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

years ago, some of the Atlanteans had avoided it and fled off planet. With advanced technology and propulsion, they made their way to Callisto. She remembered Jaxx rambling on and on about that, but to her, it was just ramblings. Stupid incoherent thoughts not linking together. Until now.

“Yes, the Atlanteans. Who else?”

She swallowed. “And that’s where we’re headed, right?”

“You have some strange idea about a slave trade, but that’s none of my business.”

“On Callisto?”

“Where the hell else, man?”

She ran her hand through her hair and pulled. Just like planet Taiyo and the Taiyonians, the SSP and the Kelhoons crapped all over them to attempt a takeover. Unsuccessfully, for that matter. And the half dozen other worlds that the SSP took over, with and without the Kelhoons, jumped to her mind. She participated. They trained her to believe the shit the high command briefed her on, sometimes explaining that an alien group was going to invade Earth or infiltrate the United States government or drain the human world of all resources. She took the information as truth; hook…line…and sinker.

She fought on the front lines to keep the extraterrestrials away from her home. She killed them in space or on their home worlds. And it was all a ruse. Every damn minute of it. She killed more Beings than she could ever count and under false pretenses. These set of lies continued like a stream of disgusting pee, and she needed to stop it.

And now Slade was going into the slave trade business? Holy shit. She blew her cheeks out wide and threw her hands on her hips. For a moment, her mind was set. She’d kill Fox, then Slade, then whoever else she could in order to halt another invasion and stifle the slave trade.

Her heart dropped at the thought and she shook her head. No. She was done with this all. Too much stress for one woman, too many lies to uncover. Her first goal had to be finding a way off this starship. Her next goal was to fly under the radar for the rest of her life.

Goal one and two were attainable. Stopping Slade, the Kelhoons, and the SSP was downright impossible. And this slave trade business? She didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

For a moment, the dumbest, oddest thought fell prey in her mind. Send Jaxx a thought packet of what she’d just learned from Fox. What was a thought packet? She stood like stone as the thought came and went, as if a memory of the last fifteen minutes of her talk with Fox lifted in a bubble and slipped into the ethers. And as it left her mind, she paid it no more attention. Focusing on what was more important—ending Fox’s life—Rivkah approached him closer with her arms outstretched.

Fox moaned something inaudible. He turned his head, eyes shut. “Cat catch your tongue?”

Oh, yeah. Goal one wasn’t getting off the ship. She’ll push that to goal two. Old Foxy-boy was goal numero uno now.

She went to strangle the last bits of air out of the sleeping prick when the door hissed open. No one was going to stop her today. It was time to head to the launch bay.

She shifted on her feet and charged through the curtain. A nurse’s head shot up a tablet. Her eyes were wide. And the nurse stood in her way.

24

M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis

One by one, images of Fox riddled Jaxx’s mind. He attempted to blink the asshole away until he realized what his mind was doing.

Downloading information. And from the one and only, Rivkah. Each vision sent an electric sensation to his heart, throwing out a strange exhale. He watched through Rivkah’s eyes, almost as if he were there, seeing Fox in a hospital bed recuperating from Slade’s gun shot. This thought bubble, or whatever the hell it was, showed an event in Rivkah’s life that occurred a short time ago.

But a holy-shit slave trade? The Kelhoons and the SSP aligning to take out the Atlanteans on Callisto? This was worse than he thought. The inhabitants on the Jupiter moon didn’t stand a chance. Although an asshole for leaving his people high and dry, President Martelle seemed to have his heart in the right place. He left Earth for a better life, not only for him, but for the citizens of the United States. And the President needed to know what Slade was up to.

Slade’s snores carried on, just like the guy’s want to strip alien civilizations from their homes, their livelihoods, their resources.

Jaxx jimmied out from under the bed, his movements quiet. The room dark, he walked as silently as possible to the panel near the door. The tip of his boot caught the leg of a chair. A squeak pierced the room as the chair moved across the floor. It tipped, the metal legs clanked, and the wooden backrest smacked hard.

Slade’s snoring stopped. Jaxx froze and he heard Slade bolt upright. The sounds of the sheets crumpling together cracked like a gun shot whipping in the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

Jaxx didn’t speak and didn’t move. He clenched his teeth and held back a string of shit-crap-son-of-a-butt-muncher curses that he’d love to yell at the top of his lungs.

“Jaxx?”

Jaxx tightened his lips. No matter what, he wasn’t going to say a word.

Slade’s bare feet slapped against the floor, and he heard Slade get out of bed.

“Whoever you are, you don’t realize how dumb of a move you just made. Who. Are. You?”

Jaxx dashed to the door, and his hands slapped as loud as Slade’s feet as the guy approached.

“Lights on,” said Slade.

The lights blared, and Jaxx couldn’t help but squint. He searched the wall for the panel.

Slade held his forearm up to shadow his eyes from the light. Only ten feet from Jaxx, he squinted as well. “Jaxx. You?” In his boxers, the colonel’s thick muscles contracted. Way past his prime, but the guy didn’t skip a beat in the weight room.

Jaxx’s fingers came