A door creaked open and Rivkah was pulled into a building. A moment later, the door shut. Blackness. The dull thumps of the battle outside.
The capturer let up and Rivkah pushed away. She went into her customary Muay Thai defensive crouch, waiting for whoever it was that nabbed her. Probably a Kelhoon, or many of them.
She brought the Chi back into her hands and arms. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“I would hope not.”
“Bogle?” She dropped her arms. “What are you doing?”
The Kelhoons who were giving chase, pounded past the building. They shouted incoherent noises at one another.
Rivkah faced the sounds, ready for the Kelhoon to break in.
“Don’t worry about that now. I have the door and building energetically locked. I don’t know how long that will hold, but it will hold for a while.”
“What? How do you energetically—”
“Their sensors will detect us any minute, but they won’t dare blow this building. It has their most precious artifacts.”
“Like what?” Rivkah unclipped a flashlight from her belt and turned it on. She yelped and dropped it, took a step back, and covered her mouth. “You’re sick!”
A fist pounding on the door told Rivkah that the Kelhoon had found her locale.
28
Kelhoon Leader’s Ziggurat, Callisto - J-Quadrant, Solar System
Fox’s hands and legs were bound to a metallic chair by an energetic chord. Okbak leaned against a crystal table, several battle-weary warriors stood in the room with him.
Fox narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to get anything out of me, so why don’t you just kill me now? You can torture me all you want, but get it done and over with. Staring at your ugly mug is worse than torture. So please, take out my innards, shove a sword up my ass, anything. But don’t make me stare at you for two more seconds.”
“Mojka Goojkanga, moozkanja. Jaxx myonjinxa, mooinanaj.”
Fox rolled his eyes. “I don’t know Jaxx’s location. You keep thinking I’m lying, but I’m not. Now, get it over with and end me.” He spit in Okbak’s direction and the soldiers leapt forward, ready to do Fox’s bidding and finish him.
“Gookja!” ordered Okbak.
The warriors halted and slowly moved away. “Jaxx kejka nona zom zom.”
Fox stretched his neck from side to side, the crackling and popping of his bones filled the small room. He knew for a fact that their salivary glands were now erupting and the Kelhoon warriors were doing everything they could not to bite into the muscle, tendons, and ligaments that held him together.
Fox laughed. “I’m pretty tempting, eh?” He winked. His smile evaporated. He remembered the one person who always winked—Slade.
Another memory of the prick surfaced. Fox orbited Callisto in his Oospore ship in wait for Slade and Starship Atlantis to arrive. He intercepted a message from the traitor, a message that told him that Slade was selling out to the highest bidder—Okbak.
Slade, of all people, had turned on his own race. The bastard deserved to die, and Fox would do anything to carry out that death sentence.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, you need Jaxx because he’s the key to a pyramid network and you want him in order to control the network? Sounds like a perfect plan. It’ll work.” He nodded, pursing his lips, hoping they didn’t catch his sarcasm.
There were a million reasons Okbak wanted control of the network. He would make money and lots of it, plus he’d be the most powerful Being in the galaxy—if he played his cards right. Fox needed to play his own cards right, as well. “I know about you and Slade, Okbak. So, I’ll make you a deal.”
Okbak rose, standing straight and stiff. “Oojkana.”
“You agree?” Fox snickered. “Excellent.” He cleared his throat. “You get me into a room with Slade and I’ll get you into a room with Jaxx. Deal?”
“Oojkana.”
Fox’s grin widened. “Excellent.”
29
Somewhere in Tennessee, United States - Earth
Mya had cooled from raging hot to pleasantly warm. Drew picked her up, laying her limp body against his chest, resting her head on his shoulder, one arm under her thighs, the other against her back, stabilizing her head.
A Range Rover pulled up. Gravel splashed across Drew’s legs.
T-hacker opened the passenger door. He jumped out and opened the back door for Drew. Drew got in, sliding across the leather bucket seat in the back. He held Mya tightly.
She was out like a light, her breathing slow, though steady.
“We ride,” said Anderle. He pressed the pedal to the floor and spun out, barely avoiding the flaming Range Rover in front of them.
Drew glanced at Mya’s head, then eyed Anderle in the rear-view mirror. “Did you see what she did?” A VHF—very high frequency—radio was screwed into the dashboard. It was a handheld gadget he’d seen in boats, similar to CB—citizen band—radio in semi-trucks. It was a good for long distances and emergencies.
Anderle nodded his head frantically. “Sure as shit I did. She has powers, man. I’m telling you, we get her father here, her powers go up ten-fold. I was going to use her on my team, but now we have other shit to figure out and that shit is to survive those ET’s flying through the portals. Mya is our secret weapon.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” said T-hacker. “Ships that came through the portal above the Pyramids of Giza are heading our way. They’re heading toward the United States. You should see the mess they created in Egypt and North Africa. And these ships aren’t just appearing over Egypt. They’re all over the map.”
Anderle skidded around a curve, pinning Drew against the door. He straightened the car out and gave T-hacker a light punch in the shoulder. “You got the remote ready?”
T-hacker held it up. “Yep.”
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Drew said.
Thrump Thrump Thrump Thrump!
Drew glanced through the sunroof. In the gaps in the forest canopy, he could see a helicopter coming in low.
“We’re heading to the helicopter,” said T-hacker.
“Can you be a little more specific? Why are you heading for a helicopter?”
Anderle glanced in his rear-view mirror. “You’ll see soon enough, Drew.”
They drove in silence for several hours on a gravel back road. Sometimes the helicopter came in view and other times it was nowhere to be seen.
Finally, Anderle slowed, turning off on a beaten roadway that quickly turned into an area that hadn’t been driven on in years. The car bounced up and down, driving over small saplings, brush, and over grassy embankments.
A minute later, they stopped.
Anderle turned off the car and swung his door wide. “We’ve got a surprise in that helicopter. Get out and watch this,” said Anderle.
The helicopter sounded closer.
Drew pushed his door open and held Mya as they ascended a small hill, T-hacker and Anderle leading the way. “What do you have in your hand?”
“What? This?” T-hacker held a device with two joysticks. “You’ll see.”
They crested the hill and got low in a crouch. Down below was a man in handcuffs, blindfolded, with two Chinese soldiers next to him, their hands around his arms. A black car nearby.
The trees bent back and forth as the chopper came in for a landing.
Drew covered Mya with his arms and hands, doing his best to keep her warm from the helicopter’s rushing wind.
The chopper touched down. Drew moved up the hill more to catch a better glimpse of the proceedings below.
T-hacker pushed the remote controller in front of him, laying it on the ground, and put both hands on the joysticks. “We’re hooked in. Ready to go whenever they are.”
“What are you doing?” asked Drew.
Anderle lay in watch. “That guy down there in handcuffs? Well, that’s Mya’s dad. Me and General Yu had him kidnapped just before Yu went all psycho on us
. The Chinese down there obviously don’t know that Yu is dead, so their mission is still moving ahead as planned and on schedule. Better yet, what they don’t know is that we’ve got the helicopter hooked to our remote controller. Yu’s peeps down there think they’ll be taking Master Sergeant Angel Segarra to Lookout Mountain to meet up with Yu. We think not.”
“Where you going to take him?”
Anderle put his finger up. “Hold on.”
The Chinese soldiers ushered the man inside the helicopter’s cabin. They shut the door and rushed back to the black car, turned it on, and drove away. The helicopter lifted off. The grass whipped against Drew’s face. The copter flew over the trees and toward Lookout Mountain.
T-hacker sat up, adjusting his controller. “Turning off radio communication. Checking speed.” He moved the joystick. “And turning them around.”
Anderle stood. “Let’s get back to the car.”
They ran down the hill and piled into the Range Rover, T-hacker controlling the helicopter overhead, moving it northwest.
“How can you tell where you’re flying?” said Drew.
“Two ways,” said T-hacker. “I have contacts in my eyes which are connected to a camera I installed underneath the helicopter’s nose. And, I can see from here.” He held up the remote controller. A small screen was atop it, displaying a map of where the helicopter was at all times.
Anderle reversed, running over a small, spindly maple tree, then spun the Rover around. A young family, a skinny man and a woman with two small children, held out dirty plates and cups.
Were they begging for food?
Anderle drove past them.
“Stop and let them in. They need help,” Drew said.
Anderle grimaced. “You’ll see a lot of that. The United States is going to shit in a handbag. Everyone is out of work. It’s the wild west again. No food in the grocery stores, but this time around people don’t know how to hunt and gather food anymore.”
Drew turned his body as best he could while holding Mya, to look back at the pathetic beggars. The people had simply moved on, walking into the forest, except for one small boy. He sat and wept. “Please go back.”
“No. We’re heading to Whitefish, Montana. That’s the safest place in the United States right now. We’ll have a high-ranking Marine to help us get inside.”
“That Marine is Angel Segarra?” asked Drew.
Anderle shrugged. “Do not tell anyone about Mya’s power or the fact that she’s even stronger around her dad. Got it?” Anderle glanced at T-hacker. “Radio it in?”
T-hacker pressed a few buttons, tuning it to the right channel.
“Notify the Marines that Master Sergeant Angel Segarra is en-route to Sumner County Regional Airport via a helicopter. Let them know we need them and to send some troops to said airport. Tell them we’re in a white Range Rover. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Drew fished inside his pants pocket for a doobie. Of course, his pockets were empty. They had been for weeks.
God, he needed a puff.
30
Near Taiyo Orbit, Sector 9 - Galactic Arm, Milky Way Galaxy
Jaxx spun in space. His jumpsuit and helmet regulated his temperature with a built-in heating and cooling system, keeping him warm in the deep, dark void’s terrible freeze.
He checked his oxygen levels, then realized he had no gauge to check. He had no idea how long he had to live. Hours? Minutes? Seconds?
“Hello, Zara? Anyone?”
His heart raced. He took slow, shallow breaths, doing his best not to take up too much oxygen. He didn’t want to run out before his rescuers came. If they came.
“Yo, Zara? Abdu?”
No one was answering his calls.
A light flashed by and he started to spin faster, as if he was nudged.
“Dare, desuka?” A familiar voice came over Jaxx’s helmet comm line.
“Kiyo-zan?” It sounded like Kiyo, a Taiyonian he befriended during his time on Taiyo.
“Hai, watashi desu.”
Jaxx put his thumb up, doing his best to crack a smile. “Can you pick me up?”
“Hai, soo desu ze.”
“Thank you.”
Another flash zipped by him, then a pulling sensation enveloped his body.
“Whoa! Slow it down there, Kiyo-zan.”
“Gomen’nasai.”
“You’re sorry? Well, don’t be. You’re saving my life.” Jaxx’s body stopped spinning and he faced a small Taiyonian transport ship. Its side door was open, a tractor beam turret bolted on the inside of the transport ship’s cabin.
The tractor beam sucked him in.
Jaxx looked down at his feet hovering in the blackness of space and finally over the lip of the ship’s opening. The tractor beam shifted on its turret, and the nose moved down and gently set Jaxx on his feet. His boots magnetized to the cabin’s floor and the door closed. The cosmos disappeared from view, a silver door now in its place. The cabin hissed and filled with oxygen.
He took a step toward the cockpit and halted in front of a metallic wall that separated the cockpit from the cabin. A red-light highlighted the barrier. The wall clicked and the light turned to a light blue just as a crease opened from the middle of the wall, splitting in two, turning it into a door.
Fffffcha!
The door spread apart, each section sucking into the transport ship’s side walls.
Kiyo-zan stood from his captain’s chair, a big smile on his face, teeth shining, reminding Jaxx of the pristine health of all those living on Taiyo.
Jaxx took off his helmet and dropped it on the floor. “Kiyo-zan!” He lifted his arms out wide. They wrapped their arms around each other.
“Wareware wa anata zo nogashita. Anata zi aitakatta. Mōichido ai zi kite ureshīdesu.”
“I missed you and all those on Taiyo as well. Nice to see you again, buddy.”
Jaxx slapped Kiyo-zan’s shoulders, getting another good look at him, like a father to a long, lost son. “You haven’t aged a bit.”
“Watashitachi wa toshi zo toranai,” explained Kiyo-zan.
“Yeah, I know you don’t age. Could you rub some of that anti-aging mojo on me?”
Kiyo-zan touched Jaxx’s third eye. “Rōka wa anata zo kokoronouchi dakedesu. Sono shin'nen zo yamereba, anata wa rōka zo tomerudeshou.”
“I know, I know.” Jaxx nodded. “Age is all in my mind. An unhealthy belief system. That still doesn’t tell me anything about anti-aging, my friend.”
Kiyo-zan sat behind the control stick, motioning for Jaxx to take a seat at the co-pilot’s chair. Once Jaxx was seated, Kiyo-zan dipped his head and pressed the stick forward. In seconds, planet Taiyo came into view, the blue glow of its unpolluted oceans accompanied by its lush, green terrain lit up the cosmos, stars twinkling in the distance behind it. It was a spectacle to be seen, only matched by Earth.
In minutes, they had entered the Taiyo heliosphere. Kiyo-zan tilted the transport ship to a forty-five-degree angle and turned on anti-gravity drives, making the transition from space into the Taiyonian atmosphere smooth and simple.
Below, the four-legged Kimos—cat-like animals the size of elephants with blue turtle shells—ran with speed and agility across a verdant green plateau, heading toward a jungle. A herd of Misa—similar to ostriches, though flamingo-pink in color—followed, like children after their parents.
In the distance was a vast city over a lake. The lake was clear and had an inner glow, all azure hues and Mediterranean blues. It was late morning and the sun shone down on the city, which glimmered like a shimmering artwork; another reminder of how beautiful this city and this planet truly was. A true marvel.
The city’s outer rim had small domes equivalent to the size of three or four-story buildings. Attached to each dome was a fully-covered walkway or roadway that attached to larger domes toward the center. The closer to the center of the city the bigger the domes became. The largest dome was directly in the middle.
Crafts flew
above the metropolis, some entering through openings in the domes, others exiting.
“God, I missed this place. So calm. So serene,” Jaxx spoke more to himself than to Kiyo-zan.
Kiyo-zan veered right, brows furrowed. He gave Jaxx a fearful look.
“What’s going on, Kiyo-zan?”
Kiyo-zan pointed to the sky. A dark cloud was moving in, red lightning electrifying in and out of it. “Agadon za kite iru.”
“That’s the Agadon?”
Kiyo-zan nodded.
“Explain to me how that’s the Agadon?”
“Karera wa piramiddonettowāku zo shiyō shite imasu.”
“They are entering through the pyramid network here as well?” Jaxx shook his head. “The doesn’t explain the strange looking cloud.”
“Watashitachi wa sorera zo oshimodosou to shite imasu. Ugoite inai.”
“Your technology is pushing them back? That’s what creates the cloud? Will that actually work?”
“Īe, soreha dōsa shimasen.”
“Yeah, didn’t think that would work for long. At least it delays.”
Kiyo-zan lowered the craft, entering through a dome. Hills with flowing rivers, waterfalls, and hovering sail boats careened around the inner sanctum of the dome. Hanging vines of purple flowers hung from the walls. The peace and beauty made the chaos about to come that much worse.
He sighed.
Kiyo-zan pulled the craft into a flyway, a tunnel attaching one dome to another. They exited out the other side, entering an even larger dome. Several Leonian vessels and mechs were parked around a pointed skyscraper reaching high.
Kiyo-zan went in for a landing and hovered. The ship shuddered when the landing gear touched down. Kiyo-zan unstrapped and rushed outside. “Yuko! Yuko!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Hold your trousers.” Jaxx jumped out of the transport and raced after his friend, his boots sinking into the soft, mossy grass.
Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Page 62