Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(102)

As soon as we strapped in and opened the docking doors, a boom rolled through Typhon like thunder. He was jettisoning everything that wasn’t bolted down with enough force that some of them might be killed if they smashed up against Nadim’s shield, best-case scenario, and with Nadim towing hard, we were moving away from the swarm, the few that struggled weightless in the void. They moved slower in isolation, faster as the group. Surely they’d die if they didn’t eventually find shelter? It was hard to imagine otherwise, but maybe they could go into hibernation or something—dormant until a likely target appeared. They could latch on to a passing ship like a tick, burrow in, take over.

That must have been the fate of the other Leviathan. These things had killed the Honors, gutted the brain, and worn its skin. They had multiplied inside, like a virus, before bursting out on us.

With a skill even Beatriz couldn’t match, Chao-Xing glided the Hopper out into space. We weren’t far from Nadim’s docking area, but something in the wreckage caught my eye. I didn’t ask her; I just scanned.

Two life signs, faint and flickering now, but holy shit, somebody had survived that horrific battle, maybe even Honors we’d stood onstage with.

I tapped Chao-Xing’s shoulder. “Detour. We’ve got survivors.”

“We should escape while we can,” she said.

“If we’d said that, you wouldn’t even be here.”

Her fulminating silence only lasted a few seconds, felt longer. Then she switched course, dodging Leviathan debris with a celerity and grace that filled me with admiration. I could learn so much from her. Soon, we had visual confirmation; I’d expected pods like I had seen in old vids, but these were more like membrane pouches similar to the sac that protected a human fetus during pregnancy. Shapes were moving inside.

“That stuff must be stronger than it looks,” I said, doubtful.

“It is. Get to the back. You’ll have to find a way to haul them in.”

There was room, barely, for the two, and it took precious time we might not have because I was struggling to catch and pull while Chao-Xing reverse-thrustered toward them. The rescue op was slow and tedious, and we had to avoid floating pockets of the dark swarm, struggling feebly toward us. Impossible to make out who we’d saved, but I breathed better once we had them aboard.

“Okay, let’s go. Open a channel to Beatriz.”

“Where the hell are you?” she shouted the minute the comm pinged.

“I’m on Typhon’s Hopper, incoming with Marko, Chao-Xing, and two others. Marko will need EMITU, so have him on standby, okay? And tell Nadim I’m fine.”

“You have to stop doing this!”

“What?”

“Running off without talking things over with us first. Nadim is out of his mind, and it’s making me want to climb the walls. This bond stuff is bullshit, absolute . . .” Bea lapsed into Portuguese, still ranting.

A sound came from Chao-Xing, one I didn’t recognize. Laughter. So much that she could hardly pilot the Hopper. I gave her a dark look. “This is funny to you?”

“Hilarious. And you wonder why we almost failed you both.”

“Hey, I passed, remember?”

Chao-Xing smirked. “Did you?”

No matter how I pestered, she wouldn’t elaborate. We sped up, and I got my first look at Nadim towing Typhon, both bleeding starlight. It was like those old tugboats hauling a giant barge down the river, small in size, mighty in power. Nadim slowed and dropped shields long enough for us to swoop inside, and then he locked everything down again. Maybe it was safe to relax, but I wouldn’t let my guard down until we put some distance between us and the remains of the horde.

There was so much shit to sort. Thankfully, Bea was there when we piled out of the Hopper. She’d put EMITU on rover mode, and it immediately locked on to Marko. “You’re all kinds of jacked up, son.” Then it ran the scanner over him and jabbed him with a hypodermic.

Chao-Xing swiveled her head so fast, I was surprised it didn’t pop off. “You altered our medical unit?”

“Uh, our medical unit,” I said. “He’s awesome now.”

We got Marko onto a gurney and Bea hurried off, presumably to supervise EMITU. “Hey, C-X, we’re pretty far past worrying about minor infractions. Right?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay. Warbitch?”

She ignored that, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she wiped blood from her face. “I don’t care about your mods. Those shields saved our asses. And I don’t mind saying, your battle strategy was not bad for an amateur.”

That shocked me so much, I tripped on my own feet. “I . . . what?”

“That’s a compliment. Say thank you and then shut your hole.” Chao-Xing still looked stern, but I caught a hint of a twinkle that time.

She’d said before, I was just like you, once. Maybe she really meant it, and like me, she wanted people to think she was quite the hardass, but the truth was, it just took a while to earn her respect. I could relate to that on all levels. Anyway, I liked her better when we were on the same team.

“Your shoulder needs to be fixed,” she said then.

“I know.”

“It’s going to hurt. A lot.” The relish in her voice made me take two steps in the opposite direction, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing me.