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

as the dark shape of a row of shuttles loomed up out of the smoke and flames. He tried to take a glance behind, but he couldn’t catch sight of his attacker. Another burst of gunfire shook his ship just to confirm that he hadn’t managed to lose them.

“Ryann, get back on the Serena, she’s making another run for the Ibis,” came Ashe’s urgent voice over the radio.

“I’m trying dammit!” yelled Ryann, swooping and spinning as he tried to out-turn his pursuer. He winced as a shot struck his wing, knocking him into a spin.

“Fly to mark four-zero!” cut in Mara’s voice. “We’ll cover you.”

“I’m okay dammit!” cursed Ryann. “I just need to —” His voice was lost in another explosion that erupted so close to the cockpit that a web of cracks spread ominously across the canopy.

“We’ve got you.” Mara’s assured voice crackled into his earpiece, and he caught a blur of silver straight ahead of him. Before he could react, Ashe’s Interceptor tore past, the flames from her cannons lighting up the nose of her ship. Ryann ducked instinctively as first Ashe and then Mara screamed overhead, only a couple of metres from him, and then in an instant they were gone.

“You’re all-clear Ryann,” came Ashe’s voice, and Ryann felt his hands shaking as the adrenaline coursed through his system. “Ryann? Are you okay back there?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he stuttered, still shaken up. “Thanks for getting them off my tail.”

“There’s plenty more to come,” he heard Mara laugh.

“Protect the Serena Ryann, she’s heading back out to the Ibis,” said Ashe. “Anders, how are you doing back there?”

There was a moment’s silence and Ryann held his breath as he turned his ship back towards the station.

“Anders? Anders, do you read me?”

Ryann looked all around, but he couldn’t find any other fighters amidst the densely-packed refugee fleet.

“Anders?” He heard Ashe’s concerned call once again.

To Ryann’s utter relief he made out Angelique’s voice cutting through the static.

“We’re okay,” she called over the comms, but Ryann could hear the concern in her voice. “But we’ve got trouble! Coming in at mark three-six, I think that Luminal battleship’s found its way through the Halion Belt!”

Ryann looked up to the glowing walls of the ice-field in horror. Above them, a little way beyond the Ibis he saw a dark silhouette forming in the clouds. A flash of lighting briefly illuminated the inhuman lines of the monstrous ship before plunging it back into shadow.

He heard Ashe’s voice over the comms, filled with a weary resignation.

“Okay, Mara, Ryann, form up on me. Wait for the Luminal to clear the ice-field.”

“And then what?” he heard Mara croak. “What the hell can we do against a battleship?”

“We do our best,” he heard Ashe’s grim reply.

Ryann saw the two Interceptors burst out from the maze of refugee ships heading up towards the Ibis. He turned his ship after them, quickly adjusting the frequency on his comms.

“Jean-Baptiste!” he called out frantically. “Jean-Baptiste! That Luminal battleship is almost upon us! You need to get the Ibis out of here right now!”

Grande’s voice came back faint and indistinct through the static.

“We’re almost there — we’re unloading the last of my people now!”

Ryann looked up in horror as the clouds began to part like a shroud, falling away as the vast Luminal battleship pushed through.

“Aren’t you listening?” yelled Ryann, staring up at the dark silhouette dwarfing all the other ships around it. “You need to get out of there now!”

“What the hell do we do?” croaked Mara. As they looked on, the ominous glow of the launch-tunnel began to illuminate the clouds as it opened up.

“Form up on me,” repeated Ashe in a leaden voice. “Anders, do you think you can keep the last of the drones busy?” he heard her call.

“They’re happy to follow!” came back Anders’ shout; Ryann could hear the sound of laser-fire crashing against the Marianne’s hull in the background of his transmission.

As he looked on, Ryann saw the drives of the Ibis flicker into life, and slowly she began to move off, sending the empty hulk of the Serena spinning off into space.

“Protect the Ibis,” he heard Ashe’s grim voice.

“What about the refugee fleet?” asked Mara angrily. Ryann didn’t reply, he was transfixed by the growing silhouette of the Luminal battleship as it pressed on towards them through the clouds. The light from its launch tunnel was growing in intensity, until it was almost too bright to look upon.

“There’s nothing we can do for them now,” said Ashe flatly. “The Ibis is the only one with any chance of escape.”

Ryann willed the ponderous craft on as it turned, heading out towards the gas clouds.

“Here come the fighters,” murmured Ashe. “Use our speed as our advantage and keep on my wing, we’re stronger together.”

Ryann felt a surge of nervous energy coursing through his body and his hands shook on the flight column as his finger hovered over the trigger. The ship shuddered under the strain of its engines, ready to be unleashed upon Ashe’s command.

“Get ready…”

The Luminal battleship finally broke through the gas cloud in a shower of ice crystals, and at that moment Ryann made out the silhouettes of fighter ships issuing forth from the launch-tunnel.

But something was wrong. They weren’t the familiar shapes of Luminal drones. And the battleship itself — it wasn’t the same one that he had seen before.

“Let’s go.”

Ashe’s voice was leaden as she gunned her engines, her ship surging towards the vast craft.

But Ryann just gazed on in amazement as the first of the fighters emerged.

“Stand down!” he screamed into his comms. “Ashe! Mara! Stand down! It’s the Defiance! It’s the Defiance!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CONTACT

Ryann heard the cheers of delight over the comms as he quickly took his weapons’ target offline. He watched the stream of fighters, the Ghost-Runners, as they poured from the launch-tunnel. And to his joy, there at the head of the group he spied the unmistakable lines of the old Conqueror, his father’s ship.

He yelled jubilantly as the fighters