Finally came the moment we’d been dreading. One of Medeiros’s units dodged several plasma spikes and managed to get within detonation range. Barely. The resulting EMP and blast of radiation played hell with internal systems for a few moments. Fortunately the version-3 Heavens had multiple redundancies. Five of us were able to continue. The other two must have lost too much functionality. Their dead-mans activated and they disappeared in reactor overload. I hoped Fred and Jackson’s backups were recent and complete.