“NPA Center, this is Sierra-One-One. My position three-zero-zero kilometers north Three Forks River.” The damaged turbine exploded, wrapping one whole side of the fuselage in flame until the frantic pilot cut the hydrogen feed, and Malcolm felt the skimmer start to vibrate with a strange, wild harmonic as the incredible hail of crude bullets battered its grav-coils. “I am under fire by armed natives. We have taken casualties. We are going down.” Truman shrieked and fell out of his turret, clutching at a blood-spouting belly wound, and the heavy pulsers fell silent.

“Ditching stations!” the pilot screamed, but he went on fighting his dying controls. Every second he kept his plunging craft aloft put a tiny bit more distance between him and the Medusans trying to kill him.

“Repeat, Sierra-One-One is going down, NPA Control,” Malcolm said in that same flat, unnaturally calm voice. “Require assistance. Repeat, require assistance!”

She jerked off the com headset and lunged across the shrieking, writhing Truman for the dorsal turret. She dragged herself up into it, fighting the dying skimmer’s shuddering heaves as she slammed her shoulders into the shock frame harness Truman should have donned. The straps dropped and locked, her hands found the firing grips, and she poured a tornado of fire into the howling mob of Medusans charging towards the only smooth place the pilot could hope to set them down.

They hit with a bone-breaking shock, and Malcolm clung to her weapons, grunting in anguish as the harness straps bit into her. She heard someone else scream, but the pilot had known what he was doing. The skimmer porpoised across the ground in a bow wave of shredded moss, shedding bits and pieces through a billowing cloud of dust, yet they were down and intact.

And thousands of screaming Medusan nomads were charging straight after them.

Malcolm heard sobs and moans and bubbling screams from her wounded and dying crew, but she also heard firing ports slamming open and the high, shrill whine of the first pulse rifle. She’d struck her head on something during that wild, careening slide, despite the shock frame, and flowing blood blinded her left eye, but her right was clear. The power light still blazed on the turret’s twin weapons, and the training gear hummed smoothly when she hit the pedal.

She traversed her fire, sweeping it back and forth across that incredible tidal wave of bodies. She killed them in scores, in hundreds, and still they came. The turret starred as more bullets slammed into the skimmer. Some of them came from behind her, and flying plastic chips cut her face, spalled from the thick canopy’s inner surface, but Malcolm clung to the grips, pouring her fire into the shrieking mob.

She was still firing when clubs and rifle butts smashed the turret and dozens of Medusan hands dragged her out of it.

The knives were waiting.

The com terminal buzzed quietly on Honor’s desk.

She stepped out of the shower, toweling her short fuzz of hair vigorously, then dragged her kimono over her wet skin and punched acceptance.