Page 32 of Stars in Umbra (The Sable Riders #8)
The Deity’s Heir
RINA
R ina stood, tensed up just outside the Faraday cage, arms crossed, her heart thudding way too hard against her ribs.
Minutes earlier, Mirage had insisted on moving Mo into the cavernous space next to the signal-blocking enclosure, despite the risks.
‘My synth diagnostic suite can’t operate within the interference field, and if we are going to uncover what lies buried in his neural architecture, he has to be exposed.’
Rina agreed. What other choice did she have?
Now, Mo reclined on a hover bed procured from a nearby med closet.
It was positioned just beyond the threshold of the cage’s shielding barrier.
His limbs were still, too still, and for a moment, Rina wondered if the trauma of the past few days had finally pulled him under.
A slight sliver of panic went through her until she locked onto the bed’s diagnostics and sighed in relief at the heart monitor showing a strong rhythm.
Mirage worked in silence, her sequinned outfit exchanged for a tactical med suit she’d somehow conjured out of thin air.
A slender array of shimmering holo-tools spun around her hands, dancing in synchronized patterns as she leaned over Mo, feeding quiet commands into her wrist module.
She was using a laser interstitial thermal therapy, a minimally invasive procedure that uses heat to ablate and destroy the rogue nodes’ bio-philic tendrils.
‘This freakin’ node is like nothing I’ve ever scanned. The neural web’s been over-engineered, layered, looped, and partitioned. Someone built this to be untraceable, yet I see a configuration that’s familiar in the structure.’
Mirage’s voice fell further. ‘ Fokk , that’s it.
There was a hack attempt a few weeks ago, one that appeared to be a distraction, an anomaly, a darn ghost in the machine.
The operator handling it exited quickly, thinking they had left no trace, but I had memorized the subtle pattern.
Mo’s cerebral stream has a similar signature. ’
Rina edged closer. ‘Is the node still active?’
‘It’s dormant for now. I’ve isolated it and I’m about to cut the last tendrils from his brain stem, but if we get too close to the core -.’
Mo’s back arched.
A guttural snarl burst from his larynx as his eyes flew open, gold and gray now eclipsed by a void-black surge that bloomed across his irises.
‘Mirage!’ Rina warned.
The warning came too late.
Mo twisted with supernatural speed, flinging his body off the hover bed.
His arm shot out, grabbing Mirage by the throat.
She stumbled but didn’t cry out.
Her eyes narrowed as her system whirred, recalibrating on instinct.
‘Tis an attempted neural reactivation,’ she hissed, voice strangled but alert. ‘We triggered a defense reflex within the node. Rina, stay back!’
Rina’s hand went to her sidearm, but she didn’t draw.
Not yet.
Her breath stuck in her windpipe as Mo twisted Mirage around with deadly precision, every muscle engaged, eyes blank, unaware of himself.
He wasn’t attacking out of will.
He was under external control.
Mirage’s hands reached for Mo’s chest in front of her, her synth skin glowing with command sequences.
‘Anomaly located. Kill switch engagement detected,’ she grunted. ‘He’s not just fighting me, he’s being purged .’
‘Stop it!’ Rina shouted, stepping forward.
‘I’m trying,’ Mirage barked. ‘If I don’t disable it now, it’ll fry his brain stem.’
With a final surge, Mirage plunged her palm flat into Mo’s temple.
A shockwave of coded nanite energy burst from her hand, flooding his neural circuits.
Mo released the synth AI and convulsed, collapsing mid-lunge, and crumpling onto the hover cot in an eerie silence.
His limbs twitched, then fell still.
Mirage didn’t hesitate.
She gripped the bed and, with a grunt of strength and speed, pushed him back into the Faraday cage.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, the tension in the room dissipated somewhat.
The invisible field enveloped him once more, cutting off all external signal interference.
Mirage dropped to her knees beside him, cursing under her breath.
Rina knelt next to her. ‘Is he-?’
‘Alive. Just unconscious,’ Mirage clipped. ‘I severed the kill protocol before it reached the medulla, but only just.’
They both studied Mo.
He lay on his side, chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm, faint pulses of energy still flickering under his skin.
However, the sub-dermal light shifted, becoming less violent and steadier.
Mirage leaned in, eyes narrowing.
‘That glow is not tech.’
‘What is it then?’ Rina asked.
Mirage’s voice lowered. ‘ Fokk, if I know. He’s channeling something ancient. Some dormant force is helping him resist that node.’
‘Is it enough?’ Rina whispered.
‘ Nada . He’s burning through reserves I don’t think he even knows he has.
’ Mirage sat back, thinking. ‘I can extract it, but I’ll require assistance from Ki’Remi.
Also, Kainan’s approval to excise him, given this tech’s locked deeper than anything I’ve ever seen and might cause irretrievable damage. ’
Rina nodded, already reaching for her comm.
‘Ki’Remi is key,’ Mirage said. ‘He can direct me on how to remove the nucleus safely without melting his brain.’
‘Also, ask for Issa,’ she added after a beat. ‘If that signature means what I think it does, we’ll require someone who can read ancient energy fields. She’s the only one who can guide us on that.’
Rina stared at Mo, lying out cold beneath the shielded lights of the cage.
‘Then we get them all,’ she said. ‘So we can save him.’
Rina’s fingers trembled as she keyed the secure comm into her wrist tab.
The Data Nexus was quiet around her, too hushed, ratcheting up her worry for the man she adored.
Mirage hovered outside the Faraday shield, running diagnostics from a holo interface, while Mo remained unconscious inside beneath its shielding field on the hover bed.
His chest rose and fell, slower now, but the image of him almost dying, again, seared itself into her mind with horror.
She initiated a call to Selene.
It was early afternoon on Eden II.
The holo rendered the flickering visual of the Prime of Dunia and Kainan’s wife in near-perfect clarity: soft curls falling over one shoulder, long lashes blinking at the light as she sat at an outdoor table under the hazy Edenite sun.
The gentle murmur of music and the sound of children playing in the background filled the space around her.
Beside her, Kainan turned his head toward the screen mid-bite of his steak lunch.
‘Rina, hon?’ Selene asked, smiling, until she spotted Rina’s face. Her brows pinched together. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I need you, Zane and Kainan, please, to consult on a critical matter,’ Rina said, voice clipped. ‘It’s Mo. Mirage is here on Dunia, where I discovered him after his fall. He’s alive, but it’s complicated.’
Kainan straightened in his chair, his food forgotten. ‘Complicated how?’
‘He got implanted with a neural controller years ago. One embedded with rogue tech, over-engineered shit, but enough to overwrite his synapses at a command, and take over his reactions. He believes he was then used as an operative on various dark missions. Whoever is controlling him is now trying to kill him because he found a way to get around their commands. His most recent endeavor proved too difficult for him to execute, which is why he disappeared. I located him, banged up in the hospital, and brought him to the Data Nexus at Thabot Barracks, then invited Mirage to join us to figure this shit out. He attacked Mirage when the node reactivated outside the Faraday cage, and we now have to extract it from his brain. To do so, we need Ki’Remi and Issa’s help, but also your guidance on how to proceed. ’
Kainan’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at his wrist comm and punched in a series of messages, likely reaching out to the Rider family members she requested.
‘We’ll beam in,’ he rasped. ‘Hold tight.’
The connection flickered out.
A few minutes later, the Data Nexus lights shimmered, and five distinct holo forms crystallized into the space:
Kainan, stoic and intense; Selene, arms crossed but worried; Zane, his psionic gaze already scanning the room.
Ki’Remi too joined, his face clinical and calm.
Beside him, Issa was ethereal in a sleeveless robe.
Mo began to stir in the cage behind them, the hum of the disruption field still crackling through the air. His eyelids fluttered, then snapped open as his spine arched, veins rising stark against his temples.
His eyes rolled back, the whites flashing as if some invisible torrent was battering his skull. A broken groan tore from his throat.
Then the words, stammering, unbidden, slipped out between clenched teeth.
‘Memories f-flooding me, fokk , so many of them, I can’t stop it -.’
He blinked, rapid-fire, as though his brain was trying to process a thousand images at once, the sheer overload dragging him into seizures of breath.
His fists curled, knuckles whitening.
Mirage’s dulcet voice cut across the tense silence, clinical yet edged with something almost like wonder.
‘It seems when my nanites flooded his neural lattice to halt the kill sequence, they also shattered his internal lock protocols. He is now accessing decades of suppressed data. Classified operations. Black contracts and every mission his handlers put him on.’
‘Handlers?’ Selene asked, perplexed.
Rina exhaled. ‘It’s a long story and it’s best he tells you.’
Mo dropped back onto one elbow, sweat beading his brow, his chest heaving as the onslaught slowed.
His gaze flicked toward the Riders surrounding him.
He cleared his throat, speaking, his utterance sandpapered raw.
‘Game’s up, I see.’ He let out a long, ragged sigh. ‘I’ve got a hella lot of explaining to do.’
Rina entered the cage and went to his side in a breath, steadying his shoulders, whispering reassurances as his eyes darted between the Riders gathered in the holo’s light.
‘When you’re ready,’ Kainan muttered.
Mo knifed and sat up with Rina’s help.