by Vi Voxley
Another five minutes passed before they entered into a large hall, the first one in the ship that looked remotely functional. Everything else was dead, people and machine alike.
The engine, however, an enormous beast of a glowing plasma tower, shone like a beacon in the middle of the room. True to the spirit of the Chali, every available space was packed with consoles and keys and buttons, screens portraying figures and maps Naima didn't even pretend to understand.
"We're here," she said quietly. "I can't believe it."
"It's too easy," Kerven added at once. "I'm not buying this. It has to be a trap."
"Can we take that risk?" Naima asked, sighing. "We have to try and dismantle the androids and the harness. No, scratch that. Not dismantle. Destroy."
The warrior still looked hesitant, but Alona was already approaching a socket, pushing its hand into the machine. As soon as she made contact, it came to life, whirring. Kerven assumed a guarding position, ready to defend them while they worked from anything that chose that unfortunate moment to enter the engine hall.
"Once I do this, it will know where you are," Alona warned Naima, clearly waiting for her signal.
"It knows already," Naima said firmly. "Do it."
The android nodded, twisting its arm in the socket. For a moment, it looked transparent, a light beaming through its pearly white surface. Alona's eyes went wide in surprise, then turned to crimson.
One last cry escaped its mouth, much too late as Naima understood why the Fearless had let them come so far. It was hooked to the harness and the ship controlled every android Sinetha had built. Somehow, the enemy was back in. Back in Alona.
All that shot through Naima's head with the speed of lightning. It wasn't fast enough. Alona's backhand hit sent her flying across the room, sliding to a painful stop against the large base of the engine.
The android pulled its hand from the socket, moving it around in preparation. Kerven rushed to Naima’s side to help her stand. Now they both watched as the Fearless approached in its newest puppet, a wicked grin on its lips.
"Welcome, Miss Jones," it said. "Interesting thing, trust. You were right not to trust me before, yet you have shared everything with this android. So your champion wields a lifestone-powered spear… That is good to know. Come to me now and we can wait for the general together.
“I told you I'd ease your grief. I'm giving you the chance to say goodbye before I make my past lie a truth."
Just like those times when the Fearless had invaded her mind, her insides turned to ice. This time though, it had nothing to do with it being in her head and everything with what her imagination could conjure up for her.
There has to be a way out, a voice inside of her reminded.
Keeping her emotions in check was all she had left. All she and her baby had left.
35
Braen
Leaving Naima had been like stabbing himself in the heart.
Braen had never before wished for a situation that would allow him to stay out of battle. Yet if he could have made that sacrifice to stay by her side and protect her, he would have done so in a heartbeat.
As the fighter descended with rapid speed, all of that was left behind. The moment Braen felt the ship touch the ground, his mind was on the android army alone – and on the enemy waiting for him behind the lines.
The flight was short, uneventful. There was no cover fire and his fighter could land safely.
Stepping out of the fighter, he could see the numbers Naima had talked about. If he didn't look closely, the androids might have resembled a large field of snow. The only thing giving them away were the thousands of pairs of red, bloodshot eyes, looking straight at him.
He didn't waste a second, drawing the spear on the run. The lifestone embedded into the shaft was carefully hidden.
To make sure the enemy didn't know what hit it, they'd covered the lifestone with a case so the Fearless couldn't see it through the eyes of its puppet army.
Braen charged at the army first as a true Brion general would. He didn't look behind him to see if his warriors were joining him, knowing they were. Fighters were coming down all around him, more Brions joining the battle every second. The red glow of his valor squares, matching the color of the androids' eyes, painted the army marching at him in the hues of blood.
As soon as he hit the first, the general realized the Fearless had been practicing for him. Like Audrey Price had warned, the monster clearly wasn't going to let him keep his usual fighting style.
Brions were known far and wide, their spears were legendary and so were their victories. The Fearless didn't have to try very hard to figure out which way was the most comfortable to handle a capricious weapon like a spear, having the experience of countless lifetimes on his side.
The four hands Audrey had claimed the Fearless to now possess were also visible. The android army could be roughly split in three, and Braen was certain the Fearless had taken personal control of two-thirds of it.
Two pairs of hands were controlling two sets of androids, switching so fast even Braen couldn't keep track of them. The third batch was fighting on its own, making it impossible to predict their moves and to distinguish between the three.
It was infuriating, but in a Brion kind of way. Braen felt a smile dragging the corners of his lips upwards. He roared a battle cry, hearing it answered all across the battle field. The enemy was strong and clever and there was nothing else the Brions asked from life.
A worthy battle. It has been too long.
After that, there was nothing more than the next enemy and then the next, every step taking him closer to the Fearless and freeing Naima from its poisonous shadow forever.
In the middle of dodging blows and diving between sharp blades, Braen was struck by the realization that it was the literal opposite of his last fight with the monster. Then, it had been only the two of them on a dead world, locked tooth and blade against each other in a duel only one could survive.
Now, it was thousands of bodies throwing themselves at him, trying to pin down his spear and drag him to the ground. And his brother warriors were with him, fighting with a ferocity Braen had not seen in a long time. The androids wanted to trample them, tear them to pieces. It was clear from their red eyes.
Braen didn't have to use his imagination to determine the specifics. They told him of their plans in every voice that could be heard, variations of the Fearless' deep thundering bass.
Every word made Braen smile even wider, the valor squares on his neck singing a disruptive tune to the androids, making it harder for them to communicate with each other and the Fearless. They came at him in waves, pouring over him with their mass and swords and empty promises.
"We'll stomp you to the cold, hard ground of Darius. Snow shall be your shroud and ice shall be your coffin. We will spread you out on this field as far as the eye can see. Stretch your skin, spray your blood, trample your flesh to tiny pieces."
Nothing of that brought fear into Braen's heart. Enemies had always tried to discourage him and it was always a sign of desperation.
It was right what they said, that every next incarnation of the Fearless was different. If the monster thought it was succeeding in dampening his spirits, Braen had never been so sure of his victory.
There was nothing left of the proud, arrogant creature he'd fought before. The Fearless he knew had mocked him until its dying breath, not needing worthless words like it was spouting at him now. It was the monster who was afraid and Braen knew he'd cut that fear into its black heart with his spear. The wound Tieran had inflicted on the next incarnation had only made it worse, creating a paranoid, scared enemy.
He'd see it with his very own eyes before the day was done.
Through the eerie death chant of the androids, he fought to reach the Chali mothership, but the army clearly only had one purpose – to stop him. If not to kill him, then at least wound, slow him down.
There was one lone thing that angered Braen. The Fearles
s was the most dangerous being in the galaxy. If anyone was capable of fighting its own fights, it would have been the Fearless, but apparently it disagreed.
That was to be expected, but not admired. The Fearless were notorious for putting their lives – life – before any notion of honor or fairness. After all, it couldn't be expected from a being who only ever served itself and longed to live forever and lord over all that was available to it.
For all his hatred of her, Braen wondered if Sinetha had actually done him a favor in the end. While the Fearless had clearly studied his methods of fighting, so had Braen studied the androids’ after Alona’s attack. The androids who weren't actively controlled by the enemy were easy pickings after seeing Alona fight and witnessing the way it moved.
That was the problem with artificial constructs. Ultimately, they followed a code, a regulation that determined their actions. The general grinned, thinking that perhaps a day would once come when someone created an AI perfect enough to be creative in the way living beings were, who understood the value of mistakes, the inevitability of being wounded from time to time.
A being who could analyze not only patterns, but the inner workings of a mind that didn't apply logic to everything.
That day is not today.
After half an hour, the levity of a good battle was gone and fury had taken over. Under any other circumstance, Braen would have loved to test himself against the androids, but they were doing better at their task than he was at his.
Line after line, they blocked his path with a stubborn wall that could stab him. There was never any reprieve, which wasn't a problem for a Brion, but there was also no advancing.
His spear cut at their thin, powerful bodies. Every strike had to be perfect not to waste them on just denting the surface of the sturdy outer shell. And even then, there were always more to take the place of the fallen ones. Like an army of undead, they came at him without any signs of slowing down.
The androids were armed with a variety of blades, all different to make Braen account for all of them. The swords aimed to cut into his throat every time he turned, coming from unseen places between two enemies.
The army worked together so flawlessly it was almost like fighting a hive mind, which the Fearless perfectly imitated. Every link in the chain of his attack was aware of the others, compensating where the rest were lacking.
The short swords sneaked closer to him, sometimes crawling under the feet of the fighters, aiming to strike at his feet and bring him down.
It was hardly a battle anymore, but a test of endurance and attention. Like the hardest conceivable training program that did not end, not before he turned it off.
Braen knew there was a limited amount of enemies. There had to be, even if the Fearless had managed to create more in the time it took the general to get to him. But time was the one thing he didn't have.
Every second brought Naima closer to danger and Braen couldn't allow that to happen. So far, none of the androids had spoken about her, which he considered a good sign.
He was deep in the battle focus, an amazing place in the middle of a great fight when all the naturally heightened senses of the Brions took on an even more perfect form. The way the Fearless kept targeting him with the entirety of its army meant that Braen hadn't stopped from the second he hit the ground running.
The pressure on him was so insane he had to count down seconds to the slightest of breaks to breathe in. It also meant that his warriors would have an easier time picking off androids around him, which they were doing admirably so far.
The spear in his hand had not stopped moving for a moment, his speed so great there were times he didn't see his own hand strike before it had already landed.
The androids kept coming and he cut them down mercilessly, stomping on their fallen bodies, making his way to the Fearless over the wasteland of broken Chali toys. Their raging red eyes looked at him from all sides, trying to pin him down. The light in them didn't go out until Braen made sure nothing functioned anymore.
There were torsos somewhere behind him that were crawling, dragging themselves on with their nails to grab on to his legs and pull him under the superior mass of the enemy, trampled under the feet of other androids and Brion warriors.
Once, one of them had managed to grab on and it nearly cost Braen his life. He struck the hands from the rest of the body cleanly, earning himself a deep cut in the left shoulder for it. His armor was so damaged the colors no longer showed, but the mothership was coming closer too, inch by agonizing inch of ground.
"General," the comm link spoke in his ear, "the Chali fleet has arrived. The Uthers are engaging."
It went quiet after that, the tech not waiting for a response. Above his head, Braen could make out the telltale light show of an orbital battle.
Soon, debris started to fall down and he put it to good use. The androids, much like the Fearless itself, had no sense of self-preservation when they weren’t risking anything. The army kept coming long after it was obvious what he was doing.
Whenever a suitably large enough piece was falling, Braen timed his actions to make sure he dragged as many enemies as he could to the spot where it landed. Even then, the crushed pieces of the androids tried to kill him, reaching out with fingers that were no longer attached to an arm.
He sensed the change in the air before it happened. All at once, every android seemed to wince, like they were switched off for a fraction of a second. Braen and his warriors made good use in that and the army fell in droves, but they got back up again. This time, there was a cruel smile on their lips to match the red eyes.
That was a bad sign, if there ever was one.
With the voices of thousands, the Fearless said: "Welcome, Miss Jones."
Naima.
Braen knew that the Fearless didn't need to have him hear that. He knew it was done on purpose to rile him up. He knew it was a trap, as well, but none of it mattered. If the enemy was stupid enough to try a Brion's patience when his gesha was in danger, it didn't know anything about him.
With a mighty roar, the general doubled his efforts. The androids weren't fighting with the same fervor as they had before. Some of them even seemed to make a path for him, moving to turn their attention to his warriors.
Braen didn't stay to watch. Every last one of the men and women he'd brought could handle themselves, especially against Chali toys as more and more of AIs took over. Making sure he didn't fall for a sneak attack, the general rushed ahead to the mothership, his only wish to reach the enemy before it could do anything to Naima.
The insides of the ship were macabre. As he ran deeper into the darkness, Braen noticed signs of the Fearless' path of death everywhere. He frowned, imagining what happened to the people on the ship, though he never stopped moving forward.
There were sounds of fighting inside the ship as well and occasionally it rocked a little when it was hit by a larger piece of debris falling from orbit. Braen ignored all of it, gritting his teeth in fury as he searched the ship for the Fearless, but again the way seemed to have been cleared for him.
Where are you, my heart?
He found what he was looking for in the deepest part of the ship. Right in front of the door, a body lay. At first glance, Braen took it for another corpse, but this one wasn't dead. And it was no ordinary clerk.
Despite the rush, the general stopped, knowing a message when he saw one. He grouched down next to Sinetha, turning the cyborg woman over.
After long years of war, the sight made him bare his teeth in a vicious snarl. Sinetha had been used for food, clearly, but only enough to make sure she still lived. There were parts of her missing, with deep teeth marks around them.
"It's in there," the woman whispered, her voice distorted and weak. "It waits for you, General. Kill it. Kill it for all of us."
Braen said nothing, but he gave the dying woman a small nod. It was ironic that at the eleventh hour, after the entire galaxy, and with Naima first on it, he had to add Sinetha
to the list of people he was avenging.
With the spear at the ready, the lifestone emanating a slight glow that hadn't shown on the bright ice fields, Braen entered a large hall fitted for controlling the androids.
The Fearless was right in front of him, grinning from head to toe. In a moment shorter than a heartbeat, Braen registered everything, all the facts he'd known already. The huge, towering warrior with four hands and metallic skin was only the second thing he noticed, however.
The first was Naima, lying on the ground before the platform the Fearless was standing upon.
The Fearless was tangled in a sophisticated harness that connected to him all over. He made a slight motion of three fingers that brought the connections to release themselves from its body immediately. Releasing itself from the harness at last, the army's job done, the monster grinned with teeth filed sharp, cutting its lips bloody in the course.
"We meet again, General," it growled, the deep voice echoing in the empty hall. "I have been waiting for you. How do you like my gift?
“I thought you would like to see her one last time, but I fear I might have broken her on the way here."
Braen barely heard. All the words floated in his mind, having lost their meaning and impact. The only thing he knew in the world at that moment was that he couldn't hear Naima breathe.
36
Braen
His life stopped.
The general's heart kept beating, because it was an organ and didn't shut down out of grief, but the world around him ceased turning. In his mind, his heart could only stop beating if hers did, and of that he could not yet be certain.
But there was nothing. No oxygen in the air, no color or smell, no nothing but a torturous wait.
Whenever generals met or warriors gathered, they exchanged stories about what new insanities the Galactic Union had invented about them. Most were hearsay, told out of fear, but many had some truth to them, albeit being exaggerated.