Slade curled his hand into a fist, then relaxed. He let out an exasperated breath. “Look, we have someone on board who needs your help.”
Jaxx felt it again, a deep chord struck right in the center of his chest.
Captain Rivkah Ravenwood—the woman he’d betrayed; the woman he’d saved; the woman who hated him with a white-hot-hate—was on the ship. He closed his eyes and let wave after wave of energy pass through him. He gave her his blood to save her life, and it connected them somehow. And he needed to know the how and the why. But it was bigger than that. They were both necessary. For what, he had no clue.
And at this moment, she needed him.
2
Starship Atlantis ~ M-Quadrant, Solar System
Captain Rivkah Ravenwood woke to a dimly-lit room, blinking lights around her. She was on a table. She breathed heavily, her arms and legs strapped tightly, her head restrained by a heavy band around her forehead. The back of her head throbbed. The gray ceiling gave nothing away.
Was she back in Underfoot Black? Wherever she was being held, didn’t sound or smell or feel like the Global Security Administration’s idiotic subterranean hideout. She’d only spent maybe a week and a half in the bowels of GSA’s underground base of operations, but she’d gotten used to the echoing footfall of guards and medics; as well as the damp odor of sweating walls and hothouse vegetables. No, she was no longer in Underfoot Black. But then where had they taken her?
The last thing she remembered was climbing out of the cabin window in West Glacier, Montana, while Kaden Jaxx was fast asleep at his desk. They had escaped Underfoot Black, and stolen Special Agent Nick Cole’s Oospor Class 9 dropship. Only after Cole had tried to take her life. Small, but important detail. She was a marked woman. There were people after her. People who meant business.
She'd had to leave the cabin and Jaxx. He could take care of himself. Well, he could if he remembered who the hell he was. If he kept up his doofy, “I am just an archaeologist” act, he was dead meat. But, that was his problem, not hers. A helicopter had come in for a landing and she was pretty sure it was coming to take her. She ran, hid behind a tree, and then blackness. She had no idea how long she’d been out. She lifted her hand, to investigate the back of her head, but the band that wrapped around the head of the table, and around her waist and chest, made it impossible. But not around her legs. Why? That was dumb. Whoever restrained her were amateurs.
She took a deep breath. And thought. The throbbing was probably caused by a smack to the back of her skull. Then she remembered his face. Right before she blacked out. Slade’s ugly mug.
There was no way of escaping Slade. If he wanted you, he had you, whether you hid or not. But she had to escape now.
Her belly welled with fire. Anger shot through her veins and into her muscles. She cringed and lifted her head, stretching the straps that held her down. She might not have been good at hiding, but she was good at breaking out.
It was pointless to lock her up.
She strained against the strap. Her lips curled and her nose twisted. Neck shaking, veins bulging, the straps held and she let up with a grunt. “Slade? Let me free.”
No answer.
“Slade, I know you hear me. Let me go.”
Silence.
Perhaps she was alone? The quiet in the room could be a clue, but quiet also meant tight lips, hands behind their backs, only talk when called upon by a superior. She couldn’t make out anything but the ceiling, and someone could be behind her, to the left, to the right.
But no one came to her side to stop her from attempting to break the straps. Her hands not bound, yet with the restraints tight as a guitar string, she wiggled her hips and strained with all her might to lean to the side. One hip a few millimeters higher than the other. She clenched her teeth and her hip strained against the pressure. It was enough space to slip her arm up and out of the strap. Ditto with the other side.
She let out all air to deflate her lungs, hence slightly shrinking her chest cavity. She grabbed the sides of the table, wiggled her chest and head. Thank God for sweat, or sliding through the forehead strap would have been a nightmare. Maybe impossible.
She turned her head to the side and wiggled toward the foot of the table, her knees up, and strangely, the soles of her boots on the edge. She didn’t bother wondering what she wore when she woke up, but a jumpsuit and boots were fine with her.
She used her feet and legs to help pull her out from underneath the chest strap, which lay loose above her head on the table, the waist strap now just below her breasts. Easy. She wiggled toward the head of the table, moving the other direction. At her waist, she sat up, changing the direction of her body and although tight, she slipped through her waist, then her legs and feet.
Out, she stretched her arms and legs like a cat after a nap. Then a sensation ran through her like adrenaline pumping from every nerve and synapse in her body. She felt more alive than she should, especially after a conk to the back of the head. She vibrated, not intensely, but enough to recognize. “Dammit, Jaxx.”
It meant one thing. Jaxx was near. If it weren’t for his blood, she’d be a normal human. Her pineal gland would resemble the size of just about every human on Earth. And whatever powers this gland released in her never would have been. Why it enlarged when near Jaxx remained a mystery. Before she left the Secret Space Program due to near fatal injuries, burned to a crisp, face deformed, her skin like rough sand paper, she enjoyed her regular, albeit, adventurous existence. A pilot, a captain, she’d battled extraterrestrials on worlds too top secret for even the President’s eyes. She docked with Star Carriers only the one percent were privy too. But after she crashed, after her skin went through fiery hell, Slade fixed her with advanced tech years later, and for his gain. Everything was always for his gain. She was his lab rat, she figured.
But for a short, flitting moment, she no longer considered herself abnormal, her body healed to near prime condition, her skin smooth and pink. That normal disappeared around Jaxx, and back to abnormal she went. Because of this abrupt adrenaline sensation, the freakish energy spike, Jaxx had to be nearby.
She closed her eyes, trying to locate the prick. She saw an energy trail, leading from one room into another. She followed it with her mind—her pineal sixth sense—then hit a psychic wall and everything went white. Perhaps she wasn’t psychic enough to see that far—however far she was from him.
The walls bare, monitors lined against one wall. All black. Nothing displayed as if Slade or the scientists left her here to rot. But they didn’t. She’d be six feet under by now if they wanted her dead. Perhaps they kept her strapped to get to her later, and experiment. A window on another wall with chairs on the other side, computers, and more monitors streaming data she couldn’t make out, cemented her thought.
She located a door. A control panel similar to the ones in the SSP, Secret Space Program, was on the wall abreast the door.
“I’m out of here.” She hopped off the table.
She stepped toward the door, punched the green open button on the lower portion of the panel, and the door whooshed open. A corridor stood in front of her with a window in clear view, revealing a star-filled night. It didn’t take her but a second to know where she was. “Space. My home away from home.”
She took a step into the corridor, fists at the ready, glaring through the window. Mars, off in the distance gave off a brilliant yellow-tan halo, stars highlighted around it. She stopped. Could she trust her senses? They’d done so much to her when they held her in Underfoot Black. They could make her hallucinate a space ship approaching Mars before they’d even had their damned breakfast. They were manipulative assholes, every last one of them.
Footsteps came down the hall. “You ever heard of security cams and motion detectors? Get back in your room, Rivkah,” Captain Richard Fox, her old squad leader, grimaced. The man never spoke. He snarled, spat, barked, and glowered. He wasn’t capable of civil interaction. At least, not with her. He was mad
e of spite and malice, at the cellular level. He raised his stun rifle, the two other soldiers behind him held their rifles toward the floor.
She turned, getting into a Mui Thai stance. The angles of her feet rotated and faced Fox. He walked toward her, his eyes cold.
Rivkah put her hands up in a fighting position, her right elbow and forearm close to her body to protect her solar plexus, liver, and ribs, her right fist close to her cheek bone; her left arm away from her centerline, also protecting the ribcage and solar plexus; her left fist at nose level.
She could feel Jaxx close by. And her odd powers fueled, sending more secret-sauce into her blood—whatever that secret-sauce was. She needed to get to him. Feed off him, tank up, drain his power source and take it into herself. She was a woman on a mission. But right now, she had to eliminate Fox to get to Jaxx. Heck, they both needed to be eliminated. The message was as clear as any idea she’d ever had in her thirty-two years alive. Fox was a speed bump on her road to Jaxx, and Rivkah Ravenwood had no time for speed bumps. She ate speed bumps for lunch.
“You looking for some action, Foxy?” She spat on the ground and Fox halted, his free hand in a fist. His men stopped.
Fox aimed, and slipped his finger through his trigger guard. He smiled.
Rivkah didn’t smile back.
3
Starship Atlantis ~ M-Quadrant, Solar System
The Lectern beeped. Fleet Admiral Lon 'Wolf' Varnadore of the Secret Space Program appeared on the hologram. His black hair slicked back, he eyed Colonel Slade Roberson and President Craig Martelle, a wolf sizing up his next prey. He beamed a fake smile Slade saw through. “Mr. President. It’s nice to meet you. Colonel, nice to see you again.”
Martelle adjusted his tie and nodded by way of greeting.
“The mission has changed, gentlemen,” said Lon.
Slade cocked his head to the side, his back straightening. “What do you mean?”
The hologram shifted from Lon’s face to a massive ship orbiting Callisto. Jupiter, its luminous reds, tans, and turquoises, hung ominously in the background, its immense bulk dwarfing everything nearby, including Star Carrier Star Warden.
Lon’s voice boomed, “This footage reached us only minutes ago.”
The camera zoomed in on the ship, passing through the ship’s exterior armor, swiftly moving past the hanger deck and into the engine room. It zipped through the entire floor, recording crew members in their bunks, the mess hall, and at their duties, then looped through a lobby and into the launch bay. There it stopped for a nano-second, perhaps a glitch in the network, then moved to the officer briefing room and up into the bridge.
Slade adjusted in his chair. “Why are you showing us this?”
“As you know, gentlemen, that’s Star Warden, one of three Star Carriers in the Secret Space Program fleet. It’s impenetrable. Or, so we thought.”
Slade leaned in to get a better look at Admiral Gentry Race now on the screen, someone he knew very well, but wasn’t too fond of. “Why are you showing us this, Fleet Admiral?”
“Let the holovid explain.”
Star Warden’s bridge shuddered and Gentry fell to the floor. The camera view shifted to the ship’s exterior, panning from Star Warden to Callisto, then racking focus on the turrets moon-side as they blasted electric-blue fire orbs at Star Warden, hitting it with ease. Star Warden returned fire. Plumes of rock, destroyed turrets, and dust filled Callisto’s atmosphere.
Slade sat forward in his chair and glowered.
More turrets popped up from Callisto’s surface as if the moon had an unlimited supply and unlimited power. Missiles poured from Star Warden, PC’s and tracer fire followed. Still, the turrets continued to pop up and fire back, hitting the mammoth Star Carrier.
Slade and Martelle watched as a piece of Star Warden’s armor slid back on its starboard side. It exposed a large nuclear war-head.
A blue-light surrounded the Star Carrier, enveloping it in an energetic net, electricity flinging off the ship, like lightning grasping for something to touch.
Callisto’s cannons let loose beams and electric bolts, landing deep inside the war-head.
The war-head exploded, slicing the upper portion of the ship in half, like a knife through butter.
The president covered his mouth and looked away as the crew poured out of Star Warden. Slade figured Craig imagined the Secret Space Program had taken that ship and that crew the stars to discover sentient societies to advance humankind, not scatter them throughout space. Craig knew little. He didn’t know about the Secret Space Programs pacts and treaties with other advanced civilizations, didn’t know the amount of resources they plundered from planets unknown. And Slade would keep it that way as long as possible.
Slade stayed focused, his eyes dead set on Admiral Gentry Race spinning away from Callisto, his arms and legs flailing like someone drowning, grasping for something, anything.
Then he saw someone out of the corner of his eye enter Callisto’s atmosphere and fall away from the camera’s view. A young woman. He knew her—XO Katherine Bogle. He was glad he didn’t have to see her burn up in Callisto’s atmosphere. She worked hard for her position. She pulled her bootstraps up whenever necessary, and he liked that in a person.
Lon’s face came back on the holoscreen. “Callisto fought back.”
Martelle cleared his throat in obvious shock. “I see why you want to change the mission, Lon.” Martelle’s face flushed, his hands slightly shook. But the politician, the president, practiced his craft well and maintained a calm voice. “But, I’m sorry, Lon. We take it to the next level. I’m not backing down. I made a promise to the American people. I’m going to bring them to that new shining city on a hill. We are going to found a New United States.” Spoken like a true politician. An idiot. How much Martelle believed this astounded Slade.
“We’re not fighting against a known enemy, Mr. President. We’re fighting against a military with technology more advanced than our own. We’ve spotted anomalies on Callisto that would suggest an AI—an Artificial Intelligence—runs the entire city and weapon infrastructure on that moon. That is more dangerous than anything we’ve ever encountered. A computer-based system that hasn’t been touched by man or any other Being to restrain its intelligence evolution can outwit and out-build us in a heartbeat. We’d need a long plan to take Callisto. We’d need a fleet, an army, and enough nukes to blast their AI into the stratosphere.”
Martelle fidgeted with his suit. “Are you saying that the hostiles are AI based?”
The hologram cut to a statue of a woman with a device around her ears. The coiled device went around the back of her head, glowing a blueish-white. “That’s the AI,” said Lon. “Princess Leia...that’s what we’ve been calling her. We haven’t detected any other intelligence on that moon. It’s run by one statue.”
“That seems easy enough. We target the statue,” said Slade. “Once the target is down, the AI is then eliminated.”
“To get to the statue would be the issue. Yes, we could attempt to bombard it, but we don’t want to risk unnecessary lives or crafts. You just witnessed one of the three biggest ships in SSP’s fleet blown out of the stars. What you perhaps couldn’t see was Leia anticipating our next move. We never had the upper hand. We never had a fighting chance. They don’t just outgun us, they outwit us at every move. In under five minutes, ten-thousand lives were lost, Mr. President. We suggest…leave it be and find another home, or go back home altogether.”
Martelle sat straighter in his chair, his hands folded in his lap. “Admiral Lon…can I call you Lon?” Not that he hadn’t already.
Lon dipped his head.
“Thank you.” Craig steepled his fingers together. “Now, Lon. As president, I’ve taken the biggest risk any president has ever taken—I’ve evacuated my office, the entire government and their families, to come with me to a place that will allow for a more peaceful transition into a new United States of America with a government that keeps our forefather’s s
acrifices intact, along with their ideals of a Republic; ideals on which the Secret Space Program was initially founded.”
Lon didn’t blink. Hell, didn’t act as if he cared.
Martelle continued, “As you know, the president doesn’t just preside over the citizens of our country, but over the military as Commander in Chief, as well as the Commander in Chief of the Secret Space Program. Eisenhower was ahead of his time when he created the SSP. He put an Off-World Power Act in place, allowing the president of the United States to seize control of the Secret Space Program for ninety days until Congress deems the Act allowable or unnecessary.” He paused again no doubt to see if Lon understood the situation.
Lon remained expressionless. He was probably used to politicians who he thought totally missed the point.
The president leaned forward and closer to the camera. “You’re under my command, Lon. What I need you to understand is we’re going to Callisto.”
Lon nodded. “One last thing, Mr. President.”
Martelle nodded.
“Princess Leia has been transmitting a message. Star Warden didn’t have time to decode it, but we have.”
“Excellent,” said Martelle.
“It says, ‘XO Katherine Bogle, call Kaden Jaxx home…’” It was Lon’s turn to let the information sink in. His audience was, predictably, silent. “That’s right, folks. The AI on Callisto knows Jaxx and Bogle by name. Now, want to tell me how we’re going to outwit them?”
4
Starship Atlantis ~ M-Quadrant, Solar System (Near Mars)
Starship Atlantis. He was really, truly on Starship Atlantis, a cruise ship in space, but a hundred times bigger. Jaxx stood in front of a holographic kiosk, Slade next to him with his arms crossed at his chest, and watched the Public Service Announcement for the fourth time. He bit his lip, only now understanding why everyone—from his room to the first deck’s lobby—stared at him like he was a Hollywood A-List celebrity.
The Complete Atlantis Series, Books 1 - 5: Ascendant Saga Page 28