Where's Tirun? Pyanfar translated that. Haral did not ask that, neither of them wondered that aloud.
And from overhead, everywhere, thundering through the public address: "... Ktogot ktoti nakekkekt makthaikki. . . . kothoggi gothikkt nakst . . . sotkot naikkta . . . hakkikktu . . . skthsikki . . . nak sogkt makgotk Kefku. ..."
"Sikkukkut's—claiming—victory," Naun Tahar gasped, laboring along with Canfy Maurn against her.
"Good luck to him," Pyanfar gasped, and grabbed Canfy from the other side as Canfy stumbled.
And stopped, blinking tears in the smoke. A lone figure sprinted toward them, hani and armed.
XIV
"Gods," Pyanfar cried, "that's Dur! Tahar!—where's the rest?"
Dur Tahar yelled something back, and came sprinting through the fire-zone into Gilan Tahar's path—cousin and cousin in the stinging smoke, Gilan and Vihan, the distant kin, in hasty embrace—A glance round as Pyanfar struggled up with Canfy in tow and Haral came running, glancing at every third stride to the darkened farside where sniping went on unabated.
"Where?" Pyanfar yelled at Dur Tahar. "Gods rot it, where' s my crew?"
"Ehrran—" Tahar gasped, and whirled and caught her by both arms, "they tangled with Ehrran—Pyanfar—" Tahar gasped a second mouthful of air. "Come on—"
Pyanfar scanned her up and down in hopes of AP rounds; there was nothing, nothing but the smallish gun in Tahar's grip against her arm. Her heart sank. "Tahar, where's Jik? You seen Jik or Ismehanan-min?"
"Gods-be mahendo'sat're off across the docks holding their own positions—I don't know."
"Captain!" Haral sang out, and Pyanfar looked beyond Tahar's shoulder to more oncoming figures, red-brown hides and one white shirt that shone through the smoke like a natural target.
"Gods rot it!" Pyanfar screamed at the lot of them, "we got snipers! Run!"
Her heart was up in her throat as her own crew came charging up through the smoke. Tirun, Geran, Hilfy, Khym and Tully, all of them armed; Khym bleeding down his arm, Hilfy from the calf, Tirun limping along hindmost and grimacing in pain.
"What kept you?" Haral yelled at her sister.
"Hey," said Tirun, panting to a halt in front of Haral, swinging a gesture back at the smoke-hazed dockside. "What'd you want? Next time you arrange a party, Hal, for godssakes give us the address!"
"Let's get out of here!" Pyanfar yelled, and waved an arm. "Get the injured on their feet, let's get out of here!"
Khym gathered Haury Savuun up in his arms, leaking blood on both of them, and Tirun and Geran flung an arm each around Canfy Maurn as they gathered breath and wits and headed through the smoke and the din of sirens—the deep bass sirens of dock-emergency alternate with loudspeakers that clicked and hissed and thundered with kifish threats and instructions.
A sudden glare of sodium-light broke through the smoke-haze at the left, close, a light alive with shadows as robed figures came pouring out of a ship-access.
A hundred kif, a whole ship's crew headed out toward them at some summons; or having finally made its collective mind up which side to join. New sirens wailed, high-pitched. Fire hailed about them from the flank as other kif aimed at the sudden breakout.
"Run!" Pyanfar yelled, and veered off across the dock, limping. She turned and let off her last shot where it counted, into the heaviest firepoint that was putting shots past their ears; and turned again and ran, breathless and all but blind toward a set of girders near the main freight-chute, where a conveyor went up into the station's upper levels.
And stopped cold as she rounded the corner and saw the band of kif in front of her, APs leveled dead at her and her empty gun.
Gods-be, she had time to think, in profound self-disgust.
An AP shell landed in the full middle of the kif. Her forearm flew up on instinct to save her eyes, her legs flung her sideways and sprawling to confuse hostile aim; and she rolled to her knees staring up at a single standing kif who held his AP gun widely to the side, non-combatant beside a smoking heap that had been five of his fellows.
"Captain," Skkukuk said as cheerfully as she had ever heard a kif speak, about the time her crew poured about her and made a defensive wall.
She struggled for her feet, almost sprawled again, but Tully, closest to her, caught her arm and saved her balance.
"I feared treachery," said Skkukuk with a wave of his hand at the rest of the crew. "And so I followed you my own way, captain, to be of service."
"Gods save us," Tirun muttered.
"I would advise," Skkukuk said, "going back to the ship. The hakkikt Sikkukkut will reward you for that prudence."
"You're a gods-be agent of-his!" Pyanfar cried.
A flourish of dark sleeves and weapon-hand toward the smoking pile of kifish corpses. "Did I not offer you my weapons? I am skku to Chanur, no other, and I have given you your enemies." Skkukuk turned and pointed down the docks toward their own berth. "The mahendo'sat have secured the docks a little further on. Come and I will show you a safe route."
"Then move," Pyanfar said numbly. "Get!"
"Keep this one from my back!" Skkukuk pointed a claw in Hilfy's direction. "This one—"
"You gods-be filth!" Hilfy cried, and headed for him, but Pyanfar caught her ann. "Move it!" Pyanfar yelled at the kif.
The kif turned and started off in a dash for other cover. "Go," Pyanfar said, still holding Hilfy's arm, and hurled her into free, passing her in the tracks of the kif who sped as a darting wisp of black in the smoke.
Whump! Overhead, power went up fulclass="underline" lights glared; the distant burr of fans reasserted itself. Kefk station was trying to live. The loudspeaker blared, inaudible in the other din.
There was a sudden fading-out of fire; as if entropy had set in—decreasing organization and increasing desire on the part of kif still involved to exit the affair with whatever gains they had: alive. Defense only, at this point.
Follow the kif. Trust the kif who had saved her skin. They were within com range of The Pride. Pyanfar reached for the pocket com in her limping jog, coughing as she went, blinking smoke-stung tears and hoping to the gods all the rest were still behind her as she tracked the light-footed kif from cover to cover. "Chur," she gasped into the com. "Chur, it's Pyanfar—do you hear me?"
No answer.
A dozen strides more. "Chur!"
Silence from the com. It could have gotten broken in a fall. It could have.
Skkukuk came to a sudden halt in the shelter of a set of girders just ahead, and plastered himself against it. Strobe-light flashes lit the smoke ahead, a ceiling-towering series of upward cycling lights that sent ice to a spacer's heart.
Of a sudden the whole station shuddered. Pyanfar flailed wildly for balance and found it next Skkukuk in a thunder of rollers and hydraulics and an airshock that made the ears ache.
"0 gods," she said, braced against the column and staring into that rolling cloud as the rest of the company reached them. The great doors of the section seal had shut. The Pride's dock, Mahijiru's, Vigilance—Aja Jin—They were cut off.
"What—!' Khym's voice came in gasps, subdued and frightened. He leaned there gasping, his back to the girder crossbrace, Haury limp in his arms. "What happened?"
"I don't know," Pyanfar said. The whole station seemed suddenly quiet. The sirens were silenced. "Could've been holed—" The Pride. O gods. "We're cut off." She tried the pocket com again. "Chur. Chur, you receiving?"