“Split the fleet,” Tyun ordered. He could hear and feel the ship around him hauling itself away from its earlier, straight course, starting to curve to one side along with two of the other ships. On the screen, the view swung, keeping the approaching Ronte fleet at one edge as the elongated dot that was the Beats Working swept past between the separated halves of the Liseiden squadron.

“Fleet split as prescribed,” the navigation officer reported. “Culture ship maintaining – correction: target slowing, rapidly. Target … now stopped relative to us. Accelerating. Catching up. Level with us in four seconds.”

The screen view swung slowly, keeping the smeared dot of the Culture ship at one edge. The view hazed oddly, as though they were running through a gas cloud.

“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total loss of engine control.”

“Sir, the Abalule-Sheliz reports total loss of power.”

“What?” He had two junior officers from fleet control talking to him at once. The main screen hazed grey then blanked out entirely.

“What the fuck—?” Tyun said, glancing at the display in his own helmet. The helmet display was still working but seemed to be having trouble locking on to his eyes to present a true holo image. A stray flash briefly dazzled him.

“Main screen in shut-down,” the damage control officer said, sounding puzzled. “Cause unknown.” The screen flashed, shivered woozily, went blank again.

The damage control officer broke in. “Effector attack, on us, targeting engine control and main sensors.”

“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total traction loss.”

“Culture ship level with us now, sir. Starting to draw ahead. It’s not changing—”

“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total sensor loss.”

“Engineering telemetry down.”

“Sir, the Laskuil-Hliz reports total loss of power.”

“—velocity. We’re slowing. Fleet formation breaking up.”

“Sir, the Abalule-Sheliz reports it’s being targeted by the Quiatrea-Anang’s Target Illumination Systems.”

“What?”

“Our engines beginning stepped disengagement on false telemetry, sir. Trying to head them off and re-initialise but they keep—”

Tyun could hear and feel something alter in the ship; a single great deep note was deepening still further, like something winding down, while a forward drag stirred micro-currents into the waters around him.

“Sir, the Abalule-Sheliz reports it’s being targeted by our own TIS.”

“That’s shit,” the junior combat/targeting officer said, voice shaking. “That’s just shit, not true. Sir.”

“This is an attack!” Tyun said. “This is hostile action! Fire to disable.”

“Hard small target, sir. Doubt we can be that accurate.”

“Well, just hit it!”

“Sir, the Fulanya-Guang reports total loss of engine telemetry.”

“No weapon control. All weapons aboard shutting to fail-safe mode, active systems powering down.”

“Hit it with something! Disable it, destroy it, I don’t care!”

“Nothing to throw at it, sir.”

“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total weapon control loss.”

“Sir, the Culture ship is within quick strike range of the missile platform launched earlier. Might not have spotted it.”

“Can the platform fire? Have we comms with it?”

“Yes, sir.”