CHAPTER 41
Dav ran toward the launch bay.
Sazo had told him what Pyre had threatened to do to Rose and while he took some comfort in the necklace Paxe had given her, he did not want her in there a second longer than necessary.
He had no idea where any of the equipment was held on this ship, but the launch bay generally had tools like kinetic lances. It made sense there would be something he could use if he looked hard enough.
He ran past the comms station, which was still shut up tight, and Gerna, who lay on cushions in the passageway.
Two babies were lying on her, and they made a hissing, clacking sound at him as he raced by.
The bodies outside the launch bay looked even worse now than when he’d first seen them. The pallor of death had settled on the Kimol, and the dead babies had lost their luster, as well.
He edged around them and then stopped in front of the doors. If Pyre could shut Rose inside the captain’s office, she might be able to shut him inside the launch bay.
He picked up the remaining two weapons that lay on the floor beside the Kimol guards, and opened the bay doors. When they reached their widest point, he lined the weapons along the door sliders end on end, and stepped back.
As the doors on either side began to close, they sensed the weapons, and opened again. He waited while that happened two more times before he decided to trust his solution would work.
He jumped over the weapons and ran into the launch bay, his gaze going to Pyre’s ship. The ramp was still hanging from it at an angle, the interior dark. Still, she could have some way of seeing what he was doing.
He forced himself to turn away and run his gaze over the walls along the back of the bay, to see if there was any storage that might hold what he was looking for.
“The Hasmarga have arrived,” Sazo said through his helmet. “They want to get into the launch bay to retrieve Gerna and her babies.”
Dav glanced over at the doors to the outside. They were closed, and Sazo had already told him that the drone he’d sent to enter the ship could not gain access.
“Tell them to land a crew on the exterior of the ship, and look for a way in through a maintenance hatch or something.” Dav didn’t have time to work out how to let them in until he had Rose out of that room.
“I will suggest that,” Sazo said. “You will need a way out once you have Rose free, though. Whether I can get the door open or you find another way to breach it.”
“Let’s get her out first. Worry about the launch bay later.” Dav ran to a pile of storage boxes and began lifting the lids.
“Agreed.” Sazo cut off the comm.
Dav barely even registered him ending the conversation. He shifted one box onto the ground, opened the lid of the one below.
A lever. Very basic, but it could work.
He pulled it out, ran his gaze over the rest of the equipment, and realized he just didn’t know what they did or how to use them. A lever would not behave in ways he couldn’t anticipate.
Because Sazo was right, and they would need a way off this ship once he had Rose safe, he ran toward the landing end of the bay and tried to see what mechanism was used to keep it closed.
The Grih used permeable gel walls, allowing for the free flow of ships in and out without the need for an airlock system. Irini’s ship operated with a force field on the other side of the bay doors. It allowed ships to move through the field, into the bay, without the need for another door on the ship’s exterior, but that still meant, to gain entry, or exit, the internal bay doors needed to be opened.
Dav looked for a lever or operating system near the doors, and there was a small unit attached to the wall. He ran over to it, studied it.
“Can you see this?” he asked Sazo, switching on the lens feed attached to his helmet.
“Yes. This is the door mechanism?” Sazo asked.
“I can’t be sure, but it’s near the bay doors.” Time was wasting, though. “I need to go.”
“Rose is pretending to be affected by the air. She isn’t responding to Pyre.” Sazo had already told him this. That he was repeating it made Dav think he was worried by Rose’s silence.
“She said she would do that, though?” He kept his tone gentle as he ran out of the launch bay. He left the weapons in place, afraid that Pyre could lock him and the Hasmarga out later.
“Yes.” Sazo sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Tell the Hasmarga I’ve wedged the doors to the launch bay open. Just in case Pyre tries to lock us out or in. Her ship is in there, and she could have lens feed of us.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll let them know.” Sazo’s voice drifted away, as it often did when his mind was on other things. “It is difficult to get into these systems. They are foreign to my own, and between Pyre blocking me and the damage done by Gerna’s babies, I am finding it harder than I’m used to.”
“We can’t let her win, Sazo.” Dav passed Gerna again, skirting her and her babies as their wings whirred a little in reaction to him. He reached the captain’s office, and wedged the lever into the slim gap between the door and the wall. Heaved.
It moved, just a little. He caught the briefest glimpse of the room beyond, but Rose was out of sight. “Rose.” He shouted her name and then the door snapped shut.
But it had moved. And he would make it move again.
Rose heard the sound of Dav’s boots hammering down the passage, saw a thin slice of him as he managed to force the door open a little, before it closed with a thud.
She was far too far away in the spot she had chosen, she saw now. She got up on her hands and knees and began to crawl forward, just in case Pyre was watching, and then pretended to collapse a little way from the door, so Dav would see her next time he got the door open.
She started to cough, for effect, and found it a little too easy to do. Again, she felt a frisson of worry that the necklace was struggling, that she was unaware of the trouble she was in, like a proverbial frog in hot water. She drew in a deep breath, and it felt all right, but now the worry was in her mind, it stayed there.
She decided to keep still and conserve her energy. No matter whether her necklace was struggling or not, it was the best thing she could do for herself.
“Rose? Are you all right?” Sazo’s voice came through.
Maybe he thought Pyre would expect him to check on her, but he must know she couldn’t answer and keep up the pretense.
“I’ve put the air back,” Pyre said, sounding aggrieved. “She should be able to answer.”
“Not if she’s already dead.” Sazo’s voice was stone cold.
Pyre said nothing to that.
Just then, the door opened again, and Dav forced his body into the gap, back against the door, one boot up against the wall. He strained as he fought it wider.
Rose moved, crawling as fast as possible under his raised leg, and out into the passage, getting out of his way so he could jump free.
As the door snapped shut, he bent and lifted her up, and they stood together, holding each other tight.
“I have her,” Dav said. “She’s out.”
Rose heard the shout from Sazo through the helmet, and Dav winced.
Before either of them could respond, the hum and whirring that Rose associated with Hasmarga warriors filled the passageway.
She gripped Dav’s arm a little tighter and turned, found a group of four coming toward them. These warriors were dressed in protective clothing, though, rather than the rudimentary rags Rose had seen Gerna and her men wear on the moon, and all of them had helmets.
As soon as they saw Rose and Dav, though, the whirring stopped.
Rose nodded in greeting. “I’m not sure which language we can use to communicate,” she said. She used Grihan without thinking.
The warrior in front of her cocked his head but didn’t say anything.
“Gerna is this way.” Rose pointed, and Dav gestured to them to follow.
They stopped short when they saw Gerna lying down. Then they surged past her and Dav and surrounded the matriarch.
They had picked her up, with the babies still sitting on her chest, by the time she and Dav reached them.
“The other babies are in the engine room.” Dav pointed to the babies, then back the way they’d come.
The warrior pointed to himself, then the others, and pointed the same way.
“Do you think that means there are four more, and they’ve gone the other way?” Rose wondered.
“I hope so.” Dav kept going, and Rose was panting with exertion by the time they made it to the launch bay.
The doors were wedged open, which Rose guessed was Dav’s doing.
She was shocked at how much the bodies had changed since she’d last seen them. They were dull and gray, now. The babies were almost chalky.
There was a sound behind them, and she glanced back, saw the warriors reacting to the sight of their dead.
They had picked up the cushions as well as Gerna, and they placed her gently down on the ground and then moved to crouch beside the babies.
They were speaking, Rose could hear it, but she couldn’t understand what was being said.
“They want to know who is responsible for this.” Dav turned to her. “Sazo says he’s been asked to act as a translator.”
“The Kimol are responsible. They took her. They held her. They didn’t let her go when she asked, and then, when it was too late, they forced her to have her babies inside Pyre’s ship.” Rose nodded toward Crythis and her guards. “These four were just reacting to a situation none of them had control over. Even Priyan was taken by surprise, but she didn’t help, either. And Pyre bears some responsibility, too. She could have helped Gerna, and got her back to her ship, but instead she tried to use us both as hostages.”
Sazo obviously heard her through Dav’s helmet, because he didn’t ask Dav to repeat anything. The warriors bowed their heads as the information was transmitted to them, and they rose slowly to their feet.
If there were still any Kimol running lose on the ship, Rose didn’t think there would be much left of them after they were done.