‘When should I set out?’ the Prador adolescent asked Speaker.

‘Vrell, you will leave immediately.’

The three blanks sitting waiting by the forecabin wall abruptly rose to their feet. Vrell studied them for a long moment before turning his back towards them and squatting. He felt a weird twisting in his back end as they clambered on to his shell and took a firm hold on the rim.

Speaker snapped her attention up to Drum. ‘Hard to port and full speed,’ she said.

‘I hear and obey,’ said Drum, and spun the helm.

Speaker regarded him intently. Drum still kept his face free of expression as he opened up the throttle and the ship surged towards the distant Convocation fleet. Speaker turned back to Vrell. ‘Now, I said.’

Vrell moved to the place where he had torn the rail away while boarding, and launched himself over the side. He hit the water with a huge splash, and one of the blanks lost his grip, clawed at slick shell, and fell into the sea. Vrell observed the blank kicking at the water as he tried to recover a grip. The blank went under, came to the surface again. Grabbing the man with one claw, Vrell hauled him up and back on to the carapace. The man slid down again, but finally managed to cling on, but with his legs trailing in the sea. In the water around his legs, there started frantic movement, but his face registered no expression.

Vrell turned and sculled for the shore, and in doing so experienced a strange surge of emotion. He felt glad he was no longer on the ship. Twenty metres further away, sudden red fire flung Vrell’s shadow across the sea. He turned for a moment to see smoke gusting from the ship’s deck, needled through with bars of laser light. He turned for the shore again and sculled faster, an exhilarated but guilty feeling shuddering through his body. Perhaps if he didn’t look, he would have no reason to go back.

Something flashed in the sky, and a projector mounted at the prow of the ship began to hum. Further laser strikes were abruptly shielded from the smouldering deck timbers. Drum tilted his head slightly and saw lights flickering above, and fast-moving shapes blackly silhouetted against the sky. That machine on the prow had to be a flat-shield projector. He lowered his gaze and observed the blank at the console tapping in instructions. The missile turret at the stern of the ship swivelled and began to cough out missiles from a spinning carousel. White fire lit the sky, and behind it flashed lines of red incandescence.

Speaker, who had been staring upwards, brought her attention down to Drum again for a moment, then across to the blank seated at the console. That blank was punching out further instructions. Speaker turned, as if jerked round, and walked over to the aft hatch. She lifted it and started to climb down. Drum grinned and pulled back on the throttle. When it didn’t move, he swore and put on more pressure — but the metal handle snapped off in his hand. He cast the handle aside, then seized hold of the rest of the control and tore it from its optic cable. The ship still did not slow.

‘Bugger,’ said Drum.

At this, the blank on the deck below him abruptly turned from the screen and picked up the weapon propped against the console. Drum swore again, and ducked as purple fire lit the air, and both the front rail and helm exploded into splinters. Lying on the cabin-deck, by what remained of the rail, Drum peered over the edge to see the blank stand up and begin moving back towards him. He had few options: diving over the side, which would lead to a slower and more painful death than that the weapon would provide — or he’d have to try for said weapon. He edged back, in readiness to fling himself down on the approaching blank, but then the back corner of the forecabin exploded and the deck he was on sagged, suddenly sliding him toward the main deck. He halted himself by bringing his feet down what remained of the helm’s column.

‘A full coring would have been a much more efficient option,’ said the blank, aiming the weapon casually from his waist. Drum realized that it did not matter how casually the weapon was aimed, as even an indirect hit would kill him.

‘You really think you can get away from here, Prador!’ Drum yelled. ‘The Warden’ll tear you apart!’

‘That will not be your concern,’ said the blank.

There were three distinct cracks followed by a low snarl. A steel staple went skittering across the smouldering deck, then something long and pink, ending in a head full of charcoaled teeth, swung out from the mast. The blank had time only to look up at a black silhouette against the burning sky. The sail bit down hard and shook. The blank’s body fell to the deck and the sail raised itself up and spat the head into the sea.

‘Good job!’ Drum yelled, sliding down the sagging roof and leaping on to the main deck.

The sail blew disgustedly through its lips, as if it didn’t like the taste of what it had just bitten off. As Drum stepped forward, it glared at him then lunged. Drum dropped down with his forearms across his face — then gradually parted them when he realized he wasn’t about to lose his head too. The sail had halted with its snout half a metre from his face. Exposing its charred teeth, it snarled at him, then tried to speak.

‘Whas my names?’ it hissed, the stub of the tongue Shib had removed waving obscenely in the back of its mouth.

‘Anything you like,’ said Drum.

‘Goods,’ said the sail. ‘You wisl caulss me Winscasher.’ The sail turned away from him and sniffed the air. ‘Thiss ships nots neesd me.’

Drum edged past the creature and took up the weapon the blank had dropped. He inspected the controls then glanced to the aft hatch. He looked then at the turret still spitting out bursts of missiles, the shield projector swivelling to intercept incoming fire, then he gazed far out to sea. At this rate, it would not take very long at all to close in on the Convocation fleet.

‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said, and pointed the weapon at the deck.

As soon as he reached the beach Vrell shrugged the blanks from his back and inspected the scrapes made on his carapace by the questing mouths of leeches. None of them had been able to get through his armour. Vrell then turned his attention to the three blanks. One of them was lying on the sand.

‘Why is this unit not standing?’ Vrell asked, and received no reply. His father’s attention had to be concentrated elsewhere at that moment. Vrell tried not to study too closely the surge of gladness he felt at that. Deliberately not looking out to sea he concentrated his attention on the fallen blank instead, and soon ascertained the reason for the human’s difficulties: the flesh had been stripped away from the lower half of his body.

‘Follow,’ said Vrell to the other two and led them into the dingle. Had the Prador adolescent looked behind just once, he would have seen the flashes of purple fire from the Ahab, and seen the ship foundering. The blank he left behind still kept trying to stand up under the instruction of his thrall unit. Instead, his fleshless legs collapsed under him every time.

Through the eyes of its four enforcer drones the Warden watched as they tried to get past the shield projector on the Ahab. The images it received were hazed with smoke, flashbacks, and the explosions of the missiles that the screen intercepted.

‘APW fire!’ shouted SM7.

‘Not at us, you idiot,’ SM12 replied. ‘Eight and Nine, I want you to go in low over the sea, from the rear. You may get a window opened near that missile launcher. Use rail-guns to try to put a hole in the hull.’

‘Moving in,’ replied the two SMs, and soon the Warden had a clear view of them hammering in over the sea. Something cut a huge shadow above them for a moment.