Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(68)

I didn’t want to imagine any scenario where Nadim was dying or dead. Luck used to be my nemesis, but things had shifted in my favor lately, so why not roll the dice again? I didn’t wait for Bea to locate any emergency procedures buried in Nadim’s records, so while she scrolled and sorted, I activated communications and recorded a message that would loop, short and to the point. “Our Leviathan is injured. Requesting immediate support. Please advise.”

Then I beamed it out wide into space.

“Zara! What if someone else hears that?”

“You mean, other aliens? I don’t care, as long as they know how to wake a Leviathan. I’m on first watch, monitoring Nadim and listening for a response.”

“But—there must be a reason that the Leviathan didn’t tell us about any other ships, other races—”

“Maybe,” I said, and met her eyes. “It’s all we’ve got, Bea.”

She didn’t ask me to promise that we’d be okay. At that moment, I didn’t have it in me to reassure her. Not with Nadim checked out and the memory of his former Honors screaming in my head. Bea kept me company, not talking much, just being there. I remembered long nights in the Zone, huddling with my crew for warmth and solidarity against the dark.

Eventually she said, “EMITU sent a message. He says you’d better get down there or he’ll put you to sleep like a bad puppy.”

“You got carried away with his personality profile, you know that, right?”

“Maybe. But he’s not wrong. You need to make sure the treatments are working.”

So I went to med bay. EMITU was sarcastic and ever so slightly concerned about my lack of ability to follow simple directions, but I responded in monosyllables, and eventually, it said that I was good to go after another pain shot. I came back to find Bea sitting quietly. Waiting. Listening to the sound of my message, playing on loop.

“I found the other distress beacon,” she said. “It’s on. Other Leviathan can hear it.”

“Something will break soon. I have faith.”

That was, maybe, the first time I’d ever said anything like that. I’d had no religion to speak of since my childhood, nor reverence, but Nadim had become my pillar of fire in the wilderness. Judging by the look Bea gave me, she thought I was losing my shit. I preferred to think of it as dedication.

“I’ll check back later.”

Don’t think about failing life support. Don’t think about the worst-case scenario. But I did, of course. The average time to failure of human-based systems in the event of a Leviathan’s death was less than half an hour, which had been one of those statistics that they’d taught us in orientation classes. As I looked up more intel on the console, I found that human-based systems might be able to function for two to three days in the event that a Leviathan was unresponsive due to injury or illness. At that point, Nadim would start shutting down what his instincts told him were unnecessary systems—unnecessary to his survival—to save energy.

Where were we on that timeline? Better than halfway into it.

I didn’t want to imagine Nadim finally coming awake and finding us frozen and dead inside him. But of course, I did. I role-played through his rage and grief and guilt. I wondered what he’d do with us. Take us home? Give us a burial in space? Send us into the red giant, a star for a funeral pyre? Morbid thoughts. I couldn’t help it. That carried me along a dark road that led to my own role in this mess. Because I always wanted a little more, skated a bit closer to the edge, and so did Nadim. We’d tipped over that edge and now, my recklessness might end Beatriz, Nadim, and me.

Impossible not to wallow some in that guilt.

There was no telling how much time had passed when the comm crackled with a shocking burst of sudden, inhuman noise, which slowly resolved into English. Some translation protocol coming into play, I guessed, via the data console.

Holy shit, I’m listening to an alien.

“. . . responding. We heard your message—bond-name?” A lot of whatever was being said didn’t translate, or maybe our translation system was one of the first things to start shutting down.

For a few seconds I trembled, and then I stumbled upright, two left feet all the way. “I’m Zara. My partner’s Beatriz. Our Leviathan is called Nadim. Hello? Hello?”

A long silence followed, ominous by any token. “. . . your bond-name?”

“Excuse me?” Distance could account for some of the pause, and there’d been some of that inhuman wailing that didn’t translate again, but I had the awful feeling I wasn’t giving the right answer to a question I didn’t even understand. It was downright frustrating, these time-lag stops and starts, but the response—when it came at last—nearly froze the blood in my veins.

“. . . without bond-name cannot—” A series of beeps and whistles cut into the audio stream, obliterating any hope of comprehension.

“Look, screw the rules! This is an emergency. We need help and you’re the only other Leviathan in range. He won’t wake up, and if he doesn’t soon—” I swallowed hard to continue. “If he doesn’t, we’re dead.”

I got nothing but static in response.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


Breaking Even


BEA SCOWLED, PACING beside the console. “Was that a good idea? I told you I found the standard distress beacon. You have no idea who you were talking to . . . or what their intentions might be. I’ve never heard of a bond-name, what is that, a code? We don’t know codes!”