“That’s by the gods sure,” Haral said under her breath, when she punched out. Haral’s ears were flat. Pyanfar found her left hand clenched on the seat, claws right through the leather.
So what’s he done? Fired or talked?
Farther and farther.
“They’re dumping!” Geran yelled, and a yell and a collective breath and a gasp went through the bridge. “Thank gods,” someone said. Tully muttered something humanish and faint.
“Keep transmitting that message,” Pyanfar ordered. “Repeat, repeat.”
“We’ve got it going,” Hilfy said.
Five ships. Five, six ships in the system now. Harukk and Ikkhoitr. And another one. Seven.
How many? Gods, how many? Did he get away free? Run early and save his ships?
He’s got to have lost some. At Meetpoint. At Kura, if the mahendo’sat got there from Ajir. They’ve got to have done that. Run them through that gauntlet and peel a bit more flesh off them. Give us some help, for godssakes!
Eight now. Nine and ten, widely separated.
“Priority,” Hilfy said, “from Harukk-com: gods, it’s code, we got some kind of code, it’s for those ships back there. . . .”
“Keep our transmission going.”
The ache grew around her heart, grew and grew. The blood pounded in her temples. Not a sound from the ships around them, nothing from the ships behind, yet . . . yet. Light had a little lagtime for them.
“Nekkekt’s answering,” Hilfy said. “All code.”
So what are you doing, Skkukuk? What are you up to? Who’s in charge on that ship?
Twelve. Thirteen ships. Fourteen.
“Priority.” Com came through direct to her earplug. “Instruction from the hakkikt, praise to him. Restore buoy output to our ships. Surrender this system and all its ships instantly. It will exist under the authority of my skku Pyanfar Chanur, whose orders come from me. Cease all hostilities. You are dealing with the mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an’nikktukktin, who allots the rule of this system and its adjuncts to his vassal Chanur.”
She let the breath hiss softly. Gods-be, what must they think now, Rhean and Anfy and Harun and Banny and the rest—what in a mahen hell do the kif back behind me think, and what kind of a move have I made with Skkukuk?
Then: Gods help me, I’ve got it, I’ve got it all, everything in my hands to protect, my people, my allies. He’s not shooting.
Now what do I do?
“Reply: Pyanfar Chanur to the mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an’nikktukktin, praise to his foresight, his enemies are under my hand.”
Ambiguity. Gods save us all.
Haral had looked her way. And there was that little black thing slinking back from the galley, in a hurry, as if Tauran crew in there had done something violent.
“Smart is all we got,” she said to Haral. “I remember what Goldtooth said. We get this situation calmed down a little and then I go for a little visit to Harukk. That’s what. We take Goldtooth’s suggestion. Snuggle up to this kif and get him.”
“The two of us,” Haral said.
“No. You got a ship to run. Get our V and Harukk’s matched, that’s what we got to do. I’d hit him now if we had the angle and his V to use, but we can’t break through those shields, slow as we are.”
Haral kept looking at her. She was talking about suicide. Haral knew it. Haral also knew the other plain fact, that their armaments were nothing against hunter-ship armor—unless one or the other in the encounter had C-fractional velocity to add to the impact, virtually head-on. And Sikkukkut, praise to his wily kifish heart, was not obliging them.
“’Bout the only thing we can do, don’t you think?”
“You mean just board and shoot him pointblank.”
“Hey, they never have been too fussy about us carrying weapons. Kifish etiquette’s on our side, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Haral said.
“He’ll ask me aboard. You wait and see. I get my chance, and then you blow his vanes if you can. I don’t have to tell you. You know what you’re doing.” A look aside at Haral. Old partner. Old friend. The one who just as well could have captained The Pride a long, long time ago. Who right now looked at her with that stolid calm behind which was a great deal of pain. “Long time.”
“Yeah,” Haral said again. “Watch out for Ikkhoitr, that’s what I got to do. But that’s not your job in there right now. No one but you’s got the credentials, hear me?”
“Nobody else can get close to the gods-be kif—”
“He’s going to be expecting a move like this. That’s why no one else can get close to him. This is why it doesn’t work for the kif. No percentage in it. You do it, Py, and we got ourselves a kif ball-up right here in the system.”
“We just got to get me inside there, that’s what we got.”
“We got those mahendo’sat hanging off system. We still don’t know where Goldtooth is—he could come tearing through here any minute, f’godssakes, him and the whole clutch of humans. We got that message going out to the mahendo’sat. Jik’s coming in here—don’t do it. Don’t throw yourself into that mess. We just stay tight here, we talk to that bastard as long as he wants to talk, we got to hold our nerve, captain, that’s what we got to do. We got to just bide our time and hope to—”
“Captain,” Hilfy said. “We got a query from Vigilance. Query, query, query, quote. That’s all they say.”
“Gods rot that nest of lunatics. Tell ’em shut it down. My gods, they’ll blow this up yet. Tell ’em— No. Tell ’em what I said. Shut it up. Next ship transmits out of turn I’ll have some ears for it, say that. Tell Harukk again the system is stable and his enemies are in retreat. Say that we have a contingent of mahendo’sat insystem in support of Jik, who’s gone on in pursuit of Akkhtimakt. Say that we’re ready to meet and arrange things.”
Eighteen ships in. The range out there was a confusion of ship IDs and colors as ships downshifted their V and others kept arriving.
“Aye,” Hilfy said.
“Captain,” Tully said. “Wrong. Ship wrong.”
“Gods.” Geran’s voice. “No ID on that last ship. It’s not outputting. We got an anomaly out there.”
Her heart sped. “Track and target. Get me vector on it.”
“Working,” Sif said.
It was behind the others. The line popped up, projecting course right with the rest of the mass.
Chapter 14
It kept coming, a ship on which ID squeal had malfunctioned.
But that kind of malfunction was a kifish trick.
A pirate trick.
“My gods. It’s not theirs. It’s not theirs, they know it— stand by, stand by armaments!” Pyanfar shoved her arm into the brace and gulped air in starkest panic. “Haral! Control to me!”
“Aye,” Haral said on the instant, went over to switcher-one while Tirun busied herself with the tracking of the armaments.
“What is it?” Sirany wondered from her vantage.
“A stray,” Pyanfar said. “It’s a godsforsaken stray, Goldtooth’s or—”
“Priority!” Geran yelled, but it was already clear on the screen: the interloper had not dumped, and something else had come out from it: missile fire, projectiles launched C-fractional at ships that were relativistically stationary targets dead ahead of it.
“Priority!” Hilfy cried. “It’s Tahar! That’s Moon Rising! My gods, she’s going to run right through them!”
“Track on Harukk!” Pyanfar yelled, and slammed the mains in. “All ships, fire at will—tell ’em that’s an ally coming through!”
The armaments were tracking. Missiles launched with a thump and a shock against their own substance. Dead against Harukk, everything they owned to throw, hard as they could throw it.
“Ikkhoitr!” Pyanfar yelled over the whine of reloading. “Tirun, get their vanes. Never gods-be mind the others! Hilfy, give me output!”
“You got it,” Haral said. “Tully, output! Talk to humans, got it?”
 
; In the case there was anything back there to talk to. All kinds of com ready-lighted, human channel, mahendo’sat, kif, hani, while that dopplering ghost that was Tahar’s Moon Rising came ahead pouring fire at a single target, savvy and deliberate.
“This is the mekt-hakkikt Pyanfar Chanur: Akkhtimakt is fallen and Sikkukkut has run here pursued by a thousand enemies who are my allies, hammered between mahen forces and the unity of han. In this pukkukkta I give you a chance, Chakkuf, Nekkekt! You’ve served us well on this voyage. You have my favor now! Hani ships and mahendo’sat, be sure of your targets! Harukk is your target, and any other ship which fires in our direction! Make no mistakes! Kifish ships, run from this system and my agents will hunt you down even to Akkht! Join us in this hunt and become among the first of my skkukun, all of you strong enough to maintain your place! Hani, fire your loads and scatter!”
This while The Pride belched out all the missiles and all the fire it had; while a deluge of fire converged from the ships in formation. Something came over com, overhead, general address: a hani voice, a familiar voice:
“Here’s from us, you godsforsaken motherless son of a nightwalker! Hearth and blood! from me and my crew!”
“Tahar!” Pyanfar cried. “Gods rot you, I forgive you!”
A timelag off in messages. The kif had only limited fire-sweep aft, because of its own vanes, and it had to track a ship whose missiles were only scantly lagged behind its com-wave, the difference between realspace V and lightspeed. Tahar’s missiles hit: others were still incoming from all points of the sphere.
“Chanur, mekt-hakkikt!” another voice came blasting into her ear. “I am here, behind you, praise your foresight! Our ships are coming!”
“Whose in a mahen hell is that? Is that Skkukuk?”
“It’s coming from Nekkekt,” Hilfy said.
“Time to get out of here,” Pyanfar cried, “transmit, hani ships: Scatter, scatter.” She reached and rang the collision warning for the Tauran crew off in the galley, kicked The Pride bow-nadir and threw in the mains with all they had.
It was all they could do to evade return fire, some ships rising, some going wide, some diving systemwise, like the blooming of some vast flower, each as they finished their load of missiles and got down to the beam guns. Tirun kept the guns tracking as they dived, firing for all they were worth.
It was still forward motion they made; but it was angular, kiting along skewed and hurling all the energy the mains had to give to that slew toward nadir.
Gods grant—
“Hai!” The whole ship banged and slewed violently, so that the course was different than it had been— “What’d we lose?” she yelled. “Gods rot it, what blew?”
“Vanes—” Tirun started to say.
Second impact, like the loudest thunder that ever cracked: the ship jumped sideways and a whole panel started flashing red. A small black body went hurtling and hit the wall, a black blur till it hit: it scrabbled right across the top of the control panel and Pyanfar swallowed and spat a red spatter that shocked her as much as the sound, only then feeling what her teeth had done to the inside of her mouth. “Gods fry that kif bastard—you all right?” The cursed black thing was as terrified as the rest of them, fellow in misfortune. It ran and screamed in rage: she did not even hit at it when she had the chance. There were too many switches for two hands, too many systems over to backup and third backup and past. “Damage report, gods rot it!”
“Chur,” Tully’s anxious voice came. “Chur!”
“We lost the whole vane, I think it slewed down into the mains.” Tirun’s voice, hoarse and breathless. And the firing of the guns resumed, realigned to the new track, while gods knew where they were going.
“Priority,” Geran said, “we got fire over us—our kif are moving, the mahendo’sat are moving—we’re clear of it—”
“Industry’s bad hit,” Hilfy reported. “Khym—Chur—”
“I’m with you.” Chur’s own voice, weak as it was.
“Cease fire, cease fire.”
While the mains slammed away at them. Then it was a matter of finding their bearings, getting the skewed V shaved down. She got a screenful of garble out of Tracking, reoriented to bring the dishes and receptors to optimum— no matter which direction The Pride was physically headed: coherent data started coming up.
And camera image, an area of flares in the battle zone as The Pride began rollover to brake.
She looked round at her own bridge, still swallowing blood, saw all the stations still working. Wiped her mouth and glanced back again at the images Haral sent her way.
It was still happening out there. But more slowly. There were ships in wreckage out there, blown in those flares. She earnestly hoped one of them was Harukk.
She remembered Stle stles stlen. And felt a chill as she hit the com-button, the contact still live. “This is the mekt-hakkikt Pyanfar Chanur. Report.”
“Praise to the hakkikt,” a kifish voice came back eventually. “We give you your enemies.”
And others began, a flood of ship names, Nekkekt. Chakkuf. Ikkhoitr itself, declaring fervent loyalty.
Not a hani voice. Not a one.
Or a mahendo’sat.
“This is The Pride of Chanur to all hani ships: acknowledge status; hold other transmissions pending. Thank you.”
She sat there staring after. And shaking, little tremors which had nothing to do with the stench of dead air in the ship and the ozone and the fact that the bridge fans had stopped working. Or that there was a periodic and rhythmic shock against the hull which was some piece of debris trailing and still in motion while the mains hammered away at their drift.
Just the bridge sounds and the distant thunder of the mains. And a great loneliness.
“Everyone all right? Is everyone all right?”
“I got a patch on it.” Khym’s voice. “It’s all right.”
“Galley.” Sirany’s voice on general com. “You all right in there?”
“I think I got a broken rib,” the answer came back. “But we’re all right, how’s it going, captain?”
“Going to go stable in a while, hold on.”
Stable. My gods, they’re killing each other up there. Kif are butchering each other in the corridors of those ships out there, kif are doing what kif do when they win and others lose, and how many ships have we lost out here? What do we do, hit the kif now while they’re confused?
The kif would. If they had our options. Poor naive sons. They don’t understand what’s all round them. They don’t understand what hani are capable of.
Fire on them—and change us forever.
Do that—and be sure there is a forever.
“You want me to trim us up?” Haral asked, while several channels of com talked away, getting damage reports out of other ships, ascertaining casualties. Fortune reported minimal damage. Light was going to have to limp into dock. There were others. The information came up on the screens. Ayhar’s Prosperity: damage: no casualties.
Harun’s Industry: heavy damage: braking and maneuvering positive. Casualties: four.
Faha’s Starwind: heavy damage: casualties: two.
Pauran’s Lightweaver: vane gone: casualties: minor.
Ehrran’s Vigilance: no damage: no casualties.
Nirasun’s Melody: minor damage: no casualties.
Shaurnurn’s Hope: lost.
Tahar’s Moon Rising: out of contact.
Suranun’s Fairwind: out of contact.
The list went on. More and more names. They blurred in her sight. As The Pride braked, and the stress hammered away at them.
Then: “Priority, priority,” Geran exclaimed. As scan started blinking furiously. “Breakout zenith.”
Ships were coming in. A lot of them. One; and three more. And five.
“O my gods,” Sirany breathed.
“If it’s Akkhtimakt—”
Then the ID started flashing. Mahendo’sat.
Mahijiru.
“Goldtooth,” Pyan
far muttered, and slammed her fist down on the console rim. “Goldtooth, gods rot him— Now he shows up. Now, by the gods, now he comes chasing in here, comes in here with by the gods bastard frigging mahen interests, to sweep up the poor godsforsaken hani they’ve done it to again, b’gods greater and lesser, one more frigging time we bleed for them, their godscursed meddling selfish gods-be-feathered interests! Tully!”
“Aye, cap’n!”
“Get on that com, hear, com! Fast. Tell the humans no shooting, understand, don’t shoot!”
“Don’t shoot, I got, I got, cap’n!”
It started going out.
And hard on it: “Mahijiru, this is The Pride of Chanur. Cease fire, cease fire. These are allied ships. Dump and brake and hold off. Do not transit the system. Other mahen ships hold the approach to Ajir: nothing passed here beyond their capacity to deal with and mahen authorities in that direction are forewarned. Repeat: the Ajir approach is defended by mahen ships. Stay where you are. All mahen ships anywhere receiving: this is Pyanfar Chanur on The Pride of Chanur: cease all hostilities. End. Repeat that.” She slumped back then, at the end of her energies. “Till response.”
“We have a transmission from Vigilance. They register protest.”
“Tell ’em—tell ’em we note it. Tell them—” It was easier and easier to think in kifish mode. “Stand in line, gods rot it. And consider where they are.”
There were more and more ships arriving in the range. It was nightmare. If it had been an hour earlier it would have been a rescue.
By that much, you cursed bastard. By that much you missed it.
By that much Tahar was almost with us. Across all that space. Goldtooth must have held Sikkukkut—must have pinned them down good. The kif must have thrown something at him again at Kura. Must have—gods know what they did. Keeping Sikkukkut from overjumping us. When he came in here he was desperate. Needing me, for godssakes. He couldn’t fire on me, I was the last hope he had.