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

laugh. It really was no laughing matter and it felt like broken glass had been shoved into my rotator cuff right through to the bone.

Boss Creed and the Rung recovered before I did. They battled on the dirt ground next to me as I tried to focus past the agony and get back to my feet, sucking air in to get through the pain.

This isn’t going to kill you, I coached myself in my head. Back up, get back on your feet.

Too stubborn to do anything else, I regained my footing. I could feel blood flowing freely from the cut above my eye and my left arm was useless from the shoulder down. I had dislocated it once before, years ago in the gladiator pit when I fought Harry “The Hammer” Rycker. The pain was the same sensation all over again, needles and pins, really big ones.

Lucky for me, Boss Creed had the Rung pinned on the ground, his whole body stretched across the much smaller being, his right side concentrated on pinning down that cybernetic hand. Seconds later, Mutt, Stacy, and a group of suits were on the alien as well.

Following them, a horde of worried Orion survivors looked to one another for direction. I felt bad for the mass of onlookers, as most of them had bought into this whole venture to find a new and better life, not constantly go up against the danger the crash had subjected them to.

“Are we being attacked?” I picked up a voice in the crowd.

“Is it the aliens or Legion?” another voice asked.

I ignored them both and looked for something to press my shoulder against. I needed get it back into its socket.

“Hey, you okay?” Ricky’s familiar and welcome voice cut through everything else. “You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah,” I gasped, wincing. “I just need you to pop my shoulder back into place.”

“Your what?” Ricky looked me up and down, uncertainty evident on his face. “Dean, I don’t know if I’m qualified for that. I’ll go get the doc and—”

“Ricky!” I growled. “You can do this, brother. I’ll walk you through it. But it needs to be now.”

“Okay, okay.” Ricky took a tentative step forward. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just hold my arm and pull when I tell you,” I instructed through gritted teeth.

“Okay, yeah, just hold the arm,” Ricky said, walking himself through the action and looking a little green. “I can do that, sure. Just hold the arm.”

He grabbed my forearm, and I braced myself for the pain I was about to feel.

“Pull!” I shouted, jerking my torso back at the same time. A loud pop brought a fresh wave of discomfort and pain, but it only lasted for a second.

Ricky dropped my arm, shaking his head as he did so. “You’re a wild man, Dean. What happened here?”

“Mutt cornered a Rung spy,” I said, rotating my arm and nodding over to where Boss Creed and Stacy still had the Rung pinned down. “At least, that’s what I think he is. I didn’t know how he got over the wall until he took me for a ride. Must have used that jetpack sometime during the night to get over.”

While the suits in the area tried to maintain order by creating a perimeter under Stacy’s direction, both Tong and Jezra appeared. Tong’s eyes were narrowed with suspicion as he eyed the Rung.

Jezra actually looked pleased, which, considering her earlier words, wasn’t exactly surprising.

“We’ve got him cuffed and that jetpack he was wearing removed,” Boss Creed said, looking down at the Rung, who was now in a sitting position, his head pointed down to the ground, much as he was when we found him with Mutt guarding him. “Any idea why he’s here?”

“Any idea anyone could have as to why our guest is here would be nothing more than a guess at this point,” Jezra said, making us all scratch our heads on that one. Sometimes it was hard to tell if the alien was intentionally speaking gibberish or if she was getting her English confused. “Please, we must speak with him.”

“Not here,” Stacy said, rejoining the group. She looked meaningfully at the crowd of Orion colonists gathered to see what was going on. “Somewhere inside the Orion or a tent.”

“Agreed,” Tong said, finally realizing that she didn’t want the colonists to panic.

Stacy and Boss Creed helped the Rung to his feet. They marched him through the camp toward the command tent that had previously been used by Arun.

Elon had taken on the full responsibility of overseeing the Orion colony since Arun had been infected with the Legion virus. Stacy and Boss Creed acted as his right hands. Doctor Allbright and Doctor Wong were also helping to shoulder the burden.

Mutt appeared at my side a moment later. He whined up to me as if to ask if I was okay.

“You did good, buddy,” I assured him, ruffling his soft ears then kneeling to check him over for any injuries from the fall. Thankfully there was no blood on him and he moved fine.

I followed Stacy as we made for that tent now, along with a myriad of colonists who wanted to know what was going on.

“Take him in and start talking to him,” Stacy instructed Boss Creed. “I’ll address the mob before they work themselves into a frenzy.” I couldn’t blame them for wanting to know what was going on. An unknown alien had snuck into camp, pulled a gun, then tried to fly away with me attached. They were bound to have questions.

“Got it,” Boss Creed said.

We entered the large green tent. Not to our surprise, Elon was nowhere to be seen. Since Arun had been infected by the Legion virus, either Ricky or Elon were by her side at all times, ready to assist when she needed them.

Boss Creed shoved the Rung to a chair inside the tent. Arun had kept her headquarters simple with a desk and chair on one end, a bookcase along one side,