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

“Yes.”

He remembered Slade knocking him out. He recalled Fox placing a helmet on his head. After that, nothing.

Francine put her hand behind his head. “If you’d lift up, just a tiny bit, you can have a sip of this. It will help with pain.”

Jaxx complied. If they could take the pain away, he’d be able to think. He closed his eyes and counted backwards from three. It was right there, the memory. He’d been strapped to a chair and flung into space. He gasped. It was true. He did launch. “I’m on a ship?”

“Starship Atlantis. This is one of our grow rooms, though this one is mostly vegetables.” She extended her hand. “Let me help you to your feet.” She took Jaxx’s arm and pulled him up, then guided him to the window. He held himself up on the window sill. A large fan-like object, full of mirrors, surrounded the ship, spinning like a wheel. He looked all around at the stars, almost losing equilibrium.

The tech steadied him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m in Starship Atlantis? It’s really called Atlantis?” Maybe they believed him in the first place, that those on Callisto were from Atlantis.

“Yes. Well, it’s called Space Shaq, according to Colonel Slade Roberson.”

Jaxx touch his forehead, trying to grasp what was happening. He turned, looking for a door. “We’re in space?”

“The ascent into space conked you out for a while.”

“How long?”

She looked at her watch. “17 hours.”

“Where’s Rivkah?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know any Rivkah. I can check our flight sheet.”

Jaxx rubbed the back of his head. “This doesn’t seem real.”

“It’s real. Do you want me to help you to your room?”

He rose his brows. “I have a room?”

“The starship has about five hundred. They aren’t extravagant, but they have a bed, a closet, toilet, shower, and a bit of a kitchenette.”

Jaxx touched his belly. “I need to sit.”

“That’s completely understandable.” She helped him back to the table. “Rest here and I’ll be back later.”

He nodded and laid on his back.

She left the room. Sprinklers turned on and mists of water covered Jaxx. He didn’t make any attempt to move. Too tired, and lying down helped his headache.

He touched his arms, making sure this was real. Why wasn’t he weightless and floating?

He stood, rubbing his temples and dragged his feet to the door.

He stepped into a hallway, also lined with windows. Outside, the fan, that he could only think was a solar sail, spun around the ship along with the ship’s frame. The inside of the ship, however, wasn’t spinning at all. He rested his head against the window and took a hefty breath.

He took a few steps down the hallway. Each step was light, almost as if he could float down the hall. He imagined the astronauts on the moon, where each step was like a bounce. It wasn’t the same on this ship, though maybe similar.

“Kaden Jaxx, I presume?”

He turned, staring at a man he’d seen a thousand times. Once in person, the rest on TV.

The man extended his hand to help. “I hear you’re going to help us figure out how these pyramids power themselves.” He grinned long and wide. “You’re the man with the name on a Callisto pyramid. Isn’t that something?”

How did he know that? No one knows that.

Jaxx couldn’t speak. He stared at the most famous man in the world, and that man not only knew Jaxx’s name, he knew a little more than Jaxx wanted him to know.

“Do you know who I am?”

Jaxx nodded. “The President of the United States. President Martelle.”

The president patted Jaxx on the shoulder. “Just call me Craig. I hate it when people call me President.”

“Pleased to meet you, Craig. It’s an honor. I need to find Colonel Slade.” Jaxx couldn’t believe he tried to evade the President, but it was essential he get to Slade and explain what he’d worked out, before he’d been abducted. “I don’t want to sound alarmist or self-aggrandizing, but I believe we have a way to save humanity.”

“Want to walk and talk?” said Martelle.

Jaxx ran through his entire “pyramids-are-terraforming-devices-which-punch-magma-producing-vents-through-the-Earth’s-core” presentation, just as he had with Rivkah.

“So, you’re telling me that ancient people, all over the world, all in different eras, created these pyramids, all for the same reason?”

“No. I’m saying that the Atlanteans created every major pyramid throughout the world, strategically, and with technology and sacred geometry long lost from man. Pyramids are terraforming devices to ease us into each age as best they can, to lessen the Earth changes, and to sustain a liveable environment on Earth. I think they created the pyramids on Callisto for the same reason, for better mineral quality, more oxygen, and to create a gravity field humans can live in.”

“Intriguing,” said the President. “Tell me more.”

Jaxx wasn’t used to being listened to, but he had the ear of the world’s most powerful man, so he decided to go for broke. “Atlanteans left Atlantis and built structures on Callisto 12,500 years ago. It’s no coincidence that it’s at about the same time the lost city of Atlantis went under, just like the hieroglyphs tell us.”

“The hieroglyphs?”

“Yes,” said Jaxx. “They’re all on the laptop.” He stopped. “Please tell me Slade remembered the laptop.”

Martelle smiled.

“Oh, good. I was worried there for a second.” The two men continued their walk around Starship Atlantis. “Where was I? Oh, right. The Atlanteans left Earth to continue their way of life. Like us, I suppose. The ones who didn’t leave, dispersed throughout the world. Some made their new home in Egypt, where they built the Great Pyramid of Giza. Again, 12,500 years ago.”

Martelle laced his hands behind his back. “So what you’re telling me is, we’re repeating the same scenario as the Atlanteans?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Jaxx.

The President leaned on the railing that went the entire way down the long glass wall. “We have a long ways to Callisto. Care to join me for a drink? There’s a nice bar on the third level.”

Slade appeared at their side, almost as if