Honor Lost (The Honors #3) - Rachel Caine Page 0,3

mother saying, Pride goeth before a fall. And I shivered it off.

As I buckled into the passenger seat—Starcurrent preferred the back because there was more room—I realized that this was an honest-to-God First-Contact situation for Earth. The Sliver was kind of . . . Zone-dirty, unofficial, not something you’d put on an Honors program resume where you were bragging about what the recruits had accomplished. But a visit to Greenheld? This was something to write home about. I imagined myself telling Mom and Kiz about it as Chao-Xing fired up the engines and ran the usual system checks to make sure we wouldn’t explode on atmospheric entry.

A pang went through me. I’d most likely never get the chance to tell my mom and sister anything. It surprised me faintly that I wanted to. I could even picture myself visiting them in the dome, if I didn’t have to stay. If I knew Nadim was waiting for me, just beyond the pull of the angry red planet they called home.

Always, he promised silently, and I just about melted.

“You’re clear.” Bea’s voice came through the comms as Chao-Xing swooped us out of the hold and into the high-orbit vantage above Greenheld.

“Are you with me?” I whispered to Nadim.

“I am.”

“Has been long since I came to Greenheld,” Starcurrent said, and I didn’t think I was imbuing that wistful edge to zis translated voice through my imagination.

“When your people join the Honors, do you have to say good-bye to everyone?” I asked.

“No. Why would this be?”

So there were differences in the program. It made sense if the Leviathan wanted humans for their warlike qualities. They took us on the “Journey” and told us there was no coming back, so our people wouldn’t ask questions on Earth. That way, when we died in their secret war, there were no reports to make. And nobody on Earth any wiser. It made me seethe, that manipulation. But who could I get mad at over it? Nadim? Nope. Never.

The Hopper dropped suddenly, sending my stomach upward, and I held on as Chao-Xing expertly guided us through the burn and then the rocky push into the misty exosphere. From here, the view was breathtaking, like Earth, but not, because the land masses were much smaller and there were pockets of deep purple amid the blue and green, streaks of white that must be snow or ice. Those flying cities were fucking incredible, and from what I could tell of our trajectory, we were headed straight for one.

Oh my God. I’m visiting an urban orbital station populated with tentacle aliens. This is the best day of my life.

Not least because I got to kiss Bea. I tried not to blush and was glad Chao-Xing was paying too much attention to the controls to notice and Starcurrent was behind me. Although ze might not pick up on such human cues anyway.

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