Otta shook. She and nine other women stood at the western side of town, in the cover of a two-story wooden house. From beneath the balcony where she hid, she peered into the pear orchard ahead. Every few seconds, she saw the flash of a machete, or heard the crackle of a gunshot. She couldn't see the bandits yet, but there was no denying it. The battle was coming this way.
Otta pawed at her chest until she found her cross. Even with God on her side, she felt naked. She looked to her partner and fellow immigrant, Sashi, who stared into the orchard with wide eyes and a shuddering lip. Otta wanted to take her hand, but didn't dare let go of her weapon.
A gun snapped somewhere in the orchard, close, and a bullet landed two meters away from Otta, making a scratch in the wooden wall behind her. Otta's friends answered with a few shots of their own, but the shooter was nowhere to be found.
"Hold here," said a stern voice. "We're not backing up yet."
Otta knelt, trying to make herself smaller. She pulled her gun up to her eye the way Tongana had shown her and tried to remember what she had learned at the shooting range, which now seemed hopelessly far away.
For a minute, everything was quiet. "Where did they go?" asked Otta.
"Probably ran off," said Sashi. "They'll be back, and there'll be more of them."
"How many will there be?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think there'll be too many?"
"I just said I don't know!" she snapped.
Otta wanted to vanish. She watched the orchard, her eyes never staying still.
"Off to the side!" said someone. "They're coming from the left!"
Before Otta could look, dozens of voices screamed, and a bank of guns howled. Chips flew out of the woodwork, and one of the balcony's supports collapsed. The woman who had spotted the enemy staggered back and fell in a bloody coil on the ground.
Otta looked to where the bullets had come from. She saw a mob of pink-haired heads and dark eyes. She saw the tip of a pistol aimed at her.
Without thinking about it, Otta started firing. In the first few seconds, three of the enemy fell down, and the rest spread out. One of them leapt onto a ladder on the side of the house and crawled up to the roof, and five more circled around. Three more dived back into the orchard, where the trees failed to cover them.
"They're behind us!"
Otta was the first to retreat into the house, where a thin table offered no cover. A pink figure appeared in the doorway. Otta flinched as the Mauve fired, but the bullet was not meant for her. Beside Otta, Sashi gurgled and slumped against the wall.
Otta shot back, her bullet drilling through the bandit's heart, but more came to replace her. Otta kept firing, too scared to move, and was dimly aware of her allies beside her. Guns fired from too many places to keep track of.
Finally, the shooting died down. The Mauves stopped coming in. The moments-long quiet was pierced by a cry of, "I'm hit! She got me!"
A woman staggered into the house and tried to lie on the table, only to lose her balance and fall on the floor. With twitching hands, she pulled up her shirt to reveal a thin gash in her stomach, with a fold of muscle poking gruesomely out.
"You two!" yelled a strong voice. It was Otta's sergeant, whose name she could not remember. "Help that woman! Get her back to the hospital!"
The sight of her sergeant glaring at her shook Otta from her stupor. "Yes," she stammered. "Yes, I'll help." She stowed her rifle, knelt by the wounded one and grabbed her legs.
