She was shaking now, light tremors, which was no good. She put a hand on Chihin, and risked a look out where they had been, where none of her party still was, which was good news. Everyone had made cover of some kind.
"Tarras!"
"Aye! I hear,"the welcome voice came back. "I'm calling the police.'''
Police, for the gods' sake! "Tiar, Tiar, do you read?"
"I'm here,"a breathless voice said, thin and distorted by interference.
"Don't give position!" she said, and caught a breath of her own. “How are you doing?'' she asked Chihin.
"All right," Chihin said thinly, "Give me a minute. We can run for it."
"That's a sniper. Laser targeted. Light arms, but they can cut us up piecemeal. — Tarras, I think the p.o.
is the business frontage. Hang on…"
She leaned to get her gun from her belt, plain projectile weapon, with a vid display, and she drew a bead on the suspicious alley… couldn't get vid resolution. Couldn't go firing blindly down there: she could hit some poor mahen shopkeeper. But she sighted the structural supports where the laser spot had showed, and calculated the angle of fire across the dock. It had to be coming from that alley, that narrow nook between two freight company offices.
"Can we get an ambulance out here? Chihin's hit— don't know how bad…"
A flurry of footsteps arrived out of the shadows. She rolled on her hip and saw red-brown hide, not black robes — a scared, almost too large for cover Hallan Meras.
"What do we do, captain?"
"We keep our heads down."
He was making as small a target as he could, arms locked about legs.
"Ker Tiar's over there," Hallan said, nodding toward the other console.
"Good." A movement and a crash from the Legacy's area. A truck had started up and hit a can. It kept coming. "Tarras! Is that you in the truck?"
Fire hit it and blistered paint. The sniper didn't think it was on his side. She let off a few shots at neutral real estate to keep the sniper pinned. A neon sign. That blew with satisfactory fireworks.
"You see the son?" Chihin asked, squirming for vantage.
"No. Stay down!"
The truck bashed the gantry console and clipped the girder, crash-clang! It reversed and hooked a bumper.
"Gods," Hilfy groaned. Hooked solid. And it wasn't Tarras driving, it was Fala Anify. Fire pasted the vehicle. It rammed forward and jerked the bumper half off, then it hit the gantry console where Tiar was.
"Tiar!" she yelled into com. "You drive!"
There were sirens somewhere distant, under the electric whine of the truck as it backed. Hilfy sent a few more shots into the sputtering neon display, figuring only fools hadn't found cover by now.
And the smoke picked out the source of the opposing shots as they pierced the cloud. Chihin had her gun out, firing at the same area. The truck whined away and backward.
Bang!
Hit another truck.
"Gods in feathers!" Chihin moaned. "What are they doing?"
"They're stuck," Hallan said.
"Most gods-be embarrassing mess I ever…" Hilfy began, and a shot blistered paint on the girder just past their position. She leaned an elbow on the decking and put another round after her last, then fished in her waist after the spare clip. The truck was still backing and maneuvering, and she shot a distracted look at the situation as it clipped a control console and shot free, leaving the bumper clanging on the deck plates.
She sent a covering fire across the traffic lanes, and saw an open-sided pedestrian transport lumbering along the dockside, oblivious. "Gods!" she breathed. And to the com: "Hold fire, hold fire, there's bystanders out there!"
It wasn't the only vehicle coming. It rolled through. So did a couple of transport trucks thank the gods not carrying volatiles, and a cab. Then fire set up again, with a smell of blistered paint from the other side of the console that provided them cover.
"They made it," Chihin breathed. Hilfy looked; and ducked her eyes behind her hand.
Bang.
Into a loader arm.
"Fifty thousand," Chihin muttered under her breath.
"Where are the gods-be police?"
Another volley hit the console.
Cars passed, wheels thumping on the deck plates, traffic oblivious to the invisible barrage of laser fire and the pop of small caliber weapons.
She leaned painfully on her elbow, a new clip in her gun, with no desire to hit a passerby.
And saw a bus coming from the other direction.
She pointed to the dark. "Hallan! Carry Chihin! Run for those shadows!"
"I don't need—" Chihin began, and yelled as Hallan obeyed orders, grabbed her and darted, brave lad.
Hilfy ran behind them, cast a look back as their bus outran their diagonal, and fire popped after them.
Goodfor the smoke. She pasted rounds back, four of them, and dived for the cover of a girder.
"Keep going!" she panted. "Ramp shadow!"
"Gods be feathered!" Chihin gasped, but Hallan's shoulder cut off her wind, and he ran.
Hilfy fired another shot, darted back one way from cover and ran the other, after na Hallan.
A shot burned her arm. That was how close it was as she skidded over the deck plates in a slide for the shadow of a truck.
The far-side tire deflated with a hiss. The mahen dock workers stared back at them out of the shadow with dismay writ large on their features.
Thenthe police transport pulled up, with yellow-flashing emergency vehicles, ambulances, civil vehicles…
repair trucks. She put the gun away, out of sight, and looked at Chihin, who had gotten a knee on the decking, na Hallan still holding on to her with both arms. Chihin shoved her gun into her belt, out of sight of the police, she had that much presence of mind, as they began swarming around the vehicles. Hilfy started to get to her feet to deal with them, safely behind the cover of the slightly tilted truck.
A shadow turned up next to her, around the truck's back end: Haisi reached for her arm to help her up.
She snatched the arm back and got up herself, glaring.
"I try warn you," Haisi said. "I say, watch you back, I say don't deal kif. You got be damn big hurry…"
"Big damn help, mahe!"
"You want help? Easy deal. I help carry…"
"No!" She barred his path to Chihin, who was bleeding on Hallan. "We got enough help."
"You number one stubborn hani."
"Get away from my ship!"
"Also crazy."
"I said leave! This is our business!"
"Maybe better you ask stsho, ask, You want die, you want take ride with kif? Maybe you listen somebody know who friend and not friend."
"Police!"
Haisi cast a look over his shoulder. Police were moving in.
"You got answer their question. You got answer, Hilfy Chanur? I got."
"Like you gave me an honest warning! — Officer, this mahe is a gods-be nuisance! I want him off my dockside! Now!"
Haisi said something in dialect, the police officer said something back, put a hand on his shoulder, and the two of them stood in close conference for a moment.
Maddening. But it was what you got, in another species' port. The medics were looking confused, and she motioned them toward Chihin. "There's a surgery on my ship. She goes there! Fala, Hallan, stay with her.’‘
"We got regu-lation."
"I got a surgery. There. Go, gods rot it! No argument!"
"Captain?" The com had been nattering at her for the last few seconds. "Captain? Are you all right?"
"All right," she said, glumly watching the medics confer with the police and Haisi Ana-kehnandian.
"We're coming in. Just keep monitoring."