"It took us, breaking everything we threw at it. Droids, androids, gunfire. Not a scratch on it. And then it caught me. You were right before, General. It's been a long while since I've looked upon my enemies with my own eyes and the Fearless... against it, I had no chance of victory. I thought it would kill me, but instead it listened. And laughed."
"You serve the Fearless now. You have served the enemy ever since you sent your proxy to me. You have been with it the whole time," Braen finished, loathing plain in his voice. "I wonder, does the Fearless know what you planned to do?"
"It knows. It doesn't care," Sinetha replied, a morbid smile on the android's lips. "After what I built for the monster, it will never die."
"What did you build?" he demanded.
"A harness."
The general bared his teeth in a snarl. The answer had been in front of him from the moment Sinetha began to talk. A hush went through the room and Braen could hear Naima's shocked intake of breath.
"How many?" the general asked, his voice alone fixing Sinetha in place. "How many androids does the network control?"
"Hundreds," the trader said. "Maybe thousands."
The silence that followed spoke louder than the words before. A Fearless, in control of a thousand creatures like Alona. Bodies that couldn't really die, fighting without losing anything. While some traders managed to maintain control over a few androids at a time, Braen fully believed the Fearless could send them all on the battlefield to meet him.
A thousand battle bots, controlled by the ancient evil. He would have to cut his way through them to even get a shot at the real villain.
"And Naima?" he asked, pushing the horrible news aside in his mind. "What is she to you?"
"Insurance," Sinetha shot back at once. "After the Fearless imprisoned me, I sent you the most lifelike proxy that wasn't in the cage with me. Alona was perfect, always more emotional than the others.
“I wanted Alona to get to your little whore. If I had the girl, you would have been mine. You would have protected me from the Fearless. And after you killed it, I might have traded her for the favor I asked."
"Still," Braen spat. "After everything that's happened, you still want to make a profit!"
The android shrugged.
"I am a Chali," Sinetha's voice said, before changing to drop in timbre. "But now all is lost. I warned you, General. The Fearless is here."
24
Braen
Just like that, Sinetha was gone and the light in the android's eyes turned red to match Braen's temper.
"General," said a voice as old as stars, deep and dark. "We meet again."
From the corner of his eye, Braen saw Naima get up behind the line of his warriors to see their enemy better. The android looked in her direction as well. Its mouth was bared in a snarling smile.
It looked completely wrong, like Alona's mouth simply didn't stretch as far open as the Fearless would have liked. The end result was that the android looked like it was trying to crawl out of its own skin.#p#分页标题#e#
With the Fearless, it was a natural reaction.
So we meet again after all this time…
"There she is," the monster gargled, looking at Braen’s gesha standing defiantly, staring it down. "You have hidden yourself from my sight, but it is a minor inconvenience. Soon, I will have you and the other girl as well. Then nothing in the galaxy can hide from me again. You will lead me where the lifestone is brightest, where the worlds are rich so I can feed and live forever."
"Never," Naima said, shaking her head furiously. "I'd rather die."
"You would be surprised, little Terran, how few people choose that option when given the real choice," the Fearless said, tilting Alona's head to the side, nearly cracking it. "Have no fear. I will not let you choose."
That was all Braen needed to hear. All those long minutes of suffering, seeing Naima in danger, the general had managed to stay calm, but no more. With a roaring battle cry, he charged at the android.
Naima's quarters descended into pure chaos. Warriors rushed out, dragging his gesha with them. Not out of fear, but to get her as far away from the enemy as possible, as well as to give the general room to properly face the monster.
As the Fearless dodged Braen's first blow, laughing in a voice that made the walls of the room shake, Naima called out to him for the second time.
"Remember, Braen!" she screamed. "Break it, don't destroy it! I need to know! We have to give Alona a chance!"
The general didn't understand much of Naima's reasoning, but he trusted her, without question like was proper for a gerion. So far, his beautiful little Terran had shown amazing wisdom and courage. And she had been right about the lifestone.
Braen had no trust in his heart for the android's AI, yet there was one thing that made him listen. Before, when Naima had claimed that Alona had tried to warn her, Kerven hadn't protested, which meant it was true.
The Fearless roared.
The howl echoed in the now-empty rooms as Braen circled around the android, armed with a Brion battle spear. He knew firsthand how sharp it was, what a deadly weapon his kind wielded. The monster, of course, needed no advantages but the ones it already had.
The general watched the spear’s movements in the android’s hands with curiosity and awe, despite himself. The Fearless picked up all the techniques like they were nothing. The spear looked as natural in the android's hands as it did in his.
So far, the monster hadn't attacked, merely regarded him, measuring his worth against the day they'd had their previous fight.
Braen wondered how well it remembered and the thought brought a feral grin to his lips. A being of infinite life surely possessed infinite memory. It already knew what it felt like to succumb to his will.
"If you think the Chali toys will stop me, you are very much mistaken," Braen promised. "No army has ever managed to win a war against the Brions and make no mistake. I am bringing war to your doorstep if you are afraid to face me yourself."
The Fearless laughed, its voice so deep Braen could barely hear the cackle of it.
"I think nothing, General, you should know better," it growled then, a hint of eternal malice playing in its eyes.
It seemed to him that after the Fearless had taken over Alona, its skin was slowly turning red. Like it was bleeding internally.
"It is tiring, to listen to all of you through the ages," the Fearless said. "Every man and woman who has ever faced me has assumed that I care, that they are anything more than pebbles in my path.
“I have seen stars die, General, and new ones be born. There is only one of me and I will live forever. I don't care what happens to the Chali, nor to you, nor to the Terrans."
"Why are you here, then?" Braen asked, seeing the way the android gave a few practicing mock blows to get the proper feel of the weight of the spear.
When the monster didn't respond, the general knew he had his answer.
"You hardly deserve your name," he said, stopping.
It was a risky move, considering the opponent was able to move so fast even he could barely see it coming, yet the Fearless only stared at him through the android's eyes.
"I am a threat to you," he went on, "and so was Tieran. I suppose it makes sense, in a way. If I had died so many times before, I don't know how I would feel if I ever met my killer again on the field. How good would I say my chances are?
“I see fear in your eyes now, monster. I should have seen it before, from the way you sneak into the minds of the Terrans. It's not only the lifestone that you seek, it is us. Through their eyes, you watch and think. We have killed you before. Could we do it again?"#p#分页标题#e#
With every word he said, Braen saw the truth revealed to him. The android in front of him was heaving, breathing heavily, the sounds coming from its artificial throat mere imitations of what the Fearless really had to sound like.
"You are here to see if I've gotten better," Braen said, his eyes flashing as the heavy spear began to twirl in his hands, gathering momentum. “I assure you, I have.”
The monster roared in fury. The android shook in the sound waves, looking like it was about to be blown to pieces.
"You got lucky once," the beast grunted. "It will not happen again. You forget, General. I may die, but I will rise again, wiser and more powerful than ever before. You? You are nothing but a mortal. Every day, you grow older, while I grow stronger."
"Not this time," Braen said. "I will make sure the day you meet me for the second time will be your last."
"Not if I make this day yours!" the Fearless bellowed and charged at last.
Braen met the strike of the spear like he would have done any other, but the strength with which it was delivered was enough to throw him across the room into a wall. He was up in less than a heartbeat and even that was barely enough as the stolen spear struck home where his head had been, so close Braen could feel strands of his hair torn.
The android's body was as tough as the warriors had warned him, it seemed, and fast beyond belief. He had to be thankful that the Fearless had waited for him to arrive, otherwise there would have been many more Brion bodies on the ground already.
The general cursed himself for presuming the fight would be nothing more than a warmup, when it was clear he had to fight for his life every second of the way. Yet even as he dodged the monster's next blow, Braen knew he had one advantage over the enemy.