“Ascend?”
“In time you’ll understand that word. It’s our hope that you’ll help the Atlanteans with their ascension along with the homo sapiens, and in that way, the rest of the galaxy will follow suit, doing so from your examples. The problem is, the Atlanteans were too hasty, too greedy, too eager to ascend that they forgot one vital component. That one person must be an anchor to a group in order for a group to ascend. Your anchor went missing. We have to find her.”
Katherine Bogle entered his mind. Abdu was right. Bogle was missing when Jaxx attempted to give his life for the prophecy and was instead transported from the Callisto pyramid portal to the lion-people’s planet. “How did you know that?”
“It was apparent. Now, get going.”
Jaxx entered the hill and his mouth gaped open. “Is this a pyramid?” Like several pyramids on Earth, trees and grasses had grown around and on top of this one, making it appear as a hill.
“Yes, now up the tunnel.”
A tunnel, the same type of tunnel in the pyramid on Callisto and in the pyramid on Leonia, ascended at a sharp incline. Like the rest of the pyramids, this one no doubt led to the pyramid’s king’s chamber.
They hurried up the white stone passageway, moving by spheres of blueish-white lights hovering every three or so meters, lighting their path.
Arriving at a platform, they rushed into the king’s chamber. Jaxx slipped his helmet off and dropped it.
The Taiyonian Queen stood beside an open sarcophagus; her eyes weary, sad. She dipped her head.
Kiyo-zan stood next to her, along with Zara.
“Ganbarou,” she said.
“Good luck to you too,” said Jaxx, bowing.
The pyramid shook from a rumble outside. Dirt and dust fell from the ceiling.
Abdu helped Jaxx to the coffer. “Put your hands on the edge.”
Jaxx wrapped his fingers around the edge of the sarcophagus, just as another explosion rocked the earth, jostling the king’s chamber like an earthquake.
The Queen gasped. “Watashi wa hitobito za hitori ze kurushimu koto wa dekimasen.” She went to turn.
Zara grasped her arm. “I’m sorry, Queen, but you can’t save your Taiyonian people. If you leave us now, you also die with them. Now, put your hands on the sarcophagus.”
The Queen jerked her arm free and backed away, her hands up, and apologizing. She twisted around and dashed out of the chamber. Kiyo-zan went to go after her.
“No,” yelled Jaxx. He lunged for Kiyo-zan, grasping the back of his shirt and yanked his friend to the ground.
Kiyo-zan kicked his legs, breaking loose from Jaxx’s grip.
“Not enough time,” said Abdu. He pounced, taking both Jaxx and Kiyo-zan by the back of their shirts. He lifted them over the sarcophagus’s edge and dropped them inside. Abdu clasped both hands together as the pyramid continued to shudder, the ceiling cracking.
Abdu and Zara nodded, then closed their eyes, gripping the ceremonial coffer.
A wave of sharp energy shot through Jaxx. His chest lifted toward the ceiling, his back arching as he and Kiyo-zan floated off the ground.
A flash of light covered Jaxx. He cringed as a sharp pain, like electric needles, seemed to penetrate every cell, widening them, expanding them in precisely the same way as before.
He drifted upward, his hands and feet went numb, his spine firing synapses to every area of his body, activating suspended DNA, connecting him to the pyramid.
A vast network opened up like a map before him, those glorious golden beams connecting planet to planet, pyramid to pyramid. This time, however, he understood something he hadn’t before. He could pick and choose which line, which beam he’d like to cross, and to which planet or moon he’d like to visit.
He floated as if he were in a sea of water, with no sound, no movement other than his own, and pressed a beam that connected to his own Solar System, the one in which he was born and raised. He slid his finger across the line, pushing Nibiru, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn out of the way, and pressed his palm against Jupiter.
Jupiter grew large, displaying the moons in its orbit. He grabbed Callisto like a marble ball and pressed it against his heart.
Darkness overtook and his gut wrenched. He grunted, his muscles spasming. He yelled in agony and he twisted, turned, and curled into a ball. He closed his eyes.
He took in a deep breath and opened his eyes.
He bolted upright, his butt planted on a slab of stone that sat across a sarcophagus. Looking around, he was in Flood of Dawn’s Great Pyramid, and back on Callisto. And one by one, Zara, Abdu, and Kiyo-zan materialized in front of him.
Zara eyed Jaxx. “Let’s get moving.” Her eyes moved to the chamber’s exit.
Jaxx pushed off and ran to the platform just outside of the room and slid down the tunnel. His feet hit the cold, desert-like terrain at the bottom and he popped up. He took a few fast strides and skidded to a halt.
His shoulders drooped and his hopes fell like a thousand, perfectly placed dominoes.
Fire raged across the city—Flood of Dawn. Its glass dome shattered in several places, Atlanteans were strewn over the land between the pyramid and the city.
The city was turning to ash.
44
Edge of J-Quadrant, Starship Atlantis (Slipping Further Away from Jupiter
A man, clad in all black, led Craig’s daughter down a hallway. Her tears blurred her vision so she didn’t know exactly where she was going, and if they hadn’t been blurred, the memory of her mom’s brains smeared across the wall, blood splattered over her and the bed, replaying over and over in her head would have fogged her sight anyway.
Right now, all she knew was to trust her father’s words, “I’m having this guy take you someplace safe, darling, until we can eradicate the threat.”
Her eleven- year-old mind didn’t comprehend threat. She understood that her mother was dead, shot right in front of her eyes and maybe that was the threat? Or, the man who shot her mother was a threat? It wasn’t computing. All that was computing was an emptiness in her chest, a hole full of misery and fear in her heart.
“Stop, Miss.” The man in black touched her back, halting her. He turned her in front of an orange, rusty door, three times the size of the regular doors on Starship Atlantis. A small, round window was atop the door, too tall for her to see through, even on her tiptoes.
He slid a card down the control panel, then typed in a code. The door slid open.
The man held her by the collar and bent down on one knee, a strong minty smell coming off his breath. He had an accent. A really bad, fake accent and all she could see were his eyes. The rest of his face and body was covered in a black jumpsuit, a military vest wrapped around his back and chest. “You’ll be safe in here. Be nice to the people inside. They are doctors and may need to poke and prod you, but they will not harm you. Do you understand, Claudia?”
Claudia nodded, her innocent eyes betraying her doubt.
“Don’t do anything that your dad wouldn’t want you to do in there, Claudia. Okay? Be a nice little girl. These are your dad’s people. They won’t harm a hair on your head.”
She nodded again and the man stood, tapped on her back a couple of times to push her forward and through the entrance into a large room filled with rusty walls. To the right, Claudia could hear some commotion and movement, but they were out of view.
“Claudia, go.”
She held her ground.
The man nudged her forward. “Get going, Miss.”
She didn’t budge, shaking her head, adamant. There was something about this room that creeped her out, that caused goose bumps to rise.
“I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” He picked her up and walked through the entrance, taking a sharp right and set her on the ground.
Claudia gasped. “Sissy!”
Her sister sat in a chair surrounded by several men and women in white, scrunched in by monitors that spouted numbers and graphs across the screens.
“Claudia?” Her sister bounded out of the chair, her small legs taking her across the storage room into the arms of her overjoyed sister.
The man who brought Claudia into the room exited, the heavy door clanging behind him, but Claudia didn’t care anymore, didn’t care about her fear she’d felt upon first glimpsing this room. She was safe now and with Rose, her sister, just like her father told her she’d be. She wanted to tell Rose that everything was going to be fine and that she would protect her, that their dad would protect them from now on. But she didn’t. To Claudia’s mind, her sister was too young to understand.
“Girls,” said a woman. “I’m Dr. Andrea Cross. Can you come over here for a second?” She held up a rubber knee hammer, a device just about every child had seen during a doctor visit or two. “Your dad wants us to check your reflexes.”
The girls unclasped from each other and walked over to the doctor.
Andrea gestured to her assistant. “My friend here will work on you, Rose. So, please sit back down and relax.” She motioned toward a chair with restraints, the chair Rose was sitting on before Claudia entered the room.
“And Claudia, you sit here.” She patted a similar chair a few feet away. It, too, had restraints.
Claudia sat down, touching her knee. She never liked the feeling of that rubber hammer thing, causing her lower leg to twitch. It was weird.
“We’re going to have to strap you in, girls.” Andrea buckled Claudia in at the waist, then tied her arms, and bound her head against the back of the chair.
Claudia did her best to locate her sister. This wasn’t normal. She’d never been seat belted in during a doctor’s visit, especially around the head.
She moved a few inches, but the restraints held Claudia in place. She could see her sister’s feet. “Are you okay, Rose?”
“I’m okay,” Rose said.
Rose’s patent-leather Mary-Jane’s bounced back and forth, telling Claudia her sister was fine. And that most likely this entire scenario was fine...was normal...just something she’d never experienced before? She had to be an adult and fearless. She had to grow up.
“How are you doing, Claudia?” Andrea questioned.
“I’m fine.”
“Excellent. Now, just look at this thing right here.” Andrea pulled a long, black gadget, the size and shape of a pencil, from her coat pocket. A man handed her a long cord attached to a monitor. Andrea looked it over and fit it into the bottom of her gadget, clicking the cord in place. She slid her hand up the gadget and twisted the top. A red-light glowed. “Do you remember what we did to your mommy?”
Claudia didn’t know what she meant by we or any other word in Andrea’s question. In fact, she didn’t see this Andrea lady in the room when her mom was killed. There was no we about it. It was only one person who killed her mom and he had minty breath.
She held her breath and stiffened. The guy who escorted her here had minty breath.
“Sit still,” said Andrea. “This will only hurt for a second.” She moved the red light closer to Claudia’s eyes.
A strong heat hit Andrea between the eyes, then a zap went through her forehead and to her brain. Her body and chest lifted off of the chair, her arms and hands went rigid, her fingers outstretched. She convulsed, her eyes widening, saliva frothing at her mouth.
She screamed. Her little sister let out a blood-curdling yell. She went to reach over, to hold her sister’s hand, to do anything to comfort her. Her arm was stuck, her legs wouldn’t kick, and her body wasn’t cooperating. She was writhing, out of control.
Memories came flooding to the surface. Her mom playing with her at home in the sand box in their backyard, years before her father became the president of the United States. They gathered sand in their shovels and filled up several beach buckets, laughing at each other, playing around like loving mothers and daughters do.
The memory left, evaporating, disconnecting from her brain. Gone forever. She attempted to bring the memory back up only to realize she didn’t even know what memory she was looking for.
She took in a deep breath as another memory popped up from the recesses of her mind. It was one that brought her the most happiness, one of her most cherished. The time her mother surprised her at school, holding a doll and flowers. Her mom had been gone for months, she didn’t know where to, but there she was, picking her up, a smile on her face, tears in her eyes.
An instant later, the memory disappeared. It was now a blank wall, no longer a remembrance of any sort.
A thousand movies and pictures ran through her mind, then were erased, thrown away like corrupted computer files. Suddenly, a new memory. Claudia was young, too young to be watching this, and stared at her mom’s dead body lying in a ditch, her mother’s car smashed against a tree, its wheels flat and broken, its front-end dented in with steam rising from the engine. She was with her father and her two-year old sister. They were holding each other’s hands, police lights shining and blaring in the background. She stared at her mother’s dead face and blank eyes.
A new memory entered Claudia’s mind.
At four years old, exactly seven years ago, her mother died in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver.
“What’s a drunk driver, Daddy?” Claudia watched her new memory ask that question. Claudia looked up at Doctor Andrea, who smiled back at her. It was Andrea’s question, but coming out of her own lips in this new memory. Then she sank back into the memory, her eyes trained on her father, who looked just like she felt.
His eyes were sad and swollen. “That’s something you’ll learn when you get older.”
Claudia struggled for air, then came to.
Andrea stood in front of her, grinning, combing her hair. “Do you remember what we did to your mommy?” inquired Andrea.
Claudia gave her an odd look. “My mom died in car accident a long time ago. Were you there?”
Andrea shook her head. “No, sweetie. I wasn’t.”
“Can I see my dad yet?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
45
Edge of J-Quadrant, Starship Atlantis (Slipping Further Away from Jupiter
Slade entered Craig’s quarters, and the president spun around in his chair.
Slade could tell Craig had been crying and only stopped a short while ago. “Are both of my daughters safe and accounted for?”
“Yes.” Slade wanted to roll his eyes. He hated emotions. He wanted Craig to grow a pair of balls, to man-up.
Craig gritted his teeth. “You killed my wife in front of my daughters? A Kelhoon wouldn’t even do that.”
“One, they would. Two, we needed to make it look real. We needed the reactions on their faces to pull this off.”
Craig shook his index finger in the air, wild eyed. “Don’t ever...” He balled up his hands. “Never again, do you understand?”
Slade nodded. What he didn’t say was it wasn’t functionally possible to kill the same woman twice. But that would have pissed Craig off more.
“Are my daughters okay, Slade? I need to know.”
“They’re fine. Their minds are being wiped, replaced with new memories of their mother. You’ll be happy to hear that your wife didn’t die by gun, but by a car accident when your children were two and four years old.” Slade paced to a door adjoining this room to the next. “We go now.”
“Your stunt by killing Senator Furr slowed their little mutiny. But by now they’re probably regrouping. You have our transport ship ready?” asked Craig.
“Yes, ready to take us to Callisto. The Kelhoons have a palace already in place for us.”
Craig walked to a dresser and opened a drawer. He pulled out a handful of vid cards. “Have you seen the pictures?”
Slade nodded. “Yes. It’s going to be a different life. Don’t forget that.”
“When are the first shipments of humans due from Earth?”
“In a month. Starting with a batch that includes my son, Drew. He won’t be a slave. I’ll convince him to help us
with our new line of work.”
Craig shot him a look. “Drew? He won’t comply. He’ll be like the politicians on the starship.”
“He won’t. He’s the only blood I have left. I’ll change his memory, like I did with your daughters.”
Craig sighed. “If he gives us half the trouble that Senator Furr gave, then you and I will have a canyon-sized issue. Understand?”
Slade didn’t respond. He opened the door to a massive room, filled with weapons and Kelhoon soldiers, all ready to pounce on as many humans as they could find.
Except Craig’s daughters. Slade made damn sure they wouldn’t eat them.
Orders were orders.
46
E-Quadrant, Earth - Whitefish, Montana
A loud roar boomed across the sky and the helicopter bounced, hitting turbulence. Drew shuddered in his seat. He turned, looking out the front window. He moved his helmet mic closer to his mouth. “What was that? If it’s a US fighter jet, then this time I’m making you put Master Sergeant Angel Segarra on the radio.”
Anderle kept his mouth shut and pointed. A large black cloud grew over the horizon, lightning striking all around it, highlighting a massive ship coming through, then more. All ships were shaped like perfect, silver diamonds. “They’re on their way.” Anderle dipped the helicopter. “We’re landing in Whitefish in a couple minutes.”
Segarra inched forward on his seat. “Let me on the radio. Whitefish won’t let you in. You’re in a damn Chinese helicopter.”
Anderle gave Segarra an exaggerated smile. “That’s another reason we needed you.” He flipped a switch on the console. “You’re on the mic. Speak.”
The cloud grew bigger as it moved closer. Drew shifted in his seat. They had no chance against that number of ships, or any ships. No one had a chance. “They’re going to devastate Whitefish. We have to find someplace else.”
Segarra jumped on the line. “Whitefish Global Command, this is MS Angel Segarra. We’ll be landing soon. We need clearance. You have outer terrestrial birds coming your way.”
Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Page 68