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

was twenty yards away, flinging invisible energy blasts at dozens of Agadon trying to make it up a short hill to her position. Abdu was on one knee beside her, holding his bamboo rifle, aiming at the incoming Agadon.

He shot once, then twice. Two Agadon jerked back, hit square between the eyes, and fell into the ranks of Agadon behind them. The dead Agadon were thrown aside by their comrades, who trekked up the hill, their guns holstered.

Rivkah grabbed the gun C-gen had dropped. It wasn’t any design she’d ever seen before. It was light, but half the size of a rifle, twice the size of a .357 Magnum, and double the width. There was no traditional trigger. Instead, it had a blue light at the back of the trigger guard.

She dropped to one knee like Abdu, aimed the gun and sighted an Agadon in the back of the pack. She touched the blue light.

Zoowaka!

The gun whirred and a silver bolt blasted out of its muzzle. The blast hit an Agadon, slicing the right side of its chest clean off. It flipped and skidded across the terrain, down the incline. Smoke rose from the Agadon’s internal engines, which she imagined pumped vital nanite blood and other shit she could only guess at.

The one-armed Agadon righted himself and walked toward Rivkah, each step landing slower and slower.

Rivkah closed one eye and targeted the Agadon’s head. Without pulling the trigger, it twitched, stood still and went listless, falling to the rocky ground.

It was offline—or dead. Didn’t matter which. The asshole was inert, lifeless, no longer a threat.

A laser ripped through another Agadon, the shot coming in from a higher angle. Rivkah looked up. “God, they’re like a tick in my ass.”

Dozens of Kelhoon stood at the lip of a ridge, pointing their rifles at the advancing Agadon menace.

Another laser, then dozens more rained down on the Agadon. They drew their weapons and shot back, then broke ranks and scattered, running away from Bogle and Abdu’s position.

Rivkah raced down a hill and into a canyon, calling over her shoulder. “Let’s go, you two. Move it.” She glanced back at her friends hoping they’d heard her, the Agadon gun still in her hand.

Bogle and Abdu pelted after her, trying to catch up.

The Agadon, on the other hand, were concentrating all their fire-power on the Kelhoon. Good thing, too. It got the Agadon and the Kelhoon off their backs. Both races were fighting over the same bounty—Rivkah and her little team here, Abdu and Bogle.

Putting more distance between them and these two dipshit races who wanted to capture them, Rivkah, Abdu and Bogle rushed alongside the rocky wall that rose a hundred feet above them.

Rivkah zeroed in on Slade, bringing up his energy signature on her internal radar. An energetic strand lit up in front of her, like a ribbon to its prize. Up ahead, the canyon split, the ribbon flowed down to the left.

“Follow me.” Rivkah pumped Chi into her legs and her breaths came slower, easier, her steps quicker. She pivoted in her run and followed the energetic ribbon that led to her nemesis. She pushed her legs faster and faster, the wind whizzing by her, the Chi heating her up.

She tensed and abruptly stopped, her boots skidding across the light snow and rock.

Abdu and Bogle stopped as well, not because they wanted to, but because they had to.

A dead end. Nothing but hundreds of feet of rock going straight up—exactly where the ribbon was headed.

Something tickled at the back of Rivkah’s neck. Someone was near and that someone didn’t have good intentions. A footstep crunched on gravel, though delicately, somewhere in the distance and wrapped around her senses—senses that her newly awakened powers had heightened, tenfold. The person was attempting to be quiet for a purpose—a negative purpose.

Rivkah glanced at Bogle’s and Abdu’s feet. They hadn’t moved. She gave a nod at her companions. They nodded back. With any luck, they had picked up on the weird energy or at least read her body language and knew something was amiss. They moved backwards, butting against the rock wall.

“Can you see anything?” Rivkah whispered. She pointed her gun at the lip of the canyon, waiting for whomever, or whatever, to show itself.

Abdu shook his head.

Bogle pointed at a lone tree overhanging the top of the ridge. “Right there. I see—”

A red-hot laser lit up the canyon, and zipped into Bogle’s chest. She gasped and clasped her arms to her bosom. She fell hard against the rock wall and slid down, slumping over.

A purple blast came from Abdu’s rifle, hitting the tree. A crack and the tree fell as if it had been sawn at its base. A Kelhoon stood where the tree had been, thrown off balance by the sudden exposure. He fumbled with his weapon.

Abdu took another aim, pulled the trigger. His bamboo rifle pressed back into his shoulder as the shot was true, hitting the Kelhoon and knocking him backward.

Rivkah rushed to Bogle’s side. She picked her up, blood seeping from Bogle’s chest and dripping to the ground. Rivkah turned to Abdu. “Climb.”

He nodded.

Rivkah wrapped her fingers around the chains crisscrossing his back, holding Bogle in the other arm.

“Where are we going?” asked Bogle. Her eyelids drooped. Her body went slack.

They didn’t have much time.

“Miracle man here is going to heal you once we get out of this jam. I’d have him do it here, but more dipwads with an appetite to kill are coming.” Like before, she could feel it: the violent rush of bloodthirsty predators who had her scent. They would never stop, never give up. They were going to have to kill the lot of them or find their way off Callisto to escape the carnage. One thing at a time. They had to get out of the canyon and save Bogle. Blood seeped through her fingers marking off the minutes Bogle had left to live, like a demonic hourglass.

Abdu placed one hand on the rock and then