In a few moments, he was easing the pod away from its docking port and out into the vast open space of the Defiance’s interior. He picked his way through the chaos of the refugee fleet where columns of black smoke still rose up from a few of the vessels. Everywhere was movement and frantic activity. Ghost-Runner ships, alongside automated utility vessels were attempting to tow the hundreds of craft into some sort of order. Already, many of the larger ships were anchored to the central station, with the smaller craft branching out from them. They had cleared a corridor to the exit tunnel now, so that the Ghost-Runner fighters could launch if necessary. But at present the towering gates were sealed shut.
He found himself coming out of the main concentration of ships, and as their numbers thinned he spied the far interior wall of the Defiance through the smoke and gloom. He steered the little maintenance vessel towards an orange light that blinked rhythmically, marking one of the many utility docking ports.
Several minutes later, Ryann found himself high up on the outer hull of the Defiance, looking out from an observation window. He had a spectacular view of the cratered surface of the broken moon, and there, tantalisingly close, the Luminal wreck beyond.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A SONG OF THE DEAD
The observation window gave Ryann a panoramic view of the broken moon. Its lava flows cast a fiery glow and clouds of smoke belched from its torn and ravaged surface.
And there, dominating the scene like some vast monolith, was the towering shape of the Luminal wreck. Its hull had split in two, revealing the torn floors of hundreds of interior levels, like a cross-section through some immense city.
Far from being a lifeless derelict as his father had suggested, waves of electricity still played intermittently over its obsidian hull.
Ryann stared in fascination, awestruck. He thought he could make out rooms and corridors in the brief electrical flashes of the dying ship.
He was drunk with a desire to walk those corridors, to touch the hull he had felt such a connection to, that he had obsessed over for almost three years.
The sound of the woman’s voice in the transmission went around in his head, over and over. The fear, stark in her every word had taken hold of him; no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t reconcile his hatred for the vessel that had destroyed his homeworld with that frightened voice.
He peered through the dust cloud, straining to discern any more detail.
He rubbed his tired eyes. For a moment he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a figure standing upon the precipice of a ruptured floor level. He squinted, wiping at the condensation from his breath upon the window.
A light flashed briefly on and off and he was certain that he spied the figure once again. There was too much cloud and debris floating in the chasm between the two craft to get a better view, but he was sure that it was the woman that he had seen in his dreams; she seemed to glow, illuminating the darkness with a pale blue phosphorescence. The light flashed on and off once more — three short flashes as though she were signalling him with a flashlight.
But then, a wave of vapour billowed up from the boiling surface of the moon, entwining the great wreck like a shroud, obscuring it from view.
Ryann stepped back from the window in shock, the spell broken. Instinctively, he turned towards the docking bay, eager to return to his father and convey the news of his discovery.
But then he paused, as the familiar wave of anger washed over him at the memory of their latest argument, and he turned back towards a nearby airlock door. He found himself perfectly balanced, paralysed with indecision. He looked back out across the boiling clouds to the ephemeral shape of the Luminal derelict.
With a quiet curse, he strode over to a locker beside the airlock and grabbed an emergency helmet from the rack. He pulled it roughly over his head, hearing a hiss of air as it sealed against the collar ring of his flight suit. He punched in an access code to the weapons cabinet alongside the locker and pulled out a rifle and a handful of energy packs. Clipping the gun to the back of his suit, he opened up the inner airlock door and stepped inside.
He closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing, blocking out the racing thoughts in his mind. If he couldn’t take a shuttle to that Luminal, then he would have to find another way. All the different voices competed to be heard. He imagined Angelique’s disbelief as she argued with him for being so reckless — such an immature young boy! And Mellarnne’s voice — he would be serious, overly-cautious, old. Just like his father: dismissive in that tone designed solely to humiliate, to keep him in his place.
Ryann heard the air being drawn from the airlock as it depressurised — the red light flashing rhythmically along to a warning tone.
He wasn’t being naive, he thought desperately. Reckless perhaps, but he knew that he would never get a chance like this again. He was so close. That Luminal ship could hold the key to understanding everything about them. Hadn’t his father been reckless? When he reached out to make contact with that luminous being he and Mellarnne had taken aboard their ship at the very beginning of all of this. But hadn’t that act proved fundamental in their understanding of this enemy? There were so many more questions that needed answering
