Eighteen

As a space battle rages around the ship, Rickar monitors Carryx tactical data with the alien Vaudai and learns the battle is nearly won. Meanwhile, Campar tends to a deteriorating Ghati and considers revealing Alkhor's supposed resistance plan, only to be disillusioned by Rickar's harsh truth that no such plan exists and they are powerless captives. The chapter ends with an unexpected anomaly when an enemy command ship fails to self-destruct as predicted.

The chapter opens with the ship enduring continuous combat, which the Budon respond to by reproducing frantically in a doomed biological gambit. Rickar discovers that Vaudai, the Carryx alien slug, willingly shares tactical battlefield data. Through volumetric displays, Vaudai explains the battle's strategic landscape: the Carryx have already won, and the remaining enemy decisions will only determine the manner of their loss. Vaudai predicts that one enemy command ship will be destroyed, along with its supporting vessels, and that the ship will ultimately detonate itself rather than be captured. As the Budon sing an ominous note, Rickar prepares to leave. Campar visits Ghati, who is physically deteriorating and psychologically breaking from confinement. Ghati compares himself to a bee separated from its hive, unable to survive despite having food, water, and warmth. He yearns for natural things—soil, sky, gardens from his childhood. Campar comforts him with gentle platitudes but struggles with underlying dread. He retrieves food for Ghati, and while doing so, encounters Rickar. Campar confides that he is considering telling Ghati about Dafyd Alkhor's supposed resistance plan to give him hope. Rickar brutally refutes this, insisting Alkhor has no plan, that his talk of resistance was grief-stricken delusion, and that all of them are powerless. He urges Campar not to give Ghati false hope. The conversation becomes tense but ends when Vaudai directs their attention to the battle display again. As Campar watches, multiple enemy ships are destroyed or flee. Vaudai explains the Carryx used resonance exclusions to target the enemy's command structure rather than maximize ship kills. Campar asks if the battle is finally over, and Vaudai confirms that after remaining weapons and field attacks arrive, the conflict will end—though this will take up to sixty-five minutes. As they watch, all remaining enemy ships vanish from the display except one: the command ship that should detonate itself fails to do so, leaving Vaudai surprised and uncertain.