The Journey Home: Book Two of The Lunegosse Tales

By N A Le Brun

Lunegosse (Lana for short) and her biological family are travelling to their home planet, Laterretoile. A planet that none of them have actually seen before. After facing her first battle against Le Sergeant to save her adoptive parents, Lana must now travel to the distant end of the galaxy in order to begin fulfilling an ancient prophecy from one of her ancestors.

As the Cornique family travel the many light years ahead of them, they encounter allies in their fight, and rescue others from the clutches of their enemy. Lana also has to deal with the onset of new powers, the pressure of her Matriarchal duties, and finding out information about her biological family that she didn't previously know. There are a number of surprises in store for everyone as the story unfolds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: N A Le Brun
• Release date: Dec 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370062430

N A Le Brun

N.A. Le Brun lives in London and has a passion for charity fundraising and LGBTQ rights.They have had a passion for writing since as long as they can remember and it is now that they are starting to seriously think about publishing some of the many files stored away on their computer.N.A. Le Brun focuses on stories with an element of Fantasy and/or Science Fiction and loves nothing more than to delve into worlds with characters that come to mind.

Book preview

The Journey Home

Book Two of the Lunegosse Stories

Copyright 2016 N.A. Le Brun

Published by N.A. Le Brun at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedications

This book is dedicated to the following people:

Amanda – You've continually supported my crazy endeavours and you've loved me every step of the way. Thank you for being my Tauné.

Shannan – What can I say? You are a cheer-leading force to be reckoned with and you always manage to make me smile.

Geonn – My dear man, without you none of this would be possible. You led the way and I'm following behind in my own shoes.

Kate – how many conversations have we had about various things? You've been my distraction through many stressful nights. Thank you.

Prologue

Hi, it's me again, Lana (Lunegosse). So much has happened to me since I first wrote to you that I hardly know where to begin. So how about I make do with some idle chitchat to begin with and see where we end up? I turned seventeen just last week and apparently Mémé seems to think it's a big deal, although I keep telling her that next year's the big one, but she obviously thinks different. You know what grandparents are like - any excuse to spoil you. With Mémé though I think she wants to be able to treat me as a normal teenager, as if that could ever happen! 'Normal' is not a thing I'll ever be and neither will you. I used to strive to be 'normal', to fit in with the girls at school and not to be 'gifted'. But that's never going to be the case and I've accepted that. It's something you too will have to accept in time. You are part of a family who hold much power and control, as you take your place as ruler of Laterrétoile you need to know that balance is everything, you need to listen to the people you govern, but at the same time you need to know when to say no. Power is a great thing when used correctly, you are there to serve and protect, but also to lead to the best of your abilities. I know that I may sound like a preachy old relative, (I'd have hated to be spoken to like this at your age) but it's the truth. Until I battled The Sergeant and Caporal Le Selleur for the first time, I refused to accept my destiny. Anyway, I don't want to bore you with all the details of Mum and Dad's capture as I told you about that in the last letter.

Maman's finding it all a bit hard to deal with at the moment in all honesty. She still can't get over the fact that we've left Jersey. Or that two and a half years ago she was still watching me grow up through photographs. She keeps walking around the ship at night and crying. I think, no, I know that she can't accept that her daughter is not only the pre-destined saviour of her ancestors' home planet, but also the Matriarch of the family and may one day become the ruler of Laterrétoile, a place we have never seen. I'm still having problems with the whole ruler thing but the matriarchal role is another thing that I have come to accept. I know I said I'd accepted my destiny, and it's true, I have but only as far as the impending finale against The Sergeant goes. Looking out for the interests of people who have had more life experience than me is kinda daunting and ruling a planet? Well let's just say that I find it scary. But then I'm skipping ahead of myself.

As I said I've just turned seventeen, and in all honesty I feel no different than I did when I was sixteen and first began writing to you. Kara keeps saying I'll see how different I am, Tim just smiles at Monique and me. Talking of my aunt, Monique never knows exactly what's going on at any given moment. I know I said that Maman's been crying a lot, but that's recent, Monique's been crying on and off since we left Jersey. I think that she's still suffering the after effects of her first encounter with The Sergeant, let alone what's happened in the meantime. It couldn't have been easy for her to escape and in all honesty even though she's on our ship, and she knows that she is safe, it's taking its toll on my biological mother's twin. Kara is constantly giving me health checks; in fact although I told her to increase everybody's from monthly to weekly, she's doing mine every other day. Monique's health checks keep on showing psychological trauma, for her sake I hope the war ends soon. You know those nightmares you get where you feel fine in the day and then when it comes to going to sleep again you don't want the light turned off? That's how Monique's trauma manifested - she was doing a lot better on the ground. Now we're back on the ship, the nightmare has become real again. The day that we took off was the last day I was able to have physical contact with my adoptive family and it's etched into my memory as if a laser had transferred the whole thing onto a DVD.

Chapter 1 - New beginnings once more

As we left Jersey and the ship took off into the depths of space, I watched from the bridge as Mum, Dad, James, John, Sam and Catharine sped out of sight. First becoming the size of ants and then specks of dust before I could see them no more. Mum crying into Dad's shoulder was a painful sight to see, and it's the one that I see every night as I shut my eyes after crawling into bed. My heart tore in two at that moment. As I looked at my fading family and the island I had always known as home I wondered if I would ever see any of them again. I wanted to cry but couldn't. It was like someone had shut off my tear ducts and my throat was compensating by closing itself off into a narrow tube that made it intensely difficult to swallow.

Looking around the bridge of the ship for the first time I was shocked to see none of the Star Trek style equipment that had been aboard Le Selleur's ship. In fact it looked more like a living room than anything else, armchairs and coffee tables everywhere. I had again moved to a new home, and wasn't feeling too happy about it. The ship may have been called Victoire, which is French for victory, but it felt more like prison than anything nearing the meaning of its name. Admittedly it had been decked out to resemble as best as possible the original family home of Mémé and her family - by that I mean the one above ground, not the network of caverns that had constituted La Grotte, but that was in room décor only. The fact that looking through the glass onto the outside universe proved that it was anything other than home was enough for me. At least living in La Grotte gave you the knowledge that there was a world outside that you could in theory go up to at any given moment. Being on the Victoire was like being inside a car when you have to travel from one end of England to the other and your parents refuse to stop for a toilet break. All it needed was bars across the glass and you would have a low security high tech prison. It didn't help that Monique was sat in a gigantic cream armchair sobbing louder than I had ever heard anyone sob before. This was definitely the weirdest thing that I had encountered in my life as a Magique so far. I mean yes I'd been on a space ship before and yes I had lived in an underground network of caves for months, but now I was in charge of everybody on the ship, expected to lead us to triumph and above all to know exactly what I was doing in the process! Did I mention the fact that it felt like prison? Oh this was not the way I had planned to lead my life. In fact I had wanted to become a teacher or a doctor or someone who helped people in some way or other. I know that I will be fulfilling that dream in some form, but coupled with my pre-destined conquests ahead of me, come on! I mean I at least wanted to be able to keep my feet on the ground and stay on one planet whilst doing so! I know, I'm whining again, but I promise that my whining serves a purpose. I want you to see the real me, not the reports of who I am and what I did, but who I really am. I want you to know, that just like you, I have feelings and fears and in all honesty never wanted this job in the first place. I found my family and with that achieved the biggest desire of my life, but satisfying desires often comes with consequences and me having my destiny mapped out is probably the biggest consequence of all. Anyway as is normal for me I'm going off the point.

*

It wasn't long before we had travelled into the depths of space. If you think NASA has that whole travelling into space at record time thing down well think again. I marvelled at the beauty of the constellations and planets as they sped past the portholes and we delved further and further into the universe. Soon we had left our own galaxy; in fact I think we had pretty much left the known universe behind. As Mémé walked into the room, I couldn't help but ask:

Mémé how come we're moving so fast and yet I have none of my usual travel sickness and well, you know, the whole gravity thing. I mean I'm pretty sure that no artificial gravity mechanism could work at this speed and for the time we've been travelling so far. She just looked at me and smiled.

Lunegosse, my darling. You must be letting your emotions control your thoughts. You are a Magique, ma chéri and you know within yourself that technology isn't always the answer to a question. Science is advanced in many areas, but it has not yet conquered the barriers that we have through…

Magic. I cut her short. I was an idiot! Of course it had to be magic. Had I spent the ten months under ground, learning who I am for nothing? I could have died from embarrassment at the extent of my stupidity.

Lana, I think you should go to bed. You've been up for hours and today's been a stressful day for us all. Maman had entered the bridge.

Maman, I couldn't. There's too much to do and I can't sleep until you are all asleep anyway. I'm the Matriarch and it's all part and parcel of the package. Perhaps I should make sure everyone's sleeping arrangements are sorted. I headed out of the room and along the corridor into the lift that led to the sleeping quarters. If sleep had been an option, at that point I probably would have taken it. I suddenly knew what Mum meant when she said she couldn't sleep until every single one of us was tucked up in bed.

*

The sleeping quarters were a series of rooms, all within close proximity. The lack of privacy within the corridor could have been a problem had it not been for the fact that each bedroom had its own en-suite bathroom. It's not so much the fact that I mind sharing a bathroom, I had done up until that point, but when I was with Mum and Dad, my uncle hadn't constantly borrowed my toiletries (Tim spends so much time styling his hair that if we only had two bathrooms, all of us girls would have bathed and got ready an hour before him)! Maman and Monique were and still are sharing a room, although we have enough rooms for everyone, and more besides, it's more to do with the fact that Monique rarely sleeps unless someone else is present and on board this has become vital. I felt that it was best for her to have company at all times, and placing her with her twin seemed the most logical thing to do as Mémé would have been up watching her all night if they were sharing, and Kara couldn't handle the responsibility as she was still dealing with the break-up from her boyfriend. Next to Maman and Monique's room is Tim's. He always kept the door open, even at night. In fact he still does. I think he's lost some of his self-confidence with the move and everything. He definitely isn't walking with the same bounce in his step. Kara ran a health check on him when we came aboard, and she says that it's nothing unusual, just that he seems to have reverted to his childhood insecurity of monsters in the dark. I can understand that, I mean this whole move thing is an upheaval for us all and even though Tim is in his thirties, he has always been the most insecure of the group according to Mémé. Add to that the whole possibility of attack from the most evil being in the universe thing and it really doesn’t surprise me that he’s reacting this way. The neighbouring room on the other side is Kara's. It has an adjoining door to Tim's, which means that she can keep an eye on him for me. Across the corridor are mine and Mémé's rooms. Mémé's room always has the door ajar, but unlike Tim, Mémé keeps her door open so that anyone could walk in and talk to her or wake her in an emergency. My room is much the same as it had been in La Grotte. Except here there are power points for my laptop and hi-fi and other electrical equipment and it is at least three times larger. There are built in cupboards that I had already designated for different things, shelves all over the place, and so much storage space it seemed ridiculous. Looking at the cardboard boxes on my floor and the suitcases, I realised that I did not have enough belongings to fill the space. But owing to my incessant hoarding skills that probably wasn't a bad thing. I took a deep breath and began unpacking.

The first box I opened was the one-labelled La and Catty. I looked around for a shelf big enough to place the contents of the box on as one. For some reason that I couldn't explain, I wanted them all together. I found that there wasn't one big enough and chose a set of two shelves that had others below and above them where I could put photographs. Each item was unwrapped carefully from its newspaper sheet and placed on the shelves. Stupid little things made me cry, and I found things that when I had packed I hadn't really thought about. Including a jewellery box that Catharine had made me one Christmas when I was about twelve. She had a delicate hand and was definitely gifted with arts and crafts. Catharine had made the box out of wood and a set of iron hinges and had decorated it with shells she had collected on one of our many beach walks. Then she had covered it in a layer of fine varnish. Inside was a pull out shelf divided into compartments and the bottom was divided as well. It contained every item of jewellery she had ever made for or given to me. Including the charm bracelet and all of its many charms. All apart from the charm she had given me, which at the moment sat in the pocket of the jeans I was wearing. I took it from my pocket, opened the jewellery box and retrieved the bracelet, attached the charm to one of its empty links and put it around my wrist. I made a vow to myself and to Catharine that I would never take it off. The bracelet became a symbol of the life I had left behind, and its link to the life I would now be living. I wear it on my right wrist next to the bracelet from Maman, again, more jewellery I will never take off. Some things in life hold more value close to your heart than placed somewhere for safekeeping.

It took me about an hour to unwrap and position the items from the box and when I finished I paused for a moment. My Matriarchal senses kicked into gear and I mentally sought out the life forces of my family. Mémé was asleep in her room. As much as I hate to admit it (not to mention she'd kill me for saying it), but I think that her age is