Alien General's Fated: SciFi Alien Romance (Brion Brides) (27 page)

The first step on the
Conqueror
's deck was like coming home. Ryden allowed himself a quick dash of relief, mixed with sentiment, something a general only felt toward his ship. The
Conqueror
sang beneath his boots, humming,
growling
, aching to be released exactly like he was.

Ryden would have liked nothing better than to give in to that call, but he was done with letting his fierce temper get in the way of decision-making. All his commands had to be correct now.

"Report," he told the captain who'd come to greet the general.

The man fell into quick march alongside him. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryden saw his most trusted warriors join him, those he'd left aboard the flagship in case it needed to venture deeper into the system, ones he knew he could trust.

"The Host is here," the captain said quickly, the displeasure clear in his tone.

Ryden knew what he felt. As the commander of the army, the general himself was rarely on the bridge. It wasn't like him to lead from the safety of the
Conqueror
. Captain Hastien was the closest the ship had to a pilot, if that term even fit a vessel too large to pass more crowded areas of space. As much as Ryden loved the ship, Hastien was practically connected to it. Without actually being infused, it was the nearest thing to a symbiosis.

"I know," Ryden snarled. "It's better this all ends here."

The captain nodded grimly. He was a warrior too and his instinct was the same—a true victory was only the one where your own hand struck down the enemy.

"We have been trying to locate him," Hastien went on. "But it's been..."

"Difficult."

"More like impossible, General. The Host does not want to be found."

"Have you secured the bridge, the armory, the core?" Ryden went on, ignoring the last comment.

"Of course."

"What about my
gesha
?"

When Hastien didn't immediately answer and instead an embarrassed silence hung in the air, Ryden stopped so suddenly that the captain almost ran into him.

"Where is Aria?" Ryden growled, every syllable etched with threat. "If you let anything happen to her, I will personally strip you of your
skin
before I strip you of your
rank
."

Warriors around them tensed up, a few backing away. Hastien stayed in place. The valor squares on the captain's neck pulsed
danger, danger, danger
, but Hastien wasn't put in his position by accident. He looked Ryden straight in the eye, squared his shoulders and reported in a hollow voice.

"We have been unable and unwilling to determine her location, General. We know she is accompanied by Lieutenant Joya and her unit. They left your quarters before the Host arrived. Before they did, Joya broadcast a message across the ship, telling everyone to cover their tracks. We believe they went into hiding."

The air around Ryden was thick with anticipation as the general stared his captain down. Hastien waited without further comment, showing he was willing to accept whatever punishment Ryden deemed fit.

"If the Host had harmed her, we would already know," the general said at last.

Hastien almost visibly relaxed. Of course it
was
visible to Ryden, who could read the man's every emotion and guess most of his thoughts through the crystals still pulsing wildly on his neck.

"Should we track them, General?" Hastien asked.

It was madness to say no to that. Ryden felt his entire being rebel against itself. He'd known what it would do to him to find his fated, but like all the others, he couldn't have imagined the ferocity of the bind. Every nerve in his body was screaming to charge, hurt, kill anyone who threatened Aria, but none of those plans would have done her any good.

Some men—lesser men by Ryden's standards—had said that it was
inconvenient
for the recognizing to happen in the middle of a conflict, because it clouded the judgment of the man.

It was true. Ryden could sense the urge to respond with mindless violence so vividly it nearly burned, but he pushed it down. He wouldn't have changed anything about Aria or whatever followed the moment when he'd known she was his. The only thing he regretted was not being sure from the start.

Yet it took considerable willpower to shake his head.

"Negative, Captain," he said.

To the surprised look on Hastien's face, he sternly added, "To look for her now is to signal the Host. We don't know if it's after her, but we must not give it a reason. If we search, it will only make it easier for the Host to follow. The best chance we can give her is to not draw attention to her."

The captain nodded, understanding. Ryden wished that he could instill that confidence within himself as easily. To leave Aria like that was unthinkable, but he wasn't given another choice. In a way, being away from her gave him more freedom to fight without distraction in order to kill the Host.

It was a shallow comfort in the face of losing his new reason to live.

Ryden raised his gaze to the warriors gathered around him. He opened the com link to address all the warriors aboard through their crystals without alerting the Clayors.

"My brothers and sisters," he said, allowing his deep voice to carry across to every member of his crew. "The last battle of this war begins. It will end today. We must not, under any circumstances, let the enemy take control of the
Conqueror
. All of you have only one task now. Find the Host.

Try to delay it, drive it into a corner. Just like the
Conqueror
stands between the enemy and Ilotra, you must stand between the Host and the bridge. No matter the cost,
the Clayor hive mind must die tonight
."

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.