“That works.” He tilted his head in that Grihan way of his. “But we'll need to be careful, because the Krik will have heard the drone land the first time and might just be checking out where it landed.” He picked up his bag of weapons and she nodded, then yawned again. Sweetpea had curled up on the hover and gone to sleep, and Rose left her there rather than disturb her.
Dav insisted she pick a weapon, and she chose one she'd been interested in since Sazo showed it to her a while ago, a slim t-shaped device that fit nicely in her palm, so the stem of the t poked between her fingers and the bar sat snugly in her hand.
It was meant to restrain, and it did so with frightening efficiency. You didn't need to aim if you didn't want to, you could simply slash the air in front of you and a thin fiber of light—some kind of filament—shot out and hardened as it hit the air before coiling around whatever was in front of it.
The best part was it was coded for the user, so if the Krik took it off her, they wouldn't be able to use it on her or anyone else.
She felt her heart hitch a little, because every other option in the bag was lethal—clearly neither Dav nor Sazo were feeling particularly forgiving—and she guessed they had included this one because they knew she would hesitate to use something more deadly.
As she led Dav down the by now familiar path to the caves from her camp, she contemplated the idea of motherhood.
She liked it. A lot.
She would have preferred to have been more settled in Grihan society, have more of a network around her, but she still had nine months to achieve that.
It wasn't impossible.
Dav was as quiet as she was, mainly, she knew, because of the danger of the Krik, but he had to be reeling from her news, as well.
It was a big day for them both.
“Are you happy?” she whispered as she reached the tree she'd used before to spy on the Krik.
“Yes.” His response was just as quiet, and he touched his lips to her ear. “I'm very happy. And excited. And scared.”
She smiled, turning her face against his neck to nod. “Same.”
“I'll walk you back,” he offered and she shook her head.
“I could stay with you.”
He shook his head.
They stared at each other, neither wanting to let the other go, and then they both smiled.
“I bet we look pretty sappy right now,” she said.
He grinned. “I don't care how we look.”
She lifted her face and he kissed her, and finally, she walked away.
He didn't move, watching her leave, and only when she looked back at him did he sling his bag of strange weapons over his shoulder and start to climb.
9
Rose knew something was wrong when she heard Sweetpea making the same high-pitched cry she'd made when they'd hidden from the Krik the day before.
She didn't know why she immediately thought the baby was up against a natural predator, something from the local fauna, but when a Krik stepped out and aimed a shockgun at her, she was genuinely shocked.
"Krik,” she said, for Sazo's benefit. Her thoughts went straight to her weapon, sitting in her pants pocket, but the Krik would shoot her before she could pull it out.
“Like you didn't already know.” The Krik holding the shockgun opened his mouth in a show of incisors.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“One of the guards on watch was walking back to the caves and heard a noise. Probably this hover here. He called us and we came looking for it.”
Damn.
“Who else is here that we missed?” the Krik asked. His Grihan was extremely good.
“No one. That's why the Class 5 above sent down the hover. I couldn't carry these supplies by myself.” Thank goodness Dav had taken the bag full of weapons.
“That drone from earlier?”
Rose nodded.
“Why didn't you get out of here, to safety?”
“I don't leave my friends.” Rose shrugged.
“Well, come join them, then.” He motioned with the shockgun, and as he did, Sweetpea leaped from the tree trunk onto Rose's shoulder, and hissed at the Krik.
The Krik hissed back, and Sweetpea ducked under Rose's hair. She could feel her shivering.
“I've seen some of those in the trees, but none of them are that friendly.” The Krik looked at her suspiciously.
“I rescued this one. It's a baby.”
He looked skeptical, but she moved in the direction he pointed without hesitation, and from behind her, she heard the hover start up.
When she glanced back, two Krik she hadn't noticed earlier were walking next to it, and one flashed his incisors at her when he caught her looking.
Dav was going to be so mad.
Not that this was her fault, but still . . .
Exactly what he feared had just happened.
“Ask them how much value they put on their spacecraft,” Sazo said in her ear. He was cold as ice.
She wondered why he'd taken so long to react to her telling him about the Krik, but knowing him, he'd have been working out all his options.
“Do you think that's a wise move?” she asked him.
“They need to feel some consequences. They got their way with Dara, and they think they've got the upper hand. We need to teach them they do not.”
“You think this isn't wise?” the Krik asked.
“I wasn't talking to you,” Rose answered. “The Class 5 wants to know how much you value your spacecraft.”
The Krik grabbed her shoulder so fast she couldn't help the squeak of surprise that came out of her. His mouth was open, his incisors bared. “Is that a threat?”
“Tell them it's a promise,” Sazo said.
“He says it's a promise.”
The Krik stopped dead, his hand digging into her shoulder. “What exactly is he promising?”
“Um, to destroy your spacecraft unless you let me go,” Rose said.
The Krik tightened his grip until Rose cried out in pain, and then he looked surprised, as if he hadn't even realized what he was doing. He held on for another moment, just to let her know he could hurt her, and then released her. “Why didn't he make that same threat for the others?”
“He was still considering his options before now.” She rubbed her shoulder. She wouldn't tell him Sazo didn't have the same attachment to the others.
“Who is he, anyway? The captain?”
She blinked. Did they not realize Sazo was the Class 5? She'd thought the Krik would have understood the Class 5s better because of their association with Paxe, but maybe he'd been careful to shield who he really was in his dealings with them.
“Yes, he's the captain.”
“Tell him if he backs away and lets us leave, we'll leave you and the others down here. We'll leave a timed explosive with you, and when he lets us out of range, he can fetch you all. If something happens to us before then, you go boom.”
“He's lying,” Sazo said. “They don't have a timed explosive with them. I've scanned their ship. Which means he's probably lying about leaving you down here, or leaving you alive.”
“I agree.” Rose narrowed her eyes at the Krik. “He doesn't believe you.”