They picked the best marksmen arbitrarily. There were volunteers in plenty to storm the building if the ruse worked.
It took a little time to stuff their clothes with sand. Williamson checked them personally to make sure that the layer under their clothes was at least three inches thick.
When everything was ready Rod strode forward like Achilles taunting the Trojans. He exhausted his vocabulary. All the vituperative terms he could remember and a few that came to him extempore were hauled out to describe the tetrarchs. He told them they would be frozen to provide lights for their own mines—that the humans would break them into small chunks to make jewels for Earth’s women.
It worked. It was more than tetrarch nature could take.
Doors opened for a fleeting second. The vengeful flames showered him with darts.
In that brief interval they were met with withering blasts from the marksmen. The humans had brought the oxygen machinery up from the slave compartment. It streamed toward the building like water from a pressure hose.
At the same instant the volunteers rushed. For an instant the fight teetered in the balance—and then they were in.
Rod bristled with sand-blunted darts as he battered his way through the honey-combed building, searching for the operating chamber. He burst through the entrance—to face Mona Darlanan.
They hadn’t had time to work on her. But they’d done their best. They’d tied her to a vertical platform first.