It was not quite a command. But neither was there humour in her voice.

And she had a point. I synced with Mizar, and found the landscape had altered significantly. We still flew over the swamp, though it was now a more rusted brown. But the waters were barely visible, the view obscured by the tangled mass of gnarl-vines, the undulating vegetation forming peaks and valleys. It was impossible to say what could be hidden beneath the canopy, assuming anything could carve out an existence amidst the barbed vines.

As Mizar’s lenses tried to pierce the thorned barrier, the fruitlessness of our assignment dawned on me. Those precious resources Shard had mentioned – personnel hours, fuel, strategic resources – all squandered on something amounting to armed reconnaissance.

‘This is hopeless,’ I said. ‘How do you spot anything through those vines?’

‘We sometimes use a Thunderbolt fighter to fish for them,’ she said. ‘It swoops sharp and low, as if in danger of crashing. They can’t help themselves, and swarm to take potshots. Their guns have some teeth, even though they can’t aim a damn. Still, twelve-barrelled gatling cannons are pretty forgiving in that regard.’

‘I can’t imagine that is a popular assignment.’

‘It’s fine if you are quick enough. The trick is a rapid descent. They rarely adjusted for the acceleration, and kept firing on where you were, rather than anticipating where you could be. But once they opened fire the bombers would have their targets. Still, it’s a bit like trying to kill wasps with a hammer. You might swing it through a couple of bushes and crush a few. But sometimes you hit a nest, and then you have a problem.’

‘Is that why you aren’t employing this strategy?’

‘No. It stopped working once they learnt to fly.’

She was silent a moment. But again, I did not press.

‘I wonder if we were their teachers, however inadvertently,’ she continued at length. ‘They had no other means to truly engage. If this world was of rock or steel, perhaps they would have built tanks and transports instead of claiming the skies. For a time, we had a numerical advantage, as well as the superior craft. But we’ve long since lost the former, and the latter is now debat­able. We can rarely press this deep, and only now because other squadrons are drawing ork attention elsewhere. We haven’t culled them in months. For all we know, thousands more have been spawned deep in the swamps. Who knows what they have been up to?’

‘Is that our real mission then?’

‘It would be if we could find them. But our auspexes are near useless out here because of the swamp’s ambient energy. I assume you’ve had the same issues?’