His warning shot had been like a great finger pointing back toward his location. In the next fifteen seconds, four of the ambushers fired on the place Pham had been. There was silence, then faint rustling. In a game of stealth, the five might think themselves easy winners. They still hadn't realized how well-equipped he was. Pham smiled at the pictures coming in from his midges. He had every one of them in sight, and Blueshell too.

If it were just these four (five?), there would be no problem. But surely reinforcements, or at least complications, were on the way. The wound in the ceiling had cooled to darkness, but there was a hole there now, half a meter across. The sound of hissing wind came from it, a sound that brought reflex fear to Pham even in his armor. It might take a while before the leak affected the Skroderiders, but it was an emergency nevertheless. It would attract notice. He stared at the hole. Down here it was stirring a breeze, but in the few meters right below the hole there was a miniature tornado of dust and loose junk, hurtling up and out…

And beyond the transparent hull, in space:

A gap of dark and then a glittering plume, where the debris emerged from the arc's shadow into the sunlight. A neat idea struggled for his attention.

Oops. The five Riders had roughly encircled him. Now one blundered into view, saw him, and snapped a shot. Pham returned fire and the other exploded in a cloud of superheated water and charred flesh. Its undamaged skrode sailed across the space between the hills, collecting panicky fire from the others. Pham changed position again, moving in the direction he knew was farthest from his enemies' positions.

A few more minutes of peace. He looked up at the crystal plume. There was something… yes. If reinforcements should come, why not for him? He sighted on the plume and shunted his voice line through the gun's trigger circuit. He almost started talking, then thought… Better lower the power on this one. Details. He aimed again, fired continuously, and said, "Ravna, I sure as hell hope you have your eyes open. I need help…" and briefly described the crazy events of the last ten minutes.

This time his beam was putting out less than ten thousand joules per second, not enough to glow the air. But reflecting off the plume beyond the hull, the modulation should be visible for thousands of klicks, in particular to the OOB on the other side of the habitat.

The Skroderiders were closing in again. Damn. No way he could leave this message on automatic send; he needed the "transmitter" for more important things. Pham flew from valley to valley, maneuvering behind the Rider that was farthest from the others. One against three (four?). He had superior firepower and information, but one piece of bad luck and he was dead. He floated up on his next target. Quietly, carefully…

A sear of light brushed his arm, flaring the armor incandescent. White hot drops of metal sprayed as he twisted out of the way. He boosted straight across the space between three hillocks, firing down on the Rider there. Lights crisscrossed around him, and then he was under cover again. They were fast, almost as if they had automatic aiming gear. Maybe they did: their skrodes.

Then the pain hit. Pham folded on himself, gasping. If this were like wounds he remembered, there would be char to the bone. Tears floated in his eyes, and consciousness disappeared in a nauseated faint. He came to. It could only be a second or two later — else he'd never have wakened. The others were a lot closer now, but the one he'd fired on was just a glowing crater and random skrode fragments. His suit's automation brought the damaged armor in close to his side. He felt the chill of local anesthetic, and the pain dimmed. Pham eased around the hill, trying to keep all three of his antagonists simultaneously out of sight. They had caught on to his midges; every few seconds a glow erupted or a hill top turned to glowing slag. It was overkill, but the midges were dying… and he was losing his greatest advantage.

Where is Blueshell? Pham cycled through the views from his remaining midges, then his own. The bastard was back in the air, high above the combat — untouched by his fellow Riders. Reporting everything I do. Pham rolled over, awkwardly bringing his gun to bear on the tiny figure. He hesitated. You're getting soft, Nuwen. Blueshell abruptly accelerated downwards, his cargo scarf billowing out behind him. Evidently he was using his gas jets' full power. Against the background noise of bubbling metal and blast beam thunder, his fall was totally silent. He was driving straight for the nearest of the attackers.

Thirty meters up, the Rider released something large and angular. The two separated, Blueshell braking and diving to the side. He disappeared behind the hills. At the same time, much nearer, came a solid thud/crunch. Pham spent his next to last midge for a peek around the hillside. He had a glimpse of a skrode, and fronds splayed all about a squashed stalk; there was a flash of light, and the midge was gone.

Only two ambushers left. One was Greenstalk.

For ten seconds there was no more firing. Yet things were not completely silent. The slumped, glowing metal of his arm popped and sputtered as it cooled. High above, there was the susurrus of air escaping the hull. Fitful breezes whispered around ground level, making it impossible to keep position without constant tweaking at his jets. He paused, letting the current carry him silently out of his little valley. There. A ghostly hiss that was not his own. Another. The two were closing in on him from different directions. They might not know his exact position, but they could obviously coordinate their own.

The pain faded in and out, along with consciousness. Short pulses of agony and darkness. He dared not fool with more anesthetic. Pham saw frond tips peeping over a nearby hill. He halted, watched the fronds. Most likely, there was just enough vision area in the tips to sense motion… Two seconds passed. Pham's last midge showed the other attacker floating silently in from the side. Any second now, the two would pop up. At that instant, Pham would have given anything for an armed midge. In all his stupid hacking, he'd never gotten around to that. No help for it. He waited for a moment of clear consciousness, long enough to boost over the enemy and shoot.

There was a rattle of fronds, loud self-announcement. Pham's midge caught sight of Blueshell rolling behind slatted walls a hundred meters away. The Skroderider rushed from protection to protection, but always closer to Greenstalk's position. And the rattling? Was it a pleading? Even after five months with the Riders, Pham had only the vaguest sense of their rattle-talk. Greenstalk — the Greenstalk who had always been the shy one, the compulsively honest one — rattled nothing back. She swung her beamer around, raking the slats with fire. The third Rider popped up just far enough to shoot at the slats. His angle would have been just right to fry Blueshell where he stood — except that the movement took him directly in front of Pham Nuwen's gun.

Even as Pham fired, he was boosting out of his hole. Now was his only chance. If he could turn, fire back on Greenstalk before she was done with Blueshell — The maneuver was an easy head-over-heels that should have left him upside down and facing back upon Greenstalk. But nothing was easy for him now, and Pham came around spinning too fast, the landscape dwindling beneath him. But there was Greenstalk all right, swinging her weapon back toward him.

And there was Blueshell, racing from between pillars that glowed white in the heat of Greenstalk's fire. His voice was loud in Pham's ear: "I beg, don't kill her. Don't kill — "

Greenstalk hesitated, then turned the weapon back on the advancing Blueshell. Pham triggered his gun, letting his spin drag the beam across the ground. Consciousness ebbed. Aim! Aim right! He furrowed the land below with a glowing, molten arrow, that ended at something dark and slumped. Blueshell's tiny figure was still rolling across the wreckage, trying to reach her. Then Pham had turned too far and could not remember how to change the view. The sky swung slowly past his eyes: