Chanur’s Homecoming by CJ Cherryh

“You got it,” she said, ripped a nutrients packet loose and downed it, her eye to the chrono and the red numbers flashing on the screen. “Gods – ” Into the general com: “Make that lift, gods rot you, run, we got thirty seconds to dump, run, run, run! Ride it out in the lift!”

“We’ll make it!” Haral’s voice. Dopplered and moving, from the com. “Let it go!”

Images got to her screen. She jammed a com plug into her right ear and listened with one ear to that flow, kifish jabber.

Fifteen seconds. Noise from the intercom, wide open from both ends. Shouts and curses at a recalcitrant door. “Open the gods-be lift!’ ‘

Then: “We’re in. Different speaker. Tirun this time. And: “Wait, wait, wait! Kkkkt-kkt-kt! Wait!”

”Hurry!’ ‘

“Kkkkkkkkkkkkkk-”

Dump. – down. Velocity drop.

– red lights. Breaking out like plague.

O my gods, don’t let us lose it here.

Not now. Not now.

Normal space. Anuurn and kif. She swallowed down sickness and flicked switches while the Tauran switcher next to her fed her images.

“Position, position, where in a mahen hell are we?” Not Haral beside her. Fire was going on out there, their kifish escort hammering away at something forty five degrees off and low. Haze blossomed on the scan as it cleared. They had no clear way to know what the kif were firing on. “Com, gods rot it, where ‘s ID on those ships?”

“No ID,” the young voice answered. “I’m not getting ID.”

Captain, we got hits out there, Tyar vector!’ ‘

“Targeting.”

“We don’t know who we’re shooting at,” Sirany objected.

“Targeting, gods rot it, did I say fire? Get us a gods-be lock on it!”

“Gods rot yourself, did I say I wasn’t?”

Not a crew up here. A collection. Left and right hand tangling. In the monitor a light-reflection showed, widened. Lift door opening. She looked at the time and saw fifty seconds to next dump. “Fifty to dump, clear those seats, number two, three, five, seven-Chanur crew’s in upper main, we got a fast shift, bail out and go, move it!”

“Get!” Sirany yelled at her own crew. “You heard her. Galley!”

Every regulation in the book was fractured. Crew bailed out and fled in mid-ops, a scramble for the galley corridor. Running footsteps hit the bridge deck and seats sighed and hummed and belts clicked, new crew in. New voices reported over com.

“Your sister’s all right,” Pyanfar said.

As the chrono ticked over and they went down again-

-programmed dump. More red. Red, red, red. O gods, not the main boards- Lifesupport out. Gods fry those slinking things!

Over to backup on three more systems. Final backup on another.

Out again, with telemetry coming in, Chanur voices delivering information.

“Affirmative: Akkhtimakt. Tyar vector, breaking for nadir.”

“Fire.”

As another disruption streaked past them, disrupting scan. “That was Jik!” Geran said.

“Go for ’em!” Tirun cried, and: “Kkkt! Sgot sotikkut pukkukt’!” from Skkukuk.

More disruptions. A welter of high-V projectiles, passing by them.

They added their own, lower-V, and a burst of beamfire from their small bow projector. Hydraulics whined and thumped, reloading the chambers on the launcher, tracking.

The source of the fire was off-gods, in the ecliptic. A chill went up her back. Chur and premonitions. The first fire they had thrown out was the most damaging kind, high-velocity, aimed blind.

Someone had keyed the guns.

Whump and groan. Another missile round off. More loading.

“Stand by braking.” Gods hope the systems hold. As she threw them into rollover, the guns still tracking and firing under auto.

She threw the mains in. Her hand was shaking on the board, even with her arm thrust through the stress brace. Her vision fuzzed under the strain, and something small and black flew past her head and hit the forward bulkhead beyond her panel, squealing and yelping. Three story drop, where it had come from. “Gods!” she yelled in revulsion: it ran right back over the boards and chittered and squealed as it went, tiny claws scrabbling as it climbed against the G-force and ran right over the counter along the bulkhead, the course of least resistance.

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