Destination Atlantis (Ascendant Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  DESTINATION ATLANTIS

  BOOK 2 OF THE ASCENDANT CHRONICLES

  BY

  BRANDON ELLIS

  Copyright © 2017

  Brandon Ellis

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Names used in this novel do not represent the personalities, traits, or mental and physical characteristics to real persons, living or dead, with the same name.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  All rights reserved. Version 1.03.

  Edited by Kate Pickford

  Published by Blue Heron Publishing, Inc.

  Cover Art: Fredrick Richard

  Website: www.brandon-ellis.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/brandonellis1212

  1

  June 13th, 2018

  Star Warden – Second Class Star Carrier – Secret Space Program

  J-Quadrant, Solar System

  (Near Jupiter, Callisto Moon Orbit)

  Star Warden’s reverse thrusters slowed the large ship, its engines easing into neutral as she entered Callisto’s orbit. The Second-Class Star Carrier was on a first-class mission: to land on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto, and claim it for the United States of America, before any other bozo got there. Admiral Gentry Race slid his hand over his freshly-shaved chin, a reminder to himself to calm the fuck down and behave like an Admiral. Even though Callisto was shaping up to be the find of the damned century, and he was going to be first to have boots on the ground, he could not to let his excitement show.

  “Captain Bogle…” He turned to face his captain, though she was more of an XO. “Have we detected any human life down there? Correction, human or ‘other?’”

  Bogle stood to attention. “The starfighters on Callisto are almost brand new, Admiral. They have either just been built or have been kept in near-mint condition.”

  Callisto’s pyramids, landing pads, and forested, biospheric translucent dome filled the screen in front of Gentry. They were so close, it was as if Star Warden was sitting directly on top of the pyramids. If that wasn’t freaky enough, there were squads of starfighters lined up alongside these marvels of ancient engineering. How pyramids or starfighters came to be on Callisto was a question for another day. Today, Gentry simply wanted to land and plant the flag.

  “According to our scans, Sir, the moon is a treasure of ores, minerals, and gems; along with crude oil, a subsurface ocean, and underground rivers and lakes.”

  The surface was covered in gray, brown, and white rocks, which glinted and glittered, their electrotonic signatures registered crystal and gold. The surface didn’t matter much. The moon was thriving in underground assets.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Captain. Have we detected life forms?”

  Captain Katherine Bogle withdrew from the holographic display console on her captain’s chair and eyed Gentry. “Negative, Sir.”

  “Then whoever assembled this fleet has left?”

  “That is one interpretation, Admiral.”

  “Good,” said Gentry. They could mine Callisto resources without resistance. He pointed at an officer near the back of the bridge. “Send a communication to Colonel Slade Roberson…” He grinned. He’d beaten Slade to the punch. Again. Sweet. “Open communication: ‘Callisto secured.’ Close communication.”

  Colonel Slade and Admiral Gentry had served in the Secret Space Program together for 18 years, until Slade left to head up the so-called “Global Security Administration” which, in his own words, was tasked with “securing humanity’s survival.” If the ocean’s rose, as Slade believed they would, and Earth was subjected to yet another Great Inundation, what better than a habitable moon? Though Slade and Gentry were ostensibly on the same side, Gentry was beyond thrilled that he was going to be first to set foot on Callisto. It would serve Slade right for leaving the SSP for civy-street. Civilians weren’t suited to space exploration. Best leave that to the professionals.

  “Take us down, Captain.”

  Bogle’s eyes were glued to the view screen. “Whoa.” Her heart ratcheted up a notch and, on instinct rather than training, she put her hand up—not appropriate when addressing a senior officer—then dropped it. “Uh...Sir.” She motioned toward the view screen. “We detect movement. Something is emerging from the ground. Whatever it is, is huge. I mean, massive. If I am not mistaken, they are turrets. Massive fucking, no-shit turrets. Pardon my French. Scans report forty-four in total.”

  Gentry glared into the view screen. “Our shields?”

  An intelligence officer stood. “We’re at one-hundred percent, Sir.”

  “Good. Are they targeting us?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  That caught Gentry by surprise. No contact. No disagreement. No declaration of combat or war. He slapped his console, frustrated. “God dammit! Ready cannons!”

  “Cannons ready.”

  “Do not fire unless they fire at us,” ordered Gentry.

  Bogle scanned her chair’s holographic display for energy anomalies. She didn’t have to look far. There were short pulses of energy, grouped in bursts of eight, emanating from the “Lady of Atlantis,” a statue the size of the Statue of Liberty, also known as “Princes Leia” to the Secret Space Program. “We are detecting strong energetic activity from the Princess. Her heat signature is rising.”

  “Zoom in,” said Gentry.

  Bogle brought the statue on the view screen. As she racked focus, Princess Leia changed up her transmission, pulsing blues and oranges. Bogle’s fingers raced across her screen, activating audio, visual, binary, every frakking decoder she could think of, but her screen kept blinking the same useless result: “code source unknown. message unreadable.”

  “The Princess is transmitting something, but she is not targeting the turrets. But, it’s not to us, either. Maybe she’s communicating with Beings who are sub-surface, Sir.”

  Bolts of photons shot from the turrets, quickly exiting Callisto’s atmosphere. The photons slammed into Star Warden. The starship buckled under the direct hit, setting off alarms and throwing Gentry on his side. Star Warden automatically reset herself in orbit, groaning like a whale as her port side ion drives activated to reposition her.

  The overhead light switched from daylight yellow-white to ombre red, battle light, changing the personality of the bridge and alerting the crew to their “battle ready” status. Like they needed the reminder after photons had smacked them upside their proverbial heads.

  “Shields?” Gentry was on his feet, faster than any of his crew, ready to do battle.

  “We’re at eighty-two percent,” Bogle replied.

  Another shudder brought Gentry to his knees. “Let’s make rain.”

  “RGSS-2’s online, Sir.” His weapons’ chief was all over making it rain on Callisto. At the touch of a button, RGSS-2’s—Rail Gun Space-to-Surface Second Generations—popped lead slugs the size of missiles, from Star Warden’s starboard side. They’d prepped for hostile alien encounters and knew how to pound those snot-nose, tentacle-waving, one-eyed monstrosities back into whatever steaming pile of sludge they’d crawled out of. When RGSS-2’s hit, they hit twice as hard as anything else Star Warden, or any Earth-made space craft, had in their arsenal.

  Star Warden rattled as slug after slug ejected out of her barreled cannons, sending a constant vrum vrum vrum through the battery walls to the rem
ainder of the ship. The vibration always caught Gentry off guard. He gripped the Lecturn, knuckles white.

  Bogle brought up the targeted turrets on the view screen.

  The Rail Gun could shoot thousands of slugs a minute, but once they were spent the chambers would be empty until the ship made it to a Space Armory to load up again. It was a one-time bombardment and always did the trick.

  Until now.

  Callisto’s guns shot blue electric bolts at the RGSS-2 slugs, turning them to dust on contact. Not a single slug reached Callisto’s surface. For the first time in fleet history, they’d failed to make rain. They were slugless against an enemy that could withstand their heaviest weapons.

  The crew looked to Gentry, who studied the screen. Everything below was at peace again.

  “Fire the IC’s. Give ’em all we got!”

  The turrets below wouldn’t be able to incinerate ion pulses from the Ion Cannons. The IC’s weren’t as devastating as the Slugs, but they had the advantage of being accurate. It would take longer, but Star Warden would still prevail.

  The turrets rotated, their cannons extended and raised, locked onto their target – Star Warden. It had to be a trick of the light, because the muzzles appeared to balloon to three-times their original size and what metal was capable of that? Gentry didn’t have time to think it through. Thousands of electric-bolts burst from the cannon and pounded the star ship. The bridge’s view screen blinked in and out, the bolts zapping more energy from the Star Carrier’s core, draining the heart of the ship.

  Gentry fell back, clutching the Lecturn, only just able to keep himself upright.

  Star Warden’s IC’s blasted turret after turret, opening them up into exploding fire blossoms then twisting them into melted rubble.

  It counted for squat.

  Once a turret went offline, another turret would pop up in its place, shooting volleys at Star Warden.

  Both Star Warden and the enemy were exchanging fire, exchanging hit after hit. Only one combatant was suffering and it wasn’t Callisto.

  “Sir, shields are below fifty percent.” There was real panic in Bogle’s eyes, something Gentry had never seen before.

  “That low?”

  “They are sucking the life energy from our shields.”

  Another hit and Gentry snapped to. For weapons to damage Star Warden like this was unusual, especially from turrets. “Keep targeting and continue to pound them. Lock ballistics on the pyramids. Let’s shut off their grid, render the turrets useless.” He massaged his temple. If their shields went down, they were burnt fucking toast.

  Down on Callisto, a turret exploded and another popped up next to it, sending blasts toward Star Warden.

  A dozen Intermediate Space to Ground Ballistic Missiles shot from Star Warden’s starboard.

  One by one, they were targeted and shot down by the turrets. They never got close to the pyramids or Princess Leia.

  Callisto was defended.

  “Fire again.”

  The same results.

  “How are our shields?”

  Bogle growled. “Eighteen percent. This isn’t looking good, Admiral!”

  “Why are we losing shields so quickly?” They didn’t have enough time. In less than a minute, they’d lose all shields. Gentry had never witnessed Star Warden under fifty percent shields, let alone under twenty percent. He cringed as Star Warden shuddered again. He let out a shallow breath. It sucked, but there was only one logical choice. He gave the order without a shred of emotion, though his guts were roiling. “Abandon ship.” If it had been permitted, he would have doubled over and vomited all over his own shoes, but there was no time for sentimentality. He needed to get his crew to safety. “Set evacuation procedures immediately.”

  The turret fire stopped as suddenly as it had begun and quiet filled the bridge.

  Gentry stared straight ahead at the view screen. Callisto’s silence could mean a million different things, but his gut told him it didn’t mean surrender. He was about to do something that galled him, but it was necessary. A good commander knows when to attack and when to retreat. They were outgunned. It was time. “Back us up. We’re heading to the fleet.”

  “Shields are up to twenty-three percent,” Bogle said. “Star Warden shields are regenerating. We’re doing well.”

  “Did you say well? We got the piss kicked out of us. Another minute and we’d be in our evacuation crafts, watching Star Warden being ripped apart.”

  “Twenty-eight percent, Admiral.”

  Gentry was pleasantly shocked.

  Star Warden was a beast. It had taken twice as much damage from larger weapons fire in the past and the shields had never reacted this poorly. Today, the shields had been almost completely drained. If Callisto hadn’t stopped pummeling them, Star Warden would have been a dead ship flying. That meant whoever was down on Callisto was more dangerous and more powerful than any race or species he’d ever come across, including his own.

  Gentry’s face hardened and his eyes grew cold. This group on Callisto had to be stopped. In fact, they had to be eliminated. Any race this strong was a direct threat to human survival – to Earth’s survival. He couldn’t turn tail and run. He had to obliterate them.

  He leaned forward. “Ready nuclear heads.”

  Bogle tilted her head. “We can’t do that, Sir.”

  “We can and we will. Launch when ready.”

  Bogle abandoned her post and rushed to Gentry’s side. “There is an archaeological and resource goldmine down there. Call it off. We’ll come back after we’ve had more time to think about our next action.”

  Gentry pushed Bogle away. “Launch when ready.”

  “You’ll be destroying a resource bed that we could use for eons. And, we don’t know if they truly are hostile. It could be an automated response. Perhaps we’ve entered a ‘no fly’ zone and the machines are programmed to repel all ships they don’t recognize…”

  “They shot first. That’s hostile enough. Their technology is more advanced than ours, Bogle.”

  A weapons officer chimed in. “Nuclear warhead ready. Keys locked in. All we need is yours, Admiral.”

  Gentry paced over to an officer’s station. He typed in a code on the station’s control panel and a small drawer slid outward with a long, thick shining key tucked inside. He grabbed the “fire control” key and slid it into a keyhole designated “Admiral.” He glanced at two officers standing side by side, their own “fire control” keys inserted into their designated nuclear launch keyholes.

  The Admiral eyed them, “Commencing launch in three, two, one...now.”

  They turned their keys simultaneously.

  Bogle’s shoulders slumped. She was disappointed in him. Big deal. She needed to grow a set. This was war. The sooner she learned that, the better off she’d be. Gentry held his position.

  The view screen dimmed, to save the crews eyes from the coming nuclear explosion.

  The warhead wasn’t large, but it was powerful. In ten seconds, a mushroom cloud would erupt on Callisto but Star Warden would be too far away from Callisto’s atmosphere to either feel the blast or suffer from fallout or radiation.

  The turrets on the moon locked onto the warhead the second it left Star Warden. In a flash, the turrets fired in unison, filling the view screen with a blinding white light. A moment later, the screen filled with orange and red flames, then evaporated in the vacuum of space.

  The warhead was hit close to Star Warden. Too close.

  Gentry watched in horror as the bridge cracked in half. The view screen split down the middle and all air was sucked into space along with everything and everyone else.

  Gentry saw Captain Bogle spin away toward Callisto.

  She reached for Gentry as he was catapulted in the opposite direction.

  Star Warden was buckling in on itself, explosions blasting holes in its sides, extinguishing seconds after.

  People spilled out of the decimated ship, spinning in space’s cold, oxygen-deprived de
ath grip.

  Gentry’s vision narrowed, blackness crowding in, until he lost sight entirely. His body stiffened as the oxygen drained from his blood.

  His heart stopped.

  His brain shut down.

  Darkness filled him, followed by a flash of light. He was a man among the stars, just as he’d always wanted to be.

  2

  J-Quadrant, Solar System

  Callisto

  This isn’t happening. I’m going to die.

  Captain Katherine Bogle had been ripped out of Star Warden by the vacuum of space, the mighty Star Carrier torn apart and buckling in on itself. She’d told Admiral Gentry Race not to do it, not to deploy the nuclear war-head at an unknown civilization on a Jupiter moon. On Callisto.

  He did. And it had backfired.

  You killed your crew. You killed yourself. You killed me.

  Three seconds into the void of space and Katherine was hurtling toward the Callisto atmosphere. She closed her eyes and clamped her mouth shut. If she kept them open, her eyes and tongue would boil, like Arnold on Mars in “Total Recall.” Without a space suit, she’d feel the worst effects of space and she’d rather pass out before those effects took hold – her lymph, bladder, and blood would double in size, her lungs would rupture, and she’d freeze to death. Then there was the approaching Callisto atmosphere. Consciously burning up wasn’t something she wanted to experience, either, even if she only had about twelve seconds of conscious life left. If she wasn’t conscious when death grabbed hold, when it took her final heart beat, the better.

  Five seconds and the deep-freeze of the cosmos would engulf her, the oxygen inside her expanding, her body ballooning.

  Gentry, the diabolical jerk, pulled the trigger and she paid the ultimate price for his sin. Thirty-thousand of Star Warden’s crew paid the ultimate price for his foolishness.

  Eight seconds.

  In eight more seconds, she’d pass out. At least, that’s what physics class had taught her. And in less than a minute, after she passed out, her trachea would collapse, she’d asphyxiate, and suffocate to death.