Page 59 of Stars in Nova

‘Nada,’ Mirage admitted. ‘It might provide you an opportunity. If Samira’s people are using this tunnel, they’ll surface, and when they do, you’ll be waiting.’

He turned his attention back to the cyborgs.

So far, he’d made note of troop movements, supply lines, and the positions of the enemy’s bases.

The cyborg camp was a mechanical hive, its inhabitants moving with unsettling precision. He noted their patrol routes, the locations of their power nodes, and the positioning of their aging ships.

He couldn’t get used to their horrifying appearance. The hulking figures with metal limbs and glowing optics that pierced the haze gave him the jitters. Their movements wereunnervingly synchronized, controlled by a single, malevolent consciousness.

When he was close enough, Kisan used a cloud of metanoids to tap into their neural signatures.

He growled as he glimpsed fragmented memories and flashes of their trapped humanity, a painful reminder of his encounters and torture by the crats.

The sensation was cold and invasive, like stepping into a void. He tagged instances of recollections—glimpses of a family, a farm, a life on Orilia XIV before it was torched.

Their intellects were still alive, buried deep beneath layers of control software, confined and screaming for freedom.

Kisan pulled back, his chest tightening with rage. ‘They’re all caged,’ he hissed, his utterance hoarse and ravaged. ‘The Crat components aren’t just commanding them—they’re enslaving their minds. They’re imprisoned.’

‘That explains the malice we detected,’ Mirage said. ‘Their controllers didn’t just rebuild them; they hollowed them out and forced them to obey.’

The realization hit the Rider like a physical blow.

His fists clenched, his entire body icing over. The horror of it—the absolute violation of humanity—ignited a fury deep within him.

‘Thefokkers, whoever they are, need to pay for this,’ he growled, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. ‘It’s worse than slavery and torture.’

His rage surged outward in a sudden, uncontrolled kinetic pulse.

The wave rippled across the encampment, a shimmer that passed unnoticed by the cyborgs at first.

Without warning, they faltered. Their movements stuttered, and the eerie precision of their formation broke down as though its strings had been cut.

Sparks flared at their joints, and some collapsed, their systems overloaded and disrupted.

Kisan froze, stunned by his might, as the camp descended into chaos.

The terrain trembled in the wake of Kisan’s pulse throughout the base.

From the shadows of the same tunnel he’d been observing, figures emerged—rebels armed with disruptors and weapons fashioned from salvaged cyborg tech.

He arched a brow as they moved with disciplined purpose, their steps sure and silent as they dropped on the outpost.

Kisan observed, his keen vision picking out every detail of the attack.

The insurgents struck with precision, their firearms emitting bursts of energy that sent the weakened cyborgs toppling.

Explosions tore through the site as supply caches ignited, their flames licking the darkening sky.

At the forefront of the charge was a figure Kisan recognized at once—the woman who had haunted his thoughts since Eden II.

The fokk? Samira?

She moved with deadly grace, her disruptor rifle flashing as she cut through the cyborg ranks like a scythe through wheat.

It was like she was a ghost conjured by his torment.

Seeing her twisted his craw and churned emotion deep inside him, raw and jagged. His world shifted.

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