Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(25)

“None. But why would I bother?” He took in a breath, all too aware of the drones, the head-cams, the other people around us. Forced a smile. “Besides, people like him are leverage. Go ahead, run to the stars. I’ll be waiting when you get back. Maybe we’ll do some more business, kid. I still haven’t paid you back for the disrespect to my daughter.”

I watched him go, unable to focus on the event at all.

It was late by the time all the new Honors had their big moment, beamed live all over the world: two in the morning. I had no false excitement left, just fear. Fear of Deluca’s long reach, fear of the unknown. Whatever, at least Derry was alive and we were quits.

I couldn’t sleep. Instead, I paced, watching the clock, feeling everything around me shift, change, and crumble. I packed the few things I owned. I watched some coverage of the upcoming launch event. . . . The reporters, at least, weren’t sleeping any more than I was. I got surprised by an interview with my father, who popped up out of nowhere; I shut it off rather than hear him say my name.

As the few hours passed, things compressed into flashes. Flash, and I was eating breakfast from a fancy tray while Marko updated me on what would happen today. Flash, and I was in an e-car with Marko, Mom, and Kiz, heading for the launch site.

Flash, and I stood in the early morning light, surrounded by paparazzi, while my mother held me tight and whispered, “Love you, Zara. You’re gonna do great things.”

Kiz got in on the hug. “Don’t screw it up.”

I took pleasure in knowing that my old man wasn’t sharing this public family farewell. Like he did me, I wrote him out, now that I had the power.

Time stopped moving so quickly then, as if my brain had decided to take it all in. In a few moments, I’d be leaving Earth. Leaving everything I’d ever known. Amid a flurry of photo ops and terse mini-interviews, I finally boarded the shuttle. I’m about to meet an alien. Not a metal ship. A living creature that traveled in space, taking me along for the ride. That scared the hell out of me, now that it was more than just some holo, some abstract concept.

Valenzuela’s warning echoed in my head. Don’t go. Maybe this was a bad idea, worse than staying to face off with Deluca. My stomach knotted.

Somehow I lifted a hand to wave to Mom and Kiz. Mom put her hand to her heart, and I did the same. Then I was inside the shuttle.

Marko made sure I was strapped in and settled beside me. Across the aisle, a dark-haired girl that I vaguely recalled as Beatriz, the other new recruit, was breathing hard and blinking back tears while Zhang Chao-Xing—imposing and very stiff in the flesh—ignored her distress.

“It’s okay,” I said to the other girl, but really to myself.

The engines engaged and started to spin up, and the strangest thing happened: a wave surged inside me, almost new to me. Anticipation. This felt like running, all right, running away from my past and everything in it. Racing full speed toward the unknown.

I was good at running.

When the shuttle shot up, the roar blanked everything else as we left the Earth and flung ourselves out toward the stars.





Interlude: Nadim


Below, the planet spins. It is a beautiful world, lush in hues and energy, filled to bursting with life in fascinating shapes. I wish I could visit it, but skimming the thick atmosphere is as close as I dare. I am with the others, my year-mates, and we circle the globe in a weightless flock.

We are all empty.

It is a strange thing to feel the hollow spaces and the silence again. Peaceful, but sad. I miss Marko’s calm, whispering presence. I wonder what new humans will bring me. Chao-Xing taught me a chill kind of patience. Marko taught me to listen. Each of them teaches, each of them learns. This is the way.

Elder Typhon hovers higher, hidden in starshadow, adrift on dark currents. His sails are furled as he waits. I can feel his eagerness to be done and traveling again, but I don’t know what drives him on. I feel no such need, at least at the moment; the song of stars whispers far, far away. I could stay caught in the glow of these humans for ages and feel content. This is what drew us to them, this energy. Many forms of life exist in the vast, black ocean between suns, but few burn so brightly. Sing so clearly.

My new crew is coming. I feel the hot pulse of the shuttles—poor, inert things, driven by machines and not life—bringing them up from their drowning-heavy ground to the cool surface where I drift. Fifty vessels, each bearing guests. As mine nears, it gives me golden, sweet joy to feel Marko on board, less to feel Chao-Xing, but she is familiar all the same.

The other two are different, as different to each other as to me. One burns with a nervous, brittle brown chatter of fear; the other has a red edge of something else. Harder, but . . . sweeter too. Something I have never known.

Something new.





PART II





CHAPTER SIX


Breaking Through


THE UPWARD RUSH felt like the purest freedom I’d ever known.

Though I’d hated almost everything that led up to this moment, exaltation shot through my veins. I watched the Earth fall away, along with all constraints and restrictions. Whoever I’d been dirtside, this was a fresh start. This was a new me, this uniform, this slick haircut, this possibility.

Inside, though. Inside, I was the same old Zara. I didn’t know if that would ever change.