His hearts were now a hammer, throat tightening as the substance of Praxa­medes’ warning settled. Even so, Nem­etus’ first instinct was to argue. He could not give up on victory just yet.

‘Surely you can gain us three more minutes, brother.’

‘Plus extraction time. What is your exit status, assault command?’

Nem­etus considered the question and was forced to admit that seven minutes was barely enough time to get to a suitable extraction point even if the enemy were not in the way.

‘Compromised, ship command. Orders received and understood.’

‘I have a plan, brother, but you may not like it,’ said Praxa­medes.

When battle commenced, there was normally a sense of focused energy that came upon the strategium of the Ithraca’s Vengeance and its ­occupants. Not a controlled chaos, because that implied there was ever anything out of the control of the shipmaster, first lieutenant or captain. It was a sudden tension and efficiency, with every Space Marine, deck officer, tech-priest and servitor forming an individual component of a greater whole. Every part operated independently, yet totally interlocked with the others, from fire control to navigation to propulsion to surveyor command. What needed to be done was done. If a decision needed to be made, it was channelled to the appropriate one of the three due authorities, and the results of that consultation carried back down to those that would execute the orders.

There was no room for doubt, or misunderstanding, or error.

Certainly there was never anything like panic, not even among the human crew who were still biochemically capable of such a reaction. Discipline overruled any instinct to allow fear to dictate poor decision-making. There was a chain of command and a process to guide every decision, with Captain Aeschelus himself as the sole arbiter and executor of free will.

So it was that Praxa­medes tried hard to confine himself to the roles directly under his command as not-panic enveloped the strategium. The captain reeled off orders faster than was usual, his words hastened by a sense of urgency not normally seen. This had the effect of creating an unmannerly bustle about the control stations, with deck officers proceeding with unsavoury haste, occasionally getting in each other’s way, having to shout to one another for reports, energy transfers and other functions that should have happened seamlessly and without prompting.

At the augur read-outs, the lieutenant monitored the target vessel for any sign that it was powering weapons or shields, while simul­taneously viewing another screen that charted the energy distortions in the asteroid field. The plasma readings had been verified, the telemetry triple-checked and his entire terrible theory proven correct.

He really wished he had not been right.