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

Civil Authority. I didn’t envy her and I knew the toll it had taken on her, even if she wasn’t showing it like I was, with gray in her hair or wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

“I’m keeping my options open,” she finally said. “We need to talk to Elon and—we need to talk to Elon about this.”

“Right,” I said, hearing everything Stacy wasn’t saying. Arun, Elon’s older sister, wasn’t herself these days. The Legion virus had infected her during our race to the walls with Jezra and the supplies. Thanks to her Eternal healing powers, the virus hadn’t totally taken over her body. It was like a war raged inside her around the clock. As such, she was always tired, sometimes delirious, calling out odd, random things about the crash of the Orion, Maksim, and others that no one could decipher. Elon was understandably very concerned about Arun, but there was no cure except to maybe let time take its course. The most we could hope for was that her healing powers would win out.

“I’ll call a meeting tonight,” Stacy said, motioning for Jezra to follow. “I’d like to take a closer look at those images you showed us. Maybe we can find out more if we study them further.”

Jezra nodded and moved to go with Stacy.

“Wait. If we take the fight to Legion with the help of the Rung, what happens to that second prophecy that woke you out of your hyper sleep?” I asked Jezra. “You said the Orion would fall.”

Jezra blinked at me a few times with those large reptilian eyes of hers. “And it still may. There are many things to be considered. The sands of time have not given us a free pass as of yet.”

With that less than helpful piece of mumbo jumbo, the pair turned and left.

I shook my head. I was liable to give myself a headache if I tried to figure out Jezra and her prophecies. Too many years awake on her own with no one to communicate with had made her a bit loopy in my opinion.

I turned back to look over the wall. My head buzzed with the thoughts of joining forces with the Rung. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t even have a clue as to how we would accomplish such a thing if it were possible. Would the Rung want to team up with us in the first place? It occurred to me that this must be what Stacy had been thinking and regretted giving her flak about it.

“Help!” a scream rang out somewhere in the center of the compound. “Help! Someone help!”

I turned, looking down into the enclosed area of the Orion. Our wall made a large U shape around the exposed end of the colony seed ship. Inside was a city of tents where most of the colonists had chosen to live instead of trying to stay inside the ship that rested on its side.

“Someone help him!” the voice came again, sounding more frantic. It was a man’s voice, though not one I recognized.

Adrenaline lent aid to my movement and I grabbed the rifle, slinging it over my shoulder as I took off to investigate. My feet pounded down the catwalk and to the black stairs that led to the ground below.

I wove through our tent city rapidly as colonists emerged and looked to me for direction. Others followed the sounds of cries for help.

Rounding a final tent near the south wall, I found a figure hunched over on the ground. Mutt growled down at him.

It wasn’t the figure that was doing the yelling. Instead, one of the Orion survivors was pointing at Mutt apprehensively, yelling for help. He was clearly too frightened himself to try and intervene between the two beings.

Mutt was a genetically engineered canine. As such, he was perfect in every way. Massive in size and powerfully muscled from head to paw, the dog’s head came above my waist when he stood normally, and taller than me if he stood on his hind legs.

I’d only seen him act like this a handful of times before and it was always for good reason. The giant wolf dog’s hackles raised on his back and his ears were flattened against the sides of his head. Mutt would take a bite out of this guy if I didn’t intervene.

“Hey, easy, easy,” I said, grabbing Mutt by the extra skin at the scruff of his neck. “It’s okay, boy. I’m here.”

Mutt tensed under my hold. We were making a scene as more and more survivors from the Orion crash came to see what was causing the disturbance.

I still couldn’t clearly see who Mutt had cornered. Whoever it was wore a deep red coat that was stained from the elements.

“He’s not going to bite you,” I said to the hunched over and presumably terrified figure. “I’ve got a hold of him.”

Alarms went off in my mind when the figure refused to respond or turn to show their face.

I shouldered my weapon and reached out with my free hand to grab a handful of the cloak of the figure in front of me. I pulled hard enough to have their head swing around and instantly recoiled, already going for my weapon again as my hand came back and they stood. It was a Remboshi in front of me. Not one like Tong and Jezra. This one was taller with a cybernetic eye and metal left hand. It wasn’t a Remboshi, but rather a member of the Rung.

His presence in our camp caught me off guard enough that I had missed the weapon in his hands. He lifted an arm and leveled the blaster at my face.

2

Dozens of questions crashed like waves through my mind. The foremost was, how had he gotten inside our walls undetected? My hand was on my rifle, but I wasn’t able to draw it, at least not before he’d get a shot off.

I could feel a