‘Out-spectrum vision—search,’ he instructed his suit.

After a moment a transparent band drew across his visor directly before his eyes, and within that band the rain seemed simply to be erased. However, above and below the band he could still see the downpour. Though accustomed to using this kind of sensory enhancement, he did not trust it, it being too easy to interfere with—already the surrounding radioactivity began to cause flecks across his vision. He now surveyed his surroundings.

The remaining dracoman shuttle from the NEJ was just landing, and the soldiers around him were checking their weaponry and loading up ridiculously large packs, while the four autoguns patrolled around them like hounds anxious for the hunt. No badinage passed between the troops. Many of them had known Bhutan and the others aboard the Sparkind shuttle that didn’t make it here.

‘I take it that’s where we want to go?’ Chalter pointed off to Thorn’s left where the lower mountain slopes were now visible. This area had been Cormac’s own choice for various reasons: it lay at the edge of the incinerated area, so provided the option of using the jungle for cover, and if that vegetation turned out to be occupied by a whole chapter of the flesh-eating monsters society, from here they could also head into the mountains, which were riddled with gullies, cave systems, and a sufficient mixture of hot springs, seams of metal, and radioactives from the recent explosions nearby to make it easier for them to hide from detection equipment.

‘Certainly is,’ Thorn confirmed.

The NEJ shuttle landed and the dracomen disembarked. Thorn noted that again they wore no protective clothing. Though there was sufficient oxygen here, any unequipped human would have drowned in this rain, and despite the downpour the temperature reached nearly 5 °Celsius. Thorn hauled up his own pack and shouldered it, then over com issued his instructions.

‘Seal up the shuttles and let’s move out. Sparkind, keep to your units—cover for imminent attack. Dracomen…’Thorn considered for a moment how he knew the dracomen could perform. ‘Scout ahead and find us cover: defensible positions, good visibility, but nothing to get trapped in. Let’s get moving.’

The dracomen took off at speed, bounding towards the lower slopes. Soon loaded up, the Sparkind units followed them, with the autoguns patrolling out to either side. A series of flashes then lit the sky and Thorn supposed Cormac was now engaging the remaining pursuers. He checked his footing before setting out, noticed red shoots of growth like droplets of blood scattered across the ground. Then a shadow began drawing across the sky.

‘Cormac, status?’ he asked.

‘Not too brilliant,’ the agent growled in reply.

The ship lay upside-down in dense red jungle. Through the screen Cormac could see a path of smashed thick stems and enormous smouldering leaves the ship had left as it plunged in backwards. Because he had been in similar situations before, he first instructed his envirosuit to close up completely, for any kind of poisonous air mix might be leaking into the ship. The visor shot up out of the neck ring and engaged with the helmet, which extended itself in segmented sections up around the back of his head, from the rear of the neck ring. He then looked across at Blegg beside him.

Horace Blegg had also closed up his own suit.

‘Interesting landing,’ said Cormac. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘High intensity laser—drilled right through our engine,’ Blegg replied. ‘Did you notice the source?’

In the last moment, just before the explosion wiped out the ship’s exterior sensors, he had seen one of the spiral ships descending on them like an express elevator.

‘I think we need to get out of here—fast.’ Reaching up he hit his strap release and, spinning himself round as he dropped from his seat, came down feet first on the ceiling. Blegg landed there an instant after him. Scar was waiting to the rear of the cockpit, fangs exposed in what was definitely not a grin. Cormac searched round for Arach, then looked up at what had been the floor, and saw the drone still clinging there. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ The drone needed no more instruction. Without descending, it scuttled to the rear of the lander and dropped out through the airlock the dracomen had just opened.

Cormac followed the departing dracomen, snatching up his own pack of supplies, and his proton carbine on the way. Once outside, via his gridlink, he instructed both the inner and outer door of the airlock to close, then began leading the way through the pall of smoke and steam around the overturned vessel.

Something globular, the size of a potato sack and the colour of old blood, crouched on three legs on the smouldering ground less than ten yards from the ship. It shivered, emitting a warbling squeal. Scar aimed his carbine at the creature, then swung the weapon away. The dracoman clearly knew the creature to be harmless, though it might attract other more dangerous predators. As the dracomen spread out, Cormac glanced up at Arach, now squatting atop the lander, before peering higher into the occluded sky.

‘Nice of them to give us shelter from the rain,’ he quipped. They stood in a twilight created by the ammonite spiral filling half the sky above them as it slowly descended. ‘Thorn?’ he queried, receiving nothing but static over com. So as to ascertain their position he ran a program to track Thorn’s last signal to them. ‘We’ll see if we can link up,’ he said to the others, gesturing over to his right into the thick wall of jungle.

His last words were drowned out in a low roar as one of the rod-ships breasted the plant canopy to his left. The dracomen hit the jungle ahead of Cormac as he himself broke into a run. Behind him the weird vessel crashed down on the wrecked Polity ship. Sheltering for a moment under a leaf like a duvet filled with blood, he observed the rod-ship extrude its tendrils as if it were intent on throttling some opponent, then he heard the sound of rending metal. To one side he saw Arach bouncing along with his spidery legs folded into a caged ball. Rolling to a halt the drone abruptly opened out again. Hatches then opened in his rear torso, and up folded two Gatling design cannons. These whirled into action, and both rod-ship and shuttle disappeared under a storm of explosions.

‘Shit!’ Cormac ducked to avoid flying debris. He then glanced up and saw more objects detach from the spiral ship and begin dropping towards them: more rod-ships, writhing anguine things, and translucent coins in which indistinct shapes shifted. Then another shape he recognized: the Legate’s vessel, or something very much like it.

‘Save your ammo, Arach—you’re going to need it!’

Arach came dancing after him as Cormac stood initiating Shuriken in its holster, then followed Blegg and the dracomen into deeper jungle shade.

They moved fast as the shadow deepened and extended around them with the descent of the spiral ship. Most of the surrounding vegetation sported big leaves raised up, three or four yards, on top of thick fibrous stalks, while in their shade lay little undergrowth to hinder progress. In some areas vines shifted like tangles of somnolent red snakes, but these were easily avoided. The ground itself was a spongy lamination of decaying leaves over-spread with fungi like spills of blue paint. Around the bases of the fibrous stems, nodular sprouts fisted from the leaf litter, doubtless awaiting the collapse of leaves above them and the subsequent chance of enlivening sunlight. Occasionally they would encounter one of those globular red creatures crouching by one of these stems, a crunching sucking sound issuing from underneath it as it grazed on the sprouts.

Within a few minutes they reached softer ground. Rain rumbled thunderously on the overhead leaves and rivulets of water slithered like drool down the stems. They were out of the huge ship’s shadow now. From behind them came a low roar and then a blast of wind, lifting leaves to let in the actinic glare of the sun, now penetrating cloud.