by Vi Voxley
Alien General’s Baby
Brion Brides
Vi Voxley
Contents
A Little Taste…
Copyright
Prologue
1. Naima
2. Naima
3. Naima
4. Braen
5. Naima
6. Braen
7. Naima
8. Naima
9. Braen
10. Naima
11. Naima
12. Braen
13. Naima
14. Naima
15. Braen
16. Naima
17. Naima
18. Braen
19. Naima
20. Braen
21. Naima
22. Naima
23. Braen
24. Braen
25. Naima
26. Braen
27. Braen
28. Naima
29. Naima
30. Braen
31. Naima
32. Braen
33. Naima
34. Naima
35. Braen
36. Braen
37. Naima
38. Braen
39. Naima
Epilogue
Alien Warrior’s Challenge Excerpt
About the Author
Thank you for reading!
A Little Taste…
He was keenly aware there were a lot of hushed voices suggesting Brions were one of those races. He couldn't exactly blame them. The Brions had a dark and bloody past and they still had a long way to go to be trusted.
In the meanwhile, the general agreed to work in secrecy, keeping his true mission hidden. With all means, they had to avoid the Fearless hearing of the hunt he was about to set upon. Of course, it felt odd to take orders from anyone but the Elders of his people, but Braen happened to agree with the Palians on the matter.
Subtlety wasn't a strong suit of his people, but Braen could manage if the situation called for it.
After everything else concerning the Fearless, Braen thought retrieving his guide would be nothing more than a formality, even considering the obstacles in his way. The truth couldn't have been more different.
He descended on Matthos IV to find a research ship barely large enough to house the crew, floating in the middle of an endless ocean. With no time to waste, Braen refused to wait until his ship maneuvered above the Nautica to allow lowering a ramp to it and simply jumped. Every second he'd spent looking for the girl was time for the Fearless to grow and plot.
Not a moment to spend frivolously.
Braen needed to find the monster and find a way to deal with it before it managed to become something even he couldn't fight.
He landed squarely on the deck of the Terran researcher's boat, rising to his feet. The second the general saw the girl he'd came to collect, everything changed.
The 'formality' turned out to be his gesha.
Copyright © 2016 Vi Voxley
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Alien General’s Baby
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Vi Voxley. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Cover © Jack of Covers
Prologue
Braen
Five years earlier…
The night was dark and icy around him as the general walked through the graveyard. Until very recently, it had been a battlefield.
The coldness of the air crept in even through Braen's impressive armor. His breath was the only one misting on the silent, dead field. Nothing else moved, or lived.
Well, except for the enemy, that was.
The Fearless had not noticed the general coming, yet. Braen was keeping his footsteps slow and quiet on purpose. Not out of fear of the monster – it was bound to see him soon enough - but so he could observe the legendary terror in peace.
After all, it was only the seventeenth member of an ancient and mysterious species that had plagued the galaxy for as long as anyone could remember. No Brion had ever seen one, and now all who had laid dead before Braen's feet as he walked through the sea of bodies.
No Brion had killed one either. The sixteenth Fearless had appeared so long ago that Brions weren't yet the superpower they were now.
Now Braen knew why.
The Fearless needed time to grow and this one had been hiding for a long time. The general wondered if he would have the chance to share that realization with anyone.
I will.
The Fearless was so large that Braen could see the beast clearly, although he still had a few minutes to walk before reaching it. Black as starless space, enormous like a mountain, fast as lightning – this he knew because he’d seen plenty of the footage recorded on the battlefield of the beast’s actions. The monstrous fangs in the Fearless' wide mouth were taller than the general.
Braen could see pieces of his brothers between the teeth, mashed and red and unrecognizable. The Fearless was using the thigh bone of a once-great warrior to pick them out.
The general was walking to it on top of corpses. Miles and miles of torn and mutilated bodies, lying dead next to their weapons that hadn't managed to bring the Fearless down with all the hundreds of them. The general noted some faces he recognized, torn from the heads that had worn them, and plenty that he had only perhaps met during his service with General Valden.
If there was concern in his heart that he'd end up the same, it didn't show.
He was walking by the Fearless' impossibly long tail. Braen couldn't reach to see over it, but the appendage was covered in the same obsidian scales as the rest of the monster. Layer upon layer of carefully placed sheets, it was impenetrable. Even the great Brion battle spears, the most advanced weapons in the galaxy, hadn't been able to pierce it.
We were too late, Braen thought grimly, without a trace of fear. It has grown too big. Perhaps it can no longer be killed.
Yet he knew in his heart it could not be so. An ancient Brion truth said that anything that breathed could die. The Fearless was no exception to that, no matter how terrifying.
The valor squares on Braen's neck pulsed with peculiar calm. Those crystals, embedded right onto his skin, connected to the general's nervous system, were his visible heartbeat. The warriors of his species, the most feared in the galaxy, used them to communicate in and out of battle. The crystals spoke in the language of light and sound to transmit their owner's true feelings to the world.
Braen wasn't afraid, just like his crystals announced to anyone willing to watch and listen. The time for that was long past.
On his way down to the surface, looking through the list of confirmed dead scrolling on the screens before his eyes, on and on, his heart had beaten louder than ever before. The general had allowed that, knowing his pulse had to be even the second he stepped on the ground. And so it was.
Down there, on the surface, there was no escaping the Fearless. Nothing on that miserable piece of rock could have outrun or outfought the monster. He was miles from the dropship he'd taken after hearing the old
general was dead, commanding his men to stay with the ship instead of accompanying him.
It was clear that added numbers would provide no benefit in this case. He would have to finish off the enemy alone, or die trying.
As the second-in-command, it fell to Braen to take up the charge, something he did without complaint or regret. If anything, he was disappointed that General Valden hadn't permitted him to come along for the first charge. Perhaps things would be different then. Perhaps this graveyard would still have some life, a pulse of valor squares other than Braen’s…
It was all ironic, in a way. In the ranks of the Brion armies, there were no promotions. Warriors cut their own paths through their predecessors. The old general had expected a challenge from Braen for a while now. They were Brions, rightfully ruled by the strongest. But now the Fearless had done Braen's job for him, promoted him to general without him ever having to draw his spear.
That wouldn't do. Brions would never have accepted a leader who hadn't proved himself. With General Valden gone, only one option remained to Braen.
To kill the victor. The Fearless. Or he would never be fit to carry the title of general.
Finally, the Fearless turned its vulpine head.
He stopped right in front of it, looking unflinchingly into its burning red eyes. His fingers itched for the spear sheathed on his back, but he didn't move.
"Another," the Fearless gargled to him in a voice that made the ground shake.
The monster gestured to the landscape of body parts and blood around them with one of its large paws. Its claws were stained with crimson, but the light of the planet Sarton's moons still reflected off their sharp edges.
"Have you come to add your flesh and bones to my feast?" the Fearless demanded with its booming voice.
"I have come to avenge my general," Braen replied, his deep voice echoing on the endless, empty plain much like the Fearless’ did. "And to finish his duty."
The Fearless laughed. Its entire humongous body heaved as it did that, the tail twitching a little as the beast turned, still crouching on its hind legs. Braen had to crane his neck to meet the red eyes. It was like looking into a furnace.
"Brions," the Fearless growled, lowering itself to all fours, starting to circle slowly around Braen in wide swooping patterns.
Its massive tail was like a trap in itself, forming a wall of living flesh around Braen, but the general wasn't concerned. He was a Brion and running from an enemy was unknown to them. From the lowest pest to the worst creature the galaxy could spawn, Brions fought them all. This one would be no different.
It was the price of being the best, to fight when they were called and the need had never been so dire.
"We have existed from the dawn of time," the Fearless said, its fanged mouth coming so close to Braen he could smell the stench of his brothers' rotting corpses. "There are only a few things that never change. The stars, our hunger, and Brion stubbornness."
"On behalf of my species, we're flattered," Braen replied dryly.
The Fearless' large mouth spread even wider in a smile.
"Do you think you can kill me, little general?" it asked. "You are late. I have waited. I have grown. Nothing can harm me now."
"We'll see about that.”
The Fearless drew its head back in surprise, regarding the general seriously. It was obvious the monster wasn't used to prey like that. Prey that talked back.
"I ate your general," it said after a long moment, clearly savoring Braen's involuntary wince. "He screamed as I bit down. He was tough. Usually people stop screaming much sooner. I had to chew on him for a while to silence him."
Braen drew his battle spear at last, holding the razor-sharp blade in front of him, ready to accept the attack that was to come.
"I will make you choke on his blood," he said calmly. "And your own. He would have liked that."
His valor squares flared red when the Fearless finally stood, larger than a carrier ship, fury burning in its blood-colored gaze. Braen raised his spear on guard, taking a deep breath.
The Fearless was right about one thing, at least. The Brion forces had been alerted too late, and the Fearless had been discovered nowhere near soon enough, letting the monster grow too big. It couldn't be allowed to leave the desolate planet of Sarton. Losing – or failure of any kind – wasn't an option.
Suddenly, a wall of blackness came down on Braen, nearly kicking him over when the stench of death reached him first. Massive fangs closed around the young general, catching him in a cage of teeth.
Braen let the beast come, steeling his resolve as the world shrunk to a stinking, bloody trap of flesh. As horrible as it was, it had been Braen's plan from the beginning. From the second he realized what General Valden had done wrong, he knew what he could do right.
His former lord should have known better. You didn't win fights with ancient evils by playing it safe. To triumph over something like that, Braen had to tread the thin line between life and death.
Braen struck down as soon as the Fearless tried to unbalance him by throwing its head back, clearly aiming to simply gobble him up as he’d done with countless others. The Brion battle spear was made of the alloys of the strongest metals known to the galaxy. The general hit hard and true, embedding the blade right into the soft flesh of the Fearless' throat.
The roar that followed nearly deafened him, spraying saliva and remnants of The Fearless’ meal over him, but Braen held firm, knowing with crystal clarity that the second he let go or slipped would be his last.
All he could do was embed the spear deeper while moving it around whenever he could. Deepening the wound in the back of the beast’s throat, drilling ever closer to its brain in the process and causing unimaginable pain to the monster, would be his one chance at vanquishing this foe.
He could not allow himself to lose. Not when he had finally become a general.
The Fearless thrashed around him. In the darkness, the stench of his brothers making Braen want to vomit, he could feel the ground shake under the massive footsteps of the enemy as it stumbled around.
At last, the Fearless seemed to understand Braen's plan, right around when the general used a calmer moment to brace himself against one of its fangs and push the spear deeper. Blood rushed out of the wound, pooling up around his feet.
The moment was without compare. Nothing in the known galaxy compared to the Fearless. The only way for him to win was to endure and strike at the only soft spot the creature had.
The problem was, with every new Fearless, that weakness had to be rediscovered. No Fearless was like the last, presenting a wholly unique challenge. Seventeen Fearless had produced seventeen unique enemies, each tougher than the previous one.
That was something General Valden had failed to understand. Methods that had worked before would not work again.
Braen had immediately seen there was no use in blunting his spear against the Fearless' scales. So many of the fallen had been crushed by its tail or bitten in half or torn to pieces. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, in the safest place imaginable – within the enemy itself.
But not for long.
"Smart," the Fearless snarled to him, "but you have no way out!"
There was nowhere for Braen to hide, nor could he afford to pull his spear free. He needed both hands and every ounce of strength in his powerful body to stay in place.
The Fearless knew it too, even though it sensed the danger it was in. When the beast opened its mouth wide, pooling blood nearly up to Braen’s knees, he bitterly regretted taunting the enemy. He had promised to make it choke on its own blood and the Fearless had understood it wasn't impossible after all.
Unable to spit him out or chew him to powder, the Fearless resorted to clawing him out. To a Fearless, the only important thing was its own life. Damage could be healed.
Now, they were both fighting for their lives.
If I had any good sense, I would have avoided it coming to this, Braen thought with morbid glee when t
he Fearless resolved to hurting itself to get him out.
The beast's claws were massive, bigger even than its wide mouth. They were not the tools for the delicate work of extracting Braen, but they were sharp. Brion armor was sturdy and strong, but the Fearless' claws cut through it like it was nothing but cloth.
Braen let out an anguished scream as one of the claws gnashed into his side, but his grip on the spear never wavered. He put his entire weight behind it instead, shoving the spear upwards, trying to reach the brain.
The Fearless was no longer saying anything. It held perfectly still, the only movement being the frantic clawing of its hands. Braen was covered with gore from head to toe, tasting the blood of his enemy as well as his brothers as the Fearless tore out pieces of its own jaws to get to him.
Knowing it meant death was but seconds away, Braen retreated as far as he could in the mouth cavity, bracing himself against one of the fangs. The gashes in his armor were so great now that the blood and foam were welling in his boots. The spear was slippery with the Fearless' saliva and Braen's hands were shaking as he braced, his feet desperately looking for grip on the beast’s tongue.
His body was trained for exertion since he'd been a child, but his opponent's strength was clearly greater than his own. Something that Braen would be reluctant to admit. The longer this went on, the more difficult it would be for Braen.
You will not win today, Fearless, he thought, gritting his teeth.
The Fearless lost control when Braen managed to take a step forward. The claws reached him and for a moment, Braen felt the cold hand of death closing around him. He was in the monster's palm.
With a thunderous battle cry, Braen cut. His muscles bulged under the pressure, pushing the spear one last time. It was so deeply buried in the enemy's flesh that it was hard to maintain a grip, but the amount of blood raining down on him from above told Braen the end was close.
The Fearless choked, trying to spit out some of its blood, but there was so much of it. Braen's grip slipped and the enemy's hold around him tightened, trying to pull him out like a rotting tooth. Gritting his teeth, the general held on. Braen felt his ribs cracking with a bone-shattering force, knowing he was inches from his own armor killing him, the sharp edges embedding into his flesh.