Pyanfar overrode with a priority master and a button on intercom. “Priority, priority,” from Sifeny. “That’s two more.”
“Got that,” Pyanfar said “Tirun: recalc.”
“They’re farther down, we’re all right, I’m checking it anyhow, cap’n.”
“Priority!” The monitor screen blinked alarm: space was blossoming with ships.
“Kkkkt!” Skkukuk cried over station-to-station. “Priority, this pattern is gktokik! This is methane-breather, this is tc’a and chi! Avoid output!”
“F’godssakes-” -Shut up on my bridge, you gods-be lunatic!
“Clear on our vector,” Tirun said, “we got it, we got it clear, go, go.”
“Sikkukkut’s got visitors and we’re not waiting for this to unfold around us. Out of here, as the schedule goes. Stay by it!”
“Priority,” Hilfy said.
Comflow was coming over from Tahar, hani and obscene. Her heart lurched. “Hilfy, I got it, I got it. Send. Tahar! This is Pyanfar, what’s happened back there?”
“Chanur,” the answer came back, “we got a glitch in final-check. We’re trying to fix it. You got to go, go. We’ll come in as we can.”
A sick feeling hit her stomach. Irony, maybe. It was a jump-lost ship that had started the Faha-Tahar feud. And it was a Faha-kinship crew and Tahar riding together on a ship that might not make it this time.
“Yeah, I hear that, Dur. How much lag?”
“Feathered if I know. We’re tracing it. Give us a quarter hour down if we’re lucky. If not-”
“If not, yeah.”
“Hey, I speak kifish real good, Chanur. I’ll turn ’round and hail ’em all. Got a message?”
“Luck to you. Luck, Tahar, hear?”
“Same to you.”
Moon Rising cut communications. Dur Tahar had her hands full, with her own crew doing well to be working at all.
She dropped her head against a shaking hand and drew a deep breath and tried to get herself in order.
Gods and thunders, the best we got-the ones I could trust-The best and the only friends we got except Jik-that gods-be pirate-and Vrossaru with her. Gods, don’t let us lose ’em now.
I’ll go religious, I swear I will, get ’em through jump with us!
“Coming up on mark,” Haral said, while com crackled and sputtered with advisements from the rest of the group: Moon Rising had to be subtracted out of jump equations all the way down the run, a contingency that was all too close to happening. From his own limited board, Skkukuk rattled off a string of kifish exhortations and instructions, something about his captain; the hakkikt, praise to whom; and their destination.
Another thought froze her heart. “Tully. Has Tully got his drugs?”
“He’s got them,” Hilfy said. “He just reported on com; Chur’s under; we got clear from all our passengers, in and secure.”
Ten thousand things to come undone, ten thousand ways the whole business can go wrong-
The scan-projections were a shifting mix of color, Geran and Sif Tauran working feverishly to keep some semblance of accuracy in ship actions, with system scan blank and tc’a popping in at high-V: they had only their own knowledge, passive-scan; and their long-established, dopplered realscan; passive-scan and longscan leapfrogged, projection and factual report, older and older as their time-packet left the arena.
It was riot back there. Other ships appeared out of system fringes. The hakkikt had not fallen into the trap, had not sat there nose to station in the safe interval he might have
thought he had before outbound ships could have faked a jump, braked beyond system edge and turned around.
Bastard has the luck.
Gods help the stsho.
“Ten to mark,” Haral said, seeming unperturbed. “You want to take it on otherside, captain, or take her out?”
“I’ll take it otherside.” That meant mind in order. A precise knowledge of the coordinates and the parameters for error. “Eggs’ll get you pearls we don’t get system scan at Urtur either.”
“Huh. Akkhtimakt’s been through there, not too certain we even got a station there. If he ever got there. If he didn’t short-jump and turn. That’s eight to mark.”
“Secure for jump,” Hilfy’s voice rang out over general com. The warning sounded early. For the strangers.
“We couldn’t hope for that much,” Haral commented.
“Seven.”
“How’s Moon Rising! What’s their status?”