“I heard.” Dav sounded thoughtful. “Sazo thinks they're waiting for their buyer, and that's why they tried to lure us away.”
“Would be interesting to see who that buyer is, wouldn't it?” Rose asked.
“Very interesting,” Sazo agreed.
Because whoever it was was knowingly doing a deal with the Krik on a non-interference planet in the middle of Grihan airspace. That was worth a bit of investigation.
“So what's the plan?” Jia asked.
“Sazo wants to blow them all up, Dav wants to kill them all, and I've got the means to restrain them.” Rose flashed her device at Jia. She shook her head when the lieutenant held out her hand to take it. “Coded to me, sorry.”
“Ah, one of the strange ones Dav tells me Sazo has in his stores?”
Rose nodded. “It's pretty efficient.”
“That's fine with me. Anything that gives us the upper hand.” Jia looked over at one of her team—Wester, it looked like—and Rose saw he was still lying down, and he didn't look well.
“Dara?” she asked, suddenly panicked that she couldn't see her friend, but then Kila moved and Rose saw she'd been blocking Dara from the Krik's view.
Her problems with the explorations officer melted away at the sight of her protectiveness of her people. She should let go of her grudge, and try again with Kila.
Dara was also lying down, but she seemed more awake than Wester.
“Two of the team are seriously injured,” she said, and hoped Sazo was still relaying her comms to Dav. “The others are either only slightly injured or fine. Oh, and the Krik obviously have our supplies and the hover.”
There may have been a time delay, or Dav was silent for a long time.
“I'm very tired of these Krik.”
She heard something implacable in his voice.
“I agree,” Sazo said. “And what do you know, the buyer for their silk just came into range. And their system isn't encrypted with Paxe's encryption key.”
Which meant Sazo would soon be in control of their ship.
“What's happening?” Jia Appal mouthed to her.
“The Krik's buyer just arrived. Sazo's tracking him,” Rose whispered. “Dav, have you seen Sweetpea? She ran toward the tree you're in when Sazo took that second shot.”
“She's here,” he said. “Staring at me with those big eyes from the end of the branch.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “We'll get out of this.”
“Yes, we will.” The implacability was still in his voice. “Can you take the guards?”
“I'll talk to Jia. But yes, I think I can.” She knew this could end badly for the guards, she could even kill them if the restraints caught them around the neck, and she couldn't keep the nerves and the squeamishness from her voice.
“They will kill you, Rose. They won't think twice about it.”
“I know. I'll let you know when we're going to move.” She turned to Jia. “We need to come up with a plan to neutralize the guards. My weapon can restrain them.”
“That's fine with me.” Jia gave a smile that had Rose blinking.
It spoke of retribution and blood.
“How does it work?” Jia asked as Rose pulled it out of her pocket again.
“It creates a very fine, strong filament that wraps around things and restrains them.” Rose's hand crept to her stomach and she pressed her palm against her shirt. Her resolve hardened.
She looked over at the guards. They had ranged themselves across the cave entrance, looking outward as if waiting for the next laser strike from Sazo. Occasionally one turned to check on them, but not often enough to be safe. She wondered why they weren't more vigilant, and said so to Jia.
“Perimeter warnings,” Jia said, and pointed, and Rose finally noticed the perimeter beacons they had been using outside now set up around the half-circle of crates.
“My weapon's range is at least to the cave entrance, so we won't set off anything until the guards are down.”
Jia motioned Kila over. “What you're saying is you can take the guards, but then the warning beacons will go off as we escape, and the Krik outside will come straight for us?”
“They'll try to come straight for you, but I will make it very difficult for them,” Dav said, and Rose started. She hadn't realized he was still listening in.
“And so will I.” Sazo sounded like he was starting to enjoy himself. “The buyer turns out to be a Garmman trader who got permission to enter Grihan airspace on the pretext of needing to go to Larga Ways. He's been neutralized.”
Rose hoped he meant that he'd taken over the Garmman's systems and had put the trader into a holding orbit, not that he'd switched off the environmental systems on the ship and was killing everyone onboard. He'd chosen to do both in the past, and she didn't have the time to ask which one he'd decided to use this time.
“Dav and Sazo say they'll open fire as soon as the guards are down, so hopefully no one will be headed for us, and if anyone does come our way, I still have my device,” Rose said.
“And me and some of my team will have those four guards' weapons,” Jia said, with a smile that was not in the least bit nice.
Jia and Kila turned away casually, and moved through the group, letting everyone know what was about to happen. Rose was glad to see four of Jia's team move to Wester and Dara, standing beside them, ready to pick them up and run.
The two soldiers who were left began to move to the edges of the waist-high wall, ready to jump over.
Rose got a good grip on her weapon and moved to the narrow opening in the crates. The device always fought to go upward, the energy powering it so strong it lifted in her hand whenever she'd used it in the practice range on the Class 5. To counter that, she clamped her left hand over her right wrist to help keep it steady and straight, and then she switched it on.
It came alive with a hum, the sound eager to Rose's ear. And a little bit sentient.
She let it lift up her hands until they were at chest height, and then she slashed quickly from right to left, drawing a figure of eight in the air, which lit up with the glow of the thin red filament.
For a moment it seemed as though nothing had happened.
Jia glanced at her, questioningly, and then all four guards fell over. They shouted in surprise at being tied together. The restraints seemed to be made of cooling silver wire that was either still hot, or sharp enough to cut into them, because she could see they were bleeding where the wire bound them. By the time they hit the ground, they were screaming in rage and pain.
Jia whispered a long, drawn out curse of surprise. “I want one.”
The four soldiers lifted their two injured team mates and Rose ran out of the enclosure.
Before she was more than a few steps out, Jia and the remaining two soldiers were alongside her, and the perimeter warning began to blare.
Jia and the others scooped up the guards' weapons, wincing at the noise the beacons were making, and in a move so practiced it must have been part of their training, they hit all four guards with the butt of their shockguns, rendering them unconscious.
Rose stopped just past them, looking out into the clearing.
“We're out and the four guards are taken care of.”