Collision Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

“What is this place?” Rose asked as she stopped in front of the door to a structure set into rock. It was set almost flush with a cliff face, and was a similar color. She guessed it would be almost impossible to see from above.

“It doesn’t matter.” The man opened the door and held it for her. “You are not a guest here, you are a prisoner.”

She didn’t want to go in there.

She had a feeling once she was in, she would lose all options.

Right now, she had the sense they didn’t expect any trouble from her. They had ordered, and she had obeyed.

Maybe it was time to stop doing that.

As she’d walked through the narrow causeway of rocks to the building, she’d noticed her guards struggled to breathe, and she guessed this was some kind of outpost.

Crythis had called it Dimal. It might be a habitable moon, as the massive gas giant she could see above would most likely have a few.

Whether the air suited her or not didn’t matter, fortunately, because she was wearing her necklace, but looking at her captors struggling to draw in enough air, she decided there would never be a better chance to escape than now.

Once that door closed behind her, they had her trapped.

She bent forward, hands on her knees, as if catching her breath, which she guessed they wouldn’t see as too strange, given their own troubles in that area. She glanced up ahead, trying to work out whether running back the way she’d come was better, or if there was an alternative.

She spotted a path to the left which turned and then led up a steep incline.

That would favor her over her guards. They’d have a lot harder time chasing her up a hill if they were already struggling for breath on flat land.

She straightened up, sighed as if capitulating, and then put on a burst of speed, dodging around the woman and taking the path at a dead run.

She heard a shout of surprise behind her, and her back tingled at the possibility of some kind of shot from a weapon, although she hadn’t seen anything that was obviously a weapon on either one of her minders.

She turned the corner, started up the hill, and when she had a clear view of the building again, a couple of minutes later, she saw the man was still standing by the door, head bent as he spoke into a comm.

She guessed the woman was running after her.

She found running at over eight months pregnant a very uncomfortable endeavor, and she wished she didn’t have to do it, but she made it to the top of the hill quicker than she thought.

She looked back, saw the woman on a switchback below, leaning on a rock as she took a rest and tried to get her breath.

Time to get off the path.

She looked around, saw what seemed to be a relatively easy climb up the side of the cliff to her right, and decided to risk it.

She carefully chose each hand and foothold, aware that every advance she made was just that much further to fall.

When she reached the top it was almost a surprise, her focus was so fixed on the handhold right in front of her.

She pulled herself up awkwardly, giving her bump a rub as she turned and sat, legs dangling down as she caught her breath.

The was no sign of the woman yet, and she crawled away from the edge, standing when she was far enough back not to be seen from the path below, and then took stock of her new surroundings.

There were strange, scrubby bushes, and more of the interesting rock formations, but the ground up here was a sloping plateau that ended in sharp-looking mountains in the distance. She also thought she might have caught a glimmer of water.

She had no food, but water would be good.

She pushed aside her worry at her circumstances, sure that this had been the best option.

She had been held prisoner before, and she never wanted to be in that situation again.

The baby kicked at that moment, and she felt a wave of relief that everything seemed normal.

She straightened her shoulders, and tears suddenly blinded her as she was swamped with emotion. She had thought living on the edges of Grih society, of finding a way for her baby to integrate into the only world she would know, was hard.

This was harder.

But it was reality. She blew out the breath she was holding, shook her shoulders like a boxer loosening up for a fight, and began walking in the direction of what she hoped was water, winking in the distance.