Apparently the hive mind shared his judgment about that. Only it was considerably less favorably inclined to praise her for it. The Host had finally decided to kill Aria. So far it had merely used her as a toy to get Ryden's attention or to try and manipulate him.
Now it was after her for real.
He saw her standing there, fragile and defenseless. More beautiful than ever to his eyes, exactly like that, in her torn gown, her long golden hair messed up, triumphant despite everything.
And the Host was seeing her too.
"Run, Aria!" he roared, only a moment before the Host moved.
Aria survived the first turn that should have been her last because of two reasons. One, she was running for her life, sparing no strength and reserves. Two, the backup warriors Ryden had ordered to the position had finally broken through to the core. For a single second, he allowed himself to think of the possible future where he chose to go with his warriors instead of jumping through the core hall.#p#分页标题#e#
The warriors let Aria pass, barring the Host's path as soon as she was through. Seeing Ryden coming after him, the Host brutally cut himself a way, sparing many lives in his haste. The warriors parted for their general as well, trying to keep up with him, but ultimately falling behind.
Aria survived the second turn as well, because the Host had to halt his charge every other second to see which way she'd chosen to escape.
Ryden knew the Conqueror by heart; there was no other way for him to exist. Not only that, he knew each and every member of his crew and warriors and where they were stationed. Sprinting after the Host, he took a precious moment to open the com link to his entire crew.
"Attention," he ordered roughly, never faltering in his strides. "This is a priority order. I am in pursuit of the Host. Clear way across deck Eta, be ready to close bay door EL-3 at my order. Captain Hastien, prepare to meet the enemy behind those doors. Ready to evacuate from EL-bay."
He didn't need to say anything about letting Aria pass, because by that point every last Brion aboard knew of her and the general was confident they'd protect her with their lives. All he needed to do was make sure she had somewhere to flee until he caught up with the Host.
The bay doors were straight ahead when Ryden made a quick left and saw the Host right in front of him in a long corridor, with Aria not far ahead. A deep indentation in the wall showed him the Host had cleared the turn with even greater speed, unwilling to slow down.
"Prepare to close EL-3 after Aria," he ordered.
The crew responded with affirmatives, but she was still a distance away from the doors and limping. Ryden dashed forward, willing himself to move as fast as it was possible. He saw a bright flash ahead and heard Aria's cry, but it was the Host that bellowed in pain. The plasma shot had probably gone right past her to hit the enemy.
The general didn't know who had given the order to lighten up the corridors before Aria's escape, but that someone was looking at a commendation. Aria seemed to get over her surprise quickly and kept running, while the Host reeled from the blast. It had dodged the direct hit, but the shock wave had knocked it against the wall, hard.
Ryden saw Aria dash through the doors, thought he glimpsed Captain Hastien calling something after her, and then the huge, reinforced doors closed behind them.
The Host turned, furious, backed into a corner. For a second, he seemed to glitch before Ryden's eyes and most of the warriors with him let out a surprised cry at the apparent disappearance of their enemy. The ones who'd been dangerously close to the Host were cut down where they stood by the hand they didn't see.
Using the techniques he'd been taught, Ryden strode forward to engage the hive mind himself. The warriors gave them room, but the Host was still playing. Now it was attempting to use the warriors as a shield between it and Ryden.
Only its eyes betrayed the sick, feverish anguish it felt. There was no remorse, no attempt to take hostages, which was a ridiculous concept with the Brions. Every opportunity it got, the Host cut the throat of the warrior who lost their grip on the mind techniques.
Ryden couldn't blame them. The hive mind was one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. Resisting him was a task a mere warrior naturally struggled with. Even he had to double check his vision, which made his advance slow.
All of it gave Aria time to flee and Captain Hastien precious moments to set up a perimeter around the Host.
"All I wanted was to exist," the Host spat at him as Ryden came closer.
The way it said the words could almost be called innocent, if not for the fact the hive mind used that moment to stab the long knife through another warrior.
"Back away, all of you," Ryden snarled.
Several warriors' valor squares showed reluctance to obey, some from unwillingness to leave him to face the enemy alone, some resisting the implication of retreat it posed. The general didn't care for any of those, and they all obeyed in the end. One by one, they drew back to positions far away from the Host, who watched them go with cautious cruelty, snatching a few before they could escape his clutches.
"You already existed," Ryden said, to divert attention from his men.
"No," the hive mind said. "Not in a galaxy ruled by the union . They would never have agreed to our existence. Sooner or later, they would have sent you to destroy me."
Ryden couldn't say no to that accusation with absolute certainty, but he doubted that action could have been authorized without provocation. Like attacking Ilotra.
"You can't know that," he said, truthfully.#p#分页标题#e#
The Host's thin lips twitched, its pale blue skin darker now from the exertion of fighting for hours on end.
"I can," it hissed. "I studied you. That is the presumable outcome. The union doesn't like beings like us. I had to protect myself."
"You see this as protecting yourself. You think we are attacking you."
"Essentially, you are."
"Preventive attack. Not even Brions believe in that."
"You have practiced it in the past!" the Host threw back at him.
"No," Ryden said darkly. "We don't attack a foe on a presumption. We simply shoot quicker."
The smile came and went on the Host's lips, the champion backing away toward the door. Ryden was not surprised when the bay doors slowly began to slide open behind the Host's back. He brought his spear on guard.
"Enough running. This ends here."
The Host backed into one of the larger bays on the port side of the Conqueror. Ryden had figured it would get the door open and the look on Captain Hastien's face proved his assumption. He saw the officer struggle to throw the mind control off, but the hive mind was not holding back anymore.
"You must think I'm truly desperate, to fight this your way," the Host said with dark fury. "Do you think I don't know what would happen if I gave you the fight you want?"
Ryden followed the Clayor champion with slow, purposeful paces, keeping its gaze on him until the Host finally realized. Like an animal that sees the cage too late, it snarled at Ryden, something akin to cheated rage on its features.
Serves you right, Ryden thought. For all the tricks you played on me.
The bay in which they stood had no other exits. Somewhere above them, he knew, was Aria, pulled up by the cranes they used to lift heavy transport. Probably watching.
"Not giving the enemy the fight it wants," he repeated seriously, holding the Host's raging gaze. "That is something we can agree upon."
Behind him, the doors closed again. After a moment, he heard Captain Hastien's affirmative through the com link that the locking system had been damaged enough to be impossible to open, even with the Host's mind tricks.
A neat little trick, sabotage. He'd have to make sure Aria knew how helpful she'd been in catching the hive mind.
Of course, it left him there alone, cut off from his backup. Face to face with the Host, at last.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ryden
The scene dropped away from Ryden at once.
Instead of one huge bay, he now firmly saw three and possibly one more, overlapping all of them. One was littered with bodies, both Brion and Clayor, as if a big fight had taken place there. In another, the hull of the ship was breached and the bay was stripped of everything not fixed in place.
Seeing that vision made him feel suffocated, as if the vacuum was really there, killing him. In the third, the Host was not alone, but with a squadron of other Clayors, including the last Host he'd fought.
The one overlapping them all had Aria lying dead in one corner, her head in another.
None of them were true, he knew that, but Ryden found himself unable to shake them off. If he concentrated very hard, he saw figures and shadows moving, indicating that one of them might be the real Host. It was a shallow hope that one of the ten shadows moving in his line of sight might be the actual enemy trying to kill him.
All of that passed before the general's eyes in the manner of a heartbeat. Then instincts kicked in. The spear was already on guard and he turned, trying to keep the last place where he'd seen the Host for sure firmly before him.
It was a great temptation to close his eyes and rely on other senses. A Brion warrior could do that. In dire circumstances, for example when a warrior was blinded, they could still fight back through their sense of hearing and smell and touch.