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Lament For A Long Lost Lover
RIV - THEN
W hen élisa agreed to marry Riv, it catapulted their love into incandescence, as their passion burned brighter than ever.
They planned their wedding with excitement, inviting their closest friends and neighbours within the Pika community.
Even leaders of the local gangs were included, many of them ruthless kinais who’d since come to respect Riv and his Sable brothers for their canny business ventures.
As the wedding day approached, the groom-in-waiting became more enthralled with the idea of spending the rest of his life with the silver angel. The woman who’d saved him from darkness and misery.
Together, they re-enacted how they would exchange vows in a simple ceremony. One to be held in a space adorned with colorful flowers and candles that would cast a soft glow over the couple as they exchanged rings.
Riv imagined how, on their wedding day, he would stand at the altar, gazing at élisa as she walked down the aisle towards him.
When she described her dress to him, he thought of how she’d dazzle in her silver and lilac gown and how his heart would swell with pride and love.
He planned to take her hand and pull her close as she reached him, his lips meeting hers in a passionate kiss.
The crowd would cheer when they were pronounced husband and wife. They’d take their first dance as a married couple to a slow, romantic tune, lost in each other’s embrace.
As the night wore on, they laughed and mingled with their loved ones, basking in the joy of their union.
But even as he lost himself to fantasies of what would be, Riv couldn’t shake off an uneasiness, as if a darkness lurked in the shadows.
His strong meta instincts went off, honed from years of living on the streets.
It didn’t help that a mysterious series of events unfolded one after the other.
An asteroid high above Eden II appeared to obliterate itself and throw itself into the thrall of Alphetraz’s twin suns.
A rare, once-in-thirty-year storm formed over the northern hemisphere of Eden II, where it was most tilted on its axis. The massive thunderstorm formation, fueled by ammonia, flung out violent string lightning bolts every other second, vaporizing rocks and entire lunar mountains.
Then, a Triple Pegasian Eclipse occurred, created by a line-up of three smaller galaxy moons.
Last of all, élisa refused to discuss her past with him.
He didn’t press her on it, but it had something to do with her people, whom she refused to expand on, and he couldn’t quite place.
He’d never seen anyone with her physiology before. While she spoke standard with a tiny trace of an accent and dressed like most Edenites, she was different. From the jewel on her brow to the feathers on her nape and the distance in her lilac eyes.
All told of a story she wasn’t sharing with him.
He wondered who or what she was running from - and whether her past put them both in danger.
He didn’t want any secrets between them, not on their wedding day.
He waited to broach the subject until they were alone in their small home one evening, a few weeks before the nuptials.
‘élisa, my silver-haired malaíka ,’ he murmured, pulling her close. ‘I know we’ve never discussed your background before, but we should be honest with each other with the upcoming nuptials. Can you tell me where you’re from and why we’re not inviting your family to our big day?’
She shook her head, reluctant, and for a moment, he glimpsed how stubborn she could be. ‘I can’t tell you, my love. It’s for your good.’
She gave him such a look of sorrow that he capitulated.
But the unease never left him.
Despite his concern, Riv pushed it to the back of his mind and decided to enjoy the lead-up to their forever.
They’d booked a grand ballroom for the ceremony and reception at the spaceport.
It’d cost him a few months’ income plus a loan from his Riders. But he insisted on wanting it to starkly contrast with the underground tunnels where he and his brothers had once lived.
His fellow Riders went along with the theme of extravagance and celebration, one that the brothers deserved after years of suffering and hard work.
On the night before the big day, Riv stayed away from his home with élisa.
She claimed she needed to prepare alone for the ceremony.
He dressed at the Sable Riders HQ, upgraded from a dirt hovel to a cramped two-bedroom suite on the edges of Eden II’s metropolitan city.
As he suited up in his Sable Group uniform, Riv’s mind couldn’t help but wander back to the disquiet gnawing at him for weeks.
He couldn’t shake the sense that something was off with élisa.
But he forced himself to put those thoughts aside as he left for the spaceport where the wedding and reception would be held.
Kage and Xion accompanied him, and when they arrived, the pre-wedding drinks were in full swing,
His guests welcomed him with boisterous cheers and applause as he entered the ballroom.
Preening in his tailored silver wedding suit, he made his way to the head table. Where his other brothers were waiting, in awe at how stunning the place had turned out.
Riv was overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all. The ballroom was grand and opulent, with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and tables with fine china and crystal glasses. The scent of flowers and the strains of orchestral music filled the air.
The space was alive with music, laughter, and the clinking of glasses. Riv’s brothers had gone all out, bringing in the best caterers and decorators Pegasi had to offer,
Riv scanned the crowd, looking for his woman, but he couldn’t find her anywhere.
A pang of anxiety hit his gut.
Kainan nabbed his arm. ‘Brother, what do you think? We’ve spared no expense to make the night perfect for our first Rider.’
‘It’s amazing,’ he said, distracted. His mind was elsewhere. He scanned the crowd, trolling it for élisa. He hadn’t seen her since that morning and was eager to hold her in his arms again.
‘Seen my bride?’
‘You’re on time,’ Kainan growled. ‘But she isn’t.’
Dread expanded inside Riv. ‘Mirage,’ he comm’d their AI. ‘Can you locate élisa, please? She should be here or close by.’
‘élisa Djan was at this location, but she left about three hours ago.’
Riv jolted. ‘Why was she so early?’
‘I don’t know, Riv,’ Mirage clipped. ‘But I detected some unusual activity in the area around that time. I suggest you be on your guard.’
Riv’s heart raced as he listened to Mirage’s warning, highlighting the anxiety that had plagued him for weeks.
His brothers noted his distress and gathered around him, tuning into the Sable neural network, keen to hear what Mirage had to say.
They looked worried, for élisa had won all the hearts of the battle-hardened Riders. All five men would go to the ends of the galaxy for her.
‘Can you pinpoint where exactly she was?’ Riv asked.
The AI sent a file to their neural nodes. ‘I can. Please note the exit stamp at Gate 45 showed she used her ID card at the spaceport.’
Riv jolted as he viewed the exit ticket with her name emblazoned. ‘She was leaving the rock?’
‘I suggest you investigate in person while I chat with the AIs about any ships that might have docked at that gate or close by, and see what I can find. Maybe they caught something.’
By this time, the gathered guests had caught on to the fact that all was not well.
Kainan gave Riv a chin nod, and they switched to using their neural nodes to speak.
‘Let’s you and I check the port. Kage, Xion, and Zane keep the guests occupied. Xion, you’re the entertainer among us. Keep them occupied.’
The rest of the Riders nodded.
Kainan and Riv lit out as unobtrusive as possible.
As Riv ran towards their destination, his mind raced with thoughts of élisa and what might have happened to her.
His unease turned into a full-blown panic attack, and he struggled to breathe. Kainan ran beside him, his expression stoic and determined.
When they arrived at the gate, they found it deserted.
No sign remained of her, and Riv’s heart sank.
They searched the surrounding area, looking for any clues.
After an hour of searching, they found a discarded ID badge with élisa’s name, torn, crumpled, and tossed in a rubbish holder.
As he stared at it, the Sable Rider’s AI pinged him.
‘Mirage, what d’you have?’ Riv asked, his voice tense.
‘A ship docked here about three hours ago, and I can confirm it’s the unmarked courier ship that she got on. It left the spaceport soon after.’
Riv clenched his jaw. ‘Under coercion? Was she forced onboard?’
‘ Nada . I could see no one in the terminal or any crew. She was acting alone.’
The Rider’s mind raced. ‘She left her on her own volition? Why? She gave no indication she would back out of the wedding,’ he murmured.
Kainan sucked his lips. ‘Have you any footage of her entering the ship?’
‘I have something.’ The AI sent more footage to Kainan’s and Riv’s neural nodes.
The groom’s heart started as he saw élisa.
She wore a dark coat and boots and carried a duffel bag. There was no trace of a wedding dress or any sign that she was heading to her nuptials. Later, he’d find their chamber emptied of all her belongings.
He held his breath as she approached the gate, her footsteps hesitant. As if unsure of herself.
She took one final look, glancing straight into the camera.
Her lilac eyes shimmered. With tears?
Riv couldn’t be sure.
The look on her face was haunting, wistful, and broken. It wrecked Riv to the core.
Then she averted her face and walked up the gangplank as if to her death.
‘That’s all I have.’
The AI sounded almost sad.
Lost in sorrow, Riv paced the gate. ‘Kainan,’ Riv said, his voice low and urgent. ‘We need to get her back.’
‘We have to track that ship,’ Kainan said, taking charge. ‘Mirage, can you hack into the spaceport’s systems and get the ship’s ID?’
‘I’m trying, Kainan,’ Mirage said. ‘But the ID is encrypted. Someone paid a pretty sum to keep it locked away. It might take some time to crack.’
Kainan nodded, his expression grim. ‘While you do, let’s get the others across this and see if we can’t come up with a collective solution.’
The Sable brothers sprinted back to the ballroom, where the rest of the Riders were waiting. Riv briefed them on what had happened, and they sprang into action.
They left Zane and Xion to tell the guests that Riv had called off the wedding, but the planned feast was still underway.
Meanwhile, Kainan, Kage, and Mirage accompanied Riv to the Sable Riders’ HQ.
They tapped into Mirage’s systems, watching as their AI hacked into the spaceport’s security system, seeking a trace of the courier ship.
After an hour of intense searching, Mirage found a trail.
The ship was linked to a murky organization operating in Pegasi’s outer reaches.
They also had data from the ship itself. The courier ship had flown away from Eden II at low speed, trying to avoid detection, when it suddenly jumped into FTL.
Once in hyperspace, it had vanished.
Riv’s heart sank at the update; tracking her now would be almost impossible.
Just when he was about to break down, Mirage pinged the Riders again, their voice excited and urgent. ‘Riv, I think I’ve found something. A small asteroid field just beyond the first jump exit is a hiding spot for smugglers and criminals. It’s possible that the ship could have made a stop in it.’
Riv’s heart leapt with hope. ‘Can you pinpoint the location?’
‘I can,’ Mirage confirmed. ‘It won’t be easy, though. The asteroid field is dense, which means a hella lot of interference. We’ll have to navigate through it with care.’
Riv nodded, his mind made up. ‘We have to try. For élisa’s sake.’
It took just a few hours for the Sable Riders to prep for the hop to the other side of the hyperspace lane.
‘The asteroid field is treacherous, filled with hidden dangers and booby traps,’ Kainan counseled them as their repurposed crat ship headed for the unknown area of space. ‘But we’re determined to save Riv’s woman, no matter the cost.
The tension in the air was palpable as they approached the dense floating rocks.
Their ship weaved and dodged between the floating rocks, searching for any sign of the courier ship.
After hours of searching, they found it - docked in a hidden cavern deep within the field.
They landed on the lone rock, disembarked, and approached the strange ship.
With its blast doors locked, Riv used his hacking noids to bypass the mechanisms.
As the doors cycled open, the Riders burst into the ship, weapons drawn, ready for an ambush or confrontation.
It was deserted. Not a soul was to be seen.
Even more worrying was that the interior was empty, stripped of all furniture, gear, personnel, and equipment.
It was as if someone had gutted it for parts.
‘Where is she?’ Riv muttered, his heart sinking in despair as he realise that élisa was nowhere to be found.
He searched head to tail of the vessel with his brothers, hoping to find some clue or sign of her.
He got nada , nothing.
They never found a trace of her.
Mirage scoured space around the asteroid and found vestiges of a ship that had passed through a few days earlier. ‘A Galaxy Skiff. It disappeared into hyperspace, and no trail leads to where it might have gone.’
After a four-day intensive search, Kainan called it, and they returned to Eden II.
Riv fell into a deep depression.
His darkness plumbed into the depths of his soul.
It eclipsed the joy he’d found with élisa and drowned out any of what they’d shared like a black hole shrouding a star. It grew darker and heavier, bent on destroying any vestiges of hope in him. So much so, his hair turned even more silver.
It tore him away from the old Riv, the maverick renegade with a sense of humor and a love of the finest food, drink, and living.
Instead, he spent hours in his meta suit soaring alone over the bleak, endless lunar mountain peaks of Eden II, eschewing any company as he brooded.
His self-imposed darkness lingered.
Mirage came to the rescue a few weeks later, suggesting that she fit out his ship with high-tech surveillance gear and systems to track élisa.
Riv stirred back to life with this new purpose.
With an AI node from Mirage’s supercomputer loaded onto his ship, he traveled the galaxy, casting a wide net for his woman.
He used the latest Sable tech to hack into the communications of criminal organizations and track their movements, hoping to find a lead.
Riv flew through the vast expanse of space, scanning every planet, asteroid, and space station he came across, sifting for any pointers that might lead to élisa. He never gave up hope, even when the trail grew cold, and his spirits sagged.
Obsessed with his life mission, Riv lived on board his ship. He had an apartment on Eden II but had yet to use it.
He turned his vessel into a hybrid surveillance ship, most of its surface covered in infrared security cameras.
Riv spent his little downtime processing the raw data they collected, sifting the endless volumes of footage and hundreds of millions of faces.
Searching for her, only her.