Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller by Brandon Ellis (easy to read books for adults list txt) 📕

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