Indito's prediction was hardly made when the mounted cohort on the cliff above rose in a maneuver clearly intended to be parade-ground-precise and impressive. But three stragglers, one scooter failure that sent its rider tumbling into the river, and a midair collision spoiled the effect. As if to divert attention from that, the fortress extruded a beamer-cannon and fired at the row of abandoned landers parked to the north of the corral. The loud crack-whump sound deafened them, and shards of shredded hull and circuitry rained down, forcing all the unarmored to duck.

Then the cannon turned and bombarded the corral. The animals huddled together in terror. The densely packed flesh exploded. Blood and chunks of sizzling meat rained onto rooftops and defenders to the north.

Then battle was joined, and people were screaming and dying on all sides as armored troopers descended toward the Dushau compound.

"Why don't they just obliterate the settlement?" asked Viradel, who was holding a stun pistol, standing among the other refugees who'd come with Jindigar.

Jindigar answered, "They want us alive."

On the cliff top more troopers were pouring out of the fortress—some jumping down the cliff using their armor's repellers, others on grav-scooters or huge, round flying gun platforms. The defenders, pulled out of the north trench and from the riverside emplacements, had regrouped to defend the Dushau stockade, forming a line about a hundred meters away.

Krinata watched horrified as the fighting came at them like a wave and was stalled by the defenders. Five scooters were downed by Lehiroh farmers, but more armored Imperials descended from the cliff. The Outriders urged the Oliat toward the river. Jindigar called, "Cy, it's pointless to retreat. We can't outrun them."

"Then let's surrender!" said Krinata.

"No use!" replied Terab. "All of us here are guilty of consorting with Dushau—an automatic death penalty."

Krinata could see no pattern in it, no right place to be, no way to efficacious helplessness. All her insights deserted her, except the one determination never to try to solve a problem by Inverting an Oliat subform. "I don't know about you," she said, "but I can't just stand here and watch people be slaughtered defending me!"

She charged down the road toward the battle, pausing only to grab a stunner from a dead defender. Crouching low, she zigzagged, firing the stunner at coruscating Imperial armor. She was amazed to be alive when she reached the place where six Holot had downed three troopers. Riderless scooters floated overhead. Beyond her, defenders stole weapons from the dead bodies and fired on the next wave of troops. Then– crisp formation dissolved on contact with the defenders. The professionals had lost their nerve. Still, many defenders went down before overwhelming force.

Krinata saw a Holot engineer she recognized fire at a mounted trooper. The trooper, armor sparkling with protective fields, fired back. The Holot went down, and the rider zoomed over him, still firing at his victim.

Krinata tossed her stunner aside, dove at the Holot's body, and snatched up his beamer to fire at the trooper, as she rolled for cover behind a boulder. As she moved, the Holot's head came away from his shoulders and rolled to her feet. She screeched, gagged, and almost retched. But then she saw the scooter returning, its rider aiming a beamer at her, but his armor was gray now, not scintillating.

With a coolness that astonished her she rose to her knee, aimed at the professional who was aiming at her, and squeezed off the neatest shot she'd ever put into a moving target. The trooper's armored head rolled to one side, his body fell off the scooter on the other side, and the scooter was left riderless, coming toward her on inertia.

She dropped flat, letting it zip over her, blessing Arlai for the hours of weapons drill he'd put her through after each of her injuries.

Prone, she squirmed around and glanced back at the knot of people gathered about the Oliat. As she watched, Viradel grabbed a stun rifle from Adina and broke ranks to follow Krinata. Right behind her came Jindigar. The Dushau were evolved prey, not evolved predators like the other species here, and never fought unless cornered. When they did fight, their style was more devious than vicious.

Behind Jindigar, several of the Dushau who'd grieved Frey also broke ranks and trotted after him. Others joined the movement, grouping around the Oliat and its Outriders in a protective wall of indigo bodies, charging into battle.

As the Dushau moved, another Imperial mounted detachment peeled off and swooped down over them. Firing deadly burners and beamers, they slashed through the defenders. But some Imperials were only armed-with stunners. They're not invincible! Krinata's heart thundered with the first hope she'd felt. Some fallen defenders had to be alive.

Grinning, she rose and aimed her beamer at the mechanism of a gun platform already wobbling as it descended. Tracking her target, she burned through the housing, and the platform dropped inertly. She picked off two more scooters and was just beginning to feel effective when a suit of Holot armor, dull gray without its fields, came up behind and snatched her off her feet in a huge bear hug.

Without warning the both of them went spinning into a backward somersault, and the trooper landed on top of her, knocking her breath out. Cy heaved the armor off her, hollering over his shoulder, "Jindigar, that was clumsy. You almost killed Krinata!"

Jindigar sent another trooper spinning and waded toward them. "She's not hurt!"

"That's not the point!" Cy complained. "You should have let me take his head off."

Krinata pointed and screamed, "Duck!"

Another scooter whizzed overhead. Cy came up on one knee, shooting from the hip into the underside. Sparks flew, and a loud explosion flattened them again. The concussion unseated a couple of other troopers, who were summarily dealt with by other defenders, and suddenly there were a lot of abandoned scooters floating around. Krinata knew the best strategy was to outflank and attack from behind.

She beckoned. "Come on!" She grabbed a scooter, swung aboard, and fumbled at the controls. She'd never been on a military unit before. After several harrowing mistakes she found that the controls were backwards.

After that, it was a short hop to the top of the cliff. She angled north across the tall grass to the fortress, sparing only one quick glance back. An indigo flood, carrying a host of other species, rose over the cliff edge behind her. Hell of a way to surrender, isn't it?

Streaking low, hoping none of the big guns would fire at them, she aimed for the fortress's scooter-launching platform. A swarm of half-armored troopers—all species– emerged onto the platform, took positions, and fired at them with small arms, mostly stun-pistols.

She flew straight into it, unable to remember how to turn. A shot singed her hair. Another glanced off the scooter's armor. Then one direct hit showered sparks in her face. She yawed and crashed onto the platform, skidded sideways, and smashed the bottom of her scooter into the hatch at the rear of the platform. The heavy machine blocked the hatch, while it pinned her left leg to the deck. Behind her, the other scooters came in, landing with more elegance. Most riderless scooters circled under control of the docking programmer. But the Dushau transferred from one scooter to another in midair, sending their abandoned machines in to crash on the platform, turning it into a smoking inferno, driving the Imperials back through other hatches.

Krinata put her hands over her head. She was trapped, about to die, and it had all been for nothing. She had totally surrendered to her fate, when suddenly she heard, "Jindigar, give me a hand!" It was Cy, heaving at the dead machine pinning her. Indigo hands joined his, and human ones.