Yu nodded and walked out of the room.
Drew sat on the bed, rubbing his chest. “What the hell, Anderle?” Mya was crouched in a corner, eyes closed, shaking.
Anderle held out his arms as if to hug her. Like that was going to happen.
“Get your hands off of her,” Drew hurried to her and picked her up and sat her on the mattress next to him. In his arms, she sobbed and called for her mommy.
Drew rocked her. Mommy wasn’t here. And never would be again. On the travel from the North Carolina to Tennessee, her mother didn’t make it.
He couldn’t find the words. Mommy died, mowed down by gun fire, in a car dealership of all places. He’d hidden the truth from Mya as they hiked across the country, searching for safe haven. The world was no place for a little girl. Not with the riots and looting, the food shortages and murder. He’d brought her to Lookout Mountain in hopes his old pal Anderle would have some answers. Seemed he’d miscalculated. He gave Anderle a nasty look. “What gives?”
Anderle used the hem of his shirt to wipe the soldier’s blood from the bed post. “You’ll be briefed in the morning.” His Converse soles squeaked on the tile floor as he made his exit.
The guard in the corner sniffed. He had his hand over his nose, streaks of blood from his palm to his forearm. He stared at Drew through his tears. Drew knew the look. The tears weren’t from sadness or pain. His mom had always told him, “Short, sharp jab to the nose. Always makes them tear up…and if they tear up in front of their buddies, you’ve already won.”
Drew didn’t feel much like a winner.
Mya wiped her cheeks with her forearm. “I can help.” She must have been watching him look at the guard and mistook his smile for concern. Drew tightened his grip around her.
She shook her head. “Please?”
“I don’t think so. You stay put.”
“Trust her, Drew.”
Drew jerked to attention. Dammit, Mom. He was hearing her again, even though he hadn’t smoked a dime bag. Maybe he should have laid off that stuff sooner. The shit was messing with his brain. He didn’t need a dead woman calling the shots. He needed a clear head and a plan.
“Let her go, Drew. Trust her.” He knew that tone. Mom was getting ready to clip him around the ear and give him some serious grief. He eased his hold on Mya.
Mya pushed out of his arms and cautiously walked toward the soldier.
The soldier cocked his head to the side, eyeing her like a prisoner. “Liú xiàlái,” he demanded, his voice muffled by his hand.
She stopped. “Please? You have an owey. My mom had an owey too, but she’s not here so I can’t help her.”
The guard lifted his rifle with one hand and jabbed it toward her. “Liú xiàlái!”
Drew quickly stood. What was he thinking, listening to a voice in his head, let alone his mother who had faked her own dementia for over a decade. No way he was allowing a six-year old to walk up to a trained killer.
“Liú xiàlái.” The grunt stood, pointing his rifle at Drew.
Drew held up both hands in what he hoped was the universal sign for surrender. “I just want to get Mya, that’s all.”
The grunt shook his head. “Méiyǒu.”
Drew froze in place. Was that good or bad? Why hadn’t he learned Chinese, instead of Russian? He had no clue whether the guy was giving a final warning or giving up.
The soldier dropped his gun. It clattered on the floor. His eyes glazed over. He sunk to the stool, his hand dropping from his crooked, broken nose, his mouth open, arms by his side as if in a trance.
Mya had her hand on his knee. She grabbed both of his cheeks and closed her eyes.
The blood stopped dripping. Hands on each side of the man’s face, she pressed her thumbs on each side of his nose. A crack, and she adjusted it straight.
Drew took a step forward. One moment life was normal—other than wondering if he was a prisoner and if the world was about to end—and the next, Mya straightened a broken nose right in front of his eyes? What the hell was an understatement.
Mya put her hands together and closed her eyes again. She opened her hands. Between her hands, as if materializing out of thin air, a white handkerchief fell to the floor. She picked it up and handed it to the man. He took it and wiped the blood off his mouth. He brought his shoulder radio device close to his lips, keeping his eyes on Mya. “Tā yǒu mólì.”
Drew took another step forward. “Mya, what did you just do? I mean, how—”
Her eyes rolled back and she went limp. She flopped on the floor.
4
Leonia, Canis Major - Galactic Arm, Milky Way Galaxy
The lioness held Jaxx up by the back collar, her soft fur pressing against his neck. She pushed her way out of the stalks and stopped, gawking at several ten-story high combat-mechs with double barrel cannons mounted on their shoulders. One mech aimed. The cannon barrel flared, then recoiled. A blast expelled and the lioness ducked. A singe of electricity sparked over Jaxx, but the shot was high and wide.
Karooj!
The lioness turned just as the ball of flame lit up the wheat field, the stalks sparking into a blaze of fire.
“That will spread fast,” she mumbled to herself.
The lioness stepped into a throng of untouched grain stalks, hiding herself and Jaxx from view. She pointed to a combat-mech in the distance and gasped. It targeted a spinning, hovering pyramid, its cannon barrel rotating in place. It shot blue blaze after blue blaze, and each bolt blasted into the outer pyramid casing, throwing chunks of rock to the ground.
The lioness dropped Jaxx. “You still have the phaser I gifted you?”
Jaxx lifted it, targeting the combat-mech that targeted the pyramid. “I’m one step ahead of you.”
He pulled the trigger.
Whooooj!
The recoil picked him off his feet and threw Jaxx back into the grain, somersaulting him head over heels. The gun spun away, clanking against the dirt. He rolled, grasping the weapon. He lay on his stomach, and aimed a second time.
“Nice shot, peach-face. You took one of his cannons off-line.” The lioness went to one knee and pointed her rifle at the mech’s other cannon. She took a shot, her shoulder bucking back as purple charges expelled from her barrel and lit up a second cannon on the mech’s shoulder.
The cannon burst into flames, twisting in on itself, and fell off the mech’s shoulder. A clump of dirt exploded behind the mech as the cannon hit the ground, plumes of dust shooting into the air.
The mech pounded forward. The top of its forearm opened and a blaster popped out.
“Run,” yelled the lioness, grabbing Jaxx by the back of the shirt and pulling him along. She heaved him under her arm like a school book, his head jostling back and forth as she pumped her arms. She headed toward a white hut.
Halfway there, she went into a baseball slide and positioned her body low, barely ducking under a hot, sizzling electric bolt.
“Let me down,” screamed Jaxx.
Ignoring him, she stood and dashed toward the hut’s opening. She took a giant leap. “Activate!”
The entrance’s floor opened up, exposing a dark hole.
Still grasping Jaxx, the lioness went feet first into the hole. A flash of light and an explosion hammered above them, erasing the top of the hut from existence, and setting its sides ablaze.
Jaxx and the lioness continued to fall. The wind rushed up against them, as if they’d jumped out of a SF-13 Air Wing at five-thousand meters.
The lioness discarded her bamboo rifle and unclipped something from the chains around her torso. She pulled Jaxx up to her shoulder like a toy. “Hold on to me tightly.”
She lowered him and Jaxx wrapped his arms around her waist, squeezing with all he had, grasping the rope around her hips. She let go and Jaxx slipped, feeling his weight take over, then curled his fingers more around the braided lanyard.
With her arms pointed downward, the lioness held what looked like two blasters. Fingers against the triggers, whi
te flames spewed out the muzzles. She and Jaxx slowed quickly, then started to hover. Were those mini-thrusters?
More flames lit up the room around them. Lions surrounded them, all descending, lighting up the immense, cavernous area.
Jaxx’s feet touched the ground.
Light poured through dozens of holes in the ceiling, no doubt openings where huts once were. A roar echoed against the walls and the holes in the ceiling closed. Blackness took over.
A pop sounded and a dazzling display of colors spun in a circle near the ceiling. A burst of light shot outward from the middle of the color array. The colors enlarged and became an orb, giving the area ample light.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Jaxx spun around as glass-like tables lit up, glowing ambers, pinks, and yellows.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
More tables, chairs, and lights flickered on, displaying row upon row of immense ships in the shape of stars with long sleds for landing gear. Behind the crafts stood combat-mechs with lion-shaped heads, all eight to ten stories tall.
He stood inside a superstructure that went on for kilometers.
The lioness nudged Jaxx. “Thanks to you, blue-eyes, we have to use those mechanical beasts again.” She pushed him toward a table. “Put your hands on it.”
Jaxx gave her a confused look. If this was some type of torture, then come hell or high water, he wasn’t going to touch the thing.
“We need your DNA to activate this, you bumbling peach-skin. Unlike other races,” she glanced up as if looking through the ceiling at to the Agadon’s beyond, “we aren’t warlike so we have a failsafe when it comes to war; rules about when we are allowed to partake in battle. The only way the Divine Force allows us to use these weapons of destruction is by the one who brought us war. Touch it, Jaxx.”
There was truth in her eyes. She believed what she said with every ounce of her being.
Jaxx moved his hand over the table. “What do they want, these Agadon?”
The lioness growled and shoved his hand on the table. “What do they ever want?”
Jaxx jumped back. The table vibrated and an electric charge shot from the base of the table. An electric circle swirled in its middle. Sparks shot upward like a fountain and poured over the sides of the table.
In minutes, the sparks built up and each one joined another, building something ethereal, constructing layer upon layer of sparks, forming a giant rectangular cuboid, until it ceased.
The fountain vanished and the rectangle hardened and materialized.
A book.
And it sat next to Jaxx’s foot.
Symbols were etched on the cover, looking distinctly Kabbalistic—the wisdom of truth, the essential teachings of Jewish cosmology—represented by the eternity symbol along with a staff with a serpent intertwining, and an ankh, and the lotus flower.
“Open it, Jaxx.”
He took a deep breath. “This is etched in some of earth’s oldest writings? How do you know our symbols? Our oldest languages?”
It would have been a strange question to ask, were it not for the fact that he was an archaeologist. He held in his hand a key of some sort; one that might tell him the origins of these people, of his people—of Earth’s many languages.
He longed to bury himself in a corner and read until his eyes forged more knowledge into his head. But that was the old Jaxx. The new Jaxx had a call of duty. He couldn’t retreat. He had to do his part.
“The many sphinxes on your planet didn’t build themselves.”
“Many? There’s only one.”
“There are many. Two always sit next to each other, but the female next to your only exposed sphinx—a male—has yet to be revealed. That’s how all sphinxes are created. One male, one female, closely bonded to each other. Once your ice age begins, the oceans will fall, and many more will be revealed to you and your people. Now, open the book. We don’t have much time.”
“That didn’t answer my question. Also written on the book is the English language? My language.”
“We left your language as a seed for your people, knowing that someday it would bring your race closer together as the universal language. Now, put your hand on the book.”
He inspected the cover. It was bound in leather.
“We are all waiting!”
Jaxx eyed the lioness and for the first time noticed a gang of lions standing around him, watching.
Her nostrils flared. “Do it, now.”
He thrust his hand on the book. Static electricity shocked his palm. He pulled back. The book opened on its own, turning to a random page, showing an entire combat-mech’s anatomy, the engines, weapons, the navigation, and the fighting techniques associated with it.
The lioness stood straighter, taking in a deep breath. “We will fight. To your positions, my loves.” She eyed Jaxx. “Now, Jaxx. You’ll help us. Stare at that page until you can’t stare any longer.”
Even if the lioness had told him not to look, it wouldn’t have mattered. He couldn’t have taken his eyes off the page if a gun were pointed at his temple.
His head jerked as a hologram jumped from the page and penetrated his pupils. He bent over, losing equilibrium, spinning and falling to the floor, his chest landing on top of the book. Floods of combat-mech diagnostics and thousands of mech specifications entered his mind. It was a simulation. Jaxx was to learn mech combat. Scenes of real combat blanketed his mind as if he’d been in these mechs before, though he knew he hadn’t. The experiences cemented themselves into his temporal lobe, and in minutes, he mastered the big machine.
He pushed off the ground and stood erect. He gasped for air and glanced at his hands. “What happened?”
The lioness smiled. “We just put you through ten thousand hours of training and ten thousand hours of combat in a span of minutes.”
A mech with a lion’s head stood across the room. Yet, he could see it pulsate, could hear its engines calling him and its weapons calibrating themselves just for him. “You want me to fight in one of those?”
“Welcome to the team, pink-lips. I’m Zara. It’s time to bring a positive to the negative you brought us.”
5
Edge of M-Quadrant, Nearing Jupiter - Starship Atlantis
Slade and Craig stared at a holographic screen in Slade’s upper deck quarters. It was static, waiting for Kajka Okbak, the Kelhoon supreme leader to join.
The Kelhoon were quickly becoming the sworn enemy of the Atlanteans on Callisto and, as a result, it was a race relationship Slade was interested in cultivating.
The screen fizzled, then blipped on. Okbak, recognizable as the leader because of his ceremonial garb, stared unblinkingly with his yellow eyes.
Slade had studied the Kelhoon, so he knew the half-lizard, half-human Beings would make outstanding allies. He waited until Okbak had blinked three times, which was the sign that negotiations could proceed. Slade turned to President Craig Martelle and bowed his head, signaling that he was the human lead negotiator.
“I’m going to get to the point, Kajka Okbak. We’re willing to deliver the humans on this ship to you on a silver platter. What’s our compensation?” asked Craig.
They’d been over the same conversation with Okbak for the last several days. Okbak had yet to confirm any type of monetary units he’d give them for the slaves he was about to receive.
Okbak licked his lips. “Monjaka monjova lakanjaka funjoonka.”
Slade’s stomach fluttered. He’d been reading up on the Kelhoon language, learning bits and pieces here and there and he knew numbers, and this was a big, big number. He wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to Craig. He felt the President twitch ever so slightly. He was impressed too. Hell, who wouldn’t be? It was a lot of currency. The proposed payment was in the galactic currency, emerald-gold melted into coins.
Slade smirked. “Not enough. We want to be included into your galactic slave trade and farming system.”
“Najchka?”
“Why? You ask me why?�
� Slade gave Okbak a look like it was the dumbest question any Being in the universe had ever posed. “Craig and I want a peace of mind. If we run a portion of the slave trade and the pan-galactic farming...” he paused, thinking. “Throw in a plush palace on Callisto for each of us, then our deal is solid.”
A flap on the back of Okbak’s scaly head flared. “Goojkanta ga!”
The screen turned off.
“What did he say?” asked Craig.
“Let’s just say he’ll think about it.”
“You went rogue on me, Slade. What was that? We agreed that I’d negotiate.”
Slade stood. “Mr. President. I’m sorry to usurp your authority, but I had to think on my toes right there. I wanted to guarantee our personal safety. The Kelhoon are ruthless killers and would eat us without a thought. Don’t kid yourself, Mr. President. This is dangerous, but less dangerous if we’re in on the whole enchilada with the Kelhoon. We help run their businesses, and do it well, we have more freedoms than we’d ever want, and more wealth to play with.”
“And if he says no?”
“Then the deal is off, and we continue to Callisto as if we’d never had it in mind to hand our politicians over to them.”
“If we back out of this deal, the Kelhoon will fight us.”
Slade could read Craig like a cheap book. Craig didn’t like the idea of going to war with the Kelhoon. He was happy to bring a war about—it compensated his government and black ops companies for years on Earth. But out here in the deep, dark cosmos, there wasn’t a lick of compensation for him for any type of combat.
“This better work out,” Craig said. “If it goes south, I’ll hang you out to dry, like the snake you are…”
Slade popped a piece of gum into his mouth and chewed. He winked. “Either way, I’m fine.”
The HDC beeped and Okbak materialized on the screen. “Oojkana.”
“Agreed?” Slade said. “Fabulous. We look forward to the first installment. When that arrives, you’ll have your human cattle.”
“Monjaka monjova lakanjaka funjoonka moonjova lakanjaka.”
Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Page 51
