Colony Zero is growing. The settlement has walls, a forge, clean water, and a garden that cooperates with the alien fungal network blanketing the planet. Dr. Ava Reyes and engineer Tomas Kwan are no longer just surviving. They're building.
Then they find more survivors — including Sergeant Nkechi Obi, who brings military training, strategic thinking, and a deep distrust of the neural interface that Ava has come to rely on.
The colony expands. Roles specialize. And the Thrum — the bark-skinned, amber-eyed natives who communicate through the fungal network — are watching. They left an offering. Ava left one back. It was the beginning of something.
Until a miscommunicated harvest crosses a boundary Ava didn't know existed.
The fungal network goes dark in a widening dead zone around the settlement. The crops fail. The Thrum withdraw. And ARIA — the damaged AI in Ava's neural interface — enters her longest lucid window yet, revealing what Ava has suspected since the first glitch: the interface was never purely human technology. It was designed as a bridge between two forms of intelligence. Someone anticipated this meeting.
Now Ava has to repair a relationship with an alien species she barely understands, hold a growing colony together, and decide how far she's willing to trust a technology that was built to change her.
Note: This book was written with AI assistance. The worlds, systems, characters, and story are the author's.
Genre: Science Fiction
Then they find more survivors — including Sergeant Nkechi Obi, who brings military training, strategic thinking, and a deep distrust of the neural interface that Ava has come to rely on.
The colony expands. Roles specialize. And the Thrum — the bark-skinned, amber-eyed natives who communicate through the fungal network — are watching. They left an offering. Ava left one back. It was the beginning of something.
Until a miscommunicated harvest crosses a boundary Ava didn't know existed.
The fungal network goes dark in a widening dead zone around the settlement. The crops fail. The Thrum withdraw. And ARIA — the damaged AI in Ava's neural interface — enters her longest lucid window yet, revealing what Ava has suspected since the first glitch: the interface was never purely human technology. It was designed as a bridge between two forms of intelligence. Someone anticipated this meeting.
Now Ava has to repair a relationship with an alien species she barely understands, hold a growing colony together, and decide how far she's willing to trust a technology that was built to change her.
Note: This book was written with AI assistance. The worlds, systems, characters, and story are the author's.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Dominic Hale's Signal Lost