Antaea thought for a second. Then she popped out from behind the tank and said, 'Hey, boys, I don't want to ruin your day or anything, but there's an unexploded rocket lodged in this tank.'
Their banter stopped. 'Hell,' said one. 'Must have caught us in that last run in.'
'I didn't feel an impact,' protested the pilot.
'Well, you're going to feel a pretty big one if we don't get this guy out of here.'
They came over. Antaea made sure she was between them and the tank's door. 'Can you pull it out?' one asked. She shook her head.
'I could try, but ... you want me to try?'
'No, no!' They all raised their hands and shook their heads.
'Okay, then. Why don't we ease this baby outside, and just ... give it a gentle shove?'
They liked that idea, and when they'd all managed to get the tank out the main hatch, she left them to debate how hard to push the thing. Hopefully it would go a long, long ways away.
Antaea dove into Candesce's blockhouse. Suspicious soldiers of the Home Guard elite were manning the door; they gave her suspicious looks, but didn't bar her entry. 'That way,' one said. 'Follow the voices.'
She nodded. She had no intention of going that way.
After she was out of sight of the doormen, she took a side route; it was easy since you could duck under, over, or around any wall in this place. Venera had been right about the scale of the blockhouse: she passed sleeping quarters outfitted for hundreds, the chambers immaculate but probably untouched for a thousand years; kitchens, dining nooks, gymnasia, and even a spherical pool. Before she could get too lost, she circled back, pausing to listen every now and then for voices. When she heard them she checked the pistol, then crept cautiously closer.
A loud conversation was happening on the other side of this next wall. She backed into the shadows, then angled herself so she could see past its edge. When she took in the scene, she hissed under her breath.
Three members of the Guard hung lifelessly in the center of the room. Inshiri Ferance perched on the branch of an archaic-looking couch tree just a few feet from the nearest corpse. She was chatting animatedly with the outsider, Holon.
'That's our part done,' Inshiri was saying. 'You agreed you'd take on the risk for this next step. You clear out the Home Guard and dispose of Remoran, and then we dial Candesce to the mutually agreed-upon level.'
'Something like that,' said Holon.
'Then why aren't you on about it? We don't have much time.'
'If we wait until Remoran's done, then we won't have to attack them with these primitive weapons,' said Holon, gesturing at the guns Inshiri's bodyguards were carrying. Their carbines, Antaea now saw, had silencers on them.
'What do you mean?' asked Inshiri.
'Candesce will shift through several stable emulations of Newtonian physics and normal electrodynamics while Remoran dials it down. We don't know how that process works, but we do know, from tests we conducted right at the edge of the field, which technologies will work at the dialed-down level.'
'So? What of it?'
'We've brought weapons that will work at that level,' he said.
Inshiri nodded. 'Yes, that was exactly what I thought. Lads?'
Her men opened fire, and now it was clear that their guns had some sort of silencing mechanism; the shots were barely audible. Holon and the other outsiders twitched under the onslaught, then, propelled by the residual momentum of the bullets in their bodies, drifted to the far wall.
'Looks like the wetwork's up to us after all,' sighed Inshiri. She unfolded herself from the couch and unholstered her intricately carved little pistol. Her men, meanwhile, were forming up into three squads.
An odd crick-cracking sound reached Antaea's ears. She saw Inshiri and her men turn; one of the bodyguards swore. Antaea shifted her position to make out what was happening.
Holon's body was convulsing. Its thrashing limbs were bending in ways they shouldn't, and it was the sound of bones breaking that Antaea had heard. 'Shoot it, shoot it!' Inshiri screamed--just as the other three outsiders' corpses began to twitch as well.
By the time Holon's body tore itself apart to reveal the thing underneath, they'd put a couple dozen rounds apiece into it. It showed no signs of having noticed.
* * *
REMORAN WHIRLED AT the shouting. 'What's going--' His men unslung their machine guns, and two leaped to perch on the edge of the opening where the virtuals had gone. One was immediately flung backward. He hit the far wall and bounced off, clutching at his neck as blood sprayed into the chamber.
Jacoby blinked at the dying man. Of all the things he'd worried about happening in here, a simple gunfight had never crossed his mind.
Then they were all firing as Remoran twisted in midair, trying to find purchase on something--anything--for freefall leverage. He grabbed Venera and doubled up, putting his feet against her flank. The general secretary was about to use her mass to launch himself to safety, and the recoil would take Venera into the line of fire.
She grabbed his ankle. As he cursed and kicked at her, she adroitly spun around and kicked him in the head. Then she made the leap he'd been about to, and grabbed the edge of the wall next to Jacoby. 'Hi,' she said.
Shouts of alarm distracted Jacoby, and so he turned in time to see something gray and multi-limbed clamber over the far wall. Inshiri's soldiers and Remoran's guardsmen were peppering it with gunfire, but it didn't slow down. 'What the hell is
