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.#p#分页标题#e#
"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.
At a sign from Joya, Aria moved closer to the core. They'd have time later to figure out what was wrong. Right now they had to take advantage of the situation and do what they came to do. She only had to access the engine, remove the coils that connected it to the warp core and the Conqueror would not be able to move or shoot. It would leave it at the mercy of the Enor, but she'd been assured time and time again that the Brion warship could handle it.#p#分页标题#e#
All of it had sounded so easy when Aria had come up with the plan, but now that she walked up to the core, she felt overwhelmed. It wasn't a fear she felt like sharing with Joya and her unit. She had no wish whatsoever to tell the Brions that there was even the slightest possibility that instead of disabling the ship, she could drop it from the sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ryden
Two alarms went off at once.
Ryden could hear one of them very clearly, blaring across the Conqueror. The sound didn't come as a surprise to him. In fact, the only thing the general found out of place about it was that it hadn't come sooner.
So, the hive mind had called for backup. Dozens of ships from the Enor were trying to make their way to the Conqueror, with the clear intention of helping the Host elude Ryden until it had taken the ship. The bridge reported that most of the vessels were taken down by the port batteries and missile barrages, but of course some slipped through. It was inevitable.
His ship being boarded by the enemy didn't bother Ryden half as much as the other alarm did. The Clayor troops were not a priority issue. His warriors were more than a match for them. All they were was a distraction, which was naturally exactly what the hive mind wanted. Fewer warriors out there looking for it.
The other alarm was quiet. In fact, it was completely soundless. Time and time again, the guards near the ship's core didn't answer his calls to report. It took him a mere second to figure out that the unresponsive ones were all located around a single entrance. It was a lower deck of the towering core, going through ten floors, not far from the main engine.
Ryden notified the captains who were closer, receiving affirmatives that they were moving in to investigate the situation and strengthen the guard around the core. It was an enormous complex of twisting walkways and hidden shafts and separate compartments for the many parts of the core. Most of his men were gathered around the part of the engine that fed the weapons arrays and the energy shields, considering those to be the most likely target.
The one down below... that was something else—simply a maintenance entrance. Ryden took the moment to consider, Clayor blood still dripping from his spear. He'd met one of the squadrons from the Enor and welcomed the chance to face the enemy with savage glee for a change.
The blade of his spear was matted with the Clayors' dark red blood, the same that was pooling before his feet. All around him, bodies lay where they'd fallen, looking like a discarded puzzle of limbs and heads and torsos.
He hadn't taken it easy with them, since they were simply an appetizer for the main course. The general had cut through them mercilessly, although their numbers had been great. More than one cut from those long, treacherous knives had damaged his armor. One particularly well-aimed one had even reached his skin, precisely striking the joint spot where the armor was weakest. He'd rewarded that by killing the Clayor swiftly, cutting its head cleanly off its long neck.