longed for the same forever connection that hiskhosihad with Selene. He supposed it was a similar connection that Riv had had with his woman once.
Kage reached a hand out and placed it on his brother’s shoulder. He felt Riv tense up, and he squeezed once, then let go. After a beat, Riv tapped Kage’s knee in gratitude. They fell into silence, a shared affirmation that their deep bond would never be broken.
The shuttle took off for the Sable Orbital Station, where the Riders’ corvettes were parked. Soon they were loading onto Glimmer.
‘Nada!’ Kage laughed out loud at seeing what he’d walked into.
Riv had covered every available working surface with gear. Packing boxes lay open, overflowing with equipment. Piles of servers, wires and transmitters lay scattered on the floor.
‘Damn brother, will this tin can even lift off? Bit top heavy, ay,kinai!’
‘Hate the game, don’t hate the player,’ Riv warned. ‘Andnadatouch anything. It’s all exactly where I need it to be. So none of your mad tidying bull spit now.’
Kage grinned. ‘You’ve got slob written all over you!’
‘And you’ve got control freak etched into your glyphs,’ Riv shot back. ‘You take the quarters. I’ll use the crash couch on the bridge. It’s where I sleep anyway.’
The layout inside was like his own ship, so Kage settled in quickly into the master quarters as he heard Riv fire up the ship’s engines. They rumbled under his feet, sounding sweet to his ears. At least thekinaiserviced his bird well.
