Atlantis Quadrilogy - Box Set

by Brandon Ellis

  “Well, where is our computer station? I heard you need help?”

  Shaughnessy motioned to a computer station. “Your throne, sire.”

  “Find anything interesting?”

  Shaughnessy shrugged and leaned in, whispering. “I just can’t figure out half the shit I’m supposed to figure out. I’m faking it the best I can, but you’re the only one I know who can get the majority of these hieroglyphs from sight to paper.” He pointed a finger at the screen, showing Jaxx an icon. “Click on that one.”

  Jaxx nodded. “Got it.” He clicked on the icon on the computer’s desktop and pulled up a glyph. “Where is this one located on Callisto?”

  “It’s one of the first taken. It was written on what we think is a landing pad of some kind, just north-east of Princess Leia. And since we haven’t had response from TECS IV satellite in a while, we’re trying to figure out older images we kind of tossed aside as can’t-understands, which is technical-speak for no-fucking-clue.” He checked to see if Colonel Slade was listening.

  The Colonel was looking out the window into deep space.

  “In a way, it’s a load off our backs to have their satellite down for a while. We don’t have to hurry through everything like we did when TECS IV was taking pictures daily and sending them to us. We’ve had more time to assemble glyphs and study them. There’s a series over here I…”

  Jaxx tapped the computer screen and gave a soft whistle to get Shaughnessy’s attention back to his question.

  Shaughnessy pushed his glasses farther up his nose, squinting. “Yeah, that’s what we think is a landing pad. It’s a big glyph, extending across the entire pad. There are a couple more pads on Callisto with the same hieroglyph.”

  Wings, or what might be glyphs of feathers, surrounded a six-pointed star that was etched in the middle of the landing pad. Carved inside the star were Atlantean symbols; an arch, a bird, and a bird inside a doorway, an ancient eye off to the left of that bird, along with three planets, which to Jaxx were clearly Earth, Mars and Jupiter. Next to Earth sat another smaller star with more hieroglyphs inside, also surrounded by feathers. Identical, albeit smaller stars, surrounded by feathers were spaced out directly between Earth and Mars, the third star right next to Mars’ magnetosphere. Three more identical hieroglyphs were positioned similarly between Mars and Jupiter, in the same type of configuration and distance.

  Jaxx frowned. He knew what he was looking at. He dropped his hands to his side, sighing. He didn’t know if it was a good idea to tell anyone. He’d only seen this once before, but on a pyramid-shaped granite piece found somewhere near the Great Pyramid of Giza and now tucked safely inside a museum that no one visited. Even if someone had stumbled into that museum, to get out of the heat and press of the Bazaar, and accidentally come upon that granite piece, they’d see no explanation of what it was, except the name, “The King’s Sarcophagus.”

  He pressed his finger on the screen, touching the glyph with the bird inside the doorway. “That’s not a doorway, by the way. That’s probably what’s screwing you up.”

  Shaughnessy squeezed his shoulders together. “Yeah… yeah. I… uh… didn’t even know it was a doorway, actually. I was just shooting for the moon with that, trying to impress Slade.”

  Jaxx looked up at him. “Don’t let him know you’re faking anything. He’ll shoot you on the spot.”

  Shaughnessy yanked his ear, clearly uncomfortable. He looked everywhere but at Jaxx. “I helped build the TECS IV satellite. I at least have that as some leverage – if I ever need it.”

  Jaxx nodded. Leverage would get Shaughnessy only so far with Slade. “Anyway, the hieroglyph of this doorway isn’t actually a doorway. It’s a hieroglyph of the sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid’s King’s chamber.” He studied it a second longer. “Usually, you see a person depicted inside the sarcophagus glyph. This, on the other hand, has a bird. A bird symbolizes flight.”

  He heard the note again, deep inside his chest. It was getting louder, more insistent. He closed his eyes in an attempt to ward off the spins. A word rose up, from the pit of his stomach. One single word. It was a word he’d thought about, dreamt about, written about, and taken hours and hours of ridicule for.

  That word was: portal.

  Jaxx broke out in a sweat. “Any computer with sophistication beyond these computers? One that can quickly map and detect vortex energy?”

  “The Lecturn,” said Shaugnessy.

  “Where is that?”

  “There are two. One on the bridge and one in the Admiral’s Quarters. I could ask Slade to let us use his for a moment.”

  Jaxx dismissed the idea. “No, no.” He didn’t want Slade to know that these were portals; ways to move from one galaxy to another, in nanoseconds. If anything, he wanted to delete the glyphs off the entire ship’s network, so Slade couldn’t get to Callisto any sooner. The guy was willing to take the entire United States government and all her top scientists, along with their families, to what was essentially the wild west. In space. Without confirming whether the “wild west” had breathable air.

  If there was a glitch or something wrong with any calculation or formula that went with the glyphs, and Jaxx didn’t know about it, he didn’t want Slade to blindly lead the ship into a star portal disaster, perhaps crashing them straight into an asteroid belt, or worse yet, a black hole.

  Another thread wound around his worry for the people of Earth. It was a worry for the Beings on Callisto. There had been no reports – either from the satellites or the ship President Martelle had deployed to Callisto ahead of them – of sentient life on Jupiter’s moon, but Jaxx was certain that Callisto was inhabited. Quietly, carefully, deliberately inhabited.

  By his people.

  Oh, shit. Not good. Not good at all. He was known for being “out there” and this would only confirm his colleagues’ suspicions.

  He shook himself. It must be the recycled air. They said the re-O2 was of the highest quality, but he’d been feeling lightheaded. And he’d forgotten breakfast, as he often did. There were a million and one explanations for the weird-ass thoughts and feelings he was having. None of which meant he knew jack-shit about an alien race living on Callisto.

  Jaxx sat at his station, pulling up another glyph. He needed to find the calculations and the right star-set that told him how to activate and use these star portals. And then he’d have to get into the Admiral Quarters…without Slade’s permission.

  Again, the note that entered his body and activated some latent learning system inside him, boomed through his brain. He looked back at the glyphs on his screen. He’d always had a knack for decoding them, but they were no longer symbols requiring translation. They were a language he understood, fluently. And, boom. There it was, the next image on the pyramid – an instructional ideogram. A snake, a DNA strand, a right triangle, and two knives, which meant frequency. Then, a backwards “L,” a lower case “j” with an oval dotting the “j,” and a slanted equal sign, all meaning numbers; 5, 100, 8.

  If Jaxx was correct, and he’d bet his right hand he was, the moment before entering the star portal, the comm line frequency in a ship had to be dialed to 51008.

  The ops door opened and a man in fatigues ran inside. “Colonel Slade Roberson.”

  Slade turned. “What it is?”

  The man took several quick steps toward Slade. They convened for a moment. Jaxx couldn’t hear them, but he knew instantly that Rivkah had broken out of her cell. He extended a chord of light from his center to hers and wrapped her in his protection. She was a stubborn person and tried to shake him off, but he wasn’t going to leave her unprotected while these jackals hunted her down.

  Slade ran into the corridor, the door sliding shut behind him.

  Jaxx looked at Shaughnessy. “Do you have a way to access the Admiral’s Quarters now?”

  “I do, but I don’t.”

  Jaxx knew what he meant. “Show me.”

  6

  Starship Atlantis ~ M-Quadrant, Solar Sy
stem

  She felt him lasso her heart. Buttmuncher. Was it longing? Did she miss him? No, she hated him. That turd, Kaden Jaxx, had gone through weeks of deep-regression, remembered all the shit they’d been through when they were up against the half-human, half-lizard freaks known as The Kelhoon, but still failed to offer up an apology. He could take his “chord of protection” and shove it up his backside.

  Rivkah ducked as Fox pulled the trigger, a stun ray zapping past her ear. The electric charge stung as it whizzed by. She rolled as another shot popped out of the IPR-8, missing her.

  She jumped to her feet.

  Another blast and she flipped, avoiding it, inching closer to Fox.

  The other men took aim but it didn’t matter. Rivkah was focused on the team’s focal point – Fox. He was standing in the middle of his team. She pulled up every emotion she had, then blasted it toward his solar plexus, flinging her hands outward as if throwing everything she had at him.

  She wasn’t surprised when Fox fell or when the men behind him tumbled backwards. She was getting used to her power; getting used to its ferocious energy, bending it to her every command.

  Rivkah jumped and kneed Fox in the chest, “Oomph!” She swiped the IPR from his hands and shot everyone in the chest, their bodies writhing and twitching, becoming temporarily paralyzed. She was disappointed that they weren’t real ion bolts leaving holes in their bodies.

  It just wasn’t the same.

  She dropped the IPR and pulled off Fox’s badge and flipped it over. There was an ID chip on the other side. It might come in handy. He reached for it and she quickly shoved his arm to the side, shocked that he was still awake. She smashed a blow against his chin with her free hand.

  He kicked her off and she tumbled, but righted herself and landed on her feet. He sprang to a defensive standing position and threw a wide, arcing punch, connecting and splitting her lip open. He immediately spun into a roundhouse kick and she jumped out of the way, the rush of the shoe slicing through the air, barely missing her.

  He has a little kick in him after all.

  Her heart pumped and skipped a beat, the strange power that Jaxx had given her coursed through her veins again. She screamed unintentionally, her muscles convulsing all at once, spasming out of her control. The lights above sparked and shattered, glass falling on top of her, electrical fire spitting around her.

  Fox covered his face and fell to the floor. He rolled to the side, bumping into one of his own downed men.

  Rivkah’s vision changed, seeing through Jaxx’s eyes. He was hacking through a corridor three stories up, bent on a mission of his own. The chord he’d created between the two of them had doubled and tripled in size. He was calling on the energy of the stars to rage through him and feed her need. He was with her, in this fight. She felt a sharp pull, a magnetic draw to him. She had to find him. In order to do so, she had to end this with Fox, and right now.

  Her vision changed back to her present location.

  Fox was standing, breathing heavily, his chin down, his eyes up.

  He wanted her out of his life, she could tell. She didn’t need to be psychic for that and he didn’t need to be psychic to know that Rivkah felt the same about him. They both meant business.

  He lowered his hands and glanced at his help. They were all down for the count. He grimaced. “Now, Rivkah. Calm down. We’re not going to hurt you. You’re on a starship and – ”

  She shot forward and jabbed him in the face, glancing his nose. “The hell you weren’t going to hurt me. You just tried to shoot me, asshole.”

  He wiped his nose with his thumb, rubbing the blood off on his shirt. “You know what? I’ve about had it with you.” He unsheathed a knife from his belt and held it out in front of him.

  “That’s going to backfire, Fox. I suggest you turn around and walk the other way.” She lowered her eyes, ready for the kill.

  He lunged forward, thrusting with his knife.

  Rivkah kicked low and away, avoiding the thrust, hitting him in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him. He dropped the knife and landed hard on the floor, gasping for breath.

  She heard heavy boots coming down the hallway. More soldiers on their way. She went for one of the IPR’s and snagged it into her hands. She backed up and ran around a corner, running as hard as she could until she eyed a door.

  The footsteps got louder. Men shouted orders. They’d come upon Fox and his men. He’d point in the direction she went.

  She waved Fox’s badge over a control panel next to the door. It opened, and she ducked inside. The door shut.

  She heard the elevator doors hiss open. A man pounded down the corridor towards Fox and his decimated crew. She closed her eyes and let her mind race after the newcomer. She knew his energy signature. He was a brute of a man: ambitious, bloody, not to be crossed.

  Colonel Slade Roberson.

  Fox paced the floor, hand on his shoulder radio communicator, barking orders. He let his finger off the device, curling his lip. “I’m done with her, Slade. No more experiments. I’m going to slit her throat if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Slade crossed his arms. “You’re done with her? I asked you to keep her in her goddamn room. Under your watch she has escaped every fucking time.”

  Fox flinched. “You can’t keep a wild animal caged, Slade. You need to put them down.” He touched his forehead. “One between the eyes.”

  Slade leaned in, eye to eye with Fox. He spoke slowly. “Listen to me and listen clearly. You lose her again, you lose your job. Understand?”

  Fox looked away. “Aye, Colonel.”

  Slade came closer, lips next to Fox’s ears. “And, Fox. Shoot to kill. But, most importantly, keep her brain intact.”

  Fox gave him an odd look, nodding.

  Slade pulled away. “We can at least experiment on Rivkah’s pineal gland and whatever else Doctor Donny had on his clipboard before he died.”

  Commotion came from down the hall and Fox pressed on his comm device. “What do we have?”

  “Sir, we are scouring the halls. We don’t have anything.”

  He rubbed his chin and pressed the comm device again. “We have a new order. Shoot to kill, but aim for the chest. We leave her brain in one piece.”

  His men fell into formation and fanned out across the floor.

  Rivkah opened her eyes and slid into a cooling duct, disappearing from view. They might want her glands or whatever, but they were going to have to catch her first. And no one catches a ghost.

  7

  Charlotte, North Carolina ~ Earth

  Jaxx’s nephew, and world-class journalist, Drew Avera watched the news, his unused bong in his hand. He’d been ready to take his first toke for several hours, but somehow never made it to that first, blissful hit. His bong just didn’t sing to him like it had before he’d been to Portland, Oregon; before he’d witnessed his mom’s murder.

  The world was split in two: there was “before” and there was “after.”

  And “after” sucked ass.

  It had been several days since the funeral. A funeral only a few Tanner Spring Assisted Living Facility employees cared to attend. Drew was the only family member there. No surprises there. His mother had cut herself off from her friends and whatever family they had left when she pulled her whole, “I am demented and don’t know my own ass from my elbow” routine.

  Drew tried to pin the murder on the actual murderers – the G-men who’d been hovering around his mom since the whole “government evacuating to Callisto” debacle had kicked off – but without a working government, and the country in panic-mode and soon-to-be-holy-shit-chaos, he knew nothing would come of it. He’d have to wallow in his anger, exact justice on his own. He’d cracked the so-called “evacuation” story and he knew damned well he could crack the mystery surrounding his mother’s murder.

  Who wanted her dead was simple: his no-good, shit-for brains father: Colonel Slade Roberson. But why? The woman had spent the better part of 30
years faking her own dementia, to stay off Slade’s radar. She’d only stepped up to help Drew out of a jam. He hung his head. No matter how he spun it, her death was on his hands. He reached for his lighter, packed the Mellow Kiss-kush into the bowl and settled in for a bong night.

  He leaned back against his sofa, papers strewn on the floor and coffee table. He wasn’t relaxed though, half-watching a replay of a rocket carrying the last of the government personnel off Earth soil and to the stars.

  Why is the military just standing idly by? Shoot those bastards out of the sky.

  In truth, what could you do? What could the military do? Could NASA stop them? Maybe NASA was part of the entire United States government evacuation in the first place?

  He took another hit. He needed to get his brain to stop spinning and his nerves firing in all directions.

  World News Networks’ Connor Eves, was on the tube. His white teeth shone, though his eyelids were crinkled in worry and swollen with little sleep. “That was rocket two-hundred and twenty-two on our count. It left Earth’s atmosphere four days ago, being the last in our ongoing story of Event Hightail.” He looked down and squeezed the ridge of his nose. “In the words of so many famous journalists and reporters, may God help us now.”

  It went to commercial.

  That was a little dramatic, thought Drew. Why aren’t I being more dramatic?

  He took a long, leisurely bong hit, easing up the ball of anger growing in his heart.

  He was perspiring, not from the shock of the day, of the week, or a month of nearly being killed on several occasions, or watching the news, or his mother dying. It was another record heat day.

  Maybe there is something to this global warming thing.

  Yes, it was getting hotter. No, it couldn’t only be because of humans’ atrocities with the environment and fossil fuel addiction. Or, could it? It’s not as if the United States government stuck around to find out. They left. No warning. No public announcement other than letters. And no help for the rest left behind.