Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(99)

Only.

The Elder went to his guns, and though Nadim lithely rolled, he couldn’t quite avoid the shot that blew part of his solar fin away. The pain made both me and Beatriz scream. I hit the floor without even realizing that my knees had given out. When I opened my eyes, I spotted Bea clinging to the edge of the console, swaying, but she still stood, like she was never leaving her station. Bravery and defiance in every line, every curve. I got the hell up and joined her. Shoulder to shoulder, soldiers on the battlements just like I’d seen in Typhon’s mind.

Except our war wasn’t his. We were fighting for Nadim. And we would never, ever surrender.

Nadim didn’t have enough energy to fire. Our shield was gone. We needed a thousand generators, maybe a nuclear fusion core, or we’d have to harvest a star to have enough power to survive this fight . . . I could’ve cried. All that work . . .

There was no victory here. Nobody to left to save in the wasteland.

Run, I pleaded through the bond.

Nadim complied, diving close to the twin suns, twisting a narrow course between them, and I felt the heat even through his insulating skin; the Elder was waiting for him and fired again. Nadim fell back, close to the sun’s surface, so close I could feel his skin cooking before he plunged out again, vectoring to put the sun between him and the other ship.

I turned on the comms. “Calling any Honors aboard that ship! What are you doing? Stop him!”

Nothing. We should have felt the Elder’s massive, powerful essence, but there was nothing coming from the other ship at all.

He was a void of cold, arid destruction.

Had his Honors died? If a human could go mad with his ship, did a ship go mad without his Honors? It isn’t that. Can’t be.

I’d once thought of Nadim as a haunted house when he was in dark sleep, but this Elder felt like a real one, inhabited by a bloody, savage ghost who craved nothing but death.

Nadim faltered. He was running out of power, unable to feed properly due to damage. We were too far from the right stars, the right songs.

I dove, clicking into the deep bond, leaving my skin behind to stand motionless and black-eyed at the console, and braided my strength, my resolve into him. We must get away and spread the word. We have to stop any other Honors from being dragged into this. . . . But we were too damn far to contact Earth directly. The best we could hope for was that they’d receive our signal someday, long after our fates were sealed.

Nadim told me, with surprising gentleness, We won’t get away. I am trying to sing to other ships what has happened.

That was when I heard Bea lifting her heartbreaking, beautiful voice, rising and falling in harmony with the vibrations and pulses that Nadim was sending out. Singing with all her strength and adding it to Nadim’s. The Leviathan could communicate across huge distances. Maybe somewhere, someone would hear.

Unless they’ve all died, I thought on a tide of despair. Unless Nadim is the last.

And that was when the rushing, screaming, ice-cold presence of Typhon blew in, coming in a heart-stopping rush from out of the void. Seeing him and the other Leviathan Elder together, I didn’t know why I’d confused them even for a moment. It was clear that Typhon was even bigger, bristled with even more weapons.

What was also unmistakable was the rage that rushed out of him when he took in the shattered corpses of the other Leviathan and Nadim’s damage.

Comms activated with a burst, and I heard Marko shouting something.

Typhon came on with screaming speed. I melted into Nadim again, and together we rolled out of the way, and Typhon slammed the other Leviathan, wrecking his shit in an epic crash that sent pieces of broken guns scattering, fire erupting from energy cells buried deep, lighting the dark side of the planet beneath where Nadim dipped and curled to avoid the destruction as two titans clashed in battle.

What the hell is this thing trying to destroy us? It looked like an Elder, but it acted like it wasn’t a sentient being anymore, just a beast of boundless violence.

Zadim watched as Typhon’s tail flexed, lifted, and drove with brutal, stunning force deep inside the other Leviathan. It did huge damage, but the enemy darted away. Its weapons mostly hung useless, scraps of metal trailing loose from open sores.

“Zara!” Beatriz was shaking my body, and I dropped out of the bond to respond.

I scrambled after her to the comm. The roaring of two Elders shook Nadim, making it almost impossible to hear or concentrate, but I caught some of what Marko was saying. “—escape, get Nadim out of here, now, he’s too close, when it spreads—”

I had no idea what he was warning us about, but I agreed; we couldn’t stay. Typhon was locked in a vicious struggle, behemoths colliding and crushing like galaxies going to war, and we had nothing useful to add. We needed to go. Now.

Nadim was willing, but weak; the damage done to his solar fin was not just painful, but debilitating and healing far too slowly. We were close enough to the binaries that he was able to fly on, but he wouldn’t get far from this battlefield. The next star was hours away. I wasn’t sure he could make it, injured as he was.

We’d only gotten as far as the next planet out when the battered, silent Elder ship spun free of the battle and hung silent while Typhon backed away. The battleground swam with drifting trails of blood, eddies of wreckage. Typhon had been hurt too. Badly. I could sense the maroon agony pulsing from him, and the raw determination too. A wounded soldier, facing the enemy with a bent sword and no hope.