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

True to his word, Ricky took it slow, creeping forward meter by meter. Maybe it was because I had just been ambushed earlier that day, but I felt a sense of unease, as though we were being watched. The hot day air was just giving way to the night’s cooler touch, causing goosebumps to flow down my neck.

I kept my head on a swivel, seeing the mountain ahead of us and the looming section of the Orion, but nothing else. Even the wildlife had gone to bed for the time being.

Slowly, the broken hull took on more shape. It was easily four times as large as the prison section we found and hadn’t fared as well in the crash as the other. More than half of it had been annihilated on impact. Debris and broken twisted steel were everywhere. Ricky rolled over what could have been a sink, then a section of a door, and so on and so on.

Memories of how great the Orion had been when we took off flooded my mind. How had something so massive come to be nothing more than garbage? It arched on the side of the mountain as if it were trying to camouflage itself on the alien terrain.

Darkened metal showed streaks of where a fire had begun then burned itself out. Still, there was no sign of life, either alien or human.

“Eyes open,” Arun reminded everyone. “I think—”

“There.” Tong’s sharp eyes caught sight of something in the night. “By the underside.”

We all looked in the same direction. It was actually the outside of the ship, but since the ship was shaped like a large moon, this section that broke off looked like a dome.

“What?” Ricky asked, still edging forward. “I don’t see anything.”

Just outside of the crawler’s right headlights, I saw it too. Something small, too small to be a human, scurried deeper in the Orion’s husk.

Mutt lifted his nose and sniffed the air.

“Alien?” Stacy asked. “Tong, did you recognize it?”

“I did not,” Tong answered. “I do not think it is a species on Genesis.”

“Then where did it come from?” Ricky asked.

I looked down at Mutt.

“Hey, weren’t there multiple animals that were in the storage bay along with Mutt? Maybe a few others survived the crash?” I offered.

“Maybe,” Arun said. “For the time being, blasters out and let’s find some cover for the night. We’ll look for survivors and clues to whatever that thing was tomorrow.”

“How about over there to the left?” Stacy asked.

A large arch with access to the inside from either the right or left stuck out of the ground. Ricky maneuvered the crawler over to it, shining the bright lights into the underside of the structure.

“Son of a monkey’s uncle,” Ricky said under his breath.

We pulled just outside of the archway. Stories above us, open levels hung with everyday appliances like cords, ropes, wires, towels, and so forth. It looked like someone had ripped off the side of the Orion then turned it to rest on its side.

“We’ll make camp here and take turns on watch,” Arun said.

Ricky pulled the crawler to a stop.

I jumped down and scanned the area around us. I still had that uneasy feeling like we were being watched by someone or something.

It can’t be Maksim, I reminded myself. Even if he were crazy enough to follow us, we traveled by crawler. On foot, it would take days to make the same trip. But if it’s not Maksim’s eyes you feel, then who’s is it?

That was the million-dollar question I didn’t have an answer to.

Instead of dwelling on something I wouldn’t figure out, I busied myself by making camp. Like Arun suggested, we stayed close to the crawler just inside the dome the Orion provided.

Like our own encampment before we cleaned it up, debris littered the area. It reminded me of a tornado touching down in a residential neighborhood, leaving a path of wreckage and destruction in its wake.

We sifted through what we could and threw larger items to the side before settling down to eat. Dinner consisted of a prepackaged kit containing sandwiches and sliced fruit. We ate in silence, washing down our meal with the canteens of water.

“You know what I miss most?” Ricky said, finally breaking the silence.

“Not worrying about being killed at every turn?” Stacy asked.

“Well, that too,” Ricky added. “But I was going to say fast food. I miss greasy, fattening fast food. The kind you know isn’t good for you, but you’re going to sacrifice the waistband and eat it anyway.”

“I too would like to try this fast food you speak of,” Tong said, munching on his sandwich. “Although the food you provide has been very good as well. What is the expression? Thumbs up?”

Tong went on to extend his right hand. The middle finger of his three-fingered palm went up, flipping us all off. Tong smiled and maneuvered his middle finger to each of us to make sure we all saw.

“Thumbs up.” He grinned.

“Oh, Tong.” Arun cracked a smile. She showed him with her own hand. “Like this. This is thumbs up.”

“Oh, of course,” Tong said, closing his other two fingers into a fist and pointing his thumb up.

We sat in a circle with no fire, just our flashlights to provide the light we needed. The usual clear sky was muddied by the clouds overhead. We didn’t see the creature, but Mutt sure smelled it.

The hackles on his back rose beside me as we finished our meal. He went to all fours but stayed low to the ground. His ears were as straight as soldier in a salute. He was focused on the area deeper into the crash site.

Ricky went for his rifle. Stacy and Arun pulled out their sidearms. They pointed them into the darkness, but with no target to shoot at, we stood still.

I placed my hand on the back of Mutt’s neck. I was afraid he was going to rush into the night. If he