The crack of a blaster bolt, in the empty space of the tunnel, was like a bolt of lightning at close range. The shot impacted with a flash bright enough to dazzle and a wash of heat. It caught Sarah high in the chest, punching her off her feet and sending her sprawling to the tunnel floor, bits of white-hot metal spalling away from her makeshift armor.

“You fucking traitorous plaguepit,” Yora snarled, barely audible over the ringing in Maya’s ears. She raised her spear as a half dozen crossbows went off at once.

No. Maya felt like she was watching herself from a distance. Her panoply stopped two bolts, sending a wave of cold through her, and she drew her haken. The blade ignited, the flood of deiat sending familiar pinpricks of energy spreading across her body. Yora was already slashing at her, and Maya parried high, her flaming sword spitting and crackling against the unmetal spear. Before Yora could disengage, Maya kicked her in the stomach, sending her stumbling backward even as the rest of the rebels pressed in.

One older man in the rear had a blaster, and he raised it and fired. Maya interposed her blade, and the bolt of coherent energy twisted into the flaming weapon as though drawn by a magnet, impacting in a shower of sparks. The old rebel looked startled, but his companions had already tossed aside their crossbows and drawn their swords.

No, no, no!

But it was too late.

The first man to reach her feinted high, then thrust low. Maya saw it in time to parry, and his ordinary steel parted easily where it met deiat, leaving him holding a stump. He backed away, gaping comically, and Maya spun to one side and chopped the head off a spear as it thrust at her. The first man dug in his pocket and produced a small clay bomb, which he hurled at her just as a third rebel bore in with a knife in each hand.

Maya pulled a thread of deiat, sending a narrow bolt of flame to incinerate the alchemical. It burst with a whoomph, sending several men toppling. The knife-wielding rebel, a teenage girl, ignored it and came in fast. Maya was hard-pressed to parry, blocking one stroke while the other scored against her panoply. The knives were unmetal, too, holding their own against her haken. Maya took one step back, then another, as the girl pressed in, her face twisted with hatred.

Stop. Please.

“You fucking Order bastard—”

The girl drove in with both knives. Maya hopped back to buy a moment, raised one hand, and incinerated her.

The rebel’s curse became a scream of agony as deiat roared around her, the concentrated essence of the sun engulfing her in a pillar of fire. Her voice cut off mercifully quickly, and her blackened body toppled, shattering into a drift of ash when it hit the floor.