The stone exploded two hours in.

  We’d been doing something of a random walk, shifting the power and direction to the engines every time the warpstone sparked. Which it did every five to ten minutes, letting us twist away from the path of the two ships who’d been chasing us. At least, the path that they’d been on before I burned out the sensor net.

  After a while, I let Hao take over the piloting. When I told her she went pale, swallowed hard twice, and then nodded, knocking her head against the cockpit’s ceiling.

  “Crudmunching midget ship,” she muttered. I got the impression that she was stoking her anger to combat her fear, and considered reassuring her, but thought better of it. Hao was strange. She’d gone native on Jackson. She hadn’t even told me her first name. Who knew how she’d react to compassion.

  “Just monitor the engine and tap the next course setting whenever you see it hiccup,” I said. “It’s not like you’re trying to land in atmosphere.”

  “So why doesn’t the high and mighty captain do it?” Hao spat.

  “Because the high and mighty captain is going to try repairing our sensor net so we’re not flying blind,” I said, and got down to doing just that.

  Of course, you can’t repair a shattered ward net without fresh wards, and I wasn’t about to go crawling around the Bucket’s hull inscribing and imbuing new ones. But I could find the parts of the old ward chains that hadn’t been burned out, and hook them together using force braids.

  It would be like repairing armor with strings of spider web, but as long as you don’t put any stress on it, even spider silk can hold weight. Just not very much weight. After all, I was holding the sensor net together with my mind. Not quite like juggling active assault cannons, but close.

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  By the time I’d managed to kludge something together, and get a bit of resolution out of the sensors, my head was pounding in time with my heart, my breath was coming in short, shallow gasps, and I had black-and-gray spots flashing in front of my eyes. But I had a single, fuzzy green blip on the sensor readout.

  Much closer than I would have liked. They’d increased their speed while we were blind, and I couldn’t tell if it was the big ship that’d been trailing us, or the one with the ripstone.

  “That’s it,” I said, closing my eyes and resting in the pilot’s couch. It shifted, moulding itself against my body. It was like floating in a cool sea. All I needed was a big, crunchy rat burger and some vat tomatoes, and I’d be in paradise. Except for the painfully clenched jaw, the grinding teeth, and the headache.

  “That’s it… what?” Hao said.

  I opened an eye, glancing at her between the dancing spots. There now were white dots among all the blacks and grays, meaning that I had a bad migraine heading my way on an one-way express. My eyelid felt too heavy, so I let it close again.

  “That’s as good as I can make it,” I said. “We’ve got sensors, of a sort.”

  “So where’s the other ship?” Hao said.

  “No idea,” I replied. “But keep twisting away from this one.”

  “Yes, sir!” she said, and I could hear the ironic salute in her voice. “Care to pilot yourself?”

  “I care for a painkiller, a good cycle’s sleep, a rat burger, and a proper repair shop,” I said.

  Hao grumbled, her finger tapping in a course correction.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Crudmunching officers,” she replied.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” I said, smiling without opening my eyes. “I’m going to rest a moment, rank hath its privileges and all that.”

  “Burning voidmuncher,” Hao said. “What’s th— Crud!”

  The Bucket jerked sideways, followed by a series of thuds, ripping me awake. The cockpit started shaking.

  “Burning crud! What are you doing?” I yelled.

  Hao hunched over her engine readout. The bars were fluctuating wildly, going from orange to red to white.

  “What the crud does white mean?” I yelled.

  “No reading!” Hao yelled back.

  “Shut it down!”

  “I’m trying,” she said, slapping at the readout.

  All the bars turned white. There was a giant crash from our rear. The sensor readout flashed in a million colors.

  The void rose up and stabbed me with an ice-pick in the brain.