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

caught my eyes. Transients turned by the symbiotic virus known as Legion ran from tree to tree, using them as cover.

“They’re going to kill you; there are too many of them,” I said. I gritted my teeth, straining against my bonds so hard they bit into my skin and drew blood.

The screams of those infected by Legion continued.

“You got to let me go,” I told Maksim. “Whatever we have between us has to be put aside for another day. You know you have a better chance with me than without me.”

The sounds of infected were getting closer. Their screams lifted to the air and echoed in the still. The faint presence of wildlife that had been chirping and scampering a moment ago was gone now.

Maksim turned to me with drifting eyes. He pulled a knife from the inside of his boot. I recognized the level of uncertainty in that look. Not uncertainty that he was about to fight, but whether he should free me or not.

“Maksim,” I growled. “You’re dead without me. You know it.”

Maksim rushed to my side. The knife in his hand was positioned to slice down on my bonds. He never got the chance. A thick figure bolted from a tree meters to our right. It tackled Maksim to the ground.

He was a large man wearing a dark grey uniform, setting him aside as a Civil Authority Officer. He rained down blows on Maksim, assuming a dominant position. Blackness filled his eyes. Dark rivers of the substance oozed from his mouth and ears.

Maksim brought his knife up and across the neck of the man, opening a wide gash that ran freely with black blood. The man fell on him, gurgling as he tried to hold the wound closed with his hands.

“Come on! Come on!” I yelled, straining against my bonds with everything I had. I leaned forward, digging my feet into the ground. The sticky hot sensation of blood running from my wrists where the strap cut into me did nothing to stop my struggling. I knew in seconds I’d be dead if I didn’t get free.

Two more infected reached Maksim. To his credit, he dispatched them both swiftly and efficiently. He was a hard man to put down when he had a blade in his hands. That was something for me to remember in the future.

Maksim drove the end of his blade into the right ear of his first attacker. The second attacker, he used its own momentum against. Maksim flipped the crazed woman over then fell on the infected blade first with a violent stab that went into her left eye.

One of the infected charged me. He couldn’t be more than a teenager. He was slender with long limbs and a shriek that said he was going through puberty. He came at me with a wild, hungry expression. The kid dove at me arms first.

I coiled my legs underneath me, catching him in the chest. For the briefest moment, his look of victory melded to shock.

“Not today,” I grunted as I uncoiled my legs like a spring, sending all the power I had into the motion. The kid flew back, slamming into another pair of infected.

They were all over the place now. Dozens of the infected screaming. Most of them went for Maksim. I think Legion understood I was out of commission at the moment and less important.

Another attacker came my way, this one an older woman with curly brown hair. She was smarter, coming at me from the side. I tried to twist my body around to hit her with my legs, but the bonds were too tight.

A wave of infected came at Maksim and he went down.

The woman grabbed my throat in both of her small hands and squeezed. She didn’t say anything, but I swear there was a look of recollection in those macabre black eyes.

I fought for breath when none came. There was nothing I could do. I even tried to lower my chin and bite her hands, anything to live. It didn’t work.

“Shhh, shhh, go now,” the woman coaxed me as she squeezed the life out of me.

A thump on the tree I was tied to caught my attention; the blade of Maksim’s knife stuck deep into the trunk right above the strap holding me secure.

I gritted my teeth, giving everything I had left to the motion of sawing through the rope or whatever was holding me in place.

SNAP!

My hands fell free. Sore, fatigued, and choking, I grabbed the old woman by her own throat. With a series of violent motions, I slammed her fragile skull against the base of the tree that had held me prisoner a moment before.

By the third strike, she’d released her grip on my throat. By the fifth, she was unconscious and probably hemorrhaging. Her body slumped to the ground beside me. Legion could take over the bodies, but it seemed they were still as fragile as they had been before.

I struggled to my feet, grasping at the handle of the knife stuck in the tree. Weak from loss of blood and oxygen, I still refused to go down without a fight. Nine meters in front of me, I saw Maksim reeling under the onslaught of a half dozen infected.

He looked like he was about to be overwhelmed. A red sheet of fresh blood covered his face. His nose looked broken, his left hand held close to his chest as though it were useless.

I had a decision to make then and there. No time to consider the outcome either way. I could leave the Disciple who had been nothing but the very worst of problems or I could stay right here with him, possibly giving my own life in the process.

He would never know. He faced me, but the blood in his eyes must have obscured his vision. He didn’t call out. All he had eyes for at the moment were the group of infected closing in on him.

What are you going to do, Dean?