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

Deck 7.

Deck 6.

Deck 5.

The elevator shuddered and halted. The doors closed, she was somewhere between deck five and four. She tapped deck four and 'OUT OF SERVICE' blinked on the digitized display. They stopped the elevator.

She pushed the butt of her rifle against the emergency exit hatch in the elevator’s ceiling. It jostled. Locked. She hit it a second time. No give.

“Give it more elbow grease, Riv,” she told herself.

She twisted the rifle in her hand and smashed the butt against the emergency hatch again. The hatch loosened. She grit her teeth and grunted, forcing her will through the rifle as she slammed it square in the hatch’s center. The lock broke, the hatch opened.

A picture of Jaxx—his eyes closed, but more like in meditation—flashed across her mind. Her hands were laid over his and the two of them pressed hard, though she couldn’t see what it was they touched.

A ding and the elevator doors slid open. Rivkah’s eyes shot wide. She wasn’t between floors. She was at deck four. In front of her, a man in military fatigues, gun leveled. Rivkah leaped, grabbing the hatch’s frame and lifted her legs, her rifle dropping out of her hands just as the grunt’s shots rang out.

13

M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis

“You son of a bitch, Jaxx. I keep putting trust in you and you keep shitting all over it.” Slade holstered his weapon and crossed his arms. He stood over an unconscious Shaughnessy. Fox crowded the doorway with a smirk on his face.

“And look what you did to my quarters.” Slade motioned around the room. The Lectern was off its track, toppled over and spitting sparks. Paintings were off the wall, their frames broken, and in pieces on the floor.

“I saw it, Slade. I know what you’re up to.” Jaxx rested his palms on his knees, catching his breath.

Slade tilted his head to the side. “What in God’s name are you talking about, Jaxx?”

Jaxx pointed to the downed Lectern, perspiration dripping from his forehead, his arm almost too heavy to lift. He was weak, drained, and having a hard time catching his breath. “I saw a Star Carrier cut in half. People spilled out. And yet, you’re still going to Callisto? Turn this ship around.”

“Let me deal with this,” said Fox.

Slade put his fist in the air. “Not right now.”

Jaxx rubbed the back of his neck, a headache growing like a bad hangover. “What are your plans for Callisto?”

“I’m going to be straight with you,” replied Slade. “We’re going to make those assholes pay for what they did to Star Warden. No one kills my friends.”

“How are you going to do that? We don’t have the fire power.”

“Let’s just say I have some friends who are willing to help out.”

“Who? The SSP?”

Slade looked over his shoulder at Fox then back at Jaxx. “Doesn’t matter. Now, the question I have to ask myself...” He strode forward, unholstering his pistol, black, semi-automatic. “Are you with us or against us?”

Jaxx put his hands up and straightened. He cringed from the vice grip around his skull. What he’d just done—throwing Shaughnessy across the room, lifting the guy with some unknown force and tossing him like a weightless, receding hairline, pudgy pillow—must have sapped him for all he had. He wanted to crawl to the corner, find some blankets, and get some sleep. This is why he didn’t want to use this power. It raged from him out of control.

Slade popped a piece of gum in his mouth and chewed. “Last chance. With us or against us?”

Fox stepped through the doorway and halted in a wide stance, fists on his hips, elbows wide. He smiled, his eyes fixed on Jaxx. “Say you’re against us. Just say it.”

Jaxx put his hands on his knees and shook his head. “I don’t know what to say.” Dammit. It was the only way out. He didn’t know if Slade bluffed. And if he didn’t, Jaxx was a dead man.

Jaxx took in a deep breath, deeper than normal. Energy ran though him. He took another deep breath, this one more intense. He drew energy from that unknown source, that odd power. In his archaeological studies and in his linguistic career, the word’s prana, chi, and ki had crossed his path on several occasions. They all dealt with the subtle and powerful life-giving forces of the Universe. In a video, he’d seen an old Chinese Tai Chi master run energy. And no matter the strength of a man or the amount of men, they couldn’t move the master from his spot. Or when he watched a Taoist sage set paper on fire with mere energy coming his hands, and the same man punch a chopstick straight through a thick dining table.

Jaxx wondered if that’s what he suddenly had control over, or better yet, had control over him. Chi. Ki. Prana. Perhaps that energy filled him because of his more-open-than-most pineal gland sucked Chi into him on overdrive. Maybe that’s what tingled through him at most times and gave him these strong, strange abilities.

Slade walked to Jaxx. He leaned down, his lips close to Jaxx’s ear. “What don’t you know, Jaxx?”

Jaxx closed his eyes as Slade’s cold, minty breath brushed across his cheek. He wanted to shove Slade away. Jaxx wasn’t violent but he knew that the power that coursed through him was lethal. A power that loathed authority.

“I said, what don’t you know, Jaxx?” Slade pressed the end of the pistol’s barrel on the back of Jaxx’s head.

Fox growled. “Just do it, Slade. End it, now.”

The pistol’s pressure lightened as Slade turned. “Keep your damn mouth shut, Fox.”

“Not anymore, Slade. Do it,” replied Fox, stepping forward. “You’re compromising this mission by keeping Jaxx alive.”

Jaxx took another breath, the power rushing through him like a river pouring through a broken dam. He couldn’t believe how calm it made him, how confident.

“Stay your ground, Fox,” ordered Slade.

Jaxx squeezed his fists, his breaths