The Kif Strike Back cs-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  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.

  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—"
<
br />   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 full: 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?"

  She expected no answer. She got none. She flicked it to standby again and met Geran's eyes by accident. "Probably can't get through," Pyanfar said on a gasp. "Range is marginal through that seal."

  "Ktiot ktkijik!" the PA thundered— EMERGENCY. And went on and on—Skkukuk lifted his dark, long face the better to hear, but the kifish words garbled in the echoes.

  Another burst of loudspeaker sound, from another direction, likewise kifish, groundlevel.

  "Captain!" Haral caught her arm and pointed, where four brightly-garbed mahendo'sat had broken from cover and begun to run their way, close at hand.

  Desperately.

  "Gods be," Pyanfar said, "Jik—Jik, you gods-be earless— What's going on over there?"

  Jik came panting up and caught her arms, at the end of his breath. "You come—got go—other way. Got no go ship, no go ship—"

  "What happened over there?"

  "Got trouble. Got Vigilance—I think she blow dock. I think she go—go Meetpoint."

  "Where's Mahijiru? What's Aja Jin doing, for godssakes? You got contact? Clip a vane off her! Stop her!"

  Jik blinked and gasped. "I lose contact Aja Jin—Mahijiru power up. Mahijiru—Vigilance—go."

  "He's after her."

  "He no shoot, no shoot. Pyanfar, I not know what he do—Get off dock, we got get off dock! My partner—he—he not shoot!"

  "You mean he's going with her? He's going out with Vigilance?"

  "A," Jik gasped, shaking at her. "We got—problem—"

  "Kkkt," said Skkukuk. "Understatement. The hakkikt will not be pleased with mahendo'sat or hani today."

  "Shut up!" Pyanfar snarled; and Skkukuk lowered his head between his shoulders.

  "Look about you," said Skkukuk.

  "Uuhhhnn," Haral said; and Pyanfar looked.

  Shadows appeared throughout the smoke-haze, robed shadows convergin
g on them from all sides, with caution and deliberation. And leveled rifles.

  "These will be the hakkikt's," Skkukuk said. "Since they aren't shooting. They will get us back to your ships. Or not, at the hakkikt's pleasure. Kkkt. I trust you did not offend him in your interview."

  "Beware of Goldtooth," Pyanfar muttered distractedly. "Beware of Ismehanan-min."

  "What say?" asked Jik. "What talk, Pyanfar?"

  "Not me. Stle stles stlen. The stsho warned me at Meetpoint. From the start. I paid a lot for that advice. A whole lot." She shoved her empty gun into its holster and stared bleakly at the narrowing circle of kif. "Everyone stand easy. Let's just hang onto the guns if we can."

  "Kkkkt. Parini, ker Pyanfar?"

  "Appreciated, hakkikt." Pyanfar reached out a sooty, blood-caked hand as an attendant brought a cup to her side, there in Harukk's dim hall.

  Back to starting-point. The blood and stink of the docks still clung about them. They bled from wounds. The hakkikt elected to have his nose offended; or delighted in the sweat and discomfort of the opposition.

  All of them were there—Hilfy, Tully—seated at Sikkukkut's low table, on insect-legged chairs: Haral; Dur Tahar; Jik; the others of all three crews, hani and mahendo'sat alike, were back in the shadows along the wall, among armed kif—except Haury Savuun. The kif had taken her over objections as violent as they dared make. To no avail. It was surely mockery that set Hilfy and Tully as guests at Sikkukkut's table; with Dur Tahar: and unsubtle mockery that set Skkukuk to crouch on the floor near the hakkikt's chair, robed knees up near hooded head, arms tucked out of sight, a very, very quiet Skkukuk, as small as he could make himself.

  Sikkukkut sipped his own cup. It was not parini. Dark eyes glittered. "Should I wish a dockside destroyed in future," Sikkukkut said, "I will only invite my friend Pyanfar. First the stsho, then the mahendo'sat, and now the kif. You are an expensive guest."

  "I'd like to contact my ship."

  "Of course you would. Kkkt., Chur Anify has stayed aboard. Wounded, you say. But perhaps still capable at controls. Who knows? While, Keia, the complement you left on Aja Jin—virtually complete. Except yourself and the four with you. You and Ismehanan-min withdrew your crews from the docks simultaneously with those of Vigilance. To put it directly—why?"