She lay there for a long time, thinking everything over, but again and again her thoughts returned to the general and to the feeling she got when she was with him. She felt a sense of true calm, of being right where she was supposed to be. Like a broken half made whole.
Eventually, Aria got up. She'd allowed herself one night of peace and quiet, but it was time to find out how Ilotra was doing. She also ached to know if Ryden had managed to kill the Host yet. She figured he hadn't, or someone would surely have come to tell her, right?
It turned out she didn't even need to go out of her room to find out what was going on. Next to the bedroom, there was a small lounge with seats and a huge wall-mounted screen that was directed at Ilotra. Aria took only one look before realizing that the reason she had peace and quiet was because the noise wasn't allowed to reach her.
Of course it would have been impossible for her to hear anything in space, but she figured the Conqueror had to have been buzzing, considering what was going on down below.
Ilotra was in ruins. Huge parts of it seemed blackened to her eye, either burned or bombed to ashes. As far as Aria could see, the lower levels hadn't collapsed, but the upper ones had suffered terrible damage. Even that wasn't the thing that drew her gaze the most.
The space around the Conqueror was littered with destroyed Clayor warships. She knew they were the Clayors' and had been completely taken out, but Aria was only able to classify them as such by bits and pieces.
There were so many broken ships floating around that she didn't understand how the smaller vessels could move at all. The Conqueror, of course, was simply pushing its way through. Aria didn't need to ask what had created most of the damage she was witnessing.
How long was I sleeping?
Aria could do nothing else but stare. For all of the death and destruction, the battle wasn't over yet. She saw flashes and explosions farther away, saw a few graze the side of the Conqueror, but they didn't even scratch the huge warship.
Ryden, Aria thought with dread.
She needed to know if the general was alive down there on burning Ilotra. She was on her way to the console to demand that someone tell her when the Conqueror turned and she saw the reason why Ilotra was burning.
The Clayor flagship had finally reached Ilotra too.
It was a big, ugly ship, reminding her more of a floating hive, but the gun turrets protruding from every surface looked dangerous. And used. It wasn't until they were facing the Clayor ship that Aria understood why they'd been turning. Long cannons rolled out of the Conqueror's side right before her eyes.
The Brion flagship was doing what it had been ordered to do. It was putting itself between the enemy and Ilotra. Aria realized that two of the biggest ships in the system were about to try and blow each other to pieces. And she was on one of them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ryden
Ryden felt like laughing.
It didn't happen to him often. The general wasn't a naturally humorous person, as he'd been told by his braver and more foolish warriors.
Looking up at his flagship, Ryden couldn't help but find painful irony in the situation. So much for sending Aria to the safest place in the system.#p#分页标题#e#
The huge Clayor hive ship, Enor, had jumped to the system mere hours after he'd sent Aria away from the moon. At first, he hadn't been worried. Brion warships were far superior to anything else that the galaxy had to offer, but it seemed the hive mind was full of surprises.
While the Enor might have been less powerful than the Conqueror, it was by far more agile. It could move faster and make maneuvers the bigger ship couldn't. And of course, the hive mind had no reservations about destroying smaller ships by simply crashing into them.
Only with great trouble had they finally forced the Enor back, because the other allied fleets were busy holding back the smaller armies. Even Ryden felt like the space around Ilotra was becoming a bit too crowded. Space battles were difficult to clean up, he knew that. Looking at the amount of wreckage in the skies, he wondered if Ilotra would ever return to full functionality.
But it was still standing. They hadn't surrendered it and all of the enemy's attempts to gain ground on Ilotra's surface had been in vain. That came with the price of barrages, but Ryden cared little for architecture when more important things were at stake.
And speaking of more important things: Aria was up there. A morbid grin appeared on the general's lips as he wondered if he'd truly sent both her and his flagship to their deaths this time. He had ordered the Conqueror to stay between the Enor and the moon and Ryden had no intention of taking that order back.
He trusted the flagship to be able to take on the Clayor vessel, but he couldn't rule out boarding. Then he'd simply have to trust his warriors to be able to protect Aria.
Every inch of him ached to go and join her and lead the counterattack from the bridge of the Conqueror, but he didn't do that. His place was on Ilotra as long as the Host remained there. He couldn't risk another massacre or someone else trying to apprehend the Host.
For example, the Koliar commander. Stavor stood by his side, a perpetual frown on his face. The warlord hadn't taken the hive mind's tricks with him well. Ryden knew he thirsted for the Host's blood, but someone who had been taken by the Host once could be manipulated again. He'd said as much to Stavor. The warlord had merely growled and glared at him.
"Don't you worry," he'd said menacingly. "I won't let it happen again. I will show that bastard what it means to mess with me."
Ryden didn't say anything, but he kept Stavor around. If only to keep an eye on him.
They were looking for the new Host. Ryden was certain he'd struck a deadly blow to the old one, but since the Clayors were keeping up the fight and not backing away an inch, there had to be a new one. Trouble was, this time he had no idea what it looked like.
The scan worked, though. He and Stavor were combing Ilotra, killing everything that stood in their way, tightening the noose around the Host. Slowly but firmly they pushed the Clayors into a corner, provoking the Host to come out of hiding and fight them.
Above their heads, the Conqueror was exchanging fire with the Clayor flagship and it was obvious that the Brion ship was stronger. If it kept its position and didn't let the Enor close to the moon, it would all be over soon.
The Clayor vessel had good shields and it was even able to dodge a few shots, but ultimately it had to go down at some point. Ryden felt like it was almost anti-climactic, but regretted his jinx a moment later when the report came in.
"Runners," one of his officers announced. "It looks like the Host is on the move."
Ryden and Stavor took off at once, aching to put an end to it once and for all. They chased the fleeing Clayors into one of the few working hangars, where the bulk of the enemies turned to bar their way.
"The Host is trying to escape," Stavor growled, crashing into the Clayors beside him. "The coward."
Ryden agreed, fury threatening to take hold of him. After everything, the Host thought it might escape the punishment for all that had happened? It certainly seemed so, but the idea that the hive mind would abandon his goals so easily didn't ring true to him. Farther beyond, he glimpsed a Clayor champion standing alone in the midst of the others, looking straight at him with a smile. If possible, the new Host was even bigger than before.
Ryden hoped he hadn't made a mistake in leaving the dying Host behind. Even a wounded Host could have delayed him until the mass of Clayors tore him to shreds like General Poliren. No, he'd done the right thing, but seeing the new Host, Ryden knew the second fight would be harder than the first.
The lesser Clayors were blocking his way, but he and Stavor were merciless. The bodies of the fallen enemies lay before their feet as they advanced furiously, tired of chasing the Host all over Ilotra. But it seemed it had one more chase in store for them. The Palian fleet outside was shooting all of the approaching Clayor ships to pieces, but eventually one managed to slip through and Ryden saw the Host board and give him a wide smile.#p#分页标题#e#
"He's getting away," Stavor barked. "We can't let it escape."
"We won't," Ryden said grimly. "It has nowhere to go. The system is surrounded, its ships outmatched by the Conqueror. All we have to do is shoot it down. I expected better from the hive mind."
It was grating on his nerves. On the one hand, the Host was giving him a rare opportunity to shoot him out of the sky and be done with him. It wasn't like the hive mind to put itself in danger like that, but maybe it was as tired as they were. On the other hand, as a Brion, as a warrior, Ryden could take no pleasure from that victory. It wouldn't be a victory for him, merely for the guns in his command.
"Shoot it down," he ordered, his voice dark and somber.
There were affirmatives. He and Stavor watched as the small vessel twisted and turned away from the shots fired at it.
"Damn it, how hard is it to get one little ship?" Stavor growled.
Ryden was about to say the Host was probably messing with the minds of the shooters when he noticed something that made his blood run cold in his veins.
"He's not going to the Enor," he said. "Prepare a fighter for us. Now!"
"What are you talking about?" Stavor glowered beside him. "Where else is there to go?"
Ryden felt his valor squares pulse more furiously than they ever had before. The hive mind was playing the last card it could, dealing him its last insult, the worst one yet. It made sense, of course. The hive mind must have understood that its own vessels were incapable of breaking through Ilotra's defenses and its protectors.