I looked at the red ink all over the ship’s hull and put the papers down, sighing. We could push on to the front line, of course – we could repair or patch together the ship with what we carried. What was worrying was that we were barely into the Raventops, and bandit territory ran for a good week’s travel from here to the front line. There would be no recovering from another attack.

I flicked through the order forms quickly and sent a deck hand down to the office to collect my clipboard and notebook. Work was work, after all, and all four crew-chiefs were waiting patiently to cajole me for parts and materials. By and large, it was needed – even if they might have been able to make do with less than they were asking for, nearly a third of the crew weren’t fit to be on duty and speed, not efficiency, was the order of the day.

We needed to get away from the scene of battle before scavengers and other bandits came looking for easy prey.