by Voxley, Vi
His warriors saluted him as one, fist over heart, their war cry echoing across the halls. No one questioned him, and no one was afraid, because Ryden had told them the truth and that was all they needed. He purposely hadn't said anything about them killing the Host. They knew as well as the general did that no one but him stood a chance. Perhaps even he would fail.
Ryden had given them the truth he'd accepted for himself. It didn't matter who lived, as long as the hive mind did not.
They would do what had to be done, just like him. They were Brion.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Aria
Aria watched Joya and her unit listen to their commander.
She couldn't hear the words he spoke, because they were transmitted straight into the crystals, but she did see the effect it had. They all listened, alert, tense, trying to be sure not to lose a single word. The longer the general spoke, the more proudly the unit stood, with their backs straightened and the valor squares beaming on their necks.
Then Joya relayed Ryden's words to her and something snapped within Aria. She understood the meaning quite fine, but the implications were too horrible for her to consider. In the past few weeks she'd seen countless people die, and witnessed mangled corpses left behind by the hive mind, but all of a sudden the thought of death terrified her to the bone.
It made her shake like a leaf, refusing to even contemplate the idea, because it was personal. An old saying came to her. Something about a million deaths being nothing but a statistic while the death of one, seen up close, would tear a person apart.
Aria felt like it was literally happening to her. As if the mere idea of Ryden dying had the ability to tear her insides to shreds.
The general's message had been clear. The Host had to die, no matter who had to die with it. Aria knew enough about Brions to know that Ryden couldn't have led the army if he hadn't counted himself as well.
Her hands were shaking too, usually so steady and sure. She pressed them into fists, taking strength from the motion.
Time to see what I can do.
Aria pushed her fears away, at least far enough to be ignored, until she was forced to come face to face with them. She'd spent so much time hiding and escaping from the enemy that it was time she did something proactive.
Instead of crying about whether Ryden would survive or not, Aria could help make sure that he did. Or at least, that they would win.
"Joya," she said. "We have to go."
It hadn't been easy to convince the warrior, but eventually Aria had made her case. She'd been right, and for a change, pointing it out helped. Her presumption that there were certain types of fighting the Brions simply didn't consider was true, which was obvious from the appalled expression on Joya's face.
They were a species of fighters, down to their very core. Brions saw war and combat as a simple matching of strength. They'd give everything they got and so would the enemy. The stronger one would win.
Aria had learned about all species in the Union before her induction as the ambassador. She knew they were also capable of stealth and subterfuge, but didn't like it. And front-line soldiers like Joya found it even less appealing. She was used to commands, simple and straightforward. No Brion warrior could be called unimaginative, but it was instantly clear to Aria that some parts of the warriors rebelled against the idea of doing anything without the approval of the general.
It was painful to say no to them, when seeing Ryden was all she wanted to do as well. But the commander was lost to them for the time being. He had other tasks, and Aria was intent not to get in his way.
The argument that eventually worked was that if the Brions were surprised by her idea, the same probably applied to the Host. It knew Brions all too well; it had proved that time and time again. The hive mind had all the information it needed on them, which was why Aria suggested they should do something out of the ordinary for Brions.
Her promise that they wouldn't destroy the ship, only take it out of the picture for a while, sealed the deal. Joya and her unit were prepared to help her, even if she felt their reluctance to disobey their general in their every step.
"Through here," Joya said, and they moved out.
Aria and her guard unit had been moving through maintenance shafts, avoiding detection. The ship's scanners could have found them easily, but Joya had warned everyone against that, fearing it would also alert the enemy. So far, everything was going well.
And to Aria's utter delight, the shafts were mostly manned by the crew, who were lacking the valor squares the warriors had as well as their amazing sight. Therefore they were more brightly lit than the corridors aboard the warship. It meant she wasn't stumbling in the dark anymore, unable to see three feet ahead of her.
They were also running out of time. The Host was aboard the ship now too, and it was also known for its appreciation for hiding places. Aria shuddered at the idea that they could run straight into the hive mind's lap.
It would be their death, she knew that. But it was a risk she had to take.
The unit pushed forward, letting their unmistakable sense of direction lead them the right way. Every Brion warrior knew the layout of their own ship by heart, even its secondary routes. Aria had been worried that they wouldn't be able to find or access the ship's core so easily, but Joya had simply started going and she'd followed.
Now that they were closing in, Aria felt fear creep into her bones. She trusted Joya and her warriors, but none of them could deny that there was a big chance the Host would be interested in the core as well. Aria's only hope was that it wouldn't consider the need to protect the ship's functionality, at least in the face of dealing with Ryden.
That was not a comforting hope. Her heart skipped a beat when she considered the possibility that he might be unknowingly buying her time with his life. That was not a trade Aria would have made.
"Right ahead," Joya whispered to Aria, who was following the lieutenant, hidden and protected between warriors to her front and back. "We proceed in silence from here on."
Aria nodded, her heart thudding in her chest.
I've never done anything this important in my life. Or this dangerous. I wonder why those two always go together.
It got brighter as they quietly approached, even in the shafts. When they finally, carefully exited into the warp hall, the sight of it took Aria's breath away. The gleaming warp core reminded her of the valor squares, only a thousand times bigger. The core room itself was humming around her, powering the immense warship. She took a moment to take in the vast expanse of it all, with the engines and thrusters all around the bright central compartment.
The power of it scared Aria more than a little. One wrong move and she risked not only failing, but possibly ruining everything. She could damage the ship permanently, or worse—overload the core. That would cause the warship to explode, more than likely taking everything around it down as well, including the other ships, the fleets hovering outside, and Ilotra itself.
"We must be quick," Joya told her. "We should be gone before the enemy arrives. Or our own guards."
Aria agreed, but something rang weird in the lieutenant's words.
"Now that you said it," she pointed out, "where are the Brion guards?"
Joya looked around, falling silent for a moment. She closed her eyes in concentration and so did her warriors. Aria had seen the Brions do it before; it was how they communicated with those they didn't immediately see. They were looking for other warriors close by. Judging by the deep frown on Joya's face, she didn't find any.
"I don't pick up any signals," she said hesitantly. "That can't be right. At a time like this, the core should be heavily guarded. I expected to have to fight them if need be."
Aria had assumed the same. She'd had a whole speech prepared for the waiting warriors, telling them they had the chance to help win the war, but it turned out she had no audience for it.
She should have been glad for that obstacle removed from her path, but she wasn
't. Something was wrong.
"Stay alert," Joya told her and then spoke quickly to her warriors in the battle lingo Aria didn't speak.
The unit came on guard around her, spears drawn from their backs, ready to face any challenge.
At a sign from Joya, Aria moved closer to the core. They'd have time later to figure out what was wrong. Right now they had to take advantage of the situation and do what they came to do. She only had to access the engine, remove the coils that connected it to the warp core and the Conqueror would not be able to move or shoot. It would leave it at the mercy of the Enor, but she'd been assured time and time again that the Brion warship could handle it.
All of it had sounded so easy when Aria had come up with the plan, but now that she walked up to the core, she felt overwhelmed. It wasn't a fear she felt like sharing with Joya and her unit. She had no wish whatsoever to tell the Brions that there was even the slightest possibility that instead of disabling the ship, she could drop it from the sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ryden
Two alarms went off at once.
Ryden could hear one of them very clearly, blaring across the Conqueror. The sound didn't come as a surprise to him. In fact, the only thing the general found out of place about it was that it hadn't come sooner.
So, the hive mind had called for backup. Dozens of ships from the Enor were trying to make their way to the Conqueror, with the clear intention of helping the Host elude Ryden until it had taken the ship. The bridge reported that most of the vessels were taken down by the port batteries and missile barrages, but of course some slipped through. It was inevitable.
His ship being boarded by the enemy didn't bother Ryden half as much as the other alarm did. The Clayor troops were not a priority issue. His warriors were more than a match for them. All they were was a distraction, which was naturally exactly what the hive mind wanted. Fewer warriors out there looking for it.
The other alarm was quiet. In fact, it was completely soundless. Time and time again, the guards near the ship's core didn't answer his calls to report. It took him a mere second to figure out that the unresponsive ones were all located around a single entrance. It was a lower deck of the towering core, going through ten floors, not far from the main engine.
Ryden notified the captains who were closer, receiving affirmatives that they were moving in to investigate the situation and strengthen the guard around the core. It was an enormous complex of twisting walkways and hidden shafts and separate compartments for the many parts of the core. Most of his men were gathered around the part of the engine that fed the weapons arrays and the energy shields, considering those to be the most likely target.
The one down below... that was something else—simply a maintenance entrance. Ryden took the moment to consider, Clayor blood still dripping from his spear. He'd met one of the squadrons from the Enor and welcomed the chance to face the enemy with savage glee for a change.
The blade of his spear was matted with the Clayors' dark red blood, the same that was pooling before his feet. All around him, bodies lay where they'd fallen, looking like a discarded puzzle of limbs and heads and torsos.
He hadn't taken it easy with them, since they were simply an appetizer for the main course. The general had cut through them mercilessly, although their numbers had been great. More than one cut from those long, treacherous knives had damaged his armor. One particularly well-aimed one had even reached his skin, precisely striking the joint spot where the armor was weakest. He'd rewarded that by killing the Clayor swiftly, cutting its head cleanly off its long neck.
He stood in a large hall somewhere twelve stories above the deck among the eerie silence. Even sprinting, it would take him ten minutes to reach it. The problem he was considering was whether or not the Host was trying to lure him away from it.
The general had placed himself right in the middle of the ship, as much as he was able. He was at an even distance from everywhere the Host could be sighted, ready to take off at a moment's notice. The lower decks would put him dangerously far from the bridge.
Was it the Host itself? What was down there that was important? Ryden knew the deck had no direct access to anything relevant to the hive mind's wishes. Not the weapons, nor the shields, not even the warp drive. What else could it be after?
The answer jumped into his mind, unbidden.
Ryden activated the tracking system inside every Brion battle spear. He'd resisted doing it before for two reasons. One was what he'd told the others that to pursue Aria would be to betray her location to the enemies, if they were watching, and the hive mind was always watching.
The other was that he suspected it would distract him, as it had before. His gesha, his true heart... to see she was in danger meant all other things took a backseat. He was unwilling to allow that to happen, but he had to be sure.
The general focused the tracking device on Lieutenant Joya's spear. And as he'd thought, there it was. Near the ship's core, right on top of the entrance. She didn't seem to be moving.
He was running before his conscious mind had reached the conclusion. Like before, an all-encompassing sense of certain knowledge filled him. If there was one thing the hive mind had taught him, it was that he shouldn't question his instincts.
And that if there was something odd, it probably had to do with the Host. It didn't matter that Ryden still had no idea why it was there; all that concerned him was that it was there with Aria.
It was good she didn't have a tracking device of her own, because to see that light unmoving would have driven all sense from Ryden's mind.
He barked orders to the other captains, telling them to close in with all speed. He could hear their responses. The voices that answered were firm and strong, despite knowing they'd more than likely die at the hands of the Host. Not one of them hesitated. The general heard that as plain as day. All of them immediately picked up speed.
He growled. Many brave Brions would die before he got there. All he could hope for was that Aria had the good sense to hide, whatever she was doing there.
Ryden stormed through the halls with his closest warriors, calculating for the fastest route. Ship schematics flashed before his eyes, ruling out dead ends, offering quicker ways down the cursed decks separating him from the enemy. The ship's core wasn't the place he would have chosen for the final confrontation, but there was nothing to be done. His place was where the Host was.
Rounding the next corner, he came face to face with the largest Clayor squadron the Host had thrown at him yet. It meant the hive mind was truly feeling threatened now, its plans crumbling apart. It also meant that a hundred of the enemy stood between him and the Host.
It was not a game he was willing to play anymore.
"Give no quarter," he snarled.
His warriors attacked. Ryden himself charged into the mass of the Clayors first, his spear rising and falling, spilling the guts of his enemies. There was a change in them, however. The average Clayor was a mindless puppet at the hands of the hive mind, capable of thinking two steps ahead at most. If the hive mind wasn't paying very close attention, they could easily be uncoordinated and made for ridiculously easy prey.
The ones crowding him now reminded Ryden of the ones that had torn General Poliren to pieces. They knew he was going after the Host, which meant he was closing in and the Host was afraid. The sense of self-preservation found in every species, even the Brions, had been cut. The howling mass of the Clayors were doing everything they could to hold him in place.
They pushed over their own kind to try and suffocate him, bring him down, make him fall. Ryden knew that if he lost his footing there, it would be the end of him, but the sheer weight of dozens of bodies was not easily discarded. The Clayors bit and stabbed and hissed, gladly throwing themselves on his spear to give another the chance to aim a knife at his heart.
Ryden hadn't breathed out since he engaged the enemy. Every beat of his heart threatened to be his last in the screaming horde of the enem
ies. Beside him, his warriors had fallen into the same rhythm, barely having the time to think, only killing. He saw a long-time friend brought down by the Clayors, a knife cutting a deep gash across the man's thigh.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ryden saw him stumble back, and that was the end of him. Dozens of knives pierced him in the next second. He registered the loss coldly, filing it away as a fact of the battle, storing it for a later time when there was a moment to grieve.
Right then, there wasn't a moment to breathe. Every move the general made felt like he was fighting underwater, making it harder than it should have been. He gripped his spear so tightly his knuckles were white, knowing that to lose the grip was to die. Every blow he gave was an uphill fight because not only did he have to strike to kill, but he had to rip the weapon free in the next second or risk the Clayors trapping it inside their very bodies.
He lost track of time. All that surrounded him was blood, death, and the Clayors hissing at him. It felt like ages before the surge started to give in, before he saw the hall he was in again. And still, even after certainly knowing they were dead men walking, the Clayors didn't retreat for a second.
To the last one standing, they tried to wound him. When they lost their knives, they used their long nails, and when he cut off their hands, they threw their mangled bodies at him to press their teeth into his hands.
They all fell. Ryden and his warriors were left standing on a pile of corpses, breathing heavily. The blades of their spears were blunted from the battle, their hands raw from the exertion. All of the Clayors were dead, but the general hadn't moved an inch for long, long minutes.
Minutes were ages at a time like that.
The only thing that comforted him was that the tracking device still locked on to Joya's spear suddenly registered movement.
It was pure madness, but Ryden knew where the shortest route lay for him to even hope to reach the Host in time. Hoarsely, he ordered the warriors to run along, turning away from them. A few sent him curious glances, but all of them obeyed without question.