“What the fuck-” Oscar grunted. His field scan couldn’t detect any kind of integral force field. “Get down!” he screamed at her. The crazy woman must be doped up on something; she seemed totally unaware of what was going on.

Myraian sang as she danced, the kind of warbling verse Oscar would’ve expected to hear from a Silfen, not a human. The ground around her feet rippled as tatters of loam and gravel were churned up by the storm of kinetic projectiles missing her. And they kept on missing her. The Chikoya simply couldn’t get anything to hit. The armored aliens began to fall back as she approached. Their weapons fire stopped. Myraian finished her madcap dance directly in front of one of the massive aliens. She giggled and swept her arms out wide to bow gracefully, bodylight glowing an exotic orange through her flimsy clothes. The Chikoya didn’t move; its extended suit sensors tracked her carefully. Then she raised herself on her tiptoes, looking pitifully small and weak compared with the armored monster towering above her. She kissed the alien on the tip of its helmet.

The Chikoya collapsed on the ground. Dead.

Myraian pirouetted away as the rest of the Chikoya squad opened fire. Again they couldn’t get a fix. She was almost invisible behind a blaze cloud of grenade detonations and stark purple ionization contrails.

Oscar realized he needed to breathe again.

“Let’s give her some support,” Tomansio ordered.

A cascade of smart weapons fell on the Chikoya squad. They broke and ran, leaving the shore strewn with fatalities. Myraian skipped gaily through the shallows, following them like some demented pixie storm trooper, kicking at the spume as she went. Her fluffy plimsolls were stained gray-blue with alien blood.

Oscar jumped up out of the long drainage gully and stared in disbelief. Two of the Chikoya being chased by Myraian teleported out. “Holy crap,” he murmured. What is she? Exact definitions didn’t really concern him at that moment; he was just relieved she was on their side.

Five kilometers overhead, the Elvin’s Payback arrived in a burst of sharp violet light as it decelerated hard. Above it, Oscar could just make out a ragged black hole punched through the compartment’s dome; crumpled metallic shards tumbled silently through the tortured air on their long fall to the ground. Thin strands of mist grew in density around the rent, stretching and curving up to pour out into the vacuum beyond. The glowing cometary sphere suddenly flared, shoving out eight vivid pseudopods of dazzling flame. They separated from the starship and accelerated downward toward the beleaguered house. His biononics felt the combatbots’ first sensor sweep.

The Chikoya must have known what was coming. Another three teleported out.

“Ozziedamned monsters,” Cheriton exclaimed. Seven of them on higher ground were targeting him with a barrage of energy beams and a ferocious kinetic broadside, pushing his integral force field dangerously close to its limit.

“Priority target,” Tomansio ordered Liatris. “Take out the hostiles surrounding Cheriton.”

A massive spear of incandescence lanced down out of the turbulent sky to strike the incline behind the house. Parts of Chikoya spewed upward. Aggressive flames swirled over the trees and bushes populating the slope. Cheriton was still being targeted by four Chikoya.

Oscar’s scan showed him a T-sphere locus establishing itself around his teammate. “Counterprogram,” he yelled.

“Can’t,” Cheriton replied.

Oscar, Tomansio, and Beckia immediately launched a volley of smartmissiles over the roof of the house. While he was fending off such an intense attack, Cheriton’s biononics wouldn’t be able to counterprogram the T-sphere as well as maintain his integral force field. The combatbots fired again, eliminating more Chikoya. This time the energy impact kicked up a long wildfire line across the forest, the formidable heat igniting whole trees. Thick smoke billowed up, cutting off all visual observation. But Oscar’s field function scan could still slice clean through. He watched his exovision display showing Cheriton being teleported away.

“Fuck it! Liatris, where did they take him?” Oscar demanded. “Where’s the T-sphere center?”

The combatbots were barely five hundred meters overhead. They fired down continuously, adding to the conflagration now burning around half the house. The surviving Chikoya were teleporting out as fast as they could.

“It’s centered in the Farloy compartment, about twelve hundred kilometers along the Spike. That’s one of the major Chikoya settlements.”

“Are you getting any kind of signal from him?” Tomansio asked.

“Negative. Shall I fly over there and run a detailed sensor sweep?”

“No,” Tomansio said.

Oscar eyed the wall of fire that was creeping down the slope to consume the trees closest to the house. Thermal imaging was showing him some alarming temperatures blossoming across the walls. The T-sphere shrank to zero. He admitted Tomansio was right. Not that it was easy.

“Land by the house,” he told Liatris. “I need the Dreamers safe on board before we get an entire Chikoya army teleporting in. Aaron, bring them out, please.”

“Confirm,” Aaron said.

Oscar turned around and ran a sweep along the shoreline. There were nine dead Chikoya scattered across the blackened lawn and two of them lying in the water. His biononics couldn’t find any trace of Myraian. He shook his head in bemusement at the fantastical woman. In a strange way he was rather glad she’d disappeared; it meant he didn’t have to think about her.

Elvin’s Payback thumped down out of the sky, sending out a shock wave that shattered the house’s remaining windows and brought roof slates skittering down. It hovered five meters above the ruined garden. Oscar and the remaining Knights Guardian closed in, ready to provide cover as Aaron led the two Dreamers, Corrie-Lyn, and Troblum out across the veranda and underneath the starship. Its airlock bulged upward, and Inigo rose into it. Corrie-Lyn was next.

A couple of large trolleybots floated out of the house, each one carrying a medical chamber. Flames were flickering along the roof, gaining hold on the rafters. Smoke curled out of the gaping first-floor windows.

“What do we do?” Oscar asked Tomansio as they backed toward the starship. “Do we go after him?”

“No. He’s true Knights Guardian; he’s not expecting us to. That would jeopardize the mission.”

“Jesus. What will they do to him?”

“If I was a Chikoya, I’d worry about what he’ll do to them. Human biononics are a damn site meaner than anything they’ve ever built.”

The medical chambers were lifted smoothly up into the starship. It was just Oscar, Tomansio, and Beckia left. The starship’s force fields came on around them.

“But they targeted him,” Oscar said; even inside the protective shields he couldn’t relax. “It was deliberate. They must have known he wasn’t a Dreamer.”

“Maybe they thought he was me,” Aaron told them. “I had quite a run-in with the Chikoya before you arrived.”

“Irrelevant,” Tomansio said. He gestured at Oscar to step under the open airlock. “We have a job to do.”

“Not irrelevant,” Oscar insisted as he began to float up into the fuselage. He knew he was missing something, and it was making him very cross. “Surely he can get some kind of signal out. Liatris, are you seeing any sign of a firefight in the Farloy compartment?”

“No. Nothing registering.”

Oscar slid up into the cabin to find the Dreamers and a miserable, shaking Corrie-Lyn giving him an anxious look. Troblum’s helmet almost touched the ceiling. His armor had reverted to shabby gray again. He still hadn’t opened it up.

Beckia arrived, swiftly followed by Tomansio. The cabin was feeling quite cramped even with the furniture withdrawn.

“Up and out,” Tomansio said. “Come on, Oscar, let’s go.”