Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller

by Brandon Ellis

  Immediately, Jaxx fell, slumping to the floor.

  “Wait. Stand back up,” yelled Fox.

  Jaxx didn’t move, didn’t lift off the ground, didn’t flinch.

  Fox took heavy steps toward Jaxx. “I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”

  Jaxx, on the other hand, was regaining his energy. The Chi ran through him like water into a tree’s roots. He stood and took a few steps and thrust his palm on Fox’s chest.

  Fox went to bat it away. He yelped and jerked, lifted off of his feet, and was thrown into the air. He dropped to the floor, the back of his head conking on the grass.

  Fox lifted his head, then dropped it back down, too weak, too concussed to get up.

  “Don’t do that again, Fox,” growled Jaxx. He strolled to Fox and grabbed his arm, dragging him toward one of the Mez Beds. He lifted him up with a grunt and dropped him on the bed. He put the strange ear muffs on his newfound brother.

  39

  J-Quadrant, Solar System - Flood of Dawn, Callisto

  Fox shook violently on the Mez bed, then relaxed, his eyes shutting, instantly going into REM mode. He was too weak to move. He’d hit his head hard and everything was a blur, accompanied with a streaking pain around his skull. He thought he must have cracked his lower occiput, where the back of his head met his neck, and blood most likely oozed into a puddle around his head, soon to be dripping on the floor. Yet, no warmth or wetness soaked his upper neck. Meh, who cared. He wanted to shrug it off, he’d been through worse. The problem was; his weakness had him in a strange type of paralysis; no shrugging, no kicking Jaxx’s ass, only breathing.

  Jaxx placed the ear-muffs over Fox’s head and around his ears. That bastard. What the hell was Jaxx doing? Before Fox could call Jaxx as many names as letters in the alphabet, a shot of lightning coursed through him, his hands immediately succumbing to numbness, his arms tingling, his chest vibrating.

  Fox shook. His shoulders beat against the Mez Bed like a jack hammer. Then it stopped. His body calmed. His eyes shot wide and his blurriness faded.

  Then blackness over took. And his consciousness moved forward, traveling at an incredible velocity, heading toward an electric-blue vortex, spiraling in front of him, coming closer, closer.

  Quiet.

  Chirping.

  Birds.

  The wind blew across pine trees creating a sound similar to a distant ocean.

  He opened his eyes.

  He stood outside a dropship, his team fanning out across a hillside on planet Taiyo, the cottony puffs and feathery needles born on dense clusters on woody, stout pegged trees blew in the wind, their large barrel shaped red cones stuck up above the branches.

  The cones. If he just sniffed the cones for days and days, it would open up his glands, would open up his inner powers hidden in his DNA.

  He shrugged away the nonsense penetrating his mind and gathered himself. If he remembered correctly, he was at the last of the Taiyonian invasion, back to snatch Jaxx away from these soulless enemies. Jaxx had betrayed him, had betrayed everyone, and snuck over to the other side. There would be no pity for Jaxx, only justice.

  How could this be? This was a memory, one that was real, happening at this very moment. He was trapped in his body, his movements and thoughts the same as the day this really occurred—during the punch in and punch out operation to extract Jaxx. He couldn’t change the memory, he couldn’t rewrite this operation’s mistakes. Or his mistakes. He couldn’t save his compatriots when they needed him. He couldn’t kill the asshole who caused it all.

  “The fucking traitor,” mumbled Fox, the same mumble he had at the same exact time and moment it first came—during this operation at the base of a hill full of green and gold ferns, black rock, and small patches of white shrubbery.

  “What was that, Sarge?” asked Barnes, a Special Agent Space Marine, S.A.S.M., for short. They were the S.E.A.L.’s of space, under the same branch, under the same types of rigorous missions, though more dangerous, more deadly. The black void of space was a different monster.

  “Nothing, S.A. Barnes, continue to fan out. The Taiyonians know we’re here. They wiped out our last effort to gather Jaxx, so let’s not get burned twice by the same flame.” He hated it when he used cliché statements, but they worked.

  He looked over his S.A.S.M. team, all fifty yards from each other, some crouched behind boulders, others trees. They were surveying the area, using their combat ready full-face helmets equipped with a heads-up display to detect any approaching enemy, air or ground. They wore striated-ebb nebula titanium exo-suits, weapons magnetized to a thin metal plate on their backs.

  An S.A.S.M. team consisted of seven. This one was no exception. That’s all they ever needed to carry out a successful mission, barring the last team that arrived yesterday. All dead, all massacred, just to retrieve this piece of shit named Jaxx.

  Fox wasn’t going to make the same mistake as the last S.A.S.M. team.

  He held his PR-8 in his hands, and an PSR-110, a long-barreled plasma sniper rifle, was magnetized to the back of his exo-suit. He scanned the area, his helmet bringing up an advanced scouting infrared Optical Rival Reader, ORR, able to sweep the area and detect...everything.

  No Taiyonian was within 2.3 radius miles, the farthest the ORR capabilities could reach, though his helmet’s sound detection was picking up the air battle even farther away.

  Good.

  The Secret Space Program was creating havoc, interrupting the Taiyonian military capabilities on all levels.

  His team climbed and crested the hill quickly, allowing themselves a space of no more than fifty yards from one another, a ghost tactic. If an S.A.S.M. team member was fired upon, they could easily locate the enemy and surround, ending the targets before they ever knew what hit them. Another cliché. He rolled his eyes.

  S.A.S.M. exo-suits were fast, acting like the Yivix race Mechs of the inner galaxy. They could jump far, carry a hundred times their weight, and take on ample amounts of punishment from cannon fire from just about any extraterrestrial technology out there.

  And all this shit, this S.A.S.M. extraction team, for one man; Jaxx.

  Fox shook his head, disappointed.

  Yet, there was this pull, this connection that he never understood—a tie between him and Jaxx that he couldn’t wait to cut in half.

  The S.A.S.M. team stood atop the hill, studying the surrounding area. Nothing but miles and miles of foreign forest lay before them with a vast city tucked in front of a snow-capped mountain range. The city was their target, as that was the presumed whereabouts of Jaxx, where the last S.A.S.M. team located Defector Jaxx before things went wrong.

  They at least left the Secret Space Program with a map of their trek and findings. It had been conveniently downloaded into each of Fox’s team’s suits.

  God he wished he could just put a bullet in Jaxx’s head. Those weren’t his orders. Too bad.

  “Alive and well,” were the orders from Admiral Gentry Race.

  His stomach twirled at the thought of Jaxx getting hurt in any way; as if he was betraying a son or a friend or kin. His stomach never cared about death, mutilation, or straight up murder. His mind knew what was right—to end Jaxx. His body wasn’t complying, drawing jitters upon jitters against his mind’s motives. He’d have to get a good, long vacation when he returned to Star Warden.

  His scanner beeped. Men—Taiyonians—were coming in hordes from the northeast.

  “Team S.A.S.M. Seven, this is team leader Bravo, dismounted movement northeast, coordinates nine-nine-four. Estimated company, the ORR counts two hundred and eighteen units heading in our direction, over.”

  “Positive. I have the read as well,” said S.A. Marley, second in command behind Fox. “Orders?”

  Fox pulled his sniper rifle from the back of his exo-suit and slapped his plasma rifle in its place, magnetizing it. “I’m going to tag a couple.” Which meant he’d down them, killing them, doing what he did best. “S.A. Gainer, follow suit. Let’s ma
ke ORR count less units on recall.”

  An S.A.S.M. team always carried two snipers, three heavy particle cannon soldiers, always using HPC-11-Rapid Fires small cannons that hung slack by a strap on each of the three designated member’s shoulders that when pulling the trigger could spark up an entire forest, creating an inferno if needed, and if a forest wasn’t near, they’d spark up whatever was in their way. Lastly, two soldiers in a S.A.S.M. team carried shock pirate guns, or in other words, grenade launchers that weren’t accurate, but always packed a punch.

  “S.A. Gainer, get in position and I’ll do the same.” Fox took a spot on the ground and lowered his sniper rifle’s bipod to the ground, stabilizing his rifle, then eyed through the rifle’s scope, sliding his finger a feather width from the trigger. He switched the scope to optic infrared, a better way to track, seek, and find an enemy. The scope automatically positioned the gun to the closest target, closing in on 1.9 miles away. A long shot, but doable. That wasn’t his target, though. He needed to shoot at the back of the pack, slowly picking one target off then the other before the rest of the force knew what was happening. If he hit the front, they’d all see and duck for cover immediately. Always a rookie move.

  The scope labeled each target by number count and corrected the line of fire in response to the planet’s current temperature and wind flow, making the pull of the trigger the only stress for a space marine sniper.

  Fox’s scope indicated the last enemy soldier in range as ET Target 218.

  “Turn tracer fire off,” Fox told Gainer.

  “Tracer fire off, Sir. ET Target 217, locked.”

  Fox kept his eye on his target. “218, locked.”

  “Fire.” He pulled the trigger. On the optic scope’s infrared view, the Taiyonian warrior—his target—fell to the ground and lay motionless. “218 down.” He shifted his rifle. “ET Target 216, locked.”

  “Fire,” said Gainer. “217 down. ET Target 215, locked,” replied Gainer.

  “Fire.”

  “Fire.”

  The triggers pulled, another warrior down and then another.

  Fox shifted his rifle an inch to the left. “Target 214, locked.”

  “Target 213, locked.”

  “Fire.”

  “Fire.”

  A pause.

  “What the fuck?” came Gainer.

  Fox crinkled his forehead. His eyebrow rose. The targets stopped, froze in place, then continued trudging forward. “We missed. Target 214, locked.”

  “213, locked.”

  “Fire.”

  “Fire.”

  “Missed again?” asked Gainer.

  “What’s going on, Sarge?” inquired Marley.

  Fox checked his scope. “Targets were hit. Twice. I don’t...” he hesitated. “Hold on.” He pulled up his scope’s camera, watching the replay of his last target. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except that the soldier didn’t fall, didn’t die. He slowed the camera down, viewing the replay once again. Just before his plasma bolt hit ET Target 214, the Taiyonian brought his arm up and a hazy shield popped up out of nowhere, absorbing the shot, then the shield disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  These infantrymen were fast. And they had shield technology embedded in them.

  “Fall back,” Fox said.

  “Falling back, Sir,” responded Marley.

  Fox stood and rushed down the hill, watching his helmet’s view screen indicators. His men were angling off, fifty yards from the next person, some fifty-one yards from the other, but no one was perfect. “Marley, take S.A. Jenson and S.A. Lewis to coordinates seven-seven-three and await my orders.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  They detached from the team, heading northwest.

  “The rest of you,” called Fox. “Follow my—”

  A blast kicked up in front of him, lifting him off his feet and somersaulting him in the air. He landed on his back in a skid and took out large clumps of dirt and rocks. He spun and kicked his leg out at a thin tree and toppled it over.

  He cringed as he hit a boulder, bringing him to a halt. He went to stand but a heavy foot slammed against his chest, smashing him back to the earth. His helmet’s heads up display went static for a moment, then faded to black only to blink on an instant later, all infrared off and normal view in its place.

  A man wearing a jump suit with Secret Space Program—SSP—symbols where a right shirt pocket would be, loomed over him with a phaser in his hand, pointing it directly at Fox. He was surrounded by dozens of Asian-looking people wearing black pants and blue coats that flared into capes, lined in red. What looked to be technologically advanced bow and arrows were strapped to their backs.

  “Don’t move, Fox.”

  A tug pulled at Fox’s heart and he squinted, not knowing what that tug meant or why it came. It happened every so often when he was around Jaxx, and it happened again.

  Jaxx bent down, compassion in his eyes. “You hate me. I don’t care. I’m not going to harm you and I’ve convinced my friends not to harm you either. Your men, on the other hand...they can’t know about the red cones. They can’t know what you and I know about them. Your friends have to be eliminated.”

  40

  J-Quadrant, Solar System - Flood of Dawn, Callisto

  Fox moaned on the table, then twitched. His eyes were closed but moving rapidly as if watching a montage of action. Or, as Jaxx remembered from the hypnotherapy sessions with Dr. Donny, Fox was probably very much inside the action, experiencing it as if it was happening now.

  A strange pull invited Jaxx closer to Fox like a moth to a flame, generating a pulsing heat at his heart. He took a step forward, his mind wandering, wanting to know what Fox was seeing. Yet, how did he know Fox was experiencing a past memory?

  He took another step, his hand shaking as he lifted it over Fox’s chest. Like a positively charged magnet to a negatively charged one, Jaxx’s hand landed on Fox’s chest as if an extra-strength vacuum was on high, practically welding his hand in place.

  He tugged back, but his hand didn’t budge. He leaned to the side, gritting his teeth, pulling with all his might, but it was as if his hand was attached to Fox’s chest with extra-strength super glue. It wouldn’t move.

  Jaxx stiffened and unconsciously stood on his toes, his veins nearly popping out of his skin, a flash of electricity blasting through him. He opened his mouth, wanting to yell, to scream from the pain consuming him. But silence. His voice was gone, inactive.

  A sharp breeze sung into his ears and he closed his eyes, only to open them a second later. He held a phaser, aiming it at Fox, his foot on Fox’s exo-suit, the Chi-like power racing through every cell of his body.

  He was strong and in control. “Leave, now.”

  Fox slowly shook his head, his external speakers on full. “My men are coming. Enjoy your last few breaths.”

  Jjjakhoo! Jjjakhoo! Jjjakhoo!

  HPC-11-Rapid Fires small cannons from Fox’s team, let loose a hail storm into the air and toward Jaxx’s tree-covered position. For a moment, silence, and then a flock of flying creatures screeched and fled from the treetops as the deathly quiet turned into whistling particle charges heading in fast.

  Jaxx went to one knee, his other foot still on Fox’s chest and placed his hand toward the incoming cannon fire, switching on an energy shield from a gold cuff on his forearm.

  An explosion rocked Jaxx’s friends into him from the eruption against their shields. A plume of energy sucked in like a wind. It attempted to grab them and expose them to the incoming S.A.S.M. team. Then another hit and another.

  A few shields malfunctioned, turning off, leaving two Taiyonians defenseless. They brought their bow like weapons up, firing one photon tipped arrow after another in rapid succession. They bounced off the incoming S.A.S.M. team’s exo-suits like sticks against a cement wall.

  The S.A.S.M. team was fast, well-trained, and spread out. The closest soldier unclasped his PR-8 from his back and zipped two quick shots at the two Taiyonians, landing
with deadly accuracy. The two flopped to the ground, dead.

  More incoming fire and the rest of Jaxx’s small company held strong, their shields energized around them, allowing them to release bow shot after bow shot, temporarily halting the advancing S.A.S.M.’s.

  Jaxx looked down, seeing the moss-like grass at his feet, a few red pinecones on the ground, but no Fox. A moment ago he had his foot on Fox’s chest. How did he not feel the guy’s escape? A few trees jostled a short ways to the west.

  “Mako-zan, Kiyo-zan,” he motioned toward two warriors in his group. “Fox is heading west. We need to stop him before he actually understands what to do with the red cones.”

  They detached from the rest of the group, moving swiftly through the forest, jumping over broken limbs and downed trees.

  Jaxx stopped, stretching his arms out wide. “Divert!” The Taiyonian war against the Kelhoon and the Secret Space Program had been intense and the surrounding nature had taken the brunt of it all, including what was right in front of them; a roaring forest fire.

  “Call in Zan-Ops. We need to get this fire contained,” ordered Jaxx.

  Kiyo-zan lifted his wrist cuff to his mouth. “Sozoko mozi no kazai. Fukuma rete kudazai.”

  Mako-zan pointed his long arm to the east, his tall seven-three foot frame in a defensive crouch. “Fox-zan, azuma!”

  Strangely, he felt Fox and knew they guy changed direction and headed east, racing away from the fire.

  Jaxx tapped on his forearm cuff, bringing up a map of the terrain surrounding them, seeing a mass of infantry circling in on the S.A.S.M. team. “Kasai Company closing in. Do we have air support?”

  Mako-zan nodded. “Watashizachi za dekiru kaziri ozu.”