by I G Hulme
Eventually, after placing some rations and water in front of them on the table, he left, leaving just the two guards in the corridor outside the open door.
“I’m so sorry about the Raven,” said Angelique at last in a forlorn whisper. Ryann could tell from the tone of her voice that their ship, home for the last two years, meant just as much to her as it did to him.
“It doesn’t matter,” murmured Ryann, his eyes downcast. “That Luminal warship will be upon us any time soon. What a bunch of fools. I can’t understand how Grande thinks we won’t be spotted.”
“He doesn’t believe they’re even looking for us,” muttered Angelique, idly picking up a ration pack and studying its contents before tossing it back upon the tabletop. “He thinks we’re making it all up, and that we took out that Patroller on our own.”
“Do you think we’ll make it back to New Eden?” asked Ryann wearily. Angelique shrugged, putting her feet up on the chair opposite and closing her eyes.
“One thing’s for certain,” she sighed as she settled down to sleep. “If that Luminal does take us out, then you and I won’t know a damn thing about it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A SECRET TREASURE
Ryann awoke to the sounds of footsteps from outside in the corridor.
“Come with me.”
The crewman that Ryann recognised as Roache entered the room. Angelique sat up in her chair rubbing her eyes wearily.
“The Lumina haven’t found us yet then?” she muttered, pulling herself to her feet. Roache stared angrily back at her but didn’t reply.
“Where are we going?” asked Ryann as the two of them were marched through the gloomy corridors of the Ibis. Every muscle in his body ached and he struggled to keep up.
They came eventually to the main airlock, and for a moment Ryann felt a spark of hope as he waited for the inner doors to slide open.
But his heart sank when he saw that the docked ship wasn’t the Raven, but some sort of transporter by the looks of it. Ryann guessed that it was the Serena that Jean-Baptiste had mentioned.
They were ushered into a cramped cargo bay, stacked with various piles of containers, and Ryann could see Grande sitting at the far end, staring out through a row of narrow windows.
He turned to them with a nod as they approached, and motioned for them to sit down beside him. Roache and the guards went forwards into the cockpit, leaving them alone with the big man.
As they seated themselves nervously beside him, they heard the boom of the docking clamps echo throughout the ship and the Serena’s engines started up with a low throb.
“It feels good to have our ship returned to us,” muttered Jean-Baptiste, half to himself. He stared out through the window as the little transporter shuddered, and Ryann made out the dark mass of the Ibis’ hull-plates begin to recede into the distance. The Serena picked up speed, and soon they could see the Ibis in its entirety, a great mass of steel silhouetted against the luminescent green clouds of the Halion Belt.
“The Ibis has been home to generations of my people,” said Grande, with a tone of heartfelt pride. He turned to Ryann and Angelique. “My crew will finish the repairs to our jump drives and then we will be on our way.”
As they watched through the windows, the green clouds of the Halion Belt slowly enveloped them and the Ibis disappeared from view.
“Where are we going now then?” asked Angelique mistrustfully; Jean-Baptiste gave her a grin.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, his face cast in the green glow from the windows. “We are returning to New Eden to gather the rest of our people. You will be our guests there until we are ready to leave.”
“But, what about the Ibis?” asked Ryann. “You’re not intending to leave her there outside the Halion Belt are you?”
“She will be safe on the edge of the ice-field,” murmured Grande. “Before your father helped us, we were travelling with other ships of my people. When our drives failed they went on. We need to find out where they went so that we can catch up with them.”
“You don’t mean that you’re trying to contact them?” cut in Angelique in horror. “Surely you’re not that stupid?”
A brief look of anger flashed across Jean-Baptiste’s heavy features.
“Do not take my people for fools young girl,” he growled. “We have our own ways of doing things that you Inlanders no nothing about. You think you are so much more advanced than us, just because your ships tell you how and where to fly. But you have forgotten how to look with your eyes. Our people have passed on the secrets of the stars for generations.”
“And yet you needed us to tow you into New Eden when that pile of junk broke down as you were running from the Lumina!” spat Angelique defiantly, staring up at the big man. Ryann tensed for an instant, expecting Grande to react as he raised one hand.
Angelique flinched as he brought it down upon her shoulder, but to Ryann’s relief he burst out in laughter.
“You are brave indeed!” he said with a wide grin, though Angelique didn’t return his smile. “You could almost be mistaken for one of my own people! You judge us, but you do not know everything about my kin,” he said at last. “We were not running from the aliens. We set off from our home-fields long after they had appeared and moved on. And many of the ships from the other families are still making the journey back. We will meet with them when they catch us up.”
“I hate to break it to you,” muttered Angelique. “But your friends won’t be coming back through the occupied systems. The Lumina will catch them and kill them; if they’re not dead already. And one other thing’s for certain. If you keep transmitting out from the Ibis, then it won’t be long before the Lumina pick you up and you go the same way too.”
Jean-Baptiste threw his head back and laughed loudly once again.
“You Inlanders are always so certain in your knowledge! You think that it is impossible to get through the occupied systems — and yet your friends have not long set off on the very same journey themselves!”
“That’s different,” retorted Ryann. “The Defiance is a Luminal ship — we don’t expect to make it back without being discovered. We just hope that they think we’re one of their own. Angelique’s right, your friends will never make it through, please tell your crew to stop transmitting from the Ibis — you’re risking everyone in New Eden.”
“You too Ryann Wade? So sure that it is impossible?” asked Jean-Baptiste. “And yet, here we are, proof that perhaps you don’t know all that there is to know.” His laughter slowly died away but his dark eyes still sparkled with mirth from out of the shadows of his heavy brow.
“What are you saying then?” asked Angelique. “That you really did make it through the occupied systems?”
The big man paused momentarily as though weighing up his words.
“We set off four months ago from our home-fields beyond what you call the Outer Edge,” he said at last, staring straight into Angelique’s eyes as though daring her to refute his words. “We came in with our harvest of ore to the border post on Asheen, only to find it destroyed.”
“But, Asheen fell almost two years ago,” breathed Ryann in disbelief.
“We don’t have need to mix with Inlanders,” muttered Grande. “We keep to our own kind, and seldom travel to the Inlander worlds, except when we have need, such as when we wish to sell our harvest — your people pay well for the ores that are hardest to find.”
“But, how did you make it back alive?” asked Ryann in wonder.
“Like I say, our people have our own ways, learned over centuries — we travel the paths that you Inlanders find too difficult, or are afraid to travel. There are ways to avoid both Inlanders and the aliens if we don’t want to be seen. The rest of our people will come. You will see.”
Ryann stared open-mouthed, his mind in a whirl.
“But, why didn’t you tell anyone about this?” he stuttered. “You can help us find a way back for the Defiance!”
Jean-Baptiste
looked horrified for a moment.
“This knowledge is ours, it is our treasure,” he said at last. “We don’t share our treasure with Inlanders — they have no respect. You may mean well, but you are like children to us, greedy, with no thought for others. My ancestors fought against the big Inlander companies for decades and we lost. So be it. Instead of working together, we choose to go where the companies cannot. My people know the stars as our friends. And we pass the knowledge of our elders along our generations.”
“But, we can destroy the Lumina, then you can return back to your home systems!”
“Our homes are our ships,” murmured Grande wistfully. “I do not expect you to understand. I am sorry Ryann Wade.”
“You don’t think we can succeed do you?” asked Angelique softly, but Jean-Baptiste remained silent, staring out through the window at the shifting colours of the ice-field.
Ryann followed the big man’s gaze, his mind in a whirl. As he watched, the blue-green luminescence of the clouds slowly parted and the little transporter came out into the open pocket of space at the very heart of the Halion Belt. Ryann saw the refugee fleet spread out before them, the couple of hundred vessels they had so optimistically named New Eden. Apart from a few large tankers and freighters, the flotilla of ships anchored to the central station were a ragged group of shuttles, passenger ferries, and a host of utility vehicles. They were all the inner-system ships that were unable to flee Viridis space as the Luminal invasion had swept over them.
The vessels, after being disabled, had been lashed together, connected to the control station by umbilical walkways and a tangled web of power and air lines.
“They are all safe,” said Jean-Baptiste solemnly as they passed through the maze of silent ships, heading for the old space station that acted as the central hub.
“When the crew of New Eden tried to disable the Ibis, we fought back, and a few of them were killed. But after we took over control of the station we locked the refugees aboard their ships for their own safety. They can stay there until we have repaired the Ibis. They are all unharmed.”
“Try telling that to those poor souls aboard the Ibis that you mutilated,” growled Angelique.
“If they had not stolen our ship after we had come aboard the station in good faith, then we would have been repaired and be gone by now. Things did not need to turn out the way they did.”
“New Eden was supposed to be a place of peace and hope,” she retorted.
“Hope?” whispered Grande, staring out over the ramshackle fleet. “Look at what you have created — frightened ghosts hidden away in their broken ships. You Inlanders always find a way to destroy the very things you hold dear. You call this place Eden, yet what you have created is the mirror of that ideal. This is a place with no hope, where nothing will ever grow.”
They fell into a strained silence. Ryann saw the corroded metal plates of the control station rising up ahead of them as the Serena approached the docking bays. He felt a terrible sense of unease at their predicament, fearing that at any time the Lumina might discover the Ibis’ transmissions as she waited out in the open on the edge of the Halion Belt. In a way Grande was right; New Eden may be safe inside the impenetrable ice and electrical storms for the time-being, but once the Lumina discovered their hiding place they would be practically defenceless.
“At least let us try and get word back to my father aboard the Defiance,” pleaded Ryann as the Serena came to a shuddering halt on the landing pad.
Roache and the other crewmen appeared from the cockpit as the engines wound down, and the cargo-bay doors slid open with a hiss of venting gases.
“When we have gone, then you will be able to do as you please,” replied Grande, heading down the loading ramp, the guards following behind with Ryann and Angelique. “For now, you will be safe here. We will speak again before we leave.”
And with that, Jean-Baptiste strode off, leaving them alone with Roache and the two guards. As they were led off to a different exit, Ryann made a mental note of five Interceptors resting silently on the landing pads. These small, single-seat flyers were the remaining ships in New Eden’s defence force. They were similar to the larger Patroller that had taken out the Raven. They were agile and fast craft thought Ryann hopefully — not much in the way of armour, but they packed a punch. If he and Angelique could get their hands on a couple of them, then they might have a chance of escaping back to the Defiance. From what he’d seen of their skills with the Patroller, he didn’t rate their combat abilities much.
He staggered a little as one of the guards urged him on out of the hangar.
They were led past the control centre and down through the habitation decks, and all seemed eerily silent. They caught glimpses of old women and young children, dressed in the same worn and patched pressure suits as the rest of Grande’s crew. The ragged children would stare at them in silent curiosity from open doorways as they approached, before an adult would pull them back inside, shutting the doors at their passing.
“How many of you are there?” asked Ryann as they went on, but Roache and the guards remained silent and impassive.
Eventually, they came to an exterior airlock, guarded by more of Grande’s crew. They were allowed through without a word, and found themselves aboard one of the ships anchored within the refugee fleet. By the looks of it, the small vessel had been a prison barge, used to transport convicts to one of the off-world penal colonies.
“Hey, wait a minute!” protested Ryann weakly as he saw the state of the old barge. The floors were awash with filth and the dim lights barely penetrated the gloom. “Jean-Baptiste said you would treat us fairly!”
As the guards pushed them down a corridor lined with cell-bays they could hear muffled voices calling out through the doors and a terrible stench assaulted their senses.
“You’re alive aren’t you!” cursed Roache, and the other guards laughed. He pushed Ryann through an open doorway, Angelique just behind. Before he knew it the hatch slid closed with a dull boom, leaving them standing alone in the middle of the room.
As their eyes became accustomed to the low glow from the light panel in the ceiling, Ryann began to make out his surroundings.
What he had expected to be a cell was in fact a dingy cabin, probably originally meant for the crew of the barge and not its prisoners. There was a row of bunk beds, three-high along opposite walls, and a small table and chairs set at a narrow window.
Angelique walked over to one of the bunks, slumping down heavily upon it.
“Cleaner than a lot of ships I’ve travelled in,” she muttered with a weary smile.
Ryann walked over to the window, peering out. He could see the ships of the refugee flotilla stretching off into the distance, silhouetted against the glowing walls of the Halion Belt. And to his left were the sheer sides of the control station; he could just see the entrance to the docking bay and the shapes of the Interceptors tantalisingly close, but beyond their reach for now.
“We have to get word to the Defiance,” he muttered, half to himself. “If those fools keep transmitting out from the Ibis, they’ll bring every damn Luminal ship down upon us.”
“I don’t fancy our chances of breaking out of a prison barge,” sighed Angelique from where she lay. She pointed idly up to the security camera in the corner of the room.
Ryann swore quietly to himself and turned back to the window.
“Come on Angelique, think! There has to be a way, there has to be.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE MARIANNE
“Hey, Ryann! Look, something’s happening!”
Ryann jumped down from his bunk, running over to join Angelique at the window.
Sure enough, over on the space-station’s landing pad, he could see Grande’s crew rushing out from the control centre, pulling on their helmets as they scrambled to get aboard the Interceptors.
One-by-one the little ships gunned their engines, lifting off the docking platform and disappearing out amongst th
e array of refugee craft.
Ryann and Angelique waited, but all had fallen eerily silent.
“What do you think that was all about?” breathed Angelique. “Do you think we’ve got company? Luminal?”
“I sincerely hope not,” murmured Ryann, still gazing across to the empty space-station.
“There!” Angelique pointed out beneath the elegant silhouette of the Aurora, a large cruise-liner converted into a refugee ship. Coming into view was the distant shape of a spacecraft, heading towards the landing pad. It was a dark and brutish-looking ship, a medium-class fighter with heavy armour, squat weapons pylons and an array of gun turrets.
“It’s the Marianne! It’s Anders!” called out Angelique in excitement. Anders was one of the Ghost-Runners, a good friend to Grayell and Mellarnne. He had been with them since the early days of the invasion.
“What’s he doing here?” she continued, squinting through the grimy glass. “Do you think they’re looking for us?”
“Maybe,” muttered Ryann.
“We have to try and warn them somehow!”
They watched helplessly as the Marianne’s landing gear deployed, and the heavy craft touched down upon the landing pad.
“Ryann?” hissed Angelique.
“We can’t do anything!” he replied in frustration, watching as the loading ramp slowly descended from the front of the craft amid a cloud of steam and vapour.
The unmistakable figure of Anders appeared, walking down the ramp. He was a great bear of a man, his wild hair and bushy beard only adding to the image.
He stepped warily out onto the landing pad, looking around for any signs of life.
The door to the control centre slid open, and Ryann was dismayed to see a small group of Grande’s men appear, all of them armed, with Jean-Baptiste himself at the head.
Anders stood waiting for the group, and Ryann noticed the tall man signal up to the cockpit with a wave of his hand. A gun turret on the underbelly of the Marianne swung around, locking in on Grande and his men as they approached.