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

For all the reasons I should leave him and make a run for it, there were two that made the decision for me. First, I’d be dead without him, strangled by some old infected woman. Second, as different as we were, we were both Transients not infected by Legion. Right now, there was a war going on. Us against them.

“Hey,” I barked as loud as I could. Already I was preparing myself for what was about to happen. I rolled my neck, stretching my arms out by twisting them to my sides. I didn’t wait for them to respond and stalked toward them. “Hey! Legion!”

An eerie moment took place when I used the name of the virus. All the infected turned to look at me at exactly the same moment.

I wished for something witty to say before doing the thing I did best in this life but came up blank. I settled for, “You want one of us, you got to take all of us!”

By the time the last word left my lips, I was on top of the first infected, slashing out with the knife in my right hand. I was trained as a gladiator, so hand-to-hand weapons weren’t my specialty, but they sure as heck helped.

I held the knife blade down near my pinky as I went to work. This let me play to my strengths. I could rely on my regular fighting style while still using the blade as a ripping weapon when I swung.

My tank was already near empty. The blood loss from my head and wrists threatened to put me out for the count. I let out a battle roar and rallied everything I had left to use on Legion. They came at us in a swarm. Hands reached for my legs and arms. A few of the infected even carried rocks and clubs with them.

I took one out after another, going back to my training days and laying into them. They came at me en masse with a swarm mentality. I never let myself get surrounded and used pinpoint accuracy to take them out with shots to their jawlines and temples. I miscalculated a swing from sheer exhaustion and went down as one of the infected tackled me from behind. My chin slammed against the ground.

I thought I was done as a pair of hands reached down. They weren’t infected hands. Maksim sent a heavy boot to the skull of the infected who had taken me down to the ground and pulled me up in single motion. No words; he just put his back to my own.

The infected circled us. For as many as we put down, more had come to bolster Legion’s ranks. My back pressed against Maksim’s was the last position I thought I’d find myself in that day.

“Here, you’re better with it,” I said, handing him the knife. “Just don’t stab me in the back.”

“I’ve saved you twice now,” Maksim said, accepting the knife. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

“Where did you take me anyway?” I asked, trying to get my bearings as more and more of the infected came through the sparse forest grounds to surround us.

“The forest to the south of the Orion,” Maksim answered, confirming my suspicions. “We’re only a few kilometers out.”

“We can’t stay here and fight; we have to make a go for it,” I told him. “I’m going to break through their lines and run like hell.”

I was going to say more, when the most angelic sound I’ve ever heard reached my ears. The sound of a crawler gunning toward our location echoed through the woods. The infected stood upright once again, turning their heads as one to search for the sound.

“Dean, we’re coming!” Ricky’s voice shouted through the forest.

I caught a glimpse of them to my left, the crawler bearing down on our position like a missile.

Legion sensed all was about to be lost. It charged toward Maksim and me in one last desperate attempt to kill us before help could arrive.

I roared as my fists connected with bodies. It was little help; there were way too many of them now. Maksim and I were completely surrounded.

I went down again, but I took a few of them with me in the process. Two of the infected held my arms to the ground, while a third lifted a rock over its head to crush my own.

I tried to kick out, but two more held my legs to the ground. I wasn’t sure what happened to Maksim. I could still hear the crawler somewhere in the background, but that wasn’t really a priority right now. I was about to die and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

I found myself wanting to live in that moment. It was a strange feeling for me after living a life for so long where I didn’t care what happened to me. The rock came down.

11

I was wrong. The sound of the crawler was the second most glorious sound. The first was a blaster rifle going off at the exact right instance.

One moment the infected’s head was there looking down on him with a drooping scowl and madness in its black eyes. The next, it was gone in a spray of red, courtesy of a blaster round. The body wobbled like a drunk, before dropping the rock harmlessly to the ground.

A flash of grey and white fur with teeth rushed by my eyes. Mutt barreled into the infected holding me to the ground, freeing my left arm. That was enough for me to wrestle myself free from the grip of the infected.

All around me, red blaster fire lit up the scene.

The infected paused for a moment as if they were having an internal debate whether to attack this new threat or take off in the opposite direction.

Apparently, they agreed on the latter. At once, they fled. They ran in all directions, scattering into the