The problem was that fleeing to use the bigger structures as cover meant, well, we had to get around or over those structures. The space was huge and the angel mechs were distant.

Balk had used the distraction of the angel mechs attack to fly around and over, flying low to the ground as they closed the distance.

The angel with the massive halo extending from hips to overhead had been mostly passive to this point, flying in formation to stay with the group. As Balk launched his offensive, the halo emitted lasers. One for Balk’s ball, one for Balk himself. Another for the artillery cape, another to meet a laser beam cast by Sarah, the woman who was and wasn’t my aunt. The angel suit’s beam was more powerful, and though the two beams collided with a small starburst shedding vast amounts of sparks in the center, the point of collision raced toward Sarah until she stopped firing. When she stopped, the counterattack stopped as well. Wholly automatic.

But her flying momentum and her group’s formation carried her into the range of the beams. A forcefield protected her and some of her group, but only for a moment before the beam punched through. Another, thicker, smaller forcefield protected herself and those closest to her, while those at the edges were left to fend for themselves.

It bought her and her formation seconds. Seconds to divert flight paths, to back off, to realize that anything that got close enough would be zapped automatically, whether it was an attack or a cape.

They didn’t get to divert. A wing extended, a barrier of hard-light panels extending the wing’s profile, and blocking off the retreat. Keeping them in the laser’s area. With the angle and the blur of the glowing panels, I could see only the vague darkness of the forcefield, see the forcefield drop away, and then see the points of light where the ten or so beams cut right through the ten or so capes.

“No!” I shouted.

As if to answer my shout, a barrage of fire from the assembled thralls struck the same filtration edifice that Rain and Sveta were perched on, that I was using for cover. Sparks and ice crystals flew as shots ricocheted off the edge of the pipe I was hiding behind.

“Stay close, Victoria!” Sveta called out. “We need you!”

I peeked, and I saw the wing barrier drop. With it, the blood that had stained it was shed, allowed to fall to the floor. Capes who had been flying just a bit before now tumbled to the ground.

I could see Sarah flying at an angle as she fell. Going to others who were unconscious or unable. To Balk, then abandoning him a second later. He continued to drop, and the rotation of his fall gave me a glimpse of what she’d just discovered for herself. Head gone.