Indeed, they were. Retracing their steps. A quick flickerscan confirmed Simut’s suspicion that the assault boats were returning to the point where they had deposited the attack party.

‘They are escaping, you fool! Do not let them get away!’

‘Canoptek countermeasures are slaved to the damage control systems, Light of the Thousand Lanterns, as you ordered. It requires your personal override protocol, Voice of Heavenly Grace.’

Mentally grimacing, Simut extended his cortical field into the lower levels, bypassing several layers of ancient programming to access the core motivator channels of the canoptek servitors. Like dredging through muck, he pushed aside tier maintenance and resurrection imperatives, retracing protocol pathways into attack mode. Pulling back in disgust from their shared cortical framework, Simut felt them swarming together, bound upon their new mission by his singular will.

While he watched the tide of scarabs, plasmacytes, reanimators and other construct-spawn swelling through the passageways around the human interlopers, he flashed a burst of communication to Plasmancer Ah-hotep.

‘Intercept their ship before it reaches the matrix resonator,’ he snarled. ‘Destroy it!’

‘What ship, my lord?’ the plasmancer’s reply pulsed back a few moments later.

‘The warship, you cretinous commoner! The one that attacked my ship and spat its degenerate boarders into my vaults.’

‘My lord, it seems the same cloaking effect that masked our sensors is hampering the sensors of the plasmancer’s vessel,’ suggested Phetos.

‘That would seem so,’ said Ah-hotep. ‘I shall move to protect the reso­nator but I cannot see any enemy as yet.’

Before he could form a suitable rebuke, Simut realised that one of the human attack craft had settled on the surface of his ship and was embarking its living cargo. The canoptek broods poured up through external vents and access filters, but strafing gunfire from the other assault boats was cutting deadly swathes through them, accompanied by fire from the human fighters themselves. They seemed fully capable of operating in the void, their armour sealed against the vacuum.

A full warrior phalanx was ascending as quickly as possible from the vault levels, but Simut could see that they would be too late to catch up with the swift exit of the attackers. Fearing what he would discover, he focused his internal scanners on the vestibule where they had tarried for a while. There were four distinct heat signatures, building slowly. Urged by his master, Phetos delved into the menial-cortex and ­repurposed a handful of nearby canoptek scarabs to investigate. The boxes left by the humans emanated distinctive radioactive and chemical traces.

‘Explosives, Crescent of the Night,’ the royal warden concluded. ‘Powerful enough to destroy the array.’

‘That was their purpose?’ Simut watched the last of the assault craft powering away with its reclaimed warriors. He ordered his escorts closer, to burn them from the void, but the enemy attack craft sped planetwards, diving down towards the atmosphere where the barques could not pursue.

They would find no sanctuary there.