by I G Hulme
Ryann remained silent. He just gazed out at the remnants of what they had once so optimistically called New Eden. The cavernous open space at the heart of the Defiance now looked like the centre of a wreck-field. Hundreds upon hundreds of ships floated lifelessly, left anywhere they could fit. An area that had once housed a fighting force of a hundred ships, was now a sprawling mass of refugee vessels, all floating helplessly around the central space station.
The Marianne shuddered slightly, and Ryann looked up, shaken from his brooding thoughts. He only realised that they had landed when the loading ramp opened up to reveal the control centre’s docking bays.
Anders and Torrens came back from the cockpit, helping Angelique get Ryann out of the ship as he was still too weak to walk unaided.
He saw a blur of faces all about him, hundreds of frightened refugees crowding the loading bays. More shuttles were coming in all the time as they rescued people from ships damaged in the attacks.
Ryann smiled weakly to see his father hurrying through the crowds towards him.
“Thank god you’re safe!” exclaimed Grayell, throwing his arms around his son. He stood back, looking at him in concern.
“I’m okay,” croaked Ryann weakly.
“For a minute I didn’t think you were going to make it back there,” murmured Grayell, as he helped Ryann through the crowd.
“I didn’t hold out much hope that any of us were going to make it,” replied Angelique at their side. “When I saw that Luminal battleship powering its weapons up I thought we were all toast. We must have jumped right at the moment it fired — I swear that shot passed straight through us,” she laughed quietly. “That’s twice we’ve escaped that ship Ryann. I guess it was our lucky day.”
“Lucky?” echoed Ryann through cracked lips. “Angelique, look around you — we lost everything.”
Angelique fell silent, glancing away guiltily.
“I’m sorry Ryann, I —”
“Not everything was lost,” cut in Grayell softly, pulling Ryann to a halt as they came out of the crowds on the far side of the landing bay. “We lost many lives today it’s true,” he said sombrely. “But it could have been much, much worse. We managed to get almost a thousand refugees to safety, and we didn’t lose a single Ghost-Runner fighting ship.
“We took a beating, but we’re alive. Angelique’s right we were lucky. Especially you.”
He laughed softly to himself, shaking his head.
“No, we didn’t lose everything Ryann,” he said with a knowing smile, and nodded over to a dark corner of the landing bay. “When we followed Anders’ course back towards New Eden, we came across something that I think you’d lost. We picked her up on the way.”
In spite of his sorrow, Ryann’s heart leapt as he recognised the lines of the ship resting on the landing pad. She was blackened and burned, and covered in damage from laser-fire, but there was no mistaking the sleek silhouette of the Raven X-10.
“You salvaged her!” breathed Ryann in disbelief, taking a faltering step towards his beloved ship.
“She’ll be as good as new in no time I’m sure,” muttered Grayell, turning to Angelique who was beaming with joy.
Ryann tried to smile, but he couldn’t overcome the sadness inside. All that he could focus upon was the cold metal of the Reliquary, still clenched in his hand.
Once again, he had an image of Jean-Baptiste’s face at the airlock door of the Ibis as it slid closed for the last time.
It was the expression upon the big man’s features that haunted Ryann now — he just couldn’t get it out of his mind.
At first, when he had seen the tears upon Grande’s cheeks, he had taken them for being tears of sadness.
But the more he thought about it, he began to understand that Grande had faced the world upon his own terms, and had died alongside the people that were closest to him, on the ship that he had been born upon and called home.
He had lived out his life according to his own rules.
No, they were tears of pride that he shed.
There had been no fear or regret in the eyes of Jean-Baptiste Grande.
EPILOGUE
“So, where are we headed?” asked Ryann painfully as Grayell and Angelique helped him into the elevator.
“Don’t worry about that,”muttered Grayell. “We’re safe in hyperspace now, that’s all that matters. Let’s just get you up to the Infirmary and let the medics look you over.”
“I’m fine,” protested Ryann.
“Yeah, you look fine,” laughed Angelique sarcastically. “I mean, after all, you’ve only been half-suffocated, chased around a ghost-ship by a mutant spider-droid, shot at, hit by —”
Her words were cut off as a sudden jolt rocked the elevator. The lights flickered for a moment, before coming back on in a dim, sickly glow.
Ryann went to speak, but a great crash split the air, and the three of them were thrown to the floor.
They lay there in a heap as the sound rolled away to an eerie silence.
“What the hell was that?” breathed Angelique fearfully. “For a moment I thought the elevator was falling down the shaft.”
“That wasn’t the elevator,” cursed Grayell, pulling himself up to his feet and hitting the button to take them to the control decks. “That went through the entire ship. Don’t you hear it? The drives are down.”
He helped Angelique get Ryann up to his feet, and they waited anxiously in the semi-darkness as the elevator sped them up to the bridge.
The moment the doors slid open they were met with a cacophony of alarms. The bridge was a chaos of personnel all frantically working at their stations. Red emergency lighting cast an urgent glow over the scene.
At the centre of the room Ryann could see Mellarnne, Grayell’s inseparable companion. He was standing at the scanner table yelling orders across the room.
“Mellarnne! What the hell’s happening?” called out Grayell as they hurried towards him through the throng.
“Grayell! You need to take a look at this!” he called, nodding to Ryann and Angelique as they approached. “Ryann, Angelique, I heard what had happened — glad to see you’re safe.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, but turned back to his readouts, running his hands over the controls to the scanner table, quickly bringing up the display projections. Bright lines and readouts flickered into life, hovering in the air above the table, a holographic view of the space around the Defiance.
“Are we under attack?” demanded Grayell impatiently, peering at the displays.
“Not as such no,” replied Mellarnne. “We’ve been knocked out of hyperspace — some sort of power surge — maybe a proximity field or a —”
His voice trailed off as the scans came into focus.
“Oh my god,” he whispered.
The bright circle that represented the Defiance’s position on the scanners was just one dot amongst hundreds of bright points of light, so many that at first Ryann had mistaken the view for a star chart. They were surrounded in every direction.
“What is that?” whispered Angelique hesitantly. “Are they, are they all ships?”
“Each one is a Luminal battleship,” croaked Mellarnne. “There must be a thousand or more.”
“That’s half the Luminal fleet!” stuttered Angelique in disbelief. “What the hell are we going to do?”
She looked in horror from Mellarnne to Grayell, but they could only stare at the scanners in shock, unable to take in the enormity of the battle fleet that surrounded them.
“Ryann?” she croaked in fear, turning towards him. “What can we do?”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
Ryann heard his own voice as though it were being spoken by another:
“It’s over.”
THANK YOU
Thank you for purchasing and reading this book.
If you enjoyed it then please, leave me a review on Amazon, and browse my other stories.
Many thanks,
I G
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For more information on the author visit:
www.ighulme.com
HEAVEN’S WAR
Coming next to the LUMINA series…
The Third Book in the LUMINA Series
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INTO THE FIRE
The First Book in the LUMINA Series
BUY IT NOW
The Ghost-Runners may hold the key to saving the galaxy.
But Ryann Wade is still going to take them all down…
***
Life seemed idyllic for acclaimed academy trainee Ryann Wade.
Until the day the Invasion shattered humanity, along with Ryann’s perfectly laid future.
Only the Ghost Runners, a secretive group of maverick pilots operating alone outside of the military - bring hope as war rages across the galaxy.
Humanity looks to the Ghost Runners... but Ryann strives to find them first to satisfy his own thirst for revenge...
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"Amazing sci fi space opera that is Action packed from the getup..."
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Read the thrilling Heavenfield series from I.G. Hulme…
THE HEAVENFIELD SERIES:
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A war rages in the shadows for control of a terrifying new world.
But the door should never have been opened.
They're coming…
***
But hellbent on stopping them is Alexi, a hero amongst Exiles, leading his team of covert ops.
They understand the new rules of war...
In the shifting reality of the Heavenfield, fears can be made tangible and used as weapons, and subliminal messages can be triggered like bombs that alter the very reality around them.
As events spiral out of control, government agencies, clandestine military groups and supernatural forces all wage a secret war that threatens to bring the world to the very brink of destruction...
***
Hailed as a 'Modern-day Classic of Science-Fiction', the Heavenfield is the first book of the Heavenfield series.
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For artwork and information visit www.heavenfield.com.
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Contains: Violence, horror, mild drug reference, strong language.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has been made possible because of the help, support, and most of all belief from those special people around me. To my Mother & Father and Bridget for support both financial and emotional. To my family, Gemma & Annabel, for giving me the reason to write.
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