Collision Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Dav crouched down to check his pack.

He had been the only one in the drone that had brought him down to the moon’s surface. The other two drones had carried two soldiers each.

He needed room in his one for Rose on their return.

Their successful return.

He straightened up, surveying their landing spot.

It was just before dawn and they had come down deliberately amongst some rocks about an hour’s walk from where Rose was being held.

He hoped their landing had gone unnoticed.

Sazo and Jia had done their best to create a distraction. The Barrist had dropped the three drones before both ships made a show of withdrawing from the moon, moving closer to the gas giant.

They had done everything they could.

“We might have the element of surprise, we might not,” Dav warned the four other members of his team.

They all wore helmets. They could have done without them in terms of air breathability—although the moon wasn’t a perfect match for them, it was close enough to be survivable—but the helmets were necessary for easy communication and protection from attack. He had brought a spare for Rose, as well as a suit for her.

“Do we know what weapons they’re using?” Nortega asked. She tightened the thigh strap of her shockgun holster and looked around. She was the team leader of this group, and Dav shook his head as he watched Vunti, Wangao and Mostert do the same equipment check.

Dav kept his voice light. “Let’s assume it will hurt and try not to find out, shall we?”

Vunti gave a low, deep chuckle. “Good idea.”

Mostert turned in a slow 360, shading her eyes, the visor of her helmet lifted, and studied the terrain. “Which way?” she asked.

Wangao pulled a small device out of his side pocket, calibrated it, and pointed north. “Looks rocky, but nothing too difficult.”

Dav agreed it looked easy enough on the surface. The vegetation was low and scrubby, with not a tree in sight. There were low hills, but nothing that looked hard to climb.

He hoped it was as it appeared.

“Let’s go.”

They started out in a loose group, Dav and Nortega at the front, the other three behind, but soon they fell into single file, finding it easier to follow a narrow path through the tough, spiky clumps of grass than to range wide.

They made good time, running easily in the early morning light.

The sound of voices from up ahead caused Dav, who was in the lead, to lift his hand, and they all stopped and drew their shockguns.

They were only halfway to their destination by Dav’s estimation, so he was curious to see who could be up ahead.

They spread out, moving slowly and carefully up the slight incline, and dropped down near the top to go the rest of the way at a crawl.

Their suits all had camouflage tech, but they were a little less sure of it in alien situations since they discovered Rose could see right through it. Grihan eyes might be fooled, but they no longer assumed other eyes were.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to activate it, so Dav did, peering over the edge and looking down the steeper slope on the other side.

“The tracker is showing her that way.”

A translation of the Fisone language was whispered in his ears as he saw four soldiers below. Sazo had equipped them all with direct translators into their earpieces, and Dav had a translation device in the form of a small comms unit that, when switched on, would translate whatever they had to say into Fisone.

The soldier who spoke was pointing in the same direction they were going.

Dav wondered who the ‘her’ was. And had a strong suspicion that he knew. He wondered what they meant by ‘tracker’.

“So what, Caudra?” Another soldier kicked at the ground and then drank from a bottle in his hand. “We are not going to get in there and take her back. They’ll have her tucked away safely. We don’t even know if the tracker is still on her suit. The Kimol might have taken it. They’ve captured a few of us over the years. They know all our suits have trackers.”

“Maybe when they give her back to her people, we’ll all be off the hook?” A soldier who Dav hadn’t noticed before because she was lying on the ground, spoke up. She was also sipping water.

“The question is, was it the Kimol who shot our ship down, or was it her people?” A fourth soldier, who was sitting just out of sight of Dav, asked. “Because I didn’t think the Kimol had tech like that.”

“If they do, we’re in a lot more trouble than we think.” The woman who was lying down sat up, then slowly got to her feet, as if she’d been hurt.

“The shot came from that big ship that’s shaped like a ball.” The first soldier, the one called Caudra, said.

“Her people, then.” The man who was sitting also got to his feet, as slowly and carefully as the woman. “They were shot down because they put her in danger.”

“Then we better not try to go anywhere near her,” the woman said. “Not after what we’ve put her through.”

“Vichea, we didn’t kidnap her. That was the Kimol. And her people destroyed our launch pad anyway.” Caudra swung around, and just before his visor came down to seal his helmet, Dav saw the fury on his face.

“And then you shot at her, and we terrorized her, and put her in harm’s way,” Vichea said. “So let’s just accept our careers are over, get to home base, and let the general know everything we’ve found out. Which isn’t exactly nothing.”

“No.” The man who’d been sitting drew the word out. “Our careers aren’t over. We’ve spoken to her, know something about her. We are the experts on her when it comes to the Bandri.”

“All right, that’s true.” The fourth man put away his water and touched the side of his helmet to bring down his visor, and Dav realized they had all struggled to breathe while they’d had it up.

Interesting.

“You think knowing about her will help us?” Caudra scoffed. “They’ll hear us out and then put us in the brig.”

“We aren’t going into the brig.” Vichea sighed. “We might well lose our commissions, but we did the best we could under the circumstances.”

“It’s a pity she won’t trust us again,” the fourth man said. “Not after Caudra followed us.”

“Fuck you, Rosco,” Caudra said. “I wasn’t going to be squeezed out.”

“You got me shot,” the man who’d been sitting said.

“Fuck you, too, Pinli. I was trying to turn the situation around. Get her back before the Kimol flew off with her.”

“And how did that work out for us, Caudra?” Vichea asked. “I can’t blame my getting shot on you, but Pinli’s right, he’d be fine if you hadn’t interfered, and she’ll remember that you were tagging along behind when she very clearly said she didn’t want you anywhere near her after you shot her in back at the station.”

“She doesn’t make the rules,” Caudra said.

Dav studied him more carefully, taking stock of the man who’d apparently shot Rose in the back.

“If she hadn’t been wearing the protection suit, she might be dead, and then you would definitely be in the brig,” Rosco said. “And she did not like you. At all. Vichea’s right. We need to stay out of her way until she’s gone.”

“Especially now there’s two ships.” Pinli said.

“You’re the only one who saw the other ship.” Caudra moved to the side, and Dav finally noticed some kind of oblong board that hovered above the ground, with a slim steering column set in the front.

Transportation.

Now that would be useful. Especially to get Rose to the drones quickly.

He tapped Nortega’s shoulder and pointed to the vehicles, and she signaled the rest of her group.

The Fisone below them were gearing up to go, still squabbling about the direction they should take, and as soon as the team had gone left and right in a pincher move, Dav rose to his feet and took a careful shot between the four vehicles.

The air sizzled as the shockgun’s purple stream of light hit the ground and sand exploded under the electric charge.

All four Fisone threw themselves down and away from the blast, and Nortega and her crew each took one of them, shockguns pointing down. They all deactivated their camouflage tech, and the Fisone seemed to be genuinely shocked to see them appear.

That was good. It may not work on Rose, but it seemed to work on the Fisone.

Dav took out the translation device as he picked his way down the slope, switching it on and holding it out as he took in the mirror-like helmets and the battered uniforms. Caudra’s was slightly different from the others, he noticed. And it looked in better condition.

He studied Caudra carefully.

“You shot Rose in the back?” he asked.

Nortega turned her head slightly to look at him, and he could see from the way her body tensed that she didn’t know how this was going to go.

Neither did he.

Rage shuddered through him, and he vaguely noticed everyone was focused on him.

This group hadn’t taken Rose. They hadn’t started this chain of events. But he had shot her. In. The. Back.

“She shot me first,” Caudra said.

Dav drew in a hard breath. “Not in the back, I’m guessing.”

“What does it matter?” Caudra asked. “I was still shot, and when my suit deflected it, whoever was in the ship shot me again.”

“Who was in the ship?” Nortega asked, and although Dav couldn’t see her face through her visor, he could hear the frown in her voice.

“Those bugs,” Pinli said.

“The bugs were passengers. No way they could have flown a ship. It’s bio activated, specific to Fisone pilots. Someone at the mine must have turned traitor against the Kimol,” Caudra said.

If they were trying to distract him with talk of bugs, he was impressed, because it was working. He was able to take a step back from his fury.

“Bugs?” The Fitali could perhaps be described as bugs. They had a definite insectile evolutionary heritage. But they surely couldn’t be here, interfering, could they?

“She called them the Hasmarga,” Vichea said.

“She meaning Rose?” Dav asked.

Vichea nodded. “Why are you here? Aren’t the Kimol giving her back to you right now? They have as much incentive to hand her back as we do.”

“Apparently not.” Dav kept his tone even, but the Bandri soldiers swore.

“Bastards. We were going to give her back, then they took her.” Pinli looked up at the empty sky. “You aren’t going to punish both groups are you? We didn’t even take her in the first place.”

“You shot her in the back,” Dav repeated.

The other three Bandri looked over at Caudra.

He hunched down a little and said nothing.

“What are you going to do to us?” Rosco asked.

“Take your weapons and your skimmers,” Dav said slowly. It wouldn’t be as satisfying as killing Caudra, but it was better than nothing.

“Mostert and I are the lightest,” Nortega said. “We’ll share.”

Dav could see her relax a little now that it didn’t look like he was going to commit murder in front of her and her team.

He had a momentary pang that he hadn’t been able to access the exotic weaponry in Sazo’s armory, but his shockgun seemed to work here just fine.

He took Pinli’s weapon, while Nortega and her team took the other three. He studied it, and found it to be fairly simple in design. He shot off to the side, and blue light, very similar to a shockgun shot, sizzled out and blackened the bush Dav had aimed at.

Nortega made a sound of interest, and tried hers as well.

Wangao lost out in getting one of his own, but Mostert kindly handed hers over to him to practice.

“And the skimmers?” Nortega asked.

“We’re just handing everything over?” Caudra asked, slapping his chest.

Dav turned to contemplate him. “I could shoot you, if that will make you feel better?”

“Go ahead,” Caudra sneered. “Go right ahead.”

Dav shot him with his shockgun, and watched as the lavender light seemed to blacken his suit before it fizzled out.

Caudra crashed sideways.

Rosco moved over to him, crouching by his head, and studied him. “He thought your weapons were the same as ours, and he was wearing a protective suit.” Rosco shook his head and checked Caudra’s helmet. “The enviro filter has been destroyed,” he said. “But he seems to be alive.” He carefully lifted the helmet off Caudra’s head.

“We’ll have to take turns letting him use our helmets so he can get enough air,” Vichea said.

“No way.” Pinli shook his head. “Let him struggle.”

They all shared a look.

“We all good?” Dav asked them.

“Here is the device that plots the path of the tracker embedded in her suit,” Pinli said, taking it out of Caudra’s pocket and handing it over. “It’s short range, but it hasn’t moved in a while, so you should be able to find her.”

“I’ll show you how to use the skimmers,” Vichea said. “It’ll cut your trip in half.”

Which would help them make up the time they wasted here. But when Dav’s gaze touched on Caudra again, lying unconscious on the ground, he couldn’t find it in him to really call it a waste.