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wall. "We'll talk about it later. Can you get the door open?" he asked.
"I think so, my lord," Kirha replied, staring at the door. He scratched
against the plastic, a combination of long and short vertical lines. A
moment later, the door slid open silently. Hunter pulled himself through
the hatchway after Kirha, into a scene of total chaos.
Dozens of tall, feathered Firekkans were gathered in the large room, all
staring at him with large, unblinking eyes.
Frightened, shock-filled eyes.
"Come on, everyone, follow me! This is a jailbreak," he yelled, gesturing
to them. "Come on, I'm getting you out of here!"
No one moved.
"Doesn't anyone speak English here?" he shouted into the milling mass
of Firekkans. "Hell," he muttered. "I wasn't expecting this."
Kirha spoke quietly. "My lord, I believe I have a solution for the
problem."
"Yeah, sure, go ahead."
Kirha took a deep breath, and screamed a vicious snarl in his own
language. A battle cry, Hunter realized a moment later. The Firekkans
flapped their wings wildly, rushing into one corner of the room.
"An inferior prey-species," Kirha commented, looking at the agitated
Firekkans. He worked his way around the room, and the massed Firekkans
backed away from him, until he was between them and most of the room.
And they were now quite near the open door.
"No, I think you were speaking in a universal language, mate," Hunter
said with a grin. "This way, this way," he said, gesturing at the door. One
of the Firekkans edged forward, then another, moving toward the door. A
young-looking Firekkan said something shrill in her own language, and
the rest of the Firekkans began moving toward the door as well.
"Let's go, let's go!" Hunter shouted, chivvying the mass of Firekkans
through the hatch.
Hunter discovered a trait of the Firekkans that no one had warned him
about; when stressed, they moulted.
Stray plumes floated in the wake of the fleeing flock, leaving a trail
anyone could follow, and making him sneeze. Kirha batted puffs of down
away from his face as he moved beside Hunter, pushing off from the walls
to gain momentum in the null gravity. Every few seconds, he screamed
another battle-cry whenever it looked as if the Firekkans might be slowing
down.
At this point it was probably fair to assume that the escape wasn't
exactly covert anymore. Hunter hoped that their very disorganization was
going to work in their favor; what the Kilrathi couldn't predict, they
couldn't deal with.
But he didn't even know whether they were all in the right corridor.
Hell of a note, if their headlong stampede ran them into a dead end, or a
docking bay that contained, say, a ship full of Kilrathi ground-troops.
"There!" Kirha shouted, pointing past the bobbing crests of the fleeing
Firekkans. "Look! Is that not "
It was the docks, the right docks too, and there were K'Kai and
Paladin, K'Kai screeching something in Firekkan and Paladin faced away
from them, presumably watching for more Kilrathi fighters. Now the
Firekkans slowed, confused
All but one, who shot out of the flock like a bullet, heading straight for
K'Kai.
A little Firekkan, half the size of the others. As this one began a
bob-and-weave dance around K'Kai, Hunter realized this must be the
niece, Rikik.
K'Kai spread her wings and Rikik huddled under them; K'Kai cuddled
her close, like a mother hen with a chick. At this point there was too much
noise from the rest of the Firekkans for Hunter to hear anything, as they
figured out that they were not being herded into a slaughter, they were
being rescued.
And, characteristically, they had to stop and discuss it.
Hunter swore. "K'Kai!" he shouted. "Front and center "
K'Kai looked up, and took in the situation in a glance. She uttered a
shriek in Firekkan, and shoved her niece away, towards the flock, then ran
back towards Hunter, still shrieking.
The rest of the Firekkans jumped in startlement, but began moving
again. K'Kai came in from the side, her faster niece from the rear, both of
them shrieking alarm calls and shooing the other Firekkans towards the
ramp, getting them up and through the airlock as fast as they could
squeeze.
Hunter took a deep breath of relief just as the squadron of Kilrathi
ground-troops came around the bend of the docking-corridor and hit the
floor in firing position.
* * *
K'Kai had used up her entire vocabulary of curse words and was
starting over. Most of these gently reared flock-leaders had probably never
heard anything like it in their lives, but Rikik had already picked up a
half-dozen of the choicest bits of invective and was swearing like a
stevedore. K'Kai was proud of her, though Rikik's mother (her memory be
forever cherished) was probably spinning on her funeral-tree like a
navigational gyroscope.
But she was paying far more attention to the disorderly flock than she
was to anything behind her, so the first shots took her as much by surprise
as the rest of them. Instinctively, she hit the floor, as two of the flock
shrieked and fell.
Rikik kept right on shooing the rest into the ship; Hunter beside her.
K'Kai took a quick look around; Paladin was nowhere in sight, but the
subsonic rumble of a ship's engines warming up told her he had squirmed
in among the Firekkans and was at the helm.
That left her and Kirha to play rear-guard.
And for the first time in months, she was facing Kilrathi as an
equal equally armed, and ready to collect some blood-debts.
"Eat fire, featherless scum!" she screamed, and opened up. Beside her,
Kirha was firing too, but she noticed that he was trying to keep his shots
aimed just above the Kilrathi ears.
For a moment, she was outraged. How dared he spare the enemy!
Then she realized what they were to him. His people, his species. Maybe
even cats he knew.
Her rage cooled just a little, and out of consideration for his feelings,
she tried to follow his lead, in keeping her shots from actually hitting the
targets. No, she couldn't blame him and when one of the cats noticed
what they were doing and tried to charge, Kirha's shot hit him in the chest
a fraction of a second before hers did. But his heart plainly wasn't in this
She glanced back for a moment, as Kirha's volley gave her a free second.
The last Firekkan plume cleared the airlock even as she turned, and
Hunter was gesturing wildly at her for her to run.
"Kirha," she shouted, "They are clear! Get in the ship, I will cover you!"
He glanced back, saw that she was right, and turned to run; she gave
him a volley of covering fire and half-rose for her own sprint
Pain!
Her leg buckled and she fell to the floor; as if in slow-motion, she saw
Hunter tense, tried to stand and felt her leg give again, and knew she
wasn't going to make it to the airlock
Then, something grabbed her. She squawked in mingled surprise and
pain as she was hoisted into the air; her breath exploded from her in a
whuff as her chest hit a furry shoulder. She looked up, seeing the Kilrathi
rising to their feet and running towards them
But Kirha put on a burst of speed that would have been impossible even
for a Firekkan, ducked under the oncoming shots as if he knew where they
were, and dashed up the ramp just as the airlock door closed behind them.
He dropped her on the floor; growled "Brace yourself," as he dropped
down beside her. That was all the time they had; she slid sideways into the
rear corner as Paladin blew the docking hatch and accelerated out of the
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