And together we send the wicked things screaming back to the warp that spawned them, until the corridor is slick with oil and fouled by ashes.

‘The others?’ I ask. ‘Calyth and Joti? Sarita and Munari? Veridia?’

Qi-Oh shakes her head. ‘I have seen nothing. Heard nothing. Not since the alarums began.’

‘What happened?’ Ashava asks. She is breathless, her brow creased with effort, and with pain. ‘How can this be?’

‘The Geller field,’ Haskia says. ‘It must have collapsed.’

‘If it had collapsed, we’d all be dead,’ Ravara says. The inquisitor’s face is blanched and drawn. ‘It must have grown weak, or flickered, just momentarily. Enough to allow the darkness to press through the cracks.’

‘Then the warp is aboard the ship,’ Zoric says. He is breathless, too. Bleeding, from shallow cuts and from his nose. I wonder how it is that he is still standing in the face of such things. I wonder what else he must have seen in Ravara’s service, for this not to kill him outright.

‘Yes,’ Ravara says softly. ‘The warp is aboard the ship.’

In the wake of her words the screaming begins anew, echoing all around us from the ship’s ventilation, from the Vow itself. From beyond the Navigators’ graven door. The vox snaps live, too, broadcasting overlapping, frantic fragments from other members of the commandery in their positions all across the Vow. I hear Mikah, and Wilemina. Even Elivia.

‘The stoke-halls are overcome!’

‘We have sustained multiple casualties!’

‘…incursion under way in the gunnery halls!’

‘…falling back to defend the bridge!’

The last of my Sisters’ voices is familiar. Clipped and measured. Calyth.

‘The lowdecks are lost,’ she says. ‘Lost to the devils and the dead. We are falling back to–’

Her transmission ends with a bellow and a scream, and before I can try to re-establish the connection another voice cuts in. Not one of my Sisters, this time. The voice is female, and one that I recognise, despite the distortion and the terror in it. Lady Tornella Oraylis. Novator Primus, and first of her House.

‘This ship is damned,’ she slurs, from the grip of her throne. ‘Death is coming.’

Then the vox cuts out with a squeal, leaving us alone with the screaming. No matter how I try I cannot reach my Sisters. Not my squad. Not the Canoness.

‘Mercy and grace,’ Eugenia says. ‘It is a slaughter.’

‘We must go to the aid of our Sisters,’ Qi-Oh says.

I shake my head, certain now of the signs that I have been sent, just as I was on the chancel.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I was called here to defend the Navigators.’

Qi-Oh’s face twists in anger. ‘You heard Calyth,’ she snarls. ‘They are overwhelmed. They could die.’

‘And if we lose the Navigators we will all die,’ I say. ‘Dimmamar will remain in darkness, and the Shield will be lost.’