‘Vermin!’ Simut’s anger resounded across the tomb ship command chamber as a metallic screech and shrieked out into the void as a pulse of electromagnetic rage. Having donned his panoply of battle, he now stalked back and forth across the mastaba, directing cortical field glares at his lychguard and Phetos. ‘What are they doing? I can feel them grubbing about in the tomb-levels like parasites in my gut!’

‘They have gathered around the third vestibule of the cortifexal array, Sunlit Lord of the Gold Sands,’ said the royal warden. ‘Invasion cascade protocols are activating. Vaults have been woken to stop any further advance.’

‘What is taking so long?’ Simut’s phase blade crackled with energy discharge, the halberd-like weapon shimmering with his anger. He wanted to strike out, to take Phetos’ ignorant head from his body. Obviously that would have no permanent effect on his lieutenant but the chastisement would be remembered. However, if he did so, Simut would have to monitor the enemy and the response himself, sullying his cortical field in direct intercourse with the lower ranks. ‘Where is my legion, Phetos?’

‘The enemy numbered less than a hundred individuals. A small threat that the canoptek servitude constructs should have thwarted. Analysis shows that these intruders are not normal humans – they wear armour and their bodies have been physically upgraded. I personally ascended the defence protocols with the data, but response times have been slowed by the damage inflicted by their vessel.’

‘Yes, where is that accursed ship? Must I fight this battle blinded and with one arm? By the Stones of Areki, Phetos, I swear that if you fail me like this again I shall wipe you from existence!’

Under the warden’s urging, the sensor display rotated around the tomb ship, focusing on the flare of plasma trail from the enemy starship’s engines. Simut sneered. Such crude physics, the ancient and laborious shackle of relative cause-and-effect of acceleration and deceleration.

‘When King Szarekh’s matrix is fully operational and the neversea is stilled forever, these petty races will be stuck in their star systems, ripe for enslavement.’

‘Detecting energy build-up in the array vestibule, Lord of the Scarlet Dawn,’ said Phetos.

Simut ignored him and watched the human vessel powering out of orbit. The escorts had scattered at its approach, unable to fully manoeuvre whilst caught in the gravitic friction of orbit and incapable of matching the raw firepower of its numerous weapons. But having launched its attack craft, which now patrolled around the lower regions of the Barge of the Stormhawk, it seemed as though it had abandoned the warriors left aboard the tomb ship. Did the humans really think a few dozen soldiers, no matter how well armed and physically augmented, could take over a tomb ship of the First Rank? The Barge of the Stormhawk would expunge them soon enough, leaving nothing of their presence.

‘The enemy are moving again, my lord.’