“How in a mahen hell’d she do it?” a young voice cried; and another: “Captain!”
As space sorted itself into sanity, as alarms wailed, advising of systems gone backup; as they ran into a wavefront of information that said ANUURN, ANUURN, ANUURN—
“My gods!” someone yelled, seeing something.
And their own ship answered, automatic: The Pride of Chanur.
They were well into system. Close to the star. To the sun that had warmed their backs as children and beaconed them home trip after trip.
Anuurn buoy was out. No help for that. “Watch out for Tyar,” she said to the scan operator by her, tried to say. As The Pride’s weapons fired again.
* * *
Pyanfar ran. She had never moved so hard, straight out of jump. She hit the door with her whole body, triggered the lock and staggered into the hall and ran it with the thud and thump of Khym running behind her. A blurred figure came out of Chur’s room and collided with her, embraced her, stink of human, half-naked and all but falling. “Chur—” Tully said, but she sorted out from him, already on her way, and left him to obstruct Khym’s path.
Bridge loomed, lit and swimming in and out of focus. She grabbed the doorframe, safetywise hand-over-handed toward the nearest console and lurched for the next, heading for the captain’s seat, grabbed the back of it and hung there. “I’m here,” she gasped, and Sirany twisted in the seat and began to get out of it. “Get to observer one. Too far to go below.”
“We’re still firing,” a youngish voice said. “Do I stop?”
“Priority, we got no buoy here.”
“What are we firing at?” Sirany snapped. “Gods and thunders, what are we doing? My gods, we’re high-V— those guns—”
“Not sure,” that one said; and: “She’s fainted—” Another voice. As Pyanfar grabbed Sirany’s seatback. “Out!” she yelled at the Tauran; and Sirany cleared it as she threw herself into it, a collision of bodies. “Tyar vector,” someone said; and: “Stay your posts,” Pyanfar snapped, blinking at a blur of lights, and felt blind after the general hail: “Chanur, get your backsides up here! Run for it! Tauran, cancel fire, cancel.”
“My door, my door! Fools!”
“Unlock the kif,” she said to the Tauran copilot/switcher. Confusion behind as Tully and Khym tried to ascertain Chur’s state. “Khym! Get her to the galley, emergency secure. Get liquid down her if you can.” They had run that drill, galley-secure, smallest fore-aft space next the bridge. Close the corridor-access and hit the padded benches, collapse the table to use for auxiliary brace, and belt in and tie down. In the tail of her vision they took Chur out that way. Sirany moved and came on over intercom from the seat Chur had left. “I’ll aux switch, Chanur.”
“You got it,” she said, ripped a nutrients packet loose and downed it, her eye to the chrono and the red numbers flashing on the screen. “Gods—” Into the general com: “Make that lift, gods rot you, run, we got thirty seconds to dump, run, run, run! Ride it out in the lift!”
“We’ll make it!” Haral’s voice. Dopplered and moving, from the com. “Let it go!”
Images got to her screen. She jammed a com plug into her right ear and listened with one ear to that flow, kifish jabber.
Fifteen seconds. Noise from the intercom, wide open from both ends. Shouts and curses at a recalcitrant door. “Open the gods-be lift!”
Then: “We’re in.” Different speaker. Tirun this time. And: “Wait, wait, wait! Kkkkt-kkt-kt! Wait!”
“Hurry!”
“Kkkkkkkkkkkkkk—”
Dump.
—down. Velocity drop.
—red lights. Breaking out like plague.
O my gods, don’t let us lose it here.
Not now. Not now.
Normal space. Anuurn and kif. She swallowed down sickness and flicked switches while the Tauran switcher next to her fed her images.
“Position, position, where in a mahen hell are we?” Not Haral beside her. Fire was going on out there, their kifish escort hammering away at something forty-five degrees off and low. Haze blossomed on the scan as it cleared. They had no clear way to know what the kif were firing on. “Com, gods rot it, where’s ID on those ships?”
“No ID,” the young voice answered. “I’m not getting ID.”
“Captain, we got hits out there, Tyar vector!”
“Targeting.”
“We don’t know who we’re shooting at,” Sirany objected.
“Targeting, gods rot it, did I say fire? Get us a gods-be lock on it!”
“Gods rot yourself, did I say I wasn’t?”
Not a crew up here. A collection. Left and right hand tangling. In the monitor a light-reflection showed, widened. Lift door opening. She looked at the time and saw fifty seconds to next dump. “Fifty to dump, clear those seats, number two, three, five, seven—Chanur crew’s in upper main, we got a fast shift, bail out and go, move it!”
“Get!” Sirany yelled at her own crew. “You heard her. Galley!”
Every regulation in the book was fractured. Crew bailed out and fled in mid-ops, a scramble for the galley corridor. Running footsteps hit the bridge deck and seats sighed and hummed and belts clicked, new crew in. New voices reported over com.
“Your sister’s all right,” Pyanfar said.
As the chrono ticked over and they went down again—
—programmed dump.
More red. Red, red, red.
O gods, not the main boards—
Lifesupport out.
Gods fry those slinking things!
Over to backup on three more systems. Final backup on another.
Out again, with telemetry coming in, Chanur voices delivering information.
“Affirmative: Akkhtimakt. Tyar vector, breaking for nadir.”
“Fire.”
As another disruption streaked past them, disrupting scan.
“That was Jik!” Geran said.
“Go for ’em!” Tirun cried, and: “Kkkt! Sgot sotikkut pukkukt’!” from Skkukuk.
More disruptions. A welter of high-V projectiles, passing by them.
They added their own, lower-V, and a burst of beamfire from their small bow projector. Hydraulics whined and thumped, reloading the chambers on the launcher, tracking. The source of the fire was off—gods, in the ecliptic. A chill went up her back. Chur and premonitions. The first fire they had thrown out was the most damaging kind, high-velocity, aimed blind.
Someone had keyed the guns.
Whump and groan. Another missile round off. More loading.
“Stand by braking.” Gods hope the systems hold. As she threw them into rollover, the guns still tracking and firing under auto.
She threw the mains in. Her hand was shaking on the board, even with her arm thrust through the stress brace. Her vision fuzzed under the strain, and something small and black flew past her head and hit the forward bulkhead beyond her panel, squealing and yelping. Three story drop, where it had come from. “Gods!” she yelled in revulsion: it ran right back over the boards and chittered and squealed as it went, tiny claws scrabbling as it climbed against the G-force and ran right over the counter along the bulkhead, the course of least resistance.
Then colors blossomed all across the scan.
“We got company!” Geran yelled, and pounded the board. “Gods, O gods, they’re ours, hani IDs—hani ships lying off-system ecliptic, they’re coming in!”
Chapter 11
“Hani ships!” Hilfy cried. “Waiting—O gods, someone got ’em the word! They’re coming in on our escorts’ wavefront!”
“Ayhar,” Pyanfar said. Her heart again. It was a good hurt. As if the universe itself were not large enough to hold it. “Gods look on her, Banny Ayhar got through!”
While The Pride hammered down its V and Akkhtimakt’s kif picked theirs up, faster and faster shifts. Comp subtracted their V-drop out of that relative V increase and still came up with a plus. “The bastards are running!” Haral exclaimed. “They’re getti
ng out of here; they got Ajir for an outbound—”
“They got Jik on their tail,” Tirun exclaimed. While on com, Sif was trying to explain it all to the crew in the galley. A cheer racketed out of that section, weak and wobbly in the strain of decel, but a cheer all the same.
“They are lost!” Skkukuk cried, and a string of something else in kifish.
His former associates. Akkhtimakt and all his minions, and Skkukuk was not with them in their debacle, but in the lead ship of the winning side. It was surely a sweet moment to a kif, all his maneuvers justified. He chittered and hissed and all but chortled. “Give me a channel,” he cried. “Hakt’, give me a channel, praise to my captain, mekt-hakt’, they will not turn, they dare not turn, give me a channel!”
“Affirm,” she said. It seemed little enough to keep a kif content. And having gotten it he sent out a steady burst of clicking main-kifish.
Fools, was the burden of it. Join my captain, join us in success, turn and rend the doomed and hapless fools who lead you!
“Com,” Hilfy said. “Harun’s Industry says their compliments and they’re wanting instructions.”
“Come about and stay after them and for the gods’ sweet sake let the comp do the shooting, we got too many allies out there that look like the other side.”
“Kifish signal,” Hilfy snapped. “Skkukuk.”
“Notiktkt has begun to fire on its fellows!” Skkukuk cried. “It signals its loyalty, mekt-hakt’!”
O my gods.
She stared, appalled, listened as Skkukuk rattled off more and more names. As kif hindmost in the whole retreating force began to add their fire to the attack on their own forces, and hani ships swept in like a wave, hammering at the ships that were attempting to flee.
Hammer and anvil. More and more kifish defections, and the Ajir vector, the only way out at their velocity and on that heading—barriered suddenly with yet another wave.
“My gods, what’s that?”
More breakout of plague on the com, this time nadir, ships lying emissions-silent suddenly having picked up velocity and started to run.
Howling out mahen IDs.
“My gods, we got ’em,” Haral yelled. And laughed aloud and pounded the console. “You hear that? That’s the mahendo’sat! We got the kif between us, Akkhtimakt’s forces are defecting right and left, they’re chewing each other to bloody rags!”
Pyanfar stared at it with her mouth open. With bits and pieces of things sorting themselves into vague order, as they had been ordered for longer than she had wanted to look at them.
She did not cheer. There was an obscenity in what was happening in front of them. And yet not obscene or unfit. No more than the little vermin that had multiplied and succeeded against all odds.
It was kif out there, surviving again.
Doing the best they knew to do.
Murder is possible here. Ours, committed, against kif innocent by their own lights.
In one stroke, I can order it, clear our system of kifish ships till we can get organized in defense. Wipe the aliens out of home system.
It’s prudent to do. It’s only prudent.
But gods help me, I’m not a butcher.
“Send: The Pride of Chanur to all ships. Cease fire, cease fire on all kifish IDs that signal surrender.”
Then com reached her down the other vector, backflung from Jik.
Requesting that same message that she had anticipated and just sent.
Braking continued. Fighting diminished. There were still casualties. Solid mass became drifting clouds. Scan attempted to track misaimed projectile-fire and confused itself with the sheer magnitude of the problem till Geran gave it a Disregard on non-intersect-potentials.
They reached lower and lower V. “Take it,” Pyanfar said, and Haral slewed The Pride around to use the mains on acquisition in a new vector.
Headed for Anuurn.
Vid came up. Haral had been too busy for that till now. The homestar, Ahr, shone brilliant yellow. Lifebearer. Hearthfire to the species. And the paler, nearer light that was Anuurn.
Home again.
With a straggle of battered, stress-damaged merchant ships slewing about in disordered break out of the rigid formation they had kept so long and so far, Harun and little Faha, Pauran, and last and limping, Shaurnurn, reporting damages, talking to each other over com.
“This is Sirany Tauran.” Sirany had gotten herself an output channel. “Affirmative on the linkup, inquiry affirmative, all ships. They’re all right. Chanur’s clean and clear. Thank the gods.”
“Gods look on us all. Here and otherwise.” Harun was talking, Harun always the leader in that group.
“We’ve got that,” Faha said, and other acknowledgments came in.
While the slaughter went on, while a hard burn shoved at them and made breathing difficult, and a lightspeed message proliferated through ship relays.
“We’ve got contact with Gaohn,” Hilfy said. “They ask for a report.”
“They know by now,” Pyanfar muttered. “But answer them. Send: The Pride of Chanur to Gaohn. We claim navigational priority. Clan business. End message. Put a call through to Kohan. Ask him how things are down there.”
On Anuurn. At home. On that small shining sphere in all the wide dark.
It would take a long time. Question and answer went slow at this range. Conversations were all one-sided.
“Where in a mahen hell is Vigilance? Did we pick up Ehrran’s ID anywhere?”
“Affirmative. Affirmative,” Geran said, all business. “Five ships are putting out from Gaohn. We got a pickup on Ehrran. They’re moving now. Make that six ships. They’re not talking.”
“I’ll bet she’s not. Where’s Ayhar? Gods rot it, where’s Banny Ayhar and Prosperity?”
The burn stopped. Her vision cleared, her voice no longer had to force its way out of her throat. A wave of giddiness came on her. Depletion. Fight-flight reflexes let go and the body had dues to pay. She clamped her jaws against nausea and fumbled after a packet, dropped one and got another. Bit down on it and swallowed and swallowed, which was the only thing else she could do but retch. Going to faint. O gods. I don’t do this. “Haral—Sirany. I’m not—”
“Cap’n? Cap’n?”
* * *
She drifted. Lay still under a ceiling which was not the overhead of the bridge. Blinked at it and at Khym’s anxious face.
“You fainted,” he said.
“Gods rot.” She drew her hands up to locate her head, which seemed drifting loose and all fuzzed. “Who’s running the ship?”
“Ker Sirany. We’re inbound for Gaohn. It’s all right, Py. We did it.”
“Jik. . . .”
“The kif jumped, such as could. A lot surrendered. They’ve attached to the other kif. To Chakkuf. Skkukuk’s been talking to them, telling them—Hilfy says—that they’ll do well to hold still.”
“Where’s Jik?” Fear set her heart to hammering. “Did he jump, gods rot it, did he jump out?”
“We aren’t tracking him. It got—pretty confused, Py. Not Geran’s fault. Sirany says so. We—lost some ships. His ID just cut out.”
“He’s lying. Gods-be, that bastard’s pulling another one.” There was an obstruction in her throat. She wanted to break something. Anything. There was dark around her vision, a pain all through her gut. “We need him.” All quiet and hard to get past that knot. Oh, Jik, Jik. Another gods-be doublecross.
What do I do now? What am I going to do?
“Cap’n?”
It was not a voice she expected to hear. Not loose and wandering around in places like her cabin. She lifted her spinning head and looked at the worn, wan hani clinging to the doorframe. “Chur? F’godssakes—”
“I’m doing all right,” Chur said.
“Huh,” she said. “Huh.” And fell back into the pillows. It was all she could manage at the moment. The whole cabin was going into slow rotation. It felt like tricks with the G force, a little acceleration this way a
nd that way, but if she asked was that going on she would look the fool. It was her head. Her equilibrium.
Gods. Sikkukkut. Where? When?
A weight depressed the end of her bed. A hand touched her leg. “Cap’n.” Haral’s voice, ragged with fatigue. “We got a little rest now. Ker Sirany’s arguing with Gaohn, telling ’em we got right of way and they can by the gods quit quibbling. She’s all right, captain. Swear she is. Never shot at anything in her life, her and her crew, I think they’re a little shook. Us—we’re falling-down and gone away. Whole crew. Thank gods for the Tauran, thank gods, I say.”
“I say too,” she murmured. Felt a touch across her brow, her ears. Khym’s hand. She opened her eyes and stared at the uninformative ceiling. “Was that Chur in here?”
“Not walking too good, but she’s put on weight. Turned a corner somewhen and started storing it up instead of burning it. Skkukuk’s having lunch—”
“O gods.” Her stomach heaved.
“We got to get those things cleared out somehow. Skkukuk says Chur got to the bridge in jump, went into some kind of hyperdrive, started telling the Tauran what to do when they came out, got us all waked up— Cap’n, somebody threw a bunch of relays on manual, got us over on backup systems, or we wouldn’t have made it: those gods-be black devils had got into the works, chewed stuff up good. And somebody aimed the guns. Chur doesn’t remember, but I got my guess who did it. Or we’d be on the long trip for sure.”
She blinked and absorbed that. Remembered bailing out of bed and running the corridor. Was not too clear on how she had gotten into her own seat. Or how anything had happened. The mind did not function well on the trailing edge of jump.
Did not function well after too many jumps, either.
“Call to home,” she remembered. “We on response-time yet?”
“Gaohn refuses to relay.”
“Gods and thunders, politics, politics and we got a system full of kif—”
“They’ve got Ayhar under arrest, cap’n. We’re still on course. We got Vigilance in our way and we got three other big freighters just hanging off and not doing anything. They’ll have fire position on us if we keep coming. They warned us. Have to ask you what you want to do.”