Page 30 of Stars in Umbra (The Sable Riders #8)

A Revenant Phantom

RINA

T he flyer cut a sleek arc across the cloud line, its silhouette dark against the early morning haze over New Rambasa.

The Thabot Barracks came into view below.

The vast complex of reinforced dura-steel, perimeter towers, and subterranean bunkers sprawled like a bastion sentinel at the city’s edge.

It was one of the Dunian military’s most active bases, where drills mimicking galactic warfare unfolded daily, and readiness was not a goal but an unrelenting requirement.

Rina eased the controls, guiding the craft onto the southern rooftop pad, designated for high-clearance entries.

Her wrists were free now, after Mo removed the cuffs from her hands before the flight without ceremony.

He was now reticent, having not spoken more than a few words since.

She’d tried, twice, to probe him during the flight.

Both times, she received little more than a grunt or the burning flick of gray-gold eyes.

She gave him the space, also so she could try to get her head around what had just happened, her mind churning.

As the flyer descended, the militarized automated defense systems retracted after receiving her high-level clearance codes.

The full-spectrum green light included an emergency override encryption, the kind reserved for top brass or wartime exceptions.

She didn’t use these codes without reverence, and a shiver went through her, for now she was liable to answer to her seniors if shit went sideways.

They touched down in silence.

No ground crew was in sight, nor were any officers or cameras.

It was as requested.

Minutes earlier, when they lifted off from the hospital, she issued a private, urgent directive, classified under Active Threat Containment Protocols.

It was a warning that her arrival on base would involve a live asset of unverified classification and potential meta-state instability.

Her message, phrased with enough delicate care not to ignite panic, was still adequate to clear every corridor in her path.

They disembarked into charged silence.

Rina cast the man beside her a glance.

He prowled alongside her, barefoot still, his hospital bottoms incongruous against the garrison’s clean lines and militarized interior.

Yet he moved with lethal grace, shoulders tight, that crackling energy still alive beneath his skin. His gaze remained forward, stormy and unreadable.

Whatever war was happening inside him, it had no room for words.

They passed checkpoint after checkpoint, her biometric ID clearing each one.

The barracks’ executive tier was ghostly quiet, its usual hustle reduced to echoes by the weight of her silent order.

Light pooled in strips across the polished floor as they went past strategic command offices and long glass windows overlooking training ranges.

Finally, they reached the secure wing at the base’s core: the Dunian Military Data Nexus.

The entrance doors whooshed open, revealing a cavernous vault lined with stacked terminals, holographic interfaces, and ceiling-high data cores.

At its center stood a containment unit: a Faraday isolation chamber, transparent, reinforced, a technological null zone. No transmissions in, no signals out. Pure data silence.

Mo’s expression narrowed on it. ‘I’ll go in alone and talk inside. Full blackout.’

Rina hesitated. His posture was rigid, his jaw inflexible.

Below that cold facade, however, she sensed the strain of restraint, of control, fought for and just barely maintained.

‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘First, you need some clothes on you. Can’t have you wondering like a half-naked demigod escapee. This is still a military facility; we have to maintain proper dignity.’

A flicker of amusement passed across his face. ‘Didn’t hear you complain back in the hospital.’

He leaned in closer with a faint smirk. ‘Or the nights we spent together.’

‘Ah, there he is, back from the dead.’

‘Ain’t that the fokkin ’ truth.’

His lips turned up at the edges as she twisted from him and keyed open a side locker.

She rummaged until she found a clean batch of barracks-issue fatigues and a pair of reinforced boots.

She returned and held them out to him, her fingers brushing his as he took them.

He stepped inside the Faraday cage, the pressure-lock engaging with a soft chime.

The field activated, surrounding him in a glimmering dome of silence.

She observed him in the cage as he set the clothes down on a nearby bench, changed fast, and then turned to meet her gaze through the barrier.

‘Do I pass muster, Colonel?’

How did he manage to appear devastating even in utility fatigues? Damn him.

Rina folded her arms.

She swallowed her desire and concern for him and sought to address the obvious.

‘Mo, I’ve put my career on the line for you, which I’d do regardless.

However, if matters spiral out of control, my profession might be the first casualty.

I might even be court-martialled, so whatever you’re about to say had better be worth it. ’

His lips curled in a ghost of a smile. ‘This is as freakin’ close to the precipice as it gets, Colonel. You might even earn yourself an instant Brigadier badge if we don’t screw it up.’

‘Fine. Now talk.’

MOLAN

Mo stood in the center of the isolation cage, the hum of the Faraday field pressing in.

It suppressed all external signals; the world outside the transparent walls was distant and sealed off.

The data center’s consoles blinked in silent procession behind Rina’s still form, her arms folded, waiting.

She’d brought him here.

Trusted him enough to walk him into the core of Dunian military intelligence without firing a shot.

It rattled him more than the assault. More than the hovering memory of his own body rising, lightning-lit, from that hospital bed.

He wasn’t sure he deserved her trust.

He inhaled and let the silence stretch, gathering the storm in his chest into something manageable. His hands flexed at his sides.

He met her eyes through the Faraday veil.

‘I don’t even know where to start,’ he said, voice hoarse.

Rina arched a brow, her expression unreadable. ‘Try the beginning.’

A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. ‘That’s the problem. I only remember fragments of my childhood, even my mother’s death. I have gaps in my memory.’

She blinked at that, a flicker of surprise. But she said nothing.

Mo took a step closer to the transparent wall, his hands clasped behind him, like a soldier reporting the truth.

‘When I was a kid, on the streets of LeCythi, I was wild, used my powers to steal and beat the shit out of my enemies. Someone took notice when I was around fifteen. I was placed in a youth off the streets program and trained to become a soldier. Later, when they thought I was ready for missions, they implanted the node and activated me.’

He tapped the back of his skull.

‘With a neural controller. It’s buried deep into the cortex, and it’s set to wake at a trigger. One hidden under layers of code that even I can’t attempt to break. I don’t have the know-how.’

Rina inhaled.

He paused, throat tight. ‘I woke up on a beach. Dunia. On the shore of one of your lake provinces, half dead. The only clues I had were a sub-dermal microchip that didn’t ping to any public network and instincts built for war. A young woman fed me, which -.’

He stopped talking at her gasp.

‘That was you ,’ she whispered. ‘The young man I found in the barn after I came back from walking my horse. I think I helped you, and then you vanished, and for years I thought it was a dream.’

Mo’s breath caught in his chest, a warmth filtering through his core.

‘You fed me, took care of my wounds. Of course,’ he rasped. ‘I remember you, now, I didn’t recall you all this time, not consciously. Yet you seemed so familiar to me. Maybe that’s why I am so drawn to you, why I keep orbiting back to you.’

Rina’s expression flickered with yearning, surprise, then focus.

He exhaled and shifted, lowering his voice.

‘Go on,’ she encouraged.

‘After that, I slipped into the system and built a new life in the shadows.

‘I think they put me to work. I became a muscle-for-hire, then a courier, eventually a major in the Six Flaco mercenary group. The killing came with ease. I was good at it. Too good. I evolved into one of their top assassins. They wiped memories after every mission, I believe. Most of it, except a few fragments, lingered beyond the neural controller. What I remembered gave me nightmares, though. I hated what I saw, what I thought I had done.’

He swallowed the bitterness gathering in his throat.

‘In my day work, I transformed into a renowned gun dealer and security expert. They called me a phantom in some circles, a revenant in others. I worked for a dozen cartels and warlords, most of whom I later buried. Eventually, I caught the eye of someone in the Riders’ outer network and joined the guard staff.

Thought maybe I could keep my head down. Start over.’

‘And?’ Rina prompted.

Mo sliced his eyes away for a moment. ‘Then I got activated on a few more missions.’

Her body went rigid.

‘The latest one, however, went too far; it was too cruel a kill order.’

‘On who?’

He took an inhale, his throat working. With a growl, he pushed his sinewed fingers through his hair, reluctance written all over his face.

‘Please, Mo, tell me, you can trust me.’

‘Tis not your faith in me I question, tis the command itself, so brutal and callous.’

She lifted a chin and waited for the ire in his eyes to subside before he whispered.

‘The Riders.’

She let out a strangled breath. ‘ Foookkkk .’

He gave a bleak nod. ‘I said nada . My loyalty to them meant I wouldn’t, couldn’t do it. I resisted. It almost killed me. They sensed it and hit me with neural punishment so bad I bled out of my fokkin ’ ears.’

Rina winced. ‘I hate that for you. So you ran.’

‘ Naam . I fought the commands like a mofo, took a Corvette, and bolted. I only had enough fuel to take me from Eden II to Dunia. I thought I’d hide in the jungle belt east of here. Thought I could outrun the signal.’