Orion Colony Complete Series Boxed Set J.N. Chaney (books for new readers .txt) 📖

to remind myself that every action could mean something else. A smile wasn’t necessarily a smile. A nod wasn’t necessarily a nod. They could both mean the opposite to this creature or they could mean nothing at all.

“How we doing, Iris?” Stacy asked after a while, still aiming her weapon at the alien.

“Very good,” Iris said. “The dialect he’s using is fairly simple once you work out the verb conjunctions. Their noun placement is also unlike most modern languages, but—”

“English, Iris. Can you translate whatever it’s saying into something we can understand yet?” I reminded the Cognitive.

“Oh yes.” Iris paused for the briefest moment. “I think in time I will be able to not only teach the alien our tongue, but as of this moment, I believe I can relay a simple question to him.”

“You called it a him,” said Stacy.

“Correct,” replied Iris. “This one is a male. At least, I am 93% certain of it. I’m still perfecting certain translations.”

“Great, good work, Iris,” Arun said with a nod toward our alien friend. “Can you ask him if he’s alone?”

Iris and the alien went back and forth for several minutes, giving no indication of progress. I also couldn’t tell from the variety of facial gestures whether or not this person was actually happy or pissed. The way I saw it, he seemed to be both at the same time, often giving something between a snarl and a smile.

Iris was doing her best, but I began to wonder if asking the most advanced sentient artificial intelligence in the history of mankind to learn an alien language in the matter of a few hours was actually too big of an ask.

“He says he’s alone,” Iris said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “His name is Tong, and he’s part of a race called the Remboshi.”

At the mention of his name, the alien placed a three-fingered hand on his chest and snapped its jaw furiously.

The rest of my team stared at him, saying nothing.

I cleared my throat. “Can you ask Tong what he’s doing here and why he’s alone?”

Iris spoke with Tong again, this time getting the answer much faster than before.

Whatever Iris and Tong were talking about had evoked a new expression from the reptilian alien—rigid eyes and an agape mouth, only slightly showing his fangs. He motioned to the three of us in the room. He looked and pointed directly at me.

Come on, I thought to myself. What is it now?

“Tong says his people were killed in this section of the planet. He says he was put to sleep until—” She paused. “I’m not certain of the translation, but my best assumption is—visitors. Yes, until the visitors awoke him.”

“What else?” I asked, sensing more to this unraveling thread. “What’s the rest of it?”

She paused. “He says he believes we were sent to save him. No, I’m sorry. I mistranslated. Not him. All of them.”

Arun looked around the room. “Who else is there?”

“The rest of his people,” explained Iris. “Thousands of them, and they’re sleeping all across this world, buried deep beneath the ground.”

Tong slammed his hand on his chest and made another strange gesture with his fingers. “Tse gu kal!”

Iris translated immediately. “The Great Dawn has come!”

Continue reading for ORION AWAKENED.

For Jonathan,

And the many adventures to come.

-J.N. Chaney

To everyone who’s gotten knocked down following their dreams.

You get back up. You don’t give up. That’s not who we are.

-Jonathan Yanez

1

They never came back. The exploration team led by Captain Ezra Harold disappeared with zero radio communication. It had been a full week since we returned to find a three-fingered alien waiting for us. In that time, Iris communicated with the alien named Tong, learning his dialect and teaching him our own.

Lucky for the survivors of the Orion, Tong was highly intelligent and a quick learner. This was one of the reasons he was selected by his own race of people to be the one woken if help should arrive.

At the moment, I found myself, along with Stacy, inside the alien’s home base in the gut of a mountain just outside the landing area of the Orion. It was decided that introducing the alien to the rest of the survivors would be too much for the time being. Until a way to integrate Tong into our lives was found, he would remain a secret.

The rest of the Orion crew and I took turns staying with him. They brought him food while Iris shared information and they learned about their new home planet.

“No way,” I said, looking over at Stacy. “He looks more like a big gecko, not an alligator.”

“You’re blind,” Stacy said, rolling her eyes. “Totally an alligator man.”

We were staying with Tong in the large circular room where we first found him. He showed us a control panel along the side of the wall that allowed bright lights to shine overhead as well as change color. Right now, the lights were bright white.

Tong looked at us with a wide grin, showing all of his stubby teeth. In the week Iris worked on teaching him English, the two had made incredible bounds, but there was still a steep learning curve.

“What is gecko?” Tong asked, still smiling. When he talked, his words sounded guttural and harsh. “Tong am Remboshi.”

“Right, right,” I said, nodding to the smiling alien. “You’re a Remboshi—that’s your race—but on Earth, you look like a creature we have called a gecko.”

“No gecko.” Tong waved a hand dismissing the idea. “Tong am Remboshi.”

“So, Tong, tell us,” Stacy said, leaning against the wide circular wall of the room. “What lies to the east in the mountains?”

Tong cocked his head to the side as if he didn’t comprehend the words. This was the main problem we were having with him. He could understand some dialogue, but he kept getting caught up on physical locations and in depth questions. Still, it had been two days since