Stars in Nova (The Sable Riders #6)

A Maelstrom of Terror

T raveling through hyperspace took years off your life.

One needed perseverance, aptitude, and an acceptance of the monotonous to withstand it.

As the Cephei tore through the tunnel of folded space, Kisan exercised, reading as much as he could about the Orilian planet and musing about the woman who’d played him like an A track.

During the self-pity sessions, he refused to admit as such; he listened to old jazz and blues standards.

The melancholic songs matched his disposition, and he immersed himself in them with a bitter appreciation.

Plus, it was a welcome realization he was not the first chump in history to fall for a siren woman.

Outside the viewport, the void was a mesmerizing display of shifting ribbons—indigos, violets, and greens. They swirled together like the fabric of some unearthly dream, a sight that never failed to inspire awe.

The throb of the ship was a steady companion to the hypnotic chaos inside his soul.

A neural ping interrupted ‘The Thrill Is Gone,’ an old, slow, minor-key melancholy song that tugged at his weary heart.

He sucked his teeth. ‘What gives?’

‘Approaching the designated coordinates,’ she said. ‘Prepare to exit hyperspace.’

‘ Fokk , finally. Sante .’

Kisan sat up in the pilot’s chair, his vivid eyes fixed on the navigation display.

Bracing, on alert, gripping the throttle as the countdown blinked on the screen.

The final moments stretched taut, and the ship shuddered as hyperspace folded away.

The stars snapped into clarity, a sea of pinpricks scattered across the infinite black. The abrupt stillness was disorienting, and the craft’s throbbing became louder against the oppressive quiet of real space.

Before him, the quadrant of the Fringe unfolded—a desolate expanse of dust-colored void dotted with asteroids that floated like forgotten relics.

In the distance, Orilia XIV hung like an orb countered within the darkness.

The planet was scorched and broken, its surface a patchwork of ocher and ashen gray. He zoomed in on the view screen and arched a brow.

The entire sphere, continents, seas, and islands appeared torched, cracked, and fractured like ancient pottery.

A shimmer of blue lingered at the edges of some regions.

On the monitor, he tagged the ghostly memories of where lakes and rivers had once thrived.

The sight stirred something uneasy in Kisan’s chest—a gnawing sense of loss for a world he’d never encountered.

‘This place was alive,’ he muttered, his voice hoarse and rough.

Mirage’s node flickered to life on the viewscreen, her star-flecked eyes scanning the planet’s surface. ‘Not long ago, too,’ she confirmed. ‘I’m picking up traces of water, clouds, and chlorophyll. Whatever happened, it was some time back.’

‘Torched to the bones,’ Kisan said bitterly. ‘Who burns a planet like this?’

‘Someone with no regard for life,’ Mirage replied. ‘And enough power to turn paradise into a graveyard.’

The Cephei glided closer, its stealth tech wrapping it in an invisible cocoon. The meteorite zone loomed ahead, jagged and chaotic, the fragments of ancient collisions spinning against the void.

Kisan maneuvered the vessel into the field, weaving between immense rocks and smaller rubble that pinged and bounced off the hull.

The Rider lowered the Cephei into the shadow of a massive asteroid, its surface pockmarked and dark.

With a flick of his fingers across the controls, the ship powered down, leaving it cloaked and hidden among the debris.

In his quarters, Kisan stepped into his armored suit with precision. Its obscured plating was designed to flex and harden as needed.

Each panel bore the marks of past battles—scratches and scorch lines that told stories of fierce wars he’d fought and engaged in.

It wasn’t Sable issue. It was of his design, fashioned along with the spinel face void.

He’d kept it from his time as Ankis and brought it with him, for it was crafted to fit in and integrate with the mask.

His weapons lay on the bench: a sleek energy rifle and a pair of plasma-edged blades, the hilts of which were fashioned to correspond with his meta-enhanced grip.

Also, nonstandard and spinel networked.

Now forced to use a standard helmet, he jammed it over his head.

He then slipped his firearms into the slots for their holsters and scabbards, each one aligned to his body.

With a suck of his teeth, he moved out, tracking towards the rear deck.

The heavy doors slid open and Kisan exited the Cephei onboard a smaller, stealthed skimmer—a sleek, dart-like craft designed for reconnaissance.

As he climbed aboard, the ship’s matte black EMF-shielded facade absorbed the illumination from the asteroid field. The cockpit reeked of metal and leather, its interior was spare but efficient.

He guided the flyer between the floating space rocks, its engines purring.

The geology of Orilia XIV grew larger on his viewscreen, as the details of its destruction became clear. The planet was encased in the shimmer of a cybernetic shield, its translucent bands refracting the light from distant stars.

Kisan’s hands tightened on the controls.

The defensive layer rippled as the stealthed craft passed through it undetected.

Thank fokk for Sable tech.

However, the invaders had some unusual innovations and deep pockets for a planetary shield, which was hella expensive, a high-energy suck, and freakin’ hard to maintain.

The planet’s atmosphere hit him next, a rush of turbulence and heat that rattled the craft. Outside, the air was thick with smoke and ash, the scent of burning vegetation and scorched earth seeping into his cabin.

He descended, the remnants of the once-thriving ecosystem becoming evident. Rivers of fire snaked across the surface, consuming everything in their path.

Entire forests had been reduced to smoldering skeletons, their blackened trunks reaching skyward like bony fingers.

The remains of lakes had evaporated into vast, cracked basins, their edges littered with debris.

In the distance, gigantic capital ships floated in low orbit, their hulls ancient and scarred. More vessels sat in ruin on the ground, their massive forms surrounded by clusters of smaller machines. The air vibrated with the roar of engines.

Kisan piloted the flyer into a narrow valley, its jagged walls providing cover from the chaos above. He powered down the craft, keeping its stealth cloak on.

The cockpit fell silent, save for the hiss of cooling mechanisms and the quiet rhythm of his breathing.

He stepped out, the heat of the planet’s atmosphere bearing down.

He sent a quick command, and instinctively, his body began to adapt to the hostile environment, and his metanoids responded.

His suit’s skin shimmered, its texture shifting and hardening like steel to deflect potential threats. It likewise stealthed with a shimmer, shielding him from view.

Each plate also adjusted, becoming flame-retardant, its material designed to withstand searing temperatures.

The valley’s topography was twisted, with cracked earth and jagged rocks. The air was heavy with the acrid stench of burning metal.

Kisan advanced with caution, his boots crunching against the scorched ground. The growl of industry and relentless equipment pummeled his eardrums as he approached the ridge, and when he reached the edge, he froze.

Below, an army of cyborgs stretched across the landscape, their forms a grotesque fusion of flesh and machinery.

Their limbs were replaced with steel, uneven implants obscured face features, and their bodies were glowing with eerie, artificial light.

They moved with mechanical precision, their ranks forming lines that disappeared into the horizon. Fires burned around them, consuming what little life remained on the planet.

Kisan’s chest tightened, a rush of dread and despair washing over him.

The sight dredged up memories he’d buried deep, flashes of the research facility where he’d been tortured. Where the silver-cloaked Crats had torn him apart and rebuilt him piece by piece.

Their cold, emotionless faces loomed in his mind. He was gripped by old recollections, groaning at the agony, at reliving the horror of the sterile scent of a lab mingling with mangled flesh and fresh blood.

His .

He staggered back, his breath hitching.

The edges of his vision blurred, the present and past colliding in a maelstrom of terror.

He groaned and fell to one knee, sliding to his side alongside a rock-hewn crevice as everything went black.

When Kisan jerked to wakefulness, the valley was silent save for the remote crunch of machinery.

The Rider raised himself on one elbow and leaned on the cracked boulder, breaths shallow.

The valley below swarmed with the grotesque army of cyborgs, their mechanical forms moving in eerie unison, the glow of their implants pulsing like a single, malevolent heartbeat.

He pressed a hand to his temple as he experienced the flicker of Mirage reconnecting within his mind.

Her utterance broke through the haze, calm but with an edge of concern. ‘Welcome back, gorgeous. You dropped out on me for a moment.’

‘Still here,’ he rasped, dry and raw. ‘Just about.’

The node hummed as her presence stabilized, her silver and gold eyes manifesting on the small HUD display in his helmet. ‘You’ve seen these before, haven’t you?’

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the cyborgs below. ‘Crat components,’ he muttered. ‘The implants, the gadgetry—it’s theirs. I’d know it anywhere.’

Mirage was silent for a beat, processing. ‘You’re right. They’ve got Crat written all over them. The neural interfaces and limb enhancements are all classic Crat designs. However, it’s like they found a forsaken storage depot someplace and cobbled together the tech.’

Kisan’s jaw tightened as the memories of his past with the monsters he loathed most clawed at the edges of his mind.

The sterile labs, the cold touch of machines, the endless agony of being reshaped into something not quite humanoid.

However, something about these androids and the scene unfolding before him was different. It felt fokkin ’ off.

‘Those freakish androids are human,’ he grunted in a grim whisper. ‘Or they were. Look closer.’

Mirage’s node hummed again, scanning the view below through his visor’s enhanced sensors.

Data cascaded across the HUD, and her algorithms dissected the implants, motions, and neural signatures emanating from the cyborgs.

‘Their limbs and components are constituents of crat tech under some kind of unknown command,’ she said after a moment, her tone sharp. ‘It’s an override I’ve never faced before.’

Kisan’s fingers curled into fists as the cyborgs marched in perfect synchrony, their movements too precise, too unified.

He crouched lower, the visor of his helmet magnifying the details of the cyborgs.

Their faces—or what remained of them—bore traces of humanity.

Flesh fused with metal, eyes replaced with glowing optics, neural links visible, with pulsing lights embedded in their skulls.

The remnants of their broken, twisted human features made the sight all the more horrifying.

Could this be what my cowled friend warned me about, Kisan thought, tinged with unease.

Mirage was silent, processing the data at an intense speed.

‘Mirage,’ he asked, in a whispered growl, ‘what are the odds the Crats are behind this?’

‘Minimal,’ she replied. ‘They don’t like imitations; they always use their own soldiers, so this isn’t their style. Whatever’s running this is alien.’

Kisan’s lips pressed into a grim line. ‘What then?’

Her voice grew quieter, almost hesitant. ‘Can’t tell yet. There’s a signature in the coding. It’s buried under the existing software. Not Crat, not from Pegasi whatsoever, nor anything in my database.’

The implications hit him like a blow, his chest tightening as his thoughts raced. ‘A power with the ability to hijack tech, to turn entire worlds into this.’ He gestured at the burning wasteland before him. ‘If they get the foothold they’re after, Orilia may be destroyed for good. Do you concur?’

Mirage’s silence was answer enough.

Kisan took a deep breath, the acrid air stinging his lungs.

His mind churned with questions, but one thing was clear: he first had to find his mask. He sensed that if his spinel innovation ever integrated with the tech in those cyborgs, this planet and quadrant might cease to exist.

‘Keep scanning,’ he said, his voice hardening. ‘Locate any leads, no matter how small. Whatever it takes to figure out what this fokkin ’ shitshow is about. While I look for the woman and any sign of humanity in this forsaken place.’

‘Already working on it,’ Mirage replied. ‘Be careful, my friend. This isn’t just a battlefield. It’s feels like a trap waiting to spring.’

Kisan crouched lower, his adaptive skin rippling again to shield him from the rising heat.

He couldn’t shake the sensation of staring into the edge of something far darker than he had ever faced.

Something that threatened not just Orilia XIV but the entire Pegasi system—and beyond.