The image smiled one of its cold smiles. “The orders I have to pass on to you from the Complector Council are: to Seer — now Major — Taak.” (The projection was already looking straight at Fassin. Now so did a lot of the people in the chamber.) “Return to Nasqueron, seek out the ancient Dweller who gave you the original information and try to find out all you can about the Dweller List, the Second Ship, its location and the Transform. And, to everybody else here,” (the image looked around all the others in the chamber) “first, provide every aid you can to Major Taak in the furtherance of his mission, including doing nothing that will delay, obstruct or compromise it, and, second, return the Ulubis system to an invasion-imminent, full-scale, total-war footing immediately and prepare to oppose the coming invasion. Your goal should be — and I do not exaggerate here — to resist to the very last creat, to the very last mortal, to the very last breath.”

The hologram seemed to stand back a little and take the measure of them all. “I would say to all of you that, without doubt, your fate lies in your own hands. More importantly, so, potentially, does the fate of the Mercatoria and the civilised galaxy. The rewards for success will be unprecedented in their scale and splendour. The punishments for failure will begin with ignominy and disgrace and plumb new depths of ghastliness beyond. One last thing. You know that the Engineership Est-taun Zhiffir and battle-fleet escort which sent this signal are still seventeen years from reaching Ulubis system. I must tell you that significant elements of the Summed Fleet, above Squadron strength, were dispatched in your direction from Zenerre even before the Eship left and have been making well in excess of the Eship fleet’s velocity directly towards Ulubis ever since. The attack squadrons will arrive years before the Eship and its escort fleet, their war craft will be fully deployed for uninhibited battle against all who oppose the Mercatoria, and — depend upon it — they will prevail.”

The image smiled again. “How I wish I could tell you exactly how soon from this point they will appear. However, even I do not know; this signal was sent from the fleet accompanying the Eship and we do not yet know quite how close to light speed they have pushed themselves, or how close they will have by the time this signal arrives. We can only hazard. If the Disconnecters leave off for as long as another couple of years, the attack squadrons may well arrive before them. Otherwise, they will descend upon a system already fallen to the enemy, or, one would hope, still somehow resisting. Their reaction when they arrive largely depends on your determination, fortitude and ability to absorb punishment.” The projection smiled. “Now: any further questions?”

* * *

The Beyonders must have anticipated them. Their ships were already making ninety per cent of their own furious, headlong speed when they appeared on the point ship’s long-distance scanners.

Taince Yarabokin floated foetal, swaddled in shock-gel, lungs full of fluid, umbilicalled to the ship, nurtured by it, talking to it, listening to it, feeling it all around her. A gee-suit half-completed the image of warrior as unborn, leaving the wearer clothed in a close second skin. Her connection with the ship was via implants and an induction collar rather than a cord into her navel, and her chest moved only faintly as the gillfluid tided oxygen into her blood and scrubbed waste gases out again. Behind her closed lids in that darkness, her eyes flickered to and fro, twitching involuntarily. She shared her close confinement with another forty or so of her comrades, all lying curled and protected and wired up in their own life-pods, all carried deep in the belly of the fleet’s flagship, the Mannlicher- Carcano.

Way ahead at point, the destroyer Petronel veered, maxing its engines, then blinked out in a wash of light that became darkness as the sensors compensated. The buffering faded and revealed the half of the lead ship that was left, tumbling wildly, tearing itself apart in dark curved fountains of debris, spraying fragments against the tunnel-scape of hard blue-white stars collected ahead.

— Point registers multiple contacts at ninety fleet-vee, said one voice, flagged as LR sensors.

· Point is hit, came another; Fleet Status.

· Point contact lost, came a third, followed immediately by:

· Point gone; Fleet Comms and Status almost colliding.

Instantly aware, Taince had just sufficient time for one small,

frightened part of herself to think, No! Not on my watch! And right in the Fleet Admiral’s nap time, when she was in sole charge. But even as that reaction seemed to echo and die inside her head, she was sensing, judging, thinking, getting ready to issue orders. She flitted between the real-as-it-could-be view shown by the deep-space scan sensors, where the stars were bunched hard blue-white in a circle ahead and collected into a fuzzy red pool behind with pure blackness in every other direction, and the dark abstraction that was Tacspace, a multi-lined and radiused sphere where the ships of the fleet sat, little stylised arrowhead shapes of varying sizes and colours, a line of fading dots behind each indicating their courses, green glowing identities and status codes riding alongside them.

The pre-prepared split pattern wouldn’t work; the ship which had just traded point with the Petronel was still sliding back into position in the main body of the fleet and a pattern-one split would at worst cause multiple collisions and at best be just too slow.

Oh well, time to start earning her pay and communicate. Taince sent,

— Pattern-five split, all ships. BC-three, that plus a two-point inward, left-skew delta, for five, then resume.

Copy signals flicked back, the first from her own helm officer, the last from the battlecruiser Jingal, registering its adherence to the slight kink she’d put in its course the better to accommodate their D-seven: Destroyer seven, the Culverin, the ship which had been falling back after swapping point with the Petronel. She was distantly aware of her body registering a pulse of movement, a sudden change in direction so extreme that even the shock-gel couldn’t completely mask it. Around them, the ships would be flaring off like their own silent shrapnel burst.

· Hull stress eighty-five, Ship Integrity-Damage Control told her.

· All units responding. Full pattern-five flare, said Fleet Status.

· D-seven: thanks for that, joining pattern.

· C-one: single contact, five nor-down-west.

· D-three: double contact, neg-four nor-up-east.

The cruiser Mitrailleuse and the destroyer Cartouche registering hostiles. Taince didn’t even need to glance into Tacspace to know that meant harmfuls on both sides.

· So, bracketing.

· A straddle. Got us good.

The last two voices had been the two most senior fellow tactical officers.

· We sound as though we play Battleships. (That was Fleet Admiral Kisipt. Awake now, watching. Apparently content to let Taince run the show for the moment.)

· C-one: hostile contact confirmed. PTF.

· D-three: hostile contact confirmed. PTF.

Mitrailleuse and Cartouche requesting permission to fire.

· Suggest fire\Suggest fire, the other tacticians chorused.

· Agree fire, Fleet Admiral Kisipt said. — Vice?

Vice Admiral Taince Yarabokin thought so too. — C-one, D-three; grant free fire.

· C-one: Firing.

· D-three: Firing.

Tacspace showed bright crimson beams flick from the two ships. Tiny, lime-green dots with their own status bars were missiles, darting towards the enemy ships.

· Multiple hits on the D-one debris field, LR Sensors reported.