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

The good news, they hadn’t seen him. The bad news, they’d see him sooner than later. He conjured up two options. One, hands up, surrendering, hoping they weren’t going to shoot to kill. Or, two, do what he was about to do.

He studied the closest aircraft, not seeing a handle, but where a handle should have been attached a large round button. He pressed it.

The aircraft’s door opened upward like a gullwing or a fancy sport car. He pulled himself inside and onto a seat, pressing another button. The door shut. A lock function was on the control panel next to the control wheel and he pushed on it as fast as he could, hearing the craft lock.

Behind his seat was a bucket seat, wide enough for three or four people, but that was as deep as the cockpit went. No place to hide.

Even though he’d never flown anything before, he had to try. If he could get his in the air and fly out through the tunnel, wherever that led, then he could survive. He studied the control panel, seeing a hover button, a flight button, and a land button. That was simple enough. They’d built the planes so any idiot could fly them, but Drew wasn’t an idiot. Drew was an A-1, no-shit, fully-functioning genius. He could fly this machine. He could escape.

An initiate engine knob was on the control panel. The control wheel might be self explanatory, but a stun expel trigger sounded ominous.

He looked up. The monocar's doors were open, the cars completely empty. Ramps extended from the doors and into the warehouse. Immediately, Drew knew what the monorail was—a way to transport the contents of this warehouse to another place. The puzzle pieces clicked into place. Colonel Slade wanted off the planet. He had space craft and supplies at the ready. He held Jaxx in Grenada, in a place Jaxx had called “Underfoot Black.” What were the chances the monorail was transporting everything in the warehouse to Underfoot Black? That way, Slade would have the space craft, the dune buggies, and all the supplies, delivered directly to him.

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” he muttered.

Drew pushed on the initiate engine knob and the craft turned on, purring like a kitten. Things looked a little brighter. A tap sounded on the cockpit window and Drew instinctively ducked.

A man with a rifle peered into the cockpit. “Sir, I recommend you exit this craft immediately.”

Drew cowered in the corner of his seat, covering his head with his forearms. He shook his head.

“I’m not asking. I’m telling.”

“Dude, I heard one of you say ‘shoot to kill.’”

The man’s eyes went wide. He glanced over at another man, then nodded. He lifted his rifle and took aim.

Drew kicked the middle of the control wheel, triggering stun expel. A loud electric sound rattled and the man drew back in a writhing twitch as if electrocuted. When the sound halted, the man went limp, flopping to the floor.

“Oh, shit. Oh, no.” Drew looked around. All the men searching for him were on the floor, lifeless. Had he killed them?

He quickly opened the door and ran toward the elevator. Before he could get halfway, a bullet whizzed by him, ricocheting off a buggy. He slid to the floor, huddling behind another buggy, then shimmied toward the monorail.

More guns went off, bullets pinged off the wall, the floor, the damned ceiling. They knew where he was, until they didn’t. The closer he came to the monorail, the more the bullets whizzed well behind him. He stood and ran, his adrenalin taking him faster and faster. Bullets rained down all around him, sparking where they hit.

Reaching a ramp that led inside one of the monocars, he glanced toward the head of the monorail. More men carrying firearms were on their way. Others were also coming at his six o’clock.

The gunshots suddenly stopped, perhaps to protect the monorail, but the men continued the pursuit.

Finally inside a monocar, Drew looked left and right. Military personnel now came from both directions. In minutes, they’d surround him. He looked up, and spied a ladder that led to an upper compartment.

He pulled himself up the ladder, skipping as many rungs as possible. Reaching the top, he peered down. Men climbed after him, but the ladder was attached by a mount. Drew yelled, “Sorry.” He kicked the mount, successfully detaching the ladder. It pushed out, carrying a few men with it, then crashed to the floor. He ran toward a long complex on the monocar’s upper balcony and flung open a door. Inside, it went on for blocks, one side lined by doors, the other side a long wall.

He heard the men fixing the ladder back into position, so he slammed the door shut, looking for a lock that wasn’t there.

“Dammit,” he said, under his breath. “Where do I go?”

He didn’t have a minute to look around trying to find a hiding place. He dashed into the nearest room, seeing a large vent near the window. He lifted up the grate, and jimmied inside, putting the grate back in place.

It reminded him of the longstanding steam tunnel spelunker clubs at places like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and his own alma mater, Columbia, in which students would use air ducts to explore and pull off pranks, sometimes spying on the opposite sex.

He scraped his forearm on a sharp metallic edge, then gashed his knee as he pushed his way down into the darkness. Dust lined the duct, coating his clothes and skin, and blood dripped from his wounds. He pushed himself lower, doing his best to be as quiet as possible, then froze in place when someone came into the room.

A closet opened and someone pulled things out, then doors and cupboards opening and shutting.

“Check under the bed,” someone blurted.

“Nope, not there either.”

“Are we checking all rooms, bathrooms, and storage units?”

“Yep. We’ve got just about everything covered.”

“Try the vent.”

Drew squeezed