Kiyo-zan threw the skyscraper main doors open and Jaxx followed him inside. The city’s High Queen sat with Zara and Abdu, giving the new arrivals a pained, watery gaze.
The Queen dipped her head to Kiyo-zan, then stood and bowed to Zara and Abdu. She left the room, racing through another door.
“There’s no time to rest, Jaxx,” said Zara. “Another battle is on the way. The High Queen says they’re manipulating the pyramid network the best way they can, attempting to disrupt the Agadon’s entry.”
Kiyo-zan bowed. He put his hands together, a sign of apology, and dashed through the doors from which the Queen had exited.
Abdu laughed. “The Agadon retreated in defeat, then tried to surprise us by slipping through the pyramid network. They could fool us once on our planet, but we notified the Taiyonians that the Agadon might do it here as well.”
“And how long will we be able to hold them off until they fully manifest into this world?” asked Jaxx, not really knowing if his terminology was correct.
Zara lifted her shoulders, her chains jingling as she did. “Anything from a minute to a day.”
The sky thundered, rumbling the earth.
Zara let out a growl. “Or now.” She grabbed Jaxx by the back of the shirt and lifted him up, carrying him out of the building. “Get into a Taiyo starfighter. They tell me you’re the best in those things. Be one with it, Jaxx.” She planted her fist in her hand, then dipped her head. “Once we hold these blue-baldheads off, we’ll get you back to Callisto. There we’ll close the portals before these Agadon destroy entire systems.”
A gust of wind blew against Zara and Abdu’s fur and flung Jaxx’s hair up, flapping his clothes in the wind as a starfighter towing another starfighter by an electric blue light hovered above. It moved towards them.
Abdu slapped Jaxx’s shoulder. “See you on the battlefield.” The wise lion turned and ran toward his mech, Zara on his heels and heading toward her own mech.
An explosion knocked Jaxx on his side. He rolled and pushed himself up, then rolled away as fast as he could. A golden light washed over the land, lighting the grass and buildings on fire. Pieces of the dome crashed to the ground.
The center of the dome blew open and more pieces plummeted onto the city, raising smoke and cinder everywhere. The inner city was now exposed.
An Agadon star carrier came into view. A hefty beam weapon on its starboard sent hot, amber energy upon the city. Hundreds of starfighters exited one of its bays, heading in for a strafe run.
31
Edge of M-Quadrant, Nearing Jupiter - Starship Atlantis
Slade pushed a soldier out of the way and aimed his gun. He pulled the trigger, then pulled it again.
P-taff! P-taff!
An enemy soldier, someone wanting to help the government take control of the ship, flopped like a rag doll to the ground. Blood oozed from his neck and head. Enemy guards ducked back around the corner of the corridor.
Senator Ken Furr’s and Government Boz Brown’s piece of crap idea was working and Slade didn’t like it. Slade was not going to allow the mutineers to succeed, not by any means.
They had taken over Deck 7 and parts of Deck 6. He hoped they hadn’t found the envoy; the Kelhoon troops that were on Deck 6, waiting in a few storage bays, ready to strike, probably digging in to the raw meat Slade had left them.
Slade rushed ahead through clearing smoke. He shot a volley towards the enemy soldiers, keeping them pinned. He went down another hallway, stopped and leaned his back against the wall. He eyed his soldiers, more than twenty, hiding in doorways, weapons ready. He put two fingers to his eyes and touched his hands together. He pointed forward, indicating two enemy squads were down the corridor.
His troops nodded.
Two put up their rifles, and dashed out of their doorway, moving to the next open door down the corridor. The next two soldiers did the same, moving closer to the enemy.
Slade brought his comm close to his chin, notifying Central Ops on Deck 1—a command center that was still on his side. “I have a small team with me. We’ve almost got Deck 5 cleared. The politicians have more troops than I thought. We’re in need of back up. Send ASAP. Copy?” They only had about a thousand well-trained soldiers on Starship Atlantis in the first place. These were the best of the best, taken from Earth, convinced to go along for the ride.
“Copy that, Colonel,” replied Central Ops. “We’re sending another squad.”
Slade rolled against the wall and took a few shots into the enemy’s position. His gun clicked, then clicked again. He unclipped his empty magazine, took a full one from his utility belt, and slammed it back into his semi-automatic.
He whispered into his comm, speaking to his troops. “We’ll take these guys if you rush their positions. We need three lead, the rest follow. I’ll cover you until you pass my position. This should be quick and easy. Go.”
His soldiers hurried down the corridor, opening fire.
Slade curled around the corner, pulling his semi-automatic’s trigger several times, riddling the wall with bullets.
Bwoom!
A blast went off. Concrete and metal splintered out in all directions and Slade was thrown backwards, flipping in the air, landing on his stomach. He let out a loud, “Oomph!” when he hit the hard floor.
Were they crazy? An explosive? Those were to be used on Callisto, not inside the ship. If it weren’t for the neutronium metal that made up the ship’s walls and exterior, this ship would be seriously compromised and he’d be sucked out into space in a nanosecond.
He pushed himself up, his ears ringing. He shook his head like a dog and glanced up. His troop were a mess of limbs, guts, and blood scattered throughout the hallway. He looked behind him, wondering if any of his troop had survived the explosion.
None had. Not even close. He was the only survivor. Then again, Slade always survived. It was his mantra.
He patted himself down, feeling shrapnel in his stomach, blood oozing from the wound. Why wasn’t he a pile of flesh like the rest of his soldiers? He didn’t have time to think on it. He had to get out of the blood-stained corridor and to the blocked off location a few corridors away.
“My team is lost.” he said into his comm while stumbling down another corridor.
He’d had 20 men in his command. Now there were zero. He needed reinforcements.
He turned off his comm and rushed toward a temporary armored wall—their makeshift road block. It went from floor to ceiling. It did the trick well.
He pulled out his badge and waived it to the wall as he ran. The wall opened, splitting down the middle and opening inward. More than thirty of his soldiers, weapons drawn, were on the other side.
Slade dashed past the wall. He halted and slumped to the floor, the gouge in his stomach burning. He cringed, attempting to pull the shrapnel out. It was too painful, too sharp. He had to do it anyway. He slid to the floor, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth. He needed to yank it out, before he lost any more blood.
“Stop,” yelled Doctor Andrea Cross. She bent over him, her eyes full of concern. “You pull that out and you might bleed to death, especially if it dug into your inferior vena cava vein.” She gestured to a few troops.
They lifted him up and escorted him to a room nearby.
Andrea was already inside, a syringe in her hand. She flicked it a couple of times. “Put him on the table and leave.”
The soldiers complied.
She jabbed the syringe in his stomach and pressed on the syringe’s plunger, pushing clear liquid into his body. Slade couldn’t feel a thing, his body numb.
She tossed the syringe into a waste basket. She grabbed the shrapnel with forceps and pulled the piece of metal out of his skin.
“Agh!” He felt that. “Damn, doc.”
She placed a cloth over the wound to stop the bleeding, then gave Slade an odd look. “Wait a minute. What is this?” She pulled the cloth away.
Slade glanced down at his wound. It coagulated quickl
y, too quickly. It hardened and scabbed. “What the hell is going on?”
“Do you think it’s Jaxx’s blood?” She nodded, answering her own question. “It has to be.”
“You’re kidding me.” Slade grinned. “I’m invincible? I mean, you should have seen it. I was practically in the middle of a damn explosion and I came out almost unscathed.”
“Our next step is to figure out how to manipulate energy like Jaxx does.”
“Amid this mutiny?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” He touched his hardened scab. A surge of energy entered his body. It felt good and powerful. “We start my training just as soon as I have these asswipes under control.”
32
Edge of M-Quadrant, Nearing Jupiter - Starship Atlantis
Ken Furr’s old, tired bones were sore and beat. His eyes war weary, sunken in, red from lack of sleep. He couldn’t give up, give in, or rest until he’d succeeded. As far as he was concerned, the fate of humanity was in his hands.
If he didn’t stop Slade and Martelle, they’d sell the whole damned planet out for their thirty pieces of silver. He needed to keep the ship on its new trajectory and stop those assholes from letting the Kelhoon enslave and chow down on human meat. Nothing he’d ever done before was as important as this mission. He could sleep when he was done or dead, but not before.
He gripped a hand grenade, grasped the pull ring with his middle finger and twisted. The grenade’s pin released.
His heart skipped a beat as he held his breath. He had no idea what he was doing, but he figured if he didn’t attempt this, life wasn’t going to be so good for the troops, governors, senators, and their families who had sided with him.
Right now, his troops were trapped, but valiantly returning fire with Slade’s soldiers on Deck 5. They were backed in a corner with no way out, ducking in and out of barracks and offices, doing their best to hold their ground. If they didn’t, death would knock on their doors, and quickly. It wasn’t looking good. Ken couldn’t lose this deck. If he did, all hopes of the mutiny were lost or would be damn near close. This deck had the food, the supplies, the materials they needed to control most of everything.
Ken looked down from his position on the metal grating in the hallway and studied a mass of Slade’s troops moving into position, ready to end this skirmish for good. He looked at his target, a small opening in between a platoon of men aiming their rifles at targets down the hall.
He leaned over the grating, dropped the grenade, stood, and quickly moved toward his own troop’s position.
Dakadakadaka!
He dove forward, covering his head as sparks flew from bullet fire clanging against the metal. Why didn’t the grenade go off? Really? His first foray into armed combat and it was a dud?
Baroom!
There it went.
The bullets stopped whizzing. He looked back. He couldn’t bear to see it, but he needed to face what he had done. He had no time for cowards or people who shirked their responsibility.
Enemy troops—their faces half gone, their skin hanging off their bodies, their limbs sliced in half—were strewn about the deck. He had done what he had needed to do, bloody as it was. He ran to the end of the hallway, hopped off the grate, and landed next to his troops. One gave him a thumbs up, the others advanced, shooting their weapons with deadly aim.
Baroom!
Ken ducked. From the sounds of things, Governor Boz Brown had just dropped his grenade on a second squad and was running this way now.
Ken’s troop sent fire down the corridor, downing more enemies.
Boz’s footsteps came closer. The governor crouched next to Ken. Being a former Marine, the deaths didn’t seem to faze him. “We’re losing this deck,” he said. “There are still a mess of troops we’re unable to grenade, unable to reach.”
Ken pulled Boz into a bunk room, the beds all strewn about, others poked with bullet holes that lined up with the dents in the walls. Thank God for rubber bullets and that this ship was built thick and deep with neutronium metal, or they’d have bigger worries at the moment.
“We need to take this ship over, no matter what Boz.”
There was another explosion, this one closer. Ken’s ears were ringing wildly now, his mind scrambled. He blinked several times trying to clear his head. “If they kill us or use us for the Kelhoon farming program, then Earth and her inhabitants are next—if they haven’t already gotten to her. I can’t let this happen. Not under my watch.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Ken. We’re with you all the way.”
More gun fire further down the corridor. Perhaps their plan of dropping the grenades worked and maybe they could take the deck, just maybe.
Boz nodded in agreement. “We’re going to win. Just you wait and see. I’ve been in tighter jams than this. We’ll come out on top!”
Ken was afraid his friend, his political ally for more than twenty years, was wrong. If so, there had to be a way of notifying the United States about the Kelhoon. He wanted his fellow countrymen to know they needed to arm themselves to the teeth and fight back. But there was no way of sending any such message. All communication had been shut off by Slade and Central Ops, even communication to the Secret Space Program fleet, hovering in space next to them. The SSP was right there and Fleet Admiral Lon Vernadore had no idea what was going on inside this ship.
Ken leaned in. “I have to get to Slade.”
“How?”
“Perhaps there is a way through the air ducts? Hell, I don’t know.”
Boz nodded, knowing what Ken was getting at. He rushed to the doorway. “I’ll head down to Deck 7, and we’ll figure it out. We’ll look at some schematics of the ship.”
“Thank you,” said Ken.
Ken walked out of the room. His troops were far ahead now, advancing well. He picked up a dead man’s gun and cocked it. If he wasn’t helping out in the fight, then what good was he, even if he deplored violence? “This is for the people back at home,” he whispered to himself. He cocked the gun and aimed at an enemy soldier. He pulled the trigger and watched in horror as a soldier went down.
33
Edge of M-Quadrant, Nearing Jupiter - Starship Atlantis
Starship Atlantis’s head information technician slid his ID card into a door. Craig stood behind him, his chin trembling, his eyes red from crying. He couldn’t get the image of his wife’s brains on the wall out of his mind.
Fleet Admiral Lon Vernadore rubbed his back. “Slade is an insane murderer.”
Craig stiffened, baring his teeth. “You don’t think I know that?”
Lon pulled back. “I sincerely apologize, Mr. President.”
The door to the room opened and Craig took three steps inside. He fell to his knees, putting his hands over his face.
Lon brought his shouldered radio device to his mouth. “I need Space Marines and medics to room 294, ASAP.”
Blood stained the wall next to the bed’s head rest, and the bedspread was drenched in blood. Craig’s wife was on her side, her eyes were open, and her face was pale.
There was a scratching and whimpering coming from the far side of the room.
Craig dropped his hands from his face. His eyes tracked the sound to its source. He stood, pushed Lon aside, and rushed over to a door at the other end of the room, doing his best to avoid any eye contact with his now-deceased wife.
He turned the doorknob. It was locked. He kicked the door. “Girls? Are you in there?” Without taking a moment to listen, he charged over to the information tech and pulled him to the door. “Open it.”
The guy swiped the card and the door beeped.
Before Craig could reach for the knob, the door came barreling open, and a young girl jumped out, sobbing, holding on to Craig for dear life.
Craig rushed her out of the room, doing his best to keep his daughter’s eyes off her mom and to the hallway past the room’s entryway.
Space Marines side stepped them and walked quickly into the room
. Medics, carrying a gurney, were close behind.
Craig bent down and wiped the girl’s tears. “We’re going to get you to a safe place.” He bit his lip. “Where is your sister?”
She held on to his arm, resting her cheek on his bicep. “Daddy, I want to go home. I want to go back. Please.”
Craig nodded. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Where’s your sister?”
“He took her with him.”
“Who is he?”
“The bad man who killed Mommy.” Her crying picked up.
Craig called over his shoulder. “Lon.”
Lon peeked around the entryway then stepped out into the hall. “Yes, Mr. President.”
“My youngest daughter is missing. We need to case every room on this damned ship.” He hugged his daughter, Claudia. Her brown hair in a ponytail, her large brown eyes looking up to him for comfort, her chin trembling even more than Craig’s. “Do you know what direction they went?”
She shook her head, her wet cheeks smearing on Craig’s.
“And, Lon,” said Craig. “I don’t care where Slade wants to take this ship. We’re heading back to Earth.”
Lon stared at him for a moment. Finally, he dipped his head. “Will do, Mr. President.”
Craig dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes, doing his best to wipe the memory of his bloody wife out of his mind. “Do me a favor?”
“Yes, Sir?”
His voice cracked. “When you find Slade.” He covered his daughter’s ears. “Do the worst you can. Then kill him.”
34
Edge of M-Quadrant, Nearing Jupiter - Starship Atlanti
Slade stood in a storage room, eyeing his holoscreen. He perked up when he heard Craig tell the Fleet Admiral to end Slade’s life and a slow smile grew on his lips. That was his life the Pres was talking about.
Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Page 63