Collision Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Rose was submerged in the bath again the next morning when her earpiece blasted static.

She shot up to the surface, gasping, and after a moment of nothing, took out the earpiece she had all but forgotten she still had in, and wondered if she’d damaged it somehow.

It was supposed to be waterproof, but what had that been?

“Sazo? Dav?” She dried it, and her ear, and put it back in, but there was nothing but silence.

Shit.

She hoped Sazo hadn’t chosen the moment she was underwater to contact her, and the water had somehow blocked the signal.

She forced herself to take deep breaths.

If that had been him, he would try again.

She pulled out a towel and dried off, looking around the bathroom with approval. The deep cylinder cut into the rock which made up the plunge bath was one and a half times her height. She pressed the button to drain it, and the water was sucked away and refilled, ready for the next use.

She assumed it was purified somewhere and recirculated.

It was hot, the deep water had cradled her very pregnant body, and the soap she had found smelled divine.

The Fisone had one tick in the positive column, at last.

She had only just found the energy the night before to wash out her clothes, and now she pulled them on, feeling better than she had since she was taken.

She picked up the translator when she was ready, and stepped out of the room.

“Good morning, Pyre,” she said, looking down the empty corridor. “Where is everyone?”

“Morning. The Hasmarga are all together in the dining room. Turn right at the next passage and you’ll find it.”

She expected them to be standing around as they had around the truck fire, but instead they were on the floor in a kind of yoga child’s pose, arms tucked close to their bodies, heads bowed, the thick, bulky carapace on their backs covering most of them. She stopped short in the doorway, eyes wide.

“This is the first time they have been able to rest properly since they were taken.” Pyre spoke softly through the translator, and Rose wondered why she didn’t just speak through her earpiece, like she had when Rose had first been taken by the mine guards. “They brought the food they had at the mine with them last night, and once they had eaten, most of them shut down like this.”

“How is Gerna?” Rose whispered, backing out of the room to find the kitchen. She hadn’t been able to identify the matriarch among the bodies.

“She and two of her warriors have found a room to rest,” Pyre said.

“And the prisoners?” Rose asked. She was beginning to feel a little bad about abandoning the Hasmarga and Pyre to deal with things last night. She stepped into the kitchen, and saw what had been done with the prisoners right away.

Both of them were locked into what looked like a trolley cage, possibly for delivering supplies off a spaceship.

It was on wheels, and the lock on the door looked improvised, which made it even more likely it had simply been for transport of food and other supplies before.

They came up on their knees when they saw her, and she wondered if they had been left without anyone to guard them, when she noticed a Hasmarga curled up like his friends next door, asleep behind a table.

The woman spoke to her, voice urgent, and Pyre translated.“What are you going to do with us?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Rose began looking in cupboards for the things she was familiar with from the watch station.

She found some of the vile protein bars and walked over to hand them through the cage to the Fisone.

They took them happily enough, and Rose kept up her search.

She finally found a cooling unit and crouched in front of it, pulling out a few things she didn’t think had been on the menu in the watch station, as well as the carrot things she’d tried before.

When she found the thick jelly-like food, she lifted it to show the Fisone and they both nodded they would like some. She cut off pieces for them, and then began to cut thin slices of everything she’d decided to try.

“Do you drink anything hot?” she asked the prisoners, suddenly wishing for a cup of grinabo like she wanted her next breath.

They looked blankly at her. “Hot?”

She shrugged it away. Obviously they didn’t. She had water, she had food, she was clean, and for the moment, she was safe.

Things were looking a lot better than they had been yesterday.

But better was relative. What she really wanted was to be back with Dav and Sazo. Back with Hri Revel to take care of her when the baby came.

Back home.

“I have to get away from here.” She put the food she had sliced on a plate, filled two cups with water and passed them to the prisoners, and then took her own cup and plate out of the kitchen.

“Where is the comms station?” she asked Pyre.

“You are going to try to reach your people?” Pyre asked.

“I think they tried to contact me earlier this morning. I got a burst of static through my earpiece. Did you pick up anything like that?” Rose followed Pyre’s directions and found a small room that looked similar to the one she’d sat in at the watch station.

“I noticed it. I thought it was the Fisone,” Pyre said. “I tried to deflect it.”

What?

Rose closed her eyes. This was simply a failure to communicate. And she couldn’t blame Pyre or herself. They had been fighting for their lives before now, and neither of them had done much talking.

“My friend Sazo will be trying to contact me, using my earpiece,” Rose said. “He and my lifemate will be looking for me.”

“They are like you?” Pyre asked.

“No. I’m from a galaxy much further away. Dav is the father of my child, and he’s Grihan. He looks similar to me, but we are not from the same world. Dav and his people took me in when Sazo and I escaped from the Tecran, who are the same people who stole Irini from the Fisone. Sazo is like you and Irini. He is what the Grih call a thinking system.”

“Like me?” Pyre’s voice dropped. “I am so very sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” Rose had been standing with her plate and cup, and she took a seat.

“I’m sorry because I destroyed your earpiece this morning when I blocked the incoming signal. I destroyed every transmitter in the whole bunker.” She sounded a little hard-edged, a little defensive.

“Because?” Rose had to keep her breathing even.

“Because I overreacted and lashed out, and did more harm than good.” It sounded like Pyre did not like admitting that.

“So this earpiece no longer works?” Rose took it out with a shaking hand. This was her lifeline. Her way home.

“I’m sorry, Rose. I didn’t mean to do it.” There was something in her voice, and Rose wondered if she had meant to do it, but now Pyre knew Sazo was like herself, she was sorry about it.

Either way, the deed was done.

And she’d just lost some of her trust in Pyre.

She looked down at the panels in front of her. “So none of these work any longer?”

There were no lights beneath them, which was different from the panels in the watch house.

“I’m afraid not.”

“And your own transmitters?” Rose asked. Pyre was transmitting to the translator, after all.

“I’ve only ever had local transmitters,” Pyre said. “My pilot would connect back to the home planet or incoming supply ships via the comms arrays at the mine, or at the landing area. I need a larger array to reach the satellites.”

“And you destroyed this one.” Rose ate contemplatively. There was no option. She’d have to go back to the watch house, break in, and try their comms station again. If it had been Sazo this morning that Pyre had blocked, he was hopefully still nearby.

She would have to leave now, though.

If he and Dav didn’t find her, they’d keep looking, and she was afraid that would mean they would move on. She needed to go immediately.

“What are you thinking?” Pyre asked.

“That I need to go to the hidden watch station. I need to see if I can use their comms room.” Rose finished her breakfast and stacked the plate and cup. “Will you give me a lift?” She began walking back to the kitchen.

“I think my people are doing sweeps for me,” Pyre said. “That’s why I overreacted to the comms blast. I thought they were getting close and panicked.”

“Your people?” Rose asked.

“The Kimol. The group that runs the mine. I was due back yesterday at the loading area. When I didn’t answer the hail and took myself offline, they would have asked someone to get the satellites to sweep for my signature. I took a risk last night bringing the Hasmarga here, but I don’t think we should risk it again unless it’s a true emergency.”

For Rose, it was a true emergency, but if Pyre took her and was captured, she would be captured too.

So she would walk. She had done it before.

She reached the kitchen, put the dishes down and studied the two prisoners with her arms crossed.

“You’re with the group who run the mine,” she said. “The Kimol?”

They both gave a cautious nod.

“But the mine people didn’t know about you. Why is that?”

They shared a look.

“Talk, or no food and water for you.” Rose was tired of this nonsense now. It was time to play hard ball.

After a beat of silence, the woman shrugged. “We know there are Bandri here, watching us. We didn’t want any careless communications to alert them to our presence.”

“And the Bandri are the people who didn’t want the war with the Hasmarga?” She tried to remember everything Pyre had told her.

“The Hasmarga?” the man asked.

Rose pointed to the sleeping figure on the floor.

“Ah. We call them something else. Yes, they didn’t see the bigger picture. The benefit of expansion.”

“But you didn’t win the war with the Hasmarga.”

“That’s because a year ago, your people stole our advantage!” The man hissed the words, eyes wide.

They thought Irini would ensure their victory over a whole planet? She wasn’t tiny, but she could fit in the hold of a Class 5. What did they think she could do?

Rose tilted her head. It was a very Grihan thing to do, and she only realized she was doing it after it was done. “Perhaps you weren’t given this information, but I have nothing to do with the people who stole your ship. They took me, just as they took her. I am with the group who discovered what the Tecran had done, and traveled out here to do the right thing and let you know what had happened to your people and to extend the hand of friendship.”

“So you say, but we have no basis to believe you.” The man’s nostrils closed almost to slits.

She rocked back on her heels. There was no sense in trying to persuade him otherwise.

“And these Bandri? Why are they spying on you?” She needed more information about them before she broke into their watch station again.

“They are interested in what we are mining.” The woman drew her legs up and hooked her arms around her shins. “They didn’t agree with our attack on the second planet, but now they find themselves in a bind, because we used this moon as a landing stage to attack the Hasmarga, and that is how we found the stones. They cannot take our operation without associating themselves with the war. And the war is unpopular on our home planet.”

So maybe the Bandri were just a paler shade of gray?

From the way the two prisoners were looking at each other after each question, Rose had a feeling she couldn’t really rely on their answers anyway.

She hunted up a bag with a strap long enough to go across her chest, stocked it with food and some water, and turned toward the door.

Gerna was standing there.

“How are you doing?” she asked softly.

The matriarch gave a nod. “Very well, now. The temperature in the room I chose is good for me and my young lives.”

“I’m glad.” At least the children Gerna was carrying would have a chance.

“You look like you are leaving. Pyre said you are going to walk to the watch station?”

Interesting. Pyre hadn’t wasted any time rousing Gerna. Rose wondered if they were going to try to stop her, and why they would.

“I need to see if I can transmit a message out, and Pyre destroyed all the transmitters in this bunker, including my personal transmitter.”

Gerna jerked back at that, as if that was news to her. “Why did she do that?”

“She says it was a mistake.”

“So we can’t call for help from here?” Gerna’s wings fluttered in agitation.

“So I’m told. It’s a good four hour walk from here to the watch station, so I need to go now.” She set the bag more securely across her chest.

“Take Ecdre with you. We will also need to transmit out, if we can. I had thought to ask Pyre to help us do that today.” Gerna turned away, looking left down the passage, and called something in her language. She turned back. “Pyre won’t take you to save you the journey?”

“She says it will get her noticed. That the satellites are doing sweeps for her.” Rose didn’t even know whether she believed that, but it sounded feasible. “There may be some personal vehicles we could take.”

She looked over at the prisoners, decided she didn’t know if the Hasmarga would feed them or not, and gathered all the nutrient bars and handed them into the cage. She did the same with a few slim bottles of water.

“Are there any small vehicles here?” she asked.

The woman, who was setting the supplies neatly in a pile, looked up. “One.” She pointed right, and Rose gave a nod of thanks and headed for the door.

“I’ll see if I can use it,” Rose said to Gerna. “And if Ecdre can fit on it, he can come, too.”