“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
