Page 111 of Stars in Nova

Taking silent aim with his rifle, Kisan took them out in a quick laser burst.

Sax grabbed them both in midair before they crashed and alerted the guards, placing them on the ground and rolling them into a dark corner.

The pair turned their neural meta views to the studio.

Kisan sent a swarm of metanoids toward the thick frosted glass.

They coated the surface and sent telemetry of the interior to Kisan’s neural node.

The walls were lined with workbenches cluttered with tools and raw materials.

In the center of the room, a group of Ccythrian jewelers bent over their hallmarking punches, hand gravers, and milgrain tools.

‘I count a quartet of Ccythkinais,’ Sax grunted.

The Rider hesitated. ‘Need to make sure we don’t have any more bogeys hidden in that room or the entire location,’ Kisan rasped. ‘We don’t need hidden surprises.’

‘Do you, but you’ll find I was right,’ Sax smirked. ‘I sense no other souls. You forget I have psionic sight.’

With a suck of his teeth, Kisan sent a command to his noids to conduct more in-depth surveillance.

His neural node received their data, and he nodded to his fellow Sable man. ‘Four, you were right.’

‘Whaddya tell you?’ Sax crowed. ‘I’m always right.’

‘Fokkin’ shut it,’ Kisan growled back. ‘Get to it.’

Sax knelt by the door, attaching one of his amulets to a vent.

It cracked open, and vapor from within seeped into the workshop with a quiet hiss, ghostly tendrils curling around the Ccyths.

Inside, the jewelers faltered, their movements slowing as the immobilizing compound took effect.

They slumped over their workstations, their breaths deep and even.

‘Easy,’ Sax whispered, touching the door. His silver metanoids blanketed the lock, and they detected a click in seconds.

Sax pushed the door open.

He and Kisan slipped in, the scent of the gas mingling with that of metal and stone, and the Sable men’s metanoids kicked in to diffuse the effect of the incapacitating agent.

‘The blueprints are stored in a reinforced locker at the room’s far end,’ Kisan advised.

‘We know this how?’ Sax asked.

‘Zane has been here in this room when the cabinet was opened. Mirage stores all our work-related visuals from our nodes, so all I had to do was retrieve his memory. Voila. I’m not the only one with tricks, brother.’

Sax jerked his head, twisting his lips, his disdain for what and who Kisan had touched on evident on his face.

‘Focus on the storage unit. Its surface is marked with intricate glyphs. We need to crack them.’

Kisan moved fast, his fingers deft, working out the glyphic code. In minutes, he bypassed the lock.

The cabinet clicked open, revealing a stack of data slates etched with schematics.

Kisan flipped through them fast until he landed on his old client file and a tiny attached pouch.

His noids scanned the packet and confirmed it had the files he required.

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