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

with his mind. He was Kaden Jaxx and they’d better not screw with him anymore. He paused at the thought, his awareness shrinking. He could move objects with his mind? What the hell? Where did that thought come from? Pushing it out of his mind, his worry, ins confusion, his nerves alleviated and his consciousness widened. He didn’t have time to think. Only react and let his body, his consciousness, do the heavy lifting. He asked the inanimate object to partner with him. He sensed that it agreed. This was nuts.

He pulled up every emotion he had and pushed it out of him with the ferocity of a charging ox, thrusting all that mind-muscle and energy at the inanimate object. The object complied, and moved slowly in the large craft’s direction. It not only complied, it allowed Jaxx to control it. He pushed harder, causing it to move faster, his heart beat picking up. His muscles squeezed, and he grunted, straining against a force he didn’t know he had control over until now.

It neared the damaged craft and Jaxx readjusted the object’s direction, aiming it toward the slit. Sweat dripped out of his pores, dripping down his cheeks. Jaxx had no time to watch the impact. His backward-facing eye alerted him to the fact that he was being targeted by the oncoming starfighter. For the first time in his life, he was wise to the fact that death for him was not an option. He needed to survive. He needed to come out of this a winner.

The enemy starfighter came out of its loop. Jaxx spun his starfighter around. He’d executed an impossible maneuver. He had willed himself to twist on a dime, and his starfighter had complied.

Weapon’s lock beeped on the starfighter heading right for him. Jaxx aimed and shot everything he had.

“What the...” Jaxx bolted up from the bed, blinking rapidly. He touched his forehead. His fingers wet with perspiration, his heart about thumped out of his chest.

“You came out of it, Kaden,” said Donny.

Jaxx took a few breaths. “I know the woman who helped me.”

Donny’s lips curled downward. “What do you mean?”

Slade leaned against the wall, one foot resting on the other. Jaxx’s focus expanded, much like it did when in the starfighter. It felt good. It felt powerful. It allowed him to draw the energy of the room to him. He sensed an impulsive thought from Slade. He needs pilots.

“What is it, Jaxx?” asked Slade.

“You need her. You’ve been looking for someone like her.”

Slade stepped forward. “How do you know what I need?”

“It came to me. You are searching for pilots.”

Slade bit his lips, pressing them together in a straight line. He gathered himself and stood like the military man he was. “What can you tell me about this woman I’ve allegedly been looking for? Is she in SSP? Is she still enlisted? If so, what’s her name? If not, where is she now?”

Jaxx didn’t know if it was a good idea to talk about her. Would Slade hunt her down, bring her here, make her do things against her will? Did he really know what Slade was up to? Shouldn’t he wait until his nephew came through with a report, so he’d know what he was up against? A new thought bubbled to the surface; a tactical thought; a political thought; not the kind of thought Jaxx was at all used to. Not naming her meant the power remained firmly in his court. He lied with a smile on his lips. “She perished.”

Slade deflated, his shoulders drooping. “I thought you were going to put on a good show for us, Jaxx. Good guess with what I was needing. You almost had me.”

“So,” said Donny. “Can you hear thoughts now?”

Jaxx’s power waned. He wasn’t the size of the room any more. He couldn’t feel Slade’s thoughts. He was Jaxx, archaeologist, Atlantean expert, widely regarded as a flake and a loser. He shrugged.

“No, he cannot,” Slade chimed in.

Donny nodded, emphatically. “Slade, you may find you’re mistaken. Many times after a hypnotherapy session, a patient can come away with extrasensory gifts.” He turned back to Jaxx. “What is it that you’re feeling, Kaden?”

Jaxx looked at the pen in Donny’s ear. The rage he felt for all his colleagues, peers, and skeptics who shunned his life’s work boiled in his veins. The name-calling, the labels they put him in and thrust in his face earthquaked to the surface. He shifted on the cot, allowing the emotion to travel, in a single bolt, from his blood to his heart. He asked the pen if he could partner with it. The pen agreed, a shifting taking place in his body, a jerk in his hands, a flinch in from his knees.

Fly from his ear, thought Jaxx. It wasn’t a request, it was an order.

The pen ejected from Donny’s ear and zipped across the cell, slamming into the wall, demolishing the plaster, leaving only the tip poking into the room. Donny lifted his hand to his ear and turned to see where the pen landed.

Jaxx grinned.

Donny’s mouth went wide; his eyes like saucers. If he wasn’t careful, his tongue would fall out of his mouth and he’d drool down his shirt. “Telekinesis,” he whispered.

Slade snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Donny whipped around and faced Slade, unusually agitated and direct. “How do you explain the pen flying across the room?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. But if you think it moved because Jaxx made it move with his mind, then we may be needing a new doctor, Doctor.” Slade lowered his eyes, making sure Donny understood the threat.

Donny huffed. The guy probably had kids in college or a condo in Florida or some bills snapping at his heels, forcing him to keep his trap well and truly shut. Nothing of which Jaxx had. And the world didn’t reward blurty-mouth truth tellers. Instead, the world punished them. It rewarded yes-men and line-toers and mealy-mouthed worms who didn’t say what they should, when they should. Donny knew damned