My Atlantian

by Alysia S Knight

  MY ATLANTIAN

  By

  ALYSIA S. KNIGHT

  My Atlantian

  By Alysia S. Knight

  Published by Heart Dreams Press

  Layton, Utah

  Copyright © 2017 Alysia S. Knight

  ISBN 13: 978-1-942000-37-2

  ISBN: 1942000-37-5

  Cover design: by Kelli Ann Morgan @ www.inspirecreativeservices.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may reproduced in any format or in any medium without written permission. Alysia@alysiasknight.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place and events are product of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or events are purely coincidental.

  The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not represent Heart Dreams Press or any of its affiliates.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author Alysia S. Knight

  Other books by Alysia S. Knight

  Excerpt from The Olympus Game

  Chapter One

  “You’re tense,” Anakale, Jerreon Ander’s second in command and best friend, said. “You ought to relax. It’s over.”

  “It’s not over.” Jerreon didn’t look back at Anakale. From his vantage point high on the Council chamber wall, Jerreon surveyed the proceedings going on below. His gaze locked on the solitary figure standing before the Council. Jerreon’s hands bit into the railing as he leaned forward, though with the acoustics in the High Council Chamber, he had no problem hearing.

  Lysias Ptolemaios stood straight and tall, his head thrown back in a stance that showed supreme confidence. Not at all like one would expect of a man receiving his fate for the most severe crimes against their society that had been handed out in eons.

  “It is foolishness. They should have binders on him,” Jerreon repeated what he’d said several times since the proceedings began. “They should have let me be down there.”

  “You might be the Chief Council Guardian, but you were Lysias’s main accuser. You discovered his plot and stopped him. Your role in this is over,” Anakale said in his ever-present logical tone.

  “At least, they should have guardians around him.” Jerreon shot him a look, turning his attention back below. Light from the full-walled window filled the room with a golden-radiant glow. It was a glorious sight that usually filled Jerreon with pleasure. He just couldn’t find anything pleasurable at the moment.

  “Lysias Ptolemaios, this is your final opportunity.” Chief Council Hyperian’s voice carried through the room. “Do you have anything to say for yourself on your actions of deceit upon our people?”

  There was no pause, just Lysias’s voice cutting through the air, indignation radiating from his words. “You think you can pass judgment on me? You have grown too weak to rule this Council and our people.” A murmur started below, but Lysias ignored it. He stretched out his arms like he was encompassing the room. “You think you have stopped me, but you have not.”

  Jerreon’s insides clenched. He released the railing and headed for the stairs. He only made two steps when he heard Lysias voice raise up again.

  “I am meant to be a god.”

  Jerreon glanced below in time to see Lysias bring his hands together in a loud clap that echoed through the chamber. It barely started to fade when a loud explosion took its place. The massive window behind the Council exploded inward, raining glass shards down on the twenty-four men and women of the Council.

  Pain flared in Jerreon’s side as the percussion slammed him into the railing. He barely caught hold of it before he tumbled over.

  Screams filled the air along with debris.

  “What was that?” Anakale cried out from where he’d been knocked to the floor.

  “Lysias.” Jerreon pulled himself up to look below.

  Dust settled, but Lysias was gone.

  Jerreon scrambled up, ignoring all the destruction around him as he ran down the stairs. “I am meant to be a god.” Lysias’s words played over in Jerreon’s mind, and he knew what the man intended. If he couldn’t gain control in their world, he would become a god on another. Lysias had a fascination for Earth. Jerreon knew because it also intrigued him. He often ran into the man in the Hall of Studies.

  Reaching the main floor, Jerreon put on more speed. He jumped over a fallen column that crossed his path. Anakale called his name, but he didn’t slow. He didn’t have time. Bursting out the main entrance, he started across the wide quad.

  Jerreon caught a glimpse of a figure wearing a crimson jacket and gray pants slipping into the silver-domed building across the way. Lysias was going for the Astersynidi. Jerreon pressed for more speed, lengthening his long stride. There was only one place Lysias could be headed − the Syndais Chamber − to the space bridge. He was going to earth.

  People flooded into the quad hampering Jerreon’s progress as they rushed to help those in the Council chamber. Another explosion went off, sending up a chorus of shouts and knocking people to the ground once more. Jerreon stumbled barely keeping his footing. Ahead of him the portal into the Astersynidi collapsed, cutting off his entrance.

  Frustration roared through Jerreon. He couldn’t let Lysias get to the lower chamber and activate the bridge. The problem was the portal was the only access. The Astersynidi sat directly over the strongest energy point on the planet to help feed power to Syndais, the gateway to other worlds.

  People converged on the rubble with him. Jerreon felt energy surge around as people stretched out with mind and body to lift debris out of the way to reach anyone trapped inside the building. Jerreon joined the effort concentrating on one of the large chunks of stone. He tapped into the energy in the world around him and cycled it through his body, feeding his abilities.

  The rock pulled free and lifted into the air. Jerreon kept tight focus on it until he had it clear, then he lowered it to the ground and turned back, locking on another. He moved it out of the way to reveal a small opening. Jerreon knelt down to survey the pile of rubble. Rocks and debris tumbled down, but the opening seemed stable enough.

  “Jerreon.” Anakale reached him just as he started to work his way through.

  Jerreon didn’t wait. “I’m going after Lysias before he can activate the bridge.”

  “You do not think−” Anakale broke off obviously realizing the answer for himself.

  “I’ve got to stop him.” Jerreon crawled down into the opening, pressing his way through. Rocks dug into his hands. Dust rained down on him. He forced his mind out forming a barrier between him and the rock.

  Once, along the clamped and debris filled tunnel, he felt like he was trapped. Forcing himself to remain calm, he expelled all the air in his lungs, then reached out and gripped a chunk of rubble and pulled himself forward. Wiggling free and out to the other side, he crawled to his feet, gulping in air then choking as dust filled his lungs.

  “You okay?” Anakale’s voice echoed behind him.

  “Yes. I made it through.”

  He looked at an older woman who lay crumbled on the floor only a couple feet from him. Jerreon took time to reach out his mind to her but found no life force. Sadness and anger hit him in crushing waves. Her name was Bion. She was a kind woman, a techn
ician who studied planetary energy fields.

  Jerreon forced his attention from her to the transport tubes directly in front of him. He wasn’t surprised to find a light flashing to indicate they weren’t working. He headed for the stairs, passing more people − some alive, some not. Lysias hadn’t cared how many he hurt or killed. They were all insignificant to him. Jerreon started to descend the twelve levels. He had to reach Lysias before he entered the gateway, otherwise he would decimate a whole planet just to feed his ego and need to rule.

  Jerreon had made it down seven floors when a tingling sensation stirred across his mind. “No!” the cry escaped him, feeding his urgency.

  Lysias was activating the Syndais. Once the space-link was up to power, Lysias could enter the portal and he would be gone.

  Jerreon leapt five stairs to the next landing and spun, taking the next several levels in similar fashion.

  Reaching the final level, a flash of blue light speared out the round window high in the doorway in front of him. The space-link was almost up to power. It could be opened in just a couple of ticks. He sprinted to the door and swiped his hand over the access panel when it failed to open at his approach. There was no response when he tried to activate it, which should have been impossible. His position as Council Guardian gave him override access to all systems.

  Not pausing, Jerreon rushed to the maintenance room just across the hall and grabbed a heavy lift-bar that hung on the wall with an array of other tools. At the door, he put in his access code and rammed the pointed end of the bar into the edge of the opening. He leaned his weight onto the rod, while applying pressure with his mind. For a moment, the door held then with a loud pop and a groan, the door slid open.

  Jerreon ducked just in time to avoid the chair that smashed into the edge of the door at his head height as he sprang through the doorway. Jerreon swung the bar up to connect with the chair as Lysias brought it back around for another strike. The percussion jarred the lift bar from his hands as Lysias lost hold of the chair.

  Jerreon didn’t slow. Arms out wide, he leapt over the chair, tackling Lysias. Both men went down, each locking on the other in a power struggle.

  Lysias dug his fingers into Jerreon’s neck in an effort to cut off his air. Jerreon thrust his arms up breaking the hold then rammed his fist in Lysias’s chin. Lysias fell back against a workstation, but didn’t stay down. He rolled to his feet, grabbed an instrument from the table and threw it. Jerreon, who barely made it to his feet, got his arm up in time to take the blow, blocking part of it with a mental shield.

  Lysias attacked, hitting Jerreon low, smashing him back against a control panel. Once again Lysias’s hands went to Jerreon’s neck.

  “I should have killed you when you first started getting into my business.” Lysias’s voice growled with rage as he leaned in to add more pressure. “You thought you could actually stop me. You just showed me my true destiny.” He bore down. “Why rule our world when I can be a god on another?” Mad fury burned in his face.

  Jerreon rammed one fist into Lysias’ side, while swinging his other hand up catching him in the side of the head. Lysias staggered back releasing him. Jerreon swung again catching Lysias in a glancing blow but continued to whip around, bringing his foot up. The kick connected solidly with the man’s side.

  Lysias hissed out in pain as he spun to counter the move. Jerreon dodged back then came in landing another blow. Lysias had him by a couple years, but they were equally matched in height, build and strength. Mental strength they were even also. They were both top levels.

  Jerreon felt a shift in the air around him and turned just in time to block a heavy scanner that sailed across the room directly at his head. He spun back ready to meet Lysias’s next attack but the man was across the floor, making a dash for the Syndais, the center of which now looked like a luminescent, pale-blue cone.

  Lysias snatched a shoulder-pack from a table as he ran past. Jerreon ran after him, making a leapt to reach Lysias before he reached the portal. Lysias saw him coming and swung the pack out and caught Jerreon in the side of the head. Jerreon went down but managed to grab the pack, yanking Lysias back. The man turned on him, kicking out, catching Jerreon in the shoulder.

  Jerreon grunted in pain but didn’t release the strap he held in one hand while he grappled trying to grab Lysias’s leg with his other.

  Lysias kicked again then released the pack, stumbling back. He dove for the portal, snagging an energy-control crystal from the panel by the opening.

  Jerreon sprang for him locking one hand over Lysias’s hand that held the crystal. He slammed Lysias’s hand against the side of the portal repeatedly to force him to release the crystal, while locking his other hand onto Lysias’s shirt in an effort to pull him back.

  Lysias shoved his free hand up in Jerreon’s face, forcing his head up. Groans exploded from both men. Lysias drove his fist into Jerreon’s side.

  Muscles tensed, Jerreon took the blow as he hauled Lysias away from the opening, gaining the advantage until his foot came down on the discarded pack which slipped out from under him on the highly polished floor. Lysias struck out. His fist caught Jerreon in only a glancing blow, but already off balance, it was enough to tumble him back against the control panel. Jerreon lost his hold.

  Lysias twisted away, diving for the portal.

  Jerreon made a grab for Lysias but missed. In one last effort, Jerreon reached out with his mind as Lysias stepped into the Syndais. He fixed on the crystal still locked in the man’s hand.

  Power surged from the crystal, the portal and Lysias. Energy swirled in the air, filling the room. Jerreon tried to draw the crystal to him as Lysias willed it the other way.

  A sharp crack split the air. Light flashed as the crystal splintered. Caught by the percussion waves that rippled out, Jerreon fell back, helpless, to watch as Lysias was pulled into the blue mist and slipped away. Anguish flooded through him. He’d failed. Lysias was gone. His last image of him was of the man reaching for the fragments of the crystal that had split apart.

  Jerreon expected the portal to wink closed any second without the crystal to stabilize it, but the pale-blue glowed steadily in front of him. It took him a moment to realize the space-link remained open. Energy surged in the room. Jerreon made it to his feet, stepping closer to the portal. He felt the draw from within.

  A slight quiver of movement flashed on the floor, catching his attention. Jerreon snatched up a splintered piece of crystal before it could be pulled into the portal in space. He understood immediately what the shard meant. The small piece that wasn’t even half the size of his finger was holding open the link between it and its other parts, and he could use it to track Lysias.

  A noise behind him had Jerreon spinning to confront the two men and one woman that rushed into the room.

  “Lysias?” Anakale asked.

  “He made it through. I failed to stop him.” Jerreon looked down at the crystal in his hand. He clenched his jaw.

  “You all right?” Anakale took a step forward and laid a hand on his arm.

  Jerreon nodded.

  “You tried. That’s all you could do,” his friend soothed.

  Jerreon pushed energy into the crystal and let it flow through him, bringing with it a certainty. “No. It’s not all I can do.”

  “What?”

  Jerreon raised his gaze to meet his friend. “I’m going after him.”

  Anakale was already shaking his head. “You cannot.”

  “What I cannot do is leave him loose on Earth. Think what he could do to their planet, their civilization. We cannot allow that to happen. I cannot.” He turned to the two people taking readings at the control panel. “Do not close it down,” he ordered firmly.

  Gargeli, the head of the Syndais team, looked up in surprised. “We need to. The link is not very stable. It is drawing power from the universe.”

  “I’m going through.” Jerreon stepped toward the portal.

  The silver-haired man held up a ha
nd, halting him. “I cannot allow that without authorization. It is forbidden. You know that, and even you cannot supersede it.”

  Jerreon did know, but he also knew what he had to do. “Can you keep it open?”

  Gargeli looked at him, then back to his reading. He nodded. “Not for long. It needs to be shut down. The opening was not executed properly. It could cause power rifts on both planets if we leave it open too long.”

  Jerreon activated the communication link on his wrist, calling up a direct link to Hyperian, the Chief Council. After a moment of no answer, he tried again, then switched to Esteve, Council Second. “Jerreon Ander to High Council. Need immediate response.”

  “This is Esteve. Where are you?” the Councilman answered.

  “The Syndais chamber. Ptolemaios has gone through. I request authorization to go after him. To stop him,” he added at the end, clarifying his intent.

  There was a pause. Finally, Esteve’s voice came back. “Hyperian was injured. Two of the Council have been killed.”

  The words hit heavy in Jerreon’s heart.

  “There are only eighteen of the Council left here,” Esteve said. “The others have been taken for healing along with Hyperian.”

  Jerreon understood what he was saying. It would take all those there to vote in favor for the three-fourths vote needed to give authorization, not that he was going to let it stop him. Still, he would rather have his actions sanctioned, because it was clear what his going after Lysias meant. Stop him, as in end his life. Jerreon also figured Gargeli would try to stop him without authorization, and Jerreon didn’t want to harm the man.

  “There is still much turmoil here, but I’m calling them together for a vote.”

  “There is not much time,” Jerreon stressed.

  “Understood.”

  Jerreon glanced at Gargeli and the tech working over the monitor, then looked at the portal. It still glowed, but Jerreon thought he saw a slight shift in the color. Urgency built in him.