Stars in Nova (The Sable Riders #6)

A Cold Grasp

T he cell was a sterile, unyielding void.

Its slick, frigid walls pulsed with a dull blue light that neither illuminated nor comforted.

A steady buzz emanated from somewhere unseen. It was designed to unsettle, vibrating just below the threshold of normal hearing.

Samira sat cross-legged on the floor, her back straight and her eyes closed. She ignored the cold seeping into her skin through the thin fabric of her jumpsuit, her breaths slow and deliberate.

‘Twas also arid as fokk , with not a drop of water to be seen.

She wondered if all liquid had been sucked dry from this hellhole to be stored in the silos that surrounded Cygnus, bound for some unseen land.

Three days in this place, and still, they hadn’t broken her.

Concealed speakers crackled to life without warning, voices cutting through the suffocating silence.

The tones were mocking, distorted to sound human and alien, their words overlapping in a maddening chorus.

‘Your people are lost.’

‘You are forsaken.’

‘You are abandoned.’

The auditory torture was underscored by bursts of static, flashes of glaring white light streaking through the room in jarring intervals.

Samira flinched the first time it happened, but only once.

Now, she sat unmoving, her resolve as solid as the walls around her.

Still, the torment continued at intermissions, which were impossible to measure—with little concept of day or night.

After a span, a pair of hideous biomechanoids dragged her from her cell.

Up close, the cyborgs, one-time Vaelorii, were grotesque.

Their human features had been hacked to tack on the white and silver cybernetic components.

Except the lighter surfaces were streaked with dirt, blood, and gore.

She’d also glimpsed signs of a shadow-like a miasma hiding and obscuring their consciousness that sometimes leaked out.

A veiled darkness behind the flesh and cybernetics.

Twas uncanny.

They took her into a second chamber where another set of Corilian inquisitors began their work.

The room was empty except for a blinding lamp overhead and a chair with restraints, which she refused to sit in. Instead, she stood, her chin lifted as they circled her like vultures.

The interrogators spoke in monotone voices, their faces masked under sleek, expressionless helmets.

‘Tell us about the weapons. How are your allies fighting back? What are their plans?’

Samira didn’t answer. Her silence enraged them, and they increased the intensity of their games.

They forced a cybernetic helmet onto her and projected vivid, false memories.

Of her children captured, Misandra lying lifeless in the caverns, Kisan betrayed and abandoned by his team.

The images flickered like ghosts, dissipating before she could absorb them.

Still, she said nothing.

Each time they returned her to the cell, she sensed their frustration mounting.

The flashes of light grew more frequent, the screams more insistent.

‘You can’t win, Orilian.’

‘Give us what we want.’

‘You’re alone.’

Samira clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms as she fought to focus. She permitted the babble to wash over her, their words slipping away like water over stone. She refused to let them sink in.

Her strength came from her love—an anchor she clung to in the storm. Her children, Malik and Liora, their laughter ringing in her memory.

She thought of Misandra, her aunt’s stern but loving presence, and how she’d promised to return.

Above all, Kisan.

His aqua eyes glowed in vivid incandescence in her mind, their intensity grounding her.

She thought of the way his rumbled rasp softened when he spoke to her, the protective way he’d stood by her side.

She remembered the warmth of his embrace, the fire of his touch. She thought of their plans, the promises they hadn’t yet spoken aloud but were etched in their hearts.

‘They won’t break me,’ she whispered, hand over heart, keeping it steady despite the suffocating loneliness.

By the end of the third day, the taunts were erratic.

The Corilians were faltering, unsure of how to shatter her spirit. Their shrieks became sharp and desperate.

‘You’re wasting time.’

‘Speak!’

‘Tell us what we need to know!’

Samira opened her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. ‘You’ll get nothing from me.’

Her words echoed in the chamber, a challenge thrown back at her captors. She straightened her back, her resolve unshaken. Love kept her unwavering, a flame burning within her that no machine was able to extinguish.

The cold seeped into Samira’s bones as she stirred awake on the rough stone floor of the Corilian cell.

Her breath fogged in the frigid air, her muscles stiff and aching from days of captivity. A sour stench filled her nostrils, mingling with the acrid scent of fear and despair.

The cubicle was dark; the only light was a pale red glow from the narrow strip at the top of the reinforced door.

Chains rattled in the distance, accompanied by the thrumming and groaning of cybernetic machinery and the occasional scream. Those sounds pierced her, a haunting symphony of the Corilian insanity.

For it was madness.

She knifed up, her fingers brushing the uneven cell floor.

Her stomach churned with hunger, but the tray of meager food on the ground beside her offered little relief.

A bowl of gray, sludgy protein sat untouched.

She forced herself to ingest a mouthful, almost gagging. With grit, she swallowed despite its sourness and gritty texture.

Her body needed the strength, even if her spirit rebelled against the incessant indignity.

Water was delivered in gel pills to minimize the risk of the prisoners breaking them open and using the liquid to fire up their kinetic abilities.

She took one and chewed it, feeling relief when it dissolved in her mouth. However, somehow, it left her more parched than before.

‘Samira,’ a whisper hissed from the cell next to hers.

She turned toward the sound, her heart lifting. ‘Who are you?’

The face of an older Vaelorian woman appeared through the small gap in the adjoining wall.

Her hair was matted, her face gaunt, but her dark eyes burned with a stubborn will. ‘Name’s Kaelith,’ she whispered. ‘Thought I recognized you.’

Samira moved closer to the barrier between them. ‘What’s happening? Why are they keeping us here?’

Kaelith’s gaze flickered to the door, wary of being overheard. ‘It’s not just the androids, child,’ she trembled. ‘Something’s behind them. Controlling them. Something sinister.’

Samira’s brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean, controlling them? I thought the Corilians were autonomous machines. Who might be directing them?’

Kaelith’s eyes filled with fear. ‘Not who. What. I’ve caught whispers and observed glimpses. It’s a power not of this world. It bends the cyborgs and twists their minds. Even the Emperor himself isn’t free from it.’

A chill ran down Samira’s spine, colder than the air around her. ‘Have you encountered this energy before?’

Kaelith shook her head, her face pale. ‘Only shadows, peculiar movements, but look closely, and you’ll feel a shift in the darkness, the atmosphere, their voices. It’s not natural.’

Samira leaned closer, her mind racing. ‘I have spotted something strange in their demeanor. Like an unusual umbra behind their aura. Do you know what it wants? Why—’

The heavy clang of the cell door interrupted her. Two Corilian guards entered, their metal bodies gleaming in the sterile corridor light.

‘Out,’ one of them commanded, his vocalization emotionless.

Samira hesitated, glancing back at Kaelith. ‘Wait—’

The second guard seized her arm in a vice-like clutch, dragging her to her feet. She struggled, gripping the cold alloy, but her strength could not match theirs.

Her protests were brushed aside as they hauled her out of the chamber.

Kaelith called after her, her tone desperate and reverberating against the walls.

‘Purge the source! It’s the only way to stop them!’

Samira turned her head, her heart pounding, but the cage door slammed shut behind her. The corridor ahead loomed, a dark and forbidding path into the unknown.

The guards marched her forward, their grip unyielding, and her mind raced with Kaelith’s chilling words.

What kind of power had taken hold of the Corilians—and did her people have the ability to prevent it before it consumed everything?

Samira experienced the oppressive chill of the Cygnus Stronghold before setting foot inside its looming gates.

The air was stagnant and heavy, with the acrid odor of burnt circuitry and the fetid meld of cyborg metal and flesh.

Jagged towers of dark steel and blackened glass clawed at the blood-red sky, their surfaces flickering with ominous bursts of static electricity. The citadel sprawled across a vast, charred landscape, its foundations fused into the ground like a cancerous growth.

The portal groaned open with a sound that grated on her nerves. Revealing the heart of the fortress—a labyrinth of cold corridors, each bordered with rows of inactive androids standing in eerie silence.

Their lifeless eyes glowed, reflecting the sterile white lights overhead.

A pair of Corilian guards dragged Samira forward, their grips unyielding on her arms.

Her boots scuffed on the smooth, polished floors, and the sharp clinks of their metallic steps echoed around her like the hollow ring of a death knell.

The royal chamber room was a stark embodiment of the cyborg emperor’s rule: icy, clinical, devoid of life.

Massive steel columns lined the hall, etched with lines of pulsating energy that snaked upward to feed the throne itself. It was a monstrous creation, a grotesque fusion of metal and organic tissue.

Tendrils of wires and tubes crawled from its base, connecting the emperor to the stronghold’s structure.

Emperor Marius sat upon it, his once-proud visage twisted into something unrecognizable. His body was more machine than man, his limbs encased in blackened alloy, and his head crowned with a circlet of glowing nodes that pulsed rhythmically. His eyes, dull and devoid of humanity, locked onto Samira as she was forced to kneel before him.

‘Samira,’ his voice rasped, reverberating with an unnatural echo. ‘So, the rebels think they can defy me.’

As Marius leaned forward, Samira’s gaze swept the room.

Her breath hitched as she recognized faces among the cyborg guards lining the walls: former friends, allies, and even icons of Orilia’s past glory.

Her eyes fell on Duke Revan, whose regal demeanor had been replaced by cold precision. Then Viscountess Elira, who had once hosted glittering galas, stood motionless, her features marred by metal plates.

At the far corner of the room, she saw Lyanna, the famous songstress who had been a beacon of hope during the early days of the war. Her formerly lyrical voice was now a mechanical drone, and her delicate hands had been substituted with clawed appendages. Samira’s stomach churned.

Then her eyes fell on the Emperor’s daughter, Celise, her youth and vibrancy extinguished. The young woman’s frame, once full of life, now moved with the robotic precision of a puppet.

Samira clenched her fists, memories surging like a tide.

Her parents had sacrificed themselves to avoid this fate. Their bodies burned before the Corilians seized them.

Her husband, Ryen, had fought valiantly. His final stand cost the Corilians dearly but left her a widow.

The faces of countless comrades flashed in her mind—each a life lost, every soul a reason to resist.

‘Tell me,’ Marius rasped, his tone devoid of warmth. ‘Who aids you? What technology do your allies wield that disrupts my forces?’

Samira lifted her chin, defiance burning in her gaze. ‘You’ll get nothing from me.’

Marius’ bionic eyes flitted, his mechanical limbs twitching.

He rose, towering over her, his shadow stretching across the cold floor. ‘You mistake this for a negotiation. You will speak, or you will become one of us.’

Samira said nothing, her silence infuriating him.

He raised a clawed hand, gripping her jaw with surprising force. ‘You think your rebellion will save you? Your people will fall. Your allies will betray you.’

Something flickered in his countenance as he spoke—a brief glitch, a shifting cloud, a stutter in his movement.

His body jerked, his voice distorting. ‘They— I— will— control—’

Samira froze, realization dawning.

Marius wasn’t the true master here. Something darker, something unseen, had its claws in him.

Tis what Kaelith had warned her about, Samira thought in horror.

Marius’ Corilian guards moved fast, steadying their emperor as his movements became erratic.

Samira seized the moment, wrenching free of her captors and bolting toward the nearest exit.

Her heart hammered as she sprinted through the palace, alarms blaring.

The corridors twisted and turned, their identical design disorienting.

Cold air bit at her skin as she raced past decayed, lifeless chambers filled with half-finished cyborg constructs.

She burst into a garden, or what was left of it.

What had once been lush and vibrant was now a dead-end expanse of withered trees and cracked stone.

The atmosphere was redolent with the scent of decay, and the gurgle of a dying fountain’s plumbing was the only sound echoing in the space.

Eyes darting, she searched for a way out. Her heart fell as she realized the walls surrounding the space were too high to scale.

She caught her breath as heavy footsteps clattered after her.

The Corilian sentinels closed in, their weapons trained on her.

She raised her hands in surrender and dropped to one knee with nowhere to go.

Samira was dragged back to the throne room, her limbs ponderous with the terror of surrender, slowed by exhaustion.

Marius awaited her, his glitching subdued, his mechanical gaze filled with cold rage.

‘If we can’t flee, neither can you,’ he hissed, his clawed hand raising as if to strike.

She flinched away from his feinted blow. ‘Escape what?’

He grinned, a maniacal scar appearing across his mangled face, and his eyes darkened in entirety.

Kaelith’s words flashed in her mind.

‘Here be dragons,’ Samira muttered, sensing an otherworldly, roiling malevolence surging in Marius’ glower.

‘Take her,’ the emperor whispered, ‘break her, turn her into one of us.’

Samira’s entire body froze, her heart rate beating wild as she braced herself.

She raised her chin, her defiance unbroken even as the shadows of her captors loomed over her.

They bent over her, and arms reached out.

A thunderous explosion shattered the silence without warning, the ground trembling beneath their feet.

Dust and debris filled the air as the stronghold’s walls shook with violent shudders.

Marius staggered, his voice garbled with static.

The guards around her faltered, their movements erratic.

Samira’s spirit soared, hope flaring like a spark in the darkness. The fight wasn’t over. Not yet.