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

the generator stack,” said Angelique as they felt the valve move a little in their hands. “It should confuse the Spiner’s scanners.”

Then suddenly the valve came free, and jets of coolant gases shot from the top of the generator. They were instantly enveloped in a thick white cloud as a cacophony of alarms split the air.

Ryann heard a mechanical scream from the other side of the hatch and a moment later it buckled inwards with a deafening crash. He fell back, stumbling to the floor wide-eyed, but through the haze he could just make out that the door still held.

He felt Angelique’s hands pulling him up to his feet, and they fled down the narrow gap between the generator stacks, running blindly through the fog.

“We need to get up to the crew-decks!” gasped Angelique in panic as they stumbled along the rows of towering machinery. “The auxiliary airlock is on B-deck — that ship will have had to dock there! Do you think it’s a search and rescue team from the Defiance?”

“Just keep going!” urged Ryann, glancing back fearfully over his shoulder. He strained his ears, but he couldn’t hear any more sounds from the Spiner above the chaos of alarms.

They came out of the generator stacks on the far side of the drive room. With a glimmer of hope, Ryann spotted the elevator entrance a little way off, and beyond it the stairs.

He went to step out into the open space but then stopped, grabbing Angelique and pulling her back into the shadows of the machinery.

An orange warning light flashed rhythmically above them, lighting up the swirling gases, and as Ryann watched in horror a dark shadow passed in front of it, a silhouette of a slender metal limb. Angelique went to speak and he pressed his hand over her mouth, pulling her down into a crouch. She followed his gaze upwards and he felt her stiffen in his arms.

There, almost directly above them stalked the nightmarish machine. The slow movements of its limbs instilled a terrible feeling of horror in them as it hung upside-down, picking its way through the tangle of pipes.

And all the time, that sinister clicking emanated from within, an insidious sound that threatened to drive Ryann into madness.

They held their breath as the grotesque creature paused momentarily, scanning this way and that through the fog with its cluster of eyes. And then it moved on, continuing its ponderous tread across the roof unable to find its prey in the swirling gas.

Angelique turned to Ryann in abject terror as the Spiner disappeared off into the fog. Ryann went to make a move, but Angelique resisted, paralysed in fear. He practically dragged her out from their hiding place, crouching low, heading for the steps as quickly as he dared.

They got no more than half-way across the open space, before a sudden boom echoed throughout the hall, and Ryann pulled up short. High above them he saw another light flash out as the elevator platform began to descend slowly towards them.

Ryann looked this way and that in disbelief. He took a step towards the elevator gantry, and then stopped again, turning back towards the cover of the generator towers.

But it was no use. Before they could even move a mechanical cry split the air and Angelique screamed, letting go of Ryann’s hand and falling backwards. She scrambled away from him, staring transfixed at the ceiling. All Ryann could do was look on as the silhouette of the Spiner’s outstretched limbs descended down towards them. There was a whine of servos as the creature lowered itself upon a steel hawser like some monstrous spider.

And then suddenly it was down, towering over Angelique as she lay prone upon the floor. She screamed again as the Spiner’s limbs reached out above her. Ryann stood only a few metres away: he could see the scarred metal plates of the Spiner’s body, and the two appendages beneath its red optics which twitched and groped like prehensile mandibles.

There was a whipping sound and a crash as the steel hawser snaked down to the floor, and then a high-pitched screech of a winch as it retracted the cable back into its body.

A burst of gunfire made Ryann jump as Angelique, still sprawled out on the floor, emptied her clip into the creature’s face at point-blank range. Shots sparked and flashed all over its metal body, but the Spiner didn’t even flinch. It merely raised its two front limbs higher over Angelique’s prone form, ready to bring them crashing down upon her.

And still Ryann couldn’t move. He felt instinctively for his rifle, then remembered he no longer had it. Time had seemed to slow as he waited impotently for the Spiner to strike. And then a slender appendage slid forward from beneath the creature’s dark body, like a spider’s venomous sting. A glow began to form at its tip, and with horror Ryann saw that it was the laser cutter, the deadly beam which had sliced the crew to pieces. He took a step forward, his heart in his mouth, expecting at any moment to see that terrible explosion of light.

But it never came.

The Spiner remained motionless, swaying slightly as it loomed over Angelique, its legs poised ready to strike.

“Ryann,” he heard Angelique breathe in terror. She was paralysed in fear, her arm still raised up over her head in a vain effort to ward off the coming blow.

Each second seemed to take an age to pass, and still the creature didn’t move.

Then, just when Ryann thought that he could take no more, there was a loud crash behind him and he thought his heart would give out.

He span around, just in time to see the elevator gates sliding open, the flashing orange light casting an eerie glow and making it hard to see through the swirling gases.

From out of the gloom stepped a group of dark figures, twelve ghostly silhouettes, each one dressed in the heavy ceramic plates of thermal armour. The bulky suits