by Vi Voxley
Doug hadn't lied.
She really did look like she'd seen a ghost. It was like her features had changed and could never be turned back. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something, maybe everything, was different.
Gingerly touching her cheeks and cheekbones, Naima looked at herself with much the same expression as Doug and the rest of the crew had.
I really want to believe that’s all it was… A ghost, a vision created by lack of oxygen and a random bout of idiocy by me…
Naima slept through the first day after her abrupt return to the Nautica, partially thanks to the medication she had to take to fight the bends, but mostly because… well, she needed it.
It was the first time she had nightmares since childhood. Her stepbrother had told her the stars were the billion eyes of a space monster.
It didn't get better from there, until she felt like she hadn't slept in a week.
The main reason she insisted the gently glowing stone was the one they were looking for was the fact that she was still alive. The moment when she had caught it from falling on the ocean floor was clear in Naima's mind. In that fraction of a second, she had been distracted by the monster and the mysterious silvery-blonde woman.
Only natural.
But then Naima remembered getting out of the small cave. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure that Janey couldn't have done it alone. The girl had saved her life, Naima was not going to deny that, but she felt like there was something else at play.
In her dreams, and she dreamed about the visions a lot, Naima always ended up pushing herself out. Through solid rock that was crushing down around her as she disturbed the cave.
At first she thought she was losing her mind, but then Naima saw her scars, deep cuts, and they confirmed it all. At least for her. Her back looked like someone had taken a rake to it. She was infinitely thankful for Palian healing technologies that took care of it quickly, but the fact remained.
Somehow, Naima had forced her way through a solid cave wall.
She was strong, years of diving did that to a person, but that was ridiculous to say the least.
Naima didn't mention it to anyone. Not to sound crazy, but also not to make it look like she didn't appreciate Janey doing everything in her powers to save her, despite the risk of losing the lifestone. Though there was a distinct feeling in Naima’s gut that no one really understood the value of the lifestone quite as well as she did.
Me, the silvery-blonde woman, and the red-eyed monster…
Still, the implications bothered Naima. Palians had said the stone enhanced everything it touched. It was clear to her that in that moment, the lifestone had helped her.
If she were superstitious, she would have thought the stone had a mind of its own, but that was not the case.
Standing in the Nautica’s laboratory, wrapped in a long white cloak to shield her from the coldness of the night, Naima watched the lifestone. It was suspended in air between magnetic fields, ready for inspection. There were several scanners pointed to it, running programs and diagnostics, but so far they weren't picking up anything special.
Yet, with slightly narrowed eyes, she watched on.
"Here again?" Doug asked, coming from his watch over the calm, endless ocean.
The planet was devoid of life, but to Doug Purnell that obviously wasn't a good enough reason to be sloppy with protection. Naima smiled to herself quietly. After her horrifying trip to the bottom of the ocean, it felt nice to come back to the world that never changed. One of rules mixed with cozy idiosyncrasies developed by the small crew.
"Yeah," Naima said. "Couldn't sleep."
"You've been coming here a lot," Doug commented with no particular emotion, disappearing into the small kitchen area beside the lab. "Do you want coffee?"
"It would be lovely, thank you," she answered, pulling the cloak more tightly around herself.
For some reason, she felt cold. The nights on Matthos IV were cooler than the days, but before her last dive, Naima had never been shivering like she was now. It was weird to say the least.
Not that there’s a lot of stuff left that isn’t weird.
"How do you know I've been coming here?" she asked.
"We have cameras, dear girl," Doug said, coming back with two cups of steaming hot coffee, handing one to her. "Is there anything you're not telling me?"
Plenty.
Naima hadn't told the crew about her visions. Not about the monster, nor the woman. For some reason, she didn't think it sounded very sane. She didn't doubt her mind, but she was aware others might not share her certainty.
"I think there is a reason why we're not getting anything from it," she said, pointing to the stone. "It's not in contact with anything. Only air."
The cup was quickly turning cold in her hands and by the time Naima raised it to her lips, the coffee was lukewarm at best. She frowned, but remained silent.
"You think so?" Doug asked, going closer. "We should conduct field tests then. Palians intend to use it as a power source, right? We could drop a piece of it in the engine."
Naima nodded.
"I think it would be a start," she said. "Perhaps not the main engine, though. Pick something simple that we can lose. No reason to risk everything for a theory."
Doug chuckled softly, but his gaze became serious when he looked at her again.
"You're white as a sheet, Naima," he said. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine," she replied, ignoring the ice crystals in her coffee. "Let's work."
After a week, two things were perfectly clear aboard the Nautica.
First was that the mineral Naima had found was the lifestone, and that Doug was almost as reluctant to let go of it as Naima was. She and Doug had carefully cut off a small piece of it and dropped the pebble in the engine of one of their smaller scooters.
Scientific methods for the win, she had thought. To test the subject matter, throw it somewhere and wait to see if it does anything interesting.
It did.
After the scooter didn't immediately explode, Doug took it out for a spin and nearly fell off when it came to life, roaring like a wild animal. It was designed for ocean exploring and collecting samples more than fun rides, but now it looked like a wild horse finally set free on the endless water.
Doug came back, grinning ear to ear.
"That was a rush," he said. "I'll see what else it can do later."
But that joy was short-lived when the second thing that could no longer be denied was that Naima wasn't fine.
On the second day after her return from the ocean, Janey had jumped away from her, claiming her hands were cold as ice. They were, but Naima was still able to brush that off as nothing, just as she did the fact that nothing she ate or drank stayed warm after she touched it.
Her head was constantly throbbing and piercingly painful migraines came and went without any trace. Every time, Naima felt the presence of the evil again. She saw glimpses of a cold, icy world and burning red eyes, but she was on so many painkillers Naima didn't trust her eyes anymore.
Yet the visions kept coming, clearer every time, and more vivid. At their worst, Naima found herself lying on the floor of her room, shivering from head to toe in the blistering heat of a particularly sunny day. An image of a snarling face with a vicious gaze seemed burned into her retinas and didn't go away for endless minutes.
On the fourth day, her paleness was so visible that the others suggested that Naima should climb into one of the thermo-cocoons.
On the eighth, a strand of Naima's hair turned white.
After that, Doug no longer stood for any of her excuses. With Captain Gordon backing him up, the leader of their mission finally sent a message to orbit, where their ship the Dawnstar waited. It relayed both the findings and Naima's curious illness to the Galactic Union's council. The Brions were informed as well.
A very strange silence was the only answer for a curiously long while. Then the Palians finally repli
ed.
"Thrilled about the discovery. Very concerned about the well-being of Miss Naima Jones. Wait for further instructions on both accounts. Do not tell anyone else."
That order wasn't unheard of in itself, but Doug agreed with Naima that it was unusual. The lifestone was a big find, they eventually decided. It was only natural that the Palians just wanted to make sure it was safe.
The truth came out the morning Captain Gordon woke Naima up unexpectedly. Her room was cold like a cave now, but Naima's first concern was still a very instinctive one.
"How did you get in my room?" she asked, pulling the sheets up higher.
The captain regarded her seriously.
"Every door on this boat opens for me," he said with a solemn look on his face. "Get dressed, Miss Jones. We are in a lot of trouble. I think."
"You think? What's going on?" Naima asked, glaring at the man until he turned around and let her get dressed in the green suit she wore those days.
It kept her warm – well, sort of - and matched her eyes, so Naima considered it a win on all accounts.
"I don't know how to put this more delicately, so let's just say there is a Brion flagship in the Matthos system. From what the Dawnstar can tell, they're coming here."
Naima's mouth dropped open, fumbling with the zipper on her suit. In recent years, Brions had worked hard to make the galaxy forget about their warmongering, bloodthirsty past, but Naima had a long memory, as did most of the rest of the galaxy.
When she had been a child, wherever Brion generals went, blood flowed and people died. She had chosen to ignore the warriors when they were appointed to guard them, but that was only possible because Naima had never expected to come face-to-face with them.
They’d even expected the Brion escort to come down to the surface of Matthos IV after they sent the message to the Palians, and had been surprised to find that not being the case. Now it was clear that they hadn’t come because they were waiting for their superior.
Flagship, she thought. This is not good. We either did something very good or very bad. If a general comes here, I don't think either option will produce a positive ending to this thing.
"Do they have permission?" she asked.
"I don't think the Brions recognize permissions," Captain Gordon said, still with his back to her as Naima resumed her rushing to get ready to meet whatever was coming. "Their generals certainly don't."
She stopped again.
"You have got to be kidding me," she repeated. "One of the Brion generals is here. Why!?"
Not that she needed to ask. Nor be surprised by the reality of a general being in the system. A flagship went nowhere without its master.
"Guess."
"The lifestone," Naima sighed, feeling something tighten around her heart. "You can turn around now."
Gordon did and they exchanged a determined look.
"There is something else, Naima," he said and his concern was plain to see. "We received a message from the Palians this morning. It said this general has been looking for you."
"Me?" Naima repeated, dumbfounded.
"You," Gordon confirmed. "I don't know how or why, but apparently there is a manhunt going on. While we've been isolated on this rock, the entire galaxy looks for a red-haired girl in a dark ocean."
A thousand thoughts sped through Naima's mind, none of them very optimistic. They all manifested in a single, determined decision.
"They can't have it," she said. "Does this general know we have the stone? Did someone mention it to him?"
"As far as I know, he only knows a lifestone was found on the planet. But I agree. He cannot have the stone," the captain nodded. "Imagine what it could do to those warships of theirs. They can already cut through smaller plants, they'd be unstoppable then.
“On the other hand, they are in the Union too. The Palians could have sent them here."
"The Palians have a lot more trust to give than I do," Naima said, rushing out of her room. "I'll keep the stone with me, just in case. Alert the others, please. Not one word to him about it."
An hour later, Naima watched as a "small" ship – larger than the Nautica, which wasn't exactly a fishing boat either – hovered above the ocean, just starboard from the Nautica. It was way too big to land, so she really had no idea how the Brions thought to get aboard.
Then the bay door of the ship opened and someone fell down from the sky.
Naima gasped in surprise, thinking the person was bound to crash against the boat, but he did not.
A Brion warrior landed with a thunderous crash on the deck before her. She could feel the floor shake beneath her feet from the impact.
Her breath was caught long before the warrior rose to his feet, reminding her of how she’d felt stuck in that cave, not even caring if she could ever breathe again. In fact, he took Naima's knowledge of how to breathe at all. The stone hadn’t managed to do that.
She didn't know much about the Brion insignia, but the man in front of her had to be a general. The magnitude of his presence was undeniable, commanding and awe-inspiring.
It also happened he was the most gorgeous man she had ever laid her eyes upon. It shouldn’t have mattered, definitely not to a scientist, but she couldn’t escape it. Not with this man.
He stood in front of her, tall and proud and fierce. The warlord looked like he was carved from some fantastic story, too unreal to even exist.
Naima's eyes took in his strong frame, every bit of the general exuding power. His armor only served to boost the man’s already impressive bulk, but she saw the true strength laid underneath the dark surface of the armor.
There was a tall, sharp spear strapped to the warrior’s back, the signature weapon of the Brions. A long line of glowing valor squares went up his neck to his ears, with the rest hidden by the armor he wore.
Clear, fierce blue eyes watched Naima from under strands of dark hair as black as the ocean around them. The general's gaze was fixed right on her, making her shiver from head to toe, for once not because of the cold but because of the heat that snaked through her, radiating out from the pit of her stomach.
"I am General Braen," the warlord said, his deep voice easily demanding the attention of every person present. "The Union's council and the Elders of Brions have sent me to you. I believe you have something that is of value to us all."
Naima's hand brushed against the lifestone, hidden inside her pocket again, but it seemed to her Braen had looked at her when he said that. She couldn't tear her eyes off the general no matter how hard she tried. There was something about him that had taken ahold of her.
This is… a little too familiar for comfort, a little voice inside of her noted.
"But before we get to the lifestone," Braen went on, nearly stopping Naima's heart with his look. "The girl with white in her hair. Does the Fearless know where you are?"
Every pair of eyes not already watching her now snapped in Naima's direction.
The Fearless.
She finally had the proof she needed that the images she'd seen were real. It had a name. Only now that the answer was in front of her, she could no longer enjoy it.
The nightmare she’d envisioned had come to life.
4
Braen
To anyone else but a Brion, the news would have been disastrous, to say the least. Even Kerven, the young warrior who had come to deliver the news to him, seemed to think so.
"The Fearless is not dead," Braen repeated impassively, more curious than disappointed.
It wasn’t a reaction the general could have perhaps expected from himself, but there it was regardless.
What Kerven had just reported didn't bode well for the galaxy, but Braen hadn't become a general simply by the whim of a capricious enemy and a good deal of luck. The old General Valden had personally hinted to his second-in-command that he preferred Braen to succeed him, among other things.
He was born to be a general. It didn't just mean being better at combat than the army of world-co
nquering warriors under Braen's command. It needed a specific mind, a soul that no surprise ever rattled. A warrior who would walk up to a Fearless without even considering the possibility of not going.
To such a man, hearing the truth was nothing more than a new challenge.
"No, commander," Kerven confirmed his words. "The Palians have sent us a very detailed report, asking for your cooperation personally, sir. Since you have killed it once before, they believe you are most likely to triumph again."
Braen considered that blatant flattery, even if it was as true as it was hard-earned.
"They are sure?" the general asked. "The Fearless can't, ultimately, die. I killed one of its forms, but it just reincarnated."
"Yes, General," Kerven said, clearly grateful that he was taking it so well. "There has only ever been one creature, all that time. It remembers everything, knows everything about its past lives. And the Palians are more than certain it will not fall for the same techniques again. This explains why every new form has compensated for the weaknesses of the previous one."
The valor squares on his neck seemed heavier all of a sudden. Braen considered the implications with quiet resolve. He was wearing the badges of honor for something he apparently hadn't done.
It should have shamed him, but it did not.
Brion healers had fixed his body, but Braen still remembered how close he'd come to dying at the hands and jaws of the monster. The squares were deserved. An incarnation or not, he had brought the galaxy a reprieve from the Fearless all those years ago, at least for a while.
All that Braen took from the exchange was that his job simply wasn't finished yet.
"Very well," he told Kerven. "Let the Union know that I accept the task and will not stop until it's resolved. I will not rest until the Fearless is gone from the galaxy forever."
The young warrior hesitated.
"General –" he began, but Braen cut in.
"I know," he said with a tone that silenced Kerven's protests at once. "I heard, but you know Palians. They don't lie, yet when it comes to battles and war, they never see the full range of options. Just because we don't know how to kill it yet doesn't mean there is none. They of all species should know that.