Bray leans over the edge of the bed and grabs Franky's shoulder. "There's no easy way out, boy. Get that into your head."
Franky nods sadly, and disappears in the lower bed.
Bray stretches out again. Stares at the ceiling. Maybe she won't come back. She's smart enough not to come back.
"Bray!" Preston calls from the hallway.
"I'm sleeping!" Bray yells back.
"You'll sleep after I'm dead. Out. Now."
Bray jumps down from his bed and walks out into the hallway in his shorts. "What?"
"Give me your hand."
"Why?"
"Just give me your goddamn hand." Bray does, and Preston grabs his wrist and taps something into his nacom. "There, now we've got a secure link so I can update you over the following couple of days."
"You going somewhere?" Bray asks, rubbing his sore wrist.
"No. You are. I've uploaded a preliminary map with a set of targets into your nacom. You'll check them off one by one, with utmost discretion."
"Head hunting?" Bray scowls.
"You don't get to complain, Bray. Just do whatever I tell you until I get Miss Harber back."
Bray groans. But nods anyway. He goes over the marks in his virtual vision, and frowns at the Syndicate crest hovering over a bunch of them. "What are these?"
"Sleepers from the old days, people I've been kept in touch with whenever I could. Most of them have been quite busy, thankfully. Contact them. Tell them we're here and on the move."
"What's your plan?" Bray shivers, unsure if it's from standing barebacked in the hallway, or from the realization that things are moving even faster than he feared.
"From now on, everything's need to know," Preston says. "And all you need to know at this point is that this is your last chance to make amends for your failures."
Bray grinds his teeth. "I'll start first thing in the morning."
"No, you start now. Within the hour. The first dayshift is about to end and all the streets get flooded with people. Makes for good camouflage."
Bray considers arguing, but he's too tired. Too beaten down. He heads back into his room to get dressed again.
21
I lean back in my chair and watch my homeworld grow bigger on the milky interior of my containment field. I wait for relief to sink in any moment, but so far, it's making me wait.
I spent the better part of my drop-out recovery in a terrible state. My past mixed with Amharr's in a hurricane of repressed horrors. At least this time I have no physical injuries to show for it.
Maza is a small moon covered in carbon dioxide snow, tidally locked to its gas giant parent, Grispardo. The last remaining Dorylinae hive, protruding through Maza's thin nitrogen atmosphere at the north pole, is so gigantic it's already visible even though all other features of the frozen moon are a gray-white blur.
Jade begins our descent, heading straight for the hive. A storm races across Maza in whips of ice and mineral splinters that glitter like razorblades. The entire structure of the Transiter trembles as we dive into the storm, and I clutch the armrests tightly, knowing the field won't hold me in place. Jade is a gifted pilot, though, and he manages to wrestle the Transiter through the slashing winds and land us safely on the ground.
As soon as the landing gear jabs through the crackling ice, he lifts my containment field. Gives me a worried look. "Will you be coming back?" I walk over to the cubbyholes looking for an oxy-mask and a skinsuit. "We need you, Bug-Nut."
"Preston needs me, and only because he thinks I'll help him get to those aliens somehow. That's never gonna happen."
"I need you too."
I pull out an oversized suit and mask and start donning them. "No you don't. Whatever Preston's trying to do on San Gabriel, it will end badly. You should leave too."
"Can't just run away. We can change things for the better down there, for everyone. With Preston's help, with his resources, we can make a difference. Even stop the TMC from—"
"God, you sound like a pamphlet. Is this what Preston's been selling you?"
"With or without the aliens, Hades is one of the Ticks' most important bases. We hit them there, and—" Jade trails off, excited. Gets right up in my face. "If we can bring it down, San Gabriel will be free. We just have to get this ball rolling."
"That just sounds deluded to me. You can't really believe it..."
He glares at me tight-lipped. Goes back to his chair and busies himself with his nacom. "Fine."
I rub my eyes. "Come on. You know I don't mean to—"
"You getting off or not?" He powers the engine back up.
"Fine." I put the oxy-mask on as he disappears behind his containment field. "I hope you don't take a bullet for Preston," I mutter through the mask. And open the hatch.
I jump out of the Transiter and am immediately swallowed by the storm. Whips of glassy nitrogen crystals lash at me hard enough to knock me down into the ankle-deep frost. I look into the swirling winds, find the dark contour of the hive, and start walking. The storm is vicious and wild, and by the time I look back I can no longer see the Transiter.
I enter the base vine through a narrow slit and climb into a tunnel. After a couple of hundred meters hiking up a rugged trail, the nitrogen crystals on my mask and in the creases of my suit start to melt and evaporate. I have to fight my way up through the steady wind from the hive's ventilation system.
The melanite underfoot is still rugged and sharp, not yet trampled by the Dorylinae's barbed feet. It feels strangely forlorn, as if I'm alone in the gigantic hive. Though that can't be true. Could be a new addition. The hive did seem slightly larger than a few months ago, though that could just be the recent turmoil eroding my memories of this place.
Besides, I'm still not very deep inside, and Dorylinae don't come outside the hive much. I remember practically forcing Edrissa to join me outside. Took me well over three years to finally get her to snowboard with me. I never found out if she enjoyed it or just humored me. After I left Maza to find work, snowboarding with Edrissa became a rare and precious holiday privilege. We'd been on one such ride when I saw the Transiter for the first time, the day Bray and Jade picked me up.
I reach the first ramification in the tunnel and rest, gasping for air. I have no idea how long I've been climbing, but my mask is slowly giving out. Probably not been functioning properly from the start. At least I won't need it for much longer as the inner caverns have fairly breathable air. I'll re-adapt to the smells in a few days.
Who'd have thought I'd return home so soon. And to stay? I expected to be starfaring for quite some time before home sickness brought me back to Maza. And even so, it would have remained an occasional haven, nothing more. My purpose is elsewhere, fighting the Ticks in whatever way I can—whatever way makes sense. But there's no fighting for me, not until I can sort out this blasted link. I hope with every fiber of my being that some time deep in the bosom of my home will somehow help me heal. So I keep walking, feeling my way through the darkness.
The slant evens out about a click deeper in and I break into a tired jog. There's a familiar red haze ahead, and I can make out several entrances carved into the sides of the tunnel. I can already hear the Workers in the tunnels branching out from mine, how they clatter and clack in the distance. My heart picks up speed.
"Edrissa, I'm home!" I call.
The Dorylinae are further in, just out of my reach, a little deeper inside the hive. I stop and lean against the wall, and rip the mask off my face. The first icy breath cuts into my lungs. I don't remember the air inside the hive being so cold. I force myself into a shallow breathing rhythm to limit damage to my trachea, and start walking again.
"Edrissa!" I yell into the tunnel.
There's no response. Of course not. Not yet.
After one last curve, the tunnel widens and I'm bathed in the deep red light of the glow-worms covering the walls and ceiling. I stop in the entrance to one of the main halls. The immensity of the spectacle brings tears to my eyes.
The hall is teeming with thousands of Dorylinae running about in organized queues. They're crawling up the walls on all eights, grouping to coordinate their work, bustling with energy. They're all building, reshaping, and harvesting fungi, constantly laboring to keep the hive functional and expanding.
Hundreds of Protectors carve their way through the mass, towering over the Workers at double their size. Their powerful mandibles—jagged sickles of unbreakable bone as large and thick as a human leg—carry chunks of petrified breeder excretions, and pile them up against the walls. Workers break them apart, chew and mix them with saliva, and carry them away to distant construction sites. It would be a repulsive sight if the structures built by Dorylinae weren't so much more resistant than those of human-made materials. The TMC had to invest a hell of a lot of firepower to destroy the other hives, but their weapons did little to harm the core of this Master Hive.
I stop at the edge of the antsy crowd and look for familiar features, standing on the tips of my boots.
"Edrissa?"
The deafening noise drowns out my calls as thousands of rigid feet stomp over bare rock and thousands of mandibles snap open and shut. The icy air cuts through my throat and I struggle not to break into an endless cough.
"Edrissa, it's me: Taryn. I'm home!"
A familiar head rises further back in the crowd. It breaks the flow of Workers scuttling toward their duties, and moves in my direction. Yes, it's definitely coming toward me.
"Edrissa!"
But as it comes closer, the Dorylini I grew up with—my friend and confidant, my alien sister—bucks up into an aggressive posture, preparing to attack me.
-
Amharr's surveillance of the Kolsamal decks comes to an abrupt end. He promptly removes his hands from the synaptic nubs. All his senses are highly alert. His veins pump living fire through his body. He senses danger—immediate, inescapable danger—and every single nerve inside him flares up in blazing heat.
He snaps his head around and glares at Gra'Ylgam, who's been waiting quietly to discuss the mutinous Kolsamal. But the harrowing sensation is neither caused by Gra'Ylgam, nor by the mounting rebellion in the levels below. It isn't caused by anything in Amharr's immediate surroundings, and that means it's the human that's in mortal danger. He's sharing her distress.
If she dies while the link is active...
Amharr centers himself and concentrates. He retreats into the tumultuous depths of his mind, struggling to interpret the chaotic information pouring in from afar. He sees the inside of a cavern... a Totorkha hive... crawling with millions of Workers and Protectors... The human is trapped inside a communal hall, facing a hoard of murderous vermin.
Amharr's skin sizzles up in a bright blue blaze.
He points at the Onryss hovering above, and an electric arc discharges from the tip of his finger, making its surface ripple. He vaults over the console, lands in a crouch, and darts into the corridor with long, powerful leaps. By the time he reaches the Undawan's main bay, the striker has already responded to his orders and lowered its ramp.
Gra'Ylgam has kept up with him to the bay, and after the briefest consideration, Amharr motions him to follow.
The rampway retreats behind them, the Undawan gapes, and the striker darts out into the darkness of space.
-
I stare at Edrissa and can't believe what's happening. She stands on her hind fours, her antennae stretched toward me, mandibles ready to snap. She doesn't recognize me.
I spread my arms out and inch toward her. All the other Dorylinae back away.
"Stop!" she clacks loudly.
I do.
I've never heard a Dorylinae speak before. My whole life I've tried to decipher their language, to understand the many different clicks and clacks and talk to them. No one's ever succeeded, not even my parents. And now—now I can hear her speak, I can understand my friend for the very first time. And I'm rejected by her.
"Edrissa, it's me..." My voice breaks in my sore throat.
"Not enter."
"It's me, Taryn." I take a couple of steps toward her. "We're family."
"Not family." She clacks her mandibles loudly.
"That's true, I'm human. Humans hurt your kind before, but not me." I take another step, and then another. "I would never hurt you. I'm your sister. Your best friend."
"Enemy!" She lets out an earsplitting screech, lowers her head and snaps at me.
Dozens of Protectors close in behind her like a wall, their large eyes trained on me, their mandibles twitching.
Tears start running down my cheeks. This can't be happening.
"Forgive me... I don't know what happened..." I take a step back. "I'm so sorry, Edrissa."
She crouches and glares at me with unrecognizing eyes. The rows of Protectors tighten behind her, coming toward me.
Edrissa doesn't see me, no Dorylini does. They're blind to visible light the way humans are blind to the rest of the spectrum. They sense the heat and biological electromagnetism emanating from all living things, able to perceive stunning nuances. The way Edrissa is prowling toward me can only mean one thing: I look different to her now, my signature has changed.
I've changed, and she knows it.
They all know it.
I'm an intruder in their Master Hive.
All at once the Protectors dart toward me like a horde of murderous beasts.
Now I comprehend the true extent of what Amharr has done to me. But it's too late. The Protectors pound toward me, their skull-crushing jaws reaching to shred me to pieces.
I ram my boots into the ground, fling myself around and launch back into the tunnel. The Protectors pick up the chase, their barbed feet hammering on the stone like an unstoppable landslide.
-
As soon as the striker is beyond the Undawan's reach, Amharr rips the small ship out of the confines of its material state. He reshapes his consciousness and, nanite by nanite, cell by cell, his body becomes pure energy. The molecular structure of the ship and everything aboard it turns into a stream of supercharged plasma that he can steer with his will, with no obstruction and no delay. He focuses it, guides it, and drives it toward that pinpoint in space that calls him so relentlessly.
Once there, the striker collapses again into physical form. It clumps into reality and restructures itself and the living beings it carries.
Amharr reconquers his senses, and shifts his attention toward the frozen moon below. He plunges the ship into its atmosphere and zigzags through a raging storm, heading for the monstrous hive growing on the northern hemisphere.
Amharr takes aim.
-
I run as fast as I can, trip and fall, pick myself up and run even faster. I bounce off walls and around sharp corners, tearing my suit open and scraping my skin.
Inside of me, pain explodes into hatred. Every single thing I've cared for has been taken away from me. The Dorylinae were all I had left, my last retreat. And he took them away from me.
I run until my muscles burn, and every single cell in my body glows with rage. The darkness ahead of me brightens and my vision clears. I notice every pebble, every gouge, every trace in the rough crystal. And forget them as soon as I dash by. In my rush I can even smell the Protectors coming for me, feel the air being pushed toward me through the tunnel.
They gain speed, making the floor quake under their barbed feet. I push on and run faster, my lungs combusting with the freezing air.
-
Amharr brings the striker to a halt in mid-air, and clasps his hands on the synaptic nubs of his console.
She's inside the hive right now, hunted by those vermin.
All of the striker's plasma jets, shockwave cannons, and particle disintegrator streams gear up to full power. And hammer down on the hive.
Large cracks open in the side of the gigantic construction, ripped out by jets of deadly fire. Chunks of rock, ice, and crystal tumble into the snow, blown out by the bombardment, crumbling into ruin.
Amharr takes the striker closer and aims for the caverns through the ruptured outer vines. Swirls of hot moisture gush from inside, and soon limbs and bodies start tumbling out of the hive's wounds. Screams fill the atmosphere and vibrate along the perceptive hull of the striker, crawling into Amharr's awareness.
The rush spurs him on even more, paired with the frustration that's been gnawing at him ever since the human first plunged into his life. He relays all of his energy into the weapons, launching endless torrents of blazing plasma charges at everything within reach.
-
Violent quakes shake the hive. I lose my footing and hold on to the wall. Multiple explosions vibrate through the tunnels, growing louder and stronger each time.
The hive is under attack.
In a matter of seconds, hundreds of thousands of Dorylinae burst into the tunnels, heading for the underground caverns.
I start running again, every fiber in my muscles scorched by exhaustion. Behind me, the snaps of the Protectors are drowned out by the thundering avalanche of bodies gushing through the tunnels.
They're all coming my way.
I'll be crushed by the Protectors. Trampled to death by the panicked hordes. There's no way to escape but out into the freezing winds. My suit is shredded and my skin's turning white from the aggressive nitrogen frostbite. I take hasty breaths through the failing oxy-mask and the thin, freezing air burns in my chest.
I have no choice. I pick up the pace and rush down the sloping tunnel. Each time I look back I see them getting closer—a wriggling mass of charcoal bodies and jagged limbs, hunting me with murderous hatred.
I run, leap and scramble, panting desperately for the freezing air.
Then I see an opening in the wall. Push off the floor in a clumsy leap, and grapple for the exit. The sharp rocks shred my gloves and suit as I squeeze through the narrow slit, pain nipping at my flesh.
I tumble out into the snow and the implacable storm hits me like a crashing wave, knocking me to the ground.
I stagger up and stagger forward, bending against the winds cutting into my suit. My fingers turn to ice, and then to stone.
Massive chunks of rock tumble off the hive and hit the ground, barely missing me. I turn and look up. Jagged craters tear through the hive's surface, spilling out bodies by the thousands, growing on the immense construction like a disease.
The Deep Link (The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1) Page 16
