The Pride of Chanur

“Not for rescue,” Pyanfar said quietly.

“Repairs underway,” Haral said. “Vane’s unsecured. If they’re ru

Tirun came limping in, loping haste, and there was a query from lowerdeck. “You’re getting all we’ve got,” Haral relayed to Geran and Chur below. “Can’t tell anything yet.”

“Come on,” Pyanfar muttered to the blip on systemic image. “Do it, Faha. Get out of there.” She sank down into the com cushion, an eye still toward the screen, and punched through the station op code. “This is The Pride of Chanur. Urgent relay the stationmaster, Pyanfar Chanur speaking: warn you of possible hostile pursuit on tail of incoming emergency. Repeat: warn you of possible hostile pursuit of incoming emergency.”

“This message receive clear, Pride of Chanur. Mahen ships answer emergency. Please stand by.”

She watched scan, rested a knuckle against her teeth and hissed a breath. Ships showed in the schematic, traffic at dead standstill compared to the incoming streak that was Starchaser, motion slowed enough to see only because of systemwide scale. Everything was history, the images on the scope, the voices from the zone of emergency. Unable to dump velocity, Starchaser would streak helplessly across the system and lose herself on an unaimed voyage to infinity. It was a long way to die.

“Lost the transmission,” Haral said. Hilfy edged in, looking desperate, tried the switches herself past Haral’s side. Pyanfar gnawed the underside of a^ claw and shook her head. The business of getting a jump-mazed crew on their feet and headed to the escape pod — in Starchaser’s type, high up on the frame — and get it away, all this within the minutes they had left…

Then they could only hope, if they could make it that far, that the pod’s engines could hammer down the velocity, give some jumpship the chance to match velocities and lock onto the pod’s small, manageable mass, so that they could be dumped down. That freighter out there was the best chance the crew had, if only they could get loose.

“Pod’s away!” Haral exclaimed, and Tirun and Hilfy were pounding each other on the back. Pyanfar clenched her two hands together in front of her mouth and stared flateared at the scan, where a new schematic indicated the probable course of the pod which had now parted company with doomed Star-chaser. Both dots advanced along the track, but a gap developed, the pod’s deceleration far from sufficient to rid itself of a jumpship’s velocity before it gave out, but doing what it could. The crew would likely black out in the stress: that was a mercy. Now it was a race to see if the freighter could overhaul the pod or whether the pod would leave the system.

“Mahe freighter?” Pyanfar asked.

Haral nodded.

The Pride was on station-fed transmission; and station had to be using the feed from ships farther out, the Lijahan mines, whatever was in a position to have data, and relative time was hard to calculate now. The freighter came up by major increments while the minutes passed, boosting itself on its jump field. The gap still narrowed with agonizing sluggishness, as scan shifted, keeping up with events which were now long decided.

Com sputtered, a wailing transmission. K

Station command responded, a tc’a voice. There were other transmissions, k

“Chanur,” said a hani voice, clear and close at hand. “Is this also your doing?”

Pyanfar reached for it, punched in the contact, retracted the claw with a moral effort. “Tahar, is that a question or a complaint?”

“This is Dur Tahar. It’s a question, Chanur. What do you know about this?”

“I told you. Let’s keep it off com, Tahar.”

Silence. The Tahar were no allies of the Faha crew. It was a Chanur partisan in trouble, but if any ship at station could have moved in time, Moon Rising would have tried: she did not doubt it. It was a painful thing to watch, what was happening on scan. Close to her, Tirun had settled, and Hilfy, simply watching the screen while her Faha kinswomen and the wreckage that had been a Faha ship hurtled closer and closer to the boundaries of the pickup. After such a point insystem scan could not follow them. Station was getting transmission now from a different source, from the merchanter Hasatso, the freighter tracking Starchaser, the only ship in range. The blip that was Starchaser itself finally went off the screen.

“Chanur ship,” station sent. “Tahar ship. Advise you merchanter Hasatso have make cargo dump; do all possible.”

“Chanur and Faha will compensate,” Pyanfar replied, and hard upon that Moon Rising sent thanks to Hasatso via station. “Gods look on them,” Haral muttered — a cargo dumped, to close the gap, to close on an emergency not of their species.

K

“They’re nearly on it,” Hilfy breathed.

“They’ve got them,” said Tirun. “No way they can miss now.”

It went slowly. The transmissions from Hasatso became more and more encouraging; and at long last they reported capture. “Hani signal,” Hasatso told Kirdu Station, “in pod. Live.”

Pyanfar breathed out the breath she had been holding. Gri

“Received,” Tahar said curtly.

Pyanfar broke it off, sat a moment with hands clasped on the board in front of her. A ship lost; a tradition; that deserved its own mourning. Home and life to the Faha crew, and that was gone. “Station,” she sent after a moment, “advise the Faha crew that Chanur sends its profound sorrow, and that ker Hilfy Chanur par Faha will offer the resources of The Pride of Chanur, such as they are.”

“Advise them,” another voice sent directly, “that Dur Tahar o/Tahar’s Moon Rising also offers her assistance.”

That was courtesy. Pyanfar leaned back in the cushion, finally turned and rose with a stretch of her shoulders. “What can be done’s done. Go fetch something to drink, Hilfy; if I’m roused out, someone owes me that. Drink for all that want it. Breakfast. I’ll hear reports less urgent during. — Haral, who’s supposed to be on duty?”

“I am.”

“So. Then close down lowerdeck. Tirun, back you go.”

“Aye” Tirun muttered, and levered herself up stiffly and limped off in Hilfy’s wake. Pyanfar settled against the com post counter and looked at Haral, seated at the number two spot.

“That k

“Huh. Only grant they all stay put.”

“Skimmer’s still working out there at our tail. They’ve got a crew outside working the co

“Gods.” Pyanfar ran a hand over her brow and into her mane, thinking of kif — of attack which had chewed Starchaser to scrap. There were others besides the k

Word was out; rumor… had a wind up everyone’s back.

“The Tahar,” Haral said further, after a moment, “appealed that order to put out with an appeal to finish cargo operations. It was allowed.”