The City Who Fought

Weird, Channa thought, ostentatiously looking down at her notescreen. There had been no reprisals at all for the deaths and there had been a fair number. The Kolnari had just increased their patrols, as if taunting the stationers.

Channa turned to the pirate technician. Even weirder. You didn't think of pirates as having technicians. They looked much the same as the sleekly dangerous warriors and flamboyant nobles, but brisker.

Then again, they've kept thousands of people and hundreds of ships going for three generations-seven of theirs.

"Lord," she said in the appropriate meek tone, "here's the next load. Do you accept?"

The Kolnari looked at the fabricator. It was a spindle-shaped synth-and-metal machine about three meters long and one through at the widest point; half tubing and molecular shape chambers, half modules. Both points of the spindle ended in tapped burls that fitted into a bearing race. Underneath it was a floater cradle with-apparently-six arms and a twenty-centimeter base.

The Kolnari said something in her own language to her team-women were more common among their technical class, evidently-and they went to work, plugging in their own info-systems and a portable power-feed to bring the fabricator up to standby.

"All order is," the pirate said to her, waving her back. "Scumvermin, next bring."

The loading bay was one hundred meters by two hundred by three. Two Clan transports were docked at the outer hatches. Two-thirds of the way down the deck, the enemy had drawn a red line. On either side was a squad in power armor. Floating over them were pods of small servo-guns, antipersonnel weapons, heavy needlers that could be fired without endangering the fabric of the station. The weapons were highly dangerous to anyone not in combat armor, of course. Stationside of the line were civilians, working mostly in their own teams with a few Kolnari for supervision. Dockside of the line were only the Clan crews. There were three checks from the initial position to the line: once while the equipment was being stripped down, a second when the stationer stevedores took charge, and a third when it was ready to go over the line itself.

If any of the checks showed damage, the stationers in charge were flogged to death with a powered whip. Falling below quota earned ten strokes, which reduced the team's efficiency drastically but was a very potent motivator.

It was ingenious, and working far too well.

Simeon murmured again, "Yeah, they're locked in."

Channa forced herself not to look at the eyes of the Kolnari. However Simeon was doing it, it was not simple holographic projection. Maybe tightbeam on the retina…

Amos was whistling cheerfully as he swung the lifter around. God, he's even gutsier than he is pretty, Channa thought. They'd volunteered for this. Too many nerves had been shattered by the holocast record of the floggings. Someone had to restore confidence. To the Kolnari, it looked like the leaders were giving an example of enthusiastic obedience. Joseph bowed low as he handed over the controller pad for the cradle. Across the back of his overall was printed Scumvermin Rule OK. One of Simeon's suggestions to build morale.

The cradle followed obediently over the red line, behind the Kolnari technicians and toward the waiting cargo bay of the transport. The line divided the gravity fields; one Standard gravity at the line itself, running quickly up to 1.6 at the lowered ramp-entrance. The work party moved through the crowds and the waiting chains of lifters. There was a howl as the four light arms-suddenly there were only four-of the cradle gave way. The Kolnari team leapt in fearlessly, but the lifter failed in a burst of sparks and boomed hollowly to the deck plates. The fabricator slewed out of the broken cradle and onto the bent legs of the crew chief as she heaved back at the weight ten times her own.

The pirate alarms rang like angry windchimes. Channa and the others froze. So did the damaged tech. The other Kolnari lifted the damaged fabricator and set it down on a pad of packing-fiber nearby; lifting with unison grunt of effort and walking six steps with a low-voiced chant. They set the machine down with a mother's tender care. The tech lay with the broken bones projecting through the dark skin of her kneecaps, blood welling around them and the whites showing all around her honey-colored eyes. The flying guns swooped in. Channa found herself looking down the business end of one, and so did each of the group that had brought the ruined machine to the edge of the Kolnari line.

Warriors followed; not the armored specialists, but crew on rotation duty. One was pulling a powered whip from his belt as he came. Channa closed her eyes, but the first stroke never landed. She heard his voice murmur the Kolnari equivalent of, "Yes, sir."