Eden's Mirror: (LUMINA Book 2) by I.G. Hulme (interesting novels to read txt) 📕

turned to Ryann wide-eyed, the fear stark upon her features. They remained motionless, as down below them, they saw a shadow appear upon the wall of the drive room. A long, spindly limb reached out in a slow, careful movement, and then another, and another, like the shadow of some monstrous clawed hand reaching out. And then the body of the Spiner came into view as it crawled silently along the wall, its legs spanning the gap to the nearest combustion chamber.

Ryann felt the cold sweat dripping down his back. He stared unmoving as the Spiner made its slow, deliberate progress, barely five metres below them. Its cluster of optics scanned the shadows this way and that.

The Spiner stopped suddenly, and Ryann felt his heart pounding in his chest. There was another stream of pulses from the machine, and then its optics suddenly swivelled in their mounts turning straight towards them.

“It’s seen us!” cursed Ryann, the fear snatching at his words. “Go!”

He pushed Angelique forwards and they dragged themselves across the grill panel as the Spiner gave out a terrifying screech of distorted pulses that sounded like some bestial scream. In an instant they heard the sound of its clawed legs driving into the metal as it pulled itself towards them, running up the walls.

“Go! Go!” screamed Ryann, and the grill burst open behind them as the Spiner crashed through the floor of the shaft. They fled for their lives, pulling themselves through the darkness on their hands and knees as the shaft erupted into chaos behind them. The Spiner tore and stabbed at the metal, tearing the floor open as it tried desperately to reach them, flailing wildly with its limbs.

The shaft erupted with light as the Spiner’s cutting laser seared through the walls, cutting the shaft in two, and Ryann felt a wave of heat at his back. He pointed his rifle behind him, blindly firing burst after burst, the noise deafening in the confined space. And then his gun fell silent, the magazine emptied. But he didn’t look back. He just dragged himself on in blind panic, expecting at any moment to feel the Spiner’s claws catch hold of him.

But thankfully the sound quickly receded as Ryann and Angelique raced on together. They could still hear the Spiner following behind them, but it was obviously too large to move quickly in such a confined space. The sound of its mechanical clicks and screeches echoed down the shaft as it continued to scan for them.

And then suddenly, all went quiet, and Ryann didn’t know which was worse, those inhuman calls or that terrible stillness, a silence that threatened to be torn away at any moment.

“Here! Down here!” hissed Angelique, the fear snatching at her words. Before he knew it, Ryann was tumbling out of an inspection hatch to find himself lying beside Angelique in an empty corridor.

He heaved himself to his feet, unable to think, just grabbing Angelique’s hand and pulling her up, desperate to run, anywhere, as long as it was away from that monster.

“No, this way!” he heard Angelique call out. “The drive rooms should be just down here!” She pulled him quickly down the corridor, stooping to avoid the pipes that clustered along the ceiling.

As they ran a sudden sound cut the air. It was a mournful, low screeching of metal, and as it rang throughout the ship Ryann felt the corridor shudder beneath his feet.

They both came to a sudden halt, Angelique turning back to Ryann, her face full of hope.

“That sounded like —”

“A ship,” breathed Ryann, finishing Angelique’s sentence. As if to affirm their hopes a great boom reverberated through the hull, the unmistakeable sound of a vessel docking alongside, the throb of its engines rattling the pipes in the corridor. “We’re saved.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE SPIDER'S WEB

“We need to get to the upper levels!” exclaimed Angelique, turning and heading off once more down the corridor at a run. “If we can find some stairs up to —”

Her voice trailed off as she pulled up to a sudden halt.

Ryann looked around in dismay; they had come out into the cathedral-like space of the drive room. The hall stretched off into the distance, the immense generators and combustion chambers towering over them.

“This isn’t good,” he muttered anxiously. He looked up to the ceiling and made out the torn-open maintenance shaft where they had been attacked by the Spiner only minutes before. “We do not want to be out in the open if that thing catches up with us!”

“Look, over there!” hissed Angelique, pointing to the far wall and an exposed elevator shaft. A set of steps beside it zig-zagged their way up to a high walkway.

“We better be quick! That Spiner can’t be far behind us.” He went to pull Angelique down a narrow row between two generator stacks but she resisted, searching around frantically. Letting go of his hand, she ran over to a control panel on the nearest bank of equipment.

“Angelique! We need to get moving!” hissed Ryann, glancing back towards the dark mouth of the corridor.

“I know! Just give me a second!” she replied, peering at the mass of valves and switches that controlled the generator stack. “Here!” she exclaimed, tracing the pipes that led off from the control panel with her fingers. She began frantically heaving at the valves, wrenching them open one-by-one.

“Hurry up!” whispered Ryann as he heard a series of crashes echoing along the corridor they had come down. He quickly swung the hatch closed, but its locking bolts had been burned through like all the others. With a curse he jammed his empty rifle into the mechanism, hoping it might at least slow the Spiner down. “It’s coming!”

“Then help me!” spat Angelique, struggling to get one of the valves open. Ryann paused in a moment of indecision, staring longingly across the hall towards the stairs, then stepped forwards, grabbing the valve with her.

“If we can get these open it should vent all the coolant gases from