The island was now in sight and in range, but firing the CTDs was as yet out of the question, as they’d be intercepted long before they reached their targets. Particle beams could not be intercepted, though. Ebulan set his blank to firing on the island and through his own viewer had the satisfaction of seeing great swathes of dingle exploding into fire, with even rock melting wherever the beams touched it. He gave a mental instruction for Pilot to move them in low over the Old Captain’s ships, so a CTD could be used on them. When nothing happened, he probed down the link - and just found nil response. Pilot must have been destroyed. There must have been a hit Ebulan was unaware of. He looked through another blank’s eyes in the control area but saw no sign of any damage. Pilot simply stepped away from his console and walked from the area. Ebulan knew horror then: someone else was controlling his blank. He instructed yet another blank to draw her weapon and go after Pilot. But Pilot acted first. He activated the emergency door between the control area and central corridor, then drew his weapon, put it on high discharge, and with a single blast he fused the door to its frame.

Ebulan focused on the blank seated at the weapons console, and the two still here with him. He soon sent them up and running for the central corridor. The blanks inside the control area he quickly got firing on the door. But the female blank he’d made draw her weapon first, abruptly stopped firing at the door, turned to her two companions, and cut them down - before putting the snout of her weapon in her mouth and blowing her own head off.

In panic Ebulan did an emergency reinstall of the random code. But this made no difference to Pilot; while Ebulan was effecting the reinstall, the blank caught hold of the first of his companions to come in after him, slammed that one’s head repeatedly against the wall, then tore out the back of his neck. Along with the flesh and bone came the spinal section of the Prador thrall unit, and the corpse slumped. Without further instruction from Ebulan, the other two blanks stood unmoving while this happened.

Suddenly the ship lurched sideways under multiple concussions. Ebulan made one of the two blanks draw his weapon and shoot Pilot through the chest. In panic, he sent the other blank back to the weapons console. There he checked the readings and saw that the attacking SMs had finally managed to blow a thruster.