She frowned and tapped her earpiece. “Sazo?”
“Yes?” He sounded distracted. She hadn't spoken to him much today because she had been in the group the whole time.
“What's going on?”
“There's some strange signal activity coming from Vuyn. I'm trying to work out exactly where it's coming from and why I can't decrypt it.”
Rose shivered, and not from the cold this time. She paused in the middle of pulling on her pants. “That's weird. We're the only ones here.”
“You should be the only ones there, certainly.”
The way he phrased it didn't make her feel any better. She sat down heavily and began pulling on her socks and boots.
Sweetpea leaped from her shoulder now she was closer to the ground, gliding a fair distance, and then hopped on something Rose guessed was another bug.
When she turned her cute little face to Rose in triumph, there was a leg and a wing sticking out either side of her mouth.
“I don't like you being down there when I don't know who else might be down there, too.” Sazo's voice suddenly sounded a lot more focused. And worried.
“This is Grihan airspace, though. Might it be an old probe or something?” There was no use getting all worked up for no good reason.
“If it was an old Grihan probe, I'd be able to decrypt the signal.”
She got back to her feet, and then it struck her. The others weren't back yet. Midday was definitely a long time ago. Way more than an hour, anyway.
She sucked in a breath. “I think something might have happened to the exploration team. They should have been back by now.”
“What? Where are they?” Sazo's question was quiet. Tinged with panic.
“I wanted to rest in this clearing we stopped in, and they were only going to be another hour. They left the perimeter warning beacons activated for me, and I fell asleep. I only just woke up now and a lot longer than an hour has passed.”
“They shouldn't have left you.” Sazo's voice was tight with anger.
“I wanted them to, and I'm fine. It's them I'm worried about.” She rolled up the blanket she'd slept on, made sure there was no longer a trace of her presence left, and then walked around the clearing switching off the warning beacons and adding them to her pack.
“What are you doing?” Sazo asked.
“I'm going to very quietly, very carefully, go the way they did, and see what might have happened to them.”
“You think the signals I'm hearing have something to do with their disappearance?”
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think it's too much of a coincidence. And I don't want you to go.”
She sighed. “It's better to know what's happening and be prepared though, right?”
He thought about it. “Yes. Be careful then. Promise.”
“I promise,” she said, softening her voice. “I will be sneaky as.”
“Sneaky as what?” he asked.
“Sneaky as the sneakiest thing you can think of. I don't know what's particularly sneaky in Grihan airspace, but I'll be that sneaky.”
He laughed, as she hoped. “That would probably be a bunin.”
“I'll be sneaky as a bunin,” she promised. “And when we have time, you can show me what a bunin is.” She moved out of the clearing, with Sweetpea riding shotgun on her shoulder, little paws holding tight to her hair.
Grihan standard operating procedure was to mark any path taken with small blue tags attached to the trees, in case anyone got lost and needed to find their way back alone. It made following the path they'd taken extremely easy.
She walked their route for ten minutes before she found where they'd been taken.
The ground was churned up and a few small things lay on the forest floor. A nutrient bar wrapper. A piece of fabric, as if someone's clothes had been ripped. There were no more blue tags from this point forward and Kila would never, ever leave rubbish lying on the ground on a planet with a non-interference order. Never.
“We're in trouble,” she whispered to Sazo as she backed away from the scene.
“What is it?” His voice was low and urgent.
“Someone's grabbed them all. And that includes Jia's whole team.”
That would explain why the ground was so churned up and also the ripped cloth. They had put up a fight.
She stood in the growing darkness of the forest, considering her options. Sazo must have been doing the same, because he was as silent as she.
Suddenly, Sweetpea started to chirp, a long, high note of warning.
“There's someone coming.” She barely breathed the words out for Sazo, and then pressed herself against a tree. Sweetpea kept up her call, getting louder and more panicked and then she leaped off Rose's shoulder onto the tree trunk, where she spread herself out so her dark brown, mottled fur made her almost completely disappear in front of Rose's eyes.
Rose realized she could reach the first branch, and something about the panic in Sweetpea's call motivated her to move. She hauled herself up, and Sweetpea jumped back on her shoulder as she climbed up to the next branch, and then the next, until at last she was above the leaf canopy.
She heard the murmur of voices only moments later.
Sweetpea let out a final, high-pitch squeak and then went silent, her little body pressed against Rose's neck.
Rose didn't understand the language spoken, so she carefully removed her earpiece and held it out in case Sazo would be able to capture some of what was said and tell her later.
Whoever was below moved to the site where everyone had been taken, but not for long. She heard the voices fade, and after what felt like a long time Sweetpea suddenly relaxed, hopped back onto the tree trunk, and blinked her enormous, cute eyes at Rose.
“Did you hear them?” she asked Sazo when she put the earpiece back in, and realized he'd been shouting at her for a while.
She winced. “Sorry. I held the earpiece out to see if you could catch the language so we could work out who they are.”
“Krik.” Sazo's volume was still turned up. “It was at least two Krik.”
Rose frowned. “I've never met a Krik, but aren't they vassals of the Garmman? Or at least their planet is in Garmman airspace.” She watched Sweetpea explore the tree trunk, although the little glider kept looking back at Rose to make sure she was still there.
“They are the Garmman's responsibility. Although the Garmman keep trying to wash their hands of them. If there's any piracy in any airspace, the Krik are often behind it. And I wouldn't be surprised if the reason the mine station sent out that distress signal was because Krik were attacking,” Sazo said.
“You think they drew the Barrist away deliberately?” If so, Dav and the crew of the Barrist were walking into a trap.
“If they did, and it's likely, it was probably not to attack the Barrist, but to get it away from Vuyn. They know they can't take on an explorer, so they tried to distract it.”
What he said made sense, and she realized he had said it to soothe her.
He wouldn't have seen the need to do that a few months ago, but he was learning.
“They would have hoped you would leave with the Barrist, too, Sazo.” In fact, they had to have been hoping Sazo's Class 5 battleship would leave even more than the Barrist.