AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The enemy sent another wave of crats hurtling into the room, and they, too, were hammered unceasingly. With a pull and click, the four Sable Riders’ weapons turned into energy swords, easily cutting through the crats’ metal limbs and torsos.
Riv grunted in approval. ‘Seems the excessively high price we paid for those Ccyth sword pulse rifles was worth it.’
He was undoubtedly a cool customer, Selene thought, flicking him a glance. Her eyes strayed back to the restaurant floor and saw the fighting slowing.
At long last, it seemed all the attackers were down.
The four Sable Riders appeared unharmed as they stalked around the room, checking the fallen bodies of the enemy for weapons. Selene saw Kainan shout out, and staff members ran into the devastated room to tend to the injured sec team members.
Then the four Sable Riders did something unexpected. They each found a crat and reached into their severed and broken craniums. They pulled something from the inner reaches of the bionic skulls and focused on the prizes in their hands.
‘What are they doing?’ Selene asked.
Riv lifted a hand to let her know he was waiting to learn more, cocking his head as his neuro node fired up.
Presently, he turned to the waiting woman.
‘We’ve all just linked with the crats’ nodes. We can confirm that they were sent here for you. We also think they slipped into the metro dome disguised as Falasian merchants. Our location was given to them by an accomplice resembling a staff member of one of Rhesus’ well-known families.’
‘What does a Rhesian House have to do with me?’ Selene asked.
Kainan heard her words as he strode back into the conference room towards the pair standing by the glass windows.
‘That Rhesian Dynasty, which incidentally is Uba Villan’s family, is closely linked to the Makoris,’ Kainan filled them in. ‘She’s most likely our leak after our encounter last night.’
Selene’s brow furrowed in disbelief. ‘That was only 24 hours ago? How would this have happened so quickly?’
‘Easily,’ Kainan said. ‘She, or someone associated with her, probably sent a message to Massimo last night that was most likely bounced to one of the crat ships blockading Dunia, and they’re only a few hours away. Wouldn’t have taken long to organise a small infiltration horde, intercept a Falasian ship and here we are.’
‘Which proves hell hath no fury than a woman scorned, in this case, one woman,’ Riv said as Zane, Xion, and Kage walked back in.
Selene couldn’t help herself and stepped forward with concern, touching Kainan’s forearm tentatively. ‘Are you all right?’
He looked down at her hand, which lay still on his arm, then back into her eyes.
She flushed with embarrassment and pulled away. Yet another sign from him that he wanted to keep a clear distance between them.
‘I’m fine. We all are,’ Kainan clipped. ‘Only three of our security team were injured, none seriously. The only one truly wounded in this clash was Mirage.’
They turned to look at the inert gyrfalcon, alone and vulnerable on the conference table.
‘She’ll come back to us, won’t she?’ Selene asked softly.
‘She must, and she will,’ Kainan said, walking over to the table where the silvery creature lay.
Just then, the sound of a crackle and hum filled the room. The holo screen in the room buzzed, winked and lit up, and the feathers on the gyrfalcon fluttered. The creature then stood upright, wobbling slightly.
‘Khosi?Khosi?’ came a far-off tinny voice.
‘Mirage?’ Kainan called, peering closely with concern at his close companion. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,khosi. First, I shut down before they could do much damage. Then I managed to circumvent the hack and launch a counter hack. But it feels like I’ll need some serious repair work soon.’
It was unmistakably their friend. Selene sighed under her breath while Kainan breathed out in relief. He reached a large hand to stroke the gyrfalcon’s feathers while Riv nodded in approval.
‘I’ll get you back to full working order soon enough,’ Kage ground out.
‘The counter hack revealed a few things,’ Mirage said.
