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

a holographic screen popped up. “Me and the rest of the government officials on Starship Atlantis.”

This was a little too much. He spent years on this mission to Callisto. He wasn’t going to divert the entire mission just because some Senator—namely Ken Furr—was getting homesick. Again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was telling the truth. “I need proof that Slade betrayed us.”

“I suspected as much.” Ken typed something on his holographic display console and motioned for Shaughnessy to take a look. “This is a recording of Kajka Okbak, the Kelhoon leader, and Slade.”

Shaughnessy almost fell over, pointing at the screen. Shock rocked his system. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at. “What is that?”

“It’s an extraterrestrial. A race known as the Kelhoon. If you ask me anything more about them, I won’t know.” Shaughnessy turned the volume up. “Listen.”

The screen shifted to Okbak. He sat straighter, and for an instant his head and thick neck moved back and forth like a snake. “Koojka navonja sinlanja.”

The camera switched to Slade. “You get the envoy here soon, and I’ll make sure it passes our security. It’ll arrive safely in one of Starship Atlantis’s lower decks. Eventually, your boys can feast on some of our people here, but the rest of the troops, scientists, and politicians are going to your factory farms.”

Okbak hissed. “Jonjookana foonjayjay.”

Slade raised his chin, shaking his head. “The envoy will be safe. I assure you.” He gave a chuckle. “For a dominant galactic race hell bent on herding my race for food and slavery, you’re sure paranoid about the little things.”

“Moonkaja.” Okbak bowed his head and the screen went black. The holographic screen quickly evaporated.

“I don’t understand what I just saw there. That’s a damn alien Being.” Shaughnessy’s mouth was agape. “I knew they existed, but I haven’t seen one.”

“I had the same reaction. But that’s not what’s important here. What’s your answer? Will you help us?”

Shaughnessy paused. “What is in the envoy the Kelhoon are sending?”

Ken lifted his shoulders and dropped them. “I wish I knew. We intercepted this a week ago from an encrypted source. We decoded it an hour ago. Our decision on what to do next was quick. That decision involved you.”

Shaughnessy didn’t want to do this. It pitted him against Slade and in the real world, the world he lived in, that was never a good matchup. Pit him against Slade in the computer game League of Champions and he’d wipe Slade clean off the map in ten minutes.

This wasn’t League of Champions.

Ken stood, hand extended, his heavy wrinkles creasing his care-worn face. “What do you say? Can you hack into this ship and the Secret Space Program’s fleet?”

Shaughnessy huffed. “I don’t want to do this, but if he’s about to screw us all over and if this was truly Jaxx’s wishes, then I must. I can change SSP’s flight plan and lock it, and I can change ours and lock it, so no one with basic computer knowledge would ever see what I’d done.” He grabbed Ken’s hand and shook it.

Ken cleared his throat just as Shaughnessy was walking to the door. “You’re doing a great service to your country.”

Shaughnessy nodded, not able to count how many times he’d heard such nonsense before. “I’ll do my best, Senator.”

14

Leonia, Canis Major - Galactic Arm, Milky Way Galaxy

Everything was in slow motion. The Agadon mech’s cannon barrel turned a molten red. The muzzle sucked in a few feet, then pushed out as a blast spiraled through the tube and exited the tip.

Jaxx raised his mech’s arm to block it, only to hit the Agadon mech’s leg, halting Jaxx’s arm from moving any further.

A red, fiery streak shot down toward his cockpit and Jaxx let go of his control stick and put his hands up to shield his eyes from the inevitable.

A bright light enveloped his cockpit accompanied with a bwooooom!

Chunks of metal fell against the cockpit window.

And silence.

He touched his body, patting his face, his chest, his legs. Was he alive?

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a spinning Leonian starfighter, the back portion of its fuselage, rudder, and vertical stabilizers in flames, torn apart after absorbing the Agadon mech’s shot, essentially saving Jaxx’s life. It took a hard dip and plummeted into a wheat field. A ball of fire rose from the ground.

Jaxx launched several missiles at the Agadon mech’s crotch. Several hit on target, crumbling pieces of armor, hip stabilizer joints, and connecting rods onto his mech’s chest. For a moment, he took his eyes off the steaming, twisted pile of metal standing above him, but only long enough to grab his sword and swing it at the mech’s shin. Screeching metal against metal vibrated through his cockpit along with a resounding clap as Jaxx severed the mech’s lower leg.

The mech fell to the side and Jaxx rolled his mech out of the way and pushed himself into a standing position. He glared at the fallen mech, sword in his hand, blasters aimed at the downed Agadon.

The Agadon mech, its midsection melted, wires hanging, and its lower leg gone, rotated its cannon, blasting a charge at Jaxx.

Jaxx spun. He took a powerful step forward, his foot crushing the Agadon mech’s shoulder. Sparks fizzed and curled around Jaxx’s mech’s foot. He gripped his sword with both hands, lifted it high, and plunged it into the mech’s abdomen. The Agadon mech twitched before all lights in the mech’s cockpit went offline.

“Fall back!” came Zara.

“Why?” questioned Jaxx. They had the upper hand. Falling back would be a critical mistake. He took one look at the battlefield and saw why. A hundred or so Agadon mech’s were falling from the sky, coming in for a landing.

Jaxx and his new friends were outnumbered, and from the heap of dead Agadon’s and dead Leonian’s scattered across the field, these Leonians didn’t have a chance.

Jaxx turned, following the racing Leonian mechs, heading for a hill covered with three pyramids. Every so often, a Leonian mech