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

“As soon as we get underway, I want to know how you created the mist as well as the sawg,” Arun said via the communication device in the dashboard of her predator.

“I will tell you as soon as we get underway,” Jezra agreed.

Jezra pointed to a button next to a steering wheel that looked like a sideways X.

I pressed the button and felt the engine roar to life. It ran heavy and throaty. I liked it.

“There are depressors on the right side of the steering wheel to go forward and on the left to stop,” Jezra explained. “Press the right one by your fingers gently.”

Ignoring her, I gunned that sucker, sending Jezra and myself both into the back of the seats. Mutt got low really quick. The predators zoomed toward the closed door of the cargo area.

“Wait, wait!” Jezra screamed. “I have to open the cargo bay doors!”

“Well, you better hurry, then!” I said to her. I knew it was kind of a jerk move, but she had just stood by and watched a pair of robots kick the crap out of me. Getting back at her felt good. It was the little things in life.

Jezra managed to compose herself long enough to press a few buttons on her glass pad. The cargo bay door slid up into the roof just in time for us to snake underneath.

“I guess I deserved that,” Jezra said with a slight pout. “I am sorry. The tribunal had to be done.”

“Meh.” I shrugged. “I’m not exactly going to celebrate being gassed and tested, but I get it. In a weird twisted way, I get it.”

This brought a smile to Jezra’s face.

She looked down at her glass pad one more time to touch a series of buttons.

We exited Cerberus in a long column, four predators outfitted with trailers full of equipment behind us.

We edged toward the mist, crossing the dark rich soil that existed between the pyramid and the fog wall.

“Give me just a moment,” Jezra said. “Mist is dissipating now and the sawg will leave us be.”

“Okay, story time,” Stacy said over the vehicle’s comms. “How do you control the mist and these sawg things?”

“And why did you let the sawg kill survivors when Orion escape crafts landed on Genesis?” Arun added.

We all waited to hear what crazy story Jezra was about to tell us. She didn’t disappoint.

“I awoke from my hyper sleep sixty-eight years ago to a new vision of our future. I knew what I had to do. I needed to prepare the defense of the Cerberus Installation and monitor for your arrival,” Jezra began. “The sawg are large peaceful creatures that survive in the ocean of our planet. I saw them as protectors of our people and of the Cerberus Installation. I began experiments on them, testing and manipulating their DNA until they grew both in size and in their confidence in traveling over land. Traditionally, sawg prefer living in the water, not the marsh land.”

Jezra told her story as the mist in front of us evaporated. It was my first good look at what we were traveling through. Muddy fields continued out in front of me as far as the eye could see. Random green shrubbery bushes and dead trees dotted the landscape, breaking up the monotony of the dark muck and mud.

“I soon learned sawg were no different than many animals,” Jezra explained. “I spent decades training them until they were as docile as Mutt. I fed them like pets and worked out a high-frequency system of commands to call them when I needed them. It helped that the creatures are naturally territorial animals. They protected the area around Cerberus.”

“Protected you from what?” I asked. “I thought Legion didn’t gain power until we landed. The Rung were asleep as well, weren’t they?”

“The Rung retreated when they realized they could not defeat Legion,” Jezra explained. “However, they did not go into hyper-sleep like we had. They hunkered down in their own cities. Over the years, they have sent scouting teams over the mountain range to see if we were still here and to check on Legion’s power. They have tried to take the Cerberus Installation on two occasions. Both times, the sawg have turned them back.”

“And the mist?” Stacy asked over the comms. “What about the mist? How do you control that?”

“Vents in the ground,” Jezra explained. “The Cerberus Installation was equipped with vents as well as escape tunnels should the installation ever become overrun. I’ve used both as a means to pump a massive amount of mists into the area surrounding the installation. With a series of chemicals mixed with the mist, I was able to compound the outcome by one thousand-fold, creating what you traveled through on the way here.”

Jezra went on telling us her story. My mind wandered to how much work went into the woman’s task of protecting the installation. I couldn’t imagine being alone for so many years. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, but being completely cut off from everything? That was a reality I didn’t want to have to comprehend.

A low bellow broke into my thoughts, coming from somewhere on our left. I swung my head in that direction and stared.

27

I knew what I was seeing wasn’t an elephant. I knew that in the back of my head, but the creature I saw approaching us sure as heck looked like one. It was massive, dwarfing even the rhino-like creatures we had already come across during our stay here on Genesis.

The beast lumbered slowly toward us on four massive legs. Each of its limbs was easily the width of any tree trunk I had seen in my stay here. The height of the juggernaut had to be at least three stories tall. Massive ears fell from its head, paired with a thick trunk and a pair of tentacles that fell from either side of its mouth. These appendages dragged on the ground,