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

best to get his bearings. More craft buzzed by, one collapsing in a ball of fire, the other flying through the explosion.

Jaxx pulled away, avoiding more cannon fire. Then he felt it, a direct hit to the stern. His craft spiraled.

“Shit, shit! What am I doing out here?”

His hands shook as if he sat in a cockpit of ice, his breaths fast and shallow. “I need help out here.”

“Settle yourself, Starfighter 117.”

The woman’s voice.

“Rivkah? I’ve been hit. I’m spiraling.”

“Hit the auto-stasis.” She was calm. Preternaturally calm. She sounded like she knew what she was about.

“Auto-stasis?”

“Jeez, Jaxx. Get a grip. Big green button, to your left. You’ll right yourself in less than two minutes. All we have to do...say it with me…”

Jaxx had no idea what he was supposed to say, but he did find the green button and thwacked it over and over again.

“You still there, candy-ass?” Rivkah didn’t mince her words.

“Still here.”

“Right, like I always say, all we have to do to get through this war is, butts in buckets, bullets in battle, then back to base.”

Jaxx’s fighter evened out.

“That’s all the advice I have for you, cowboy. If you make it through this alive, I’ll see you on the carrier. Out.”

“God, I hope so.”

Above his starfighter, ships the size of cities blasted each other. Cannon fire. Missiles. And shit he’d never seen. A couple dozen large military crafts, pointed noses, diamond-shaped, the majority targeting the three Star Carriers in his fleet, all of which resembled behemoth aircraft carriers. It reminded him of the navy battles of old but at a distance thousands of kilometers away from each other, yet maintaining their space, pounding one another.

A starfighter zoomed by his port side. A handful of starfighters followed. They had the same insignia as the egg-ship he’d accidentally busted open, which meant they were friendlies. They spiraled, barreling toward one of the larger craft—apparently an enemy—gaining distance at incredible speed. In minutes, and on approach, they lit the craft with plasma blasts. It reacted, but too late. Fire erupted from its belly, only to extinguish in the vacuum of space a moment later. The ship went dark. Out of commission.

The starfighters rounded in unison and headed toward a bigger craft and pounded it with more weapons fire. This craft, however, barely grazed, this time ready, and released small fighters of its own, limiting the amount of damage it sustained. Jaxx’s visor automatically zoomed in on its own accord, and he observed a small crack in the enemy ship’s side. It returned fire, purple plasma bolts propelling out its side, and downed a few of the attackers.

Jaxx studied the crack more. A slit extended down the starboard side, exposing giant cogs and wheels in the engine room. Vital components. A direct hit in that exposure would put that craft out of commission.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a large piece of debris, floating near the ship. He pushed the throttle forward, sending his craft at an incredible speed at the debris. Yet it was his body that reacted, more so than his mind operating his decision.

Jaxx flew toward the debris and closer to the enemy craft. Then, his mind, his self, his essence shifted. His consciousness expanded—up, out, all around him, like a massive force field. He was outside his craft. No, he was one with the craft.

What the hell?

He blinked his eyes several times, dodging incoming cannon fire. Yet, dodging didn’t require moving his craft with the control stick. He needed only think “left” and his ship veered left, just the number of degrees required not to be shredded by enemy fire. A flush of adrenaline tingled through him. That’s not right. Impossible. Men didn’t merge with their space craft and moved them with their thoughts. He was delusional. Perhaps his helmet, his ship, pumped him full of hallucinogens, to alter his consciousness. To what end, he couldn’t imagine.

Abruptly, he and his viewpoint shifted back to normal. No longer expanded, back in his body. It was clunky, heavy, difficult to operate. Who’d designed humans? They’d done a piss-poor job of making them nimble.

His console lit up. Alarms blared. The enemy locked onto him. He was toast. The large craft with the slit in its side had him square in their sites.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jaxx expanded again, heart pumping.

Cannon bolts shot from the craft. With a single thought, Jaxx dodged the weapons fire as if playing dodge ball. Lucky. But would his luck hold out? If he took on the huge craft on his own and aimed for the critical slit, without other starfighters as back up or drawing fire, his chance of survival was nil. He had to stay away from the ship and its turrets as best he could.

The debris was the solution, his ultimate goal, but why? How would it help him? The debris was inanimate, not controlled by anything but the forces of space. Perhaps if he targeted it, blasted it, he could deflect it into the craft’s damaged side. That would take accuracy even an ace pilot didn’t have. But he had physics on his side. He knew vectors and angles and trajectories. He knew how to land the eight-ball in the top pocket after bouncing off three cushions and the yellow ball that stood in his way. In his dreams, Jaxx had always been a pool shark. And here he was, a space shark, with a plan to nudge a piece of debris into a slit in a ship.

He banked right as an enemy fighter appeared on his starboard and tried to end him. It missed and looped around, heading back in Jaxx’s direction.

Jaxx concentrated on the largest piece of space debris. He was getting closer. His consciousness expanded. His eyes no longer in his craft. He, again, became his starfighter.

Jaxx focused on the object, while the eye in the back of his head trained on the enemy starfighter looping around. He could see forwards and backwards. He could move objects