Page 17 of Stars in Halo

Would she ever see or hold them or even kiss them goodnight again?

She had failed in her mission to protect and keep them safe.

‘All it takes to get them back is doing what we ask.’

The still murmur came from behind her.

She whirled around, eyes flashing with defiance. Her eyes fell on a profile cloaked in shadows, their features obscured by the dim light filtering through the spaceport.

The woman’s heart pounded as she struggled to muffle the sobs threatening to unleash from her heaving chest.

‘Is that a promise?’ she demanded, her words laced with bitterness.

The figure stepped closer, their presence exuding an unsettling aura of power and control. A wry smile played on their lips as they spoke, every word dripping with malice. ‘Oh, naam. As we discussed, it’s just a simple task,’ they replied with a cryptic twist to their mouth. ‘Something that only you can accomplish.’

Her mind raced, analysing, trying to find a way out of this clusterfokk. Yet each conclusion she came to was more sinister than the last.

Clenching her jaw, she made a silent, fury-laden promise to herself.

She would do whatever it took to be reunited with her kids and keep them safe again. She would never give up, stop fighting, or quit believing until she held them in her arms again.

Defiance roared through her. She may have fallen short in protecting them this time, but from this point forward, failure was not her portion.

She knifed upright to a sitting position, squared her shoulders and met the figure’s gaze head-on. ‘Tell me again what you need.’

As her captor spoke, a thunderbolt arched through the sky.

One of hundreds that pierced the heavens each day in this inhospitable world.

The firmament above appeared fractured, with chunks of deep red and fiery orange spliced between the dusky purple clouds.

Jagged cracks and dark voids stretched across the horizon, giving the illusion it could splinter at any moment.

Just like her heart was shattering, one shard, one sliver, at a time.

She woke with a start, tears pouring down her face.

Staring out into the white streaks of hyperspace outside her window.

Heightened Mystique

Xion’s flyer raced to Eden II’s private spaceport, heading for a sleek vessel parked just out of one of its radial berths.

His corvette, the Tachýtita, Tachy for short, was the embodiment of its name.

A rare time-shifting speedster, it was also one of the fastest ships in the galaxy.

With a tachyon drive interwoven into its manifolds.

Mirage had used quantum computing to integrate Xion’s high-velocity noids into the engine. Allowing the ship to time shift one or two minutes back or forward, giving it an advantage in battle and speed.

‘Any more time adjusting than that will upset the time directive. We don’t mess with that,’ the AI had said to the Riders when presenting them with the tech a few months ago.

What Xion revelled in most, however, was how fast she blew into the skies.

He pulled up next to the sleek machine, initiated an air tunnel connection between both vessels and stalked out of his flyer.

He soon leapt up the steel staircase to saunter into the control room. He dropped into a plush pilot’s chair surrounded by a high-end, cutting-edge bridge crowned with a 360-degree plex display.

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