by Vi Voxley
Better safe than sorry. We need to move.
They set off across the path the Benevolent had calculated for them. It wasn't the quickest route, but it provided a lot of cover from the androids as well as the Chali mothership. They could see it up ahead. It was impossible to miss.
The trader vessel was vast. If Naima hadn't just departed from the Brion flagship, she would have pegged it as the biggest one she'd ever seen. It stretched on for miles, equipped with everything the ship-based Chali needed to live for years, maybe even decades without needing to dock anywhere.
And naturally, it was a home to the thousands of androids they built.
It looked like a huge station, half-buried in the snow and starting to ice over. If she hadn’t known better, Naima would have thought it was a carcass, a remnant of some great battle. There were no lights, no signs of movement, no sounds of engines.
No life support.
She felt a painful twist of pity in her heart. Sinetha was a bastard, no two ways about that, but to end up the way she had... Naima hadn't even seen her body yet, but something told her she didn't want to either. She had to be dead, there was no other possibility after she’d negated her usefulness to the Fearless.
Their going was as quiet as they could make it, and still she felt like an elephant in a porcelain shop. The Brion warrior beside her was easily picking his path between the crunching snow and squeaking ice, although his weight didn't make it entirely soundless. Alona, on the other hand, walked almost on the surface of the snow, her advanced sensors perfectly crafting the movements to minimize noise.
Naima was drudging through the terrain like a polar explorer of old, dragging her legs because she simply couldn't match the pace of the other two. Not that she was complaining. There were things she could do better than either of them. So what if gliding over the snow wasn't one of them, big deal.
The noise was getting more persistent. Naima tried to make herself deaf to it, to ignore the idea of Braen facing thousands of Alona's kind, perfect killers due to the creature that pulled their strings. It would have been a lot easier if androids screamed, but the grunts and howls had to be from beings of flesh. Men and women she’d met and talked with.
It turned out that in addition to not being the best suited for sneaking, Naima also seemed to be the one who didn't use her ears, because Alona and Kerven stopped nearly as one.
"Down!" Kerven bellowed as Alona shouted: "Don't move!"
Naima tried to do both. She dropped herself on the ground without question, grunting in pain as the impact hit harder than she would have liked. In the next second a Brion spear went flying over her head. It wasn't Kerven's.
Somewhere, a warrior had lost his weapon and with that, his life, since a breathing Brion would never have surrendered it.
Trying to stay as still as possible, Naima dared to look up. There were six assailants, all androids and covered in blood and gore.
Kerven charged them with a roaring battle cry, with Alona following mutely. On the Benevolent, Braen had reluctantly agreed that their ally needed to be armed, even if he wasn't very keen on putting Brion weapons in the hands of Chali toys. They'd let the android pick and it had favored a long two-handed sword with a force shield.
Naima had seen the general nod in approval even more reluctantly. It had been very hard to hide her grin.
Now, her friend proved Naima had been right to put her trust in it. Alona showed no remorse to creatures who were so similar that every time Naima blinked, she lost track of who was who.
By its side, Kerven was fighting with all the ferocity she'd come to expect from Brions, putting every bit of his strength behind the blows while Alona struck precisely, aiming at the weak spots it knew better than anyone.
A tinge of guilt shot through Naima as she discovered herself memorizing them, in case something went wrong later and she needed to take Alona down as well.
As inconspicuously as she could, Naima drew her gun from her belt and took aim. The Chali built their proxies tough, but a headshot was bound to give anyone a pause. Not all of them were as sturdy as Alona was, thankfully. Otherwise, this battle would have been a one-sided massacre.
She fired quickly and swiftly, thankful for the gun training her boss Doug had made them all go through. One of the androids went down with a skull burst open, spilling wires in the place of blood. The rest were so engaged with Kerven and Alona that she didn't dare to shoot again. It seemed to be going well even without her.
The sword and the spear rose and fell until only one of the androids was left, crawling away from Kerven with half its body missing. It seemed that really didn't hinder them as much as it should have.
Alona stepped closer to skewer it to the ground, but before that, the enemy looked up, right at Naima. The smile on its face was familiar, belonging to someone who was used to grinning with razor-sharp fangs.
"You didn't think I'd forgotten about you, did you?" the Fearless asked. "Welcome to Darius, Miss Jones. Congratulations. You are the only one leaving here alive, but have no worry. I will ease your grief. Come see me, if you dare. I will gift you the spear stained with your champion's blood."
Naima’s blood ran cold.
34
Naima
No, was Naima's first reaction.
It was also her second, third, fourth. And on and on until what seemed like the end of time.
No. Braen can't be dead. That's not possible. He wouldn't do that to me.
Her heart confirmed that belief, but words were words. Naima couldn't deny that the ones the enemy android had uttered with the voice of the Fearless had cut deep.
Kerven stepped up, jamming his spear into the android's back without ceremony. The light went out in its eyes, literally. Naima stood with shaking legs, trying to picture her life without the general by her side.
Her mind said: "No image available."
The young warrior looked to her with eyes that longed for revenge. Naima had never seen him like that, always associating Kerven with a cool and collected behavior – most unusual for a Brion. Now, he was shaking from head to toe, clearly aching to move on and kill the Fearless himself to avenge his commander.
Alona came closer too, picking its way between the fallen bodies of its artificial clones.
The AI didn't look sad, not even a little. The general had revealed to Naima that Sinetha had sent her most human-like proxy to them, with the explicit purpose to win her trust and then kidnap her. She was now beginning to wonder if Alona was some pet project of Sinetha's, one equipped with a program far beyond the others, just like her body was tougher than the rest.
Most of the androids the Chali used were able to replicate emotions through a simulator that picked between the best suited actions according to an algorithm. The more Naima saw it in action, the more she was convinced that Alona had a personality core instead – one that developed a true idea of self, with values and beliefs that built over time, predicted but ultimately out of control of its creators.
It hadn't just ripped itself free from its mistress, Alona was glad to be free. The AI had obviously hated belonging with the traders.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the android said and just like that, those few words knocked Naima back to reality.
She'd tried to concentrate on Alona, on her task. Anything to avoid even considering the idea that the Fearless wasn't lying, trying to lure her into an obvious trap.
"He's not dead," Naima replied, hearing how badly her voice was shaking.
It had nothing to do with the cold. She stood there, in the middle of an alien tundra, accompanied by two companions and far from the man she loved. How had she gotten there?
She thought about her baby. It felt like she'd let their child down, although it was a ridiculous notion that she could have helped Braen in a battle in any way. Yet she'd somehow lost the baby's father, hadn't she?
Kerven and Alona were exchanging looks.
"It's possible the enemy lies, of course," the w
arrior spoke first, trying to force calm into his own voice. "The general is extremely capable. It is very unlikely that he –"
"No," Alona stopped him, its usually soft voice sharp like a blade. "This is not helping. Denying a possibility like that does not aid us. Naima, I know you do not want to hear this, but the Fearless might not be lying.
“We have to proceed with the presumption the general might be dead, in which case destroying the android army is more pivotal than before. The enemy cannot be allowed to leave the planet with a force like that."
It made sense. Everything always made sense with Alona, who was basing its arguments on facts, ignoring the emotions that drove beings of flesh, even though she was capable of understanding them. Even Kerven, an ardent and dutiful warrior of the commander was nodding reluctantly, understanding the logic of battle.
"He's not dead," Naima repeated.
Alona rolled its eyes. It was such a human action that Naima stopped and stared for a moment. On a mechanical construct, it looked like blinking very slowly. It sighed dramatically, a habit it had probably picked up from humans and possibly Naima herself.
"I'm aware humans experience what is called "denial", an unwillingness to accept the truth. The galaxy is at stake, Naima," Alona went on. "We have to move and we have to be particularly careful now that the Fearless knows we're here."
"I'm not in denial," Naima snapped, although she didn't know what she was basing that statement on.
Somewhere on the edge of her vision and her mind, a light bloomed like the ray of hope that it was. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to catch it by the tail before it slipped away. Next to her, Naima was aware of Kerven and Alona shifting uncomfortably. One alive and one mechanical, neither one of them knew what to do with a grieving person, but Naima wasn't ready to bury Braen yet. They were both used to action – born to it or programmed – and her hesitation was grating on their nerves.
And then the pain ended, just like that. Like a vice around her heart, the thought of never seeing the general again, never cuddling into his arms, was gone and Naima opened her eyes.
"He's not dead," she said for the final time, cutting in to Alona's attempt to silence her: "No, listen to me! I'm not letting my feelings get the best of me. Do you remember what the Fearless said? That he'd present me with the bloody spear of my champion?"
Kerven and Alona nodded grimly.
"Yes," Kerven said, a dark look in his eyes. "It is to be expected. Our spears are the symbol of the Brions. Whenever an enemy manages to gain a temporary victory over us, the spears are valuable trophies."
"That's not what I meant," Naima said, walking past both of them and heading once more towards the gigantic Chali mothership. "The Fearless didn't mention the lifestone."
She kept walking, smiling to herself when the other two caught up, quiet and pensive.
"That doesn't prove anything," Alona put in.
"Yes, it does," Naima argued. "This is the enemy we're talking about. The lifestone is all it has desired for a while now, ever since its last incarnation. It would most definitely notice and it would take it from the spear. I would have felt a change in the enemy, no matter how miniscule and the Fearless would have boasted about it."
To that, neither one of them had a good counter-argument. They rushed on, Naima trying to keep up as best as she could. Time was running out and every second brought the possibility of another ambush.
All around them, Brion squads were keeping an eye on them from a distance, forming a perimeter to find every stray android that slipped from the battle to come and hunt them. Six had gotten through, but that barely mattered anymore.
In the mothership, more dangers and the heart of the army waited. And somewhere, in the dark depths of it, the Fearless lurked.
Naima was honestly amazed by how her legs still kept moving in the direction of the beast, but the answer was simple enough. She was doing it for Braen, for the future she wasn't willing to let go.
"Very well," Alona said finally as they reached the immense shadow of the Chali ship, their trek having been conducted in silence since leaving the sight of the small battle. "I will agree that it is more likely the Fearless hasn't faced the general yet. You cannot however rule out that it could still end that way."
"I'm ruling nothing out," Naima said coldly. "I've been prepared for a while now. I don't expect you to understand, but I'm holding on to hope until the last moment."
Respectfully, Alona didn't comment that.
Above their heads, the sky seemed to be on fire. It started raining metal and people and everything in between. The Chali fleet had arrived.
The inside of Sinetha's ship was even more horrible than Naima could have imagined. The walls were lined with half-built androids, looking like mutilated people with their mistress gone for as far as the eye could see. The facial expressions struck her the hardest, with their jaws ripped open like they were screaming endlessly.
The floors were covered in slime and gore and blood, making it even more slippery than the ice fields outside. Naima’s party ventured deeper carefully, the narrow corridors echoing with sounds of battle. There was fighting going on and Naima had to hope that somewhere, Braen was getting closer to his target.
Closer to killing it once and for all.
The ship looked like it was ravaged by a storm, only from the inside. Naima could almost hear the screams of Sinetha's frightened crew as they realized that for once, they'd poked something too powerful for them to handle and that there was no profit to be made. She had only hate for the traders, but no one deserved the Fearless upon them.
Here and there, she saw pieces of what looked like flesh lying around on the floor. Some were covered by cloth, others had mechanical parts still attached to them.
"What are these?" Naima asked, whispering despite the fact that the raging battle hid the sounds of their footsteps and speech.
"The Chali are mostly cyborgs, but a large part of their bodies remains," Kerven said, his deep voice rumbling in its disgust. "When the Fearless chose this world, it did so because it fit for its location. While that went well, the rest of it didn't. There is nothing here on Darius. No shelter, no food. If the Chali hadn't shown up, its growing would have been greatly halted, all its energy spent on surviving."
"How could it have lived without food?" Naima asked, confused.
"The Fearless can, if need be," Kerven explained. "One of its previous forms was cornered and it crashed on a dark, airless world where nothing living grew. There was barely enough to breathe and whatever air it had, was poisonous. It survived by feeding off its own flesh and building resistance, but the prize was not being able to develop."
Naima mulled this over. She had read up on the Fearless as much as she could, but it seemed that Brions kept some records that were unavailable even to her.
"So what happened?"
"What always happens. Someone foolish enough went to check to see if it was truly dead and the Fearless quickly stole the ship. By that time, it had grown so big it took almost ten years for it to be killed, with all the forces combined. This time, it would have faced the same problem if the Chali hadn't shown up."
"So you mean –" Naima realized, her mouth dropping open in horror.
"Yes," Kerven said simply, a dark fire burning in his eyes, accompanying the red glow of his valor squares. "We are walking through the Fearless' feast. It has everything here. Food, shelter from the planet and all the supplies it might ever need to build weapons and armor. The pieces on the ground are simply the bits it did not stomach, connected to the mechanical constructs the Chali prefer."
Naima experienced the too-horrible-to-look-away thing firsthand, unable to take her eyes off the hands torn from the sockets and half-digested flesh on the floor. It was like straight out of a ghost story, with a cannibal monster sitting in its lair when the heroes arrived, picking its teeth with their former companions.
In secret, she'd read Braen's report about what happened the last t
ime he met the enemy. The image before her eyes wasn't far from the truth and she could picture it far too clearly now.
Seeing the look on her face, Alona spoke up, its voice distant and morose.
"Pity them, but don't feel too sorry. I have seen the things Sinetha did to some of its more valued possessions, many of whom were alive. She sometimes cloned species that could regenerate very fast by cutting chunks of their flesh away and letting them heal again. Steel your heart. Justice comes for all."
That was fair, in a way.
Fair.
The word had been on Naima’s mind a lot lately. Everyone got what was coming to them, one way or another.
It meant that she would have to work extra hard to deserve all the good fortune that had so far befallen on her. Well, except for the whole having a link with an epic monster thing, anyway. All in all, things had been pretty good for Naima Jones, though. She’d have to remember not to take it for granted.
The words alone were enough to make Naima's insides turn, reminding her sharply that in her condition, it was best not to dwell in those halls or on those images. She had to fight down the urge to vomit, hard. Supporting herself with one arm on the walls of the corridor, they pressed on again.
In the whole big mess, there was one shining bit of hope for them. The harness Sinetha had built was on the other side of the ship than the engines that powered it all. So far, they hadn't seen any enemies in the empty hallways, only heard hints of them in the distance.
It fit the profile of "too quiet" perfectly. Naima couldn't get the Fearless' taunt out of her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Even if the enemy didn't have Braen, it knew she was there. It had to mean something, she just didn't know what.
"How far is it?" she asked Alona.
"Not much now," the android replied with a hint of suspicion.
"Does the fact we've encountered no one bother you?" Naima asked.
She didn’t add the ‘too’ that made an appearance in her mind.
Both Kerven and Alona nodded solemnly, ever watchful.