There was slow movement, timed, she reckoned, just to brush against them in retreat-pushing it. But they were going to move. She kept the gun free and her finger on the trigger, reckoning Haral behind her was taking a similar attitude and backing her up.
“Hani!”
A kifish shout behind them. She stopped at once and braced wide-legged with the gun aimed two-handed at the crowd in front; and knowing Haral was turning similarly braced toward trouble behind them.
“Three of ’em,” Haral’s voice reached her backturned ears; back brushing against her back. “Migods-! A kif’s been hit! Someone shot a-”
Pyanfar let off a warning shot over the leading kif’s heads as she spun to Haral’s side and saw one kif on the dockside deck and a second and a third in the act of falling. Sniper-fire. Her other foot hit the deck and she shouldered Gilan Tahar in a move toward the tangle of gantries and lines along the ship-berths. “Cover,” she yelled. “Rot it, out of the open, move it!”
The Tahar crew ran. She stopped and spun again to see Haral covering their retreat, with fire coming from somewhere, with kif falling and kif firing back and a chittering of kifish voices in tumult.
“Get cover!” Pyanfar yelled at Haral, and Haral fell back in haste. Fire popped across the deck and exploded off something behind them with a deafening shock and a sting of particles.
“Go!” Pyanfar yelled, turning and waving the Tahar vehemently to move-to gain what ground they could; and: “Move!” Gilan Tahar echoed the order, and lent her good arm to drag at Canfy Maurn. “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”
Kif firing at kif.
Akkhtimakt’s partisans, rising against Sikkukkut.
“We got a revolution on our hands,” Haral gasped, coming up beside her with her arm about Haury Savuun and Tav and Naun panting up behind. “Captain-we got-”
A shot exploded near, and Haral flung up her gunhand to shield her eyes, staggering. Pyanfar spun about and pasted a shot in the general direction of fire.
“By the gods, they fire this way, they get it-”
-A volley came back, a clanging thunder, an impact that flung her backward and cracked her head against the deck. She rolled and scrambled for cover, blind.
“Captain!” Haral cried.
“Hold it, hold it,” Geran said as chaos erupted out of The Pride’s com, “I got it-Tirun, I got Jik on one and a kif on two-”
“Give me the kif,” Tirun said; and listened while Hilfy and Khym held their own kif immobilized and furious between them.
“Shut up!” Hilfy said to Skkukuk; and maybe it was that or maybe it was the news pouring out over the console speaker that hushed him.
“-Honor to the hakkikt Sikkukkut an’nikktukktin,” the voice said. “A suicide attack by rash elements has endangered your captain and her subordinate. We are presently moving in reprisal. We advise all ships in this command to exercise extreme watchfulness for external attack during this crisis. Pride of Chanur, refrain from rash action. The hakkikt will deal harshly with these adventurers.”
“Watch him,” Hilfy muttered, and dived for com. “Tully. shift down. Take number one scan-Tahar captain’s got monitor up there-”
Tully bailed out. She hit the seat and snatched up a complug, coming into the tail of Geran’s few seconds delayed retransmission of the kifish message down the mahendo’sat link. “Jik’s got that,” Geran muttered, as the kif finished and Aja Jin acknowledged on that channel.
“This is The Pride of Chanur,” Hilfy sent back on the kifish link, unauthorized and in haste. “Harukkcom–where’s our personnel? What location?”
“I will ask authorization for that information, Chanur com.”
“They fear,” Skkukuk hissed at her back, “The hakkikt Sikkukkut is in distress-He does not have them prisoner. …”
Hilfy twisted round in her chair and stared full into the kif’s red-rimmed eyes. “Why?”
“Because, young Chanur, he says they are in danger. He admits a weakness. He promises retaliation. This is not control of the situation. It is not his doing. He would not claim weakness even in subterfuge.”
And on the Jik-channel, suddenly over general speaker: “We got personnel out on dock, we got Mahijiru move- Where be Pyanfar, Pride of Chanur? You got contact?”