The link tank was a coffin of glass and gel.
Kaelen floated in the amber liquid, breathing through a mask, his broken body suspended in weightlessness. Technicians moved around him, checking readings, adjusting wires. Dr. Vance stood at the control panel, her face visible through the glass.
"This will feel like dying," she said. "Your consciousness will leave your body and enter the Avatar. It's been grown from your DNA, modified with Verath genetic material. It will respond to you—your thoughts, your instincts, your memories. But remember: the link is a bridge, not a replacement. If the Avatar is injured, you'll feel it. If it dies, your mind will be ripped back here so fast you might not survive the shock."
Kaelen nodded. Or tried to. The gel made movement difficult.
"Good luck, Corporal," Vance said. "When you open your eyes, you'll be on Verath."
She pressed a button.
The world dissolved.
He was falling.
No—he was becoming.
Sensation flooded in from every direction at once, overwhelming, impossible to process. He felt his heart beating—but it wasn't his heart, not the damaged, tired one he'd lived with for ten years. This heart was strong, pounding with a rhythm that shook his entire chest. He felt his lungs expand—but they weren't the shallow, restricted lungs of a man who'd spent a decade in a wheelchair. These lungs drank in the air like it was water and they were dying of thirst.
He opened his eyes.
Light. Not the harsh, artificial light of the starship, but soft, golden, dappled light that filtered through something vast and green above him. He blinked, trying to focus. The colors were wrong—too vivid, too alive. Every shade of green he'd ever seen, plus a dozen he hadn't, danced in the canopy overhead. Blues and purples and something that looked like silver shimmered in the undergrowth.
He tried to move.
His body responded instantly. Not the laborious, painful shuffle of lifting himself from a chair, but a smooth, effortless motion. He sat up. He looked down at his hands.
Blue. Long-fingered, four-fingered, with a texture that seemed to shift and glow faintly in the dim light. He raised one hand to his face, felt high cheekbones, a broader nose, a ridge along his brow. His body was taller, leaner, muscled in ways his human body had never been.
He stood up.
For a moment, he just stood there, trembling. Not from fear—from the sheer, impossible miracle of standing. He felt the ground beneath his feet, soft with moss, yielding slightly. He felt the pull of gravity, but it was lighter here, easier. He took a step. Then another.
He was walking.
Tears streamed down his alien face. He didn't care. Let them come. Let the universe see him weep. After ten years of sitting, of watching the world move past him while he stayed still, he was walking.
The jungle around him hummed with life. Insects with wings like stained glass buzzed past his ear. Creatures that looked like a cross between lizards and birds scurried up tree trunks, their scales shifting color as they moved. The air itself seemed alive, thick with pollen and spores that glowed faintly when they caught the light.
He walked deeper into the forest, drunk on movement, on the sensation of his legs carrying him forward. He touched everything—the rough bark of a tree that pulsed with a soft blue light, the delicate fronds of a fern that curled away from his fingers, the surface of a pool of water so clear he could see strange, tentacled creatures moving in its depths.
He didn't know how long he walked. Minutes? Hours? Time had lost meaning. He was a child again, exploring a world that was entirely new.
Then he heard the drums.
They were faint at first, a rhythm so deep he felt it in his chest before his ears registered it. Boom... boom... boom... A steady, insistent pulse, like the heartbeat of the planet itself.
He followed the sound.
The forest began to change. The trees grew taller, their trunks thicker, their glowing patterns more intricate. Vines hung down in curtains, each one studded with tiny, bioluminescent flowers. The air grew heavier, more humid, and the sounds of the jungle—the clicks and chirps and howls—seemed to quiet, as if the forest itself was listening.
He emerged into a clearing.
And stopped.
In the center of the clearing stood a tree unlike any he had seen. It was massive—so massive that its trunk would have taken minutes to walk around. Its bark was silver, smooth as metal, and from its branches hung thousands of tendrils, each one glowing with a soft, pulsing light. The tendrils moved slightly in the breeze, but there was no breeze. They moved as if they were reaching for something.
Around the tree, figures stood in a circle.
They were like him. Tall, blue, four-fingered, with the same high cheekbones and luminous eyes. But where he was alone and lost, they were united. They stood with their hands raised, their faces turned toward the tree, and from their throats came a low, harmonic chant that vibrated through the air.
One of them turned.
She was young—or seemed young, though Kaelen was learning that age on this world was impossible to guess. Her eyes were large, golden, flecked with something that looked like starlight. Her hair was black, braided with feathers and small, glowing stones. She wore a simple garment made of woven fibers, and her body was painted with swirling patterns that matched the glowing designs on the tree.
She saw him.
For a long moment, they simply looked at each other. Kaelen felt exposed, vulnerable, like a child caught stealing. He opened his mouth to speak, to explain, to say something—
She moved.
In one fluid motion, she drew an arrow from a quiver on her back, nocked it to a bow that seemed to materialize in her hand, and aimed it at his chest.
"You are not welcome here, dream-walker," she said.
Her voice was music and thunder. Her eyes were fire and starlight.
And Kaelen, for the first time in ten years, felt truly alive.