How refreshing to translocate by her own will! It felt more like floating than falling, and she arrived alert and ready aboard the command-mastaba of her tomb ship. Her Immortals materialised around her.

‘Ah-hotep, why have you returned?’ Simut demanded, rising from the command throne.

She ignored him, plunging her cortical field into the control systems of the tomb ship. Aided by powerful single-use technomandrite protocol-rites, she punched through the overlord’s security routines and activated the drive of the Sun of Endings. She set the engines to accelerate, directly towards the planet. Simultaneously Ah-hotep unleashed an energy blast, scorching the circuitry of the vault controls, leaving them vulnerable to another technomandrite-coded incursion that released her phalanx from the Szarekh protocols.

‘Kill the plasmancer!’ bellowed Simut, even as his cortical field rushed back into the tomb ship systems to stop her.

Phetos pounced, blade swinging towards the plasmancer. An Immortal intercepted the attack, gauss rifle hewn in half by its glittering edge, but deflecting the blow to the side. Simut’s lychguard came to life with blazing green eyes, shields and guns raised.

‘No!’ Ah-hotep released the power siphoned from the miniature stars of the reactors, unleashing a lightning storm across the mastaba that hurled three lychguard to the wall and staggered the others. Streaming forward into the breach, she headed for Simut, her weapons and claws leaving trails of emerald sparks.

The overlord raised his glaive, armour gleaming as defensive circuitry activated. Phetos shouted a challenge from behind but Ah-hotep ignored him, rushing through the shadows with blade held aloft to confront Simut. His phase blade met hers with an explosion of interdimensional energy as both tried to slice through subspaces and pass each other. Feedback power detonated, throwing the two opponents apart. Detecting the surge in a lychguard’s beam cannon, Ah-hotep flexed and swooped, the green ray slashing into the ceiling where she had hovered a moment before.

Pushed to one knee by the dimensional blast, Simut straightened.

Phetos’ blade caught Ah-hotep in the tailspine, severing an energyglobe from her back. The container burst with fronds of power, enveloping them both in a powerful but brief whirlwind of green. The royal warden recovered fractionally quicker and opened fire, just before Ah-hotep released a burst of pure kinetic power. Phetos’ beam carved through the living metal of her arm, sending the limb and her phase blade clattering to the floor even as he was smashed through his lychguard like an artillery shell, to crumple in a broken heap at the foot of the cracked display wall.

Protocols of command thrummed through the tomb ship, purging the technomandrite incursion. Obedience demands slashed at Ah-hotep’s cortical field, paralysing her, while her presence in the Sun of Endings recognised the down-shift in the engine drives, bringing them to a stop. Behind her, the plasmancer’s Immortals fell still, their loyalty to her once again overridden by immutable Szarekh protocols.