‘Launch the reaper fleet. Scour the skies of their pollution.’

As the order thrummed along the cortical matrix the third vestibule of the cortifexal array exploded.

The detonation was accompanied by a focused blast of radiation that bore a hole up through the fabric of the tomb ship, cutting through a dozen levels to burst out into the void. Thus channelled, the explosive shockwave from the blast erupted upwards, melting and shattering everything in its path, breaking a crack two-thirds of the length of the tomb ship’s wing. The dimensional grips keeping the tomb ship in place stuttered and then failed.

Simut howled in disbelief as the gravitic forces of the world below took hold of the crippled vessel, dragging at its mass, pulling it down towards a destructive embrace.

‘All systems critical, my lord,’ said Phetos, quite unnecessarily. ‘Orbit rapidly diminishing.’

‘Plasmancer!’ Simut roared across the signal waves, the burst accompanied by a huge swell of control protocol. ‘Come to me! Forget the resonator, I need you here!’

Any objection crushed by the command from Simut, Ah-hotep did not even have the opportunity to respond. Her ship banked away from its current course and accelerated back towards the planet.

His forces thwarted at the lifting facility, Zozar vented his unfulfilled destiny of carnage at the expense of the humans around the storage buildings. They scattered like vermin from the exterminator, finding nooks and holes to hide themselves while the Destroyers picked over the buildings like carrion eaters on a corpse. Stalking from hall to hall, alert for the slightest tremor of heartbeat or breath, senses honed to the temperature of human life, Zozar led the hunt. Such was his frustration, the Destroyer lord eschewed his beam cannons for a more personal killing method – his phase blade. Parting hated mortality from its physical shell with a sweep of his sword brought a sense of focus that was lacking when he merely disintegrated from afar.

The eradication of the storehouse defenders was simply the beginning. The blue-armoured warriors that had come to the aid of the lifting station defenders had broken the attack of the Destroyer cult warriors, but it would not be long before the casualties were resurrected. Even now their animus was being restored to new bodies in orbit. The remaining warriors were now instructed to keep the enemy occupied until reinforcements arrived. When he was done with his latest hunt, Zozar would demand that Simut gather the Destroyer forces again and trans­locate them to the position of the interlopers. They would be annihilated like all other life, but Zozar would take a modicum of satisfaction that a more earned retribution had been enacted.

None would thwart his destiny.