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

installation Tong told us about. We have gear and weapons to arm a small army, but we have to get to you first. As soon as we show up, Legion’s going to be on us.”

“We have vehicles, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to punch a hole through those rhino animals,” I said. “Ideas?”

The channel was silent on both ends as we all tried to think of something.

“We just have to figure out a way to neutralize those rhinos,” I said, thinking out loud. “The humans and those centipede things won’t be able to stop one of our vehicles. They aren’t big enough.”

“We could try at night,” Iris suggested. “Perhaps under the cover of darkness, you’d have a better chance of making it to the gates before the larger creatures reached you.”

“That might work,” Stacy said through her teeth. “I wish we had a better option than a maybe. What’s to say those things can’t see just as well during the night as the day. Or if Legion can see through all their eyes, maybe darkness isn’t that great of an ally either.”

“We need something big to bulldoze through them and clear the way,” I suggested. “We need a battering ram or a—we need a sawg.”

“A what?” Elon asked.

“Dean, I think you got hit too many times in the head,” Stacy said.

“No, no, hear me out,” I said, excitement starting to edge into my words as I bought into my own wild idea. “Jezra said she can control them, right, like pets or the way we give Mutt an order. Why wouldn’t she be able to call one here and send it out in front of us to clear the way? I mean, those things were three maybe four times the size of the rhinos.”

“Hold on,” Elon said, confused. “Who is Jezra and what’s a sawg?”

“Jezra is another Remboshi we found at Tong’s installation,” Stacy explained as she worked my crazy idea through her mind. “The sawg is a massive alien animal in the mist land she controls.”

“It’ll work,” I said, looking at the place of the suns in the sky. “We can get it here as the suns go down, then send it in, in front of us while the suns are in Legion’s eyes. It’ll work.”

“I’m not going to pretend I understand it all, but it’s the best thing we’ve got at the moment,” Elon said. “What does Arun think about it?”

“We’ll get her on board,” I said. “Trust me.”

Everyone on the channel groaned.

“Come on, when have I been wrong?” I asked.

“How much time do you have?” Stacy asked with a smirk. “We’ll be in touch, Elon and Iris, let us get things set on our end.”

“Understood,” Elon said. “In the meantime, we have all our weapons on the walls. “We can give you some cover when you make your move.”

Stacy and I wiggled on our bellies back into the cover of the forest. Mutt followed as we got up and jogged back to the others.

“You think this is really going to work?” Stacy asked in between breaths.

“Why not?” I asked. “The sawg are big enough to get here soon if they come now. Jezra said she can control them.”

We saved our breath for running as we made it back to those waiting. I let Stacy give everyone the update, finishing with, “And Dean had an idea of how to get through.”

I told them my plan in detail, watching their faces when I finished. Everyone stood silent. Even Jezra just stared at me opened-mouthed, blinking through her thick goggle-like glasses. Tong’s tail swished side to side optimistically. He seemed like the only one already bought in.

“Will it work?” Arun asked Jezra. “Will the sawg obey you at that level of detail?”

Jezra was quiet, as if she were weighing the odds.

“Oh come on,” I said, interrupting the tense silence. “You’re always telling me to have faith. You’re the one that has all these visions. I’m the last guy to have faith in anything, but maybe, just maybe, I’m the right guy to be crazy enough to do this. I see a way inside our walls. I say we take it.”

“The sawg have never been outside of the mist land,” Jezra said slowly with a grin. “I know they will come. Getting them back may be easier than we anticipate. They are creatures of habit. They will hear the signal if I send it. I made sure the range would reach out a great distance. I have faith.”

I looked over to the others. Ricky was grinning from ear to ear. Tong nodded excitedly. It was Stacy and Arun I would have to convince.

“What’s to keep the sawg from tearing down our walls?” Arun asked.

“Or accidentally trampling us in the process?” Stacy added.

“I’ll lead them in a predator right into Legion,” I answered. “Once we’re in, I’ll turn off the signal, letting them go back to the mist land.”

“And they’ll just return home?” Arun looked over to Jezra for a consensus.

“If they do not, then we can always lead them back using the same signal to call them,” Jezra suggested. “They know me. I do not think they would attack your walls if they saw me on top of them.”

We all waited to hear what Arun would say.

Stacy shook her head like she didn’t like the idea.

“Stacy, let Elon know what we’re going to do. Have them ready to open the gates,” Arun said.

“Arun?” Stacy asked like she was about to argue.

“We’re not going to be able to get through on our own,” Arun told her. “Do it.”

Stacy didn’t seem excited, but she walked back the way we came to get a signal through to Elon and Iris.

“How long until the sawg can get here?” Arun asked Jezra.

“The beasts are surprisingly swift over land if they have a desire to get somewhere,” Jezra looked down on her glass pad. “I’m sending out the signal now that will call them. They’ll be here in a few hours. I should be able