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

up. I gave her my full attention. Her eyes were huge, her face etched in stone with hard wrinkles carved by time.

“The second prophecy I received, the one that woke me from my hyper sleep.” Jezra said each word slowly as if she were having a hard time pushing the words past her thin lips. “You need to know.”

“I really don’t want to by the sound of it,” I said with a sigh. “What is it?”

“Dean, I was wrong. The Orion—the Orion will be overrun,” Jezra said, swallowing hard. “For a second time, the Orion will fall.”

Continue reading for ORION PROTECTED.

1

“It’s been a month since we broke the hold Legion had around the Orion encampment. In that time, we’ve emptied the stockpiles of weapons and supplies from Jezra’s installation,” I complained to Stacy, running a hand through my beard, which, of late, I had noticed was shot through with threads of gray. Probably the stress of this new life I was leading making itself known. “But he’s still out there. I can feel him staring at us. Just within the tree line. He’s there watching, building his ranks and waiting to make his move.”

We stood close to one another. Almost, but not quite touching, though I wanted to. In the month since we’d made the run from Jezra’s Cerberus facility back to the Orion, our relationship had bloomed, and I was pretty sure she felt the same way I did, but it wasn’t there yet.

“Comforting thoughts to tuck you in at night,” Stacy said with a grimace and slight note of anxiousness in her voice. She followed my gaze out over the wall toward the thick trees of the jungle. “What do you think Legion is waiting for?”

I shrugged and let out a heavy exhale. Since I was a gladiator turned mechanic turned Chosen One, not a military strategist, I could only guess, and I wasn’t willing to put my morbid thoughts on Stacy. She had enough to deal with.

The morning mist was beginning to dissipate. The intense heat of the twin suns that rose to give our new home planet warmth burnt the faint tendrils of fog away until none remained.

Our planet, I thought to myself. Our planet. Have I really accepted this is home now? Will we ever make it off this rock?

The hard truth was that once we crash landed, there’d been no time to even try to leave Genesis. Every time we turned around, we found ourselves fighting to survive. From aliens to giant creatures and viruses, they all wanted us dead, each for their own reasons, although it wasn’t always clear what those were.

“We have enough firepower to kill Legion ten times over,” Stacy said, gripping the strap over her shoulder that held her own rifle. “That’s probably why he’s not coming to us.”

“Maybe,” I said with yet another shrug. “But then what happens?”

“What do you mean?” Stacy asked.

“I mean, what happens if he doesn’t come back? What happens if Legion remains content picking off creatures on the planet or the Rung or our own survivors that could still be out there?” I asked. “There have to be more survivors scattered across Genesis. This can’t be all of us. It’s a good-sized planet, and some of the escape pods could have landed on the other side. Legion might move to investigate that possibility.”

“Well, then we go in before that happens,” Stacy said with a grim nod. She reached out tentatively with her right hand and gave my own a squeeze. “Then we’ll figure out a way to go after him.”

Her hand felt cold. At the same time, the contact of her skin on mine brought a swell of hope and comfort.

There wasn’t any title on it yet. I think we both knew it was too fragile and new for that. Still, there was something there that went beyond friendship. It was as though if we mentioned it out loud, this piece of comfort would evaporate around us like the disappearing morning mist.

I felt a strange sense of peace with the relationship. There was no guilt. I knew in my heart of hearts that my wife would have wanted me to be happy. She would have wanted me to move on from her death, probably much sooner than I actually had, and this move felt right. I felt that I had her stamp of approval now and was slowly getting over the feeling of being unfaithful.

These thoughts entered my mind as we stood on the catwalk looking out into the jungle. Then the sound of hurried feet behind us slapping the floor of the steel catwalk with an odd clanging noise made me turn.

Jezra was a member of the Remboshi race. As such, she looked like a large gecko that walked on two lizard-like feet. She wore a tight-fitting synth suit around her slender frame and a long coat.

I was used to seeing the alien creature now. Both Jezra and Tong walked freely within the Orion walls. I wondered if they felt the same near-familiarity and had stopped viewing us as the actual aliens that we were. Having been identified as the Chosen One, although I still was not completely sure what that entailed, probably didn’t hurt their acceptance of us.

Even those that survived the crash and made it to the safety of our walls were getting used to them. There were still plenty of stares, and some were a bit afraid of the odd-looking creatures, but all in all, we coexisted with no major problems. It had helped that the two aliens learned our language and could communicate with everyone.

“Chosen One,” Jezra said urgently, coming to me with a glass data pad in her hand.

“Stop calling me that,” I told her for the hundredth time, slightly annoyed and maybe just a little flattered. “Dean, just Dean.”

“Right, Just Dean.” Jezra’s head bobbed. She looked down at where Stacy and I still held hands, raising her eyebrows, or