Why does it always have to be the leg I've trashed more times than I care to think about? I've smashed it falling off Olympus Mons, in the explosion that wrecked my life, had it stabbed, shot and broken so many times Luna tells me it's only the repairs holding it together, despite the dark matter healing boost I get from being one of the Arcadia's crew…

It's as though it has a bloody sign on it saying "attack here". Because the zombie horde tearing itself out of the ground couldn't go for the left leg, could it? No, I had my right ankle wrapped in a bony, frozen grip, and the disembodied hand yanked my foot right out from under me, and I went down hard on the frozen ground, my face narrowly missing a razor sharp rock sticking out of the ice. I lost my grip on the sabre, which skittered downhill coming to rest against the remains of a long dead tree stump, shattering the fragile, frozen wood into icy splinters as it hit. The dragoon was jolted from my hand but at least I was able to scrabble for it, and get my finger back on the butt as yet more rotting corpses burst from the permafrost, reaching for any part of me they could reach, as though drawn to my body heat. I kicked out at the rotting hand that still had hold of my ankle, but it had a literal death-grip on my boot, the bony fingers losing bits of the flesh still left on them as I squirmed to get free, swearing under my breath.

'Hold still!'

Nero's voice was like a whip crack. I froze - not literally, though another half hour might just do it… His gravity blade - a rather more robust, wicked, curved beast closer in design to a cutlass, scythed down close enough to my boot to sear the leather. The dead hand let go, and with the help of an outstretched hand, I got to my feet, Nero's strong grip pulling me away from those skeletal hands reaching through the ice. I stamped on one that had hold of the edge of my cloak and something screeched as the bones shattered under my metal soled boot.

'Thanks,' I told him, once I'd gotten my breath back. Someone - Franz - threw my sabre back to me and I caught it one-handed with a flourish. You could call it well-practiced. Tochiro usually opined it was one way to hide the fact that with one eye, it was one way to cover up that you tended to fumble the catch…

'Don't thank me yet!' Nero's cutlass was jabbed in the direction of still more figures heading our way. 'The damned things are still coming!'

Overhead, the Arcadia and the Thunderbolt strafed the lumbering Phantasma as it strained to leave the ground. Those black tendrils snapped back into the body of the thing like over-stretched elastic. There was no sign of any of the armoured metanoids, but they'd left plenty of their zombie shock troops behind to annoy us.

''Kei!' I yelled into the commlink.

'No need to shout - you're coming through loud and clear,' she snapped. 'We're kind of busy up here!'

'I need that thing out of this gravity well,' I told her. 'Then whilst you and Yanez are trashing it, send me some air support - I want this entire valley scorched.'

'What about you?' Irked at being distracted she might be, but I know my Kei well enough to know she was trying desperately not to turn the ship round and high-tail it back to pick me up. I'd pay for this later.

'We're on the hill. I'm pretty sure our guys can avoid hitting it if they try hard enough,' I replied, trying to ease back on the sarcasm, whilst back to back with Nero and blasting away at everything that moved. I had vague memories of playing this game as a kid, and it had been a lot more fun thirty years ago. And the zombies had fallen apart more quickly…

'Then get back up it, and stay behind something a little more robust than a snowball,' she snapped, cutting the connection.

Behind me, I could hear Nero's side of a similar conversation.

'Ever wonder if they'd ever just leave us behind one day, if we push them too far?' he asked, shouting over the noise of our pitched battle.

I blasted another rank of stumbling corpsicles into oblivion, and mentally swore off sausages for a month. 'If they haven't done it yet, I think we're safe!' I shouted back. 'I'm advised we need to take cover!'

'Same here.' He waved that ridiculous cutlass to get the attention of his crewmates, firing it in the air. 'Fall back!' he bellowed. 'Up the hill!'

'Franz - Martinez?' I used the comms. Much easier on the tonsils. Covering for each other, my pair retreated towards our position, step by backwards step at first, but soon realising the best plan was the example set by Nero's people - they just turned and ran for it, and in the end it was Nero and myself who retreated step by step, covering the rest of them until we were back where we'd started, just in time to watch the Phantasma take off, those black bands whirling like a whipping top, springing vertically into the sky, firing at the Thunderbolt as it made a contemptuous fly-by, all guns blazing. From further away the Arcadia's guns spat in unison, and that symmetrical double-cone faltered slightly, the black bands turning misty in places as it struggled to cope with the damage. It whirled even faster, and shot upwards, pursuing the Thunderbolt, the Arcadia in pursuit.

I had little time to wonder if they'd succeed: Hundreds of reboot corpses were still heading straight for us, and as fast as our weapons mowed down the front ranks, more were still coming from the seemingly endless supply of discarded bodies in the valley below. And if the charge in the last energy pack I'd slapped into my pistol was anything to go by, we were getting alarmingly low on firepower…

'Captain!' Franz pointed at the sky. 'I think the cavalry just arrived!'

We had half a dozen fighters we could realistically put into the air during a fight, given our tendency to keep a much lower crew complement than the Deathshadows had been built for. Six SW-190s with a skull and crossbones emblazoned on their hulls were swooping down, engines screaming. They however were only the vanguard - coming in from the side, I counted well over thirty planes in the old dark green livery of the former Solar System Alliance fleet.

After that, I didn't see much of anything, because thirty six space wolves firing at the same geographical area lights up even a daylight sky like a fireball, and the accompanying detonations as they cluster-bombed the area on the second fly-by left my ears ringing.

And after that, we were just mopping up the leftovers, until those planes strafed the mob of rotting corpses and we were ducking partly defrosted body parts. Half a skull smacked into Franz's shoulder and he shrieked. I reached over and flicked an eyeball off his collar, but forbore to twit him about it. His face was white with pain, and the arm hung limply at his side. I gave him a shove on the uninjured side towards the rear of our rocky redoubt. 'Get down and stay down,' I ordered. 'Give Cren your weapon.' The chthonian was totally out of ammunition and had resorted to chucking some of the loose rubble lying underfoot, and on one occasion, a couple of the body parts we'd been bombarded with had been thrown back with admirable accuracy but lamentable results.

The light was starting to fade by the time a party of our respective crew trudged up the hill from where they'd parked the planes. The valley and the hillside we sat on was now just so much ice blackened with ichor and ash, and scorched, slagged rock . I sagged against the rocky outcrop, Nero leaning against it equally wearily, and holstered my depleted weapons. I stared down at the blasted landscape below, still glowing in the deepening twilight. 'Your guys… really know how to make a statement,' I said eventually as we watched the fires burn.'

'You can never bring enough firepower to bear on a problem,' he replied with some feeling.

'Captain?' Franz spoke up weakly from near my left foot. I looked down. Yara was tying a makeshift sling around his neck to support his broken arm. 'Did you get the data you wanted?'

'I should think so,' I drawled.

'Good. Next time, can you just do the research over the warp net?' The little yelp he ended the sentence on was lost in the deep bark of laughter from my fellow captain, but not to Yara, who increased her ministrations, nor, from the eye-rolling sigh Martinez gave him, on his crewmate.

'You do know it's a two mile hike back to the planes?' Nero said once he'd stopped laughing. We both slumped down to sit on the rocky ground, our gravity cloaks providing a little protection against a frozen arse, but not much.

'Bugger that,' I told him. 'Esteban - find out whether Kei and Yanez have finished playing with that creepy-assed ship, and if they have, tell them to drop a workboat with one of the ATVs will you?'

'Captain?' The red-head - Erik? - gave his captain a pleading glance that would have embarrassed a puppy. Nero nodded once, and the youth gleefully got onto the comms to request a pick-up. I shifted uncomfortably, because even through the thick leather, a bone-deep cold was starting to seep.

'Put the grav field on low,' Nero advised, both eyes closed. 'That way you're not sitting on the ground…'

I unfastened it from the cuirass and spread it out, motioning my guys to sit on it with me. No sense in the three of us freezing our backsides off if we didn't have to. And since I'm such a good captain, I didn't even raise an eyebrow when Franz invited Yara to snuggle up on it as well. Frankly it was all I could do by then to rest my chin on my knees and close my eyes, taking my cue from Nero, who - judging by the low rumble near my left ear, could, it seems, sleep anywhere.

Meanwhile, on Ventimiglia

Mamoru leaned on the railing of the ship next to the rope ladder down to the dinghy and tried not to smirk as Rei practically teleported down the ladder into the small boat that bobbed alongside the Tonnere. 'You do know the big ship is safer, right?' he called down cheekily. With almost superhuman prescience he ducked Selen's hand to the back of his head.

'Be nice,' she chided.

'I am, under the circumstances,' he replied with a grin. 'You haven't had to lie there in the bunk above his every night listening to him bitch about how much he hates open water…' He watched as the small boat pulled away towards the beach a few hundred yards away, Rei clutching the sides with a death grip, Motherball hovering over his head chirping at him. He sighed. 'Bloody hell, it's hot…' He looked down ruefully at his shorts. 'I've run out of stuff to take off…'

'Oh, just lose the shorts,' David told him cheerfully from nearby, where the tall, blond clone was hauling in on a thick hawser, coiling the wet rope effortlessly as he did so, his arms bulging with muscle, to Mamoru's teenaged chagrin. 'Most of us go naked on land.'

'But not on board,' Mamoru pointed out, noting David's cut-off t-shirt, gloves and shorts.

'Hell no - rope burns are a bitch.' David grinned at him, and outright smiled at Selen. His blue eyes surreptitiously eyed her from head to toe and back again. In a light green sarong and matching bikini top, her hair tied loosely back, she looked a fraction of her actual age, and her body was lean, and tanned from the days spent aboard the ship going to and from the hidden transports. 'The last thing you want is your block and tackle caught up in the block and tackle… And don't feel so defensive, kiddo - I've seen your dad, you'll fill out well enough in time. You're what - fifteen?'

'Sixteen.'

'See? Can't you tell him?' He addressed this last to Selen.

Selen laughed. 'Oh, believe me, I try. But I've raised three of my own plus Rei and they all seem to think they're being short-changed by puberty not delivering chiselled abs and a virile carpet overnight.' She said this last with a pointed look at David's muscular six-foot-four frame, with its slab-like chest and golden pelt.

He grinned and flexed his pecs. 'Good genes, I'm told.'

'Hank had his moments…' she smiled sadly. 'I miss him. And Dan.'

'Maybe there's hope?' Mamoru asked. 'I mean, if they copied him and Douglas, maybe they still have them somewhere? If David here and Morgan are part of some super-soldier programme, maybe they'd want to keep going back to the source?'

David frowned. 'Doppler's also using kidnapped scientists and experts in his masked man programme as well, don't forget. Gotta say - once this mess is cleaned up, I'm tempted to help you guys look for your friends. In a way, they're mine and Morgan's fathers, right? Or brothers, depending on how you look at it. Captain Nero always taught us to take care of family - whether that's by blood or by fate.'

The little boat was heading back for a second load now, two dark-skinned men on the oars who David had introduced as Sea-spider and Moko. Too old to be clones, they were both older members of the Thunderbolt's crew who'd "retired" to the tropical paradise. They tended to bicker good-naturedly over everything. They called up a cheery greeting to Selen as they tied off, and almost tipped over the boat vying to be the one to help her down into it.

With Halia, Galena and David along for the trip back to shore with Mamoru on the same bench as Selen, she laughed off her admirers' offer of a cushion and picked up the conversation.

'We'd given up trying to find them… it's been so long, we'd lost all hope. But you're right - we shouldn't forget them, or stop looking. I'll be more than happy to arrange for a new search once we get back to our own galaxy. From what I hear Doppler's probably moved his more dubious projects out of the SDF's reach anyway…'

'...which might explain why you and dad never found them?' Mamoru asked. 'I'd like to help - Takuma - Uncle Dan's son - is a good friend as well as family. And Lisa I know would be over the moon if we could find her dad.'

'Lisa?' David asked.

'Hank's daughter,' Mamoru told him, with a grin. 'She's a couple of years older than me and Tak. One seriously smart strawberry blonde bombshell with some kick-ass piloting skills just like her dad - and tops it all off by taking my mom as a role model. Seriously - dad gave her one of mom's e-clipboards for her birthday when she was seven, and Takuma's never forgiven him!'

David shook his head. 'Bloody hell… this just keeps getting better and better…'

Galena slapped him on the back. 'Yep. You have a biological daughter older than you are…'

'Well thanks for that, Gallie,' he grumbled at her. The boat bumped gently against the pier and he climbed out to tie off, offering his hand to Galena and Selen in turn, leaving Mamoru to hop up onto the decking under his own steam. His awkward landing was steadied by Rei who shot him a grin before he could thank him.

'Graceful, you're not,' Rei told him.

'I didn't land on my face.'

'You're not Wattie.'

The pier took that moment to rock alarmingly, almost tipping the pair into the water. It was Mamoru's turn to grab hold of Rei and prevent him from pitching headfirst into the clear blue waters. 'Bloody hell, Zero, you really need to shed a few pounds…'

'Fuck off. Denser bone structure, remember?' Rei glanced around nervously 'What the hell was that? An earthquake?'

'Venti-quake?' Mamoru replied absently, looking just as nervous. 'Maybe we'd better just leg it to shore?'

'Way ahead of you,' Rei grunted, suiting action to words. He let Mamoru keep pace with him over the hundred yards or so the pier extended out from the sheltered beach. A medium-sized transport had landed during their sojourn in the submerged transports and now perched on the narrow strip of weathered lava that served as a beach. Ianthe's unmistakable silhouette lurked near the ramp.

Selen was already running back to them and the boys lost no time in reaching her side, Mamoru slightly out of breath, Rei looking as though he'd just strolled over. 'Mom?' he asked, a hand resting on the hilt of his pistol. Selen grabbed him, pulled him close then gave him a firm shove in the direction of the beach. 'Head for the transport,' she ordered, her voice calm and brisk.

'Aunt Selen?'

'Incoming. Three ships, capital class.'

'So not metanoids?' Mamoru kept pace with her, his long legs easily covering the ground. Rei had sprinted ahead, Motherball flashing red above his shoulder as he reached the small group of Nero's people gathered at the end of the pier.

'Promete class. I think Doppler Corp have come for their "property"', she half snarled in reply. She gave him a push in the direction of Nero's daughters. 'Go with the girls, Mamoru-chan. Protect Ianthe and the children. They have contingency plans.'

'But dad would want me to make sure you were okay,' he argued. She quelled his objections with a look. 'Mamoru - I think you're forgetting just who is supposed to be protecting whom… You and Rei help with the evacuation of personnel. Now go! I'll help David with the defenses.'

He went, reluctantly, casting a glance back over his shoulder as he ran. Selen had hold of David's shoulder and was talking quickly and firmly, the young man nodding as they jogged in the direction of the cliff that formed the rim of the old volcano. Rei hung back a little to let him keep up. 'Why is it,' Mamoru asked between breaths as they ran, 'that this sort of shit always hits just when you take your eye off the ball thinking you can get some downtime?'

'Karma?' Rei reached out and pulled hard on Mamoru's shorts, almost toppling both of them as a jet screamed overhead, blasterbolts slamming into the black sand less than their height away from them, rendering it into instant obsidian. Both flinched from the heat. 'Shit. Pick up the pace, Mamo.'

Ahead of them, Ianthe waved frantically at the entrance to a cave in the foot of the cliffs a few hundred feet away. Both youths slid to a stop beside her, their footing uncertain on the wet black sand. 'The transport's not safe. We're taking shelter. The tunnels go back for several hundred yards,' she told them.

'What if they score a hit on the cliff?' Mamoru asked.

'It's over two hundred feet thick - you'd need capital class weaponry to do any damage and if they bring that to bear, that's the least of our problems. I've got all hands available heading for our planes, so you, Hallie, Gallie and Dione need to protect the young ones. I've got reports of landing craft filled with troops and those dreadful combat robots Doppler Corp favours, so I need all the guns on the ground I can find.'

'Should you be out here?' Mamoru stared pointedly at her hugely pregnant form. She glared at him.

'I'm stuffed full of baby, not sick, kiddo. And despite all the usual clichés, not about to gasp, grab my stomach and screech "my waters just broke!" for dramatic effect any time soon. So if you two would care to focus your concerns on those who actually need them, I'd suggest you take your arses over in the direction of the caverns and give the revivification teams and their charges some cover!'

'Yes, grandmama,' Mamoru said, placing a light kiss on her cheek. She swatted him away like a gnat, to Rei's amusement. 'Well, you are… technically.'

'Technicalities be damned, brat. Call me that again and you'll find out just how grandmotherly I'm not…'

Rei grabbed his collar and hauled him away. 'Don't worry, Ianthe, I'll explain the facts of life to him as we go…' He set off at a steady jog, to allow Mamoru to keep up. The younger boy was already a little breathless, but as always refusing to give in. 'Pace yourself,' Rei advised seriously. 'You know your dad'll fret if you overdo it.'

'I think… that's… the least… of... my... problems… right... now.' Sand exploded less than twenty feet away, showering them with superheated glassy shards, kept at bay only by a timely intervention from the hovering motherball. 'Thanks, Boreas!' The hovering ball chirped at him, her forcefield shimmering slightly as it covered the pair - not enough to stop a full-on blast even from a handgun, but at least it blocked the shrapnel from the shots that missed. The pair headed for a group of teens and small children, running towards the relative safety of the caves. Another blast hit close by, and he swore under his breath. 'Where is that?'

'On the edge!' Rei pointed to where a large machine squatted on the edge of the rocky cliff overlooking the wooden hall. Blocky and ugly, two storeys high, its brutal outline dominated the skyline above them. Two large blasters swivelled and spat plasma at the beach. The prefab building that housed the reanimation team was already engulfed in flames. 'Fucking hell, that thing's huge!'

'Industrial mining machine,' Mamoru panted. 'Recognise it from Ali's descriptions.'

They reached a group of youngsters running for safety, and ushered them ahead, the pair watching for attack as they ran. 'Lucky for us its pilot is fucking useless…' Rei remarked. 'Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if he was standing inside it…'

'They're not usually pointed at moving targets…' Mamoru pointed out.

Another blast caused them to swerve, and two of the smaller children tripped over. This time, even through the shield Mamoru flinched as several tiny shards peppered his face and arms with white-hot pinpricks. A little girl screamed, and he stopped to pick her up, the boy with her just needed a hand up to get to his feet, and looked equally tearful. Neither looked to be more than five years old. 'Okay?' he asked. Both nodded, and the little girl wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder. 'C'mon. Almost there!' He offered his hand to the boy, and gave the small paw a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

'Mamo!' Rei's shout was all the warning he had, as something punched him in the shoulder and he pitched forwards into the sand. He had to let go of the boy's hand in order to shield the little girl from his weight, and landed badly. His left shoulder felt as though it was on fire and the girl landed on his right wrist, with it turned underneath them. The boy screamed and he reached out - with difficulty, to try and scoop him up and pull him closer.

The droning buzz getting closer had him scrabbling to reach his pistol, dropped in his fall. A small hand reached out and grabbed it, pushing it back towards him. He smiled into the pale face framed by dark elf-locks, rolled over and fired at the robot bearing down on them. The flattened ovoid burst apart, scattering its shell, skeletal limbs, and parts of something pink and squishy that Mamoru really didn't want to examine too closely as he flicked chunks out of his hair. 'Thanks.' The boy blinked back frightened tears as Mamoru hauled him to his feet and gave him a push in the direction of the caves. Little girl still clinging to his neck he put his best foot forward and tried to put the growing fatigue out of mind. 'Bloody stupid body…' he muttered. 'And why does this shit never happen to Wataru?'

He was struggling for breath and stumbling slightly on spent legs as he reached the entrance to the cave, and larger hands than his were taking his charges off him. He collapsed against the damp wall just inside the opening, and waved off the gentle hand Halia placed on his shoulder. 'S'fine,' he told her. 'Just overdid it a bit.'

'My bad.' Rei dropped to the damp rocky floor next to him. 'I keep forgetting.'

'Lucky you.' He risked a quick look over Rei's shoulder. 'Where's your moms?'

'Blasting away at anything that moves. There's about a dozen of these brain-bot things out there…' he snarled this last. Mamoru glanced over to where the children were being ushered further into the cave system by their elders. He brushed black sand off his pistol and checked the charge. Half left, and two caps in his belt…

Rei tapped his hand to get his attention. 'That large thing on the cliff - that's an industrial driller, you said?'

'Yeah? So?' Realisation dawned. 'They know about the caves!'

'They were herding us here. The bastards knew the Thunderbolt had left - and they know about the transports. Nero's sprung a leak somewhere, and not just to the metanoids… Blaze and Hannibal are probably walking right into a trap.'

'Not our problem,' Mamoru pointed out. 'This is. Help me up. Hallie?'

The young woman frowned. 'Problem?'

'Yeah. There's a big-ass drill up on the cliff - they've been firing at the beach, but that was just to send us running in here. Once they aim it at the ground…'

'Son of a…' She tapped her commlink. 'David? Can you get someone to do a flyby of that weird tank thing on the cliff? A well placed blast up its arse would be greatly appreciated before it starts trying to dig us out…'

David's answer was a barely audible crackle next to Mamoru's ear, his head close to Halia's. 'No, we can't leave the caves - there's still a group of those brainbots out there.'

'They won't want to kill too many of their "product",' Rei muttered in Mamoru's other ear. 'Maybe we could take a few out?'

'Rei?'

Both Mamoru and Rei tapped their comms as Selen's voice came over their earpieces. 'Mom?'

'I heard that - David and I are pinned by the pier, but there's a fighter wing on its way. Stay put, but keep the kids as close as you can to the exit.'

'But…'

She cut him off sharply. 'Not negotiable, Rei. Stand fast and protect the children. The beach will be a kill zone.'

He muttered something unrepeatable as he hunkered down next to Mamoru, but he stayed put, green light flickering between his hands as he twisted his fingers as though toying with an intangible cats' cradle.

On the far side of the beach, Selen crouched behind a breakwater, David at her side, and peeked over the salt-stained, cracked wood. 'Your people are pinned on the other side of the cliff, and in the caves. The Tonnere had to put back out to sea to avoid attack - they seem to be ignoring her for now. But that leaves us with no-one to take out those battle-bots of Doppler's…'

'We've got six planes in the air, but the first wave back at the island took out the rest. Our ships are engaging the capital class vessels - a tough fight, but we're scrappy, and our crews know their trade.' He wriggled closer to her side and peered over the side. 'They're just in a holding pattern… watching the caves, but not advancing.'

'Because they expect that thing to do their work for them.' Selen made a tiny gesture in the direction of the driller on the top of the cliff, which was lumbering into position on half-tracks, its two massive blasters tipping down to aim at the thin vegetation covering the dark granite. 'Typical Zone Industries - over engineered, too big and bulky and cheaply constructed - but it'll do the job.'

'Thankfully the transport is sheltered from direct fire,' David murmured. 'But once that thing starts digging…'

'ETA on those planes?'

'Five minutes. And we don't have the firepower to hold off the 'bots.' He punctuated this last by firing several shots at the advancing robots, picking off three and damaging two more. Selen's blaster bolts finished off those with well-placed shots to the visible brain matter inside the transparent front plates. He did a double-take at her gravity sabre. 'I thought you were carrying a pistol?'

'Extendable,' she replied tersely. 'Handy but lacks the robust power-pack.' She deftly slid the pack out of the plain hilt, marked with a crescent moon embracing a single star, and slapped in a replacement. She sighted along the length and another bot went down with a shrieking scream. 'How far do those caves go back?'

'Not far enough,' David replied. He ducked as several blast bolts sped over their heads, one landing short and sending up molten shards of obsidian. 'They're getting our range…' He leaned back against the breakwater and checked his charge. 'Dammit! This is supposed to be a secret! We don't keep an armoury here - the facility on the caldera is purely for reviving the clones.' A loud, shrill, whining drone partly drowned out his words by the time he'd finished, and he risked a quick look over the breakwater. 'Shit! It's started drilling!'

'David…'

'I know! I know!' His handsome face as grim as he reached for his commlink. 'Kammamuri! Naik! Anyone got their ears on up there? We need a fast strike and extraction down here!'

'We could use the same up here, blondie!' The reply cackled over the 'link. 'Bastards caught us with our pants down, came out of IN-SKIP in the upper atmosphere! Who the fuck is insane enough to try that?'

'Luger,' Selen replied drily. 'At a guess. The One Sane Man in the lot, and a cool head on his shoulders.'

'Well whoever he is, lady,' came the crackling reply, 'he's running rings around us and…'

'Kammamuri!'

'Shit! David! There's more of them coming in, just arrived out of nowhere and…' the link dissolved into static, despite David calling the captain's name into it in vain. 'Fuck!'

A blast almost singed his fair hair and he dropped the commlink to return fire alongside Selen. 'These things just keep on coming!' Over a dozen of the battlebots were arrayed on the narrow shore now, two were entering the transport up the cargo ramp, and three were heading towards the cave mouth. More were rounding the curve of the headland. 'We're so fu-'

The three in front of the cave exploded as three fighters appeared overhead, the sonic boom from their arrival in their wake enough to shake the timbers of the breakwater. 'Ye-ss!' David whooped. The group heading their direction were hit in the next wave. 'Now that's good timing!' Then he looked up as a shadow fell over them. 'Oh… maybe I spoke too soon…' he looked up. 'What the…'

Selen risked taking her eyes off the beach, looked up at the massive ship which hovered overhead, and smiled. 'Reinforcements!' she shouted joyfully into David's ear over the noise of the engines.

David stared at the cloud-sized dirigible that currently blotted out the daylight over the caldera. Underneath the red and black blimp raining pinpoint accurate bolts down at the robot army, he could have sworn what looked like an ancient galleon was suspended from delicate hawsers… He shook his head, but the absurd image refused to go away. And it was quickly joined by the far more familiar sight of a Medusa class battleship, its hull looking like a mechanical replica of the jellyfish it resembled. 'The Mechanical Empire as well?' he muttered. 'Hellfire, are we in it now…'

'Relax!' Selen shouted, unable to hear him over the engine noise, but not really needing to, since his face and body language gave away his sentiments. 'This one's on our side!' She thumbed her own commlink. 'Frank?'

'Your highness. I had it on good authority that annoying purblind gnat of a pirate had gotten you tangled up in his messes again. The least I could do was…'

'Show up and rub his nose in it?' she drawled. 'Gloat later, Frank - I need that driller on the cliff gone, without taking out the caves below - they're stuffed full of refugees, and Rei and Mamoru are in there as well.'

'Leave that to us!' another male voice floated over the comms. 'Needs a bit more finesse that that old bird can deliver!'

'Nazca?'

'In person! Oh, do shut up, Frankie! I'm trying to work this out, unless you want to explain to Harlock why his eldest son got buried under a landslide? No? Didn't think so. Go and military somewhere else, will ya? You're in our way. As usual.'

Selen shook her head at the byplay, and sighed.

'Is everyone on your side like that?' David asked.

''Always in each other's faces but willing to back each other to the hilt when it counts?'

He shrugged. 'Well, if you put it like that…' He stared up at the descending blimp, as it turned with surprising grace to face the massive machine on the cliff-top. Small apertures were opening up in the blimp, aimed at the machine, which quickly responded to the danger, pulling its active lasers out of the ground and slowly - but not slowly enough, bringing them to bear on the ship. 'Is that thing even armed with anything powerful enough?'

'Watch,' Selen advised. 'And learn…'

The driller fired first, a fierce blast landing a hit dead on the front elevation of the blimp, but doing no noticeable damage. The reciprocal blasts from the dirigible likewise at first seemed to be doing little damage to the thick armour plating of the drill, its slab-like sloping sides acting like ancient ablative glassiss plates, Selen realised as she watched. Emeraldas' vessel was only chipping away at the surface, which was taking the hits like so many gnat bites. After only a half dozen shots, the pilot of the machine presumably tired of the game, given that neither machine could inflict any damage on the other, and turned his attention along with his drilling rig back to tunneling through the volcanic rock into the caverns below. Which Selen thought grimly as she tried to concentrate on the advancing battlebots, and not worry about two teenage tearaways and a pregnant young woman, would have made sense if he'd been up against anyone but Nazca…

'That blimp might be big, but it's got bugger all firepower,' David yelled in her ear over the background cacophony. 'That ship hasn't got enough smaller weapons or any large ones. He's barely making a dent in that lumbering hulk! Those sloping glassiss plates…'

'Everything has a weak spot,' she called back, punctuating her words with precision firepower. 'And sometimes neither quantity nor power are not the only solutions to a problem…'

The ship continued to pepper the driller with the battleship equivalent of buckshot, to David's jaundiced eye, but he said nothing, and carried on taking out the almost never-ending parade of mobile brain jars. So the quiet crack that preceded a larger boom as the drill exploded almost slipped his notice. When he looked up, the machine was listing badly on the edge of the cliff, smoke pouring out of several holes it hadn't sported earlier. 'What the…'

'Ablative armour hardens in response to energy weapons and flakes off… hit the surface with a chemical weapon once you've exposed it, and then fire a kinetic weapon at the weakened points.' Selen replied dryly. 'Only works in an oxygen rich atmosphere however…'

'Give me a break!' Nazca's indignant voice chimed in her left ear. 'I'm workin' on it!'

The machine teetered alarmingly, its half-tracks whirring uselessly in mid-air on one side, and slipping on the churned up rubble it had coughed up as semi-molten slag on the other. 'Uh-oh…'

Selen could hear the tell-tale whine of a gravium drive about to go critical, even as the machine toppled over the cliff edge towards the ground directly in front of the cavern entrance. David's wordless, anguished cry of shock and despair echoed in her ears as he watched helpless as the machine fell…

She stood up, and dropped her sabre to the ground. Aware of the danger the battlebots were fleeing, but they'd be too late.

Time slowed to a crawl.

From the entrance of the cavern, Rei and Mamoru saw Selen raise her arms above her head, her auburn hair flowing behind her as though caught in a strong breeze.

But there was no wind on the black, rocky beach.

'MOM!'

Mamoru had to use all of his strength to try and stop Rei from running out, when he realised what she was about to attempt.

Time flowed like tar through a small funnel.

A faint glow surrounded Selen, as she stood, arms raised and outstretched. It flickered in scintillating shades of blue, red, yellow, dancing around her limbs like St Elmo's fire. It spread out in a wave, rippling towards the cavern mouth, dancing over the rocks, sparking every time it hit a rocky outcrop. It spread upwards, to encompass the falling machine, enclosing it in a glittering bubble.

Time ran out.

Mamoru pulled Rei back as the driller crashed into the black sand, only dimly aware of the second, green energy barrier that covered the entrance to the cave in that last fraction of a second. He pressed his face into Rei's back, his arm flung over his friend's face to shield his eyes from the blast he knew was coming.

Everything went white, and the earth shook.