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He looked at the clock. 0100 hours. Harlow would be deep asleep. He felt a sudden pang of emotion, missing her already. Kage hoped she’d take the news of his unexpected mission well. He’d give an arm and leg to be with her this very moment. It sucked he’d left just when he felt their journey together was taking a new, more intimate turn. Yet Kage knew he had to let her find her way to him. A break from each other could be the catalyst for deciding what she wanted in a relationship.
Shutting down his need for Harlow, he left the quarters and leapt up the stairs past the galley level into the command deck. He sunk into a crash seat beside Riv.
He strapped in as the cockpit swivelled and reoriented itself for space flight.
Sitting back, he let Riv work with Mirage to program Glimmer’s flight to Rhesia. Kage looked around, amazed at what Riv had achieved. Working with The Sable Group’s AI, he’d become the best surveillance operator in all Pegasi, undefeated by any countermeasures anyone tried to throw his way. His ship cameras could uncover deep fake programming or code used to defeat facial recognition programs, aided with thermal cameras and skin texture recognition algorithms to defeat all efforts at disguise.
The cams were challenging to hack, had no signal receivers, and could not be commanded remotely by anyone, not even any of the Riders, other than Riv, whose neural node had this functionality. Powered by Sable Industries’ electrical, magnetic batteries, they could run for months without replacement or backup. They continuously captured footage, which was stored in various servers at The Sable Group’s many facilities. In which Mirage had built numerous redundancies making it highly complex and challenging to break through their security even for the most resourceful and gifted System level hackers.
Glimmer also featured powerful transmitters for the data Riv collected 24/7. These could send information with as few time delays as possible, overcoming most gravitational and velocity-based relativistic effects in vast open space.
And she had the crank power to study every available data from Riv’s cameras at high speed, using the latest computational auto programming.
Riv himself was an expert hacker. His shape-shifting powers meant he could hide his physical presence using visage fluidity — he could transmogrify at will, making it extremely difficult to detect him. He’d also worked with Mirage to edit himself out of video feeds in real-time, concealing his identity by erasing himself altogether.
Obsessed with his life mission, Riv lived permanently on board his ship. He had an apartment at the Sable complex but had yet to use it.He probably figured he’d only have a home once he brought his woman to it,Kage thought.
In the little downtime he had, Kage knew Riv spent it maintaining the cameras - cleaning, servicing, repairing, and working with Mirage to process the raw data they collected, discarding thousands of hours of mildly suspicious footage, fixing errors, and searching the volumes for the woman who he was convinced was still alive and somewhere out there.
Kage admired his brother for his dedication. Their’s must have been a monumental love for this one man to dedicate his entire life to.
Glimmer lifted into the darkness of space, and within minutes they were away. Riv rotated the ship, punched the boosters, and the corvette broke free from Eden II’s ionosphere, the nav holo showing their flight plan to Rhesia.
The ship soared through the endless expanse of space, its engines humming softly as it glided effortlessly through the void. Once the initial thrust and burn acceleration were complete, the cabin swivelled back to a horizontal position.
Mirage took over the ship’s controls when they slid into hyperspace, and both Kage and Riv sat back.
The corvette was now burning at high gees as it warped through space. Kage looked out its view screens and saw the stars stretching and swirling around them, creating a dazzling and disorienting display. He welcomed the sensation and breathed in deeply, keen to be out on a challenging mission.
‘Kahawa?’ Kage offered.
‘Sante,’ Riv nodded, accessing his controls to finalise maintenance checks on his cameras.
Kage lifted from his seat and made his way to the galley. There he fussed with the kahawa machine until he realised he needed to roast the beans, so he set them on a timer, leaning back against the counter, waiting.
Although outwardly calm, inside, he was roiling with outrage at the gall of the Rinnax Bros to target Aran and his mother. The one thing Kage could not stand was his family, blood or otherwise, being hurt or harmed. He was deeply loyal to those he cared for, so this mission was paramount to stop those who’d dared come for his brotherhood, and wider TSG family.
The bean roaster pinged, the noise cutting through his thoughts. He quickly brewed two cups and returned to the command deck, handing Riv his cup.
‘Sante,’ Riv growled.
The two men sipped companionably, talking sparingly yet profoundly at ease with each other. It’d been this way for many years. They knew each other inside and out; more was said non-verbally than between them.
Kage cleaned his weapons and checked in on his comm messages from Sable Industries. While Riv did what he loved best, sifting through endless data, faces and code, always searching as Mirage navigated the ship through the galaxy.
A few hours later, they were almost at their destination. As they approached the planet, they could see its surface coming into view. Rhesia was a beautiful world, a planet so alive with energy, Kage could sense it even from a distance. It was an orb pulsing with luminous colours and swirling clouds that danced and shimmered in the darkness of space.
Mirage aimed the corvette towards Enia, the city of light. Where towering buildings, shimmering streets, and glowing structures seemed to defy the laws of physics. Everywhere the eye could see, self-illuminating walls, giant panels of strobed surfaces, bright lanterns, lit-up flyers, and even glowing maglev trains floated across the skyline.
Kage had been here many times before and had walked its streets where bio-luminous plants lined the sidewalks, their leaves glowing softly in the darkness giving the appearance of a magical forest.
He remembered how the buildings towered into the sky, their windows and balconies glowing with a warm, inviting light. The city never slept - it was always bustling, with people of all shapes, sizes, and colours going about their business.
The light shows and water fountains, too, were legendary, featuring millions of flashing LEDs choreographed to sound. If the tourists didn’t come for the dancing water and lights, they thronged to the club hot spots and parties held in the vast array of live entertainment and multi-level party venues, where droids and party hosts served visitors every pleasure imaginable.
‘On approach,’ Mirage warned.
Before Rhesia’s spaceport could detect them, the AI activated Glimmer’s stealth mode. The corvette disappeared, unseen and untraceable by any orbital defence and surveillance system.
