Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel

by Jacqueline Koyanagi

  The intimacy I’d felt on the observation deck, the tilt of her mouth toward mine in that club on Spin, the way she sometimes looked at me . . . none of it meant anything. Reading into small gestures would only drive me crazy. Raw jealousy and resentment boiled in me for the rest of the day, but I just imagined it was my feelings for Tev finally burning off like I’d hoped they would.

  When Slip noticed my mood, I blamed it on the pain. At least it was half-true. Despite the drugs, a dull ache still radiated through my body and sleep barely took the edge off my fatigue. I knew some of what I was feeling were the echoes of the Tangled Axon’s own agony, her cargo bay shattered.

  As badly as I needed my meds, I was starting to second-guess my decision to tell Tev about the Dexitek. Everyone knew just how bad I was hurting, now. They knew my body was breaking down by the minute. They knew I was useless. I didn’t want Tev to look at me like an invalid, with pity in her eyes. Or worse, see me as a burden.

  “Hey,” Slip said, appearing at my side, immediately taking my vitals. Her stormcloud-hair and kind, broad smile warmed me in spite of everything. I tried sitting up, but quickly relented in favor of my pillow.

  “Take it easy.”

  “How is she?” I said, careful to keep my voice down.

  “Pretty pissed off about your sister keeping so much from everyone.”

  “What about her neck?”

  “Tev will be fine. How do you feel?”

  “Like ass.”

  She laughed. “Tev said something similar before I made her go to sleep last night.”

  Before I made her go to sleep last night. An off-hand comment, but indicative of their intimacy. If my feelings had gotten bad enough to crowd my mind like this, it really was time to push them to the side. Stop while I still could. Besides, the more I thought about her, the angrier I became. She had to have deliberately misled me. There was no way anyone would have believed her intentions with me on the observation deck had been entirely platonic, and I knew she had to have felt the tension between us on Spin. I remembered the way her breath caught when we were close enough to taste each other if we’d wanted. How could that be platonic?

  I pretended to be asleep whenever Tev tried talking to me from across the room, determined to steep myself in bitterness for a while. As much as I longed for her, I didn’t want to be in contact with her unless it was necessary. I did everything I could to nourish my frustration until I sat firmly in an emotional nadir of my own crafting.

  By evening, I’d spent enough time torturing myself that I was grateful when Tev ordered everyone to the bridge to discuss our next move. Slip agreed that walking around the ship—albeit carefully—would be good for both of us.

  Tev tried to rouse me.

  “Alana.” She shook my shoulder, but I kept my eyes closed and rolled over. “Hey, love. Walk with me.”

  I ignored her. I’m sure the whole thing was utterly ridiculous and transparent, considering she practically shoved me. I didn’t care. I’d have pretended to be asleep for another hour if I had to. I knew I was being childish, but I couldn’t stand the thought of walking down the corridor with her. Instead, I tried shocking my heart into submission with the truth, throwing it at myself like a splash of acid: She doesn’t feel the same way about you.

  After she gave up and left, I sat up and spent a few minutes steadying my body and mind, then made my disoriented way to the bridge. Slip was right—despite all the lingering pain, the instant I left the infirmary, I started feeling a little better. Stale starship air felt as good as fresh sky to this surgeon’s lungs.

  The crew was all hushed voices and solemn faces on the bridge, including Nova. When Tev saw me, she started to smile. I forced myself to demonstrate no emotion, determined not to give her the satisfaction of my unrequited affection. She gave me an inquisitive look that said, “What’s wrong?” but I turned away and listened to what Ovie was saying, doing my best to keep my eyes from two people: the woman I didn’t want to want, and the pilot whose forearm was currently nothing but bone below the honeycomb half-sleeve.

  We still had to help Marre. Even if Transliminal couldn’t do anything for me, maybe they could still do something for her. After all, whatever had happened to her had something to do with her SAG training. If the othersiders were nothing more than glorified spirit guides, they may be the very people she needed.

  As soon as the thought flitted across my mind, Marre snapped her attention to me and a loud, swarming buzz swelled in my head. The buzzing briefly grew louder, then ceased in an instant. Honeyed scents surrounded me, replacing the torrent of noise, but no one else seemed to notice. She smiled, and turned back to her work.

  “ . . . two weeks,” Ovie said as I finally looked away from Marre and focused.

  “What’s in two weeks?” I said, ignoring Tev’s eyes burning into my skull. I sat down on the floor near Ovie, who patted my uninjured shoulder.

  “That’s how long Marre thinks she has before she destabilizes permanently. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.”

  Tev placed a hand on her bandaged neck, wincing. “We need to get to the breach. Nova, are you going to help us, or not?”

  “Only if you help my sister first.”

  “Marre is dying,” Ovie growled, baring fangs. Just behind him, I saw the impression of raised hackles and a tail. Fleeting and insubstantial, like a shadow.

  “Ovie,” Marre said quietly, half her face a gruesome portrait of human anatomy. I watched each muscle around her mouth work as she spoke. “She’s not our enemy.”

  “Contract or no, my loyalty is to my family,” Nova said. “I think we should be discussing my sister’s medical needs, or you’ll lose the only leverage you think you have.”

  Nova straightened her spine. No one spoke. She held back the vitriol I could see simmering in her eyes, wrapped in a veil of grace and poise. Dangerous.

  “We’re taking care of it,” Tev snapped. “I said we would, and we will.”

  “Oh really? And where exactly do you intend to obtain this medication?”

  “We’ll deal with the details after we secure your cooperation.”

  “No, Captain Helix. Once we have the medication, then we can talk about what I’ll do to help you.”

  “No, we’re talking about it now!” Tev slammed her hand against the navigation console, then winced again. “My ship is in desperate need of repair, my pilot is dying, my dealer is dead, and if you don’t cooperate, all of it is meaningless. And Marre will die.”

  Nova shrugged one shoulder and looked around, as if the notion didn’t bother her. I knew it did. “I’m not working with Transliminal until after we’ve gotten Alana’s medication. No Dexitek, no deal.”

  “Get over yourself and help us,” Tev said, then turned to me. “Alana, a little help, here!”

  “We have to repair the ship,” Ovie said, pacing. A tail and hackles flickered in and out of existence behind him. Canine ears shadowed his head, and one of them was turned toward our conversation, twitching. “We won’t make it through the breach in this condition. Not even if we’re towed.”

  “Ah.” Nova folded her arms and smiled. “Well, I see a perfect opportunity, then. We’ll obtain the necessary parts to repair this ship at the same time we secure Dexitek for my baby sister. Valen has plenty of colonies that can provide both.”

  “Between fuel and food—even if we cut rations—we just don’t have the money.” Tev talked more vigorously with her hands the more frustrated she became. “Marre and I have gone over the numbers and we’re hurting as it is with the Quicks taking up additional resources. We just can’t afford it. And we’re already making a stop to barter for medication. There’s no way we can afford supplies.”

  “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the Quicks,” I said, not bothering to conceal my anger as I stood and challenged her with as much dignity as I could muster. Probably a poor job with my increasingly crippled muscles contracting in pain, but it was the best I could do.
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br />   “That’s right,” Tev said. “We wouldn’t be here in this shit situation, half my crew shredded and my ship limping along through the black.”

  “And my family wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t been at Ouyang Outpost. You’d be nowhere without my sister, and without me that tracking device would still be stuck to the side of the Axon. You’d have nothing.”

  Tev took in a sharp breath and set her jaw.

  “Okay,” Slip said, stepping between us, holding her hands out to either side. She addressed Tev in particular. “Don’t say things you can’t take back.”

  “A little late for that,” Nova said.

  “You’re the one pushing so hard for Alana’s medication,” Tev said. “Maybe you want to do a little spirit guide magic and help us get the supplies? Disguise us or something? Keep them from detecting us?”

  Nova sighed. “Disguising you on Spin was different; at least there, you’re expected to be intoxicated. Doing that on Valen would make it tremendously difficult for you to concentrate well enough to break into a medical facility and escape.”

  “Just make it hard for them to detect us.”

  “It’s not that simple. Preventing one person from detecting you, sure. One person’s mind can be clouded easily enough. But manipulating the perceptions of an entire facility so they fail to notice you? I can’t do that, not even if I had your pilot’s help. Not to mention the security systems I’d have to undermine. I’m just one spirit guide.”

  “So come with us and do whatever you can. It might not be perfect, but it’ll help.”

  “I’m not breaking the law when I know they’ll detect us. It’s one thing to help you evade the enforcers when they want to arrest you for a genocide you didn’t commit. It’s another matter to throw my entire career away just to give you a false sense of security. It’s not a matter of whether I would fail to conceal you adequately—I would. I know this.” She sighed again. “I’m tired of defending myself here. I would happily pay to obtain the Dexitek legally if I could do so without giving away our presence, but all I have are my own credits; they’d trace them immediately. I’ll do my part when we contact Birke—remember, you’re not even paying me properly for any of this. You’re the ones who need to help Alana.”

  “You’re selfish.” Slip looked at my sister, disgust dripping from every word. “Don’t you have something to knit? Some client’s vibrations you need to raise? Money you need to vibrate out of someone’s pocket?”

  “Enough,” Tev said. She sounded weary.

  No matter how badly Tev had played me, I still believed in what she was trying to accomplish. My woes weren’t Marre’s fault; emotions would have to wait. I took a deep breath and refocused. “I know we can’t afford to repair the ship and get my meds. That’s why we have to steal them.”

  Slip snapped her head toward me with an incredulous look, saw I was serious, and threw her hands up while pacing away from us. “You’re crazy. We’ll be arrested the second we set foot in a distribution center.”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s why we’re not going to steal from a manufacturer.”

  Shadowed by his dark canine ghost, Ovie grunted. “Shit.”

  I nodded. “We have to find a repair lot. We have to steal from someone who wouldn’t have the resources to come after us. And we’ll just have to haul ass to make sure we can cross the breach in time to save Marre.”

  “Tev,” Slip said. “I hate to be the cynic here, but how can we be sure Birke’s not going to throw us back through the breach once she has Nova? Nothing says she’ll adhere to any agreement she makes with us. How can we be sure she’ll help Marre?”

  “She has a point,” Nova said.

  “I had a lot of time to think today,” I said, looking directly up at Nova from my hunched-over position, nervous. Stiffness crept into my hands. I folded them, not wanting the others to see them shake and interpret it as a lack of confidence. “I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “Oh?”

  I took a deep breath and refused to look at anyone, certain that if I did, I’d no longer have the nerve to speak. “When the time comes to bring Nova to Birke, my sister will transform me just like she did on Spin, only this time, Nova will make me look like herself. I’ll take Nova’s place when we go to meet Birke, and if Marre and Nova help disguise our intentions, Birke shouldn’t be able to detect the lie. That might buy us a chance to bargain for a cure for Marre. If we keep the real Nova hidden, Birke won’t be able to kidnap her or something and send us away. She’ll have to help Marre if she wants access to the real Nova.”

  “Absolutely not,” Nova said. “I’m not letting you risk yourself like this.”

  “We need to do something and like Slip said, we can’t just send you to her when we don’t know what she’ll do. Does anyone have a better idea?”

  “I like it.”

  My breath caught. Marre stood near her pilot seat, feet skinless and red, eyes full of electricity that sparked and sizzled in haloes around her head. I had to be hallucinating from Mel’s or the drugs Slip had given me or both. Marre stepped closer to us. Buzzing erupted in my mind, an entire swarm of sounds. “I want to do it.”

  Tev rubbed her forehead. “Marre, if we do this Alana is risking—”

  “I think she can succeed.” Marre smiled. “I want to do it.”

  She walked up to me, took my hand into her cold one, and placed it onto her heart. Translucence rippled out from my palm, exposing her ribs in a shimmer. The ship’s hum collided with the buzzing in my head, creating a dissonant sound; I felt like my blood ignited in explosions down my arm. Ripping sensations shot through my hand, like nothing I had ever felt. Energy pulsed through my limbs, my neck, my head.

  As quickly as they had begun, the sensations ebbed away.

  Slowly, my eyes refocused and took in a changed crew: An enormous black wolf, all solid muscle over a thick frame, still wearing Ovie’s necklace. Slip’s physical appearance remained the same, but fresh-faced and free of all that exhaustion she wore like a shroud. Her arms wrapped around wolf-Ovie, fingers entwined in his fur. Tev had become a young girl with a light dusting of freckles across her sun-kissed cheeks, eyes unburdened. I could smell the outdoors on her even from where I stood, all dust and—yes, rosemary, even as a child. Marre was just . . . gone. Above them all, an electric storm raged along the ceiling of the bridge, in and out of the walls, into the control panels. I was completely pain free but my mind maintained its integrity—it was a kind of freedom I’d never known. Only Nova seemed the same, although there was an aura around her bright enough to blind.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Nova said, moving toward me while the rest of them remained frozen in place mid-conversation, a moment out of time. Something worked inside me, twining together connections, ideas, feelings I couldn’t name, but it was too nebulous to grasp.

  “What am I looking at?” Both our voices echoed; I heard them within me and without, at once.

  “Who they really are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the ship’s song, Alana. You’ve felt it, I know you have. The Tangled Axon changes you when you live inside her. Can’t you sense it? Can’t you feel yourself beginning to see people as they truly are? The ship is lending you her eyes.”

  “I don’t understand . . . ”

  “You’ll see.” My sister smiled and clapped her hands in front of my face once. The sound rang through me like a plasma bolt, breaking the spell. Instantly, the crew returned to normal, resuming their conversation as if nothing had happened, as if Marre had never approached me, as if they had remained as I’d seen them all along. All human, all present, all fully-grown. Part of me registered their words as they laid out our plan to take a shuttle down to Valen. I heard them discuss which medical facility to infiltrate for the Dexitek, which family-owned repair lot to target for spare parts to repair the Tangled Axon’s thrusters and cargo hold.

  I
grasped at delicate strands of understanding and failed, falling over the edge into an uncanny valley where I couldn’t trust my own eyes. That frozen image of the crew haunted me, seared into my brain. What were Nova and Marre trying to say to me? Was I losing my mind?

  My sister’s voice still echoed through me, resonating with the part of me that knew things my conscious mind didn’t.

  The ship is lending you her eyes.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next day, I was on a shuttle on my way to Valen’s surface along with Tev, Ovie, and Slip. Concerned I’d overexert myself, Slip tried insisting I stay behind, but I had to get off the ship. As much as I loved being on the Tangled Axon, I needed to clear my mind more than I needed rest. I’d deal with the pain, with my cramping limbs and fingers, with the incandescent migraines.

  Moving around would be better than picking at the strange images still kicking around in my head, or worse—letting grief or self-pity seep in. Maybe focusing on ship doctoring would set my mind straight about Tev and keep memories of Adul far away from my conscious thoughts.

  The only problem was, how could I bring myself to steal from people who may as well have been me and Lai? I tried reminding myself that we were committing the lesser of two evils. We’d take from this family because we had no choice but to fly as far under the radar as possible. The Tangled Axon desperately needed repairs, and Marre’s life depended on us getting to the breach in one piece. I tried not to think about the financial hit this family would be forced to endure. I tried not to imagine them closing shop and being forced to take whatever low-paying, eighty-hour-a-week job they could find. Or chew the scraps of part-time work, unable to make ends meet.

  The shuttle banked and I held on, trying not to lean into Tev, though my locs hit her in the arm. Couldn’t help it if I had big hair. To make things worse, I felt Slip staring at me from across the small shuttle.

  Could she tell how I felt about Tev?

  I looked out the window to distract myself. A scrap-strewn shipyard loomed larger as we circled the lot. It could have been any yard on the Heliodoran fringe. Could have been ours. Looking at this repair lot, I couldn’t keep my aunt from nudging her way into the forefront of my mind. I didn’t even want to consider the possibility she’d been taken into custody. Barring that, was she keeping it together? With such a heinous crime pinned to our family name, I had no doubt she’d have run out of work by now, even if system enforcers hadn’t detained her for questioning. If she’d gone out of business, was she making enough with her job at the call center to survive? Would she be able to afford her Dexitek refills?