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

too eager to ascend that they forgot one vital component. That one person must be an anchor to a group in order for a group to ascend. Your anchor went missing. We have to find her.”

Katherine Bogle entered his mind. Abdu was right. Bogle was missing when Jaxx attempted to give his life for the prophecy and was instead transported from the Callisto pyramid portal to the lion-people’s planet. “How did you know that?”

“It was apparent. Now, get going.”

Jaxx entered the hill and his mouth gaped open. “Is this a pyramid?” Like several pyramids on Earth, trees and grasses had grown around and on top of this one, making it appear as a hill.

“Yes, now up the tunnel.”

A tunnel, the same type of tunnel in the pyramid on Callisto and in the pyramid on Leonia, ascended at a sharp incline. Like the rest of the pyramids, this one no doubt led to the pyramid’s king’s chamber.

They hurried up the white stone passageway, moving by spheres of blueish-white lights hovering every three or so meters, lighting their path.

Arriving at a platform, they rushed into the king’s chamber. Jaxx slipped his helmet off and dropped it.

The Taiyonian Queen stood beside an open sarcophagus; her eyes weary, sad. She dipped her head.

Kiyo-zan stood next to her, along with Zara.

“Ganbarou,” she said.

“Good luck to you too,” said Jaxx, bowing.

The pyramid shook from a rumble outside. Dirt and dust fell from the ceiling.

Abdu helped Jaxx to the coffer. “Put your hands on the edge.”

Jaxx wrapped his fingers around the edge of the sarcophagus, just as another explosion rocked the earth, jostling the king’s chamber like an earthquake.

The Queen gasped. “Watashi wa hitobito za hitori ze kurushimu koto wa dekimasen.” She went to turn.

Zara grasped her arm. “I’m sorry, Queen, but you can’t save your Taiyonian people. If you leave us now, you also die with them. Now, put your hands on the sarcophagus.”

The Queen jerked her arm free and backed away, her hands up, and apologizing. She twisted around and dashed out of the chamber. Kiyo-zan went to go after her.

“No,” yelled Jaxx. He lunged for Kiyo-zan, grasping the back of his shirt and yanked his friend to the ground.

Kiyo-zan kicked his legs, breaking loose from Jaxx’s grip.

“Not enough time,” said Abdu. He pounced, taking both Jaxx and Kiyo-zan by the back of their shirts. He lifted them over the sarcophagus’s edge and dropped them inside. Abdu clasped both hands together as the pyramid continued to shudder, the ceiling cracking.

Abdu and Zara nodded, then closed their eyes, gripping the ceremonial coffer.

A wave of sharp energy shot through Jaxx. His chest lifted toward the ceiling, his back arching as he and Kiyo-zan floated off the ground.

A flash of light covered Jaxx. He cringed as a sharp pain, like electric needles, seemed to penetrate every cell, widening them, expanding them in precisely the same way as before.

He drifted upward, his hands and feet went numb, his spine firing synapses to every area of his body, activating suspended DNA, connecting him to the pyramid.

A vast network opened up like a map before him, those glorious golden beams connecting planet to planet, pyramid to pyramid. This time, however, he understood something he hadn’t before. He could pick and choose which line, which beam he’d like to cross, and to which planet or moon he’d like to visit.

He floated as if he were in a sea of water, with no sound, no movement other than his own, and pressed a beam that connected to his own Solar System, the one in which he was born and raised. He slid his finger across the line, pushing Nibiru, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn out of the way, and pressed his palm against Jupiter.

Jupiter grew large, displaying the moons in its orbit. He grabbed Callisto like a marble ball and pressed it against his heart.

Darkness overtook and his gut wrenched. He grunted, his muscles spasming. He yelled in agony and he twisted, turned, and curled into a ball. He closed his eyes.

He took in a deep breath and opened his eyes.

He bolted upright, his butt planted on a slab of stone that sat across a sarcophagus. Looking around, he was in Flood of Dawn’s Great Pyramid, and back on Callisto. And one by one, Zara, Abdu, and Kiyo-zan materialized in front of him.

Zara eyed Jaxx. “Let’s get moving.” Her eyes moved to the chamber’s exit.

Jaxx pushed off and ran to the platform just outside of the room and slid down the tunnel. His feet hit the cold, desert-like terrain at the bottom and he popped up. He took a few fast strides and skidded to a halt.

His shoulders drooped and his hopes fell like a thousand, perfectly placed dominoes.

Fire raged across the city—Flood of Dawn. Its glass dome shattered in several places, Atlanteans were strewn over the land between the pyramid and the city.

The city was turning to ash.

44

Edge of J-Quadrant, Starship Atlantis (Slipping Further Away from Jupiter

A man, clad in all black, led Craig’s daughter down a hallway. Her tears blurred her vision so she didn’t know exactly where she was going, and if they hadn’t been blurred, the memory of her mom’s brains smeared across the wall, blood splattered over her and the bed, replaying over and over in her head would have fogged her sight anyway.

Right now, all she knew was to trust her father’s words, “I’m having this guy take you someplace safe, darling, until we can eradicate the threat.”

Her eleven- year-old mind didn’t comprehend threat. She understood that her mother was dead, shot right in front of her eyes and maybe that was the threat? Or, the man who shot her mother was a threat? It wasn’t computing. All that was computing was an emptiness in her chest, a hole full of misery and fear in her heart.

“Stop, Miss.” The man in black touched her back, halting her. He turned her in front of an orange, rusty door, three times the size of the regular doors