Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(97)

“Come on,” I said, pulling Beatriz by the wrist.

“Where’re we going?” she asked.

“Weapons locker,” I said.

“You don’t have enough?”

“I think you don’t.”

When we got there, I kitted out Bea with dual stunners and something with lethal kick to it. I wasn’t about to let Typhon hook Nadim again. If he wanted a fight, he’d get one. We’d lose, probably, but I intended to give him some new scars in very tender areas.

We sped on, driven by starsong, to find the Leviathan calling for help.

Halfway there, hours into our quest, the beacon went silent. No pulses, no responses when Nadim sent back his own signals. I pulled up a starmap and looked it over; Nadim wasn’t in any mood to do handy YOU ARE HERE graphics, but I could tell where we were and that we were heading for Cosmos Redshift 7.

I ran the timeline back, so I could see the historical track; in reverse, Nadim headed farther toward the nearby galaxy, and then curved on a different path, moving backward. I overlaid the two maps and analyzed the course patterns.

We were headed back in the same direction.

It was a trap. Our first instincts had been right.

“Nadim!” I said sharply, and reached for our bond. He blocked me. “Nadim, you need to stop!”

“Trust me, Zara.”

“He’s going to kill you! Don’t you get that? You can’t go running headlong in there!”

“Typhon would not lure me with a distress call. No Leviathan would. I know this puts you in danger, and I am sorry for it. I will do everything I can to protect you. But we must try to help.”

“I disagree,” I said flatly.

“I don’t,” Bea said. She was standing in the hub now, looking half a pirate, tying her hair back. “We have to go. If Nadim’s sure, we have to do it.”

“But—”

“Zara.” Her eyes locked on mine, and what I saw there made me shut up. “We’re going.”

The pings came again. Both of us turned to look at the console. Nadim said, “It’s not Typhon.”

“What?”

“I analyzed the harmonics. It isn’t Typhon sending that signal; he’s an Elder, their range is different. It’s a ship younger than I am. One carrying Honors on a Tour, not a bonded ship. Otherwise there would have been a bond-name. . . .” He sounded anxious and distracted, and he wouldn’t let me in. Maybe because he was afraid I’d try to make him do something he didn’t want to do, like turn around.

“I won’t stop you,” I said. “But you have to be prepared, Nadim. Stay alert!”

“I am,” he said. “You and Beatriz need to be at stations, in case something happens.”

There was a new and resonant timbre in his voice, a determination that hadn’t been there before.

In the end, this was Nadim’s decision. His people, calling for help. In the Zone, the “honor among thieves” code might be bullshit, but out here, maybe we needed some code to live by. Even if we weren’t Honors anymore.

I let Beatriz know what was up, and together, we stood watch in the console room, staring at our steady progress in the 3D star charts. We’d already passed the point where we’d broken free of Typhon, and Beatriz was keeping a sharp lookout for any sign of the Elder’s presence, but it was ghostly empty out here. A binary star system hung on the outer edges, with a cluster of planets frying in their orbits; if anything had evolved there, it had to be fireproof. I speculated what they might look like. Asbestos bunnies? Snakes made of shimmering steel scales? Maybe they were liquid and ran in rivulets down channels on the planet, built vast lakes for cities and fountains for towers.

I was afraid, I realized. My healed hands were cold, and when I flexed them, the joints felt stiff. Get centered, Zara. You are badass. I was rocking heavy armament, tight pants, and a glorious crown of curls that would have killed in the Zone.

Ready as I would ever be for whatever was coming.

Beatriz said, quietly, “Contact.”

Nadim slowed. I felt the shift, though it wasn’t hard enough to throw us around; I still braced myself on the console and stared hard at the charts as they magnified, zeroing in on Nadim’s position.

Debris field. Not again. I remembered the sweaty fear of being caught in that last one, of dodging rocks the size of buildings and trying not to get squashed between them. Bea had saved us on that one. Now, she looked both alert and deeply wary. She touched controls, a graceful dance of fingers, without looking away from her screen. Then she grabbed the screen image and threw it up for a 3D visual so I could see it.

It still looked like a debris field to me, but Bea was trying to tell me something.

Nadim got it before I did. A wave of dull gray shock shot through him, streaked with the scarlet of anguish. I pressed my hand quickly to his skin, and the power of his emotion nearly knocked me off my feet. No. No. I couldn’t make sense of what he was feeling. Why would a debris field make him so—

Beatriz tapped the image screen and zoomed, and finally, I understood.

We were looking at shredded pieces of silver flesh, floating limp in space. Blackened at the edges.

Pieces of Leviathan.

Nadim hung silent in space, grieving, horror stricken, and I couldn’t move. Finally, I wet my lips and asked, “How many—” I couldn’t finish the question. This was a slaughterhouse.