Drum edged past the creature and took up the weapon the blank had dropped. He inspected the controls then glanced to the aft hatch. He looked then at the turret still spitting out bursts of missiles, the shield projector swivelling to intercept incoming fire, then he gazed far out to sea. At this rate, it would not take very long at all to close in on the Convocation fleet.

‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said, and pointed the weapon at the deck.

* * * *

As soon as he reached the beach Vrell shrugged the blanks from his back and inspected the scrapes made on his carapace by the questing mouths of leeches. None of them had been able to get through his armour. Vrell then turned his attention to the three blanks. One of them was lying on the sand.

‘Why is this unit not standing?’ Vrell asked, and received no reply. His father’s attention had to be concentrated elsewhere at that moment. Vrell tried not to study too closely the surge of gladness he felt at that. Deliberately not looking out to sea he concentrated his attention on the fallen blank instead, and soon ascertained the reason for the human’s difficulties: the flesh had been stripped away from the lower half of his body.

‘Follow,’ said Vrell to the other two and led them into the dingle. Had the Prador adolescent looked behind just once, he would have seen the flashes of purple fire from the Ahab, and seen the ship foundering. The blank he left behind still kept trying to stand up under the instruction of his thrall unit. Instead, his fleshless legs collapsed under him every time.

* * * *

Through the eyes of its four enforcer drones the Warden watched as they tried to get past the shield projector on the Ahab. The images it received were hazed with smoke, flashbacks, and the explosions of the missiles that the screen intercepted.

‘APW fire!’ shouted SM7.

‘Not at us, you idiot,’ SM12 replied. ‘Eight and Nine, I want you to go in low over the sea, from the rear. You may get a window opened near that missile launcher. Use rail-guns to try to put a hole in the hull.’

‘Moving in,’ replied the two SMs, and soon the Warden had a clear view of them hammering in over the sea. Something cut a huge shadow above them for a moment.

‘That’s the sail,’ said SM8, tilting in midair. The Warden froze the image it received, and would have smiled had it the ability. It flicked back to Eight as the SM opened up with its rail-gun.

For one second the stern of the ship was exploding into splinters, then a flat-shield cut between, and before this the sea turned white with repelled fire. The two SMs cut up into the sky.

‘It’s listing!’ shouted Nine happily.

‘That wasn’t you, Nine. See if you can now get underneath the ship,’ said Twelve.