The curve of the horizon now rose high in the screen. The two dracomen shuttles from NEJ now sat low and to their right, and the two leading Sparkind shuttles were far ahead, just seen as black dots containing the white stars of fusion drives. The sky above them lightened to a pale green, then suddenly a sun-bright explosion ignited within it. Cormac lost com through his gridlink, and could no longer view in his mind the battle above.

‘Jack?’

Nothing in response—it could mean that the NEJ had been destroyed, but he could not know right then, might never know. A few minutes later Blegg’s vessel lurched as the Shockwave impacted. Cormac was about to make some comment on this when Blegg jerked the joystick violently to one side. Rail-gun missiles knifed down at forty-five degrees from behind. One missile found a target and Cormac saw one of the dracomen shuttles cartwheeling through the air, its rear end sheared off, humanoid figures tumbling out. The pilot obviously engaged its gravmotors, trying to stabilize it, and he seemed to be succeeding, then something blew in the shuttle’s side and it dropped like a brick.

‘Fuck,’ said Cormac. He glanced back at the team of dracomen aboard, who had just lost thirty or so of their comrades. They knew this loss, for it was his understanding that they kept constant mental contact with each other. Yet they showed no particular agitation, merely seemed to focus more intently on checking over their weaponry.

To the shuttles escaping ahead he said, ‘If you’ve got gravharnesses aboard, put them on now.’ By the silence that met this instruction he supposed Thorn and Bhutan could think of no sufficiently polite reply.

A mountain range reared over the horizon, like rotten teeth in a lower jaw, while a ceiling of grey cloud slid overhead. The leading shuttles penetrated a cloud wall and winked out. As soon as Blegg’s vessel followed them in, he touched some control and the cloud wall seemed to simply disappear. This ship’s scanning gear formed the view from emitted radiation that could penetrate the murk, and showed a terrain of steep valleys quickly filled with steaming red growth. Lower now, the sound within the shuttle turning to a dull roar; a subscreen revealing that they now flew through heavy, dirty-looking rain. The jungle melded together until it covered the ground right to the horizon. The leading Sparkind shuttles turned as did the remaining dracoman shuttle. Blegg checked coordinates and adjusted his ship’s course.

‘What’s that?’ Cormac asked, seeing some object dropping in behind the leading shuttles.