Sfik, Pyanfar thought with a sinking heart. This ragged crew of hani demonstrated—gods help them all—hani vulnerability. Not enemies, the kif don't see Tahar as enemies to us. We're treating them wrong. It's a trap, by the gods, Sikkukkut's own sense of humor, not to send them with a kifish escort. To make us take them ourselves. Hoping one of them will faint on the way and make a scene.
"Captain—" Haral said from a few paces behind.
Kif were taking up a stance along the dockside ahead, across their path. It was walk through or detour round.
"We don't bluff," Pyanfar said, and put an exaggerated swagger in her step, her hand on the gunbutt. On a second thought she took the AP from the holster and flicked the safety off, carrying it barrel-down and swinging as she walked. "Out!" she yelled down the way, and gestured at the kif with a wave of the gunbarrel. "Praise to the hakkikt, you scum, we're on his business with these prisoners and you'll keep your noses out of it!"
There was slow movement, timed, she reckoned, just to brush against them in retreat—pushing it. But they were going to move. She kept the gun free and her finger on the trigger, reckoning Haral behind her was taking a similar attitude and backing her up.
"Hani!"
A kifish shout behind them. She stopped at once and braced wide-legged with the gun aimed two-handed at the crowd in front; and knowing Haral was turning similarly braced toward trouble behind them.
"Three of 'em," Haral's voice reached her backturned ears; back brushing against her back. "Migods—! A kif’s been hit! Someone shot a—"
Pyanfar let off a warning shot over the leading kif’s heads as she spun to Haral's side and saw one kif on the dockside deck and a second and a third in the act of falling. Sniper-fire. Her other foot hit the deck and she shouldered Gilan Tahar in a move toward the tangle of gantries and lines along the ship-berths. "Cover," she yelled. "Rot it, out of the open, move it!"
The Tahar crew ran. She stopped and spun again to see Haral covering their retreat, with fire coming from somewhere, with kif falling and kif firing back and a chittering of kifish voices in tumult.
"Get cover!" Pyanfar yelled at Haral, and Haral fell back in haste. Fire popped across the deck and exploded off something behind them with a deafening shock and a sting of particles.
"Go!" Pyanfar yelled, turning and waving the Tahar vehemently to move—to gain what ground they could; and: "Move!" Gilan Tahar echoed the order, and lent her good arm to drag at Canfy Maurn. "Come on! Let's get out of here!"
Kif firing at kif.
Akkhtimakt's partisans, rising against Sikkukkut.
"We got a revolution on our hands," Haral gasped, coming up beside her with her arm about Haury Savuun and Tav and Naun panting up behind. "Captain—we got—"
A shot exploded near, and Haral flung up her gunhand to shield her eyes, staggering. Pyanfar spun about and pasted a shot in the general direction of fire.
"By the gods, they fire this way, they get it—"
—A volley came back, a clanging thunder, an impact that flung her backward and cracked her head against the deck. She rolled and scrambled for cover, blind.
"Captain!" Haral cried.
"Hold it, hold it," Geran said as chaos erupted out of The Pride's com, "I got it—Tirun, I got Jik on one and a kif on two—"
"Give me the kif," Tirun said; and listened while Hilfy and Khym held their own kif immobilized and furious between them.
"Shut up!" Hilfy said to Skkukuk; and maybe it was that or maybe it was the news pouring out over the console speaker that hushed him.
"—Honor to the hakkikt Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin," the voice said. "A suicide attack by rash elements has endangered your captain and her subordinate. We are presently moving in reprisal. We advise all ships in this command to exercise extreme watchfulness for external attack during this crisis. Pride of Chanur, refrain from rash action. The hakkikt will deal harshly with these adventurers."
"Watch him," Hilfy muttered, and dived for com. "Tully. shift down. Take number one scan—Tahar captain's got monitor up there—"
Tully bailed out. She hit the seat and snatched up a complug, coming into the tail of Geran's few seconds delayed retransmission of the kifish message down the mahendo'sat link. "Jik's got that," Geran muttered, as the kif finished and Aja Jin acknowledged on that channel.
"This is The Pride of Chanur," Hilfy sent back on the kifish link, unauthorized and in haste. "Harukkcom—-where's our personnel? What location?"
''I will ask authorization for that information, Chanur com.''
"They fear," Skkukuk hissed at her back, "The hakkikt Sikkukkut is in distress—He does not have them prisoner. ..."
Hilfy twisted round in her chair and stared full into the kif’s red-rimmed eyes. "Why?"
"Because, young Chanur, he says they are in danger. He admits a weakness. He promises retaliation. This is not control of the situation. It is not his doing. He would not claim weakness even in subterfuge."
And on the Jik-channel, suddenly over general speaker: "We got personnel out on dock, we got Mahijiru move— Where be Pyanfar, Pride of Chanur? You got contact?''
"Against what?" Hilfy asked Skkukuk. "What's going on out there?"
"They will be Akkhtimakt's partisans, young fool. They hope for a coup. There is likely fighting even within Harukk. The hakkikt will be dealing with that personally. He will be occupied."
"Likely truth," Dur Tahar said, swinging her chair around from monitor.
Hilfy rose to her feet with her pocket pistol in hand and aimed at Tahar. "That's your recent side, Tahar, isn't it—Akkhtimakt's?"
Tahar laid her ears back. Her eyes showed white and she froze in the chair. "Shoot or listen to me, Hilfy Chanur. The kif’s telling the truth. But it's local stuff—nothing's coming in coordinated with this. Nothing I know about, leastwise. And I might have. No. It's a local thing. We got my crew and your captain out there on the docks. The kif’s guessing but he's guessing straight—they're not where the hakkikt can lay hands on them right now or he would have. No, this goes right along with that assault on the lock down there. Kefk station is counterattacking—Akkhtimakt's partisans are making their move and your captain and my crew is caught in the middle, for godssakes—listen to me and put that gods-be gun down—''
Tirun spun her chair about, still listening to something, the complug pressed hard in one ear. Her eyes flicked. "Ehrran's just engaged the kif—Gods rot it, they're shooting up the docks out there—"
"I'm going out there," Khym said flatly.
"You go with the rest of us," Tirun said, and hurled herself to her feet. "Gods be, the captain's going to skin us, but when we get 'em back she can skin me first. We seal The
Pride up tight and we get ourselves out there. Move it! Geran—shut her down. Put the lock on autoseal." Tirun crossed the deck at speed and opened up the weapons locker,
handed a pistol toward Dur Tahar.
"I," Tully said, on his feet, holding out his hand. "/" Tirun slapped her pocket gun into his hand. "Use it." "Come on," Hilfy said to Skkukuk, and grabbed him ungently by the arm, claws out. "We put you back below."