Collision Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

Rose wished she had a jacket.

Ecdre had taken the skimmer, so she was hanging onto the back of Vichea’s one, and she hunched miserably as the wind cut through her suit.

Pinli had tried to get the suit back, but she had refused to remove it, and he had backed down rather than try to put hands on her.

That was definitely because she was pregnant. Since the Bandri soldiers understood she was carrying a child, they had behaved very strangely.

They were in an uneasy truce, both with some power over the other. Neither side wanted to rock the boat further, and they had left Caudra and one other of their team behind at the watch station, as well as the guard she had shot.

That left Vichea, Pinli, and another guard called Rosco to escort her to their base, and Vichea took the middle position with Pinli and Rosco on either side.

Rose thought they were worried she would leap off and try to escape. They didn’t know about the necklace, and they took her ability to breathe the air so easily as a sign she was very much not like them, and she couldn’t really blame them for it—if she could have leapt off and run, she would have.

The baby moved, pushing against the ever shrinking boundaries of her little world, and Rose sighed as once again, there was simply too much pressure on her bladder for comfort.

She tapped Vichea, and the Fisone slowed and then brought the skimmer to a halt.

“Again?” she asked.

Rose shrugged. “You kidnap a pregnant woman, you get what you get.”

It was interesting how uncomfortable that kind of talk made them.

She couldn’t work out if pregnancy was sacrosanct in their culture, or taboo as a topic.

She noticed how freaked out they became if they saw the baby kick, but their silence on the matter made her hesitant to ask them about their own reproduction.

Her instincts were to leave well enough alone.

They grumbled at the need to stop, and Vichea went with her to the closest big bush for privacy. She had started to draw these stops out, taking her time after seeing to her business by cleaning her hands with the wipes Vichea carried with her as slowly as possible, standing still in the sunlight that had broken through the overcast sky, face tilted upward, eyes closed.

For a little bit, she wasn’t being rattled around and she wasn’t cold.

She eyed the skimmer with dislike. They had been going since mid afternoon, and there was probably an hour or so until dusk.

“How far still to go?” she asked.

She was close to refusing to get back on. Traveling on the skimmer was close to torture. She would rather walk.

She squinted at the horizon, at where the sun was, and realized that was probably not feasible.

“Another two hours, maybe three if you keep making us stop.” Vichea’s face was covered by her helmet, but her body language told Rose she didn’t mind the delays as much as she pretended she did.

Every minute on the road was a minute they didn’t have to face their boss.

“If you’re worried about our deal, I told you I won’t say anything. You’ve kept your part of the bargain,” she said.

“Just get on.” Vichea held the skimmer’s handle bars, one foot on and one foot off, giving Rose room to get on and perch at the back, and Pinli and Rosco started up their engines.

Rose stayed where she was. She did not want to get on that skimmer.

Both men suddenly looked up.

Rose craned her neck, and saw a ship like Pyre’s coming toward them.

For a moment, she thought it might be Pyre, but with no warning, shots were fired.

“The Kimol.” Pinli crouched on his skimmer as the ship shot a second time.

Maybe it was Pyre after all, because none of the shots hit anyone. It was more a warning that they meant business.

The ship landed beside them, and the four suited guards who jumped out were definitely not the Hasmarga.

Damn. It looked like she was being abducted again.

She considered the ship, and decided as long as they also wanted to hand her over to Sazo and Dav, it wasn’t a bad trade up from the skimmer.

“Throw down your weapons and hand her over,” one of the guards said, gesturing with his hand.

None of the three so much as moved.

“Now.”

Vichea took a step to the side, and the Fisone soldier closest to her shot her.

The shot was so close to Rose, feathery blue light touched her shoulder and pricked at her neck.

She jerked and crouched down, breathing through the pain.

Someone shouted an order, and the firing stopped.

Vichea lay unconscious, and Rose slowly got to her feet, walked over to check on her, and took the translator Vichea had confiscated from her from her belt.

She hadn’t said anything or looked at the newcomers, but she straightened slowly, slipped the translator into her own belt, and turned to face them.

“If any of you discharge a weapon in my vicinity again, I will make sure you lose another major piece of infrastructure,” she said. “And that is a promise, not a threat.”

She was doubly glad now she had refused to return the protective suit to Pinli.

He and Rosco tossed their weapons toward the newcomers.

“Are you Rose McKenzie?” The guard who had shot Vichea asked as he picked up the weapons.

“Yes, I am.”

The newcomer in the middle lifted a hand. “What are you using to translate?”

Rose brought out the translator. “I was given this at the mine site.”

“I was one of the Fisone who learned the language of the people who took our ship last year, and that translator just mistranslated your words.” The guard spoke in Tecran, her accent bad but perfectly understandable.

Rose looked down at the black box. “What did it say?” she asked.

Interestingly, it did not translate her words now. It was silent.

“When you said you were Rose McKenzie, it translated your words as saying you weren’t her,” the Fisone woman said.

The Fisone who’d shot Vichea began to speak, and from the tone, Rose guessed he was asking what was going on. When the middle guard told them what was wrong, both groups of Fisone seemed stumped.

“How is it so wrong?” the middle guard asked Rose. “Who exactly gave it to you?”

Rose had had her suspicions about what Pyre had chosen to share or not to share, but actively altering the words was not something she’d considered.

Had some of her conversations with the Hasmarga been distorted? Some of theirs with her?

“Someone at the mine gave it to me,” she said.

“Why were you at the mine?” the woman in the middle asked.

“I escaped your group, I think you’re the Kimol?” She waited until the woman nodded. “And was captured by the Bandri.” She tilted her head toward Pinli and Rosco. “Then I escaped them, and was recaptured by the Kimol near the mine, and taken there. I think they were planning to put me to work there.”

“Did you set it on fire?” the Kimol woman asked.

Rose shook her head. “It was already on fire when I was brought there. That did make it easier to escape, though. Of course, then I was recaptured by the Bandri.” She left out the bit where she’d been to the bunker. No need to mention that.

The woman translated what she’d said to everyone.

It occurred to Rose that the only way Pyre could be playing around with the translator would be if she could use the bunker’s transmitters again. Either that, or it was Pyre right here in front of her, retaken by the Kimol. Maybe the bunker was compromised and the Kimol had control of it again, or maybe Pyre was playing some strange double game.

She studied the ship, but it could easily be an identical model and not Pyre at all.

She would keep the thought to herself.

If it was Pyre, she would find a way to tell Rose.

And Rose would have to decide if she was going to believe her story.

“What is your plan?” she asked the Kimol who spoke Tecran. “Where are you taking me?”

“We need to hand you over in order to prevent further damage to our holdings on this moon,” the woman said. “We will take you to our base of operations.”

That worked. She would prefer a ride in a ship than the back of the skimmer, and the end result was hopefully going to be the same—her return to Sazo and Dav.

She began to walk toward them, when out of nowhere, a shot was fired.

The shot hit the Fisone closest to the door of the ship, putting him down, and Rose dropped to the ground, crouching down and then falling forward onto her hands and knees.

She felt so vulnerable, so unwieldy in her current shape.

She covered her head with her arms, grateful again that she’d held onto the suit.

Hands grabbed her raised arms, and two of the Kimol lifted her up and carried her to the ship.

She put her feet down on the ramp and glanced back, and saw Caudra pinned down by fire from the third Kimol soldier from the ship, who was standing over his fallen colleague.

Pinli was down but Rosco was crouched low, both hands on the ground as if to show he was no threat.

As soon as she was in the ship, the other two ran back to pick up their friend, and then all four were inside with her, and the ship took off.

Rose leaned back against the wall of the ship and rubbed her belly.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Mommy’s caught in the middle here.”

She sensed the looks from the Kimol, and lifted her head.

They were staring at her hand, at the curve of her body.

They looked utterly flummoxed.

She closed her eyes to shut them out. She just hoped they were close to wherever they were going, and that she could lie down soon.

She was close to done.