‘Proceed directly to the coordinates,’ he instructed Thorn over com. ‘Grab your stuff and get out fast once you arrive there. The shuttles may well be targeted.’

While receiving information direct to his gridlink, and modelling the positions of the three Polity ships and the enemy vessels, Cormac directed his attention specifically to the lower row of subscreens, to ascertain the order of events in their vicinity. He watched as one of the spiral ships unravelled under concentrated fire from both the Coriolanus and the Haruspex. An exterior flash momentarily blanked all subscreens and caused the main cockpit screen to darken. The spiral ammonite ship became a spreading cloud of burning fragments. Their own vessel lurched to one side as something speared past it and down towards the leading shuttles. A vapour trail suddenly knifed out from this projectile and it detonated.

‘Maser,’ commented Blegg. It seemed that the Centurions above were still covering them.

Their ship hit atmosphere, an orange glow around the cockpit screen and sparks flicking up past from the rapidly heating nose cone. This would be no gentle AG descent—they could not afford the time for that. The craft began to shudder.

The NEJ became invisible, then it reappeared, 1,000 miles to one side, to strafe some ball of wormish objects squirming through vacuum. It came out of that attack in a high-G turn that would, despite the internal gravplates, have converted any human aboard into bone fragments and bloody sludge. A CTD blew behind it, completely deleting from existence the object of its assault. NEJ now rejoined the other ships, which put themselves between the attackers and the planet. It seemed like three matadors facing a stampede of bulls.

Now deeper in atmosphere, the roar of their descent impinged. Far to their left a cross-hatching of red lines cut the horizon. Below these, bright fires ignited, then a disc of cloud spread directly above.

Rail-gun missiles.

If that fusillade had come down directly on them they would be dead by now.

‘They are not concentrating on us,’ said Blegg.

‘I realize that,’ Cormac agreed.

Blegg relentlessly added, ‘With that kind of firepower, they won’t need to hunt us down—they could just take out this entire planet.’

‘You’re such a bundle of joy,’ Cormac observed.

The curve of the horizon now rose high in the screen. The two dracomen shuttles from NEJ now sat low and to their right, and the two leading Sparkind shuttles were far ahead, just seen as black dots containing the white stars of fusion drives. The sky above them lightened to a pale green, then suddenly a sun-bright explosion ignited within it. Cormac lost com through his gridlink, and could no longer view in his mind the battle above.

‘Jack?’

Nothing in response—it could mean that the NEJ had been destroyed, but he could not know right then, might never know. A few minutes later Blegg’s vessel lurched as the Shockwave impacted. Cormac was about to make some comment on this when Blegg jerked the joystick violently to one side. Rail-gun missiles knifed down at forty-five degrees from behind. One missile found a target and Cormac saw one of the dracomen shuttles cartwheeling through the air, its rear end sheared off, humanoid figures tumbling out. The pilot obviously engaged its gravmotors, trying to stabilize it, and he seemed to be succeeding, then something blew in the shuttle’s side and it dropped like a brick.

‘Fuck,’ said Cormac. He glanced back at the team of dracomen aboard, who had just lost thirty or so of their comrades. They knew this loss, for it was his understanding that they kept constant mental contact with each other. Yet they showed no particular agitation, merely seemed to focus more intently on checking over their weaponry.

To the shuttles escaping ahead he said, ‘If you’ve got gravharnesses aboard, put them on now.’ By the silence that met this instruction he supposed Thorn and Bhutan could think of no sufficiently polite reply.

A mountain range reared over the horizon, like rotten teeth in a lower jaw, while a ceiling of grey cloud slid overhead. The leading shuttles penetrated a cloud wall and winked out. As soon as Blegg’s vessel followed them in, he touched some control and the cloud wall seemed to simply disappear. This ship’s scanning gear formed the view from emitted radiation that could penetrate the murk, and showed a terrain of steep valleys quickly filled with steaming red growth. Lower now, the sound within the shuttle turning to a dull roar; a subscreen revealing that they now flew through heavy, dirty-looking rain. The jungle melded together until it covered the ground right to the horizon. The leading Sparkind shuttles turned as did the remaining dracoman shuttle. Blegg checked coordinates and adjusted his ship’s course.

‘What’s that?’ Cormac asked, seeing some object dropping in behind the leading shuttles.

Blegg accelerated the vessel. Normally used only for the orbital insertion of troops, and supposedly covered by their mother ships, the shuttles were armed only with lasers. But right now those mother ships were rather busy. Blegg’s vessel, however, carried rail-gun missile launchers and pulse-cannons in its forward nacelles. He brought weapons systems online. Laser flashes now became visible between the leading shuttles and the object approaching them. Blegg glanced at Cormac. ‘Take control of the weapons.’

Through his gridlink, Cormac applied to the onboard computer, which instantly routed him to weapons control. Once again his sensory field expanded as data from the ship’s sensors came through to him. Sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, his view now included more than just the screens: it encompassed a wider visual area plus radar returns, and microwave and gravity maps of a huge volume surrounding the ship. He now also controlled targeting frames, and his virtual fingers wrapped around virtual triggers.

Thorn’s voice came over com, ‘Message to self: boredom is good!’

‘We’ll be with you in thirty seconds,’ Cormac replied as he laid a frame over the object pursuing the shuttles, obtained full acquisition of it, and fired. The ship bucked and white streaks cut the air on either side of it. ‘But the missiles will be with you earlier,’ he added.

Now Cormac focused the ship’s sensors and enlarged an image—transferring it to a subscreen for Blegg also to see. This revealed one of the bacilliform ships, precisely the rod-like shape of a bacterium but about twenty yards long, with its exterior a completely featureless blue-grey except where the lasers struck it, leaving livid burns like bruises. Whatever propulsion system it used showed no visual evidence, so Cormac assumed it must be somehow utilizing antigravity. While they watched, multiple laser strikes converged on its nose, and it shuddered and slowed like an aggressive dog receiving a reprimanding smack. Then it accelerated again.

‘It’s not using any weapons,’ Cormac noted, ‘and it can’t be some kind of bomb. One that large wouldn’t need to get so close to the shuttles.’

‘Capture,’ explained Blegg bluntly. ‘If they really wanted to take us out, we would be dead by now.’

The strange vessel drew itself within a hundred yards of the rearmost Sparkind shuttle, then the two missiles finally reached it. One massive blast turned it into a cloud of burning debris. Cormac quickly threw the second missile into a holding pattern. It overflew the explosion, circled round. No need to recall it or make it safe, for now ten more of those rod-ships were approaching. Obeying new instructions the missile shot off on an entirely new course. Blegg looked at him questioningly, so Cormac threw a radar display up on a subscreen to show him what was happening. A few seconds later they watched the missile reduce the number of approaching rod-ships to nine. The flash of the explosion lit the cockpit screen, then suddenly the nine ships became visible through it.