And soon we’re right underneath them. The harsh cut of their hulls looms above us, outlined by the scant lights they’ve left on. Bao tenses below me. With the Minnow almost out of range, he’s growing more and more nervous by the second, the strength of his imprint urging him to fall back on his companion’s tail. But he holds true to the Otachi’s direction when I give it, and when at last I blaze the destroy signal at the hull overhead, he rises from the depths like a freight train.

A blast of heat hits me like the summer sun as we run up against the engines, but Bao’s claws are there to mitigate it. The ship bucks upward when he strikes, and the muted shriek of rending metal makes my ears ring.

But before we can call it a job well-done, the clatter of gunfire echoes out to our left, and suddenly the murk is alive with heavy machine gun rounds that punch through the darkness with impunity. Lasers carve through the water, learning us as they trace, and I duck my head to avoid being blinded. A shriek rings out from above, and a small explosion rocks Bao’s side.

We have to get deeper. We have to get deeper now.

I point the Otachi down, or at least my best guess of down. The Reckoner underneath me is tossing his head and rolling his shoulders far too much for me to tell which way it is for certain. In the confused tangle of beams, Bao picks out his signal and charges after it.

Then something punches me in the back, and all of the air in my lungs flushes into the respirator with a scream. My head throbs savagely as we sink farther into the depths and I pitch forward, desperately trying to draw in a breath that keeps running away from me. For a moment, I think I’ve been shot.

Then I realize that I’ve definitely been shot. I twist my arm around my back, fingertips rushing over the armor, and find a dent right between my shoulder blades. My heart hammers against the plating on my chest as if it realizes just how close it came to being destroyed. I try to look over Bao and see how much damage he took, but in the darkness all I can pick out is the slow curve of his heavily-armored back.

One more run. One more run and it’s all over.

I twist the Otachi skyward again, and Bao reorients himself with a roll that sends my stomach swooping and my head spinning. This is it.

I find the hull of the last boat, find the glow of the engines that power it, and point my beams. Bao surges up.