Stupid Captain Hetnys. “Captain, are you really going to make Station choose between Basnaaid and the residents of the Undergarden? Is it possible you don’t understand the consequences of that?” Tisarwat’s fish-witted had been about right. “Let me guess, you intended to kill me, imprison my soldiers, destroy Mercy of Kalr, and claim to the governor that I’d been a traitor all along.” The water bubbled again—twice, in quick succession, larger bubbles than before. Captain Hetnys might not have yet realized that she’d lost, but when she did, she would likely take the most desperate action available. Time to end this. “Basnaaid,” I said. She was staring ahead, blank, terrified. “As the poet said: Like ice. Like stone.” The same poem she had quoted, that had brought me here. I had understood her message. I could only hope that now she would understand mine. Whatever you do, don’t move a muscle. My finger tightened on the trigger.

I should have been paying more attention to Lieutenant Tisarwat. Tisarwat had been watching Captain Hetnys, and the ancillary at the head of the bridge. Had been moving slowly, carefully closer to the island, by millimeters, with neither myself nor Captain Hetnys nor, apparently, Sword of Atagaris noticing. And when I had spoken to Basnaaid, Tisarwat had clearly understood my intention, knowing as she did that my gun would defeat Captain Hetnys’s armor. But she also understood that Sword of Atagaris might still pose a danger to Citizen Basnaaid. The instant before I fired, Tisarwat dropped her own armor and charged, shouting, at the Sword of Atagaris ancillary.

Bo Nine, it turned out, had been crouching behind the rail at the top of the rocky ledge. Seeing her lieutenant behave so suicidally, Bo Nine cried out, raised her own gun, but could do nothing.

Captain Hetnys heard Bo Nine cry out. Looked up to see her standing on the ledge, gun raised. And the captain flinched, and ducked low, just as I fired.

The Presger gun, it turned out, was waterproof, and of course my aim was good. But the shot went over Captain Hetnys, over Basnaaid. Traveled on, to hit the barrier between us and hard vacuum.

The dome over the Gardens was built to withstand impacts. Had Bo Nine fired, or Sword of Atagaris, it would not have even been scratched. But the bullets in the Presger gun would burn through anything in the universe for 1.11 meters. The barrier wasn’t even half a meter thick.