"In battle, nothing ever goes the way it was intended to," he said, making Naima roll her eyes, "but I trust my warriors. Kerven knows I'll rip the skin off his flesh inch by inch if he lets anything happen to you."
"That's certainly encouraging," she replied. "I'll pass that on."
Around them, the first fighters were taking off. The plan was beautiful in its simplicity. Braen would descend to the planet first, to go look for the Fearless and immediately draw the full attention of the monster to him. With an army of Brions covering his back, the general was bound to break through the android army already gathering on the snow fields where the fate of the galaxy was to be decided.
Naima would then follow when the first reports of the battle arrived. She and Alona were supposed to take a roundabout way, but they had to end up in the same place Braen did – the Chali mothership. The monster lurked there for now, puppeteering the android army. It was unfortunately also the only place where the army could be turned off.
While Braen’s suggestion to simply ram spears into the machinery until it stopped working was a sound enough plan, Naima thought that between herself and Alona, they could bring a much quicker end to the Fearless’ makeshift army.
They had all agreed that the less people went with Naima, the better. Crowds tended to draw unwelcome attention, as much as the general wouldn't have preferred to send her down to the surface with an armed guard capable of conquering worlds.
As for Naima herself, she was going in case Alona needed the magical touch of her glove again. For that purpose, they had given Kerven the rights to open up the lifestone from the glove.
Braen's fighter turned on the massive deck, ready to take its rightful place at the spear tip of the attack. The general's deep blue eyes were filled with devotion and determination as he looked at her.
"Tonight, I will hold you in my arms again," he said, kissing her gently for the last time. "Both of you. Be careful, my heart. And know that my love for you will live forever, long after our hearts have stopped beating."
Naima smiled, exercising the last remnants of her self-control to let go of Braen's hand and step back.
"I love you too," she whispered. "When you return, I can tell you that again."
With that, Braen turned and marched to his fighter and the last Naima saw of him was the bloody red glow that shined through the cracks of the door before it finally slid close.
She didn't allow the tears to come before she sat down in her dropship. By then, thankfully, there was nothing to cry about anymore so her eyes remained dry.
In the darkness, they waited. It wasn't for long. It seemed war had found Braen as soon as he stepped onto Darius. With a nauseating flinch, the dropship lifted up minutes later and slowly made its way down to the planet, carefully hiding between fighters providing cover and Uther ships preparing for the arrival of the Chali fleet.
This is it. No way out now.
Kerven exited the dropship first, to make sure the surroundings were clear. The brightness that burst in when the hatch opened was so intense it hurt. To Naima's relief, it was only the aftereffect of spending all that time on a Brion ship. Darius itself wasn't that different from Terra, with the exception that it was winter everywhere. Always.
She'd honestly expected something like Audrey described Verien to be – a vast icy hell where the endless caves and snow storms were the least among the things trying to kill off every living being. As Naima carefully stepped out of the ship, she was hit by a nostalgic longing for a nice Terran ski vacation.#p#分页标题#e#
Something so normal seemed to be a million light years from her.
The snow was crunching beneath her warm boots that the Brions had provided for her. Naima was dressed head to toe in a light gray suit with fur lining to protect her against the cold, but she was feeling rather cozy.
Which was in itself rather worrying.
Kerven wore a similar cloak over his armor to mask their approach and of course, Alona fit in with the cold planet with ease.
"Are you okay, Miss Jones?" Kerven asked, returning to them.
"Yes. And I warn you not to ask me that again unless half of me is missing."
The warrior glared, but there was a hint of smile on his lips.
Naima liked him. She was glad the general had chosen the young warrior to protect her on Darius. It would have been hard to find another Brion who appreciated her odd sense of humor.
"We should go," Alona said, the android's gaze directed at something in the distance. "The battle has begun. I can hear the others."
It struck Naima that she'd never asked Alona how well the androids communicated with each other. Would it be able to do it over a distance as great as the one separating them from the noises of battle afar? And if so, could they somehow sense Alona as well?
Better safe than sorry. We need to move.
They set off across the path the Benevolent had calculated for them. It wasn't the quickest route, but it provided a lot of cover from the androids as well as the Chali mothership. They could see it up ahead. It was impossible to miss.
The trader vessel was vast. If Naima hadn't just departed from the Brion flagship, she would have pegged it as the biggest one she'd ever seen. It stretched on for miles, equipped with everything the ship-based Chali needed to live for years, maybe even decades without needing to dock anywhere.
And naturally, it was a home to the thousands of androids they built.
It looked like a huge station, half-buried in the snow and starting to ice over. If she hadn’t known better, Naima would have thought it was a carcass, a remnant of some great battle. There were no lights, no signs of movement, no sounds of engines.
No life support.
She felt a painful twist of pity in her heart. Sinetha was a bastard, no two ways about that, but to end up the way she had... Naima hadn't even seen her body yet, but something told her she didn't want to either. She had to be dead, there was no other possibility after she’d negated her usefulness to the Fearless.
Their going was as quiet as they could make it, and still she felt like an elephant in a porcelain shop. The Brion warrior beside her was easily picking his path between the crunching snow and squeaking ice, although his weight didn't make it entirely soundless. Alona, on the other hand, walked almost on the surface of the snow, her advanced sensors perfectly crafting the movements to minimize noise.
Naima was drudging through the terrain like a polar explorer of old, dragging her legs because she simply couldn't match the pace of the other two. Not that she was complaining. There were things she could do better than either of them. So what if gliding over the snow wasn't one of them, big deal.
The noise was getting more persistent. Naima tried to make herself deaf to it, to ignore the idea of Braen facing thousands of Alona's kind, perfect killers due to the creature that pulled their strings. It would have been a lot easier if androids screamed, but the grunts and howls had to be from beings of flesh. Men and women she’d met and talked with.
It turned out that in addition to not being the best suited for sneaking, Naima also seemed to be the one who didn't use her ears, because Alona and Kerven stopped nearly as one.
"Down!" Kerven bellowed as Alona shouted: "Don't move!"
Naima tried to do both. She dropped herself on the ground without question, grunting in pain as the impact hit harder than she would have liked. In the next second a Brion spear went flying over her head. It wasn't Kerven's.
Somewhere, a warrior had lost his weapon and with that, his life, since a breathing Brion would never have surrendered it.
Trying to stay as still as possible, Naima dared to look up. There were six assailants, all androids and covered in blood and gore.
Kerven charged them with a roaring battle cry, with Alona following mutely. On the Benevolent, Braen had reluctantly agreed that their ally needed to be armed, even if he wasn't very keen on putting Brion weapons in the hands of Chali toys. They'd let the android pick and it had favored a long two-handed sword with a force shield.
Naima had seen the general nod in approval even more reluctantly. It had been very hard to hide her grin.#p#分页标题#e#
Now, her friend proved Naima had been right to put her trust in it. Alona showed no remorse to creatures who were so similar that every time Naima blinked, she lost track of who was who.
By its side, Kerven was fighting with all the ferocity she'd come to expect from Brions, putting every bit of his strength behind the blows while Alona struck precisely, aiming at the weak spots it knew better than anyone.
A tinge of guilt shot through Naima as she discovered herself memorizing them, in case something went wrong later and she needed to take Alona down as well.
As inconspicuously as she could, Naima drew her gun from her belt and took aim. The Chali built their proxies tough, but a headshot was bound to give anyone a pause. Not all of them were as sturdy as Alona was, thankfully. Otherwise, this battle would have been a one-sided massacre.
She fired quickly and swiftly, thankful for the gun training her boss Doug had made them all go through. One of the androids went down with a skull burst open, spilling wires in the place of blood. The rest were so engaged with Kerven and Alona that she didn't dare to shoot again. It seemed to be going well even without her.
The sword and the spear rose and fell until only one of the androids was left, crawling away from Kerven with half its body missing. It seemed that really didn't hinder them as much as it should have.