Chanur's Homecoming

She scanned the list, flicked a glance over at number three monitor on her board, where augmented scan showed nine ships moving with them. Five hani, Aja Jin, and three kifish ships. The list showed tests run, checkout made, Tauran’s agreement to crew assignment and quarters, status on Chur, and the fact that ops-com was open all over the ship for anyone who wanted to access it.

Course plot: affirm.

She affirmed. Plotting came up, splitscreen with data.

It was an illegal course, skipping to Urtur’s zenith, braking hard, and jumping again from the incoming range. No passage through the dust-and-gas soup of the accretion disc at the ecliptic. No high-V passage through that.

It was also where trouble would be waiting. Best of all if they could have skipped directly nadir; but few stars had such a relative axial tilt that made that maneuver possible. The Meetpoint Mass and Urtur were not two of them; and trying it would probably pull them at high-V right into the worst of the disc.

If it did not drop them instead right into the heart of the well, into the bosom of Urtur’s sullen yellow sun.

“We running calc on our collective?” she asked, while the chronometer ticked down. “Where is it?”

“We got it,” Haral said. “It’s going. We’re sequenced two minutes apart, you want it closer?”

“Gods, no.” They were going to make one long streamer through hyperspace as it was, which was going to put some additional push on all of them, and that meant being very careful on the braking capacity. There was fuel-mass to worry about. They could not afford wastage. Little Starwind had particular trouble in that regard. The Pride had large fuel cap, but also a larger mass with that new engine pack; and as for the rest, freighters were designed to haul, not do stop-and-turns under fire, even if the super-sized tanks and small unladed mass were in their favor on this run. All tanks and engines and hollow holds. But no extra shielding. It was going to be touchy. In all departments. She pulled the figures up-telemetry was flowing between ships now, fast and furious, catching up on status advisements. Their weakest was Lightweaver, with Star of Tauran and Vrossaru’s Outbounder both left behind at dock. Lightweaver had to trail them; no other position for a ship with that mass/engine ratio.

The three kif ran ahead, indubitably with live armaments and kifishly intent on the business in front of them. A chance for distinction. For advancement. A proof of the hakkikt’s favor.

And doubtless having their own instructions: the ops log had a separate note from Hilfy: a great deal of kifish chatter had gone on between Harukk and the ships of the escort.

Coded, to be sure.

“Give me Jik’s map.”

“Your three,” Haral said, and it displaced the display on that screen.

She studied it, watched it flick through its dated changes, the moving and spreading of kifish power over decades; and mahen actions; and the sudden intrusion of humanity. . . .

... the slow ebb of hani influence.

Gods rot you, Jik—

Her pulse quickened, watching it through again. It was truth, unpalatable, plain, and simple. Jik had made a political statement, telling her more than she asked, more than timetables: the information went into history as well as the imminent future.

“Ker Fiar. Ker Sifeny.” Her mind had two spare moments, amid the scramble to catch up. “This is Pyanfar Chanur; welcome aboard.”

“Captain,” a double murmur came back. Gods knew what their captain had instructed them-before she abandoned The Star and they boarded. Things like: keep an eye on the bastards? Wait my orders? Keep your heads down and be polite?

We’ll take the ship if we have to, and mahen devils take the kif and all foreigners?

“We’re not a by-the-book ship,” she said. “You can guess that, the way things have been running. The second you get something my First better know about, you sing out Priority-priority and you get it; interstation com’s usually free for crew chatter, meanwhile, station-station or all-stations, same as my own crew, no differences on this deck. We got non-hani aboard, same rules, and men on this ship get no special courtesy, no discourtesy either. We got a long trip and a hard one and Chanur’s grateful for all the help we got; we need it at the other end too. You want to know anything, you ask, we’ll answer; you have any trouble, you come to me same as your own captain. You won’t have any trouble. If you do, I want to know about it. Hear?”

“Aye,” the double voices came back.

Probably unconvinced.

“There’s Chakkuf jumped,” Sif Tauran said.

“Got that,” Haral said.

“Priority,” Geran snapped, and scan flashed to monitor one. “We got movement incoming, bearing 05, 35, 19, point zero zero 3 by 5 Gs-”

An object was out there, coming out of concealment and accelerating as if devils were behind it.

“Time we got out of here,” Pyanfar muttered. “Gods and thunders, it had to be on our side of the system-”

“Priority,” Geran said, “Sikkukkut’s moving."

Scan showed the color-shift.