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He tucked blankets around his feet and helped his fellow Rider into a thick jacket.

Locking the air-chair’s guidance console to his wrist comm, Riv led the way as they moved out of the medbay.

As they walked through the neat, clean, wide hallways, Kisan sat up a little, taking in his new surroundings. ‘This all rocks, brother,’ admiring the sleek build of the mighty gunship.

They tracked past crew members stepping out of one of the elevator shafts.

Riv led Kisan into it, and they rose, exiting at the lookout alcove on the top deck of the mighty ship.

He parked Kisan’s airchair inside it.

Kisan spent the next few minutes in silence, his eyes fixed on the extensive view, surrounded by 360-degree glass.

Riv settled in beside him, stretched out on a bench. He waited as Kisan anchored his gaze onto turbulence from deep within a gas giant in the distance, in the throes of creating a protostar.

In the opposite direction were massive celestial clusters containing tens and hundreds of thousands of stars, some young and nascent, others about to supernova.

‘See that star?’ Kisan said, his voice low and distant as he pointed toward a bright white entity.

Riv raised a brow. ‘The white dwarf?’

Kisan nodded. ‘It’s a lonely dying mass. Tis a lot like me. I feel my former life is ending, that I’m ejecting my false outer layers into space, and all that remains is my heated, raging core.’

‘What are you angry about?’

‘About the crats and their torture. Followed by dying through their hands, then being revived for even more torment. I felt abandoned and lost myself in pain instead of asking the right questions. I’m outraged by my actions in seeking revenge on my brothers. I’m appalled by all the people I harmed along the way. What I deserve is to explode in spectacular fashion and have nothing left of me except a black hole or nothing at all.’

Riv sat by his friend in silent communion, absorbing his words.

After a beat, he spoke up. ‘I see something new. I see how the white dwarf’s radiance causes the gases to glow. Creating unique and beautiful formations and a wide range of complicated and extraordinary shapes that can be seen and appreciated for millennia. I see illumination, color, and luminosity created from adversity. It would be best if you gave yourself a second chance, Kisan. And while you’ll also have to face up to your accusers and pay for your actions, you still have more to offer us and Eden II. In the way of wisdom and insight from all your experiences that might help someone else avoid the hell you went through. So maybe your hot core can fuel change and transformation instead of burning down your world.’

Kisan sat back in his chair, his fingers drumming on the handset, lost in contemplation. ‘Fokk,’ he murmured, ‘never would have believed that the Riders’ renegade could also be its most philosophical wise man with an old soul. Then again, you did love your poetry and wordplay as much as your swordplay.’

‘True. On that note, methinks this moment begs for a poem.’ Riv grunted as he pulled out the trusty booklet he always walked around with.

Kisan’s brow rose as he eyed the small book. ‘The Ancient Tome of Poems? The same one you lugged from Eden City decades ago?’

‘Naam, with some serious repairs made to its pages that were falling apart.’ Riv flipped through it before stopping at the centre of the time. ‘This one’s for you.’

‘Dance for me, my time for going home is not yet,

I shall go home as the sun sets.

Dance for me, my time for uttering words is not yet.

I shall utter poems as the sun sets.

Dance for me, my time for sitting back is not yet

Let my feet fly until the sun sets

Dance for me, my time for no enjoyment is not yet

Give me a beer in the biggest drinking horn,

Dance for me, my eternal thirst is not yet

Let me drink until the sun sets