‘That the lot of them?’ The Captain eyed the two figures now lying prostrate on the deck.

‘Four more down in our submersible enclosure,’ Wade informed him.

‘Forlam?’

‘Still aboard the Prador ship, trying to free Orbus and three others.’

Ron winced.

‘So how you gonna kill Death, then?’ asked Huff.

‘I told you… none of your concern.’

Zephyr swayed from side to side on the spar, glancing first over to where the Prador ship was surfacing half a kilometre away, then peering down at figures on the deck below. He had to leave soon. It had been a mistake his coming here to learn more about the enemy. What he had seen here only confused the issue, when in the beginning it had been so clear…

‘Death will end,’ said Zephyr firmly.

‘But how?’ Puff asked.

Before Zephyr could formulate a reply, Huff interjected, ‘If nothing dies we’ll be sitting neck-deep in leeches and prill, all eating each other and being eaten.’ Huff shook his crocodilian head. ‘Though admittedly things are not far off that around here.’

Zephyr observed Puff bow forward to catch Huff’s eye, raise a spiderclaw up to the side of her head to scribe a little circle, then shake her muzzle. Zephyr did not recognize what this meant until digging deep into his database.

‘I am not mad!’ he yelled.

‘Okay,’ said Puff. ‘Tell us exactly how you’re gonna “strike a blow in this campaign”. Or are your claims all piss and wind?’

Zephyr suddenly understood. Here he had encountered nothing but killers and the dying, because they were all the same. He had encountered nothing but argument for the same reason: they all served Death. That entity had put them here in his path to prevent him doing what he must do.

‘I will kill sprine,’ announced the Golem sail.

‘What? You can’t do that,’ said Huff. ‘How are you gonna do that?’

‘You won’t stop me, and you won’t change my mind.’ Zephyr began to spread his wings.

‘Wait.’ Huff reached out with his own wing, a few of his spiderclaws grabbing some of Zephyr’s wing bones. ‘You haven’t explained—’

In any war there are casualties—this is unavoidable. Zephyr focused on Huff, his particle cannon coming online easy as blinking. The flash and the subsequent screech negated everything else, and what remained of Huff fell like a smoking comet.

‘Huff! HUFF!’

Puff surged forwards, her jaws open wide, with a snarl beginning deep within her. Another flash, then more long-boned organic wreckage falling to the deck below.

Wings booming open, Zephyr launched himself from the mast. You won’t stop me, he thought, but was unable to articulate more than a scream.

Isis Wade’s words followed him into the sky: ‘What have you done?’

The corridor loomed as wide as a hangar and dank as a cave. Stepping out into it, Forlam immediately broke into a run. He glanced back to see Thirteen bobbing behind him, with a flicker of intense lasers all around as the drone attempted to flash out all the cameras around them. This time the drone certainly had no time to subvert them.

Foolish drone, thought Forlam. It should have fled while it had the chance. It could not know how little Forlam cared for his own life just at that moment.

Lice were now scuttling across the floor, probably shaken loose by the vibration of the ship’s turbines. Leaping a pile of human bones, Forlam quickly came to the end of the corridor, blocked by huge sloped gratings. To his left was the door he sought. It was split diagonally and partially open. There came a hammering from inside, and he saw blue fingers tugging at the gap.

‘Back off!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll burn you out!’

‘Whoo-is thaaat?’ came a sibilant hiss from inside.

‘Your rescuer. Move away from the door.’

‘Whois whosss?’

It occurred to Forlam then that opening this door might not be such a bright idea—but, what the hell, he was here now.

‘It’s Forlam, from Captain Ron’s crew.’

‘Forlaam off worldss.’

‘Well, I’m back now. Move away from the door!’

After a moment the fingers retreated and Forlam moved in close. He aimed his carbine waist-height just at the right of the diagonal gap, and fired. The dun metal surface glimmered under the laser, then suddenly grew painfully bright. There followed an intense flash, a smell like molten solder, and a wave of light and heat threw Forlam staggering back and down on his backside.

‘Oh… buggerit,’ was all he could think to say.

‘Prador exotic metal,’ said Thirteen, from somewhere to his side.

Forlam kept blinking, as his vision slowly returned in shades of grey. He finally noticed the drone hovering to one side of the door, its tail plugged into some kind of control pit.

‘Are you really sure you want this door open?’

‘Damnit, yes!’ Forlam scrambled to his feet.

A grinding sound from the wall was followed by a thump, as some sort of hydraulic system caught up with how far the door had already been prised open by those inside. Its two halves then began to revolve away into the wall, till the gap was a metre wide. The first figure stepped through, and Forlam recognized Orbus by his bulk and his clothing—but that was all. As the others came out after the Captain, Forlam emitted a nervous giggle. They all looked to be transforming into skinners.

‘Dronsesss!’ Orbus hissed, turning to look down the corridor, then something snapped past through the air between him and Forlam and exploded against the nearby wall. As the blast hurled Forlam to the floor again, he saw Thirteen slam against the far wall. Forlam rolled aside, grabbing for his dropped carbine, but then saw it glow red, and hurled himself away as it exploded. Hot metal spattered his back and he rolled trying to extinguish his burning clothing. Then Orbus came down on him, leech tongue waving.

Oh hell…

Orbus spun him over on his face and pulled something searing from his back, then flipped him over again and, sitting on Forlam’s stomach, held up a fragment of carbine.

‘Theresss.’

The hot metal sizzled in the Captain’s fingers, till after a moment he tossed it aside. Then, extruding his leech tongue again, he returned his attention directly to Forlam.

‘If you’d just like to get off me now?’ Forlam suggested.

There was no need, for another nearby explosion flung Orbus away from him. Forlam scrambled backwards, away from where the floor seemed to be burning. Then came a sound he recognized: the stuttering whoosh of a rail-gun firing. He turned just in time to see a huge Prador drone coming towards him, the space between him and it blackening with lines of projectiles. Then the projectiles struck something, igniting a translucent wall before him, bouncing off it and smashing into the corridor walls, floor and ceiling beyond. When the drone ceased firing, the wall blinked out.

Hard-field?

Forlam glanced behind to see Orbus and his three crewmen together moving crablike over to the corridor wall. Behind them a huge nautiloid drone hung in midair, with Thirteen clutched in one of its minor tentacles. Then it returned fire at the Prador drone.

Forlam just sat there thinking that now he was going to die. Abruptly it occurred to him that though such a process might have some fascination, it was only something you could go through once. He flung himself to the wall.

Another hard-field appeared, but this time the ricochets smashed around on Forlam’s side of it. One projectile fragment just nicked his ear before slamming into the wall beside his head. One of Orbus’s crewmen was flung away from his fellow by three successive hits. Orbus himself negligently pulled a projectile out of his chest and tossed it aside. It seemed a miracle that they had not all been chopped to pieces in this potential meat-grinder, then the firing abruptly ceased.