The Shadow of the Moon-Lydia's Tale

Chapter Twenty One

They passed the dead space between the two fleets without incident, the Halout huddled over the helm of the sleek torq ship.  

Standing either side of the Halout, Lydia and Faulke studied the curtain of swarm ships massed in front of them in the starlit sky as they passed and wondered what creatures lay within their spiked hulls that could not be reached by Faulke's empathic skills. Lydia rocked slightly on her feet as the Halout, his face lit a gentle blue in the ships displays, reduced the speed of their approach.  

The great Swarm ship loomed up over them a vast, cold, dark and foreboding presence against the warm glow of the radiant sphere of Ax beyond. Gradually as they passed into the craft's shadow a feeling of disquiet filled Lydia. The planet disappeared completely and their view was dominated by the monstrous vessel and an overwhelming feeling of insignificance crept slowly over them.  

The Halout looked up, drawing in his breath, 'Just incredible. You could fit the whole of the human fleet into this ship.' They slowed and turned not far above the surface and began to track along the smooth shell of the Swarm craft. Like a moon, its surface curved away on their horizon. It's hull the colour of darkened tempered steel, offered no reflection of the stars or the navigation lights on their ship, seeming sucking in all the light around them like a black hole intent on consuming all before it. 

Faulke lent forward. 'There,' he said his finger jabbing toward the screen, 'an entrance.'  

Lydia could see a break in the polished surface ahead of them, a narrow circular entrance had opened up. The torq ship surged forward and what appeared small entrance from a distance, grew rapidly in size as they approached until they hovered over it. Below them a huge pillar of impenetrable darkness reached down into the centre of the monstrous ship. 

'Well this is it then,' said the Halout, 'in we go.'  

Looking back, Lydia caught one final glance of the fleets' behind them before the entrance slowly sealed itself engulfing them in a shroud of darkness. The Halout quickly ran his hand over the control panel bringing up a blaze of brilliant blue light around the ship.  

They had entered a colossal, high walled circular chamber. Around them reared vast carved arches of black glistening stone. Massive columns, high turrets set with huge monolithic heads in the shape of nightmarish gorgons and twisted jackals heads and scores of other-worldly beasts stared at their minuscule craft as it crawled past their cruel, taunting eyes.  

Lydia screwed up her eyes and tried to focus on the wide vaulting ceiling above them. 'Can you take us up, Halout?'  

As they approached the lights of the ship threw the reliefs on the roof into sharp detail. For a moment Lydia was confused by the rolling mass of twisted shapes. Then the realisation dawned on her, it was a representation of the dismemberment of a race of humanoid beings in its most literal, most horrifying form. Thousands of bodies writhed in agony as they were set upon a horrifying packs of disturbingly shaped beasts. The monsters, stuff of nightmares, fearsome hideously deformed things with wide snarling mouths, raw jagged teeth, tore into the seething mass -pulling limbs from bodies, tearing heads from torso's, disemboweling the wretched ranks of the fleeing. Up close, the pain and terror in the faces of the victims had been caught in such fascinating gruesome detail that she could hear the screams as they scrambled desperately over each other to escape the cull.  

'That's it, I've seen enough.' She turned away in disgust. The Halout, grim faced, nodded and dropped the ship back down into the soup of darkness below.  

For a while they flew on, following interminable corridors in a maze of giant passages, the torq ship moving steadily onward like a candle moth carrying with it its own insignificant glow in the overwhelming enormity of night.