“It’s taking them onboard,” croaked Ryann. And indeed, as they watched, the Luminal ship slipped silently over the helpless Patroller. The little craft disappeared into the open slit, along with the surrounding debris. And then the door slid shut and the light was cut off.
Ryann could barely breathe as he watched the Luminal craft for its next move.
To his horror, he saw it adjust course, turning straight towards them, wrecks and debris being pushed lazily aside as it came on.
“Ryann,” croaked Angelique in fear. “What do we do Ryann?”
“It doesn’t know we’re here,” he whispered, transfixed upon the display-screen as the towering ship came on, filling their view.
“You can’t know that — we need to make a run for it!” cursed Angelique, grabbing Ryann’s shoulder. He span around, staring wildly into her eyes.
“It doesn’t know where we are!” he spat, a look of madness twisting his face before he turned back to the screen.
It was like watching the inevitable approach of a tidal wave, as entire ships were piled up against the bows of the Luminal ship and then tossed aside like children’s toys.
It was almost upon them now, a moving mountain.
“If we power up our systems to run, they’ll find us — trust me.” Ryann’s hand gripped tightly on to Angelique where she held his shoulder. “Trust me,” he repeated, and together they watched in horror as the wave of wrecks finally broke upon them.
Like some slow-motion catastrophe, the first hulks crashed into the side of the star-liner in which they hid.
Ryann held tightly on to Angelique as their ship lurched violently, and a series of booms and crashes echoed throughout the hull. He had a brief view of the towering mass of the Luminal ship bearing down upon them, before his viewport was filled with a tangle of grinding metal.
They span over and over, tossed about in the wreckage of the star-liner until they thought they could bear no more. Deafening booms echoed throughout the hull as the ship threatened to break apart.
“Angelique!” cried out Ryann as she lost her footing and slipped down into the open space in front of his chair. Ryann clutched at her arm as she hung over the edge, pulled this way and that amid a hail of flying debris.
Crash after crash threatened to drive them to madness.
And then nothing.
For a moment, all Ryann could do was focus upon the ringing in his ears; the silence seemed deafening.
He heaved Angelique back up to his side and she collapsed against him gasping.
Together they watched through the viewport as the mass of debris began to drift apart, spinning slowly off into space to reveal the Luminal warship moving ponderously away from them, continuing its slow, destructive journey through the wreck-field.
Neither of them spoke as they watched the vast ship recede into the distance, debris still spiralling out behind in its wake.
It seemed to take an age for it to reach the outskirts of the field, and still neither of them dared to move, gripped by a fear that the craft would turn around and continue its search for them.
But slowly, it came to a halt, and stayed there, hanging upon the edge of the wreck-field like some ominous bird of prey.
CHAPTER FOUR
DEAD IN SPACE
“How are you feeling?” asked Ryann in concern as he placed the dressing pack over Angelique’s cut forehead.
“Sick to my stomach; and with the worst hangover imaginable — after having none of the fun.” She winced as Ryann wiped the dried blood from her face.
“It’s okay, I’m fine now,” she muttered, pushing him away.
“The painkillers should kick in soon,” replied Ryann, self-consciously packing away the first-aid kit. “Though you might be a bit concussed, so just take things easy for a while.”
“Is that an attempt at a joke?” sighed Angelique as she pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. She looked around again in disbelief at the chaos of the cabin; the Raven didn’t look much different to the rest of the wreck-field now.
“It’s no surprise that Luminal didn’t spot us,” she muttered; she could scarcely believe that they were still alive. “Oh well, come on, we need to get started.”
They spent the next hours trying to stabilise what they could of their beloved ship. The hull had been breached in numerous places by the pounding that they had taken from the Patroller, but being tossed about in the wake of the Luminal battleship had been the final straw.
They had managed to section off the cabin and patch all its leaks, but the rest of the ship had depressurised and they’d lost their primary and reserve air tanks. They had worked for eight hours straight, trying to get their drives back online, all to no avail. Main power was out, and auxiliary batteries wouldn’t last now that the solar arrays had been destroyed. Life-support was fried, and they estimated they had about another two hours air left in the cabin. They were dead in the water.
“How are the comms looking?” asked Ryann awkwardly. Out of sheer desperation they were beginning to think that trying to raise a distress signal was their only hope now. But they knew in their hearts it would be suicide to risk any transmission with that Luminal ship still hovering upon the edge of the wreck-field, an ominous sentry, watching, waiting.
“Angelique? I said how are the comms looking?”
“I heard you! Fried like the rest of the damn ship!” she snapped without looking around. She lay on her back, half-hidden inside an open panel beside the navigation-station, her arms buried in a tangle of disgorged wires.
Ryann stood looking on impotently. He had done everything that he could think of, but beyond blocking up air-leaks and putting out electrical fires, he was out of his depth.
“Try it again now,” ordered Angelique from the depths of the navigation console.
“The comms?” asked Ryann hesitantly.
He saw Angelique’s body tense and she dragged herself out from the tangle of wires turning on him with a look of fury.
“Dammit Ryann!” she yelled as he
