Hale had started her in the Storage Bay, and she knew why. He did it for the same reason he did everything else to them; to break her down, to remind her of the last time they'd dared to face their demons head on. Hale knew. He knew everything. That was his advantage; he had unlimited data from which to pull to design the most effective torture for them, and he used it relentlessly. Making them assault the helicopter mockup that bore suspicious resemblance to the same class of military chopper Gabe's mother and sister had been in. Forcing them to wait six hours in the tight maintenance shafts with three feet of solid steel between them for the "target" to show before dismissing them without even bothering to produce one.

Sol was therefore unsurprised when the compass led her to the Observatory. The "diplomat" had apparently decided to admire the view during his visit. Right. Sol knew why he'd chosen it the moment she stepped inside and slid the wall silently to the only real cover the room offered. The bookcases stood four feet apart and, even with the ambient glow from the window, the light from above cast sections of dark and light on the floor. Like before, Sol was outnumbered, and like before, her primary opponent was a member of the SOTF, with far more extensive experience than she had, but like before, she had the element of stealth.

And unlike before, she was to be predator before she was prey.

You fucked up this time, Hale. Gabriel isn't here this time for me to worry about...just me and you, old man, and the children you have guarding you aren't going to save you. I've done this before.

Some of the students who were in the room relaxing paid attention to them, but most did not. The flash suits said it all. The tightly clustered group was the in the center of the empty space, presumably to allow the diplomat the best access to the observatory window, and Sol gritted her teeth as she glared at Hale's figure cut out against the starscape. No stars, Hale, no stars, and it's your fault. You shouldn't have reminded me. You shouldn't have pushed us the way you did. All you had to do was transfer us. All you had to do was let us go, and you decided to keep us instead.

In the stacks in the Juneau Library, Sol had shut down. She had become primitive, something less so she could do more, and in that state she had done serious damage to two living humans. Such a shift was wholly unnecessary this time around; she was not in mortal danger. Hale did not rate that much of a response...and even if the gun in her hand had been real instead of a lifelike replica, and Hale a real target instead of an element in a test she had never wanted to take, Sol doubted she would have retreated again.

Her arm extended slowly between the books, and she aimed with the careful ease Hale's training had given her and shot him in the head.

The change in the Marines was immediate and dramatic. They fanned out, and she nailed the one heading away from her twice in the back before putting the gun down quietly on the shelf. The Marines immediately directed their attention to the shelves on the other side of the room, and she stripped out of her flash suit methodically and quickly, shoving it under shelving. She could hear them sweeping the room, and she didn't bother stepping out from behind the shelving. She'd chosen this side for a reason. Given the choice, Sol almost always preferred fiction for recreational reading.

She picked a comfortable chair and tucked her feet into it to hide her lack of boots. The lack of jacket might earn her a demerit from one of the harsher commanders, but it was common enough, and when the Marines ran past her, she didn't even look up, and they didn't give her a second glance. Even after they'd left in defeat, Sol stayed where she was, her gaze fastened on the page in front of her without reading it for a good thirty seconds before setting the book down and gathering her gear to don it and walk back to the Storage Bay by the secondary path she'd seen Mode use when he'd stolen Katera's dagger.

Later, when she'd returned to reshelve the book, it still lay open to the same page, and she read it again before she put it back.

"M. Beauchamp," interposed this strange man, "the Count of Monte Cristo bows to none but the Count of Monte Cristo himself. Say no more, I entreat you. I do what I please, M. Beauchamp, and it is always well done."

"Sir," replied the young man, "honest men are not to be paid with such coin. I require honorable guaranties."