“Understood. Re-request on order to the ships in front of us?”
“Tell them stand by. Does Llun need help onstation? Query them that while you’re at it.” I’m muddling. Not thinking of things. I’m dangerous up here. “Ker Sirany. I’m resigning operationals. Policy I’ll handle. Refer to yourself and the other captains- all other-” She gave a desperate wave of her hand. “-stuff.” And fumbled after the belt and tried to stand up.
“Help, cap’n?” Sif reached and grabbed her arm. “Ker Haral!”
I’m doing quite all right, thank you.
And the whole bridge went gray and dark.
Operations chatter. Quiet stuff. She got to her feet hanging onto the chair and held to the back of it.
All in gray. Dark a moment. And the blood rushing in her cars.
Someone got to her. Someone held onto her. “You want to walk,” Haral said.
“I’m walking.” Legs insensate as dead meat. Equilibrium gone. Haral had one side, Khym had the other.
It was a long, long walk to her quarters. The corridor lights writhed like the spine of a glowing snake.
“Just gone too far,” Haral said. “Knew her like this once at Ajir.”
Liar. I was drunk then. I’m scared, Hal. I haven’t got anything left and they need me.
“I got her.” When the whole universe did a sharp and sudden tilt. Khym hauled her along with an arm about her. Might as well have been flying, upside down and sideways.
Bed then. Mattress. Sheets. Pillow.
“Chur’s room,” Geran’s voice said, hoarse and panting und utterly exhausted. “Haral, tell ’em. We can fall in there.”
A body landed beside her. Thump. The safety restraint hummed and clicked.
Dark then.
Till the gravity shifted and she came awake with a reflexive clench of the claws into what was not mattress, but her I husband; he hissed and shifted and jerked as he came awake weighing less than he ought and with gravity not where it’ ought to be.
“Uuuh!”
“Docking. It’s all right, it’s all right, we’re at Gaohn.” Mumble. Even that was not sufficient goad to get the body moving. The brain dimmed down again, with too great a load to push. More G-shifts. Clang and thump. Not safe to stand, in the condition she was. Prudent just to lie there and catch the few extra moments of drowse she could. Before the clangs and thumps of contact told her the grapples were secure. Then was time to get on her feet and clean up.
Safety hummed into retraction. It was Fiar standing over them, with a tray in her hands and an ears-back worried look on her face. The ship was miraculously stable and quiet. “Captain. M’lord. You want to try to eat something?”
We aborted dock? Backed off?
I slept through the grapple-noise? The connects? Gods, we’re not on rotation.
She levered herself up on her arms. Khym stayed unconscious beside her. The place smelled. They did. Everything did. Her eyes were sticky and her mouth felt awful. “Situation,” she said.
“We’re in, captain. Berth thirteen. Got a solid line of our ships out there beyond us. Just everybody sitting, except us, except our lot-Harun and Pauran and Faha and all, we’re in dock right together. So’s ker Rhean and Chanur’s Fortune. Ehrran too. Anfy Chanur held ’em under her guns on the way to dock, she’s still got Light standing out right nearby, but Ehrran’s still talking for Naur and them, but spacers are mad, captain, they’re not having any of it. They want to see you. We told ’em you were in no fit condition. But my captain asks, she says maybe you should get Up there and see ’em soon as you can, captain-we got a whole lot of kif and a whole lot of hani eyeball-on out there around Tyar; but she wants you to have a breakfast and take it slow, her word, captain.”
“Gods.” She shut her eyes with force and opened them again, trying to focus. Fiar looked exhausted, ears flagging in a curious, lopsided way that made her look younger than she was. Stable at dock. Other ships having had time to make it in. Anfy and Ehrran in standoff. She reached and took the offered cup. Biggest they had. Full of savory soup, steam going up like a wish to the gods. “Unnnhh.” She took a sip. Blinked the kid back into focus. “Ayhar. Where in a mahen hell’s Ayhar?”