Chanur's Homecoming

The kif would. If they had our options. Poor naive sons. They don’t understand what’s all round* them. They don’t understand what hani are capable of. Fire on them-and change us forever. Do that-and be sure there is a forever. “You want me to trim us up?” Haral asked, while several channels of com talked away, getting damage reports out of other ships, ascertaining casualties. Fortune reported minimal damage. Light was going to have to limp into dock. There were others. The information came up on the screens.

Ayhar’s Prosperity: damage: no casualties.

Harun’s Industry: heavy damage: braking and maneuvering positive. Casualties: four.

Faha’s Starwind: heavy damage: casualties: two.

Pauran’s Lightweaver: vane gone: casualties: minor.

Ehrran’s Vigilance: no damage: no casualties.

Nirasun’s Melody: minor damage: no casualties.

Shaurnurn’s Hope: lost.

Tahar’s Moon Rising: out of contact.

Suranun’s Fairwind: out of contact.

The list went on. More and more names. They blurred in her sight. As The Pride braked, and the stress hammered away at them.

Then: “Priority, priority,” Geran exclaimed. As scan started blinking furiously. “Breakout zenith.”

Ships were coming in. A lot of them. One; and three more. And five.

“O my gods,” Sirany breathed.

“If it’s Akkhtimakt-”

Then the ID started flashing. Mahendo’sat.

Mahijiru.

“Goldtooth,” Pyanfar muttered, and slammed her fist down on the console rim. “Goldtooth, gods rot him-Now he shows up. Now, by the gods, now he comes chasing in here, comes in here with by the gods bastard frigging mahen interests, to sweep up the poor godsforsaken hani they’ve done it to again, b’gods greater and lesser, one more frigging time we bleed for them, their godscursed meddling selfish gods-be-feathered interests! Tully!”

“Aye, cap’n!”

“Get on that com, hear, com! Fast. Tell the humans no shooting, understand, don’t shoot!”

“Don’t shoot, I got, I got, cap’n!”

It started going out.

And hard on it: “Mahijiru, this is The Pride of Chanur. Cease fire, cease fire. These are allied ships. Dump and brake and hold off. Do not transit the system. Other mahen ships hold the approach to Ajir: nothing passed here beyond their capacity to deal with and mahen authorities in that direction are forewarned. Repeat: the Ajir approach is defended by mahen ships. Stay where you are. All mahen ships anywhere receiving: this is Pyanfar Chanur on The Pride of Chanur: cease all hostilities. End. Repeat that.” She slumped back then, at the end of her energies. “Till response.”

“We have a transmission from Vigilance. They register protest.”

“Tell ’em-tell ’em we note it. Tell them-” It was easier and easier to think in kifish mode. “Stand in line, gods rot it. And consider where they are.”

There were more and more ships arriving in the range. It was nightmare. If it had been an hour earlier it would have been a rescue.

By that much, you cursed bastard. By that much you missed it.

By that much Tahar was almost with us. Across all that space. Goldtooth must have held Sikkukkut-must have pinned them down good. The kif must have thrown something at him again at Kura. Must have-gods know what they did. Keeping Sikkukkut from overjumping us. When he came in here he was desperate. Needing me, for godssakes. He couldn’t fire on me, I was the last hope he had.

We got ships out there-needing help.

“Human ship!” Tully cried. And talked to someone a steady stream of babble, as if they were on the same timeline. It was Tully’s old message those incoming ships must have picked up. It was the old message they had responded to.

The same as Goldtooth must have gotten their own former chatter, and known well what ships were out to meet the enemy. She cut the mains, let them go inertial on what they still had, on the rotational G.

While Tully poured out something, rapid and urgent. And went on saying it. One assumed it was friendly. One assumed nothing nowadays.

She felt a hundred years older. And turned herself and her chair and looked over the bridge, at a crew worn and tired beyond clear sense, at more gray hah- than she recalled a few weeks ago. Or maybe it was the stark lighting. Or maybe it was that they all looked older, thinner, abraded away by distances and a load they had carried too long.

/ want to see Chanur again.

But Chanur land was Mann territory. Nothing could change that, unless Kohan could take Kara Mahn; and the weary, grayed man who had met her on Gaohn docks had not the strength left. The wit, yes; the wit and the will and the canny good sense that had been more than figurehead in Chanur these many hard years. A real power. A mind and an insight shrewder than many a woman’s. But time bore down on Kohan, that was all. The only hope was Hilfy Chanur, who might find herself a man to take care of Kara Mahn: there was nothing Pyanfar Chanur or Rhean or any of the former powers could do about it any longer.