by David Burke
DESCEND – BURSTING OUT
by
David Burke
License Notes: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This ebook is licenses for your personal enjoyment. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Descend- Going Deeper
Copyright © 2021
David Burke
Cover art copyright
© David Burke
Contents
Prologue: The Tale of a Princess
Chapter 1- Shadows of the Future
Interlude 1- Can He Be Trusted?
Chapter 2- Thinking It Through
Chapter 3- Locker Room Talk
Chapter 4- Fire on the Mountain
Chapter 5- Out of the Frying Pan
Chapter 6- Sleepers Buried in the Ash
Chapter 7- Need to Move Slow
Chapter 8- Good Morning, Vietnam
Chapter 9- Delayed Reporting
Interlude 2- Outer Edge
Chapter 10- Testing and Being Tested
Chapter 11- Cutting the Line
Chapter 12- Dealing with the Devil
Interlude 3- Liking What She Sees
Chapter 13- Heavy is the Head
Chapter 14- Rescued Before the Mission
Chapter 15- If Only This Were A Game
Chapter 16- Into the Den
Chapter 17- Waking Up
Chapter 18- Reborn of Fire
Chapter 19- New Expectations
Chapter 20- Plants, Dragons, Choices
Chapter 21- Lawyering
Chapter 22- Scouting for Information
Chapter 23- Upside Down Food Chain
Chapter 24- Change of Directions
Chapter 25- Pushing Harder
Chapter 26- The Show Must Go On
Chapter 27- Purrfect
Chapter 28- How Many Ways to Fuse
Interlude 4- Tete a Tete
Interlude 5- Vultures are Circling
Chapter 29- Domestic Life for Dungeoneers
Chapter 30- Call to War
Chapter 31- Bottling Lightning
Chapter 32- Addiction
Chapter 33 - Wind Floor
Chapter 34- Seeing Through
Chapter 35- Just Us
Interlude 6- When the Heavens Shake
Chapter 36 - In the Dark
Chapter 37- Fields of the Dead
Chapter 38- Altar of Sacrifice
Interlude 7- Too Close for Comfort
Chapter 39- Deja Vu
Chapter 40- Where to Now?
Interlude 8- Jungles of Tamoori
Epilogue- The Long Play
Prologue: The Tale of a Princess
Goes up to the time of Book 2, Interlude 4
Jasmine shrieked. It wasn’t happening like it was supposed to, not like she had planned it. This was meant to be her moment of victory, the time that she got everything she was entitled to.
Life had never given her what she deserved. When she was little, her parents gave her everything she wanted. Well, at least they gave her stuff. They never had time for her. Daddy’s job kept him flying all over the world. He called her his princess but then ignored her, content that a pat on the head and a new present was all she needed.
Mommy was never home either. She seemed to always have a party to go to. There was always something more interesting in her glass than talking to her daughter.
Then in high school that bitch, Abigail Fanning, won prom queen. It was supposed to be hers. She was the prettiest. She was the smartest. She was the most deserving. Those idiots didn’t realize she was supposed to be prom queen. Everyone was always going behind her back. They betrayed her and took it from her.
Fast forward to college and for a while she thought things were going just the way they should. She got into the sorority that she wanted. She was a favorite with professors and had guys fawning all over. It was no less than she deserved.
Once again she was robbed. The stupid virus shut everything down. She was yanked out of her glory and forced to stay at home without all of her boy toys and lackey followers.
Even after she got back things weren’t the same. People weren’t as interested in partying. Everyone was just more uptight. And of course just when they were starting to get back into the swing of things, she was yanked away by the A’snkarnt without so much as a moment's consideration of what she wanted.
She knew about the A’snkarnt now. The database she had access to through the Forlorn gave her a great deal of information. She knew them to be cosmic killjoys. Devoid of any sense of fun and solely focused on their pursuit of eternal life.
It wasn’t that the Forlorn were any better. In fact they were probably worse. They wanted uniformity, order in all things. No flair or individuality was allowed and thus no recognition of her superiority.
She had shown them though. They tortured her. Ripped her apart and attempted to take her over. Attempted to turn her into one of their ridiculous drones, but that wasn’t who she was.
Jasmine fought though. She wasn’t about to let them take her. The implant within her might not have been enough to withstand one of the Overminds but Commander Sek Mapor was out of his league in dealing with it.
As he tried to integrate her into their co-op the two different alien technologies worked together. Both cancelled out the efforts to control her by the other one and yet merged in an unexpected way to give her greater control. With that one step she was able to control all of the Forlorn present.
It had taken her many weeks to learn and assert her power. She was in considerable pain. They had already removed one of her eyes and a good portion of the back and top of her skull. Now those, her right arm, both legs from the hips down were cybernetic.
She was better than the Forlorn though. Their technology was powerful but crude. To the Forlorn every problem was a nail. They might be patient but the only tool they had in their belt was a hammer. At least the A’snkarnt technology was more flexible.
Now though, she had become something new. She was no longer human and she certainly wasn’t Forlorn. Yet they recognized her as an Overmind. She would be an Overmind like they had never seen before.
That was only proper. She was to be queen but what queen was complete without a king. Someone to fight for her. Someone to dote on her beauty and provide for her every whim.
The problem was that she had found her king. She congratulated herself on being a big enough person to admit that she had not seen him for what he was when she first knew him. She had failed to recognize his value as so many others had failed to give her the recognition she was due.
What made her superior to everyone else was that she would remake her own life. She now recognized the value that Jay had. It was going to be so perfect. She took control of the cluster as only a queen could. The others just naturally began to look to her for guidance as everyone should have throughout her life.
As for Jay, he was a veritable god. So much more of a man than she remembered, but now she knew it was her destiny to have him. If it weren’t for those other bitches she would have had her king.
Amelia was the ringleader. She contrived to keep Jay from her. Huong was just a slut and Jessie just a tramp. No it was Amelia and then Meikiyo. The girl could barely be bothered to speak but yet dared to stand in Jasmine’s way.
Finally she would make her grab for him. And it was only just barely in time. He was being taken away from her by all those hussies. Jasmine swore to herself that she would make them suffer. Death was too good for those that tried to ruin her destiny.
No, they would suffer as she had. She would see to it. Their bodies would be ripped apart and put back together in whatever way amused her. She had learned what the Forlorn didn’t know and what the A’snkarnt didn’t properly understand. Humans were the pinnacle of the universe, and she was at the top of humanity.
Her Forlorn soldiers had captured various creatures for her from the environmental biomes that the others called dungeons. She incorporated a number of lesser beings ranging from owlbears to Bal’gi soldiers to even some of the reverse beings on what they called the 10th floor.
All of them made suitable drones. Some even made powerful warriors. Her mindset gave her all kinds of unique ways in which to combine them and so she did. Crawlers, flyers, and phasers all became her minions.
The real jump came when her soldiers inadvertently brought her a living human. Given what had happened when they tried to convert her, she had been ordering them to kill all the humans. There was no point in having a rival.
When they brought her a human, who they thought was dead, it opened up everything. The same adaptability that allowed her to overcome her Forlorn captors existed in each of the other humans. This meant that she could create the greatest of monsters. Her new creations could tap into some of the powers of the base humans.
At first it was limited to their physical traits. She engineered juggernauts and then goliaths. Then with enough practice she began to be able to tap into their PSI powers.
This opened a great deal of opportunities. Of course it made for more creative soldiers who had unique abilities. What was more important though was that she learned over time to copy some of the better powers into herself. She would be more than any one evolved human. She was their queen. Perhaps even their goddess.
The final understanding came in seeing how she could connect two of the converted humans into something greater. Most of her experiments failed because they were not compatible. She learned that she needed a male and female to make it work.
The problem with this was that there were hardly any males left. When she finally did capture one last male that had not joined in with Jay’s little escape plan it was the final piece she needed.
She joined a male and female in their bodies and in their power. The result was a tremendous gravitational force. Her own personal singularity. She just knew that even Jay wouldn’t be able to stop her new creation.
Everything was going so well as she mentally controlled her singularity. It was cutting down the women foolish enough to fight her. One was blasted down by the Forlorn weapons built into the armor suit. Another she felt as the singularity’s arms ripped the girl in half. The pain she felt pour out of the girl was delightful to Jasmine.
Back when she had first arrived here, the emotions like that had threatened to overwhelm her. She was caught up in everyone’s fear and anxiety. She had to bear it all. She had thought she would go insane but she overcame. She learned a way to make her weakness into a strength. She began to feed upon those emotions, to savor their depths.
Then they were running and she saw her opportunity. Jasmine knew that if she could destroy their ship then they would be stuck here with her. She would soon have access to another ship that they didn’t know about. They would have to come groveling to her. It was perfect.
Jay just had to intervene. He was glorious though. The way his muscles rippled. The power that he had to possess to deal with her singularity was incredible. It made her try and compel him, but of course he resisted her power. That was for the best. He would come to her of his own volition. He would realize that she was the woman he wanted, had always wanted since they first met on the beach.
Jasmine watched through the eyes of her creation as he danced amongst the storm of metal shards. He did the impossible time and time again as he somehow completely disappeared. For an instant she had even sworn that a shard was driven through his gut, but then it wasn’t there.
When he finally ripped the arms off of her singularity it was such a herculean effort that it made her lust to have him. The ship had escaped but now it was only the two of them. Besides a few converts which weren’t truly alive anymore, they were the only two humans here.
Now he would have to love her. She would be his and she would become the mother of a new race greater than any that had come before it. Yet, when he continued to rebuff her, she wanted to scream.
Jasmine realized that she couldn’t blame Jay though. He was too kind-hearted. That had always been his weakness. He had fallen prey to the lies of the others. She would turn him.
Right before her eyes though she saw her plan evaporate. The ship’s departure combined with the fight between Jay and the singularity had ripped multiple holes in the hull of the leviathan. It was venting atmosphere.
This was not right. It was not how things were supposed to go. It dawned on her though. Now Jay would have to save her. She reached out with her mind to him once again. Something was off. He was struggling to create a barrier above them that would hold the atmosphere in, but his mind was doing more than that.
She tried to get a sense of what he was doing. Jasmine had become very good at learning the abilities of others. Suddenly, a light went on. She realized what Jay was doing. It explained so much. It explained his incredible powers and why he had been stronger than everyone else from the beginning.
Jasmine smiled to herself. She would learn this. Maybe Jay had rejected her before because she didn’t possess this power. It was truly the power of a god. Jay could manipulate time and now she would learn how to as well.
Chapter 1- Shadows of the Future
Jay awoke in his bed. He immediately sat up in a cold sweat. Terror filled his mind. It was just a bad dream, a nightmare. It had to be. Right?
He heard a sleepy, “Lover, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, Meikiyo. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep,” Jay said as he leaned over and kissed the Japanese beauty’s forehead.
She smiled and curled up with the blanket while murmuring, “Just another five minutes.”
Jay couldn’t go back to sleep. The beat of his heart threatened to pound its way out of his chest. He tried to recall the dream but it was flitting away from him. It seemed to be connected to the transferal of power that he had received from the future.
Time and again he kept dreaming of his death. Sometimes he was crushed by this monstrous Forlorn abomination. He knew it was called a singularity, yet didn’t know why he knew that.
Other times he was being cut open on an exam table, without the benefit of anesthesia. Those dreams were awful as each time he fought to hold on. Fought to not give up. Yet every time the pain eventually cracked. He remembered all those movies that all shared the same lesson about torture. Everybody talks. Mercifully those nightmares always ended as soon as he cracked.
The most common dream was the one where he died gasping in space. It wasn’t quick like in the movies. His body was vastly more durable than an unevolved human. He was likely able to survive the cold for hours, the lack of oxygen for ten or fifteen minutes and a lack of pressure indefinitely. Each of those nightmares ended as his consciousness faded and his sight grew black.
Yet for as bad as both those types of nightmares were, they weren’t what had woken him up in a cold sweat. No, it was the rarest but most terrifying of nightmares that plagued him. Interestingly it was also the only type of nightmare that his fused wives didn’t seem to have any knowledge of. The memory of these horrors was his alone.
In this one
he had dreamt that he sat upon a throne. Jasmine straddled his lap doing her very best to make him feel good, while on one side their numerous children complete with Forlorn cybernetic enhancements watched as Amelia and his other wives were being tortured endlessly, for no reason other than entertainment.
The images in the nightmare were bad enough. What made it unbearable was his indifference to the suffering of his loved ones. Worse still his pride in his corrupted children. The final insult being the way he craved Jasmine’s touch and called her his Queen as they rutted for all to see.
Jay feared more than anything that these were alternate futures that he was seeing. Ever since that last infusion of power and the message from the future, he had been striving to use Temporal Manipulation in an effort to move forward and communicate with his future self.
It never worked. Jay had given up a couple days ago and come to the conclusion that his future self was gone. He didn’t know if that was because something he had done had so deviated from the path that the previous future was no longer possible. He hoped that wasn’t it, but deep down inside he feared that his nightmares represented the only remaining futures open to him, with each option being worse than the ones before it.