“You’re sure?”

“I can’t see.”

A huge gout of steam erupted from the base of the hill where the Uber laser sat. The cloud enveloped the hill in a shroud of fog. Before it could swell further and dissolve, another blue spark ignited at the base, sending a ball of white skyward.

Virginia said excitedly, “The Arcists are using their big laser. It’s hard to aim, but if they just hit the hill itself—”

“They’ll blind the Uber laser crew with the vapor,” Lani said. “Yeah!”

Figures moved on the horizon, their tabards too small to distinguish in the dust they kicked up. Virginia had never thought very much about tactics in near-zero gravity, but she could see the logic behind the slowly converging horns of the Arcist movements. Their pincers closed toward the equatorial string of launchers. Sergeov’s people struggled in the launcher pits. The big, awkward flinger modules were difficult to move quickly, particularly in declination. They began to nose down toward the south, but their long, slender barrels turned with agonizing slowness.

“Look,” Carl said, pointing. “The Arcists are trying to sweep by us. We’ll get free if.”

But then a second Uber laser opened fire from a distant hill, flinging spheres of steam up from the plain. Even a near miss blew the tiny figures up and away from the sudden gusts.

“Why don’t they attack from the sky?” she asked.

“Sergeov’s probably got some small radars with him. He can pick them out if they’re isolated up there. On the ice, it isn’t so easy. And the dust helps shield them.”

“Yeah,” Jeffers said. “How’d you like to be hangin’ up there, naked as a jaybird? Feels a lot better to have some ice between you and that big burner.”

The attackers sought shelter. They fired small weapons of limited range—flechettes, e-beam borers—but merely raised small puffs from the Ubers barricades Some used portable microwave borers, presumably tuned to disrupt human cells, but the beams tanned out too broadly at this range Now and then, those inside the dome heard faint clicks, the microwaves softly tickling their inner ears.

Meanwhile, the big Arcist laser continued to pound away at the hills of both Uber strongpoints, making it difficult for them to aim carefully. They watched for an agonizing half-hour as each side maneuvered, fired, ducked—to little effect. The entire conflict was soundless, with a slow-motion unreality about it.

“Looks like a stalemate to me,” Carl said, fatigue weighing on his words.

“Nobody can get enough men together to cover their movements,” Jeffers said. “Looks like there’s still a fair number of Arcists, but you can’t outflank a whole damned equator.”

Virginia hesitated. “Can’t we make use of this?”

Carl asked, “How?”

“To escape! It we run a kilometer or so, into those piles of slag the north.”

“They’d pick us off.”

Jeffers nodded.

“But if I can get inside, I can get back control of my mechs! The Ubers couldn’t stand up to a mech kamikaze attack.”

Lani said, “I could try to get down to the Blue Rock Clan. Keoki Anuenue would bring up his Hawaiians, if he knew where we were.”

Jeffers’s mouth opened in disbelief. “You women are both crazy. You’ll never reach the shaft.”

“Create a distraction, then,” Virginia challenged him.

“What?”

Virginia thought rapidly. “Suppose we vent the entire dome at once—with the vats open?”

Carl frowned. “The water vats? They boil and—I see. It’ll make a huge ball of steam. Nobody’ll be able to see through it.”

Jeffers shook his head. “No tellin’ how long that’d last.”

Virginia turned to him. “We’ll have you running the pumps—squirting water right out the dome, where it’ll boil off immediately.”

Jeffers opened his mouth to object, then closed it. “Um, I dunno. Might.”

“Let’s do it! Otherwise. if Sergeov wins—”

“Right,” Carl said, his lips pressed thin and white “Come on.”

It took ten minutes to set everything up. Virginia worked with maddened ferocity, dragging hoses, shutting down yeast-flowering towers, throwing protective temporary plastic blankets over the acres of plants, sealing growing units that were too delicate to withstand very much vacuum and cold. It felt awkward, doing manual labor without a mech.

Not thinking ahead, scarcely thinking at all, she found herself crouched inside the lock beside Carl and Lani. She suddenly realized that she was about to risk her life on her ability to run. Impossible, absurd! I’ve spent less time on the surface than anyone else. But she could see no other way out. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let Sergeov stuff her into a slot forever. Or let him bury Hawaii under a night of cosmic ash.

Jeffers called, —Ready’?—from inside.

She nodded fiercely. Pretend you’re not here in person. Just believe you’re operating a mech out on the ice. You’ve done it thousands of times.

—Yo!—Carl answered.

The lock sprang open and they launched themselves forward.

They separated immediately. Lani dashed northward while Virginia and Carl loped toward the east. She remembered to cut off her comm. No need to alert anyone, in case the Ubers were using tracers on suit transmitters. She tucked her head down and ran in the long, even, ice-gripping stride, almost free coasting, that covered ground best.

Just like running a spider mech. Head low, find the traction. Avoid the deep dust.

She glanced back just in time to see the seams pop on the dome. The entire translucent structure billowed out like a collapsing lung, exhaling a heavy mist into the star-sprinkled sky. Billowing banks enveloped her. Then Jeffers started the firehose streams from the vats, thin sprays that thickened and then abruptly dissolved. Fog clasped them from all sides. The world turned white. She had to depend on her initial momentum to give direction, because she could not even see the scarred ice beneath her.

Her receiver was on and she heard shouts, swearing, exclamations. But no one cried out their names, called for pursuit.

Ivory mist seemed to press in from all sides, lifting her… she lost sight of the ground completely… the shouting increased… she landed, bit in with her ice spikes, kicked off… seemed to soar with wings into a cloud of welcoming white… landed again, boots crunching into frost…

—and was out. clear, back into a world of gray ice and hard black sky and death.

She glanced around. Carl was ahead of her, just pushing off on a long, shallow parabola. As his feet cleared the ground a quick flash blinded her, a blue hotpoint of light—only yards from Car1. It struck a roiling vapor cloud from the ice, scooping a crater a meter deep.

She switched on her comm to line AF, as they had planned. “They’re on to us!”

—Yo!—

Carl’s head jerked around and he motioned to the left. —Get behind that!—

Fifty meters away was a sturdy mech-repair platform, canted against a heap of ruddy iron slag. It was, in fact, a piece of the old Edmund’s external cargo assembly, thick with struts and crisscross structural members that had supported great masses in the long boost out from Earth. On her next footfall Virginia swiveled, felling a sharp twinge from unused muscles, and pushed off towards it.

A brief spark of blue lit her way. Her shadow stretched. a thin giant flying across pocked ice in the sudden glare. She did not turn to see the cloud of fog billow out, but the hairs on the back of her head stood up. That was close.

She landed behind the platform an instant after Carl. —Stay here,—he sent unnecessarily.

“What’ll we do?”

—Wait ’em out. They’ll find other targets. They don’t know who we are for sure, so…—

A buzz interrupted him as another party tapped into long-comm. Sergeov’s voice boomed in her ears. —I do know. I am not so stupid I cannot guess who it is that is running away. Or search for comm channel.—