by Voxley, Vi
The technicians were fine with anything she told them to, doing their duty without complaint. It reminded her of Ryden, sharply, painfully.
Thinking of the general didn't help, not one bit. That only brought the fear and Aria couldn't have that.
The defenses she'd had installed were mostly sensors. It gave her the idea that Ilotra itself was fighting the enemy, something she had felt in other moments too. Her sensors tried to find danger and seal it so it could be dealt with by the patrols, or in the current case, the Brions.
She guessed they wouldn't like killing trapped Clayors, but their comfort was not her concern. At the same time, the sensors picked up distress signals and shut off those who needed aid too, until someone could come and help.
They were all over Ilotra. That had been the most time-consuming and most hard-fought victory for Aria that was now paying off for her. Ilotra's security officers had argued with her that some parts of the fortress simply didn't need her sensors. That they were irrelevant in any time of war, being trivial targets at best.
Aria had pushed through their protests and time had proved her right. The hive mind didn't think anything was trivial and the enemy was everywhere. Places she hadn't even heard of were giving her data, both of sealing in enemies and of those in trouble.
It wasn't foolproof, of course. Looking at the monitors, Aria realized that the hive mind was slowly adapting to her tricks, but that was to be expected. She was slowing it down a bit. That was all she could do. The fighting was up to the Brions and, finally, the Koliars too.
She had spent a terrified half hour when the flagship of the Gray Armada had opened fire upon the fortress, but now it had stopped. A quick message came from the Brions to be careful with the Koliars, but nothing else besides that ominous warning.
If she was completely honest with herself, Aria was growing bored despite everything going on. She was beginning to see why the Brions thought the Clayors were so frustrating. They ran and hid, even now, refusing to face the defenders head-on.
Aria had seen the Brions fight and understood why, but it didn't mean she wasn't tired of looking at the same data over and over again. She was beginning to see things out of sheer exhaustion, the monitors giving her signals that didn't make sense, only to return to normal the second later.
She probably needed sleep, but Aria couldn't convince herself to rest until she didn't know Ryden was fine too. As often as she dared, she asked her guards for news of him. It was always the same. The general was somewhere engaging the enemy and hadn't reported back.
Aria sent someone for coffee, desperately trying to stay awake while checking her guns too. Other than the sensors, she had a few offensive creations, based around the same concept. They kept working out the patterns in the enemy's formation, to take precise, clean shots that did the most damage. Slow, but her targets were worth it.
First, she smelled blood. Aria lifted her head up, looking around in wonder. No one in the control room seemed to be bleeding, but perhaps someone's old wound had reopened. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that the smell was fresh, assaulting her senses with its intensity. She crinkled her nose, trying to figure out if a heightened sense of smell was another symptom of exhaustion.
Then, there was no coffee. She tried calling for someone, but there was no answer. That was weird as well, but Aria wrote it off as the others being as tired as she was.
The final straw were the Brions. Something was definitely wrong, because they seemed visibly restless. When the first one of them sniffled, trying to catch a smell, Aria knew it was the blood.
"Do you smell that too?" she managed to ask before the scene changed before her eyes, like a curtain dropping before a play.
The Brion next to the one she had addressed her question to was dead, and had been for a while now judging by the look of him. And he wasn't the only one. With a silent scream on her lips, Aria turned to look around the room and found only death greeting her.
Blood was pooling on the floor, most of the monitors were smashed, including a few of her own. Bodies were slumped across the desks, deep and brutal cuts on their backs. Some were in several pieces and the mere sight of it made Aria gag.
No wonder the data on her monitors was looking so odd. A glimpse told her all she needed to know. The sector she was in was shut down tightly, with the core part of it—the room she was in—marked as threat level one.
Not all of the Brions were dead. Five of them, the shock evident on their faces, gathered around her at once, but Aria knew it was useless. She knew as well as they did what was going on.
Other than them, the room was empty. All Aria could see were her guards and the slaughter around them. It looked familiar, mostly because it had already happened before. She felt her throat close up in terror, the hairs on her skin stand up, praying to any god that was listening that she wouldn't find the Host behind her.
They were, in their terribly specific way, merciful. Aria had thought that her being wrong was a given in the prayer, but the gods took it literally, it seemed. Indeed, the Host wasn't behind her.
It waited until the glances of Aria and her guards were drawn to the one eerily untouched corner before dropping the final illusion. One moment the corner was empty and in the next, the physical embodiment of the Clayor hive mind was standing there, looking at them. Its big lidless eyes were shining in the dark.
As one, the Brions attacked. Aria couldn't look away even if she'd wanted to. She couldn't, because the Host didn't take its cold, merciless eyes off her for a second, not before they were the only ones in the room alive.
"If you want to kill me, make it quick," Aria managed to say.
She knew the hive mind must want her dead badly, after the trick she pulled on it. If Ryden's curt praise was anything to go by, she'd helped throw a big wrench in the enemy's plan. A very big one. Her eyes traveled the length of the knives on the Host's belt, imagining the horrors it could do to her with those, the physical embodiments of it all around her.
The Host smiled as if they were having the most pleasant conversation, right there in the middle of the carnage. It was a smile that told Aria she was going to die and it probably wouldn't be quick at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Aria
Aria looked her death in the eyes.
They were cold, almost lifeless. The passion she'd seen in them when she'd witnessed it fighting Ryden was gone, replaced with something else she couldn't identify. It made no move to attack or hurt her, merely stood there watching her.
Like the first time she'd met the Host, Aria found herself unable to focus on anything else. The Host's presence simply overwhelmed everything around it, if the veil was off. Both her body and her mind felt crowded, pushed back into a corner until her entire vision was filled with the Clayor.
Cold sweat ran down her back, and she knew she could expect no mercy from that creature. It had already killed hundreds, thousands of innocent people. It would have no problem with her, who it had an actual reason to hate.
So it was weird that it hadn't killed her yet. Aria would have expected it to get revenge on her as soon as it was able, but it almost looked as if it were... waiting.
Waiting for what? She was there alone, far away from the thick of the fighting. Who did the Host expect to... oh. The realization came so clearly Aria was embarrassed not to have figured it out at once.
"You think he will just walk in here and bare his throat to you," Aria said, even though her voice was shaking from the effort that it apparently took to speak.
The Host inclined its unnaturally long head. Its lidless eyes were cruel when it responded.
"Yes."
"He will not come," Aria said, trying to put conviction into her words. "So you might as well—"
She stopped, realizing what she was suggesting. The Host laughed, an odd sound that she thought she could hear echoing back from the monitors that were still working. On them, Aria saw the war being waged on the upper levels.
Units of Brions beating back the enemy, the Koliar with Stavor leading them defending another control room, civilians and their guards fighting back against lone intruders. And no Ryden. The general was nowhere to be seen. Aria felt her blood run cold.
"I might as well do it?" the Host teased cruelly. "You are very keen to die."
"I am not," Aria shot back, taking courage from the fact those might have been her last words.
"But you are," the Host said, dropping its already deep voice even lower. "Anyone who knowingly betrays me has a death wish."
She supposed it was true, but she refused to give the Host the satisfaction of acknowledging it.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked instead.
"Everyone keeps asking me that," answered the Host, waving its hand as if to drive the irrelevant topic away. "Why? I ask, why not? If I can, I will."
There was something in that last phrase that struck a note within Aria. Despite her better judgment, a smile kept pulling the corners of her lips upward. The Host saw and its big eyes were instantly furious.
"You mock me," it hissed.
"I am not, I'm really not," Aria said quickly, raising her hands in an effort to calm the enemy. "I just realized something."
"And what is that?"
"You're losing."
As soon as Aria had said that, she knew it was true. The look on the Host's face told her as much. So that's what it was all about. The news, the reports, they'd all been true. The Clayors were being beaten all across the galaxy by the Brion generals. And the Host hadn't even been able to gain a foothold on Ilotra, because he hadn't expected one of them to defend it.
She knew it was dangerous to laugh in the enemy's face, but Aria couldn't help but smile. It would all survive. Ilotra, the Union. No matter what happened to her, even if she died, it would all go on. It was a comfort, if nothing else. Ryden would win, she was certain of it now, as he'd assured her he would.
No, Aria didn't really want to die, but suddenly she didn't want the general to come for her either. She'd seen the Host in action, knew what it was capable of. With her there, Ryden would be caught between fighting and protecting her and...
"That's your plan," she said through gritted teeth. "You want to use me against him. Make me your shield. Make him fight to protect me. You want to distract him. You're afraid."
Aria realized a moment later it wasn't the smartest thing to say, but she no longer cared. With a guttural cry, the Host moved forward instantly and slapped her, but a slap from a creature like that sent her falling backward. She hit the floor hard.
"I do not fear," the Host hissed at Aria, looming over her. "Not this general, nor any of the others. All of them are just men, but me... I am many."
"You do fear," Aria said, unable to believe she was still talking. "You haven't dared to meet the general head-on once. There has always been something in his way, a distraction or a trick. You fear him. That is why you need me to be here. You're luring him here."
The anger rose inside her despite Aria already knowing that nothing good ever came from provoking the hive mind. The Host was snarling at her, its big eyes filled to the brink with loathing, but it didn't touch her. Yet.
Aria had no doubt the Host would immensely enjoy killing her before Ryden's eyes.
No. I will not let that happen. I will not be the reason he dies. I will not be used like this.
Aria had no idea where those reserves of courage came from. She had been a timid child, barely daring to go to space even when she had been offered the chance of a lifetime. Yet there she was, desperately scanning her surroundings for a weapon. Any weapon. It was ironic and frustrating that she'd designed so many, but never one for personal use. All of her hard work wouldn't help her there, against the Host.
She would have to do it the old-fashioned way, then.
There was a gun a few feet away from where she'd fallen. A few others were closer, but melee weapons were useless in her hands. She probably couldn't even lift the Brion battle spears. The gun, however—that she could use.
It was risky, though. Not even risky; it was practically suicide. Aria knew that at best, she could get one incredibly lucky shot in before her head was torn off. Even that was unlikely. The Host was much quicker than she was, much more perceptive. It probably knew what she was thinking already.
But she couldn't give up and wait for Ryden to come and rescue her, could she? Aria had thought it was bad enough to not be the one for him, but to be a weakness felt even worse. The sense of helplessness was quickly taking over her. The Host wanted to use her, had tried to use her in its plans all along. Aria hated it for that.
She dashed across the floor, grabbing the gun and turning around. Her mind was cheering her on wildly, impressed at how easily she pulled it off. She took aim in a hurry, knowing there was only one chance to shoot at all, and fired. It was an old gun, with actual bullets, although of course the stuff they used for bullets was far beyond anything known on Terra. The gun barked in her hands, the kickback nearly throwing if out of her grip.
The Host caught the bullet.
It hadn't even moved, hadn't done anything to stop her. It didn't really need to, with reflexes like that. And to top it all off, to put the final nail in the coffin of her humiliation, the Host did all that with nauseating ease. It didn't snatch the bullet out of the air in the last moment, with fear in its big alien eyes. No, it looked like it simply picked the bullet out of the air as if it was standing still.
The gun was shaking in Aria's hands. She thought she might have had more bullets, but for some reason she wasn't motivated to shoot. If she threw the gun at him, it would have resulted in about as much damage.
She really was dead, her and Ryden both. Aria didn't doubt that the general would come for her; it would be unthinkable for him to back down from a challenge like that. And he wouldn't give up an opportunity to the end the war once and for all.
When Ryden strode into the room, not even looking at the Host, Aria's heart stopped beating. She wanted to cry out a warning, to say anything, but nothing came out but a choked gasp. Behind its veil, the Host approached, victorious, merciless. The knives in its hands were raised high above its head.
Finally, Aria screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ryden
Ryden turned so suddenly he startled Aria more than the Host.
His spear was already in his hand as he arose, catching the death blow of both of the knives. He felt Aria scramble out of the way, the only real, true lifeline in the whirlwind of visions the Host was throwing his way.
It was truly desperate now, to do this to him. Ryden felt his eyes strain to comprehend all that it was shown, conflicting images upon each other, every next one as farther from the truth as it was possible to be. Beneath all of those, however, he did see the Host as well. The enemy was furious, which was good, because it made his efforts clumsier. But even an enraged hive mind was still all that it was.
Throwing off mind control and similar effects were one of the first things young Brion warriors learned in the academy. It was vital that they learned to protect themselves against the most treacherous of assaults. It was also one of the lessons their instructors never eased up on. Time and time again they returned to it, until it was sure that a warrior would recognize when it was seeing something that wasn't real.
Usually there were little signs that gave it away. Colors were wrong or the angles of light were slightly off. The Host wasn't trying to be that subtle. Ryden had already made it clear he knew it was there, clearly surprising the creature. It should have been impossible to see him and if Ryden was very honest, it nearly was.
Only with intuition bordering on the supernatural—all of his senses sharpened beyond their normal capacity because Aria was in danger—did he sense the Host before it was too late. Now he had to find a way to battle the hive mind without seeing it.
It was possible, but damn hard. What the Host hadn't accounted for was that a Brio
n warrior sensed the world so vividly it was often painful for them. Their hearing was extraordinary. They could even hear their own heartbeat. Their sense of smell, the sense of touch, all of it was beyond the abilities of other species.
The Host was powerful, but it was only able to distract one of his senses. His sight was the most important one, but Ryden found he managed without being able to trust his eyes completely.
Looking down and around in the room in the moments the Host allowed him, the general saw not all of his brothers and sisters had been that lucky, or that skilled. They lay dead, but the way their corpses lay, he could tell they had obeyed his commands to protect Aria until the very end.
Righteous fury made his blood boil as he focused all of his thoughts on the Host, trying to discern the real one from the plethora of images it was throwing at him. None of them stuck; his mind was too resistant for that, but every other image he saw was a fake.
One of the knives slashed across his chest, cutting a deep gash in his armor. He'd known the knives the Host carried were special, but they were sharp beyond belief. Brion armor shouldn't have broken for anything less than a point-blank blast from a plasma gun. To celebrate that, the Host let him see its true image, and the wide, grinning smile it wore. It was good that it only urged Ryden on to wipe that grin off the enemy's face.
He was losing track of Aria. Without the moment to catch his breath between the deadly blades and the ever-present mind games of the Host, Ryden had no way of making sure she was safely out of their way.
For all he knew, she might have been inches away from him. With lightning-quick blows of the spear, he forced the Host to retreat, knowing that it would not allow itself to stumble upon Aria.
Ryden could feel the Host's desperation, could almost taste it. The hive mind wanted him dead so badly it was willing to endanger itself. Through the haze of the visions, Ryden could see the creature gritting its teeth in frustration, trying to match him blow for blow, but it couldn't. Even with all its powers, as the embodiment of an entire species, the single entity was not a match for him.