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Yet pockets of resistance remained. The few remaining Technocrats and One Dunia militia had resorted to guerrilla attacks and lame bombings of civilian locations to drum up fear and terror.
Their attempts were feeble, and their positions obliterated, for the Alliance troops were well supplied and protected with the Sable Rider’s closed air support and superiority.
Selene and Rina monitored the entire ground incursion from the command centre at Zulu One. The four Sable Riders in theatre - Kainan, Riv, Kage and Xion - were now in charge of large swathes of territory, taking strategic and tactical direction from Rina. She was competently coordinating the ground operations - from logistics to troop movements. Her military prowess and leadership were on show for all to see as she worked in tandem with the Riders. They, in turn, gave her the respect she deserved to run the operation, which only impressed Selene more with their lack of ego. Because given their military prowess, they could have easily run roughshod over Rina. But instead, they treated her like one of their own, giving her no mercy and razing her for any lame calls she made, which were for her, fortunately far and few between.
Even though she’d given him the cold shoulder when they parted ways at the grotto, Selene looked out for every sign of Kainan’s movements. She knew he was patrolling New Malindi and was secretly keeping an eye on him via his location tracker that pulsed off a hidden page on her comm tab.
Her nerves were beyond ragged by the fourth day of imagining him dodging snipers and running into surprise militia attacks. She wasn’t sleeping and was spending her days glued to a series of small and large screens.
She was obsessing over the displays, switching from one battle zone live feed and map to another, when she heard Mirage’s voice over the comms.
‘Command, we need more troops or air cover over in the east zone of New Malindi. Thekhosiis taking heavy fire.’
Selene sat up in her seat, worry and dread instantly flooding her body. She set her kahawa cup down in haste.
‘Rina!’ she cried out, urgently signalling to her friend standing over their logistics holo, scrutinising troop movements with a colleague.
Rina looked up, noted the panic on her friend’s face and jogged straight over.
‘What’s up?’ she asked, sliding into a chair before the command screens.
‘You need to talk to Mirage. She’s got news on Kainan.’
Rina noted Selene’s wide, panicked eyes and slid her gaze back on-screen.
‘Mirage, I can hear you,’ Rina said, swiftly typing and swiping across her comm pad and screens to zero in on Mirage’s location that pulsed on the holo map. ‘What seems to be the matter?
‘Thekhosiand I were on patrol, and we stumbled on a pocket of crats hiding in an abandoned storage depot. Unfortunately, I’m in gyrfalcon form, so I can’t give him air cover. I could summon his gunship remotely, but I’d have to get past too many skirmishes and snipers and may not reach him in time.’
‘Has Kainan been harmed?’ Selene found herself asking.
The crackle of radio static filled the comm waves. Then came the familiar gravelly voice. It sent shivers through Selene’s back that coalesced in her fast-drumming heart.
‘I’m fine,Excellency, not a scratch. But I’m running out of ammo.’
Selene sat back shakily in her chair. Rina shot her a sharp look, which dropped to the visible tremble of her best friend’s arms.
She reached out a hand to calm Selene before continuing to monitor the situation until she breathed out in relief quickly. ‘Echo One is close to your location. How many bogeys are you up against, Kainan?’ she asked.
‘Nine. Five down,’ he replied, his deep voice tight with tension. ‘Their circuitry is breaking up on a few of them, and their reactions are erratic. Nonetheless, I need support. They’ve got more ammo than I have, and I can’t hold this position much longer.’
‘Two minutes away,’ Rina reassured him.
‘Send me their comm trackers, please,’ Mirage added. ‘Kainan’s too focused on taking them out. In turn, I’ll paint the bogeys with my signal so you know where they are at all times.’
‘Copy,’ Rina said, swiping her comm tab to send over the links of the required signals.
‘Thank you, Colonel. Mirage out,’ the AI added.
Silence fell between the two friends at Zulu One as Rina focused on guiding the Echo One battalion to Kainan’s position.
Selene anxiously switched from the Enclave’s oversize monitors to her comm tab, where a lone red dot pulsed on the map. The two minutes Rina had promised seemed to drag out for an eternity as the fifteen red dots of Echo One slowly approached the single pulse.
Then the two friends watched as the sixteen dots joined together, and the bogeys’ signals flickered off one by one.
‘Thank fokk!’ Rina said when it was all over, closing her eyes momentarily. ‘That was insane.’
She opened them to Selene’s wooden face.
