The Pride of Chanur cs-1

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  “Keep her trimmed and constant and watch out for the shock.” Pyanfar aimed herself back to the shelter of her padded nest in haste. “Those grapples will do the fine matching, don’t try the jets. She’s moving under comp.”

  “Gods, it’s on us,” the copilot said.

  “Closing,” Geran’s voice sounded through the com plug. “Stand by, Luck.”

  A proximity alarm started, quickly silenced from the board. Scan broke up.

  “O gods,” said the navigator.

  Pyanfar tucked, clenching the cushion support with all her strength.

  Impact. The Luck rang and leapt and her body left the deck, grip scarcely holding; hit it again, shoved back as the grapples grated, shifted.

  Held. There was a comforting silence. Weightlessness.

  “Got trouble,” Tirun’s voice said. “Blow that lock out; we’ve got a tube the other side. For the gods’ sake board, abandon ship. We can’t defend you.”

  “Haral!” Pyanfar yelled down the core corridor. “Everyone! get forward!”

  “Captain,” Nerafy Rau said.

  “Come on,” Pyanfar said, hauled herself to the captain’s cushion and hung there one-handed, staring down at her. “All of you… gods, come with us. We’ll get you back to your ship if there’s a chance of it. If not that, there’s kif to settle with, and those people on the stations — will you die here with no shot fired?”

  “No,” the Rau captain said, and started unbuckling. The others did. Pyanfar completed the somersault and looked aft down the corridor, at a white-shirted human sailing up it narrowly in advance of a flood of armed hani. The Rau captain handed her way up from the pit and headed for the nearby lock and Pyanfar grabbed for the board and the mike as the crew left it. “Tirun! Where are the kif?”

  “Gods know. Mahijiru’s running far-guard; tell you the rest when you get here.”

  The bodies of her companions tumbled about her. The lock powered inward and airshock rammed through in a cold gust. “Coming,” Pyanfar said, and let the mike go, kicked at the nearest conduit and flung herself into the stream of bodies, into the dark and numbing cold of The Pride’s ship-to-ship grapple-tube. Extremities went numb. Breath stung in the lungs and moisture threatened to freeze her eyeballs. It hurt, gods, it hurt. A light glowed green as she arrived in The Pride’s null-g outer frame, a safety beacon, a guidance star far across the dark, marking the location of the personnel lift. A blue chain of glowlights dotted across the blackness toward it, the safety line. “Khym!” Pyanfar shouted, thinking of his inexperience, “blue’s the guideline, Khym… Tully! go to the blue lights!”

  “Got him,” Hilfy’s young voice shouted up ahead. “Got them both.”

  A door opened onto the lift. Someone had gotten to it. A distant rectangle opened, blinding white, with a score of dark bodies hurtling and struggling along the blue dotted course toward it, large and small with distance, some like swimmers in the air, some using the rope and propelling the swimmers along. Bodies collided and caught each other and kept going, one after the other, into that lift chamber, where they took on color and identity. Pyanfar found herself slung along the final distance, hauled into the lift; and among the last came the Rau, into that blinding glare.

  “We’re in,” Chur was shouting into com. Haral shouted a warning and closed the lift door, and suddenly all the floating bodies tended floorward as the car moved. “Brace!” Pyanfar snapped at the novices, but experienced spacers grabbed them, and of a sudden the car thundered and slammed into synch with the rotating inner cylinder. There was full g, and the lift slammed upward again, with a queasy rear-of-the-car acceleration stress as The Pride put on a gingerly movement. Something banged in the distance. — “Grapple’s clear,” Haral said. The lift went on rising, past lowerdeck, to main. Feet found the floor; bedraggled groundlings hugged those who had a hold on them, ears flat and eyes wild.

  The car stopped and opened on main. Pyanfar thrust herself through and out, raced down the main corridor for the archway of the bridge, claws scrabbling on the decking against the gentle thrust. Haral was hard on her heels. “Lowerdeck,” Chur shouted behind them. “Ride it back down where there’s secure space.” The door closed; the lift hummed into function again. Pyanfar did not look back. She hurled herself the last difficult distance, past Geran and Tirun at the number three and two posts as Haral found her place and slid into it. Pyanfar reached her own vacant cushion and flung herself into it without a word. Scan images were coming up on her screens, their position relative to the world and the station — a dot that was knnn-symboled, hovering off apart from the chaos of other dots, two marked mahe, and the horrid hazard near the station, a horde of unidentifieds, debris sweeps that marked the death of ships and the course of their remains.

  “Aja Jin took damage,” Tirun said steadily. “Kif invaded traffic control on the station and knocked the scan out. Llun had their hands full; everyone was boarding any ship at all. We broke out of dock and ran with the rest… figured they were screening incoming ships. Strike came in three quarters of an hour ago. Outbound now. We’re headed back in to station, present course: Fortune got a landing party in. Several others got in after them. Proceed?”

  “Keep talking. Go as we bear.” She reached and hit the motion warning. “We’re moving,” she said over allship. “Brace; I’m going to keep the com open from our end. We’ve got troubles and I don’t want any stirring about down there. — Tirun, what’s the comp on that kif movement? Got a course plotting?”

  The data flashed to the screen. “All stations have killed scan output. Some of the kif are out of dock but we don’t know which. Only good thing in it, with station’s scan stopped a good bit before the strike, they had only our last-known position to go on and the attack missed most of us. Aja Jin got it, being posted stationary; at least one freighter was hit and we think some of the kif, but we don’t know who got hit, because no one’s outputting much chatter and a lot of the freighters are scan-blanked and hiding. I figure they’ll go for the fixed targets on the next pass — the station, Aja Jin’s last position …”

  “Anuurn, maybe.”

  Tirun threw her an ears-flat look.

  “You’ve got it going,” Pyanfar said. “I’ll go with it. Give me the rest of your reckoning. Where do you reckon Akukkakk is?”

  “I think he was one that got off station; and he can’t have boosted fast enough to have run with the strikers. I figure he’s one of those ships out there, quiet like all the rest of them. And we find out just which one he is when that strike force comes sweeping back in.”

  Pyanfar nodded. To take the maneuver they had handed him — the undocking of the freighters — and to turn it to his own advantage… that was very probable. That was Akukkakk’s style, for which she had begun to acquire a sense: a pattern of movements, a tendency to up the stakes when challenged.

  “He’s going to go on sending them in against the station,” she judged, “hammer it into junk. That, for a lesson for us. But he knows rotted well which one we are, cousins: we’re all too conspicuous, and I’ve a notion which way he’ll go when he can — even odds between us and Mahijiru. And since Mahijiru’s got Jik by him …” She cast a glance at scan, where the mahe rode as a double blip hard by the kif position at station. “They’ll be overriding their own scan, that strike force, but Akukkakk’s going to have a good identified image for them. Gods rot him.”

  “We drop our people at station,” Haral said from the fourth cushion, “and pull a tight turn, maybe; go sort that crowd out.”

  “Got to do something, that’s sure. — Tirun: to you.” She shunted back what activity her board had received. “Take us in. I’m going to talk to the others. — Going to need all the rest of you up here. Stay put, Haral.”

  “Right,” Haral muttered.

  Pyanfar turned the cushion, slid out of it, headed out of the bridge at a dead run into the direction of thrust, digging in for traction. She skidded to a collision with the wall at the lift, hi
t the call button and caught her breath while it came.

  It arrived; she stepped in and waited while it sped her to the lowerdeck, tremors in her muscles, a tendency to shiver in what ought not to be a chill.

  Lowerdeck main corridor. She found the Chanur gathered there, braced sitting in the passage, rifles in laps, the best security they could find near their exit. They scrambled up as she came… and there was Chur among them, and Khym; and Tully, with Hilfy; and the Llun and the Chanur captains and their crews. She went among them, caught Chur’s arm and looked at the others. “You’ve understood?”

  “Understood,” Rhean Chanur said. “We try to get the stationers rounded up and if we have to ride through another strike — we get to core and try to wait your pickup after it’s past. Gods help us.”

  “The Pride will be back, Rhean; that’s your ship that forced the breach: your crew, gods look on them. I don’t know what damage she may have taken: you’d better plan for any pickup that comes for you. — Anfy: same goes; any ship. Got in-systemers filling jumpship posts, anything we can get. Gods know who’s where. — The rest of you: if you use those guns, you pair up with the crews and give backup fire. Hit the wrong target and you’ll kill your own allies, hear? Or blow a seal; keep your wits straight and know what’s behind what you’re shooting at. You go shooting on a station, hear me, you put your shots on the decking and work up their legs.”

  Young ears lowered in distress; eyes stared, black-centered. Hilfy’s look was something else again, ears pricked, sober. Pyanfar stared at her, at once pleased and heartsick. No way to pull her out of it. No need. Those who went onto station and those who stayed with The Pride were in equal danger. Maybe more, for them on the ship. Akukkakk would see to it, given the chance.

  “Approaching dock.” com said. “Stand by for braking.”

  “We’ll not waste time,” Pyanfar said quietly, to those about her. “Chur; Hilfy; you’re all The Pride can send: do it right and get back; all of you — Khym… go with my crew, hear?”

  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.

  “Haral: 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.

  “Which one?” Tirun asked.

  “Take the best target,” Pyanfar said. “I can’t tell.” Hani jumpships were on the near-scan now, several of them, hammering toward intercept with the kif, but not in time for The Pride, No place for a freighter, a race with the swift hunter-ships, even cargo-dumped. No way to win.

  “Now!”

  The kif ripped past them, zenith, and they fired. Screens broke up. Explosion slammed The Pride askew and red-lighted the boards. Pyanfar reached in an adrenalin timestretch, fought the pitch and wobble. In the screen’s clearing a new rapid image bore down on them, a high knnn wail in com.