Collision Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

“Gerna!”

Rose stumbled at the sight of the Hasmarga matriarch in Pyre’s ship.

Gerna sat on the long bench, hunched over.

“Are you all right?” Rose eased herself down next to her. “Where’s Ecdre?”

Gerna turned her head a little, but for the first time since Rose had met her, she seemed listless.

“Dead.”

Rose narrowed her eyes and glared at the empty pilot’s seat. “You killed him?”

“I shot him. He could still be alive.” Pyre sounded utterly unconcerned.

“She shot him, then threatened to shoot us all if I didn’t climb inside her ship.” Gerna leaned back against the wall.

“That’s how she got me inside, too.” Rose glanced up as Dav paced the length of the ship. He was obviously taking stock of their situation.

“Sit down, partner of Rose.” Pyre said. “Things are going to get bumpy.”

Dav moved to sit beside her, curling his arm around her shoulders. “Why are they going to get bumpy?”

“Because I’m avoiding a Bandri attack, and trying to get out into nearspace.” The whole ship tilted left, and Dav tightened his hold as they slid down the bench.

Before long, the shudder of a small ship transitioning from atmosphere to the void of nearspace rattled her to the bone.

“What’s the plan, Pyre? What are you even doing?”

“The Kimol detected the Hasmarga approaching an hour ago. I could see things were about to get very hot down below. Either your people would destroy everything or the Hasmarga would. But this vessel isn’t capable of interplanetary travel, so I need some way to stop either group attacking me. I grabbed Gerna and now I have you.” Pyre sounded almost giddy with her success.

“But why?” Rose lifted her hands. “We were already your allies.”

While she and Pyre had been speaking, Gerna must have tuned in to the exchange through the translator, and she slowly raised her head.

“My people are here?” The words were little more than a whisper.

Rose nodded. “I’ve seen the ship.” She pointed up, although by now, they were up themselves.

“I’m headed for a position equidistant between your two groups,” Pyre said. “I will let them know I have you.”

Rose didn’t think Pyre had thought this through. The moment she let them go, her advantage disappeared, but she couldn’t hold them forever.

There was only the murmur of the ship’s engines for a long time, and Rose suddenly couldn’t bear to sit still any longer. She got to her feet, and Dav rose with her. She used him to help her keep her balance as she carefully stretched her legs, her back, and her arms.

“How are you doing?” she asked Gerna.

At least it was warm in here. If there was one silver lining, it was that.

“My heart is broken.” Gerna’s skin had held a slight sheen to it before, but now she looked dull and almost chalky. “Ecdre . . .”

If it had been Dav who’d been shot, Rose couldn’t imagine how she’d feel.

“I just don’t understand why,” Rose whispered. “We trusted her, we were her friends. Why has she done this?”

“She was never our friend, she just used us.” Gerna shot a look to the front of the ship. “And she tried to make me think you were untrustworthy. It wasn’t until Ecdre went with you to the watch station that we realized there was trickery going on.” She rose to her feet as well, as if seeing Rose move about made her realize she needed to do the same.

“I can hear you,” Pyre said.

“We know.” Rose shook her head. “What are you going to get out of this, Pyre? What could you possibly achieve with this that you couldn’t have gotten by being honest with us? You already had our goodwill. Why did you squander it?”

“I couldn’t take the chance that you would betray me,” Pyre said.

There was nothing to say to that, and they lapsed into silence again.

“Have you made contact yet?” Dav had been standing, a solid presence beside her, but she could sense him getting more and more agitated. “Put me through to the Barrist and let me talk to them.”

“I haven’t gotten to them yet,” Pyre said. “I’m still trying to find who to speak to on the Gluy , the Hasmarga ship.”

“Let me speak, then,” Gerna said.

“I’m not sure I should.” Pyre’s tone sounded distracted. “I can’t understand the secondary language you use with your warriors and you have been mentally unstable since Ecdre went down.”

“Since you shot him down.” Gerna’s voice rose, and then she sat again, as if every bit of strength had gone out of her.

“No need for you to speak, Gerna.” There was some grim satisfaction in Pyre’s voice. “I transmitted a short moving image of you to the Gluy . They are finally taking my hail seriously.”

Rose and Dav shared a look. Sazo and the crew of the Barrist wouldn’t have understood a transmission in the Hasmarga language, but an image, which might have also included both of them, was another thing altogether.

Nortega would have told them that Dav and Rose were onboard this ship, but hopefully now they also knew Gerna was with them.

And if Gerna’s two warriors had made it up to the Barrist , then some cooperation was possible.

“Would the others have gotten back to the ship yet?” Rose asked.

“If the Barrist moved closer to the moon to pick them up. Otherwise the drones might still be traveling through nearspace to get to them,” Dav said.

“They were picked up,” Pyre said. “The Bandri shot at them, and your one ship provided cover fire, while the second came in closer to the moon to get them home safe.”

“And Gerna’s warriors? Where are they?” Dav asked.

“Probably under Kimol guard,” Pyre said. “Those who are . . .” She hesitated, then stopped talking.

Wise of her. Rose wasn’t sure how Gerna would have responded if she had finished her sentence.

The matriarch was still standing, head lowered, body hunched. Her wings seemed to be vibrating, and Rose became aware that she was making a very low level humming sound.

There was suddenly a thunk that reverberated through the small ship, and a jerk.

Rose was thrown off her feet, and Dav grabbed her, twisting so that as they hit the floor, his body cushioned the fall and she landed on her back.

Gerna had also been thrown, but she staggered and managed to fetch up against the wall, arms outstretched to get her balance back.

“Who?” Dav shouted the question.

“The Kimol. They are under the impression that you have hijacked this ship. They short-jumped from their position, grabbed this ship and pulled it into their hold.” Pyre almost chuckled with glee.

Just like they’d done to the runner when they’d first abducted her. Rose felt the twist and spin of the short light-speed hop she’d experienced when they first took her, and guessed the Kimol had hopped away to a hidden location.

Had Pyre counted on that, or was this just a windfall for her? Had the hails and the comms with the Hasmarga been a lure for the Fisone ship that was talking with Sazo and Jia Appal?

Rose had no doubt Pyre was going to try to infiltrate the ship that had just grabbed them. Her worry had been her little vessel was not equipped for interplanetary travel, but this one was.

Even if she couldn’t break into the bigger ship’s systems, she was now far away from harm. No wonder she was so delighted.

The twisting motion stopped, and Dav lifted her, pushing up and setting her on her feet so he could move to the door.

Gerna had sat back down, but now she was standing again too.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“I think we’re in one of the Fisone’s bigger ships. Pyre says it’s her side—the Kimol. There was a Fisone ship in the sky that I saw before Pyre forced us onboard.”

“The Havelan ,” Dav agreed.

“I can feel the young lives quicken,” Gerna said. “The heat in here must have nudged them into thinking it was finally safe to come out.”

The vibration that Rose had been aware of before had definitely gotten louder.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“I need my own people.” Her whisper was heartbreaking. “But otherwise, a room of my own, so that I can bond with my offspring. There can be no one else there.”

The door opened, and a chill, gritty air that stank of fuel filtered in.

Gerna hunched a little more, and Rose stood in front of her, although she was aware it wouldn’t help much.

She had to peer around Dav to see the person at the top of the ramp, and it was no surprise to see the person was familiar.

“Crythis.” She should probably be grateful it wasn’t the man who’d slapped her. “How did you end up on this ship?”

“They kindly stopped on the way to Dimal and picked me up. How did you commandeer this vessel?”

“I didn’t.” Rose lifted her hands. “You must have seen there was no one at the controls. This ship may not look the same as the one the Tecran stole from you, but it has the same programing. Surely you know that? It’s of your own making.”

“This is the new prototype?” Crythis looked shocked. “And you are saying it piloted you off planet?”

“She didn’t just pilot us off, she forced us inside first.” Rose turned to look at Gerna over her shoulder, alarmed at the increase in humming. “Look, we can talk about that later, Gerna needs a room of her own. She’s about to give birth.”

It seemed that Crythis hadn’t noticed Gerna until now. Rose saw the Fisone woman take a step back.

“A bug?”

“A Hasmarga abductee that the Kimol has kept prisoner for months. She is about to have her babies, and you need to give her a room. Now.” Dav’s voice was a sharp crack.

Crythis had noticed him—how could she not when he was all but blocking her way—but she hadn’t given him a good look until now. She took another step back.

“And you are?”

Rose wondered how he was going to answer that. Was he going to let them know he was the captain of the Barrist ?

“I am Rose’s lifemate.” He started walking toward her, as if he were stalking her down the ramp.

Crythis had an entourage, standing below. She turned and said something too fast for the translator to catch, and then turned back and gestured for them to follow her.

“Can you walk?” Rose asked.

Gerna took a step, then went down on a knee. Shook her head.

“We’ll give you the ship then.” She waited for Gerna to nod her consent, and then stepped out onto the ramp. “Gerna cannot make it to a room. We need to close up the ship and give her privacy.”

Dav jogged down the ramp ahead of her, forcing the Fisone waiting at the bottom to move back, and then, as soon as she was on the launch bay floor, he pointed to Crythis. “Lift it up.”

She very clearly didn’t like being told what to do, but she gestured and two technicians did something on the side and the ramp rose up.

It was the best they could do, but it made Rose uneasy that Pyre was in there with Gerna. A nasty lurker who had only her own interests in mind.

As soon as the ramp snapped into place, Crythis turned to them. “We need to talk.”

“Sure.” The surge of adrenalin that had taken her through their being snatched again, and helping Gerna, evaporated, and she felt as if the floor was exerting some kind of magnetized force on her.

Dav must have been watching her, because he put an arm around her. “Your people have not once fed Rose or taken even the most rudimentary care of her since you snatched her. Until she has some basic level of consideration from you, neither she nor I will be talking to you.”

Rose leaned into him and closed her eyes.

She felt him take a little more of her weight.

“That’s because she escaped my people before they could offer her anything.”

Crythis’s indignation forced Rose’s eyes open again. “But then you caught me again, at the mine. And then again, when you took me to the bunker. What about then?” she asked.

Crythis’s eyes narrowed. “You are saying . . .?” She suddenly lifted her shoulders. “I can do nothing about it, and whether or not it is accurate, it is over with. Come now, and we will give you nourishment and water, and talk.”

She could sense Dav’s outrage hadn’t cooled, but she really needed something to eat and drink, and most of all to sit.

She forced herself to take all her own weight. “Where to?” she asked.

Crythis gestured, and walked in that direction, keeping her steps slow until she and Dav came level with her.

“You remember Binnos?” she said, nodding ahead, and Rose came to a stop at the sight of the man who’d slapped her across the face.

“I remember him.” She tried to keep her voice even, but Dav had also stopped and he looked at her sharply.

Crythis must have forgotten he had hit her, but Rose’s reaction reminded her, and she stopped as well. “That was an unfortunate lapse. There will be no repeat of it.”

“What did he do?” Dav’s voice was soft, and in Grihan.

“Hit me across the face.” She forced herself not to lift her hand to her cheek.

Crythis frowned as she swung back to them. “Please speak the language we can both understand.”

“He will not come near Rose again,” Dav said slowly in Tecran. “Is that clear enough?”

Crythis narrowed her eyes, then flicked her gaze to Binnos. Waved him off.

He looked like he was going to argue, but when he locked eyes with Dav he jerked back, and then turned on his heel and stalked away.

“Happy?” Crythis asked.

“So far from happy, we are not even in the same galaxy,” Rose told her. “But by all means, lead the way.”