Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller by Brandon Ellis (best novels to read in english .txt) 📗

“They’re keeping the children somewhere behind those walls. We need to get them…save them.”

“I sense something.” Abdu crouched, then shifted quickly, grabbing his rifle. “Too late.” A loud crack pierced the air and his rifle went spinning down the small hill, bouncing on a rock, then sliding down the gravel to the hill’s base.

Next to him stood a Kelhoon—a Kelhoon who wacked the rifle out of Abdu’s hand. The damned lizard face had come out of nowhere.

Another Kelhoon landed next to Abdu with his rifle aimed at the lion’s face. Shit, they were dropping out of the sky. It was raining Kelhoon.

Rivkah stood, ready to take on an army, especially with Abdu by her side. They could easily take these two reptile brains.

A third Kelhoon dropped from above, then a forth, landing next to Abdu and Rivkah. One of them pointed up, a smirk on his face.

Rivkah looked up. An army, a literal Kelhoon army, were on the hill adjacent to them, their cannons and rifles aiming at Rivkah and Abdu.

She scanned the lizard-hybrid in front of her. The information wasn’t hard to find. It was etched on his synapses. The configuration of warriors on the far hill was the Kelhoon warrior way. They surrounded their prey, using any higher terrain they could find to their advantage. She touched on the Kelhoon’s deep, deep lust for her blood and backed her mind out of his swamp of a brain. What was going on in there was too awful to contemplate. They were creatures without remorse or conscience.

“What do we do now, Abdu?”

“We have to silence these guys, or let them take us in to the city as prisoners. It might be best if we surrender today to give us a gain tomorrow.” He eyed one of the Kelhoon soldiers. “I sense their orders are to capture, not to kill just yet.”

Rivkah surveyed the area like a combat strategist looked over a map. This planet was filled with caves, canyons, and hills with caves. She spotted an indentation in a hill a few hundred yards away—the tell-tale sign of a cavern on Callisto.

Rikvah curled her fingers in a fist. “Abdu, surrendering isn’t how I do things.”

16

J-Quadrant, Solar System - Namuh Farms, Callisto

Namuh Farms—no doubt named by some Kelhoon who fancied himself a real joker—had only just been built, but they were state of the art. The sleek, silent elevator plunged below ground with barely a hiss. The doors dinged and Slade stepped out into a well-lit underground area the size of a professional football dome.

“This is what you have to show—” Craig stopped mid-sentence. A black pyramid stood in the middle of a very large, sandy field. The ceiling was one big, natural light source.

Slade enjoyed the interruption. It was exactly the reaction he was looking for. “Sleek, ain’t it?”

“Sleek?” Craig walked toward the pyramid. “That’s not the word I was thinking. It’s a beauty. But the most important question is that since we just arrived, how the hell did you find this thing so quickly? It’s not like Namuh Farms is on the map.”

“A Kelhoon soldier showed it to me just after I arrived. I’ve only spent an hour down here exploring, but holy shit, what you’ll see inside that thing is amazing. And it’s my kinda shit.”

“Why isn’t the ground raised? Jaxx claimed that just about every pyramid raised the ground it sat upon.”

The pyramid was about a hundred yards away. “Jaxx said pyramids are like gravity lenses. The other Jupiter moons, and Jupiter itself, can’t use their gravity pull to tug the ground upward through this pyramid because it’s so far underground. It’s that simple, Mr. President.”

Slade walked forward. Craig followed. Their steps were light, slightly buoyant even. The gravity down here was different, less intense.

Craig ogled the pyramid, awed and mildly confused.

“I think the pyramid lowers the gravity forces down here,” said Slade.

“Yes, everything seems so much lighter down here.” Craig put his hand out, stopping Slade in his stride. Craig backed up a few steps. “What are those?”

Slade couldn’t help but smile. “Come on. Keep going. You haven’t seen nothing yet.”

Beside the entrance of the great black pyramid were two men no less than twenty-five feet tall, holding spears even taller, and standing motionless. Their eyes were closed but based on the subtle movements in their chests, they were clearly breathing.

Slade touched one of the giant’s boots as he gazed up at the forty-story high pyramid, it’s black walls sparkling with perfection. He turned back and winked at Craig. “These giants are in suspended animation. I don’t know how old they are, but my guess is that they’ve been suspended here for a long-ass time.”

Craig looked the giants up and down, craning his neck to get a view at one of their shields. “It’s like they came straight from the middle ages.” He cleared his throat. “How can they be suspended just standing there? Don’t they have to be hooked to machines?”

“No idea. Not my area of expertise.” Slade pressed on a human-shaped handprint on the large entrance doors. This was unlike other pyramids, where doors were eerily hidden or were simply small passageways blocked by a large limestone square piece.

This was an actual door, and when Slade removed his hand from the handprint, the door swung inward and a purple haze blasted outward. Slade covered his eyes until the purple light dimmed. “Come on.” His boots clanked on the polished, granite floor of the pyramid. “What do you think?”

A low hum echoed through the structure. And before Craig could say anything, two women, his size, and definitely human or Atlantean, came into view. They sat cross legged twenty feet apart. They faced one another with their eyes and mouths closed, breathing in and out while humming. A square, black block bigger than a van, hovered in between them and spun end over end.

“I think that’s how the pyramids were