Alien General's Fated (Brion Brides 5)(7)

"You have five minutes," Ryden heard a guard saying before the Terran ambassador stepped in, nodding.

Even before in the hangar, he hadn't been able to stop looking at her as she turned to him, the shock evident on her beautiful face. Ryden couldn't deny she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. If the Brion gods saw fit to give him time alone with that woman, he would take her. His eyes traveled over her curvy form, taking in the body begging to be held in his hands.

The form-fitting official robe Aria wore left little to his imagination, making him grin in anticipation. Her barely hidden interest in him was obvious as she looked at him from under the bangs of her sun-shaded hair.

Her eyes were light blue, calling and enticing like space. A man could have drowned in them easily and Ryden had no objection to that. He felt his cock stirring beneath his armor, aching to be thrust into her warm, wet pussy, wondering if it was just as inviting.

Ryden had to exert considerable self-control to not pull Aria into his arms right then. He would have to wait to have her. He wanted to be able to give a woman like that his full attention to that body of hers.

"Where are your cuffs?" Aria asked, perplexed.

The general pointed to the floor, where he'd dropped them. Aria picked them up, frowning.

"These are magnetic," she stated.

"Yes."

"It's not possible to just rip them off!" she protested.

Her temper amused him.

"I see," he said drily, smiling to her. "You should have mentioned this before. I wasn't aware."

Aria glared at him. Then she looked around, her eyes traveling over the room until they stopped on him again.

"You were telling the truth before?" she asked, her voice insistent. "They're a hive mind."

"I don't lie," Ryden said.

"Then we are all in great danger," Aria said hurriedly. "The ones you killed... I talked to my assistant. He said he was there when they arrived. By his count, at least ten remain. Maybe more. He wasn't sure."

That got Ryden's attention. He groaned, cursing the enemy. All his warriors detained, he himself included. The hive mind was free to wreak havoc on the moon.

"I think I know where they're going," Aria said.

That surprised Ryden. Predicting the hive mind was a treacherous path, but Ilotra was a huge complex. Even a guess was better than nothing.

"Speak," he ordered.

"But even if we knew where they were, you're still..." Aria started to protest.#p#分页标题#e#

"That is not an issue," Ryden assured her. "Now tell me what you think."

Aria looked at him suspiciously, but obeyed. "I'm sure you were told of all of our defenses," she said. "So you know what the bubble is."

Ryden nodded curtly. The bubble was Ilotra's main defense, a gargantuan energy shield that covered the whole moon and required enough power output to keep a star system running for a year. It was a last resort, a desperate measure, but he couldn't deny it might have a use in the upcoming fight.

Aria was talking quickly, her words coming like rapid fire. "Everything else on Ilotra is powered by the main generator, but since the bubble needs a feed of its own, it's located elsewhere. Of course the main generator is heavily guarded, but the other isn't. You could practically walk in there at any time."

Seeing the look on his face, Aria shrugged apologetically.

"I know," was all she said.

"The security of this moon is beneath joking about," Ryden said.

"I know," Aria repeated. "I keep telling them."

The general felt himself grinning. She was feisty, and smart. Beyond the desire, he gravitated toward her with a passion. But first things first.

Aria seemed to think the same, not that her quick looks his way went unnoticed.

"How are we going to get out of here?" she asked. "The hallway is packed with security. You can't kill them all. We're already in trouble."

"I won't," Ryden said. "Which way is the shield generator?"

Puzzled, Aria pointed. Ryden turned toward the wall she'd picked.

The battle spear was a wonder of technology, unparalleled across all the known galaxy. The blade was made of and reinforced with the strongest metals known, capable of cutting through almost anything. Certainly the walls of his presumed prison cell. Ryden took a firm hold of the spear and slammed it into the wall. The sound alerted the guards, but it was too late.

He cut two straight lines, already hearing surprised screams from the other side as well as a shocked gasp from Aria. Then he aimed at the center of the X he'd cut with the spear and it sent out a deafening shot.

To be honest, he hated doing it. If he had more time, he would have greatly preferred to simply fight his way through the guards, but he didn't have that luxury. Undoubtedly some of his warriors chose that path; he could hear the sounds of fighting coming from outside.

As for himself, in the cloud of dust, he stepped right through to the next room. The occupants had wisely made themselves scarce as the general entered, crouching to fit through the hole in the wall. He extended a hand to help Aria through too. She followed, her eyes wide. The room they'd ended up in seemed like a break room.

Everyone fled from him as they went, Aria leading the way. He went slower than he could have, but she knew the way and he didn't, yet. Brion warriors had excellent memories, but even they couldn't memorize an entire moon.

On their way, some of his warriors joined them, called by his spear's tracking device. They fell into a jog behind him. The pace was nothing to them, but Ryden could see Aria breathing very heavily. But she kept running. Alarms blared over their heads, signaling their escape. Funnily enough, no security unit seemed very keen to try to take on a Brion warband.

The shield generator was in another hangar. They entered, running. All eyes turned to them, staring. Aria stopped, out of breath.

"There," she pointed at the generator, panting. "It's fine. Thank God."

She had barely finished saying that when Ryden saw the Clayors come out of hiding. He charged at once, the warriors following him. The enemies hissed, breaking into groups. One headed to the generator while most of them tried to bar his way.

Aria was running past him, straight at the other Clayors. Ryden nearly dropped his guard before he cut through the enemy attacking him with a long, curved knife. The Clayor fell, his body cleaved in two, but others took his place without hesitation. He roared orders to protect Aria, switching to the battle tongue, hoping the hive mind wouldn't understand. Keeping her behind him was a risk since he couldn't take his eyes off the fight, but without protection she would have died in an instant.

They crowded him. Clearly Aria's assistant had been wrong. There were a lot of Clayors there, all of them throwing themselves at him and his warriors to buy their companions time. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryden saw Aria frantically typing something into a console on the wall. She seemed unharmed, because so far she didn't pose a threat. That was until the hive mind realized she'd been shutting the cover that separated the generator from the hangar.#p#分页标题#e#

It rose up from the floor, throwing the Clayors off their feet while Aria gave a victorious cry. Ryden saw the enemies turn at once, seeing the prize disappearing from their sights. Some of them tried to reach Aria while others leaped at the cover.

"Don't let them near it!" Ryden commanded. The cover kept rising and his warriors knocked off everyone who tried to get to it. Aria was running back toward him, her face pale, but she'd done it. She had managed to protect the generator.

In the next second, the explosion knocked them all off their feet.





CHAPTER SEVEN

Aria



Aria flew through the air, the terrible noise of the explosion ringing in her ears. She had always thought that her life would flash before her eyes when she died, but it didn't happen. All she saw were pieces of debris and metal falling all around her, and she caught glimpses of people trying to crawl away.

Maybe life didn't flash before her eyes because she wasn't dying. In fact, as much as she could gather, she wasn't even hurt.

Instead, she was in Ryden's arms, safe and sound hidden under his massive frame. She realized he was shielding her with his own body, protecting her from the debris still falling from the ceiling. There was a bright shield above them too, appearing from the device on the general's wrist. It had caught the brunt of the explosion, probably the only reason they were alive.

Through a headache, Aria thought how incredible the general's reflexes had been. All around them, bodies littered the ground, mostly those of the Clayors. Even a few Brions, elite warriors of the galaxy, lay dead on the cracked floor. Most of the live ones were covered by the same shields, but Aria saw them bleeding, hinting they weren't as fast as their commander.

The fact that she was alive was nothing short of a miracle.

"Are you hurt?" the general asked, his voice sounding distorted to Aria's ringing ears.

"No, no," she coughed as well as she could. "You saved my life..."

The general barely acknowledged that. All he said was:

"We are far from safe. I know how Clayors operate. We need to get away from the hangar right now."

Around them, the world was breaking to pieces. Aria had no idea why there was such a hurry, but the hangar didn't look stable to her either. With the cover up, the generator seemed luckily unharmed, but with the hangar around it unstable, it posed a tremendous problem. She fully agreed that the farther they were from it, the better. Rationally she knew the ones responsible for the explosion had to be close, but with Ryden... she irrationally felt safe.