The Kif Strike Back by CJ Cherryh

“You guess, you tell me.” She thumbed the safety back on her pistol, discovering her knees had gone to jelly. “Gods rot, I got a kif on my ship, and he wants to know what for. How should I know? I got ships incoming, I got a station in

kif hands, and the kif are playing tag.” She turned and stalked back toward the lift, turned again. “Stand guard down here. Doublecheck that gods-rotted lock that it’s closed, put that stuff away, and for the gods’ own sake you open that washroom door-I don’t care if the kif blows up, you open that door I’ll space you first, then the kif! Hear me?” His ears went down. His jaw dropped. She walked back into the lift.

“And next time,” she yelled back down the corridor, “when I say give a thing you don’t drop it, hear?” The door closed. He was still staring. She leaned on the lift wall as the car slammed up. She was shaking, gods, and food occurred to her. Desperately. But there was no time for that. “Haral. What’s going on?” “They’re entering critical approach.” “Both of them?” “Aye, captain. Both incoming.”

So it was not attack. Vigilance and Aja Jin were both committing themselves to dock and there was nothing left to defend their vulnerable backsides.

The car stopped; the doors opened. She stalked down the corridor toward the bridge.

“They’re on our beacon,” Haral’s voice continued from the com, tracking her on speakers down the corridor. “Kif are outputting guidance now. It jibes with ours. So far. Captain, we got another problem. Station-folk. We got our boards jammed with queries. We got panic out there.”

She muttered oaths and quickened her pace. Station riot. It was enough to coagulate any spacer’s blood. “We’ve got to hold this dock,” she said, arriving through corridor’s end onto the bridge; and not a harried head turned when her voice acquired a body. “Hilfy. Be polite. Tell the station-folk we got a sniper problem on this particular stretch of dock and keep off it.” She flung herself into her own chair and sent it whining about into position. Screens showed her what information The Pride could gather with station output reduced.

“Kif might agree to damp those station calls down,” Haral said.

“Better they get through. Less panic that way. Ten thousand citizens pouring down here after news is the last thing we need.”

“Uhnn.” Haral sent another list her way. “Messages you might want to see.”

She scanned it.

-Compliments of the hakkikt: system scan transmission is resumed for incoming ships. It will be accurate.

-The Personage urgently requests information-

-We make protests this insane and irresponsible action. Protest will be filed stsho authority-

-Compliments of the hakkikt, docking crews are ordered into position-

Thank the gods.

Jik of Aja Jin entered the bridge, Jik-alone: he wandered in like some bewildered spacer hunting a proper bar, his black face doleful and worried as ever. He wore a gold collar and half a dozen bracelets; a broad gold and bronze belt above a kilt of purple and bronze stripes; carried an AP gun in its black holster over all of this, weapon enough to take out half the bridge; two knives-Jik rarely underequipped himself, and the condition of the docks out there did not encourage optimism. “About time, Jik,” Pyanfar said to him.

“See? Tell you that new engine hold, a? You number one sharp, Pyanfar, handle this ship good. Ker Hilfy, good see you ‘live.”

“Na Jik.” Formal and self-contained. “Good to see you.”

Not when do we go in, how soon? Give me a gun. Hilfy kept to drill, part of crew. But if she had smiled since her rescue, it was perfunctory, tightly measured.

Through the several waiting hours.

Everyone waited. They waited still, disposed about the bridge, even Chur, who sat propped up in bandages-“You damn tough,” Jik vouchsafed, nodding Chur’s way. Chur flicked her ears. “I pass na Khym, a, say he got stand guard down in lower corridor. Ehrran clan all same got you airlock secure.” Jik leaned this rattling magnificence against the nearest counter edge, bit at a hangnail of one non-retracting claw. He looked weary as the rest of them. His eyes had wrinkles about their edges. There were deep creases by the corners of his mouth. “Also got hani guard take position on dockside. That Ehrran, she got ‘nough security both us, a? Same got quick trigger. Make me worry.”

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