"This is Kraiklyn," he said, and coughed.

"Identification complete," the console said immediately. Horza wanted to shout, or at least to sag in his seat with relief, but he hadn't the time to do either, and Wubslin would have thought it a little strange. So might the ship's computer, for that matter: some machines were programmed to watch for signs of joy or relief after the formal identification was over. So he did nothing to celebrate, just brought the fusion motor primers up to operating temperature.

"Captain!" The small drone dashed back into the bridge, coming to a halt between Wubslin and Horza. "You will let me off this ship at once and report the irregularities taking place aboard immediately, or-"

"Or what?" Horza said, watching the temperature in the CAT's fusion motors soar. "If you think you can get off this ship you're welcome to try; probably Culture agents would blow you to dust even if you did get out."

"Culture agents?" the small machine said with a sneer in its voice. "Captain, for your information this GSV is a demilitarised civilian vessel under the control of the Vavatch Hub authorities and within the terms laid down in the Idiran-Culture War Conduct Treaty drawn up shortly after the commencement of hostilities. How-"

"So who turned the lights off and let the air out, idiot?" Horza said, turning to the machine briefly. He looked back to the console, turning the bow radar up as high as it would go and taking readings through the blank wall of the rear of the Smallbay.

"I don't know," the drone said, "but I rather doubt it would be Culture agents. Who or what do you think these supposed agents are after? You?"

"What if they were?" Horza took another look at the holo display of the GSV's internal layout. He briefly magnified the volume around Smallbay 27492 before switching the repeater screen off. The drone was silent for a second, then backed off through the doorway.

"Great. I'm locked in an antique with a paranoid lunatic. I think I'll go and look for somewhere safer than this."

"You do that!" Horza yelled down the corridor after it. He turned the hangar circuit back on. "Aviger?" he said.

"I've done it," said the old man's voice.

"Right. Get to the mess fast and strap in." Horza killed the circuit again.

"Well," Wubslin said, sitting back in his seat and scratching his head, looking at the bank of screens in front of him with their arrays of figures and graphs, "I don't know what it is you're intending to do, Kraiklyn, but whatever it is, we're as ready as we'll ever be to do it." The stout engineer looked across at Horza, lifted himself slightly from his seat and pulled the restraining straps over his body. Horza grinned at him, trying to look confident. His own seat's restrainers were a little more sophisticated, and he just had to throw a switch for cushioned arms to swing over and inertia fields to come on. He pulled his helmet over his head from the hinged position and heard it hiss shut.

"Oh my God," Wubslin said, looking slowly away from Horza to stare at the almost featureless rear wall of the Smallbay shown on the main screen. "I sure as hell hope you're not going to do what I think you are.

Horza didn't reply. He hit the button to talk to the mess. "All right?"

"Just about, Kraiklyn, but-" Yalson said. Horza killed that circuit, too. He licked his lips, took the controls in his gloved hands, sucked in a deep breath, then flicked the thumb buttons on the CAT's three fusion motors. Just before the noise started he heard Wubslin say:

"Oh, my God, you are-"

The screen flashed, went dark, then flashed again. The view of the Smallbay's rear wall was lit by three jets of plasma bursting from underneath the ship. A noise like thunder filled the bridge and reverberated through the whole craft. The two outboard motors were the main thrust, vectored down for the moment; they blasted fire onto the deck of the Smallbay, scattering the machinery and equipment from underneath and around the craft, slamming it into walls and off the roof as the blinding jets of flame steadied under the vessel. The inboard, lift-only nose motor fired raggedly at first, then settled quickly, starting to burn its own hole through the thin layer of ultradense material which covered the Smallbay floor. The Clear Air Turbulence stirred like a waking animal, groaning and creaking and shifting its weight. On the screen, a huge shadow veered across the wall and the roof in front as the infernal light from the nose fusion motor burned under the ship; rolling clouds of gas from burning machinery were starting to haze over the view. Horza was amazed that the walls of the Smallbay had held out. He flicked the bow laser at the same time as increasing the fusion motor power.

The screen detonated with light. The wall ahead burst open like a flower seen in time lapse, huge petals throwing themselves towards the ship and a million pieces of wreckage and debris flashing past the vessel's nose on the shock wave of air bursting in from the far side of the lasered wall. At the same time, the Clear Air Turbulence lifted off. The leg-weight readouts stopped at zero, then blanked out as the legs, glowing red with heat, stowed themselves inside the hull. Emergency undercarriage cooling circuits whined into action. The craft started to slew to one side, shaking with its own power and with the impact of debris swirling about it. The view ahead cleared.

Horza steadied the ship, then gunned the rear motors, flinging some of their power backwards, towards the Smallbay doors. A rear screen showed them glowing white hot. Horza would dearly have liked to head that way, but reversing and ramming the doors with the CAT would have probably been suicidal, and turning the craft in such a confined space impossible. Just going forward was going to be hard enough…

The hole wasn't big enough. Horza saw it coming towards him and knew straight away. He used one shaking finger on the laser beam-spread control set in the semi-wheel of the controls, turning the spread up to maximum then firing once more. The screen washed out with light again, all around the perimeter of the hole. The CAT stuck its nose and then its body into another Smallbay. Horza waited for something to hit the sides or roof of the white-hot gap, but nothing happened; they sailed through on their three pillars of fire, throwing light and wreckage and waves of smoke and gas before them. The dark waves blasted out over shuttles; the whole Smallbay they were now moving slowly through was full of shuttles of every shape and description. They were floating over them, battering them and melting them with their fire.

Horza was aware of Wubslin sitting on the seat beside him, his eyes locked onto the view ahead, his legs drawn up as far as possible so that his knees stuck up above the edge of the console, and his arms locked in a sort of square over his head, each hand grasping the bicep of the other arm. His face was a mask of fear and incredulity when Horza turned round to glance at him, and grinned. Wubslin pointed frenziedly at the main screen. "Watch!" he shrieked over the racket.

The CAT was shaking and bouncing, rocked by the stream of superheated matter pouring from under its hull. It would be using the atmosphere around it to produce plasma, now that there was air available, and in the relatively confined space of the Smallbays the turbulence created was enough to shake the vessel bodily.

There was another wall ahead, coming up faster than Horza would have liked. They were slewing slightly again as well; he narrowed the laser angle again and fired, pulling the ship round at the same time. The wall flashed once around its edges; the roof and floor of the Smallbay flashed in loops of flame where the laser caught them, and dozens of parked shuttles ahead of them pulsed with light and heat.