From behind him, he heard his son’s voice, talking quickly, and Ottoh realized he’d actually gotten someone on the comlink. Ogden’s Hope maintained a small communal security force; all the claims paid into its budget every year. Their station wasn’t so far away. If the family could just hold on a bit longer…

A third droid stopped in its tracks, hot green sparks shooting from where its head had once been attached to its neck.

Just one droid left, and Ottoh watched as the machine barreled forward. He saw it dodge a Nihil shot, and again marveled at his wife’s skill. What operator could make a delving droid dodge? The one he was married to, apparently.

The last droid took a hit, dead center, and its speed slowed to a crawl.

“Blast it!” his wife said.

“Is that it?” Ottoh said.

“No,” Erika answered, her voice cold and certain. “It’s not.”

Ottoh heard his wife’s fingertips tapping furiously on the datapad, and whatever rerouting and adjustments she did seemed to work. The last droid lurched forward, careening ahead at a rapidly increasing rate of speed. The Nihil weren’t done shooting, but the droid seemed all but impervious. It lost an arm, then another. Half its head disappeared, but it didn’t stop.

It reached the Nihil’s speeder, and Ottoh yanked his eye from the ocular just before the lens flared white. A huge sound from outside, not a boom but a BOOM, this time definitely an explosion.

The delving droids were mining machines. Sometimes they dug, sometimes they sorted, sometimes they lugged debris…and sometimes they blasted holes in dense, metallic rock with small pellets of high-powered explosive. From the sound, Erika had just set off every bit of the droid’s load at once.

“Hnh,” his wife said, her tone satisfied. “How many did I get, dear?”

Ottoh raised the ocular to his eyes and looked outside. The scene was radically altered—the Nihil’s speeder was gone, as was the delving droid, both replaced by hot, twisted metal and leaping flames. He turned down the brightness, looking for…there. He counted outlines…four, close to the fire, and none of them moving. But two others were still alive, one slowly dragging himself away from the wreckage, and another being pulled free by the team that had been using the battering ram at the front door. That group, unfortunately, had been mostly sheltered from the blast by the house.

“Not enough,” Ottoh said. “But it helps.”

He lowered the ocular and turned to his son, who was speaking to Bee in a low, kind voice.

“Did you get someone, Ronn?” Ottoh said. “I heard you on the comlink. Is help coming?”

Ronn looked up. His face was bleak.