Page 126 of Stars At Dusk

‘Just make sure it’s not booby-trapped,’ Riv warned.

‘Mirage will be all over it,’ Kage assured him.

‘More to see this way,’ Xion called out.

A dark tunnel lay beyond the underground garage.

‘There,’ Xion said, pointing to it. ‘Seems to be a passageway that leads to the outside. To the highlands.’

‘But no one lives out there. They’re covered with impact craters and are too rough to build on. Plus, they’re always in the shadow of the stars,’ Riv said.

Kage jerked his head. ‘A perfect place, don’t you think, to have an entry point in and out of Eden II. You’d be unseen unless there were surveillance drones on the lookout. And we’ve never placed any out here, coz there’s never been any need to.’

‘So what do you think this hideaway, weapons and armoured vehicles are all about?’ Riv asked.

‘I think the Rinnax Holdings were planning an attack,’ Kage ground out. ‘On us. With Ruben acting as a scout. I also think this may not be the only base they might have had on the rock. We need to get Mirage to widen her surveillance dragnet to the entire rock.’

Xion whistled under his breath. ‘Zane’s going to flip out. That’s going to cost us a bomb.’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ Kage insisted. ‘These clowns just upped the ante. In a major way. Let’s do a sweep, see what else we might find.’

They spent the rest of the day combing the passageway and its tributaries, looking for any other clues the Rinnax clones may have left. Xion pointed out the generators Ruben had placed in junctures throughout the cave and tunnels.

‘They’re doing more than just keeping air pressure stable. They’re also holding up the walls and rocks. Coz it’s pretty unstable out here.’

As the Riders made their way deeper into the tunnels, they had to mask up as the air became thinner beyond the force field. They climbed over rocky ledges, waded through knee-deep liquefied quicksand, and squeezed through tight passages. They kept an eye out for traps, such as pitfalls and rolling boulders, that could catch them off guard.

Finally, they exited the passageway emerging on the edge of the lunar highland.

They stood on an elevated ridge looking down below at the rugged, ancient, and heavily cratered terrain. The lunar highlands were believed to be some of the oldest features of Eden II, many billions of years old. Popular lore and folktales said there were ancient ruins somewhere in this desolate place, remains of Paladian temples, palaces, fortresses and even entire cities, with crumbling walls and collapsed roadways.

Explorers claimed the ruins were more extensive than expected, their actual size and reach obscured by the fine-grained, silver regolith that covered the entire rock, making the ruins challenging to see and access, with only fragments of their original structures showing above the surface.

Kage imagined the intense bombardment of Eden II’s surface by asteroids and other celestial bodies during the System’s early chronology. Which may have caused the demise of the old gods and forced them to flee the rock or the larger planet Eden II had supposedly once been part of.

This rugged and unforgiving landscape held a wealth of information about the early history and mysteries of the Paladians and the Pegasi system. But, he also wondered whether it hid secrets of the Rinnax variety. Secrets that could devastate and shatter the relative peace the Riders had worked so hard to create on this breathtaking rock.

He’d be damned if he didn’t do everything he could to protect those he loved and cared for on Eden II.

Harlow

Kage had changed.

He was withdrawn.

Moodier.

Quieter.

Harlow could tell. And she blamed herself.

She’d opened up to him and had begun to fall for him, and now, despite her best attempts to stay positive, she couldn’t help but feel he’d seen all of her and chosen to stay away.

They’d only seen each other fleetingly since she’d shared her nightmare and journey with him.

For three nights now, Kage had bunked in his office at Skylab. He’d murmured something to her about work and that he’d be away for a while.

He hadn’t left her high and dry. Instead, he’d cooked a delicious set of meals for her, packed them away, given her a soft, distracted kiss and left without saying much more.

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