He nodded. There was a pricklishness in the air. No one else would have been glad to take him. In Chur’s and Hilfy’s eyes there was no flinching. He glanced toward them and the remnant of his ears lifted in the look they gave him.
For her sake, she thought. Gods help them — if he got one of them killed, rushing into something blind-crazy.
Braking started. They braced against the corridor wall — hard thrust, and miserable for the approach. Pyanfar shut her eyes a moment, slid down to a crouch with the rest of them, content for the moment to be where she was and wishing to all the gods she could go with them.
Tully — squatted down close to Hilfy; Pyanfar turned her head, tightened her mouth in consideration. That was the one who might bolt. That was the one, deaf to instructions, crazy with anger. Khym crouched farther down, shamed, she knew, by his condition; by the distrust about him, the expectation that he would be more danger than help to his own side, prone to take his own way, prone to male temper and instability — Khym, who had saved all their necks and given them the chance to get aloft in time. Like Kohan, fretting in agony downworld, because he was trapped in Chanur Holding; and gods, he had won.
They lost g, made the shifts, such that bodies leaned against one another in the nudgings of the docking jets, and those who had a hold braced those who did not.
Contact. The last direction of g confirmed itself and the grapples clanged home, the access thumped into position. “Got contact with a hani force out there,” Geran said. “You’ve got a clear exit. — Luck to you.”
“Have some yourself,” Chur called up at the com. “Hai, up there,” Hilfy shouted, and the lot of them scrambled up in readiness to rush to the lock.
Pyanfar rose with the rest of them. “Tully,” she said, and beckoned him. His face which had been eager took on an apprehension of what she wanted; she beckoned a second time, with the Chanur forces beginning to head down the corridor toward the lock, and when he did not come she went after him and took him by the arm, while Chur and Hilfy delayed.
“Go,” Pyanfar said to the two. “Take care.”
They went, in orderly haste, with the others, down the corridor toward the lock. Pyanfar laid her ears back, felt Tully pull at her hand.
“Ask,” he said. “Fight them, Pyanfar.”
“No,” she said. “You can’t hear orders out there, understand? Come with me. Come up to the bridge.”
If his pathetic small ears could have moved they would have lain down, she thought; it was that kind of look. “Yes,” he said in a small voice. “Understand.”
The lock opened and shut again shortly after. “Coming up,” she called to the open com. “Easy on the undocking.”
Tully came with her, running beside her. She got him into the lift and he leaned against the wall with his eyes on hers, with pain in those eyes, like Kohan’s pain — shadowed eyes, his bright mane tangled, his whole body shrunken with exhaustion and unhappiness.
“We go,” she said as the lift opened onto the bridgeward corridor. “We get the kif, friend, find Akukkakk and settle a score, ship and ship.”
“There?” He made a wide gesture, infinity.
“This system. All too close.” She strode through the archway onto the bridge, grabbed Tully’s arm and thrust him for the auxiliary seat next Haral’s post, none so safe there, but nothing was. She slid into her own well-worn cushion and fastened the restraints while Tirun ungrappled; took the controls as The Pride acquired her own g, sent them out narrower than she would have cut it with station authorities in a position to protest.
“Situation as-was?” she asked Tirun.
“Figure we’ve got a little under a half hour on that strike,” Tirun said.
“Haraclass="underline" to all ships; got kif among us; broadcast ID’s, now — house and origin — and get our own signal going.”
“Right.” She put them over station. Vid showed the two mahe ships clear enough, a scattering of ships which had never made it away from dock, some wrecked, some trailing debris that streamed in the station’s rotation.
Kif ships, three of them, still at dock, with their tails singed: Mahijiru had done that much.
From the mahe… nothing, neither signal nor output. But they started to move, one after the other.
“We’ve stirred something,” she said. “Our friends have some notion they’re not talking about.”
“Getting ID input,” Geran said. «
Scan started acquiring data, positive ID’s on hani ships. The knnn zigged and darted at some velocity, throwing off small ghosts that indicated boosts. Pyanfar ran her tongue over her teeth, refusing that distraction, watching the pattern of those ships as yet unidentified, as more and more identifications came in and The Pride increased her own speed. Another ship was moving in on dock, and another one behind, insystem haulers, at a standstill compared to their own building velocity. Ships were moving in random directions, not to be caught when the strike came in — at least that was their hope.
“Rot them!” Haral exclaimed. “Crippled even — look at that speed.”
Jik, Haral meant. Aja Jin trailed debris; but the two mahe kept accelerating with no apparent impairment… straight into the thickest concentration of ships.
She eased up, shut down altogether. The mahe had given up flexibility, launched themselves into the heart of things, deliberate and less and less able to veer off and handle a turn. “Maintain our options,” she said quietly.
Suddenly a freighter designated hani blossomed into chaff.
“Captain,” Tirun said. Three unidentifieds in the vicinity acquired the enemy designation. Mahijiru and Aja Jin swept toward the group.
“Keep out of our way, rot you,” Pyanfar muttered. Haral was on com, advising all ships in the area to head off the kif movement.
“Going to have the mahe in line of fire if they do a straight turnover,” Geran said. “Fire headon—”
“Going to let the kif pass our zenith,” Pyanfar said grimly. “That’s our best side anyway.”
“I’ve got it,” Tirun advised her, throwing the safety off the armaments of the upper frame.
“Knnn’s coming up,” Geran said sharply, and the proximity alarm beeped as the high-velocity ship ripped from tail to bow, nadir, gone into the developing mahe/kif confrontation so fast scan developed them a line of likely course.
“Mahijiru’s compliments.” Haral relayed.
Scan showed debris, hani, mahe, or kif was uncertain: positions were too close. Dots coincided and split as the kif moved toward them. Someone was hit; and suddenly the fight was headed The Pride’s way.
“Akukkakk’s there,” Pyanfar said, beyond doubt what kif would rate The Pride his prime target, disregarding the mahe who had just attacked.
“Two ship now,” Tully exclaimed. Scan showed the mahe still paired, no longer accelerating and probably braking for their return; showed hani moving on the kif from points of the sphere; and two active kif ships. The third was involved with a debris-track, near the knnn’s erratic blip. “That kif they get.”
“This pair we got,” Tirun muttered. The double image was closing with them, less and less interval, with their own impetus added to the kif s oncoming velocity. The knnn was on the return now, streaking out of the vicinity of the debris-track. Mahijiru and Aja Jin were farther and farther away, obliged to lose velocity before they could make way on the kif s heading, too close to traffic for jump pulses to assist.