Overpowering someone is not hard. It is merely a function of whether you are able to deliver adequate force, and how much damage you are able to withstand while doing so.

  With guns, the answer is usually “not enough”. Even warded armor will break beneath a burst of fully automatic fire into a concentrated area of your back.

  Stun guns, though...

  Stun guns are nasty. They hurt. They’re great at dispersing crowds of unarmored opponents without doing too much damage.

  For us, they were great. Three barrels, times four marines. Twelve wards total. We had more than twelve wards. I’d counted higher than twelve when poking them with my thread.

  “On three,” I whispered into Hao’s armpit, “fall over backward, as if you’ve fainted. Reach the marines.”

  “And you?” she whispered back, head straight, as if staring at the tribunal judges.

  “I’ll be getting shot,” I said. “And disabling marines. One, two-”

  On three, Hao slid backward, leading with her butt. Smart woman. It gave her a more natural fall.

  I fell with her, rolling over my shoulder and coming up boots first, aiming for the closest marine’s groin.

  My kick lifted him off his feet. He’d already been going forward, trying to steady Hao, his gun pointing away from her.

  Right at me. He convulsed at my kick, squeezing all three triggers.

  The gun boomed, bag, needles, and bouncer smacking into my chest. The sound catapulted the rest of the Raist marines into action. Wards shattered, marines scrambled, Hao yelled.

  I still had the feeling of both participating and observing.

  I head-butted a marine in the solar-plexus, his light armor bending. Hao slammed him in the side of the head with both fists. Another boom, more wards shattering, sharp, icy stabs into my brain.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The last marine lifted his stun gun, half a meter from my head. My heart stopped, all my fractured minds coalesced into the image of three big, black, deep muzzles. I didn’t have my stockman. My head wasn’t protected. The thought that I was going to die flashed through my mind.

  Maia stomped the marine behind the knees.

  He flailed his arms, falling, and I yanked the rifle out of his hands. Turning it, I dropped into a firing stance, aiming at the tribunal judges.

  “Hold,” I yelled. “First person to move gets a bouncer in the face.”

  Elapsed time, infinite. Probably less than three seconds from the moment Hao faked her faint.

  The judges were already rising. I suddenly realized the flaw in my plan. Flaws, plural. If there was an alarm, we’d be overwhelmed in moments. If they had a gun, we’d get shot. If they didn’t mind taking a stun gun round, they’d have a good chance at charging us. Our hands were still shackled, and I didn’t want to shoot the Raist’s defense forces.

  They didn’t know that. No alarm sounded. And their hips were bare of any holsters.

  Fate smiles on fools and dreamers.

  Hao came up, a slim, black pistol in her shaking hands. She pointed it toward the tribunal, her finger on the trigger.

  “Better give that to me,” I said, which she did with a tiny lessening of tension. Hao hated guns. “Disarm the rest of the marines,” I told her. “And find a key to our cuffs.”

  Maia was already yanking guns from the holsters on the marines’ belts, looking calm and impassive, as if she fought hand to hand every day. I wished I could project such a look, but I settled on angry and flustered instead.

  It came naturally to me.

  “You’ll not get away with this,” uncle Caramon said.

  I didn’t reply. My heart was dancing in my throat, and any reply would have come out high and squeaky. Difficult to sound convincing when you’re talking like a scared mouse.

  “Got it,” Hao said, and there was the clack of a pair of shackles falling away.

  The judges were glancing at each other, giving each other slight nods. Building themselves up to charging.

  I really didn’t want to shoot them.

  “Cuff them,” I told Hao, moving to the side so that she wouldn’t enter my line of fire. “Then shackle everyone to the benches.”

  The leftmost captain moved forward, a slight shifting of his weight, his hand casually resting on the pulpit before him.

  Making ready to charge.

  I moved the gun to cover him, dropping my aim point.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “But I will blow your leg off.”

  Empty threat. The gun was a low-caliber automatic, and no sane person used explosive rounds in low-caliber guns. It would make a messy hole, though. The captain removed his hand, letting himself be cuffed with the others.

  “Now what?” Maia said.

  Good question.

  “Now we run,” I replied. “Very calmly, looking for all the world like we belonged here.”

  “I can do that,” she replied.

  “Then you’re in the lead,” I told her.