Two days out, the ship’s alarm went off. Horza was dozing in his bed; he raced out of the cabin and forward to the bridge. In the volume of space before them, all hell seemed to have been let loose. Annihilation light washed over them; it was the radiation from weapon explosions, registering pure and mixed on the vessel’s sensors, indicating where warheads had gone off totally by themselves or in contact with something else. The fabric of three-dimensional space bucked and juddered with the blast from warp charges, forcing the CAT ’s automatics to disengage its engines every few seconds to prevent them being damaged on the shock waves.

Banks, Iain M. (2009-11-11). Consider Phlebas (p. 318). Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition.