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

“Thank you for letting us in,” Tong said in English so Stacy and I could understand. “Our friend’s life was saved because of you.”

The Remboshi with its back toward us didn’t say a word.

I sensed something off and brought my weapon up. Stacy must have felt the same thing. Her blaster came to bear on the back of the alien’s green scaly head.

While Tong spoke to the back of the head, I picked up images on the monitors. There had to be twenty screens on both sides of the wall. Images of the forest, the jungle, the mountains, and even the Orion popped up. My mouth dropped open as I saw the wall we’d constructed, and even survivors as they labored within our walls to construct the watchtowers and fortify the wall.

“Will you not turn and look at the Great Dawn who has come to save us?” Tong asked with a sense of disapproval in his voice. “Will you not greet your saviors who have come to aid us?”

We were still a dozen meters from the chair when it began to slowly turn. To say the events in the dark room were creepy would be an understatement.

“They’ve been watching us?” Stacy whispered under her breath.

Mutt, who had been following us, lowered to the ground and growled.

When the chair finally made its way around, I wasn’t sure what I had been afraid of this entire time. The Remboshi who sat there was even smaller than Tong. If I had to guess, it was female, with longer lashes. Whether it was male or female, one thing was for sure, it looked old and tired. Bags hung from its eyes and a series of wrinkles clung to its mouth and neck.

Unlike Tong, it didn’t wear a uniform. Instead, a white robe fell from its body.

Tong immediately knew who it was. His mouth dropped open, and he fell to his knees as if he were in the presence of some king or queen.

I had no idea who the wrinkled gecko was in front of me and didn’t even bother to lower my blaster. The Remboshi in the chair studied us with impassive eyes.

“Forgive me,” Tong said, still looking to the ground in front of him. “Forgive me. I did not know it was you.”

The Remboshi in the chair moved its eyes to me and Stacy as if it were looking for a similar act. I shook my head and shrugged as if to tell it, “Nope, not doing that.”

Stacy didn’t move either.

“Who are you and why have you been watching us on these monitors?” Stacy asked.

Tong looked back at us from his kneeling position, mortified. He shook his head, about to say something. Terror lived in his eyes as well as a healthy dose of confusion.

I wanted to tell him, “Welcome to the club, buddy,” but didn’t think this was the appropriate time.

All right, you old bag, I thought to myself as I held eye contact with the Remboshi in the chair. Out with it. What kind of nonsense are you going to tell us now?

“Please, please, lower your weapons,” Tong said, shaking his head and twisting his six fingers around each other. “You do not need them. This is the one. This is Jezra herself, who told of the prophecy of your coming. She alone said the Children of the Dawn would come to free us.”

“That’s great.” Stacy relaxed her grip on her weapon. She still didn’t lower it. “Now answer the question, Jezra. Why have you been watching us?”

Jezra pursed her thin lips and squinted at us like an old woman would in trying to see her grandchildren. Her eyes moved from me to Stacy, then back again.

“It thought you would be bigger,” Jezra said, blinking a few times for good measure. “You know, more savior-like. Oh well, I guess you will have to do. We should probably get started then. Ready to save our world?”

20

“I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start,” Stacy said, finally lowering her weapon. She took a long, weary sigh.

I felt for her, being just as tired, hungry, and emotionally and mentally drained. I just wanted a plate of food and a warm bed to go curl up in and assume the fetal position. I was reminded of a saying my coach Johnny had for me. He used to say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

“What the heck, I’ll bite,” I said, also lowering my weapon. “How are you watching all of us on the screen? I mean, you have drones or something overhead?”

Jezra rose from her seat and shuffled over to me wearing some kind of old sandals on her three-toed feet. She looked at me from all angles then blinked a few times, even poking at my arms and butt.

“Hmmm, yes, yes,” Jezra muttered to herself. “Maybe he is the one. Maybe, maybe, maybe…”

Her voice trailed off as she continued to inspect me like a piece of meat. I had done the same thing to juicy pieces of steak on my dinner plate.

“Excuse me,” I said, turning to look at her again. “Answers? How are you able to see everything on these monitors?”

“I believe the word you use for it is cameras. No, maybe a satellite,” Jezra said, rethinking her own word. “Hold on.”

We watched open-mouthed as Jezra shuffled over to her seat, digging for something in the cushion. She came back with a pair of thin glasses she wrapped around her reptilian head. The lenses of them made her eyes look even larger.

“Ah, that’s better,” Jezra said, coming over to us yet again. “Now does that answer your question?”

“You have satellites?” Stacy asked, looking from Jezra to Tong like he had been holding out on us this entire time. “Why didn’t you tell us you have satellites?”

“Not satellites.” Tong said the word as if he were trying to figure out exactly