“Ten minutes station AOS,” Haral said. “Mark.”
Pyanfar drew another breath and flexed her hands. “Hilfy, output to Meetpoint traffic control: coming in on standard approach.”
“Aye, done, standard approach data in transmission.”
“Aja Jin make dump,” Jik said.
“Stand by our final.”
The wavefront of their arrival had not yet gotten to Meetpoint central. The robotic beacon in the jump range knew as much as its AI brain was capable of knowing anything; but the buoy was not communicating data back to them even after it had had time to receive their ID squeal.
It was certain that it was a trap. Stsho had no nerve sufficient to antagonize an armed enemy, blinding them as they came in. It was what they hired guards to do.
“No telling where Sikkukkut is,” Pyanfar muttered. “It’d take him maybe another hour to get that lot away from Kefk. But he’s fast.”
“Kkkkt,” Skkukuk said, which sound sent the hair up on her back. Not a comment except that click which meant a thousand things. “You all right back there: Skkukuk, you all right?” she asked the kif. And deliberately pleased the bastard. It was a genuine question; nourishment for him was a problem. No gods-be little vermin on my bridge, was her ultimatum; and Skkukuk had come up with his own answer. Straight simple-sugars and water, into a vein.
“Kkkkt,” he said again. “Yes, hakt’.” Doubtless coming to a whole array of mistaken kifish conclusions about his status, the crew’s, Jik’s and Tully’s; that elongate, predatory brain was set up to process that kind of information constantly, inexorable as a star in its course. Claw and crawl and climb. With a sense of humor only when it was in the ascendancy and demonstrating its power.
Creator Gods, if You made that, You must’ve had something in mind. But what?
“Imaging,” Tirun said; “priority channel four.”
“Your two,” Haral said; but that change was already there, the hazy ball of Meetpoint separating into a whole globe of points. So did one of the other patches of haze. Another remained indistinct.
“We got a lot of company,” Haral said.
It was a swarm for sure. A monstrous swarm sitting around Meetpoint station, like insects around a corpse.
“Migods,” she murmured.
Another blur materialized. About ten minutes Light off station nadir. Unresolved yet, and small. It could get a lot wider.
“There’s another one,” Haral said; on the second Geran and Jik both came in on com.
“Got that,” Pyanfar muttered, her mind half there, half on what the comp was bringing up, color-code spotted into the station-mass that said stsho/hani ID.
More IDs. There were stsho and hani in the station imaging, there were mahendo’sat and kif outlying. But not a single methane-breather in the output, which could mean that imaging had ignored them; or that no methane-breather was outputting; or that the methane-breathers had gotten the wind up them at some time earlier in events and lit out for their own territories.
“Captain,” Geran said.
“I got it, I got it.”
“Not a methane-breather anywhere,” Haral muttered. “I don’t like this.”
“Got to be Akkhtimakt out there,” Tirun said. “Looks like we got a real standoff here.”
“Mahen ships out there,” Pyanfar said. “Goldtooth, I’ll bet you that, eggs to pearls. And too many ships. Gods, look at that.”
“Humans,” Haral said in a low voice. Not on bridge-com; voice-only.
“Yeah.”
Tully knows it. Got to know it. He’s not deaf. Not blind either.
“Pyanfar,” Jik said. “Give com.”
“In your own hell I will. Sit still.”
Stsho and hani sitting there dead at dock with kif in full view, kifish ships with the advantage of position and startup time and the mass of Meetpoint’s dark dwarf to pull them in?
But so had those other blotches on scan, mahen and alien. Standoff for sure.
We got troubles, gods, we got troubles.
“Hilfy: to both our partners; stand by hard dump, at the 2 unit mark; gods-be if we’re going into that. Hard dump and brake, We’re going to sit.”
“You got damn kif come in here behind us, upset ever’thing!” Jik cried. “Give com, dammit, I talk!”
“Sit still while you got ears!”