The crew had just begun to laugh at the ship’s doomsday corkscrew a week ago, when the captain had slung away his bridge crew by their wet ears and personally taken the helm, steering them at cruiser speed into the belly of the colony. The impact had punched the ship’s aerodynamic prow as flat as a boxer’s nose, and they were now nestled in the side of the society vessel, like a lamprey with lambent skin forcing tendrils into its host in search of power. 

The mood on the bridge was bleak. The captain had thrown off his main viewer glasses on the first day after the crash and stamped on them, and since then he had camped in the bridge chair, moody and silent. The perky notifications from the arm console that he was fulfilling his captainly duties were met with a clenched fist and a quarter of an hour picking scraps of glass from the edge of his hand. He would not watch the eschatological dance unfolding within the colony, even though his kamikaze charge had pierced the shell that their scanners could not. He closed his eyes and massaged his eyeballs with the tips of his fingers. 

His Reader did not have that luxury. The man had not been seen since the decision was taken to ram the colony, and the captain was beginning to feel his absence. He sent out a comm call for him to report to the bridge and was met with a dull jolt from the base of his spine to his feet. The Reader technically outranked the captain, and knew he could not be summoned by the snap of a captain’s fingers. The captain sighed, felt a slow, cold curdle begin in the pit of his stomach and knew that he would have to pay the man a visit in his quarters. He nodded to his first officer and left the bridge. 

The Reader’s quarters were right at the aft of the ship, but that did not always make any difference. The captain badged his way in and saw the man lying on his bed. He was dressed in bare, functional scrubs and his eyes were tightly closed. The captain went to rouse him from him sleep but drew back when he saw him twitch and tremble violently. He took a seat opposite the man and watched him writhe. 

‘I wish I could hear them,’ the captain said eventually. 

This drew a loud bark of sour laughter from the Reader and he finally opened his eyes. ‘No, you don’t…sir.’ 

‘What are they saying? Are they mustering for war?’ 

The Reader sighed jaggedly and sat up in his cot. ‘They’re holding a council. They know that anyone flying a ship that can smash through their colony’s exoskeleton without blowing up is probably packing something heavy. I know you won’t look at them, but they’re too loud for me to dream them out. Even their children are as big as a bunker and they’re allowed to get drunk when they come of age, when they’re fitted with their own armour, leather plates that wouldn’t last five minutes against our howitzers. When one of them has a child, the whole tribe comes together and enacts a play to welcome them.’ 

‘Why are you telling me this?’ the captain asked eventually. 

‘Because you don’t want to hear them. They see us as food that’s difficult to catch but they have their own hymns of love, and grief, and triumph.’ 

‘Can we win?’ The captain’s executive functions took over. 

‘What is "winning”?’ The Reader’s voice was bitter as he turned his back on the captain and drew the sheet over his head.