Alien General's Baby (Brion Brides 7)(62)

The engine room looked much the same as an undetermined amount of time ago. Naima's head started to hurt just from seeing the place. She flinched, wondering if Alona had tried to stay its hand not to hurt her very much. It certainly didn't feel that way.

"There," Sinetha pointed, motioning towards the same console Alona had used.

Kerven set her down next to a console and the trader shoved her mechanical arm into the socket much like Alona had.

"The monster didn't take this one," she said bitterly. "I guess I should be thankful he couldn’t use it as a toothpick."

In the light of the engine, Naima got the first good look at her. The Chali was a tall, thin, middle-aged woman with long brown hair, half of which was missing now. Her face was impossible to guess at from under the mass of blood and torn flesh. The only distinguishable features about her were the eyes, burning with loathing.

Naima watched her work, waiting with bated breath. The screens were filled with numbers and symbols she didn't understand, but it was clear the trader was shutting them off one by one. Naima didn’t speak Chali well enough to be able to distinguish the words quickly enough, though she’d always had a bit of a talent for languages.

Another loud roar echoed across the ship, heard even in the other end.

A shot went past Naima so closely she felt the burning heat of it. Turning around, she saw Alona crawling to her on broken legs, a gun in her hand. The android looked genuinely mad for the first time Naima had ever seen it.

The barrel was pointing straight at Sinetha, who looked on with an almost disinterested expression. To Naima, she resembled a mother thoroughly disappointed with her daughter.

Alona looked much the same, the other way around.

"Step away from the console," the android said. "Naima, she'll kill us all."

"She promised to help," Naima argued and before Alona could say anything, added: "Right now, we need all the help we can get. What happened to you?"#p#分页标题#e#

She rushed over to the android, pulling it to sit against the giant base of the engine, with a view on everything in the room. Alona still stubbornly held onto the gun. Naima had to holster hers to help the android.

"I should have known the Fearless would try to overtake me," Alona said. "I thought I could defend myself. Disengage. It was so fast. One second I was myself and then I was only a shell again."

Its hateful eyes drifted to Sinetha, but the trader was paying attention to the screens again now and didn't spare it even a look.

"I'm sorry I hit you," Alona said. "I tried to spare you and keep the baby safe. I carried you to the harness and from there, the Fearless ordered me to destroy myself."

Naima shuddered, wondering what it would have been like to have her own body betray her like that, forced to kill itself without a choice.

"You survived," she pointed out. "How?"

Alona shrugged.

"After the lifestone touched me, I reset a lot of things in my system. The Fearless didn't have time to break through all my defenses and the general was nearing. Its control over me slipped, but not before it did some damage. This body is almost done."

Although she knew that replacing the shell was easy as a piece of cake, Naima couldn’t help but feel the very human emotion of sadness about that.

Then the ship rumbled. The engine flared, looking like a giant pillar of light all of a sudden. Alona's eyes narrowed at Sinetha again.

"She's destroying the ship," the android said. "We have to get out of here. Go, move!"

Naima jumped up and ran to Sinetha, ripping her away from the machines. The trader fell hard, but didn't look too unhappy.

"What did you do?" she demanded from the Chali.

Sinetha only glared.

"What I said I would," the trader shot back. "It's ending. The army is shutting down. I entered self-destruction codes. For the ship, too. We need to hurry now."

"You couldn't have left us some time?" Naima snapped.

The floor was coming apart under her legs.

Great. This is what we were missing.

"No time," Sinetha said. "It knows. It's coming."

There was no need to ask what or who she meant. The Fearless' roar echoed even over the crashing, crumbling, rumbling of the ship.

It has almost lost the army and the ship. It knows it's trapped here now, just like we are. No escape route, no allies. It's him or Braen.

"Kerven!" Naima called.

The warrior was already moving.

He lifted Sinetha up with a look that could kill while Naima rushed back to Alona.

If someone had told her a few months ago that she’d be risking her life to save a Chali android, Naima would have thought the person well and truly out of their mind. Yet here she was, offering a damn piggyback ride to an android of all things.

"Climb on my back," she instructed.

The android did, but not before losing some weight. Naima wasn't even shocked to see the casual ease with which the android ripped its own legs off and hoisted itself up on her back. It was a burden, but she could move. Perhaps even run.

"Go!" Naima ordered and they rushed out of the engine room.

"We need to get far away!" Alona called over the deafening noise. "The plasma engine will level everything nearby!"

A thought occurred to Naima as she struggled to keep up with Kerven, who was clearly taking it slow on her account.

"What about Braen?" she demanded.

"Run!" Kerven ordered this time. "The general will have felt it too! He knows what this means!"

Naima wasn't convinced. In the next moment she got her answer.

An entire wall fell away and the Fearless appeared, the bloodshot eyes making it look insane.

It only took one step towards her before Braen crashed into the monster from behind.

The general’s armor was in shambles and she could see deep cuts underneath. The Fearless didn't look much better, its metallic skin torn and scratched.

They rolled on the ground when Kerven caught her by the hand, hoisting Sinetha on his shoulder none too gently and dragged her along.

"Braen!" Naima cried out, but the general disappeared behind a corner and the endless snow fields welcomed them.

They kept running. It felt like a dream. Scratch that, a nightmare. Her limbs weren't her own and neither were the movements - jerky and robotic and clumsy. She almost fell a couple of times, but other warriors joined them and Naima felt Alona's weight lifted from her shoulders as she righted herself.#p#分页标题#e#

Under her feet, the lifeless androids lay. Above her head, the two armies battled, a perfect image of a petty feud when the fate of the galaxy was at stake down on the planet's surface.

Kerven led them to the nearest shuttle, but Naima's feet wouldn't take her there. She looked back at the mothership, creaking under the pressure of the overloading engine.

The general was fast, but how fast was he? Who could outrun a blast like that?

I could stop it.

"I have to go back," she said.

Kerven caught her arm again, the warrior's eyes wild and horrified.

"I promised the general I would keep you safe," he said forcefully. "You can't help him. It's out of our hands, Miss Jones."

No.

"Let me go," Naima growled, ripping herself free. "You have to trust me! I know what I'm doing!"

I'm risking my life by running towards an unstable plasma engine.

"I would give my life for the general, but you must forgive me, Miss Jones," Kerven said solemnly. "I can't let you do that."

Naima felt angry tears rolling down her cheeks, but she never got to tell Kerven what she thought of him at that moment.

Alona still had the gun and the shot struck Kerven right in the back. The warrior went down, grunting. Naima knew it wouldn't keep him down for long, probably wouldn't even dent the armor, but the second was all she needed.

She turned and ran, for her life and for Braen's.





38





Braen





The lights were back on.

Braen had only needed them to guard Naima and now that she was long gone, there was no need to make the battle even harder. Brions saw well in the dark, but the kind he'd summoned was difficult even for him and normal dusk wouldn't have done anything to disadvantage the Fearless.

He was walking the edge of death now in broad daylight. It seeped in from the hole in the roof of the ship that the Fearless had punched when it jumped an impossible height to avoid Braen's killing blow.

The general was very keenly aware of how close to the edge of oblivion he was. Every step, every move threatened to be his last. It was everything and nothing like fighting the unrelenting androids. They were as cold as the ice fields below their feet, while the Fearless was all rage now that it had to risk its real body.

The planet seemed to come apart from its hinges beneath their feet, but Braen recognized an overloaded engine when he heard one. He grinned, seeing the Fearless realize the same thing. The beast roared so loudly it was hard to hear his own thoughts.

Naima.

She'd done it. His gesha had managed to disarm the android army and the ship like she was supposed to. Now it was all up to him.

"No escape now," he growled to the enemy. "You thought to have it easy. Kill me, take Naima and take the Chali ship to the galaxy after slaying all the warriors who came to the surface, leaving the flagship empty.

“Perhaps you even planned to take the Benevolent. You came very close the last time we met, after all. Now you will have to face me again and I know you remember how it ended for you before."