And the world went to fire and sound.
“Good gods!” Geran cried; and Hilfy: “Something’s blown up! My gods-”
Smoke came rolling down the dock like a black wall, obscuring knots of miniaturized kif, throwing laser-fire into visibility before it swallowed everything. And there ahead was a cluster of red-brown amid all the black and gray, figures huddled together on dockside.
“Look!” Khym yelled, and headed that way, strung out as they were; and Hilfy grabbed Tully and ran. Sirens blew, decompression alert, the triple-interrupt pattern screaming alarms transspecies and translogic-the docks had gone unstable. An outer wall was in jeopardy. And gunfire never stopped. AP bursts peppered the inner walls and kif barred their way, backs turned toward their advance, kif pinning down that group of hani ahead.
Geran opened up and Hilfy did-braced for aim, then moved, for Khym risked their line of fire-rushed ahead firing as he went, and no matter his wretched marksmanship, there was no need to pick targets. The kif besiegers scattered, and Hilfy stumbled a step as a splinter hit her calf-recovered herself and kept going, in and out among the girders and cables. Shots still came and she fired back at opportunity, rounded the last comer of their cover and dashed across the open dock and in among the hani at Geran’s heels.
And stopped cold.
They were Ehrran crew, blackbreeches, who stood up to face them with guns and rifles leveled.
It was the second impact for a battered skull, and Pyanfar lay there retching after breath tinged with sweat and smoke and volatiles. Sound when it returned was a chilling siren above the thump of fire. She felt something stir against her, got her eyes focussed against a tendency to cross and stared over into Haral’s dazed face beside her.
“I think they got those cans,” Haral commented from the horizontal. “O gods, my head.” And started moving, swearing in soft incoherency. Pyanfar rolled on an elbow and sat up. “Gilan-”
The Tahar were all moving-sluggish, but moving. Haury proved life by turning on her side and trying to get up on her own; and Pyanfar swung round and looked where the sudden wild fix of Haury’s eyes went. Reflex pulled the trigger of a gun she had forgotten she was holding. The shell burst on a kif in mid-leap; and the remains thudded off their sheltering can-stack onto the deck hardly a bodylength distant, while three more kif scrambled for other cover.
She sat there and shook like a beardless youngster; and got her breath and shoved her heels and one hand under her. “Keep going,” she said in a voice that failed of steadiness, and looked up at the blank, unfriendly pressure-gates of a sealed ship-berth. An empty berth. Or a ship that had gone on protective internal seal. Those gates in that case could open and pour out hostile kif into their refuge at any moment. “We’ve got to keep going-”
“Haury,” Tav objected, wobbling to her knees. “Haury-”
It was so. Haury Savuun had to be carried. None of them had the wind for it. Pyanfar sank down where she was, on her heels, and Haral rested again, holding her hands locked behind a skull that was doubtless doing what hers was, a steady throbbing to the siren that told them the dock might blow to vacuum at any moment.
“They’ve stopped shooting,” Nif Angfylas said, her torn ears lifting despite her exhaustion. “Maybe-”
A shot hit the wall and they ducked and covered.
“Gods-be!” It was a new angle of fire, one forty five degrees oblique to their escape route, and high. “They got us pinned!”
Another shot exploded and Pyanfar tucked her head into her arms, lifted it with a sinking feeling-the opposite quarter, that time. “They got us crossed,” she yelled at Haral. “Get that gods-be sniper ahead highline, and watch your head! I think he’s on the second level walkway!”
She scrambled for the firepoint at the other corner of their shelter, and felt a presence close behind-Vihan Tahar, looting the dead kif’s body for weapon and cartridges. Vihan ducked in close at her shoulder while Haral took the other side of the console that offered their tiny triangle of shelter from incoming fire. Smoke roiled up and drifted in blinding clouds. Whatever had gone up had gone in a hurry-it smelled like fuel; but a lake of it still burned on the dock, sending a hellish glare up to the smoke-palled overhead. No fans working up there. The air ducts had gone sealed, not to encourage the fire.