‘There once was an ugly duckling, its feathers all tatty and brown.’

The armoured shell exceeded fifteen thousand kilometres per hour through the stratosphere. Sniper fed all power not already being sucked away by the reverse AG into the Prador shield, and by distorting its focus managed to cone it out in front. This gave him another couple of thousand kph, even with increasing air resistance. Now he also fed pure water into the fusion boosters and accelerated.

‘All the other birds, in so many words, said—’

From the Prador ship, precisely in the predicted position below him, no weapons were fired, and no shields swung into place. In this last second Sniper managed to broadcast his final words, before transmitting himself.

‘Quack, get out of town.’

* * * *

The explosion blew plasma through the central corridor. The dead blanks lying there were picked up in the blast and turned to oily flame. The wave of fire hit the weakened door into the control area and folded it back. Instrument panels and dead blanks alike were pasted against the inner hull by the blast, and feedback knocked out generator after generator. AG motors shut off; others came on and were instantly fused by power surges. The thrusters went out, and Ebulan’s ship dropped from the sky like a brick. Now direct-linked into the controls, Ebulan gave off bubbling screams as those links fed power back to him, and set two of his control boxes on fire. He slammed against the wall of his chamber, and his own AG went out. He had just regained enough control to get the shields out underneath the ship to absorb most of the shock. But projectors burnt out as the ship hurtled towards the sea, then slammed into the waves. Seawater exploded out from under the destroyer as it settled, almost gracefully at the last.

Then the water washed back. And the ship sank.

I’m alive, Ebulan thought. I can survive this. Just then, the door behind him gave way and Pilot reeled into the chamber wielding the shell cutter, ready to carry through the last instructions the Warden had programmed into him.

Ebulan’s bubbling screams continued until water came flooding into the ship through the hole Sniper had punched through its hull.

But even that did not stop the ancient blank. Pilot continued to hack away at his Prador master until there was nothing left to see in the soupy water - and the power pack of the cutter was totally drained.

* * * *