Collision Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

Rose was fading in front of his eyes.

Dav felt a growing desperation as they followed the woman Rose had called Crythis down a long, light blue corridor.

He had wanted to lunge at Binnos, the man Rose said had struck her, but had forced himself to stay by her side. If he was shot or dragged away, she would be alone, and he couldn’t accept that.

This mission had been ill-fated, a collision course of good intentions with the unknown.

The United Council needed to be a lot more cautious in future, and when—not if—they got out of this, he would stand in front of them himself and explain the error of their ways in excruciating detail.

“You are angry with us, but we have reason to be angry with you.” Crythis had obviously been watching him as they walked with her.

“I have never done anything to you but come with news of your people, to give you information and extend a friendly hand. How is that cause for you to be angry with me?”

She pursed her mouth. “Well, I’ll say we are not sure that is true, but if it is, then I understand there would be some ill will?—”

He couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped him.

She waved her hand. “Surely you could put yourselves in our shoes and sympathize . . .”

He didn’t know if it was worth his energy to respond. But then Rose stumbled against him, the dark rings under her eyes showing her exhaustion, and he chose not to keep quiet. “Rose should be under the care of doctors, as she’s about to have our baby. Instead, she’s been running for her life down on some slave camp moon, scrounging for food where she could find it, and being threatened at every turn. Ill will doesn’t cover it.”

“Slave camp?” Crythis reared back.

“How do you think Gerna got here? She and some of her people have been working as forced labor on a mine you have below. Surely you know what your own people are doing?”

They had reached the room Crythis had been leading them to, and she opened the door and gestured them in.

“There is food and water in here. Please make yourselves comfortable. I will be back shortly. But first, I will have your helmets, please.”

He would demand the same if the situation was reversed, so he had expected it. He would have fought tooth and nail if Rose didn’t have the necklace, but as she did, he knew she’d be able to breathe properly. He didn’t give up without a fight, though. “It’s harder for us to breathe on the ship than on the moon.”

“Hard but not impossible,” Crythis said. “I don’t see too much of a struggle.” She held out her hand.

Dav looked at the four guards with weapons pointed at them, and started to lift the helmet off his head.

“What?” Rose seemed to rouse herself. “No! He needs it to breathe.”

She stepped in front of him, stared Crythis down.

“You did all right before.”

“I’m not the same species as Dav. Do I look the same?” She slapped a hand to her chest.

Crythis blinked and took a step back. “Is this true?” she asked him.

Dav put a hand on Rose’s shoulder, gently pushed her to the side so she was no longer in front of the weapons. “It will be harder for me to breathe than it will be for her.”

Crythis gave a shrug. “Good. She’s not much of a threat, you’re the one who worries me.” She held Dav’s gaze. “Helmet.” She held out her hand again. “Both of them.”

Dav handed his over. Turned to Rose.

She was watching Crythis with narrowed eyes. She pulled her own helmet off and Dav passed it along.

“You’ll get them back.” Crythis walked away.

As soon as he and Rose stepped into the room, the door shut behind them. Dav tried it on principle, but it was locked.

Even if it wasn’t, the guards had taken up positions in front of it.

“Breathe,” he said, catching her by the shoulders.

She narrowed her eyes at him, too, and then the corner of her mouth quirked. She shook her head. “Pity you can’t do the same.”

Dav chuckled. “I’ll be fine. Have they tried to take your necklace at all?”

Rose shook her head. “Never really even examined me for weapons. Which I didn’t have, but still . . .”

They underestimated her, Dav realized. Just like the Grih had done when they’d first found her. That had been a mistake.

One the Fisone seemed happy to make, as well.

“She acted like she didn’t know about the Hasmarga,” Rose said.

“Maybe she didn’t,” Dav conceded. “But that’s not our problem. Someone in her command structure does.”

Rose turned, studied him for a beat. “It’s unconscionable, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” It was enraging. These people were slavers, and they had tried to put Rose to work at the same mine. The lighthearted banter they’d had going before evaporated as he considered all that could have gone wrong.

Rose ran a hand down his arm. “You look like you want to go beat them all up.”

Oh, she’d gotten that wrong.

He didn’t want to beat them up. He wanted to destroy them. “You’re right, but maybe I’ll feel better after some food and water.”

She turned to look at the counter along one wall, and made a groaning sound.

“What is it?”

“Berry gel. It’s okay, but I’m really tired of it.” She moved across, poured them both water, and handed him a cup.

“There’s some other stuff, too.”

She made a humming sound and looked it all over. “I haven’t seen those things before.” She carefully took a tiny bite of what looked like sliced fruit. “It’s better than the gel.”

They ate quietly, sipping their water, and then Rose went to use the tiny bathroom.

While she was in there, Crythis returned.

She wasn’t alone.

“Ah. Captain Priyan.” Dav crossed his arms over his chest. “I was wondering when you’d make an appearance.”

Priyan stood, shocked, in the doorway.

Dav realized that even if she’d been watching their arrival remotely, she probably hadn’t seen his face when he’d come through the launch bay with his helmet on.

“I wondered why I was speaking to your second since you arrived at the moon.” Priyan’s gaze went to the bathroom door. “We took your life partner?”

“You did.”

Priyan sighed. “This has not gone well.”

“No matter who you took, it would not have gone well. But taking Rose has very much not made me happy.”

“What are your people going to do in response? However this ends.” Priyan’s words tripped over themselves slightly.

“Will they come in force, do you mean?” Dav asked.

Priyan shared a quick look with Crythis and gave a nod.

“It depends how you behave now,” Dav said. “If Rose and I leave unharmed, and Gerna and her people are allowed back on their ship, we will leave, and make sure everyone we deal with knows not to trust you and to avoid this sector. If anything other than that happens, they will come. And you won’t like it.”

“You speak for the bugs? If they are allowed to leave, their people will leave?” Priyan asked, tone urgent.

Dav shook his head. “I don’t speak for them. I only speak for my own people. We take the crime of slavery very seriously. If you don’t let the Hasmarga go, we will come back and liberate them, or join with their people to liberate them. Then we will leave. What the Hasmarga does to you after that in retaliation is their business.”

Crythis shook her head. “We didn’t know they were even down there.”

“Someone did. They were working at your mine.” Dav glanced at the bathroom door as soon as he heard the handle turn, and Rose stepped out.

She looked better, her skin was flushed from the heat of her shower, and her damp hair was pulled back in a braid from her face.

“You said Rose was at the mine?” Crythis asked, leaning back against the wall, her gaze never leaving Rose as she moved to the counter and poured herself more water.

“I was.” Rose took a sip, flicked a glance in his direction, and then focused on the two women. “Who are you?” she asked Priyan.

“The captain of this ship, Ev Priyan.” Priyan widened her stance. “When were you taken to the mine?”

“I escaped the two guards Crythis dumped me with, and found a Bandri watch station by accident. I got some supplies there and kept moving, but a Kimol ship found me and took me prisoner again, and flew me to the mine.”

Dav was pleased to see her picking up a few more pieces of fruit. She was frighteningly thin compared to a week ago.

“And you saw the bugs at the mine?” Crythis asked.

“The Hasmarga,” Rose said, staring Crythis down.

“The Hasmarga,” Crythis eventually repeated, as if she realized she wasn’t going to get any more out of Rose unless she did.

“They were clustered around a fire, trying to get warm. The conditions they were being forced to work in were killing them, because they are used to much warmer temperatures.” Rose moved to a chair and sat, and Dav walked around it to stand behind her, hands on her shoulders.

She reached up and curled her fingers around his own, and they felt cool, even though she’d had a warm shower.

“They were working against their will?” Priyan pressed. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Rose leaned back. “The guards holding weapons on them were a giveaway.”

There was a beat of silence.

“I will need to confirm this.” Priyan turned toward the door.

Dav felt Rose’s fingers tighten on his hand, but she stayed quiet, and no one said anything until the door closed behind the captain.

“You are insulted,” Crythis said.

Dav shrugged. They had accused both him and Rose of lying. Of course they were insulted.

“This will be a scandal on Fisone if it comes to light,” Crythis said. “The war with the bug—the Hasmarga—was voted against, but my leaders decided to go ahead anyway. It has split the people of my planet in two, and the idea of forcing prisoners in a war that shouldn’t have been to work for our own profit, will not be seen in a good light.”

“Especially as you lost the war,” Rose said. Dav glanced down at her. He didn’t know much about the history between the Hasmarga and the Kimol.

One side of Crythis’s mouth twisted up. “We were about to make a decisive strike when our main battleship was stolen right in front of us. By you.”

“I don’t know how many times we can tell you it was not by us.” Dav was getting tired of this. “We defeated the Tecran, we have taken their ships, freed their prisoners, and now we have made a long journey to bring you news of your people. We don’t need to pretend to be nice to you. We could destroy your planet if we wanted to. We could rain destruction down on your heads. Instead, we came to tell you about your lost crew, and you showed us how unpleasant and untrustworthy you are. For that, I suppose, I thank you.”

“What was the decisive strike you were planning?” Rose asked.

Crythis had been staring at him, mouth a little open, but now she snapped her attention to Rose. “We found a large orbital that had some kind of stealth tech to keep it hidden. It was absolute fluke that we found it, one of our probes hit it by mistake, and once we realized something was there, we started watching it, and we saw all the small fighter ships that were attacking us would dock there first before they came at us. We were losing, because they had superior numbers, but we knew if we withdrew, as if we were retreating, chances were most of them would return to the orbital. We were going to use our battleship to attack while they were all docked. We were going to wipe them out.”

“Had you already withdrawn when the Tecran arrived?” Dav asked.

Crythis shook her head. “We had only just finished testing our intelligent battleship and they had hardly cleared Fisone nearspace when it was taken. We had planned to pretend to withdraw when the crew had done a few test runs and were close to the Hasmargan planet.”

“So if you had no chance of winning, why take Hasmargan prisoners?” Dav asked. “What sense was there in that?”

“I wasn’t involved in that decision, but my guess is that the general thought that if they took any of our people hostage as we retreated, we would have prisoners to swap.” Crythis pushed away from the wall. “But enough of this. Let’s talk about what to do now. What to say to your people. How do we resolve this without more destruction.”

“Put us on a ship and send us back,” Dav said. “It’s your only option.”

“We need that confirmation of what happened to our crew first,” Crythis said.

“Not the code for the missing battleship?” Dav asked.

Crythis had obviously forgotten about the second request. She breathed in. “If you have that code, yes, we would like it.”

“You already have it, though,” Rose said. “How do you think Pyre set fire to the mine, and forced Gerna and Dav and I inside her ship? How have I been speaking to her since my second day down on Dimal?”

“Pyre?” Crythis asked.

“The ship we were in. She was used as transport on the mine. She’s got Irini’s code. She’s aware.”

“You said something like this before, but the message we got was that you had taken control of the ship.” Crythis was frowning at Rose.

“From who?” Rose scoffed. “I bet Pyre sent that to you. I don’t even know your language, how could I take one of your ships?”

Crythis rocked back on her heels and her mouth formed a straight line. “I’ll have to?—”

Sirens blared, startling Rose so much, Dav felt her flinch beneath his hands.

Crythis backed out. “I’ll be back.” The door closed behind her and Dav went straight to it, tried to open it.

It was locked.