But the brief fire by the kzin ship’s full-powered beams had destroyed one of the two persistent attackers, the last of which now the last flinched back, withdrawing along with the first one the Raker had injured. Powering its gravitic polarizer drive from capacitors only, the Raker struggled to come back about and keep up with the rearguard-but would clearly not be able to do so much longer.
“More Scout’s Tapping in power pulses,” zh-Sensor murmured. “They send ‘Hsna’zhao.’”
The ancient Kzanzh byword of resolve, even in death, hsna’zhao meant, roughly, “on with the hunt!” It was the exhortation of a dying Hero to his living companions: to fight on, to not risk themselves by tarrying beside one who was already as good as dead.
Thrarm-Captain growled: he could take no more of this. “Helm, distance to the van?”
“Twenty-two light-seconds, Thrarm-Captain.”
Good: they could afford a little time. “Reduce acceleration to one-half. Hold steady so the Raker can come alongside.”
zh-Sensor looked up: contending emotions warred in his eyes. “Thrarm-Captain, I mean no insolence. I simply remind you of the protocols.”
The kzin captain reared to his full height. “Since the Raker appeared on our screens, I have chased my tail around that very issue, zh-Sensor. I can abide these overcautious dictates no longer. This is clearly one of our own craft, crippled, but brave in our defense. The humans attacked it and they destroyed one of the leaf-eaters’ smallships: we saw it with our own eyes. And they speak our language, know our Tapping, act as we would ourselves.”
“A clever foe might learn all these things.”
“Yes, they might, but to squander such a ploy here, in the midst of this chaos? No. That is not possible. And they have no way of knowing what we carry on board Guardant Ancestor, so we may safely set aside suspicions that this is a trap laid especially for us. Which leaves only one reasonable explanation: that every second we waste debating the obvious, our brothers remain in mortal danger of another attack like the last.”
zh-Sensor’s hide rippled sharply, once. Clearly, he had wanted to go to the aid of their fellow Heroes every bit as much as his captain. The captain turned toward his Helm and, as he gave instructions for allowing the Raker to dock, thought it is good to lead Heroes worthy of their title.
The kzin troopers, beamers held in a comfortable assault carry, straightened when Thrarm-Captain came around the bend in the main passageway. The squad leader made the stylized submission gesture that was a salute among them. “Thrarm-Captain, we had no word that you would be joining-”
“I sent no word: I did not wish to disturb your preparations. But I wish to see the Raker’s crew for myself.”
The squad leader’s eyes narrowed. “Uncertainty persists regarding their identity?”
“Uncertainty will persist until I have seen their commander, have accepted his salute, and have had you search every cubic meter of his ship. Which we will evacuate and then scuttle. But I am equally eager to be the first to welcome him: if it was mine to bestow upon him, I would give him a Name.”
“Sir!” The squad leader stood very straight, almost presented arms.
The floor jarred softly under their broad, well-padded feet. “Hard dock completed,” announced the junior squad leader, who checked his wrist comp. “The hardwire links are mated, but still no coherent data, and no video-feed from the Raker’s airlock. Their commo system is down, apparently.”
Reasonable, thought Thrarm-Captain, but in no way reassuring. “Visual check?”
The junior squad-leader had undogged the inner hatch of the Guardant Ancestor, entered its airlock, hunkered down to peer through the small, thick-paned porthole that should have looked through a similar window into the airlock of the Raker. “Again, no visuals, Thrarm-Captain. The glass is smoke-smudged, and it appears that their airlock has only one emergency light functioning.”
“Are they sending anything through the docking hardwire?”
“Yes, sir. They are pulsing it in the Scout’s Tapping. They are asking if our side is secure, sir. They have no sensor function to determine that the hard dock is complete, or that we stand ready on our side.”
Again, perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances. And again, not in the least bit reassuring. “Seal for vacuum ops.” Thrarm-Captain’s own actions suited his orders. “First Squad, force manual entry into the Raker. Stand ready to attack or assist.”
The kzinti so instructed loped into Guardant Ancestor’s airlock, worked at the manual access to the Raker’s outer airlock door, gave up, popped an access plate in its surface, revealing, among other things, a simple hand-crank. The largest of them spun the crank while the others waited. The door eventually gapped a bit, allowing the others to wedge in pry-bars and open it fully.
“The Raker is outgassing, even here in the airlock,” one of them reported, consulting his paw-held sensor.
“Atmosphere?”
“Standard, but a lot of hydrogen mixed in. They must have fuel leaks throughout the ship.”
A leak which Thrarm-Captain didn’t want entering his own ship any longer than necessary. Hydrogen’s flammability was the least of his worries: its monoatomic ability to undermine solids-metals, synthetics, composites-by simply passing through them led to a condition called brittlization. After enough exposure, gaskets disintegrated, steel sheeting crumbled like desiccated plastic. “Move quickly, then. What about their inner airlock door?”
“Battle damage, but I can hear someone pounding behind it.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Bad enough, Thrarm-Captain.”
“That answer is no answer, Corporal. Tell me what needs to be done to open the door and how long it will take.”
“Beam-torch: three minutes, maybe four.”
“Then do it, and quickly.”
“At the run, Thrarm-Captain.”
Within seconds, the sparking glow of a beam-torch flickered inside the airlock. Satisfied, Thrarm-Captain caught the squad leader’s eye and made a grasping “to-me” hand gesture. The kzin noncom came immediately.
Thrarm-Captain leaned their space helmets together. He muted his radio feed and said, “This concerns me, squad leader.”
“The amount of time this is taking, or the possibility of treachery?”
“Both. I want you to summon two more squads to this area, but do not deploy them around the airlock. Keep them back, in staggered positions, protecting all junctures, all the way back to the main passageway and command bulkheads.”
“Yes, Thrarm-Captain.” And then the troop leader was gone, already summoning in the squads and preparing a defensive network with multiple fallback positions.
Thrarm-Captain toggled his radio open again. “zh-Sensor: report.”
“We are now twenty-four light-seconds behind the van. This puts us abreast of the leading elements of the rearguard, now.”
“Yes. And the Raker?”
“Sir, no activity at all, except that its power output continues to diminish steadily.”
“The human ships?”
“The ones which attacked the Raker fell back and have merged into the front rank of the leaf-eating harriers that are pushing us before them. But nothing else: no sign of heavier human hulls inbound.”
“Very well. Inform me at once of any changes.”
“Yes, Thrarm-Captain. I will-”
That was when, with a shrill screech of high-pressure atmosphere, the beam-torch team cut through the Raker’s inner airlock door: a brief wash of low-pressure flame flared up as it did. The operator quickly switched off the torch.
“What the Patriarch’s entrails just happened?” demanded Thrarm-Captain, instinctively moving closer to the source of the surprise.