Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Brandon Ellis (ebook reader for comics txt) 📖

Grenik pointed to a translucent, glass-like dome that covered a crater. Trees, smaller domes, rivers, and a lake were set deep inside. A small Earth.

A square door in the glass dome opened, big enough for a Nebula Class Star Cruiser to cross through. But Telu Ignis matched the size of a small transport and would slip through no problem.

Grenik pressed holographic buttons and Telu Ignis descended sharply. Another small craft, starboard side, flew passed them and through the opening.

“We’ll meet the Master soon after we dock at the Temple Gardens.”

That sounded ominous. Bogle shifted in her seat. “The Master?”

“Our Empress. At least, that’s how you’d classify her, in your vocabulary. We have no such designation. We call her ‘Master’. She is wise beyond years, beyond galaxies. She has led us for thousands of years.”

“Excuse me?” Bogle raised her eyebrows, tapping the crystal on her chest. “I think this device frizzled out. Did you say, ‘thousands of years?’”

His lips tightened. “Yes, thousands of your Earth years.”

She tapped her crystal again. There was no doubt it had a short.

Telu Ignis hovered above the Earthen paradise. Bogle leaned forward to get a better view. A tree fort. No, it wasn’t a tree fort. It was too big. Perhaps a home build high and around a tree. It was connected to another home by a wooden suspension bridge. Taking in the expanse, hundreds of homes spread throughout the forest tops, all linked by spindly, rickety bridges. Farther in the distance, dozens of high-rise towers shimmered in crystal and an avalanche of lily-like umbrella houses jostled and tittered on the breeze. Each time Bogle thought her mind had been turned inside out, there was another marvel to take her breath away. She didn’t want to be charmed. She wanted to hang on to her rage. She closed her eyes and sat out the remainder of the flight.

Grenik lowered the ship. Bogle’s seat bounced when the craft connected to the landing pad. A parade of people in Greek garb assembled around the craft, their voices silent behind the craft’s walls.

“This is for you, Captain Katherine Bogle. My people come to greet you. We have waited a long time.” Telu Ignis’s ramp hissed open, and clanked when it hit the ground.

Katherine Bogle, former acting XO of Star Warden, stepped out of the ship that had rescued her from certain death and into a sea of admirers.

Grenik Star gently pried away admiring fingers and steered Bogle through the crowd.

16

M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis

Shots rang as Rivkah pulled herself through the opening at the top of the elevator. Darts zipped by her—geared to stun, or perhaps kill. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. Screw them all.

She kicked the hatch closed. It broke and it flipped back as darts stuck into the hatch, splitting the air with electrical impulses. One slipped through and sunk into her shoulder, sizzling. Her arm and neck spasmed and convulsed. She pulled the dart out and tossed it, then she fell against the wall as her arm took on a pain of its own. She grabbed her new wound, and grunted, teeth clenched. She figured there would be more wounds before day’s end.

Thick red liquid iron soaked her finger—her blood. Odd. A dart shouldn’t spill this much blood, nor burn this much. Smoke drifted from her shoulder as charred skin wafted to her nostrils. She held in vomit as the memories of her past surfaced, her once gnarled skin flashing in her mind, the fire surrounding her, her downed starfighter burned to a crisp.

Another failure.

She shook her head and came back to the present. “Get a grip, Rivkah.”

Another dart shot up the elevator shaft and then another. Across from her was a technician ladder. Her dad had once said she was the unluckiest girl in the world. Well, her daddy wasn’t here anymore and if he was, she would have loved seeing his face when she showed him this ladder. Neither did she have to pull herself up cables nor acrobatically climb up magnetic guide rails. The ladder was her ticket to a faster getaway.

She hurried around the hatch, avoiding a guard doing his best to lift himself into the shaft, his fingers around the lip, struggling to pull himself up.

Dumb-ass move, numbnutz. She landed a hard heel on the guy’s fingers. A yelp bounced around the shaft as the man crashed to the elevator floor.

Rivkah grabbed a hold of the ladder rungs. They were cold, dusty, and a zap of static electricity zinged her as she swiftly climbed. Her shoulder ached like a dog biting her muscle without let up.

Push through the pain.

Clanks reverberated off the walls. The sounds of another guard attempting to climb through the hatch. She didn’t look down. She didn’t have time. No hesitations. A brief pause meant death.

She reached the next floor’s elevator doors and rested one leg on the limit switch and the other on the ladder—a split-eagle. She performed a balance act that would make a tightrope artist gasp in awe. Rivkah stuck her fingers between the cracks and pried the doors open an inch and strained. Her shoulder screamed. The doors opened more and more.

Metal against metal echoed in the shaft. She didn’t need to look down to know what that meant—a rifle had been placed on top of the elevator, the guard almost through the hatch.

She opened Deck 4’s elevator doors wide and pushed herself through. She rolled away from the opening and to her feet. A politician in business clothes, badge hanging from his coat pocket, black tie, gray suit, white shirt, stopped in his tracks, his expression tight in worry. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

Rivkah ignored him and glanced down the hall toward the launch bay then bolted in an all out run. She flicked a look over her shoulder. A guard’s head came just above the bottom of the elevator’s door frame. She needed to speed up, but her