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‘How long have they been tracking us?’ The Rider stirred under the conduits, his mind swirling with more questions than answers.

‘Since we left Zion Three and the Sarisian jump gates. They were waiting for us on this side of the hop. I thought they’d peel off and head towards Torrens 19 a day ago, but they’ve kept hot on our tail.’

‘Huh,’ Riv grunted.

‘We could go stealth.’

Riv shifted, tightening a bolt. ‘The thing is, do we want to engage or wait to see where they lead us? What are you in the mood for?’

‘Thrill of the chase, Riv. Let’s see how far they will come for whatever they’re after.’

The Rider gave Mirage’s idea some thought, pausing his screwing in. ‘Agreed. Not in the headspace for a shit fight today. Let’s fly like we’ve no care in the world and keep whomever it is confident that we’ve not seen them. I also need to repair this EPS conduit damage and get a bypass on the adjacent plasma relay. All before we land at Neron N13.’

‘If you can’t handle it, I can send a bot,’ the AI snarked.

‘Fokkyou,’ Riv murmured. ‘What’s the latest on Ankis?’

‘Last I data crunched, he swung by Neron N13 not so long ago. He’s not far ahead of us. A few weeks, tops.’

The notorious and elusive man with oscillating facial planes and body was the fundamental basis for their journey to the farthest extents of Pegasi.

He’d masterminded a coup attempt on Eden II after taking over Falasia’s military to undermine System-wide peace.

Zane Sable and his Rider brothers, including Riv, foiled the attack, but their quarry beamed off the moon rock before being captured.

The outraged government officials of Rhesia, Galicia, Falasia, and Eden II tasked Riv with finding him, no matter how far it took him. He was to report back to The Sable Group, Kainan, and Zane.

‘Sawa,’he capitulated.‘I’mma need to get some chow. Send over the telemetry of that craft. I’ll have a look at it while I eat.’

Later, Riv sat on the floor of his galley deck.

Back to the wall, one knee up, chowing down on a food ration pack, he studied the ship on-screen on the prominent screen above him.

Riv lifted a finger to zoom in on the vision.

Staring at the holo, he focused on the front and partial starboard of the vessel, which were the only angles they’d captured, and felt a shiver run through him.

‘Mirage, drop a drone camera, camouflage it as a space rock. See what we capture when they blast past.’

‘Noted,’ the AI intoned.

Sitting back, Riv frowned at the open packing boxes, overflowing with piles of servers, wires, and transmitters scattered on the floor.

He sighed at his long, self-imposed list of things to do.

He was not obligated to get to them, as Glimmer retained in-house bots to cover ship maintenance. At the same time, Mirage monitored the antimatter containment shield around the clock.

But Riv relished playing engineer, fixing minor outages and messing about with improvements.

His projects were endless; on occasion, he volunteered for risky spacewalks to fiddle with the solar sails and sensor array and inspect the hull’s integrity.

The tinkering also gave him some distraction and relief from his true obsession, which had consumed him for over twenty years.

One subsumed in the compulsive sifting through hours of footage, millions of forms, faces, and identikits year after year.

Searching for her and only her.

Riv stepped into his ready room as they coasted closer to the asteroid.