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

one who could change his mind. Her lie worked, just like their lies worked on her for years. Their lies didn’t work anymore.

They trusted her to bring him back for court martial. They shouldn’t have. She had another plan up her well-armed sleeve.

The launch tube’s exit opened. Taiyo stood off in the distance, highlighted in a blueish-green hue. It was gorgeous, almost as beautiful as Earth.

She accelerated, burning down the tube and out into space.

In minutes, she’d enter Taiyo’s atmosphere. She’d hail them, using her callsign. She crossed her fingers, hoping she’d reach Jaxx and he would tell them to stand fast; that she could be trusted.

Her comm line beeped. “This is Richard.”

Rivkah’s heart beat faster. Fox didn’t drop his rank like that. The bastard was trying to be convincing. She didn’t flick her comm on. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you ballsack. You can’t schmooze me.”

“Rivkah, hear me out. He’s a deadly pilot and he’s changing the tide for them. You know the kind of damage he can do. Here’s what I’m thinking. When you’re alone with him, give him as much of you as you can. Then, when his guard is down, strike him dead.”

Rivkah stared at her console. Fox really was an asshole of the first order.

“You understand what I’m saying, soldier? When he’s his most vulnerable go in for the kill.”

“Are you asking me to seduce him, Captain?”

“If that’s what you’re hearing, sure. Go for it.”

“I’d be glad to. Out.” She gave Fox what he wanted to hear, but she had no intention of touching Jaxx in any sexual way. They were crew mates, buddies, friends. That shit was off-limits.

She nosed her craft at forty-five degrees and entered the wild Taiyo atmosphere, the flames grabbing for her starfighter’s nose. When the blaze died out, she leveled her craft. She clicked on her comm line to send a call out to Jaxx’s starfighter, but she’d dropped into a live dogfight, craft dodging and firing and blasting the almighty shit out of one another. Why hadn’t Fox warned her? Was it a set up? Were they trying to get rid of her, too? They had to have known as they gave her these exact coordinates to drop in. And why didn’t her radar pick it up? Something smelled fishy and she guessed that smell came from Fox. Unless he wanted her to join the fray. With Fox, she couldn’t rule anything out.

She pulled up, avoiding a Kelhoon fighter and spotted Jaxx immediately, flying like an expert dancer, downing Kelhoon pilots as if they were stationary targets. It was the same, every time she saw him in action. Both baffling and thrilling that he could be so fluid with his craft.

She targeted a Kelhoon and blasted it with her PC’s, barreling through the flames. Her craft shook, cannon fire zipped by her. She twisted and looped. The Taiyonians were on her six.

She opened her comm to Jaxx’s private channel, her breath fast. “This is Captain Rivkah Ravenwood. Lieutenant Kaden Jaxx, do you copy? Tell your guys to get off my ass. I’m with you and the Taiyonians now.” With those words, she officially defected. Her heart fell, her mind split between loyalty and doing the right thing. But screw Fox and those bureaucratic assholes acting as military officers, stealing from the Taiyonians for their own gain.

She came out of her loop, a Kelhoon craft in front of her. They still didn’t know she wasn’t on their side. She let loose two SSSRM-23 Slingers. Direct hit and the Kelhoon cracked into fiery debris.

Jaxx came around her six.

“This is Rivkah. Jaxx, do you copy?”

She banked wide, hoping Jaxx’s trajectory would cause him to swoop by her. He remained steadfast on her tail.

Her cockpit lit up with weapons lock and she gasped. He targeted her. “Jaxx, this is Rivkah. Don’t shoot. I repeat, hold your fire.”

He sent a slinger just as he came alive on her comm. “Rivkah? That’s you? Pull up! Pull up!”

She pulled back on her control stick, her bow toward the sky. Her starfighter shook and her holographic control panel blinked off. She flicked a look over her shoulder. Her ship’s tail was torn apart and smoke trailed out of the back.

Her craft bucked downward, then caught in a spin. She headed toward the heavy forest below. She pulled the ejection booster.

Nothing.

A second time.

It didn’t work.

She pulled it again and again. “Open!” She kicked at the control panel. “Turn on you piece of shit. Don’t do this to me.”

For a moment, the panel clicked on and her controls came back online. She pulled back on her stick. No movement. “The fire burned away the tail elevator.” She couldn’t get any downward flow to pull her Air Wing toward the sky.

Her craft shuddered, hitting the highest trees in the forest canopy.

She pulled the ejection booster and the cockpit window flew off, her seat following a second later. The parachute caught a tree, ripping apart before it had a chance to open. She fell alongside her starfighter and crashed through tree limbs until she walloped onto the forest floor.

She bounced off the ground once, landing on her side. Her ribs cracked, her leg broke. With the air knocked out of her, she cringed in pain. Crawling away from her craft with her arms and one useful leg, a secondary explosion threw her Air Wing ten feet in the air.

The heat engulfed her as she dragged herself farther away. The craft came back down in a loud crunch. Yet, she moved farther, but the more she did, the more her skin burned. Bloodied, she realized the heat came from her, not the ship. Smoke swirled from her fingertips, her skin melted. Her clothes, her hair, her body was ablaze.

She fell face-first on dry, smoking grass, her cheek and ear singed to high hell. She rolled and rolled as the searing pain lashed across her body. She groaned in agony as the ground extinguished the fire—the fire trying to turn her to ash, trying