Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller

by Brandon Ellis

  Kaden Jaxx, her piece of shit hero wannabe. The son-of-a-bitch who had a magnetic pull to her heart so strong she wanted to pull a PR-8’s trigger and unload a magazine in his face.

  I have issues.

  Her mind raced and her shoulder ached. The wet drip of blood slid down her back. Should she help Jaxx? Leave him be? Was he really a sellout or had he just saved her? The oncoming mess of guards made her decision easy and made the decision easy for Jaxx, too. He dropped the guard and raced after Rivkah.

  Now he’s coming after me?

  She picked up her pace, quickly approaching an SF-13 Air Wing. Up the ladder, she plopped into the cockpit and started the starfighter’s engine, the vibration of the craft making her smile. “I’m back you mother-fuckers.”

  She clicked the comm line. She gave her best male voice. “Pilot 102, call sign Dizzy, ready for take off.”

  Static filled her helmet.

  “This is Dizzy. Open launch tubes. I’m ready to fly out of here.”

  “Dizzy, that’s a negative. We have a situation on the tarmac. Hold your position.”

  She’d have to go to her old tricks. If she could, she’d just blast her way out, but she could tell the starship’s armor was too dense for her plasma cannons. If she punched a few missiles through the launch tubes, then Jaxx would bite the big one.

  She wondered if Jaxx was doing alright, then pushed the thought out of her mind as quickly as it came.

  She drove her starfighter forward, heading for a launch tube. “Asking for an Admiral’s Bell.”

  Rarely used, an admiral always had a green light to leave a ship whenever necessary. In case of special emergencies, used on rarer occasions, a pilot could ask for the Admiral’s Bell and get a green light to enter a launch tube and leave the carrier or starship or cruiser. On even rarer occasions, it was actually approved.

  “For what reason, 102?”

  Rivkah pushed out her lower lip, inching her craft closer to the launch tube. “Hotel Sierra. I don’t want a nuclear mess right now. I’m carrying highly flammable experimental propulsion. I’m under orders from Colonel Slade Roberson and President Craig Martelle.” Hotel Sierra essentially meant, “Holy shit. I’m being targeted. Get me out of this mess.”

  “Just a moment.”

  She was just a few feet from the tube and mission control was most likely asking for Slade’s or Craig’s permission to execute an Admiral’s Bell. When they’d get no answer, mission control would have to make an executive decision. She knew Slade and Craig wouldn’t be easy to get in touch with, so maybe she had a shot at this.

  “Uh...affirmative, 102. Tube opening.”

  Two strokes of luck in one day? She wanted to flip her father the bird, but she wasn’t out of this mess yet.

  She entered the tube and the tube door closed behind her. Amber runway lights highlighted her cockpit. The exit doors opened and displayed the stars of the universe before her, a beauty she would never get used to. She floated into her restraints, the gravity nil and she was weightless. She clicked to her Air Wing’s holographic display and pressed the launch button. Her boosters pushed her toward the exit. The tube’s lining zipped past her as she accelerated.

  Mission Control hissed in her ear. “Closing tubes. You’re conducting an unauthorized launch. You’re not Dizzy. Identify yourself.”

  She bared her teeth as the tube’s exit doors started to close. She zipped her finger over the holographic throttle, pushing it to the max. It made a safe launch dangerous and potentially deadly. Her craft shuttered as her wing slid across the tube, scraping off chunks of paint and shards of metal. The door was closing fast. She wasn’t going to make it.

  She tensed and held her breath. She pushed her feet into the floor board. She wasn’t going to make it, so she had to risk the insane.

  She clicked on her Space to Space Short Range Missiles—SSSRM-23 Slingers—and targeted the exit door, and let one loose. The Air Wing shuddered. A blue streak of fire shot out the back of the missile, propelling toward the end of the tube. A ball of bluish-white flames ignited the moment of impact. The door ripped off its hinges and spiraled into space. The flame died in the vacuum of the cosmos a moment later as Rivkah exited the tube, banking hard right. She knew the starship would fire the moment she came into their sights.

  And she was right.

  The Air Wing’s targeting alarm blared and her HUD indicated incoming fire. The starship’s plasma cannons spun in place and the turrets moved in position. From rear cam view, Rivkah saw approaching plasma bolts.

  She pulled the control stick in one direction and then another, and zig-zagged. She shoved the stick to one side and spiraled. The bolts missed on her starboard and traveled toward the red planet in the distance.

  The target lock alerts ceased. She scrunched her nose and brought up her HUD. Was there a malfunction? Had a bolt caught a sensor and warped it?

  No. The starship stopped firing.

  Why?

  Her answer came an instant later. A Star Carrier jumped from God-knows-where to right in her flight trajectory. She pulled back on her control stick and avoided a head-on collision. A destroyer popped into existence, then a cruiser, two frigates, and a patrol ship. And one by one, more of an SSP fleet jumped into the quadrant.

  She veered left, then pushed her stick forward, going into a quick dive, adjusting her throttle to sub-light .30. Once out of collision-factor, she’d adjust to sub-light 2.5 and hightail the hell out of Dodge. If her Air Wing had the Alcubierre Metric like the larger ships, a solution to Einstein’s field equations, then the Metric would allow her craft to create an artificial wormhole that lasted only seconds before closing in on itself. This would allow her to traverse enormous distances by contracting space in front of her craft and expanding space behind it, resulting in faster-than-light travel. It would place her far from here.

  But her ship didn’t possess the large propulsion system. She’d have to do it the old-fashioned way and fly as far and as fast as she could.

  A ship appeared on her helmet display. Another SF-13 Air Wing had exited the Starship Atlantis. It flew in her direction.

  “Just one?”

  She expected an entire squadron. One starfighter against her would be suicide—for the other pilot.

  Another ship shot from the starship.

  Yep. They were sending more. And more.

  “Put up or shut up,” she said. “It’s show time.”

  26

  M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis

  She left, rocketing out of the launch tube. Jaxx had saved her again and she wouldn’t care, or wouldn’t know. The alarms were blaring and the lights in the launch bay blinked red and yellow. Jaxx punched a guard one more time before he realized he’d spent too much time with this young man. He managed to spin away from an incoming soldier and put his foot out, tripping the camo-loving, taking-orders-from-the-wrong-side grunt. The guy landed face first and tumbled to his side.

  Guards rushed past the launch bay doors, coming directly for Jaxx. A special agent, wearing a striated-ebb nebula titanium exo-suit, the most bad ass in the Secret Space Program—Jaxx didn’t know how he knew the specifications of the suit—limped inside the bay. The agent’s hand went to his exo-suit at where his belly button would be. Whoever was inside that suit looked in bad shape and Jaxx hadn’t even faced the man yet.

  Jaxx ducked another attempt by the grunt he’d tripped and kneed the guy in the groin. The grunt dropped to the floor. He then brought every emotion to the surface, every inch of disappointment, anger, frustration—the times he was ridiculed for his work by people who hadn’t studied or took the time to read more than a few paragraphs of his massively researched articles, books, and talks…

  The power coursed through his veins, stronger than before, stronger than ever. Then a calm and peace overtook him and his body relaxed. He stood straighter and focused, eyes on the target—the staggering agent in the exo-suit. The agent grabbed at a rifle magnetized
to his exo-suit’s back.

  Jaxx bared his teeth. He narrowed his eyes and pushed outwards with his hands, palms up, as if balls of energy would actually shoot from his hands. He watched the invisible ball smack into the titanium-wearing space marine. It then catapulted the agent into a throng of oncoming soldiers.

  With his adrenaline pumping, Jaxx looked at his hands. “What in the world?” He could get use to this, but each time something like this occurred, it spun him for a loop. Thinking it unwise to gawk any longer, Jaxx turned on his heels and rushed to an open cockpit Air Wing and climbed the ladder. He jumped onto the seat, quickly pressing the aircraft canopy’s close button.

  He searched for a helmet. It wasn’t there. Shit. That’s the only way Shaughnessy told him how to turn on the vortex Doppler system, Adaptive Boost, and get the frequency code dialed on the comm line and send it to the portal. He may need that.

  To live, he needed to escape. By now, they knew it was him and they wouldn’t open up a damn thing, not even an air duct, for him. If he blasted the tubes with some Slingers or AAIM-5 Darts, and it punched a hole in the ship or broke open a few of the tubes, he’d be sending hundreds of people who worked in the bay to an ultimate end—death by space.

  But ending this ship was his new goal.

  He clicked on the comm line, wishing he had his helmet with him. He could do everything he wanted without a helmet, but reaching for dials, levers, and holographic buttons may be the instant he needed to use voice commands to get himself out of a deadly dog fight.

  “Mission Control, open a launch tube.” He drove the Air Wing forward.

  “Negative. You’re unauthorized to launch.”

  “I’m blasting the shit out of the launch tubes if you don’t open one. That would compromise everyone in this bay, including you.”

  “You are not authorized. I’m ordered to shut down the entire bay. No one is coming in and no one is going out.”

  Jaxx clicked on the holographic AAIM-5 Dart icon, readying it for launch. “I have a Dart ready. You going to open up the tube, yet?”

  “Negative.”

  “It’s your funeral.” He aimed left, targeting the wall. It wouldn’t puncture, but it would leave a mighty explosion, and he was still far enough away that it wouldn’t damage his fighter.

  He wiped his forehead. He was sweating, profusely, his hand shaking. “Here goes.” He dropped his hand to the control stick, switched to plasma cannons, and pulled the trigger.

  Zoooshaaa! Bright flashes erupted from his port and starboard. Electric-blue bolts hit the wall several feet from a launch tube. The heat blanketed his cockpit. A reddish-orange light highlighted the bay, and he instinctively put his forearm up to guard his face.

  He turned his starfighter around and faced Mission Control. Dozens of officers and bay crew members pushed themselves to a standing position, eyes wide. Jaxx shifted his target to an Air Wing and let loose.

  Bolts, followed by red tracer fire, erupted against an empty Air Wing. The cockpit window tore from its fasteners, spinning to the ground. The shots split through the forward integral energy tanks, and the Air Wing buckled. The craft exploded and rocketed debris throughout the bay. What was left of the ship was in a blaze of fire.

  Guards dove and ducked, mechanics and techs ran out of the bay.

  He readied a missile. “Mission Control. I’m not shitting you. I’ll light you up.”

  No response. He looked around. The bay doors were closing and people rushed toward it and slid under the doors.

  He rotated his ship back around, facing the closed launch tubes. He had to get this right. If he broke open a launch tube, his Air Wing would be sucked out almost immediately. He’d have to guide the thing perfectly without damaging his wings—if he could get the hole big enough for a safe vacuum ride out.

  He readied his Darts and targeted two tubes. That wouldn’t be enough. He readied two SSSRM-23 Slingers to launch a split second after the Darts. Slingers were heavier, caused more damage, and would open up a large enough hole to get his butt off this ship.

  “Here’s for wishful thinking.” He pressed the trigger, one flame, then two shot from each wing. The missiles slammed into the tubes. A fire cloud flared then was quickly sucked into the dark void as space opened up before him. He didn’t have time to think. He pushed his throttle forward while being inhaled by the pull of the cosmos. He zipped through the opening with a myriad of unoccupied ships following him, spinning in the darkness of space.

  He cranked his control stick to avoid a Star Frigate. Out here, giant ships were everywhere and they weren’t the ones from Starship Atlantis’s launch bay. “What the hell? The SSP fleet?”

  He swung his Air Wing around to avoid another frigate flying too close to Starship Atlantis. A holy-shit Star Carrier brightened in the distance. He gulped. The Secret Space Program had entered the star quadrant. But it wouldn’t deter him. His mission? Kill Starship Atlantis and every last soul on the ship. It would stop a Solar System war which may lead to a galactic war.

  His cockpit blared with a beeping alert. He brought his eyes to the holographic display on his flight console. Starships bared down on him, most likely from the SSP fleet. Missiles fired. Twelve seconds to impact if he stayed where he was.

  He pulled away. It was him and Starship Atlantis, face to face. Then Atlantis pulled away as well, its afterburners sending blue flames out its stern. Jaxx pushed the throttle forward and accelerated, and then pushed the control stick down. A gasp flew past his lips as he narrowly avoided a frigate that moved closer to block his attempt to end Slade and his political allies.

  Six seconds and the missiles would hit. Without enough time to get to Starship Atlantis, he changed trajectory and hugged one side of the Frigate.

  Two seconds.

  One.

  He cranked the control stick and accelerated toward the frigate’s bow. The big lug of a ship dipped and shook. Blast after blast nailed its port side, Jaxx successfully using the ship as a shield.

  A pull came from his solar plexus and tugged at him. The pull was strong and almost caused him to lurch forward. Rivkah? He knew she was out here. And her thoughts were on him. She probably cursed his name for some damn thing he couldn’t remember he’d done in the past.

  A handful of starfighters approached. He took a fleeting glance at Starship Atlantis. It gained distance, and he’d be in a hot mess with Starfighters on his ass, not to mention other, larger craft if he attempted to blow the starship apart. It’d take more than a half a dozen passes, if not more to do the killing deed and who knew how many missiles and cannon blasts.

  He changed flight direction, and flew toward the middle of the newly arrived SSP fleet, though aimed his Air Wing toward Rivkah’s pull. He glanced at his radar and could see her craft’s signature. She headed away from the fleet. He needed her call sign and number for radio privacy. He tapped a few buttons on the flight console and targeted her craft—102, Identification: Dizzy.

  He glanced at his rear cam view screen and bit his lip. A few more SSP frigates surrounded Starship Atlantis. His plan was more than thwarted. Wiping the sweat off his face, Jaxx pushed more thrust in the Air Wing and headed toward the Star Carrier.

  With starfighters still on his tail, his erratic movements either kept their fingers from pulling the trigger or he was too close to the fleet’s ships.

  He pushed down on his control stick and guided his ship under the Star Carrier, then patched 102 into his comm line. “Rivkah, this is Jaxx. Do you copy? Clear.”

  The line came alive. “Watch your six.”

  His heart rose at the sound of her voice, then plummeted with her response. She was all business. She was as happy to hear his voice as a bird was to see a cat.

  “Rivkah, I’m going to steer you to a star portal. We’re getting out of here, but you have to turn around and head toward Mars.”

  “A what? And, no, not turning around. Have a good day. See you on the other side. Out.”

  “
Rivkah, listen to me. This is our only escape.”

  No response.

  “Rivkah!”

  Again, nothing.

  “Dammit.” He veered in her direction. He’d get her to the portal if he had to throw a line and hook and tug her along.

  He went to turn on Adaptive Boost. The problem was, he didn’t have a helmet to voice that command into the cockpit’s console. But, a button or a lever had to be somewhere.

  He leaned forward. The restraining straps stretched with him. Eyeing everything on the control panel, Jaxx whispered, “Where in star-piss is it?”

  Adaptive Boost was either invisible or he was blind to that specific button.

  A long beep and he clutched the control stick with both hands. His heart skipped a nervous beat. His craft shuttered and debris hit his cockpit window like a quick downpour of hail.

  He veered. And just in time. He dodged another small frigate. Those bastards were everywhere. “Rivkah, can you pull up Adaptive Boost and let me know where the star portal is? I need to know now.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jaxx.”

  His cockpit beeped. “What the—”

  Twenty incoming bandits—all Air Wings. And they weren’t there to escort him to the star portal.

  He throttled to sub-light 3.1 and pulled back on his control stick, positioning himself to fly in the middle of the fleet. This way, he could play cat and mouse, he the mouse, using the large fleet ships as cover. If he hugged a ship, the bandits wouldn’t fire.

  “Rivkah, I can get us out of here, but you have trust me. You’ll have a dozen bogeys on your butt if you don’t. And soon.”

  No reply.

  A dozen Air Wings broke from formation and headed for Rivkah. Yet, she didn’t alter her craft’s course.

  Jaxx zipped by a destroyer and inched as close to its armor as he could. Nine Air Wings, plus an Oospor Dropship, followed.

  “Rivkah, I’m heading for Mars. Hang a hard and wide loop and get as far from the bandits as possible. And, for God’s sakes, turn on your Doppler and send me the vortex coordinates.”