The Minotaur saw it, understood its purpose. It was familiar with guns. It knew what they did.

In those red eyes Sam saw the flash of comprehension, and something else. She couldn't be sure, but she thought it looked like resignation.

Which was impossible. The Minotaur was an unthinking creature, a mindless force of destruction. There was nothing in that bull head but malevolence and the basic animal cunning needed to survive.

Or so she'd been given to believe.

The Minotaur couldn't know that it was about to die.

Could it?

"Tethys?" Hyperion's voice. "Do you copy? I said take the shot."

Sam's finger curled round the trigger.

The Minotaur bent low, tensing. It would charge, for all the good that would do. These armour-clad enemies were like nothing it had come up against before. It knew it was outclassed. For the first time in its life the Minotaur was staring defeat in the eye, and defeat's shadow, death. But it would not give in meekly. That was not in the beast's nature.

"Tethys?" said Mnemosyne. She had her coilgun aimed at the monster's centre of body mass. "Sam? What are you waiting for? This is our chance."

"Tethys!" barked Hyperion over the comms net. "Why am I not hearing a kill-shot?"

The Minotaur was ready, Sam could tell by its posture. One last attack, a final act of defiance against the inevitable.

"Mnemosyne," she said, "I want to try and take it alive, if I can."

"What?" said Mnemosyne.

" What!?" echoed Hyperion. Sam's transponder sensor was registering his presence nearby, lower in the village, 200m southeast and closing. She had to do this before he got here. Hyperion — Ramsay — would have no qualms about making the kill. This was not any kind of retrieval op. This was supposed to be an execution.