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

Ricky pulled away from me like a man possessed. He stumbled toward the downed predator. I grabbed on tighter, forcing him back toward the predator I had dismounted.

“Ricky!” I screamed into his face. I slammed my helmet into his to get him to focus on me. “Rick, trust me. I have a better shot of wading in there and getting her. Think about it. You cover me from the blood shot on the back of Tong’s predator. You’re the better shot. Be smart!”

“You bring her back!” Ricky yelled right back into my helmet. “You bring her back, Dean. You promise me!”

I didn’t know if she was even alive in there, but I knew what Ricky needed to hear if we were going to live through the next few minutes. Stacy and the rest of the survivors from the wall were doing a great job keeping the infected off us, but it wasn’t going to last forever.

“I’ll get her,” I said, shoving Ricky back toward Tong’s waiting predator. “Get the blood shot up and keep them off me!”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I waded into the infected around Arun’s upturned predator. There were bodies everywhere, both human and alien animals. Hands grabbed for me from infected pinned beneath the predator.

I shook them off and searched for any sign of Arun. All around me weapon fire erupted. Both red laser fire from those inside the colony as well as the blood shot’s rounds rained down on my position.

I heard the rhythmic dat-dat-dat of a second weapon. Ricky had gotten the other Blood Shot up. I had one shot of getting out of this alive, but I had to be quick. I couldn’t let myself get overrun.

Infected grabbed on to my helmet, arms, and legs as I searched for Arun in the mound of twisted metal and bodies. My movements were quick and violent. I struck out with brutal accuracy at Legion as it tried to bring me down.

Then she was in front of me. Arun was still strapped into her seat, unmoving, unresponsive.

“Arun!” I yelled as I felt a hand grab the back of my helmet, then something ripped the hand off a second later. I looked back to see Stacy behind creating a wall of rounds around me. That chick was nuts. She could have killed me. I might actually be in love.

“Arun, let’s go!” I shouted again, reaching in to unbuckle her strap and drag her from the predator. She didn’t move.

It wasn’t until I pulled her out that I saw the lenses in her helmet were both broken open. A mixture of blood and dark ooze fell from her sightless eyes.

I wasn’t a freaking doctor, but I didn’t have to be one to know Legion had infected her. If it was even possible to infect an Eternal. If Arun was even still alive.

I swung her body over my shoulder and made a run back to Ricky’s predator that now sat empty. Screams from Legion, roars from the infected, and shouts from our own survivors added to the mayhem around me. I focused on getting Arun into the passenger side of the predator and hopped into the driver’s side.

The predator roared to life under my direction. We headed for the safety of the Orion wall.

You’re going to be alright, you’re going to be alright, I repeated in my mind as Arun slumped forward in her seat.

All three remaining predators made it within the safety of the wall a minute later. The gates closed behind us. We’d made it, but at what cost?

Epilogue

Once we were inside the wall, Legion fled. Not the running-for-your-life kind of retreat, more of a regroup-and-rethink kind of retreat. That had me worried, but there were other more pressing things to consider at the moment.

Ricky and Elon, along with the others, attended to Arun. She was still breathing but just barely. Multiple fractures and a punctured lung would have been enough for her to bounce back from if she hadn’t been infected with the Legion virus.

They were all with her now, trying to figure out what she needed, how she could be helped if at all.

I found myself on the wall in the hours after our return to the Orion. I looked out over the dead bodies lying on the field of battle. The sawg were gone, but to where I had no idea. Maybe they traveled back to the mist land, maybe they decided to make a new home for themselves in the jungle.

I shuddered when I thought what an infected sawg would be able to achieve under Legion’s control. Those beasts were massive. It was difficult to comprehend how Legion would be able to overcome one of them no matter how great its numbers.

“I think they’ll return home,” Jezra said, reading my thoughts and joining me on the wall.

“What?” I asked.

“I think the sawg will make it back to the mist lands,” Jezra answered. “They are creatures of habit. I mean, that’s what you were thinking, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, shaking off the feeling the old bat could read my thoughts. “So you must feel like a fish in a glass bowl at the moment, huh?”

“Yes, Tong and I have received our fair share of stares,” Jezra answered, looking down the catwalk along the wall. A pair of suits who were staring at her immediately looked away. “It will take time for your kind to accept us, but they will.”

I nodded. I looked down at my once white scale armor, now bloody from the battle and stained with dirt. My helmet clipped onto my waistband freed my hands.

“You think she’s going to make it?” I asked. “I mean Arun.”

“I think she has a strong chance,” Jezra answered. “There is no telling what the Legion virus will or will not be able to do when introduced to an Eternal. Dean, I came up here to tell you something important.”

There was something in Jezra’s voice that made me look