The Deep Link (The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

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.