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

back into the encampment, he joined me. His light eyes looked at me for direction, as if to say, “I don’t know what you have planned, but count me in.”

I ignored it all, making for the opposite side of the wall where the crawler was parked. It was our only mode of transportation and I was taking a huge risk using it now. Still, no one would be alive to use it at all if the alien creature was allowed inside.

I reached the crawler, jumped inside the driver seat, and slammed my hand on the digital reader. It recognized me and gunned to life just as the beast hit the gates for the third time.

SHADOOM!

The left gate shuddered and crumpled inward.

Thanks to Stacy’s and Arun’s efforts, and the efforts of those on the wall, two more chunks of raw meat had been opened up on its hide. Its right eye was missing now. Blood gushed from its body, leaving small streams of dark liquid in its wake.

The right gate came down and the animal stumbled inside.

“Bad idea, bad, idea, bad idea,” I said, and slammed my foot onto the gas pedal. The beast was as large as a small bus, but the crawler itself was no joke either. It was built to haul things, not necessarily made for speed but pure power.

“Mr. Slade,” Iris sounded in my earpiece. “I need to advise you against this course of action. The odds of you surviving a head-on impact with the alien beast are—”

“Never tell me the odds,” I yelled, ripping the earpiece out of my ear. The crawler jerked to life and took off.

The creature, having broken through the gates, stopped for a moment as if it were looking and studying the inside of the compound. The act looked unnatural, as if the creature were nothing more than a puppet being used by its true master. When it swung its one eye toward me, a snarl lifted its lip.

I raced across the compound. I had to be travelling at least fifty miles an hour when the beast started its charge in my direction. Like two titans, we sprinted toward one another.

I roared as the creature let out another bellow of its own. His sounded more impressive, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

It was so close now, I could see the madness in the creature’s eye. It’s funny how in times like this the clock seems to move at a crawl. The world travels in slow motion. I’d experienced this before during fights. My senses were so cued up, every single detail struck me individually.

I saw the black orb it called an iris, the virus that was Legion spreading from its eyes and mouth in thick, inky lines. The ebony streaks looked like veins just under the skin.

I saw the impossible damage the beast had already taken from multiple blaster rounds. For all intents and purposes, the creature should be dead. There was no way with the amount of blood it had already lost it should be on its feet.

There were entire sections of the creature that were missing. Its skin was charred, and smoke drifted from its many wounds. The stench of its ruined skin touched my nose and reminded me of burning garbage.

I saw all of this in the space of a few seconds. Then time sped up.

4

Just stay in the crawler, a voice in the back of my mind itched. Stay in the crawler. You’ll die a hero. You’ll save all these people and you’ll get what you want. You’ll get to be with Natalie and your baby. Just stay in the crawler.

I had to make the decision now. My time was up. If I stayed in the driver’s seat of the crawler—now traveling seventy miles per hour—I might die in the collision. Or I could bail out and take my chances rolling on the ground.

Both options sucked, but jumping out instead of going head to head with the beast seemed like the better choice. The Dean I had been on Earth would have stayed in the crawler. The Dean today couldn’t. The reasons piled one on top of each other. There were too many people that needed me. Natalie wouldn’t approve, and heck, what if I survived the collision but got seriously hurt in the process?

I bailed.

Jumping from a moving vehicle traveling that quickly wasn’t exactly something I practiced in a day-to-day setting. I threw myself as far away from the open crawler door as I could. When I hit the ground, I rolled with the momentum. The air rushed out of my lungs when I struck the ground. Multiple bruises and scratches covered my face and exposed hands and arms.

The beast struck the crawler head-on with a sickening crunch. It sounded like a giant sledgehammer hitting a piece of raw meat.

When I stopped rolling, I got a chance to look behind me. The crawler was still in one piece, its front frame bent inward and smoking. Sparks shot out from underneath the hood.

The dazed alien creature stumbled backward before falling to the ground and writhing in some kind of serious pain. Stacy appeared by the creature a moment later, a cross between empathy and wrath in her eyes.

She unloaded on its one good eye. Gore and brain matter flew up in every direction. Stacy stood so close, some got on her shirt and pants. It didn’t seem to bother her.

As if a spell had fallen over the yard, everyone remained still. I think our brains were still trying to process what we had seen.

I was torn away from the grasp of the moment as Mutt bounded up to me. He stuck his snout in my face, sniffing me all over as if he were searching me for any serious wounds.

“I’m good.” I placed a hand on his face and gave him a scratch and then a playful push. “Don’t put that thing in my face. I’ve seen what you do