Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(70)

Below that, it was a nightmare of tendrils, tentacles, nothing like arms or legs I could recognize, all contained in individual little skinsuit extensions. The suit didn’t seem to know what color scheme to take; it cycled wildly between matching the whitish color of the room around us and a deep eggplant purple that lightened to red and whirled to white again. I had no idea what it meant.

If the alien had come to help, I didn’t want to start some shit, but it was hard to stay calm when I had no training, no frame of reference for any of this. This is why Nadim said humans aren’t ready. Because we aren’t. At all.

The strange speech I couldn’t interpret on the comm didn’t make any more sense up close; the frequencies were ear piercing. Another noise; then the swaying of the tentacles increased. So did the patting of the little filaments. It adjusted something on its suit, and since it wasn’t attacking, I tried talking.

“I’m Zara. Our Leviathan—”

A screech that seared my eardrums cut me off, and it performed more multitentacled gestures I couldn’t interpret, then blew past me to fiddle with our console.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Stop!”

I tried to tell myself it was here to help, but truth was I had no idea why it was here or what it was doing. Fear negotiated with uncertainty, and I clutched the stunner I’d pulled from the weapons locker, palms sweaty. So far, it hadn’t attacked me, but I didn’t get a good vibe about the way it just came aboard and started messing with our stuff. If only it would say something I could understand . . .

It paused to adjust the tech affixed to its suit as I said, a bit more forcefully, “Hey. You. What the hell are you doing?”

The alien thrashed, like it was in the midst of a convulsion, all its tentacles twisting and flailing the air, filaments rising straight up like a ruff around its head. It made an absolutely chilling howl, tentacles flaring wide, and it looked so much like the posture of a snake before it struck that I didn’t even think about what to do.

I fired my stunner.

Wasn’t exactly a considered decision; my mind went blank with gibbering terror. The beam caught the creature where a human neck would have been, between the head and the explosion of tentacles thrashing at me.

It collapsed into a limp sack, tentacles still flapping, and I nearly shot it again before I got my shit together. It was making some weak whistling noises, but hell, I didn’t speak Tentacle, and apparently neither of our translators was helping.

“Zara!” Bea’s voice came from the corridor. “What happened?”

“Um.”

She looked properly appalled. “Did you kill it?”

“I don’t know.”

I edged forward. No idea where to check for a pulse on an alien or even if it had one. I tentatively pressed my fingers to the neck, and instantly, half a dozen filaments whipped out to wrap around my fingers, hand, and wrist. “Not dead!” I squeaked, and tried to yank free. It took effort. “Really not dead!”

The creature burbled at me. It sounded angry. A tentacle raised and slashed at me, and before I could duck, it connected and sent me spinning out across the floor. Strong, I thought through a fog that wasn’t entirely due to the hit.

I rolled to my feet, bouncing and ready for a fight. The alien made a roaring sound like water as it thrashed around on the floor, slapping tentacles. Not coordinated yet, but it wouldn’t take long, and then what was I going to do? We needed help. Maybe I’d already screwed that up, but I wasn’t even sure how to start apologizing.

So I just started. “Uh, look, we got off on the wrong—” I was going to say foot but how would that translate at all, if his translator was working? “I’m sorry. I was just asking what you were doing!”

Apology was not accepted.

It was fast. I watched it writhe toward me, filaments stiff and jutting like knives around its head, tentacles slapping the floor with angry emphasis as it came at me. I clutched the stunner and considered firing again, and before I could, its limb wrapped around the barrel and wrenched it decisively out of my grip to crush it into sparks.

“Doing?” Finally, it produced a word I understood. “Not hellfire damnations?”

I had no idea what it meant; something must’ve gone badly awry in its translation matrix. “Yeah, doing. You.” I pointed, hoping it wouldn’t take that as a hostile gesture. I had a huge bruise forming where it had slammed me into the wall. I didn’t want a repeat.

More tinkering with what I took to be a translation aid. “Reading. Learning starsign. Yours need . . .” Alien chatter. It played with the settings again. “White dwarf.”

A deep, groaning sound rushed through me; it came from outside, echoing through flesh and metal and rushing on past us.

That was a Leviathan song. I was sure half of it wasn’t within the range of my ears, because the floor under my feet vibrated. My bones too. What I could hear of the sound was keening, sharp, and decidedly unmusical.

Definitely not Nadim. It’s the other ship.

“Angry,” the alien said. “Try to calm. Soothe. Sing.” It extended two tentacles toward me in a whiplike motion. They wrapped around my arms, strong as steel cables, and yanked them hard out to the sides. “Do not make me _____ you.” That important verb was replaced with a harsh gurgle. The concept of what they were going to do to me simply didn’t translate. That was terrifying.