Honor Lost Read online

  Ahead, the floating city grew before my eyes, though that was a trick of perspective. The smooth lines made the structures look like liquid metal or ice or I didn’t even know what. Behind me, Starcurrent was singing, a subharmonic ululation that sounded happy, like when you rub a cat’s head and it purrs.

  “Your home is magnificent,” Nadim said through the tech on my shoulder.

  “Many thanks. Sad to be here in such dire times; happy to be here,” Starcurrent replied.

  The comm popped as the translation matrix activated. “Unknown Leviathan Shuttle, please respond.”

  “This is Hopper-1X of the Leviathan Typhon,” Chao-Xing said. “Piloted by Zhang Chao-Xing, carrying two passengers, Zara Cole and Starcurrent.”

  I noticed she didn’t use a bond-name, though Typhon and his crew had one. Starcurrent spoke in zis native tongue, and those sounds still didn’t register as anything I could learn, let alone emulate. If I could get a chip implanted in my head to make me magical at new languages, I would have that hardware put in so fast. That was one ability I wished I had, and I admired the hell out of Bea for speaking five languages with her own skills. Only so much the regular translators could do with the language the Abyin Dommas spoke.

  “Be welcome to Greenheld,” the voice on the radio said. “Transmitting vectors for approach. You are clear for docking.”

  It must not have meant exactly what I thought, though, because once we got close, the shuttle stopped responding to Chao-Xing’s commands. Somebody on the other side must have been piloting us remotely, and let me just say, I did not love being hijacked like that. C-X turned to level a sharp look on Starcurrent.

  “Is this routine? It feels hostile,” she snapped.

  “Hospitality and safety?” Ze seemed confused. “This is best to make sure we arrive intact. There are slipstreams close to the sky cities.”

  “There’s safety, then there’s commandeering our ship,” she muttered, slapping a palm against the now-useless control panel.

  Yeah, knowing we had to go wherever they took us? Didn’t feel great. Still, Starcurrent didn’t seem worried, but they were zis people. Obviously, ze wouldn’t be the first one thrown in a cell if shit went sideways. Maybe these Abyin Dommas didn’t know we were the ones who woke up Lifekiller?

  I could hope.

  Our ship floated between two undulating structures that looked almost . . . alive, like sky anemones, blue silver and luminescent like deep-sea creatures. An orifice opened, and we got sucked upward, consumed by the building. Well, that was weird.

  “Ever seen anything like this?” I whispered to Nadim.

  “Zara, I’ve only seen stars and things that live in the black,” he reminded me. “And the places you have taken me.”

  So, no. My eyes just kept getting wider because while the Sliver had felt . . . familiar, sort of akin to the Zone, I couldn’t find any commonality here. Inside, it was smooth and dark like a womb, our ship borne along by subtle currents. Chao-Xing still couldn’t get our controls back, but that was probably just as well. Our lights didn’t do shit against the soup we were in. It almost had weight, this darkness, and then with a pop, we were out of it, brightness everywhere, shimmering so it hurt my eyes.

  The comm squawked and the voice said something in Abyin Dommas. Starcurrent’s tendrils fluttered a little, but ze didn’t shift hues. Probably a good sign. Finally, Starcurrent gestured at the doors. “Safe to disembark.”

  I swapped looks with C-X and she seemed to be on the same page. Safe for Starcurrent or for humans? Just to be careful, I put my helmet on and let it seal with my skinsuit. I’d take my own readings before I chanced it.

  Outside the Hopper, which was still floating, I tried to walk and realized I couldn’t. My feet weren’t on the floor. This wasn’t zero-grav, but not far from it. Starcurrent loved it, taking off with all tentacles, using floor, ceiling, and walls to propel, and oh God, ze was kind of beautiful, incredibly graceful. Zis skin burned brilliant with pleasure, gold and shimmering, as ze reached the main chamber up ahead, and I heard the trill of the Abyin Dommas tongue.

  I looked at Chao-Xing, smirking. “You first.”

  FROM THE BRUQVISZ STORY CYCLE OF THE ABYIN DOMMAS, RECORDED AS SUNG, TRANSLATED IN ELEVEN MILLION LANGUAGES. A LAMENT.

  We sing sharp edges and strong shields

  The death of worlds comes, consuming

  We stand alone in the abyss

  Past must die with dreams

  Of silent longing

  Generations yet to come sing destruction

  The dead of worlds cry for revenge

  We stand

  Singing

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lost in Translation

  THE ABYIN DOMMAS were trilling at each other in their native language, but the second they saw us, they just went . . . silent. And it felt wrong. Ominous. I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing because the Abyin Dommas didn’t stand on their tentacles; they free-floated at various levels, and with all the appendages it was hard to figure out how big this defense council really was. I finally came in with a guess of about twenty individuals. Whether all of them were on the council was anyone’s guess, and maybe it was just my human showing, but I figured at least a third of them had to be assistants.

  What do you say when you’re the first human officially saying hey to the aliens? I was about to state the obvious—we come in peace—but luckily Chao-Xing got there first.

  She bowed slightly from the waist and said, “Hello, honored people of Greenheld. We hope you have taken no harm.”

  Nobody spoke for a few long seconds, and then somebody—I couldn’t tell who—trilled out a long, complicated song, of which my translator only caught a few words. Starcurrent listened, tentacles drifting gracefully in the low-grav, and zis color shifted from that pleased hue to something more muted. Caution, I thought. Ze seemed to debate for a few seconds before ze said, “Leader Searoam thanks you for your courtesy. There are a few casualties; some Elders failed from the strain of defense. Ze wishes to know . . .” I swear, if ze could have cleared a throat, ze would have. “Your intentions toward our planet and people.”

  “Intentions?” I blurted. “We’re not taking you on a date!”

  “Zara.” Chao-Xing shut me up fast. “Starcurrent, tell them we have peaceful intentions. We came to their defense. We took damage on their behalf.”

  Ze sang that without hesitation, and a lot of trills erupted in response. A whole harmony of questions, I guessed. After listening to all those comments, ze turned back to us and said, “We receive thanks for these efforts. The council also asks how one of the Elder Gods awakened.” Ze paused, and I could tell from the flutter of tentacles that ze was uneasy. “I will tell the truth, Chao-Xing. Lying is not a skill we acquire.”

  Shit. Of course it wasn’t. C-X thought about it, then gave a decisive nod, acceding to Starcurrent’s right to make the call. Lowering her voice, she whispered, just for my ears, “Be ready.”

  Oh, I was. On high alert, I settled into battle mode; I’d always been handy in a fight, and these last few months with Nadim—all the shit we’d faced—got me to levels I never thought I’d reach. Chao-Xing and I were lethal when we had to be, and that was valuable in situations like this.

  Not that I wanted my first real alien diplomacy to end with a fight. In our time on the Sliver, we fought in the gladiator pit, and we’d learned that while the Abyin Dommas might be pacifists by nature, you did not want to throw down against them. Courteous, friendly, kind, all that was true, but they were also venomous and would kill if they had to. They just tried not to kill anybody as a matter of course.

  Unlike us, I guessed. Humans had made it an art form.

  Starcurrent sang more, and we waited. It was more of an opera than a pop song, full of dramatic runs and accompanied by gestures from all zis limbs. Fascinating to watch. But I didn’t like the shifting hues of those who were listening. None of those colors looked happy. The Abyin Dommas also change
d positions as they heard Starcurrent’s story; some drifted higher, some lower, tentacles brushing the floor. Some faded back, some forward. Might have been normal shifting around. I didn’t know, and I didn’t love being uninformed.

  Starcurrent went on a while, and when ze fell silent, nobody else spoke. Nobody. They just drifted, colors pulsing and flashing in complicated patterns that I knew meant something but couldn’t interpret on my own.

  Then one of them spoke. Just one. “Leave or die.”

  That was . . . direct. I exchanged looks with Chao-Xing; I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But she bowed again, deeper than before. “Our sincerest apologies,” she said. “We will be at your disposal if you need us. On behalf of our Leviathan—”

  This time it wasn’t one of them. It was all of them, except Starcurrent. “Leave or die!” There was a definite edge to it.

  Starcurrent’s colors turned ashen, almost translucent. Zis tentacles went limp and drooped. Though I didn’t speak chromatophore, I could tell that this was bad. Really bad.

  One of the others said, “Starcurrent may remain, but ze requires punishment.”

  “I go with my Leviathan and crew,” ze replied.

  “Then you choose exile.”

  Starcurrent’s aspect remained bleak and ze simply said, “Understood.”

  Then the alarms went off.

  I couldn’t tell sound from pain. The whole city was ringing, and we stood inside the bell. I clapped my hands to my ears, but it didn’t help, and I tried to yell to C-X but she was already moving back toward the Hopper. The Abyin Dommas had guided us in and cut off access to flight controls. What did punishment mean, exactly? And were they trying it on us? Maybe they’d moved on from the sentencing phase and were prepping for execution.

  Starcurrent had jetted ahead of us, moving so fast in this low-grav that ze was a blur; we followed more clumsily. We weren’t made for this, and it took me a second to remember how to move without weight, only mass. I let myself go still and settle, then bounced off at the right trajectory and soared ahead of Chao-Xing, who pushed off and leapfrogged me. We arrived together, or very nearly, and Starcurrent already had the hatch open and was inside.

  C-X got in the pilot’s seat with a grace I envied, and I strapped in as she checked the console. Before she touched anything, the Hopper started moving. “Shit!” I yelped, and she let out a blistering yell of fury and hit the console hard enough to dent something.

  “They’ve still got us!” she shouted. “Starcurrent! What are they doing?”

  “Pushing us out,” ze replied. “They will not harm us.”

  “Sorry if I don’t take your word for that,” she shot back. “The mood in there was not peaceful.”

  “No,” ze agreed. The dejected color of zis body hadn’t improved. “I told them that the resurrection of Lifekiller was not our choice—that it was done by Bacia Annont—and that we stand ready to fight. They did not forgive us.” Starcurrent’s tentacles drooped a little more. “My actions are an abomination to my people. I carried Lifekiller beyond the tomb. I made this possible. Without me you might not have succeeded.” Ze hesitated for a long moment. “Better we all had died there.”

  Well, that was grim, and I wasn’t going there. We’d broken it. We’d fix it. “Not your fault,” I said.

  “I have lost my home. My people.”

  “You’ve got us.” I twisted around, though the straps dug in hard. Starcurrent wasn’t even holding on, except with a couple of tentacles. “Starcurrent. You’ve got us. Hear me? We’re your people. We’re your home.” I meant it with all my heart, and ze must have heard it, because ze brightened up just a little. “Now hold on. We don’t know what’s coming, or how bumpy it’s going to get.”

  “Yes, Zara,” ze said softly. “I will hold on.”

  It occurred to me that Nadim had been remarkably silent this entire time. So quiet that once I realized it, it worried me. So I reached out.

  I’m here, Zara, he said. I am never far. I listened. There was nothing else I could do. I sensed his surge of frustration, and with it, a curious little edge of humor. I am not accustomed to being—how did you put it once?—an accessory.

  You’re never that, I told him, and let him feel how much I meant it. What do you think? Are they angry at us?

  Oh yes, Nadim said solemnly. Very angry indeed. And I believe they consider us almost as dangerous as the one we fight.

  Getting back to Nadim was easy enough, as it turned out; the Abyin Dommas released us without a word or signal, and we drifted until Chao-Xing regained control and piloted us back. “Coming aboard,” she signaled him.

  “I know,” he said, and yep, there was that edge of amusement again. Despite everything, he still thought things were funny. I liked that about him. Oh, who was I kidding? I liked everything about him. I’d given up thinking I was weird for being all into this. I’d never had a human lover treat me half this well, or interest me half this much.

  We touched down in the docking area without even a bump; smooth as glass, that Chao-Xing. She sighed and flexed her hands a little, the only sign of tension she revealed. “I’m heading back to Typhon,” she said. “What’s our plan?”

  “Chase Lifekiller,” I said. “What else can we do?”

  “I don’t like it. It gives Lifekiller the advantage. There’s a saying in Chinese: Never swallow bait offered by your enemy.”

  “Whoever said that probably never fought in space, so I don’t know that he’s got a real informed opinion about this,” I told her. “You come up with a better plan, blast it over. Until then . . .”

  She shook her head, probably at my lack of respect for a venerable strategist, but didn’t argue. Starcurrent and I retreated out of the docking bay and into the protected area before it depressurized again, and the Hopper zoomed away toward Typhon.

  “Cheer up,” I told Starcurrent. “Your people are alive, and they are seriously pissed off. That’s a good thing. Means they’ll be ready for trouble next time it shows up.”

  “You have a unique way of finding the good in a bad thing.”

  “That’s me, always upbeat.” Which was hilarious because I’d lived my entire life as a pessimist, and now that we were facing the end of everything, I couldn’t stop looking for upsides. Living on the edge really did suit me.

  “Zara?” That was Bea, coming through the communicator. “Better get up here. Now.”

  “On my way.”

  Hurry, Nadim said. I felt his urgency.

  I kicked it hard, with Starcurrent keeping up but—I now realized—struggling in the higher grav we kept on the ship. We should mod that down. I’d just told zim that this was home. We ought to make it feel like that too. It was time to start thinking of Nadim as partner and home. And we all had to feel right here, or it wouldn’t work.

  To keep myself from worrying, I focused on Starcurrent until I arrived at the command center. I spotted Beatriz standing still, back pressed against the transparent wall of Nadim’s skin. That was very wrong because she still suffered a little from vertigo. Nadim usually closed it up for her when she was on her own. This time he hadn’t, and I wondered why.

  As I rounded the console I found out. Facing Beatriz, and just a short distance away, stood a Phage.

  For a knee-jerk second, I calculated all the ways to try to kill the intruder, and then I brought myself up short. This wasn’t an invader who’d cut through Nadim’s defenses without raising an alarm or causing him discomfort; this was Xyll.

  Our Phage. Our prisoner. Kind of.

  Being ours didn’t make it easier for Bea to face because the Phage were nightmare blends of spider and mantis with a dash of scorpion thrown in, plus a wholly alien sort of movement. Since I had spent the most time with Xyll, it didn’t unnerve me anymore, but I didn’t want the Phage cell terrorizing Bea.

  “Why are you out?” I demanded. “We gave you comm access.”

  “Used the device. There was no reply,” it said.

&nbs
p; I glanced at Bea, who broke eye contact with a conflicted look. She hunched her shoulders. “I didn’t want to talk. Besides, I was paying attention to what was happening on Greenheld, in case . . .” She didn’t finish that sentence. Didn’t need to.

  Relaxing a fraction, I said to Xyll, “Okay, that’s a good reason. What’s the problem?”

  “They are coming.”

  “Who is?” Nadim asked.

  That was my next question too.

  “The swarm. The eaters. They are coming.”

  “Oh, shit. The Phage?” Last I saw them, they had followed the god-king away like favored pets. Seemed like they had new orders. I didn’t wait for Xyll to confirm. “Bea, what do the scans say? Nadim, can you hear them?”

  His unease shivered through me, tangible as a touch, and I fought the urge to pace. His fear might as well have been mine, all discord and bad angles. “Yes, Zara. The noise is . . . unnerving. It’s more focused.”

  “Like they’ve locked on a target,” I guessed. “And they’re no longer just eating whatever they come across.”

  Bea swept her hands gracefully around the screen, pulling up a long-range sensor display. “When we leave Greenheld, they will intercept us.”

  Another battle with the Phage while we were still drained from bonding? The odds didn’t look good. Popping my neck, I yielded to my need to pace, thinking hard. We had two tired Leviathan and some reckless war lizards driving a mech ship.

  “Not all information I have,” Xyll said then.

  “What, there’s more good news?”

  “I hear chatter from the mind. The swarm plans.”

  At first, I couldn’t process that. I exchanged a confused look with Bea, who said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Plan to focus on big one first, then use captured weapons on lizard ship, then finally infest Nadim, after using Typhon guns on him.”

  Oh my God.

  The Phage cell was right; that was a plan, much more strategic than anything they’d tried before. Before, we won because we could outthink them, but now it sounded like they were smarter, possibly because of the god-king’s influence. I tried to hide my fear; it wouldn’t do any good, but the possibility of Typhon dying and being puppeted? The Elder would go insane if he got a whisper of this. He might not even be rational enough to fight, which could work in the Phage’s favor.