Drew looked at his mother’s glass. Had they snuck something in there when the two of them were watching the rockets leave Earth, observing the politicians flee their sworn oaths to protect us?
His mother lay in his arms, still and quiet. He lay her head, gently, on the grass and stood, looking into the sky, tears wetting his cheeks and his chin trembling, “You may have won this fucking battle, but believe me when I tell you, you will never win this war.”
53
Date: Unknown
Location: Unknown
Jaxx lay on a cold table. A hazy light swayed above him, not blinding by any means. It was pleasant, calming.
He tried to lift his head, to see where he was, but the pain knocked him back. He cringed. It was going to be a hum-dinger of a migraine. He could already tell. He blinked. There were vines, hanging from the ceiling. They were green peas. He turned his head to the left, wincing. Dozens of long boxes displayed tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. Vegetable planters lined the room’s floor.
God, I feel nauseous.
A warm hand touched his forehead. Startled, he tried to get up. Lightning pain shot through his skull, pinning him back on the table. He bit down hard, then let up, realizing he might break his teeth.
“Are you okay?” A woman leaned over, her face blocking out the light. She smiled.
“Who are you?” Jaxx’s voice was weak, barely audible.
She stroked his forehead. “I’m Francine. I’m one of the ship’s med techs.”
“Where am I?”
She averted her gaze. “Just relax. Right now, we need to get you healthy. Let’s not worry about where you are.”
Jaxx sat up, squinting at the searing pain in his head. Windows were everywhere. Stars speckled the sky.
“Please tell me where I am.” He tied to jump off the table, but the med tech held him down.
“I don’t know.” She walked over to the windows. “I only see stars. I’m not a navigator and I don’t know what quadrant we are in. From what I’ve been told, we are somewhere between Earth and Mars.”
Jaxx rubbed his eyes. “Between Earth and Mars?”
“Yes.”
He remembered Slade knocking him out. He recalled Fox placing a helmet on his head. After that, nothing.
Francine put her hand behind his head. “If you’d lift up, just a tiny bit, you can have a sip of this. It will help with pain.”
Jaxx complied. If they could take the pain away, he’d be able to think. He closed his eyes and counted backwards from three. It was right there, the memory. He’d been strapped to a chair and flung into space. He gasped. It was true. He did launch. “I’m on a ship?”
“Starship Atlantis. This is one of our grow rooms, though this one is mostly vegetables.” She extended her hand. “Let me help you to your feet.” She took Jaxx’s arm and pulled him up, then guided him over to the window. He held himself up on the window sill, feeling completely out of it. A large fan-like object, full of mirrors, surrounded the ship, spinning like a wheel. He looked all around at the stars, almost losing equilibrium.
The tech steadied him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m in Starship Atlantis? It’s really called Atlantis?” Maybe they believed him in the first place, that those on Callisto were from Atlantis.
“Yes. Well, it’s called Space Shaq, according to Slade.”
Jaxx touch his forehead, trying to grasp what was happening. He turned, looking for a door. “We’re in space?”
“The ascent into space conked you out for a while.”
“How long?”
She looked at her watch. “17 hours.”
“Where is Rivkah?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know any Rivkah. I can check our flight sheet.”
Jaxx rubbed the back of his head. “This doesn’t seem real.”
“It’s real. Do you want me to help you to your room?”
He rose his brows. “I have a room?”
“The starship has about five hundred. They aren’t extravagant, but they have a bed, a closet, toilet, shower, and a bit of a kitchenette.”
Jaxx touched his belly. “I need to sit.”
“That’s completely understandable.” She helped him back to the table. “Rest here and I’ll be back later.”
He nodded, lying back on the table.
She left the room and an instant later, sprinklers turned on and mists of water covered Jaxx. He didn’t make any attempt to move. He was too tired, and lying down was helping his headache.
He touched his arms, making sure this was real. Why wasn’t he weightless and floating?
He stood, rubbing his temples and dragged his feet to the door.
He stepped into a hallway, which was also lined with windows. Outside, the fan, that he could only think was a solar sail, spun around the ship along with the ship’s frame. The inside of the ship, however, wasn’t spinning at all. He rested his head against the window, eyeing the length of the ship. It went on for miles.
He took a few steps down the hallway. Each step was light, almost as if he could float down the hall. He imagined the astronauts on the moon, where each step was like a bounce. It wasn’t the same on this ship, though similar.
“Kaden Jaxx, I presume?”
He turned, staring at a man he’d seen a thousand times. Once in person, the rest on TV.
The man extended his hand to help. “I hear you’re going to help us figure out how these pyramids power themselves.” He grinned long and wide. “You’re the man with the name on a Callisto pyramid. Isn’t that something?”
How did he know that? No one knows that.
Jaxx couldn’t speak. He was staring at the most famous man in the world, and that man not only knew Jaxx’s name, he knew a little more than Jaxx wanted him to know.
“Do you know who I am?”
Jaxx nodded his head. “The President of the United States. President Martelle.”
The president patted Jaxx on the shoulder. “Just call me Craig. I hate it when people call me President.”
“Pleased to meet you, Craig. It’s an honor. I need to find Colonel Slade.” Jaxx couldn’t believe he was trying to evade the President, but it was essential he get to Slade and explain what he’d worked out, before he’d been abducted. “I don’t want to sound alarmist or self-aggrandizing, but I believe we have a way to save humanity.”
“Want to walk and talk?” said Martelle.
Jaxx ran through his entire “pyramids-are-terraforming-devices-which-punch-magma-producing-vents-through-the-Earth’s-core” presentation, just as he had with Rivkah.
“So, you’re telling me that ancient people – all over the world, all in different eras – created these pyramids, all for the same reason?”
“No. I’m saying that the Atlanteans created every major pyramid throughout the world, strategically, and with technology and sacred geometry long lost from man. Pyramids are terraforming devices to ease us into each age as best they can, to lessen the earth changes, and to sustain a liveable environment on Earth. I think they created the pyramids on Callisto for the same reason, for better mineral quality, more oxygen, and to create a gravity field humans can live in.”
“Intriguing,” said the President. “Tell me more.”
Jaxx wasn’t used to being listened to, but he had the ear of the world’s most powerful man, so he decided to go for broke. “Atlanteans left Atlantis and built structures on Callisto 12,500 years ago. It’s no coincidence that it’s at about the same time the lost city of Atlantis went under, just like the hieroglyphs are telling us.”
“The hieroglyphs?”
“Yes,” said Jaxx. “They’re all on the laptop.” He stopped. “Please tell me Slade remembered the laptop.”
Martelle smiled.
“Oh, good. I was worried there for a second.” The two men continued their walk around Starship Atlantis. “Where was I? Oh, right. The Atlanteans left Earth to continue their way of life. Like us, I suppose. The ones who didn’t lea
ve, dispersed throughout the world. Some made their new home in Egypt, where they built the Great Pyramid of Giza. Again, 12,500 years ago.”
Martelle laced his hands behind his back. “So what you’re telling me is, we’re repeating the same scenario as the Atlanteans?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Jaxx.
The President leaned on the railing that went the entire way down the long glass wall. “We have a long ways to Callisto. Care to join me for a drink? There’s a nice bar on the third level.”
Slade appeared at their side, almost as if he knew they’d been talking.
“It’s fine,” said Martelle. “He still doesn’t have a clue. The smartest man on Earth and he doesn’t know he’s the key to our future. You’d think they’d teach them common sense, but no. He’s all angles, vectors, and theory.”
Slade laughed.
Jaxx stared at one man, then the other, trying, as always, to fit the pieces together.
“I even threw him a bone,” said Martelle. “Mentioned his name was etched on the pyramid on Callisto.” He slapped Jaxx on the back. “Why didn’t you ask how I know that? You’re incredible.”
Jaxx’s mouth hung open. The possibilities raged through his head. They were going to a resource-rich moon, possibly inhabited, with the Government, a gaggle of scientists, and the military. Not good, not good at all.
“We’re just headed for a drink, Slade. Care to join us?” President Craig Martelle flung his arm around Jaxx’s shoulder and steered him towards the bar.
A SNEAK PEEK
BOOK TWO: DESTINATION ATLANTIS
1
June 15th, 2018
Star Warden – Second Class Star Carrier – Secret Space Program
J-Quadrant, Solar System
(Callisto Orbit)
Star Warden entered Callisto’s orbit. They no longer needed images from the TECS IV, a satellite created by the Global Safety Administration to find habitable off-world environments. They could now view the pyramids, landing pads, and the large forested biospheric translucent dome with their own technology, using their view screen like a microscope, looking at the structures as if they were only a short distance away. In fact, in astronomical units, it was as if Star Warden was sitting right on top of the pyramids.
Earlier, they had scanned the resources on Callisto. Beneath the surface was a treasure of ores, minerals, and gems; along with crude oil, a subsurface ocean, and underground rivers and lakes. There were very few recourses surface-side, other than a few natural springs, the surface was covered in gray and white rocks, which glinted and glittered, their signatures indicating crystal and gold.
Admiral Gentry Race cupped his hand over his mouth, slowly sliding his hand down his freshly shaved chin. “Captain Bogle…” He turned to face his captain, though she was more of an XO and deserved to be. “Have we detected any human life down there? Correction, human or ‘other’?”
“The starfighters on Callisto are almost brand new, Admiral. Whoever was here have either just built these or they were able to keep them in immaculate condition.”
“So, you have detected life forms?”
Captain Katherine Bogle withdrew from her holographic display console on her captain’s chair and eyed Gentry. “Negative, Sir. We haven’t found anything.”
“Then they left?”
“That is one interpretation, Admiral.”
“Good.” They could mine Callisto resources without resistance. Gentry pointed at an officer near the back of the bridge. “Send a communication to Colonel Slade Roberson that we have secured Callisto.”
Bogle put her hand up inappropriately while addressing a senior officer, then dropped it, identifying her misstep. Right now, missteps weren’t her biggest issue, though. The sudden situation popping up on the view screen was the more important issue at hand. “Uh...Sir.” She motioned toward the view screen. “We detect movement, Sir. Weapons emerging from out of the ground. They look like turrets. Massive. Scans report fourty-four.”
Gentry glared into the view screen. “Our shields?”
A weapons officer stood from his station. “We’re at a hundred percent.”
“Good. Are they targeting us?”
“Yes, Sir.”
That caught Gentry by surprise. No contact. No disagreement. No declaration of combat or war. He slapped his leg, frustrated. “God dammit! Ready cannons!”
“Cannons ready.”
“Do not fire unless they fire at us,” ordered Gentry.
Bogle scanned her chair’s holographic display, looking for any anomalies. She found a big one – Lady of Atlantis, the statue the size of the Statue of Liberty, and also known as Princes Leia to the Secret Space Program, was sending off strange signals through the coil device around her ears. “We are detecting strong energetic activity from Princess Leia. Her heat signature is rising.”
“Zoom in.”
Bogle brought the statue on the view screen. “Princess Leia,” as they called her, pulsed blues and oranges.
“The energy is not connected to the turrets. The Princess is transmitting something, but not to us. Maybe it’s a communication device?”
Bolts of photons shot from the turrets, quickly exiting Callisto’s atmosphere. The photons slammed into Star Warden and it buckled with a direct hit, setting off alarms and throwing Gentry on his side. Star Warden automatically reset itself in orbit, groaning like a whale as port side ion drives activated to reposition the ship.
The overhead light switched from daylight yellow-white to ombre red, not only changing the personality of the bridge but automatically setting a combat-ready tone upon the crew.
“Shields?” he said, pushing himself up.
“We’re at eighty-two percent,” Bogle replied.
Another shudder brought Gentry to his knees. “Get the RGSS-2’s online. Let’s make rain.”
Rail Gun Space to Surface Second Generations, RGSS-2’s, started popping large lead slugs, bullets the size of missiles, from Star Warden’s starboard. “Making rain” was the term used when dropping these slugs on a target. When they hit, they hit twice as hard as anything else Star Warden, or any Earth-made space craft, had in their arsenal.
Star Warden rattled as slug after slug ejected out of her barreled cannons, sending a constant vrum vrum vrum through the weapon battery walls to the remainder of the ship. The RGSS-2’s constant vibration always caught Gentry off guard and he held onto the Lecturn, his hands gripping, knuckles turning white, the calluses on his palms stamping against the Lecturn’s cold, solid frame.
The view screen brought up the targeted turrets. The guns inside the turrets shot blue electric bolts in an effort to repel each RGSS-2 slugs. The crew looked on, dumbfounded, as the bolts downed the slugs, turning them to dust.
The Rail Gun could shoot thousands of slugs a minute, but once they were spent the chambers would be empty until the ship made it to a Space Armory to load up again. It was a one-time bombardment and always did the trick. Until now.
For a few seconds, the bridge was in stunned silence. Everything below was at peace again. Then the turrets rotated, its cannons extended and raised, locking onto its target – Star Warden. Blue electric-bolts burst from the cannon’s swelled muzzle. The bridge’s view screen blinked in and out, the bolts zapping more energy from the Star Carrier’s core, draining the heart of the ship.
Gentry fell back, clutching the Lecturn, able to keep himself upright. “Fire the IC’s. Give ’em all we got!”
The turrets below wouldn’t be able to incinerate ion pulses from the Ion Cannons. The IC’s weren’t as devastating as the Slugs, but they had the advantage of being accurate. It would take longer, but Star Warden would still prevail.
Star Warden’s IC’s blasted turret after turret, opening them up into exploding fire blossoms and twisting the turrets into melted rubble. It counted for squat. Once a turret went offline, another turret would pop up in its place, shooting volleys at Star Warden.
Both Star Warden and
the enemy were exchanging fire, exchanging hit after hit.
“Sir, shields are below fifty percent.” There was real panic in Bogle’s eyes, something Gentry had never seen before.
“Already that low?”
“They are sucking the life force from our shields.”
Another hit and Gentry wizened up and sat in his chair, squeezing the chair’s arms. For weapons to damage Star Warden like this was unusual, especially from turrets. “Keep targeting and continue to pound them. Lock ballistics on the pyramids. Let’s shut off their grid, render the turrets useless.” He massaged his temple. If their shields went down, they were burnt fucking toast.
Star Warden shook, releasing a dozen Intermediate Space to Ground Ballistic Missiles from its starboard.
One by one, they were targeted and shot down by the turrets. They never got close to the pyramid or Princess Leia.
Callisto was defended.
“Fire again.”
The same results.
“How are our shields?”
Bogle growled. “Eighteen percent. This isn’t looking good, Admiral!”
“Why are we losing shields so quickly?” They didn’t have enough time. In less than a minute, they’d lose all shields. Gentry had never witnessed Star Warden under fifty percent shields, let alone under twenty percent. He cringed as Star Warden shuddered again. He let out a shallow breath. “Everyone, listen. We are abandoning ship. Set evacuation procedures immediately. Armor will not sustain the damage our shields have.”
The turret fire stopped as suddenly as it had begun and quiet filled the bridge.
Gentry stared straight ahead at the view screen. He was about to do something that galled him, but it was necessary. A good commander knows when to attack and when to retreat. They were outgunned. It was time for a retreat. “Back us up. We’re heading to the fleet.”
“Shields are up to twenty-three percent,” Bogle mentioned. “Star Warden shields are regenerating. We’re doing well.”
Project Atlantis (Ascendant Chronicles Book 1) Page 27