The sight made Men’he think of a huge grazebeast carcass, stuffed full of firecrackers and t’pre’ta decorations. It bucked and shivered from the inside, a living fire eating away at its flesh and leaving only the brittle, charred skeleton beneath.

“Kor’o? Their life support and weapons are down.”

“Good. Signal the Sio’l Shi’el’teh to finish the job. We’re rejoining the Or’es Tash’var.”

“Very good, Kor’o.”

The Tel’ham Kenvaal swung away from the hapless warship and accelerated towards the centre of the engagement zone. On all sides the toothy slabs of the gue’la fleet were outmanoeuvred and overrun by the smaller tau vessels, innumerable fighters and attack craft vying for superiority in the abyssal spaces in between. A latticework of munitions and missiles laced the voidspace, glimmering jewels that flickered and blossomed or winked out abruptly. Men’he silently thanked the earth caste for their breathtakingly intelligent computers, at a loss to understand how the gue’la could even begin to decipher such complex tactical showdowns without the benefit of automated systems.

Manpower, he supposed. A hundred thousand humans for every tau in the galaxy — that was the current intelligence estimate. Each of those ugly angular warships was a world, a population of servile ratings and crew without a single freedom beyond the ability to worship their cruel, blinkered gargoyle-god. Every missile fired at them, every fusion capsule shredding its atoms in a purple welt of radiation and fire, was genocide on his part. It was a sobering thought.

The Or’es Tash’var, battered hull dappled with soot patches and protruding boarding craft, circled the Enduring Blade slowly. The two vessels, prow-to-prow, moved around one another like veteran prize fighters, each unwilling to present broadsides for fear of absorbing as much damage as they might inflict. Thus stalemated, they gyrated ponderously, twisting and rolling but always matching one another’s movements; a slow, graceless dance of death, speckled by the furious fighter engagements all around. Torpedoes twisted and left dissolving ribbon trails across the nothingness, drones capered in a dizzying spiral to intercept or attack, chunks of debris and crippled fighter craft turned languidly and bodies, bloated and pulverised and frozen and crushed, slapped like brittle icicles against the Kenvaal’s hull. Men’he shook his head, revolted.

“Target the engines,” he grunted to the gunnery kor’el.

“They’re backing off, Kor’o. I have no firing solution.”

They saw us coming... Signal the Or’es Tash’var. Tell them to take the toroq side, we’ll go juntas. We have to kill those engines.”

“It’s too late, Kor’o... the gue’la are pulling away.”

“Pursu—”

“Kor’o — The surveyor drones make report...”

Men’he frowned. “And?”

“Some sort of energy peak. Standby...”

“Where? I want a location.”

“The gue’la warship, Kor’o. Aft segment.”

The comm chimed.

“O’Men’he? This is Aun’el Ko’vash. I suggest you pull back somewhat...”

“Of course, Aun’el. What’s happening?”

“It would appear our little gambit paid off, Kor’o.”

“Aun’e—?”

“Prepare to engage, Kor’o. They’ll be helpless in moments.”

Men’he glanced bemusedly at the viewscreen. The Enduring Blade seemed to shudder abruptly, the bright lights glimmering across its continental surfaces dimmed and winked off before rising again in an angry crimson luminescence. The stabilising thrusters on its belly — volcanic vents oozing a myriad of smoggy emissions and crackling energies — flared briefly, bringing the unwieldy shape to a premature halt.

Men’he carefully pulled back the Kenvaal to match the distance of the Tash’var and watched, astonished.

“Aun’el?” he commed. “What’s it—”

The engines exploded.

In one bright moment the scaffold arrays and tiered buttresses arranged around the Enduring Blade’s bulging engine vents plumed and shredded, a snaking chain reaction billowing up from beneath like pus from a wound. It spilled over in a garish torus of effervescent gases and vacuum starved flames, pulverising entire decks and fragmenting the rear sections of the vessel. The engine stacks heaved from their bases upwards as though expelling a final breath, long ribbons of mangled machinery and blocky architecture blasting clear from the wreckage.

“Bloodwind...” Men’he hissed beneath his breath, forgetting himself.

A kor’vre trilled calmly, “Brace for debris.”

The Tel’ham Kenvaal shuddered lightly as shards of fused, atomised detritus bounced from its hull. Gun drones quickly and efficiently atomised any potentially threatening wreckage.

Men’he stared at the devastation and gaped. The immobilised vessel swung around from the force of the detonations, the pathetic remaining thrusters venting impotently to control the gyration.

“O’Men’he?” the comm said, startling him from his astonishment.

“Y-yes? Uh, yes, Aun’el?”

“I rather think that should slow them down. Focus on their juntas-side batteries, please. I want them crippled.”

Librarian Delpheus felt the detonation all around him. Deep in the heart of the Enduring Blade its concussive force shook everything, roaring throughout the cavernous techbay which Ardias and his sergeants had commandeered. For a moment he was sure the walls themselves palpitated, a shuddering vibration running the length and breadth of the craft. He saw a ruby wet gut inside his mind, peristaltic waves of muscle contractions dragging him closer to digestion.

He shook his head, annoyed at the lack of focus. A thousand psychic screams churned across the ether, a final painful legacy of those who had died in the blast.

He sagged into a seat in the small console arena at one end of the tech-bay, watching as dust scurried tiredly from the duct courses around the ceiling, making the coils and loops of cables sway and buckle. A small illuminator on the wall, glowing with the angry red ochre of emergency conditions, spat sparks and clanked to the deck. The entire ship rumbled.

Captain Ardias scowled, clinging to a stanchion nearby. He’d led his command team from the Marines’ reclusium cells into the main sections of the ship, hoping to find a means of monitoring events vessel-wide. Delpheus’s psychic senses had led them unerringly to this techbay, finding within a group of tech-priests that cowered at one end of the chamber, chanting purifying litanies over a bewildering array of machines and metallic constructions.

“What was that?” Ardias growled, shooting an inquisitive glance at Achellus, his squad’s Techmarine. The red-armoured giant scowled and bent over the multifaceted monitors and consoles at the end of the hangar, augmented limbs and armatures fluttering across the controls.

“Stand by,” he grunted, slender metal fingers sliding into socket relays with a cascade of rasps.

“The engines have been destroyed.” Delpheus said, his voice dead. Ardias looked up at him in surprise.

“How do you know?”

He sought for an adequate explanation, unable as ever to find the words to explain. He shrugged helplessly. “I just know.”

Achellus tilted his head and shrugged. “The engines are gone,” he concurred.

“Hera’s blood...” Ardias growled, eyes staring into nothing. Delpheus’s probing mind could feel the anxiety oozing from him, a helplessness entirely alien to one so used to the rigours and certainties of the Codex.

“The Raptors failed...” the captain whispered. “We weren’t there.” He turned his gaze upon the Librarian, an intense glare of accusation and hostility. “We weren’t there, Delpheus, at your suggestion.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Delpheus replied, keeping the quaver from his voice.