A transfer signal flashed across the sensor arrays, redirecting into the tomb vault complex. The ship shook as massive generators force-activated, coming to full life in an instant. Self-preservation protocols collapsed under the onslaught of Simut’s demands, shutting down the inertialess filter that sheathed the Sun of Endings. Vibrations rattled through its massive decks and a spear of energy leapt across the distance to the beleaguered Barge of the Stormhawk, bending down into the gravity well itself. At the moment of connection, matter became energy, leaping away from the tomb ship as friction-heat consumed the lower ziggurat of its command structure. Datasignals flared, slamming through the cortical matrix like a ram at a fortress gate, rapidly spreading out into every single translocation system.

With a brutal dimensional shunt that threw the Sun of Endings off course by the sudden increase in mass, Simut and his cohort translocated aboard. Canoptek systems burst with overloaded power as the incoming phalanxes breached vault capacity. The command-mastaba glowed with a haze that reformed into the stooping figure of Simut. His arrival cut off the enslavement protocol but even as Ah-hotep realised she was free to move, Phetos and the lychguard materialised around the overlord, an instant barrier.

Without the inertialess drive’s grip to slow it, the tomb ship sped on, racing past orbital distance of the third planet and onward towards the local star, taking it far from the rest of the fleet and the enemy. Though Simut had assumed command, Ah-hotep retained a modicum of control from the oldest protocols. She gently raised the inertialess dimensional slip and decelerated.

Her presence touched upon the input phase of Phetos.

‘A close escape,’ said Ah-hotep.

‘Fortuitous that your ship had not departed to guard the blackstone node any earlier,’ replied the royal warden. Ah-hotep sought any sign of accusation in Phetos’ mode or bearing but found nothing.

‘Fortune favours the worthy,’ she replied, slipping away from his cortical field.

Restoration loops cycled into life, preventing further energy bleed like the coagulation of a mortal creature’s wound. Tendrils of Simut’s command presence infiltrated the immediate vicinity, taking over what had been controlled from afar.

‘I. Live.’ The overlord straightened, his cortical field dimmed by the exertion, his physical light just a faint aura in the gloom of the command chamber. ‘I. Rule.’

Ah-hotep released a scan program into the vaults, registering a twenty per cent increase in mass.

Only twenty per cent.

Discounting the Destroyers deployed to the surface, Simut had lost nearly three-quarters of his personal army in the destruction of his tomb ship, and until resurrection channels were reestablished Zozar was stranded on the planet. Simut’s protocols had invigorated the Sun of Endings’ vault circuits, activating Ah-hotep’s force. She suppressed any display of delight at this discovery. For the moment, the overlord was still in charge, her constructs enthralled to Szarekh dynasty command codes.

For the moment.

Part III

PART III

‘Into gloom the ships did stray,