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

her forehead. Something else was going on there. Perhaps it had been stripped of skin when she took her fall. The pounding in her skull suggested a possible fracture.

This was the last thing she needed.

Someone lifted her up. The movement sent a pulsing pain coursing up her back and into her brain. She cringed. Who the hell had picked her up. Was it a Kelhoon?

She felt deep, warm fur against her limp arm. It was Abdu, her Leonian friend. The sensation was good. It meant her spinal column hadn’t been severed, but why the hell couldn’t she move her limbs?

Abdu threw her over his shoulder. “Bogle is using her Chi. She’s holding them off for the moment.”

An explosion kicked up the snow and dirt next to Abdu’s feet, barely missing him. He pushed toward a Kelhoon camp’s wall and leaped.

Rivkah’s weight shifted and she floated an inch off of Abdu for an instant. Her head came up from the jump and she glimpsed Bogle running ten yards behind them, a whole mess of Kelhoon on her tail. More of the enemy were flat on their backs, from whatever carnage Bogle had inflicted upon them.

Fox, on the other hand, was in full pursuit. It was the old Fox she remembered. The one with evil in his eyes and vengeance in his heart. His whole “buddy-buddy” thing, when they’d landed on Callisto, had been a front. Figured.

The wall blocked her view as Abdu landed. Her stomach dug into his shoulder, knocking the wind out of her.

“Go, go. Up the hill and to the right. There is a ravine with dozens of caves. We’ll lose them there.” It was Bogle’s voice. She had already jumped over the wall and caught up. Was she superwomen? How did she get there so fast?

Rivkah attempted to move, but her muscles continued to be worthless. They didn’t care that she was in dire need of safety, of help. She wanted to kick the shit out of her ligaments, tendons, bones, and brain for not complying.

They slogged up the hill, battling the snow, but it fell from the sky thick and fast, making the banks and drifts deeper and more treacherous with every passing minute.

Abdu jerked to the side, roaring loudly, losing grip on Rivkah. They both fell, landing hard on the snow.

Abdu hurried to his feet, lifting Rivkah back on his shoulder. “I’ve been hit,” he said.

Hanging over his shoulder, Rivkah eyed the black singe mark on his lower back. Smoke curled from the wound in his flesh, now completely stripped of fur. He shifted his weight and followed Bogle past a boulder and down a snow-covered rocky ravine.

“This way. Hurry,” yelled Bogle.

A blast erupted against a wall of rock, again, nearly hitting Abdu. Then another and another. The shots were erratic, as if the Kelhoon weren’t very good at running on frozen tundra while shooting at the same time.

Bogle screamed.

Abdu ran by her.

Bogle held the back of her leg, her face contorted in pain. Abdu reached down and Bogle raised her hand. Abdu moved backward and grasped it. He turned and moved forward quickly, dragging Bogle across the snow.

“Use your Chi,” ordered Abdu.

Bogle closed her eyes, concentrating. A shot skipped by her. She thrust her free hand forward. The ravine echoed with bursts of rocks falling from the lip of the cliffs surrounding them.

Several Kelhoon made gargling sounds, either in anger or pain, Rivkah couldn’t tell. She lifted her head more, but to no avail. She couldn’t see but a few yards past Bogle’s dragging feet.

“Third cave on the left. It has several exits and is attached to other underground tunnels. We can recoup there,” said Bogle.

Rivkah wanted to ask what was happening behind them. Were the Kelhoon all dead? Was Fox dead? Did Bogle somehow push the Kelhoon back? Her lips wouldn’t cooperate. The only thing that exited her mouth were grunts and incoherent sounds. She rolled her eyes, wanting to use every cuss word she could think of. If she could move her head, why couldn’t she move her lips?

Abdu pulled Bogle up a short incline. The snow then turned into rock and the outside light dimmed. They had entered a cave.

Bogle jostled her hand free from Abdu and pushed herself up, hopping on one leg. She pointed her palms at the entrance. “Move deeper into the cave.”

Abdu complied.

The cave began to shake.

Rivkah glanced at Bogle. The bottom of the cave’s entrance crumbled in on itself, rocks crashing down upon each other, blocking the entrance.

Darkness eclipsed the cave. A rumble and a few of the rocks at the entrance fell to the ground. The Kelhoon were already at the make-shift door, pushing their way in.

3 E-Quadrant, Solar System - Whitefish, Montana

Drew ducked as an explosion hit the top of the energetic shield that surrounded and protected Whitefish, a city he hadn’t known existed until a few months back. The mushroom-shaped dome was made up of a shield technology he knew nothing about. Drew was no stranger to holy-shit type conspiracies. The weapons-deflecting shield, which had saved all their skins, had been rolled out in Whitefish soon after diamond-shaped ships started appearing over ancient structures and pyramids. Pretty fishy that Whitefish, home to a secret United States Military installation, was protected by super-advanced tech, while the alien craft bombed the almighty hell out of every city they could find.

And now these alien craft were directly over Whitefish.

Kachoooj! Kachoooj!

Drew, in his ducked crouch, put his hands over his head. He looked up. Smoke rose from the top of the mushroom shield more than two or three hundred feet up.

A craft, about the size of a jet fighter, swooped in, dropping another red ball of charged ion on top of the dome.

Kachoooj!

The shield fizzled, vapor rose to the sky, and Drew ducked even more.

He was in the middle of downtown Whitefish—a five block by five block of shops, bars, offices, and more bars. It wasn’t his kind of town. It was too small, too cramped.

Hell,