The Kif Strike Back

XIII

They rode the lift in Harukk, nine hani and two armed kif, and the door let them out onto the access level of the ship, into the dim light and colder air of that final passageway that was open to the docks.

We're going to make it, Pyanfar thought, which she had doubted down below, in the prison-hold. She had doubted everything until the kif got them to the lift and two got inside the lift car with them, outnumbered at least at that range and within that car; and she believed it almost entirely when she saw that door open and let them out onto the right level of the ship, in a corridor with no ambushes and no waiting contingent of kifish guards just a way out. She glanced once at Haral in the course of a look over her shoulder at the kif and the Tahar crew, and caught a flicker of Haral's ears and eyes that worked like telepathy: same thought: We're near, captain, maybe we got a chance of getting away with this after all.

Pyanfar turned and kept walking at the pace their guide set. This time there were stares from passers-by, curiosity at last—recalculation what kind of game was being played here, she reckoned. What kind and by whom.

''That damn fool,'' Jik said over com. ''She no do, she no do—"

And broke contact abruptly. That was Jik's comment on Rhif Ehrran's decision to go out on Kefk docks. Hilfy heard it along with the rest, and looked to her right as captain Dur Tahar arrived on the bridge at a fast pace.

"What's this about my crew?" Tahar said forthwith, out of breath.

"We're working on it," Hilfy said, and got out of her seat, scan set to alarm. Dur Tahar on The Pride's bridge deserved at least one crew member on her feet to fend her off Tirun's neck, and Khym had just risen to appoint himself—not the best situation.

"So what's going on?" Tahar asked, casting a look toward Command, where Tirun, in urgent communication with Goldtooth, had no time for talking. "What's the trouble?"

"—Well, what do they say?" the gist of that conversation ran from Tirun's side. "The hakkikt got any good reason why we just got our airlock shot up? Why we got gods-be vermin running loose all over our lowerdeck? Where's our captain, huh? They know?"

What Mahijiru command had to say to that was inaudible.

"Captain's out trying to get your crew released," Hilfy said to Tahar. "Meanwhile we just got shot at. You want to take a crew post, captain? We're up to our noses in problems. Scan would be real helpful just now. Tully doesn't read real good.''

She expected objection of rank. Tahar lowered her ears and started for the indicated post with never an objection. But Tirun swung her chair about before Tahar could get to it. "Belay that. Goldtooth says he can't reach Sikkukkut. Kif are being obstinate. They're stalling. It wasn't any accident." Tirun got out of Haral's chair and with a wave at Dur Tahar, hurled herself into Pyanfar's instead. "Sit," she said, hitting the seat's turn-control. "Take number two, Tahar. I'll fill you in. Hilfy— Khym. Get that by the gods kif up here. I want to talk to him right now."

Hilfy caught Khym by the arm and moved.

No one sat in Pyanfar's place. But it was being done. No foreign clan sat in The Pride's seats. But they did that too—they did anything that gave them a better chance.

They pelted down the main corridor; and of a sudden there was the electric thump of the generators coming up, a vibration all down The Pride's steel spine. Khym skidded on one foot and stopped, turning back before Hilfy grabbed him by the arm.

"That's power-up!" Khym cried.

"That's precaution," Hilfy said, and hauled him about again into a run for the lift. "We're not pulling out. Tirun wouldn't do that. For godssakes follow orders."

So our systems are all the way hot. So the kif know we can move. Or shoot. They can take us out. We can take Kefk Out with us, if it comes to that. That's what Tirun's letting them know.

"Kkkt," the kif said, on guard at Harukk's lock—"kkkkt:" when it saw what it faced, softly and with an edge a hani could read. Pyanfar kept her hand near her gun and flattened her ears as it looked like challenge.

Then the guard waved them on with the dark flourish of a sleeve. Pyanfar strode out into the chill of the access and turned abruptly, with a scowl for the kif and a concern that all their party made it out clear.

The Tahar crewwomen walked as best they could, Gilan on her own, Naun and Vihan doing the best they could to support Haury between them. Nif and Canfy with Tav. Haral came last, dour and grim—no bending, no show of weakness. Sikkukkut had not forgotten them; Sikkukkut would be curious what they would do, would be suspicious of connivance—

—would cut their throats at the first hint things were not as represented to him; or at the first suspicion hani motives had confounded him.

Come on, keep it moving—Pyanfar put impatience into a scowl at Gilan Tahar and spun on her heel the instant Haral cleared the lock, outbound and down bound for the docks.

"Kkkkt," the kif Skkukuk said, lifting his hooded head from his nesting-spot on a clean bed in a clean cabin. "Kkkt. Young Chanur—''

"Up," Hilfy said. She kept her gun in holster and made no move to threaten. Khym was behind her, and that was more than sufficient.

"I am weak with hunger. Hani, it is a waste—"

"Get up, kif. Move. We've had a little problem with' your dinner. It's all over the ship. Our hatch has a nice new burn-scar on it. That's what we want to ask you about."

"Treachery," Skkukuk said. He stirred himself and came off the bed, using a hand to catch his balance. "Kkkt. Treachery."

"You understand it real well," Hilfy said. "Come on. Let's go topside and discuss it with the crew."

"Not my doing," Skkukuk said, "hani, it was not my—"

"Out!" she said.

Skkukuk came out toward them. Khym grabbed himself a handful of kifish robe at Skkukuk's nape, and Skkukuk twisted and rolled his eyes in alarm. The jaws clicked alarmingly. "I offer no resistance, I want to go to your bridge, there is no need—''

"I'll bet you do," Hilfy muttered, and grabbed his arm while Khym took the other side, hauling the kif along clicking and protesting. Something black and small fled down the hall and scuttled around the corner into a lesser-used corridor.

"I have given you my weapons," Skkukuk hissed, struggling to free his arms. "Let me go! Let me go, hani fools! I am yours, I am loyal to the captain—"

"In a mahen hell," Hilfy muttered.

They reached the bottom of the ramp, down by the gory row of heads, and Pyanfar looked back yet again with her hand laid on the AP gun she wore. The Tahar crew women did the best they could, keeping Haury Savuun on her feet and keeping moving; and Haral brought up the rear—clear enough that Haral would gladly have gone faster on this stretch, but there was a limit to what the Tahar kin could do; and there were several watching clutches of kif, down by the dockside and up above them on the ramp. "Kkkkt," the sound came to them from above and below. "Kkkkt."

Well, look at those fools, Pyanfar translated it to herself, and her hair bristled. She glanced a second time at the Tahar, at Moon Rising's first officer in particular, the moment that they passed out of earshot from either end of the ramp. "Ker Dur's safe," she said quickly. "That's the truth. And I got your ship back. You're free. How are you doing?"

Gilan's eyes seemed to pass in and out of focus, a widening and narrowing of the dark-in-amber as what she had said got through. "Captain's with you—And Moon Rising?"

"Both in my keeping. You're safe. We're getting you back into safe territory fast as we can, going to turn you loose— Don't you wilt on me, gods rot you, look alive!-—We've got a long way to walk, Gilan Tahar. No transport on this dock / want to use."

"Aye, captain." Gilan's voice was hoarse and earnest. "We're with you."

Kif were to either side of them. Kif clicked and muttered, in mirth at the sight they saw—

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."

"Leave him one of two on this ship?" Tirun said. "No thanks. This son goes. First. First out. You lead the way, kif." Skkukuk's wiry body straightened. His head lifted to his full, gangling height. "Give me my gun back, hani."

"Suppose you take one," Tirun said, nose rumpling. "From the other side."

"Captain—" Haral leaned over her in the shelter they had reached along a towering gantry, in the red tracery of fire that speared the smoke and popped off the wall and the gantry structure. Haral had a piece of cloth from somewhere and was daubing away at her face with a rough earnestness while her ears rang and the fire went back and forth. It was all far away; and then it came clear, Haral's anguished face and the pain in the back of her head. "Gods be," Pyanfar muttered, struck the ministering hand away and tried to move. Her skin hurt. She put a hand to her middle and wiped away a dew of blood.

Metal fragments. Splinters. She was peppered with them. She felt their prickling. Felt the slickness on her fur. She blinked at the Tahar crew's frightened faces—saw Haral looking white around the nose, and panic in Haral Araun was so out of character it shook the world.

A second shaking: this time an AP blast against the station wall over their heads, and another spatter of particles. A five-hundred-weight of severed hose plummeted to the deck close enough to kick up the wind. "Gods!" Pyanfar cried, and got over onto her knees, searching after her gun in an empty holster.

"Here." Gilan Tahar slapped the heavy butt into her hand, and she looked from the Tahar first officer to her own, saw Haral take a careful look out from their cover, and turn a dour face back toward her.

"Pretty thick out there," Haral said.

"A weather report, for godssakes— we got any cover further on?"

"We got ourselves pretty well set here—"

BANG! Another thunderclap, another shower of metal from overhead.

"They're hitting the gods-be wall!" Pyanfar yelled. "The gods-be fools are going to take this whole gods-be dock for a spacewalk—''

"That's volatiles down the dock," Haral yelled back over the sudden thunder of fire, pointing at the cans down the way, cans with the deadly yellow combustibles sticker. "If we run that way we can draw fire on that and get fried real good, captain!"

"We sit here we got our choices too! How long's that sister of yours going to wait, huh?"

"I'm expecting Jik," Haral yelled.

"Well, he's late! And we got a fool lot of crew's going to be out here on this dock after us if they don't get assurance out of Sikkukkut, and I don't think he's in any position to give them any! We got to move, cousin, cans or no cans." She turned a look on Gilan Tahar, on a woman undone with blood loss. Gilan had gotten a bandage tied on the wound in her shoulder, but it was soaked. Haury Savuun was still conscious, by what force of will the gods only knew. "Gilan—we got a long sprint ahead. We don't want to do any shooting— don't want to attract any attention near those cans." She fished in her pocket and drew out the light pistol, handed it to Gilan. "In case. But you by the gods stay with us."

"We're with you," Gilan said, and the overhead erupted and another length of hose and a length of pipe hit the deck and bounced erratically the other way—as easily into the midst of them.

"Come on!" Pyanfar yelled, and headed for the next berth in a roiling of laser-riddled smoke so thick it obscured the next support girders. She sprinted for the cans with the yellow circles, remembering then that kif were at least partially color-blind.

Vermin scampered pell-mell as they charged up to the airlock, as the hatches shot open, inner and outer, as Tirun turned to hit the lock-close in the dim orange passage. Hilfy ran, skipped aside from the collapsed cage and the can—

Explosives—Hilfy surmised in horror, explosives, if the kif were willing to decompress the dock. "Go!" she yelled, bristled all over, and Skkukuk darted past with kifish speed, Khym and Geran gaining. Tirun banged into the collapsed cage and cursed; and Hilfy clutched her gun and pelted after Khym around the bend of the passage with Tully and Dur Tahar hard after her. "Tirun!" she yelled, half-turning there; but: "Go!" Tirun yelled back, running hard enough at the outset of their course—Tirun would do the best she could, lame in any run, and bring up their rear and cover their backs even if she commanded. "Get down there, get clear!"

Hilfy ran, passing Tully and Tahar, coming up behind Khym as they reached the pressure gates at the bottom of the ramp. There was a gentle, distant popping of fire.

A shot went off the inner wall. Skkukuk skipped and dodged, and dived for cover. "You get, get!" a mahe cried, rising from concealment near their ramp, waving a frantic arm. There were mahendo'sat holding positions over near the cargo-console, Jik's people or Goldtooth's. Hilfy sought cover immediately behind the gantry control console and the sheltering metalwork of the gantry itself, leaned there with her heart pounding in terror and glanced back to see Tirun and Tahar and Tully pelting off the hazard of that ramp. O gods, gods, get us through this—I can't, I can't—She flung a look the other way, thinking Khym had gone to cover in a stack of cargo-cannisters ahead.

He had not. "Na Khym!" she yelled in dismay, huddled in the solidity of her shelter, for Skkukuk dashed on, and Khym followed. "Gods be! Khym! Uncle! Stop! Wait!"

Then it all seemed clear, the direction of the kifish enemy and the direction of the fire where Pyanfar and Haral had gone, and she shook fear away to some far cold place and gave up on either survival or mortality.

Go on, Hilfy Chanur, go on, is a man crazy who knows he's overdue to die or a kif on his way to switch sides again—Go, fool, Haral's out there, and Pyanfar—Run till the shots come your way and then you cover and shoot till they stop. It's all real simple, kid.

Haral's voice, instruction-giving again.

And Pyanfar's: Gods-be fool.

Fire hit, tracing smoke puffs on the deck where Khym ran.

Pyanfar darted behind the cans of volatiles and kept running, feeling the ache in bones and head with every jolt of her feet on the deckplates. The air was too thin and burned the lungs, the ammonia-smell cut with acrid smoke and laced with ozone. She sobbed another breath in a glance back and stopped to wave Gilan and Naur on with a pass of her hand, covering them without firing—wanting no notice they could avoid, but keeping her finger hard on the trigger. Vihan had Canfy by the arm, guiding her; Nif and Tav sprinted after, and hindmost, Haral with Haury flung over her shoulder, jogging along at what pace she could make, Haury no small woman and Haral not smallish either. "Go," Pyanfar yelled at Gilan's back, and ran back to intercept Haral as Haral struggled away from the explosive cans, grabbed Haury as Haral ducked out from under her body—no word of debate from Haral. Haral ran; and Pyanfar shouldered Haury to a carry and jogged on, all but blind for want of air. Fire suddenly burst on the far side of the cans—evidently kif saw the hazard marker—not hitting them. They kept going, reached a tentative shelter behind a cargo-loader. But next was an open space, and a run to scant shelter by the stress-supports. After that, another run, and another and another.

And if Jik had not reached them by now, there was something impassable in the way.

"Na Khym!" Hilfy cried, beckoning her uncle to safety, and he heard, by the gods he heard, and spun about and came sliding in by the gantry-side beside her all reeking of sweat while Geran slid in beside.

"Gods," Geran said, pointing ahead, and there was Skkukuk still going, face on with a kif who stood frozen in his path as if it were trying to analyze the matter; then it fired, twice, zig and zag, where Skkukuk had been, but not where he was, which was coming down right onto the kif and taking it in a rolling tangle of black robes.

"Uhhn," Khym said.

The uppermost kif's head was bearing down and down at its enemy—gods knew what it was at. Hilfy shuddered and looked back as Tully came sliding in, -and Tahar and Tirun with him, Tully desperately out of breath and white and gasping in the kifish air. "Where's Skkukuk?" Tirun asked. "Gone Over?"

"Gods know which one's alive over there," Hilfy said. "I don't and I don't care." She lifted the gun then, not clear she was going to shoot, but not clear she was not going to either.

Tirun's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. "What are you into? What are you into, Hilfy Chanur?"

The fury on Tirun's face bewildered her; and came home slowly. Hani. Home. And civilized behavior.

"It's a gods-be kif!"

"Who's in command out here?"

She let go the tension in her arm and lowered her ears in silent deference. Tirun let go her hand, ears flat.

"Py-anfar," Tully said, and took her by the shoulder, hard. "Hilfy, Py-anfar—"

She threw off his hand.

"Can we for godssakes move it?" Dur Tahar asked.

"Move," Tirun said, and led this time, until others of them outstripped her, Hilfy among the first. Like a shadow in the tail of her eye she saw the kif leap up and run into the shadows on the far dockside, saw him weave out again and into cover, and afterward, vanish.

Pyanfar stumbled, hit the deck on her knees and threw herself to save Haury's skull—but Haral and Tav were quick enough—both of them to save Haury, and Haral to grab

Pyanfar by the belt and haul her into shelter of a metal console.

"O gods," Pyanfar moaned, and

made shift to get her torn knees under her. Her chest and gut ached, her loins were water, the knees long gone. She leaned on Haral's arm and on Haral for a moment. "I'm too old for this—o gods—"

"Aye," Haral panted, the two of them braced against each other, holding to each other.

And the world went to fire and sound.

"Good gods!" Geran cried; and Hilfy: "Something's blown up! My gods—"

Smoke came rolling down the dock like a black wall, obscuring knots of miniaturized kif, throwing laser-fire into visibility before it swallowed everything. And there ahead was a cluster of red-brown amid all the black and gray, figures huddled together on dockside.

"Look!" Khym yelled, and headed that way, strung out as they were; and Hilfy grabbed Tully and ran. Sirens blew, decompression alert, the triple-interrupt pattern screaming alarms transspecies and translogic—the docks had gone unstable. An outer wall was in jeopardy. And gunfire never stopped. AP bursts peppered the inner walls and kif barred their way, backs turned toward their advance, kif pinning down that group of hani ahead.

Geran opened up and Hilfy did—braced for aim, then moved, for Khym risked their line of fire—rushed ahead firing as he went, and no matter his wretched marksmanship, there was no need to pick targets. The kif besiegers scattered, and Hilfy stumbled a step as a splinter hit her calf—recovered herself and kept going, in and out among the girders and cables. Shots still came and she fired back at opportunity, rounded the last comer of their cover and dashed across the open dock and in among the hani at Geran's heels.

And stopped cold.

They were Ehrran crew, blackbreeches, who stood up to face them with guns and rifles leveled.

It was the second impact for a battered skull, and Pyanfar lay there retching after breath tinged with sweat and smoke and volatiles. Sound when it returned was a chilling siren above the thump of fire. She felt something stir against her, got her eyes focussed against a tendency to cross and stared over into Haral's dazed face beside her.

"I think they got those cans," Haral commented from the horizontal. "O gods, my head." And started moving, swearing in soft incoherency. Pyanfar rolled on an elbow and sat up. "Gilan—"

The Tahar were all moving—sluggish, but moving. Haury proved life by turning on her side and trying to get up on her own; and Pyanfar swung round and looked where the sudden wild fix of Haury's eyes went. Reflex pulled the trigger of a gun she had forgotten she was holding. The shell burst on a kif in mid-leap; and the remains thudded off their sheltering can-stack onto the deck hardly a bodylength distant, while three more kif scrambled for other cover.

She sat there and shook like a beardless youngster; and got her breath and shoved her heels and one hand under her. "Keep going," she said in a voice that failed of steadiness, and looked up at the blank, unfriendly pressure-gates of a sealed ship-berth. An empty berth. Or a ship that had gone on protective internal seal. Those gates in that case could open and pour out hostile kif into their refuge at any moment. "We've got to keep going—"

"Haury," Tav objected, wobbling to her knees. "Haury—"

It was so. Haury Savuun had to be carried. None of them had the wind for it. Pyanfar sank down where she was, on her heels, and Haral rested again, holding her hands locked behind a skull that was doubtless doing what hers was, a steady throbbing to the siren that told them the dock might blow to vacuum at any moment.

"They've stopped shooting," Nif Angfylas said, her torn ears lifting despite her exhaustion. "Maybe—"

A shot hit the wall and they ducked and covered.

"Gods-be!" It was a new angle of fire, one forty five degrees oblique to their escape route, and high. "They got us pinned!"

Another shot exploded and Pyanfar tucked her head into her arms, lifted it with a sinking feeling—the opposite quarter, that time. "They got us crossed," she yelled at Haral. "Get that gods-be sniper ahead highline, and watch your head! I think he's on the second level walkway!"

She scrambled for the firepoint at the other corner of their shelter, and felt a presence close behind—Vihan Tahar, looting the dead kif's body for weapon and cartridges. Vihan ducked in close at her shoulder while Haral took the other side of the console that offered their tiny triangle of shelter from incoming fire. Smoke roiled up and drifted in blinding clouds. Whatever had gone up had gone in a hurry—it smelled like fuel; but a lake of it still burned on the dock, sending a hellish glare up to the smoke-palled overhead. No fans working up there. The air ducts had gone sealed, not to encourage the fire.

It did not encourage breathing either. Her nose ran. She wiped her eyes with a gritty hand and checked the AP's cartridges. Down to six. No reloads. "We don't waste any fire," she said to Vihan, at her back. "Anything compatible on that kif?"

"Got two rounds," Vihan said, pressing them into her hand. "His gun's in pieces."

"Get over there and see if Haral needs them worse; I got—"

Fire came back; Pyanfar took a chance shot the moment she saw the brighter flare of a rifle aimed their way, and dived aside, shouldering Vihan to the ground.

Thunder broke and particles showered. Pyanfar bobbed up again and restrained herself from spending another round. "May have got the son—I can't tell—"

Kif moved, a number of black distant figures cavorting in rolling smoke, about a lake of golden fire. Sikkukkut's? Akkhtimakt's?

BOOM! from the other side. She spun about and plastered herself flat against the console with Vihan and Naur crouching tightly by her; and rolled a glance at Haral, who had pressed herself mirror-image to the far corner of the console. "Get him?"

"Dunno," Haral said, and wiped watering eyes with a bloody fist. "Gods-be smoke—"

Pyanfar looked up, where the smoke got lower and lower, obscuring most of the gantry now, lowering a black, asphyxiating ceiling over their heads. "They by the gods got to get those fans going soon." A cough threatened. Her own eyes were pouring water and her throat was raw.

"We got four berths to go to next dock," Haral said.

"We got a gods-be blockade up there," Gilan said. "We got kif between us and any way out of here. Snipers got your own people pinned for sure. Sikkukkut's losing this one—"

"Console—" Pyanfar said suddenly; and twisted onto her knee, found the storage panel at her back with the kifish lettering that said EMERGENCY.

She ripped it open and hauled out the first aid kit. Plasm foam. A few plastic bandages. She shoved the contents in Gilan Tahar's direction. No injectables. No class two supplies. No oxygen.

A second glance up. There was a console call-post up over their heads, if anyone wanted to stand tall enough to try for it. And tell the kif in central their precise position when it got to that. But the sirens warned of more imminent disasters. The smoke worsened.

She thrust herself onto her knees and risked her head standing up, a quick snatch at the mike and jab at the recessed channel buttons. The connection failed. "Captain," Haral cried in anguish as she tried the input again.

"Gods-be short gods-be cord—Pride, hello, Pride, do you receive?"

''Try Mahijiru!'' Haral shouted from a crouch a little below her shoulder. "And get your head down!"

"Captain," a hani voice came back, hoarse and weak and static-riddled. "What's going on?"

"Chur? Chur? Where's Tirun? We need help—"

Something whistled past her head and blew at her back; and something seized her about the legs and got her down, hard, Haral wrapped about her as a second burst blew the corner off the control console and roiled up a stinging smoke. Somewhere in the murk overhead, bending metal shrieked and groaned in protest, something huge giving way—

"Gantry's going!" Nif Angfylas cried. "Migods, the gantry's going down—"

Pyanfar rolled, as the metal-sound rose to a shrill grinding. She was not the only one to grab for Haury; Tav Savuun had her sister's other arm—there was general collision of well-meaning help; and in the smoke above, the gantry's dissolution progressed one shrieking degree at a time, impelled by inexorable station-spin and its own steel mass. Cables dropped down and writhed like snakes.

"Run!" Pyanfar yelled, struggling to stand and pull Haury with her. Her knees wobbled as she drove against the weight. "Run!"

"Where's my aunt?" Hilfy Chanur yelled at the Ehrran over the noise of fire, of a horrendous crash from somewhere down docks. "What's their position? Have you seen them?"

"Out there!" the seniormost Ehrran crew woman yelled back with a wave at the stinging smoke. "How should I know?" The Ehrran's mouth fell open as Tully came panting up with Tirun. "My gods—you fools!"

Hilfy shot out an arm: Tully evaded the Ehrran's grasp with a suck of gut and a spin onto the off foot—and Hilfy flung herself with a hard body-check into the path of the Ehrran officer.

"You bastard whelp—" The Ehrran raked a left hand full of claws into her shoulder, and out of nowhere a heavy blow shot past Hilfy's shoulder and the Ehrran rocked back with a curse.

Tirun's arm. Tirun, ears flat and with an AP gun in the other fist.

"Go!" Pyanfar yelled, seeing the gantry hit and bounce and thunder like a perversely living thing, now toward the kifish positions and now toward their own, broken and in several places achieving independent motion. Smoke skirled and billowed in the shock.

And for a precious moment there lingered that random violence on the docks as great as the kif and bouncing the kif's way.

"Go!" Pyanfar yelled. Tahar crew grabbed Haury by one arm and the other, and they limped along. Pyanfar spent one precious shot toward the far side of the dock to keep kifish heads down: Haral fired another of their diminishing few rounds and Gilan Tahar let off a third as they ran and lurched their way behind the cover the careening wreckage gave them.

"Come on!" Tirun shouted at the Ehrran officer. "Save it for later, Ehrran—we got troubles down there! You want to talk about it later, fine. Let's get the rest of us off that dock down there!"

"That's Tahar!" The Ehrran pointed at Dur Tahar. "By the gods, Chanur—"

"Save it," Tirun yelled. "Settle it later, hear? You're talking to a ship's chief officer, woman, and we got hani lives at stake!"

"I don't regard any Chanur patents. You got a man out here carrying arms, you got a non-citizen alien and a known fugitive with weapons—" The Ehrran raised her gun. "You're under arrest, you, all of you!"

"You gods-be lunatic," Khym roared, and waded forward. A shot went off and he spun half-about—

—"Gods!" Hilfy cried. Muscles jumped and she launched herself at the same time as Geran and Tirun and Tully.

But Khym had never stopped; he made his spin full about, landed a sweeping blow and the Ehrran went flying across the dock. Hilfy's own particular target had her mouth still open when Hilfy hit her and sent her knee up into an unprepared gut—straightened the Ehrran up with a gunbarrel under the chin and shoved her back. "AP," Hilfy snarled, in case the Ehrran crew woman had any doubts what was at her jaw. "Drop yours—drop it!"

The woman rolled her eyes and a gun thudded to the deck. Hilfy shoved her loose. Ehrran were scattering, in full flight, two delaying to pick up their senior, unconscious on the deck. Tully was picking himself up off the deck, bleeding at the nose and wobbling, but he still had his gun in hand, and the last Ehrran lit out running. Hilfy sucked wind and aimed the AP into the running midst of them—

Her finger froze. Her hand shook. None of them fired. None of them did. The blackbreeches crossed the open area, plunging through a group of oncoming mahendo'sat who had appeared out of cover.

"Mahend' nai casheni-te!" Tirun yelled at them. "Hai na Jik!"

"Pau nai!" the shout came back, with waving of arms. Wait!

"Blast you, help!"

Fire spattered the dock. The mahendo’sat dived back pellmell

"Gods-be!" Tirun yelled, not her voice but a hoarse, cracking sound; and they dived for cover on their side.

"You all right, Khym, you all right?" Geran asked.

"Uhhhnn," he muttered, hand on his upper arm. Blood leaked through. His eyes were dark and dreadful to see. "Let's move."

"Come on," Tirun said; and leapt up. Down-docks. Into the fighting. The only way any of them chose to go.

"Where's Tahar?" Hilfy yelled, suddenly missing the captain as they started to run. "Tirun—Tahar—"

"Go," Tully yelled, waving his arm to indicate direction, gasping for breath as he tried to keep pace. "Tahar go!"

Ahead of them.

Pyanfar stopped and turned and sent another shot toward the inner wall of the docks, covering the three carrying Haury Savuun, putting herself and another of their last rounds from the AP gun between Haury's all-too-exposed person and the chance of another shot.

A shot came back low and exploded off the downed gantry in a hail of fragments. A second shot went past her: hit the back wall. She staggered and flung herself to the minimal cover they had, wiping a haze from her eyes.

"We got to keep going," she said, shoving Nif aside to drag at Haury's limp arm one-handed. "We got no more choice, we're out of cover—"

"Where's Jik?" Haral gasped, as they kept moving, as a shot whumped off the far wall and something blew up behind. "Gods rot that earless son, where is he?"

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.