'Nothing here.’ she replied. 'All dead.'

'Keep alert, squadron.’ said the commander, and signed off.

'You don't want to lose your nerve out here.’ said Korgen from in the missile control pit amidships. 'Blue five had better not be getting the jitters. I've seen it happen, and when you can't think straight in deep space they blow you up just to be safe.’

'Stow it, Korgen.’ said KinShao. Korgen had been a weapons man on deep spacers for decades, and had seen firefights at Patroclus Gate and St. Jowens's Dock that KinShao (though he wouldn't admit it) never tired hearing about. But he was also full of portentous stories of how crews went mad in deep space, light years from any support craft and with only their fellow crews for company.

"Wait, wait.’ crackled another voice on the all-craft channel. This is red five. I've got something too.’

Red five's navigator was the squadron's best. He wouldn't have his captain jumping at ghosts.

'It's a small signature.’ continued red five's pilot. 'Probably just junk. But it's emitting something, could be a rogue satellite or-'

A thin film of static, then silence.

'Red five?' came the commander's stern voice, as if admonishing red five for disappearing. 'Come in red five.’

KinShao kicked the ship's systems into combat alert almost as a reflex. 'Korgen, stand by to get me targets. Lovred, I want intercept speed on my mark.’ Somewhere in the stern Lovred, the ship's engineer, would be readying the Scapula's engines to burst into intercept speed.

'Red five is off the map.’ said Shass from the navigator's helm beneath the cockpit, with almost improper calm.

Visual!' cried a voice on the squadron channel, 'I've got vis-'

'Blue ten's gone.’ said Shass.

'Targets, Korgen, get me targets! Waist gunners, are you charged?'

'Check.’ said a voice in one ear from the Scapula's starboard pulse laser battery. 'Check two.’ said another in the other ear, from the port guns.

'I've got nothing.’ said Shass. 'Just the remains of red five.’

There was a terrible pause. Pilots gabbled on all channels and the commander's voice tried to cut through it all and organise a proper sensor sweep as Scapulas disappeared one by one.

'Wait.’ said Shass. 'Red five, it's moving.’

'Fire! Full spread!' yelled KinShao, and the fighter juddered around him like a bucking horse. Korgen sent half the fighter's missile payload in a glittering stream towards something that looked like red five's remains on the scanners. But it was moving towards KinShao's red seven faster than intercept speed.

Then he saw it. Lancing from the velvet black of space: a dart of silver that trailed a spray of stars. It rippled like mercury, shifted shape and widened, and a score of pure white laser bolts spat from the front edge of its glistening wings.

Red seven lurched and KinShao knew right away it was a hull breach. The artificial gravity kicked out of kilter and KinShao felt himself pressed against one side of his restraints.

'Count off! Damage report!'

'Nav, OK.’ said Shass.

'Engineering, OK.’

'Ordnance, OK.’

'Gunnery? Gunnery sound off!' KinShao realised he was shouting. The silver streak flashed past, leaving a searing afterimage against the blackness of space.

The shot took us amidships.’ said Korgen. 'Waist guns gone.’

'I've got a target. It's faster than us. It's turning back to finish us.’ said Shass.

'Korgen, give me everything. Short fuse, I want us screened.’

Korgen emptied most of the remaining torpedoes into space, their fuses cut so they detonated in a spread in front of the Scapula. A screen of electromagnetic radiation and debris was thrown up between red seven and the intruder, enough to screen the fighter from any attacker of Imperial-equivalent technology.

But the attacking fighter could see them. It darted up to red seven and stopped impossibly suddenly, hanging in space right in front of KinShao's cockpit.

It was a shard of liquid metal with sharp edges that rapidly flowed into one another, reconfiguring the whole fighter. It was probably smaller than the Scapula but its highly reflective liquid surface shone so brightly it seemed to fill KinShao's sight completely A dark slit towards the ship's knife-like prow looked in onto the bridge but KinShao couldn't make out anything inside. He was almost completely dazzled by the light, and the graceful effect of its delta wings folding in on themselves to become multiple fins rippling along the fighter's hull.

KinShao kicked the Scapula's retros on, but the engines were still geared to intercept speed. Too late he realised his mistake and the Scapula lurched forward before its retros could take effect. The screen of debris pummelled red seven's hull and billowed an brief orange flame across the viewscreen.

A storm of light ripped through the Scapula. KinShao could see the pure white lances as they seared past the cockpit. He could feel them tear through the hull as if it wasn't there. A booming sound was followed by a sharp silence, that told him the ship's midsection had explosively decompressed. Korgen was dead, probably the engineer, too.

Smoke and the chemical stink of burning plastics filled the cockpit, and heat billowed up from beneath. Shass was probably dead, too, incinerated down there.

The engines collapsed with a crump that washed through the Scapula's superstructure and the fighter lurched backwards as the retros gained a purchase. KinShao could see the enemy fighter wheeling, its body flattening like a manta ray's as it swam through the void, bolts of light spitting from it in an incandescent spray.

Every warning light on the instrument panel lit up. KinShao knew he was going to die, but the screaming sirens and roaring heat around him seemed to blot out any panic. He jammed his thumb onto the manual fire control and the twin gatlings spattered gunfire from beneath the Scapula's nose. They wouldn't hit and they didn't have the range, but KinShao had to go down fighting.

Warning lights winked in desperation. One of them was for the saviour pod behind the cockpit that KinShao was supposed to use if the Scapula was lost. The heat around his feet was unbearable, and flames licked from the instrument panels. The viewscreen started to blacken.

The silver wings rippled again as the fighter wheeled around and twin dark eyes opened up in its leading edge. Bolts of silver lightning burst from the apertures and punched through the cockpit of red seven, spitting the Scapula on a lance of light.

THE CONTROLS AROUND Sarpedon's hands squirmed as he sent fire ripping from the fighter's primary weapons, and punched ragged holes through the wounded craft in front of him.

The cold liquid metal seeped into his gauntlets and connected him with the ship. He only had to think and the fighter's weapons would fill the void with bolts of laser and plasma. The craft in front -a deep-space fighter, part of a cordon around one of the warzone's quieter frontiers - came apart in a blossom of shimmering debris. Sarpedon's fighter flew right through the clouds of wreckage; the fighter's liquid surface absorbing the thousands of impacts.

Beside Sarpedon two serfs still held the flight controls. But Sarpedon had taken over the weapons helm himself - none of the serfs understood weaponry and destruction like a Marine who had been a warrior for more than seventy years.

Karraidin's ship had gone in first and taken out three of the fighters. Sarpedon's had just destroyed two more. The deep space fighters seemed unwieldy compared to the Soul Drinkers' alien fighter fleet, even though the Scapula-class were actually highly sophisticated by Imperial standards. It was a sign of how much the Imperium had stagnated - the development of their technology had slowed to a crawl. Soon it would be at a standstill and its enemies would race past it, conquering and burning.