And then, with a deep boom that tore through his ship, he came out into the vast open space at the heart of the Defiance.
The world blurred around him and he felt a pressure upon his body that threatened to crush him. He tried to cry out in pain but there was no air left in his lungs. A white light enveloped him, and then everything went black.
“Ryann, are you okay? Ryann?”
Dimly, he heard Angelique calling him.
“I, I’m okay, I think,” he mumbled drunkenly. He suddenly panicked, reaching for the flight-column, and then realised that the sound of his engines had ceased and he was floating in an eerie stillness.
“Did we do it? Did we make the jump?” He looked around, still trying to get his bearings. He gazed out of the cockpit to see a whirling mass of ships all about him as his Interceptor tumbled slowly in zero gravity. Smoke from a hundred different flaming vessels obscured his view, those ships that could be salvaged from the refugee fleet had been dragged inside the Defiance and dumped in a chaotic tangle of debris.
“We did it,” came back Grayell’s weary voice. “So far at any rate. We’re halfway across the Viridis system already.”
Ryann let his head fall back against his headrest in relief; he tried to focus on the Interceptor’s control panel but he must have taken a knock when his ship clipped the gates, as he was struggling to remain conscious.
“Stay where you are Ryann,” he heard Angelique say, her voice full of concern. “We’re coming to pick you up. Your ship took quite a pounding in the jump.”
A few minutes later Ryann was sitting aboard the Marianne wrapped in a blanket. He gazed out through the windows in disbelief as they picked their way through the chaos, heading for the Defiance’s control centre. Angelique held him tightly as he shook.
“Is this all we managed to evacuate?” he whispered, his voice cracking with the strain. He felt utterly spent now after the trials of the past few days. All he could think about was the image of Jean-Baptiste; he clutched the cold disc of the Reliquary to his chest until his knuckles were white.
“They got as many of the bigger vessels aboard as they could,” whispered Angelique, staring out into the chaos. “But there were too many ships and not enough time. They managed to evacuate most of the refugees aboard the Aurora and the Liberty, but they’re full beyond capacity.”
Ryann remained silent. He just gazed out at the remnants of what they had once so optimistically called New Eden. The cavernous open space at the heart of the Defiance now looked like the centre of a wreck-field. Hundreds upon hundreds of ships floated lifelessly, left anywhere they could fit. An area that had once housed a fighting force of a hundred ships, was now a sprawling mass of refugee vessels, all floating helplessly around the central space station.
The Marianne shuddered slightly, and Ryann looked up, shaken from his brooding thoughts. He only realised that they had landed when the loading ramp opened up to reveal the control centre’s docking bays.
Anders and Torrens came back from the cockpit, helping Angelique get Ryann out of the ship as he was still too weak to walk unaided.
He saw a blur of faces all about him, hundreds of frightened refugees crowding the loading bays. More shuttles were coming in all the time as they rescued people from ships damaged in the attacks.
Ryann smiled weakly to see his father hurrying through the crowds towards him.
“Thank god you’re safe!” exclaimed Grayell, throwing his arms around his son. He stood back, looking at him in concern.
“I’m okay,” croaked Ryann weakly.
“For a minute I didn’t think you were going to make it back there,” murmured Grayell, as he helped Ryann through the crowd.
“I didn’t hold out much hope that any of us were going to make it,” replied Angelique at their side. “When I saw that Luminal battleship powering its weapons up I thought we were all toast. We must have jumped right at the moment it fired — I swear that shot passed straight through us,” she laughed quietly. “That’s twice we’ve escaped that ship Ryann. I guess it was our lucky day.”
“Lucky?” echoed Ryann through cracked lips. “Angelique, look around you — we lost everything.”
Angelique fell silent, glancing away guiltily.
“I’m sorry Ryann, I —”
“Not everything was lost,” cut in Grayell softly, pulling Ryann to a halt as they came out of the crowds on the far side of the landing bay. “We lost many lives today it’s true,” he said sombrely. “But it could have been much, much worse. We managed to get almost a thousand refugees to safety, and we didn’t lose a single Ghost-Runner fighting ship.
“We took a beating, but we’re alive. Angelique’s right we were lucky. Especially you.”
He laughed softly to himself, shaking his head.
“No, we didn’t lose everything Ryann,” he said with a knowing smile, and nodded over to a dark corner of the landing bay. “When we followed Anders’ course back towards New Eden, we came across something that I think you’d lost. We picked her up on the way.”
In spite of his sorrow, Ryann’s heart leapt as he recognised the lines of the ship resting on the landing pad. She was blackened and burned, and covered in damage from laser-fire, but there was no mistaking the sleek silhouette of the Raven X-10.
“You salvaged her!” breathed Ryann in disbelief, taking a faltering step towards his beloved ship.
“She’ll be as good as new in no time I’m sure,” muttered Grayell, turning to Angelique who was beaming with joy.
Ryann tried to smile, but he couldn’t overcome the sadness inside. All that he could focus upon was the cold metal of the Reliquary, still clenched in his hand.
Once again, he had an image of Jean-Baptiste’s face at the
