She eased up, shut down altogether. The mahe had given up flexibility, launched themselves into the heart of things, deliberate and less and less able to veer off and handle a turn. “Maintain our options,” she said quietly.

Suddenly a freighter designated hani blossomed into chaff.

“Captain,” Tirun said. Three unidentifieds in the vicinity acquired the enemy designation. Mahijiru and Aja Jin swept toward the group.

“Keep out of our way, rot you,” Pyanfar muttered. Haral was on com, advising all ships in the area to head off the kif movement.

“Going to have the mahe in line of fire if they do a straight turnover,” Geran said. “Fire headon—”

“Going to let the kif pass our zenith,” Pyanfar said grimly. “That’s our best side anyway.”

“I’ve got it,” Tirun advised her, throwing the safety off the armaments of the upper frame.

“Knnn’s coming up,” Geran said sharply, and the proximity alarm beeped as the high-velocity ship ripped from tail to bow, nadir, gone into the developing mahe/kif confrontation so fast scan developed them a line of likely course.

“Mahijiru’s compliments.” Haral relayed.

Scan showed debris, hani, mahe, or kif was uncertain: positions were too close. Dots coincided and split as the kif moved toward them. Someone was hit; and suddenly the fight was headed The Pride’s way.

“Akukkakk’s there,” Pyanfar said, beyond doubt what kif would rate The Pride his prime target, disregarding the mahe who had just attacked.

“Two ship now,” Tully exclaimed. Scan showed the mahe still paired, no longer accelerating and probably braking for their return; showed hani moving on the kif from points of the sphere; and two active kif ships. The third was involved with a debris-track, near the knnn’s erratic blip. “That kif they get.”

“This pair we got,” Tirun muttered. The double image was closing with them, less and less interval, with their own impetus added to the kif s oncoming velocity. The knnn was on the return now, streaking out of the vicinity of the debris-track. Mahijiru and Aja Jin were farther and farther away, obliged to lose velocity before they could make way on the kif s heading, too close to traffic for jump pulses to assist.

“Which one?” Tirun asked.

“Take the best target,” Pyanfar said. “I can’t tell.” Hani jumpships were on the near-scan now, several of them, hammering toward intercept with the kif, but not in time for The Pride, No place for a freighter, a race with the swift hunter-ships, even cargo-dumped. No way to win.

“Now!”

The kif ripped past them, zenith, and they fired. Screens broke up. Explosion slammed The Pride askew and red-lighted the boards. Pyanfar reached in an adrenalin timestretch, fought the pitch and wobble. In the screen’s clearing a new rapid image bore down on them, a high knnn wail in com.

It went past them, zenith. Pyanfar spun The Pride one hundred eighty degrees in a tail roll, anticipating a kif turnover and return pass, hoping to get a shot off. Mahijiru and Aja Jin would come; were coming; might get back in time. The Pride fired back as the guns came in line: the kif had proceeded into turnover as their respective momentum separated them, and fire came back, broke up screens, red-lighted remaining clear boards.

“Got one,” Geran yelled. “Look at that bastard wobble. By the gods we got him!”

Fire from the other kept up. The interval was still increasing between them, but at a slower rate. It would be coming back… soon.

“Goldtooth,” Pyanfar said, punching in the com, “rot you, hurry it a bit, someone out there hurry it.”

The knnn was pulling about in a tight turn, one of those maneuvers a knnn could survive and hani could not. It zigged into the interval, into the line of fire.

“Good job,” Goldtooth’s voice reached The Pride. “Got—”

Com broke up. Scan suddenly went berserk, all the sensors blind…

…jump field. Gods, a jump field — in crowded space.

“Captain!” Tirun yelled, far away and suddenly close as the field let them go. Tully cried out, a miserable wail.

Something was there — where nothing had been; a massive presence, a vast blip on scan as it cleared, a monster located to starboard zenith. They were off their heading, displaced. Everyone was. Comp was flickering wildly trying to compensate. Pyanfar keyed into the system, trying to get sense out of it. Gods, the newcomer was huge. Scan had the other blips, that were the kif and the mahe and the hani and the solitary knnn—

“Captain.” Haral’s voice. Corn went on broadcast again, a wailing chorus which overburdened the audio, noise vibrating above and below hearing, wounding the ears.

The huge blip broke apart, fragmented, not debris, but discrete parts of which one stayed central and the rest sped outward.

“Knnn,” Pyanfar breathed. “Traveling in synch. Gods help us all.”

“Hani—” Com crackled through the static, a familiar, kifish voice. “Pyanfar Chanur—”

The knnn ships moved together, a cloud of them, headed for the kif; and all at once the kif s outgoing velocity began to show increase — Akukkakk had way and he was throwing everything he had into it. Retreating. Unable to boost up: the knnn were too close, and closer yet.

The solitary knnn ship zigged and darted and joined the chase.

“Chanur!” Goldtooth said.

Pyanfar watched the screens, frozen in place. Hani voices came over com, panicked, questioning. The chase on scan gathered more and more velocity.

Of a sudden came another output, a signal which made no sense to comp: scan started blinking on the ship-sized object the knnn had left behind, asking operator intervention.

An alien voice came over com, Tully-like and frightened.

Pyanfar cast a glance at Tully, who clung sweating and jump-shocked to the edge of the com counter, whose eyes stared wildly as the voice kept going.

“## ship,” translator rendered the transmission from the newcomer. “## ship ## you.”

“Com!” Pyanfar yelled at Haral and got it. Her heart pounded against her ribs. “This is the hani ship The Pride of Chanur. You’re in hani space. Friend, hear?”

“Captain,” Tirun cried, “Captain, the knnn—”

The translator response droned in her ears. Pyanfar stared at the screen, at a narrower and narrower gap between the knnn and the fleeing kif. “Tully,” she said without looking around. “Haral — give him com. Give it to him.”

The translator voice went out, cut. She flung an instant’s look back, at Tully, who had gotten himself together, who had the mike in hand and talked a wild-eyed rapid patter at these creatures who had arrived in knnn synch, in a ship which had come in hauled like so much freight, unable to communicate with the knnn—

“Captain—”

She looked about again. Knnn closed with Hinukku, surrounded the kif, became one mass about it, as they had been massed about the Outsider ship at its arrival.

“Gods,” Tirun muttered.

“They’re trading,” Pyanfar said incredulously. “Like at Kirdu — gods, they’re making a trade. An Outsider ship — for Hinukku. For Akukkakk.”

“Pyanfar!” Goldtooth’s voice came over com. “You got sense these bastard?”

“Human ship,” Pyanfar said, punching in her still-active link. “The knnn just dropped a live cargo on us. Tully’s kind. — They’re still going, by the gods, the knnn are still going, outbound.”

“Kif ship leave station,” Jik cut in. “He go.”

A solitary kif, of the crippled three at station… it was so: a lame kif without a tail, headed out on the course of the other lame kif, inching his way into retreat. “Right down the incoming strike track, that’s their course,” Pyanfar said, fairly shaking with excitement. “By the great and lesser gods, they’re pulling out, they’re going to run.”