Fortuna’s Grace

Eden II's space terminal was clean and bright, with expansive steel and ultra-performance architecture that set it off like a jewel on the edge of the metropolis' dome.

The gateway was high-tech and futuristic, designed to create a seamless and efficient travel experience.

It offered many amenities and services, from fine dining and luxury shopping to charging stations, oxygenated detox sleep cabins, cafes, and small goods shops.

Delivering endless relaxation and entertainment while travellers waited for or disembarked from their flights.

Xion's flyer manoeuvred past the terminus packed with full berths, where Allorian and Dunian merchant ships were moored alongside elegant Rhesian pinnaces.

A myriad of flyers milled about.

Porters in space suits scurried into the concourse from the pier and air bridges outside Eden II's transparent sky vault. They transferred bulky cargo onto smaller vessels pushing out toward the moon's massive dome.

The fly cab he was shadowing halted before Eden II's private spaceport dock. One reserved for the most opulent yachts and nestled within a secluded part of the busy terminal.

Xion parked his sleek craft in the dim-lit bay and sat back to watch, honing his meta vision on his mark.

As she stepped out of the hire flyer, Katya's lithe form shimmered beneath her elegant dress, her gaze fixed on a single grand craft.

The Rider studied it as she sidled towards it.

It was a Ccyth design.

It stood out, framed against Eden II's dome, tinged with silver hues, its chromed surface gleaming.

The ship sported intricate lines and well-designed contours, radiating luxury and power. ‘Fortuna's Grace' adorned its side in refined golden lettering, glistening with an otherworldly shimmer.

The woman called Katya approached the entrance of the yacht.

Xion guessed she must have imbibed an alcohol inhibitor on her way because her gait was now steady and purposeful.

His meta vision narrowed as she handed a small chip to the Iccythrian security guard, who stepped aside to allow her passage.

The doors of the super-boat slid open, and her lithe form disappeared into its depths.

Xion leaned back with pursed lips as the ship lifted off and took to the skies.

He patched into the private Sable network.

The manifest for the craft was encrypted, and he cursed.

This meant the ship's owners had much to hide and had spent plenty of schills to install the best encrypting software.

For a Ccyth carrier to do so with such audacity, given their alliance with Eden II, was fokkin' irking.

Moreover, camouflaging your flight path was illegal throughout Pegasi. More so on Eden II.

However, Mirage's quantum computers often overcame any efforts of bad players in the universe to circumvent the rock's robust space aviation monitoring intelligence.

Then again, the Iccythrians were a lethal lot, closeted and secretive. They were wheelers and dealers in the lucrative weapons trade and jewellery business.

That was their legal front.

They also dabbled as mercenaries, pirates and many other nefarious activities, running illicit goods to Iccythria, their planet on the farthest edge of Pegasi, where the three galaxies met.

He made a note to speak with Soren Dukarat, the local Ccyth fixer on Eden II. Perhaps he'd get a bead on the kinais who owned the ship that had just flown the mysterious woman from his patch.

Xion engaged his flyer and roared back to HQ.

Where Mirage was waiting.

He found the Sable consigliere in the gaming salon, prepping the lost wagers for storage.

They were bagging the Iccythrian precious stones in a data shield anti-radiation bag with a touch of irritation on their unlined face.

‘I managed to shut down the hack and separate the coded gems from the other collateral we collected tonight. I'll keep the rogue jewels from the Sable vault in case they try and de-crypt that system, too.'

‘Are they real?' Xion asked eyes on the sparkling offenders.

‘As genuine as they get, but it'd take a talented gemologist to insert code into them and splice them back together, which points to just one group of professionals.'

‘The fokkin Iccythrians,' Xion ground out.

‘Indeed. The jewels are super rare and collectables now, and after I've cleared them, perhaps I can sell them to some broker for a silly fokk off fee. Or place them on my mantle as a reminder of how much I sucked.'

‘You OK?' Xion growled, sensing Mirage's ruffled mood, an uncommon disposition.

‘I'm vexed. This breach was only made possible by a fundamental threat vulnerability. I will need to apologise profusely to all the Riders for my mistake in not detecting it sooner or faster or having a deterrent against such an assault.'

Xion shrugged. ‘De nada Mirage, even the most sophisticated institutions are susceptible to basic lapses in cyber-security hygiene. What did they nab?'

‘Rather than leveraging or pilfering financial data or our corporate secrets, only location information was stolen. Of all our offices and assets across Eden II. This very anticlimactic outcome suggests the objective of the incursion was to steal specific site particulars—for possible use in future targeted attacks.'

Xion sucked his teeth, crossing his hands over his massive chest. ‘Even though what they took wasn't that crucial, we'll need to implement an attack surface monitoring solution and increase the security of all our buildings and holdings. Also, I must follow that woman and discover what she's up to. Did you send me a node file on her?'

The Sable consigliere shook their head. ‘Nada. That's because there was not much more than what I shared earlier. According to her file, she's bland, almost too boring, like white sliced bread. Which we both know is bullshit.'

‘How did she get a seat on the mesa?'

‘I got an anonymous request to set aside her seat from a friend I know.'

‘Another AI?'

‘Naam. I trust them. They're a superb source of intel. So I complied.'

‘She's no small-time player; she made a ballsy play and lost us some data which might be crucial to our security,' Xion sighed. ‘Thank fokk, I got some noids on her. Can you track them, please? They've gone beyond my neural reach, and I haven't got Zane on standby for a psionic search.'

He sent Mirage his noid links via their node connection.

The AI's eyes fluttered for a moment. ‘Got her.'

‘Care to share?'

Mirage gave him a baleful stare.

Xion sucked his teeth in impatience. ‘Mirage?'

‘What do you take me for? She's on her way to Enia.'

He nodded, lips pursed in deep thought. ‘I'm going after her.'

‘Is that because she hit different and you want to hit it with her?' Mirage mused with a slight smirk. ‘I tagged how you eyed her like you wanted to devour her.'

‘Fokk you. She just stole from us. I need to bring her to justice.'

‘Which could be achieved with a call to our Rhesian friends who'd dispatch a team to pick her up.'

‘I want to make it personal,' the Rider growled.

Mirage raised a brow. ‘No doubt. It'll be her pleasure, not mine.'

He narrowed his eyes at Mirage. ‘I liked you better when you were a gyrfalcon and kept your thoughts to yourself.'

‘A girl's got to spread her wings,' Mirage shot back. ‘Why this hard-on for her, and I mean that with all due respect?'

Xion glowered at his companion. ‘Something doesn't read right with her, and I got a niggling feeling that if I don't tail her, we'll be sitting ducks.'

‘For what?' Mirage murmured.

‘Not sure yet, but why steal location data unless you're planning a physical attack on a Rider holding? My hackles have never been more raised and at attention than they are now.'

‘That and something more,' Mirage quipped before sailing out of the room to his low-key curses.

Katya sighed and leaned back into the luxurious velvet of her crash couch in the Fortuna's Grace's stateroom.

She'd made it out.

But not without tagging the towering, forceful man with drop-dead handsome, chiselled features, long dreadlocks, roughly shaven jaw and lush lips at the spaceport.

He'd followed her.

She wondered if he had a bead on their destination.

Thank goodness her brother Korin insisted on purchasing the expensive encryption system from House DKRI (Dakari).

She hoped it was enough of a lure, for it had put her House in deeper debt.

Saving her the D'Hanna legacy was paramount, as her father had pressed on her for weeks. Everything hinged on her actions over the next few days.

She'd need to make her moves with care,she thought, even as shivers went up and down her spine, now that she'd piqued the interest of a Rider.

The man whose face she recalled from her files downloaded from SysNet.

The one kinai who was the main threat to her plan or the key to its success.

The elusive Xion Sable. Head of Security on Eden II.

A fokkin' sexy specimen of a man,she thought, recalling his sultry hazel and mocha-hued irises ringed with glowing sapphire flecks.

Throughout the game, her hands had itched to reach out and stroke his chiselled jaw. She'd misplayed, distracted, wanting to run her fingers over his forehead and bury them in those lush locks, fantasising about him powering his hips into her.

She moaned and jolted at the spicy scenario she was recreating, then stopped herself.

Mindful that she'd seen something else lurking under those jade babies.

An intense mind, cutting, clever intellect. Evident in the furrowed brow of someone always deep in thought.

Yet it was his eyes that blew her away. They flickered with lightning sharpness, and his glowing-meta gaze seemed to probe beneath the surface, piercing like a hawk spotting its prey.

He gave off every sign of being not just a pretty boy but an unstoppable force who'd win against her in a game of mental chess.

Like a song she'd once heard, his eyes were like angels, but his heart was cold, yet melting all your memories and changing them into gold.

She'd need to be on high alert if she ever encountered him again.

Which she intended to do.

Rising from the couch, she tracked to the onyx and gold Falasian marble drinks cabinet, where she poured herself a cool, refreshing caipirinha packed with cacha?a, a spirit brewed from fermented sugar cane juice.

She downed the vegetal liquor with sharp grassy flavours and fresh lime tang, savouring it as it invigorated her from within.

After double-checking her plan, she made it to her quarters, where she planned to sleep all the way to Enia.

She wanted to wake refreshed and on point for the next leg of her scheme.

She hoped her ploy had worked; anything less would be a failure.

One which she'd pay for with not just her life but with that of many other innocent ones.

She slept, dreaming, tossing in her bed as Fortuna's Grace powered toward Enia.

Her nightmare had returned.

In it, she was struggling against the bonds, holding her fists tight, eyes brimming with terror as her worst incubus unfolded before her.

‘Please take me, not the children.'

Above, the skies were a broken kaleidoscope, fractured and chaotic, swirling aloft the majestic purple peaks of the volcanic mountain range.

She gasped for air, unable to breathe, overcome by utter devastation.

‘Take me instead,' she pleaded once more, tears streaming down her face. ‘Not my innocent babies.'

But her weeping fell on deaf ears.

The sentinels, faces hardened by duty, paid no attention to her desperate pleas.

They ushered the screaming youngsters into a waiting vessel with swift pushes and harsh shouts. The children's hands stretched, reaching out for their mother as they were taken away.

Their wails were to no avail. The gendarmes' visages contorted in hardness as they grabbed at the small ones, their thick fingers latching onto diminutive wrists, throwing them into the ship's hold.

The woman wrestled against her bonds and flinched at their cries as they grappled and brawled to run back to her, inconsolable, eyes filled with terror, crying and flailing, resisting their captors.

Some of the adolescents scratched and kicked at their attackers, their previous street smarts coming into play.

‘Kastian,' the prone woman murmured through her agony when her eldest, a thirteen-year-old boy, broke through the cordon. ‘They'll hurt you.'

He was soon engulfed by a trio of sentinels, disappearing from her view as they dragged him back to the ship, yelling.

The woman's heart pounded, fear and fury consuming her. So much so that she keeled over, gasping for air.

She refused to let herself pass out, not yet.

But when a single figure walked onto the runway with a toddler, a plump cherub with dark curls, the woman lost it.

‘Nada, not my littlest, please,' she called, struggling to her feet.

The caretaker of the youngster turned and gave the wailing woman a kind smile, their eyes weeping as well. ‘I'll take care of her,' she mouthed.

The woman's cries were all the more ignored, the bonds encircling her bound wrists tightened by the man behind her, holding her back.

As the vessel started to pull away from the port, her eyes locked onto her children's faces pressed against the small windows.

She searched for the smaller, dark-curled face and found her in a view-port.

Slapping her plump little palms on the plex-glass and burbling in happiness, the cherub blew kisses to her mother, unaware of the chaos around her.

Pulling away from her captor, the distraught woman collapsed to the ground on her knees as the crushing weight threatened to consume her.

‘Be brave,' she whispered, eyes fixed on the departing vessel, wanting so much to save them but powerless to do so.

Not unless she sold her soul to the devil himself.

She was one person against a consuming force that cared nothing for her or the lives of her charges. So she lay there, helpless and broken, her sobs echoing through the spaceport as she mourned, keening.

Tears rolled down her face as the vessel lifted into the treacherous skies, her spirit shattering into a million pieces.

The ship disappeared into a purple, dark, churning heavens, and lightning illuminated the roiling planet, its jagged mountains, and its flaming volcanoes.

The woman stared as thunder roared, and hot white bolts struck the section of sky where it had vanished.

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.