As the color-shift on Akkhtimakt’s kif went over from blue to blinking green. To purple, like the image on Sikkukkut’s ships. But a double hand of Sikkukkut’s ships were shifting down, going brighter bluegreen, and two brighter still. Different assignments. Stopping in midsystem. Where they could shift vector and strike at Meetpoint Station. Or at the mahendo’sat.
“Priority,” Geran said.
“I got that,” she said. “Sikkukkut’s got his tail guarded, he does.”
“AOS on our message,” Tirun said, monotone. “Akkhtimakt’s present position.”
“Gods.” Vector, gods rot it, Geran. What’s Akkhtimakt’s vector? “Geran, can you get me a-”
The projection took shape. “Priority, priority,” Geran said. And her answer came up two-vectored, one part of Akkhtimakt’s group bound nadir, twenty ships for Urtur and ten for Kshshti. Her heart seized up and beat painfully against the stress.
“Gods and thunders.”
“Sikkukkut may just chase ’em,” Haral said. “Gods send he chases ’em clear to Urtur, get him by the gods out of here.”
“Give me com,” Jik said in a low voice. As if he had no hope of it already. “Give me com. I talk to Ana-”
But suddenly Goldtooth’s image was blinking too. Imminent motion, as yet undefined in the comp. The doppler shift could tell it what it had, and comp was working on the precise figure.
“Pyanfar.”
“No, gods rot it. Gods-be, that bastard’s just AOS on that move of Akkhtimakt’s and he’s losing no time taking out of here. Whatever Aja Jin sent may not reach him before he goes. Running. Where? How far’s he going?”
“Not know,” Jik aid.
“Outsystem? Turn around and come in?”
“Give com. I tell him, he do! Code. God! Kif not break fast enough! Give com.”
“You might not catch him. And he might not listen. And that leaves us with the kif, doesn’t it? All alone; and us transmitting to his enemies in code. No thanks.”
While, beside them and behind, Aja Jin kept quiet. Perhaps Kesurinan believed that that order for silence came from Jik, relayed because he was not on the bridge; or Kesurinan still trusted. Perhaps.
“Mahen ships are AOS of our number-two message,” Tirun droned placidly, their relativity-timekeeper, while disaster went on shaping up around them. “Going to be a while on Kesurinan’s. It may not make it.”
The Goldtooth-human aggregate went green. Retreating. Faster and faster.
Jik swore. In mahensi. “All way doublecross. Pyanfar. You, me, Ana. Damn, damn!”
“Shut it down.”
“Kif-damn, kif do this thing, you don’t go in fight, don’t go in, Pyanfar.”
“That, you got. No way are we going into that.”
While the recent past unfolded on the screen, the computer struggling to make sense of it and sending out image that had two shades of the same kifish color on the ID monitor.
“Gods-be fool kif’ve hardly dumped,” Haral muttered at her side. “Carrying sixty-five of light. Gods, look at that.”
“I’d rather not,” she said back. And felt sick at the stomach. Felt a tremor in all her limbs. “Bastard’s got enough V to hyper out of here, right up Akkhtimakt’s tail.”
“Dangerous,” Haral said. Meaning collisions on the other side, where they would drop down into the well at Urtur not knowing the trim and the precise capacity on the ships ahead of them. It was asking for it.
And the godscursed mahendo’sat were leaving system. Abandoning them. There were other conclusions, but none of them were enough to pin hope on. Knowing Goldtooth, whose priorities were all mahendo’sat.
That’s one more I owe you, Goldtooth, you bastard.
We got hani ships at station. We got three hundred thousand stsho who can’t defend themselves.
She reached after the last of the food packets by her chair and got it down; her mouth tasted of dry fuzz and copper. She was aware of loose fur rubbing between her skin and the chair leather; of hair sticking to the console-rim where it had rubbed from her arm; sweat had soaked her trousers and made the leather of the seat moist wherever she touched it.
Once at Urtur Akkhtimakt might rum about and come back with V on his side. Even if it took four months. But beyond Urtur was hani territory; the conflict might keep going.