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

“Lou, Lou, can you hear me?” I asked, gently removing his helmet.

Lou’s face was pale. Blood spurted copiously from his mouth, and he gave off a weak, wet cough.

“You remember who you are,” Lou said so faintly I could barely make out the words.

His head was twisted to the right side of his shoulders in a way I had never seen before. Dark bruising was already starting around his neck and shoulder. I knew deep down things didn’t look good for him.

“Lou, we’ll be okay,” I said, refusing to accept the obvious. “We’re going to get you back. You don’t give up. You hear me? You don’t give up! You’re not allowed to, not after all that fate and destiny stuff you’re always talking about.”

Stacy appeared out of the darkness from wherever she had been thrown in the accident, limping gingerly. Thankfully, it seemed her armor had saved her from the worst of the fall when she was thrown from the predator.

“Lou,” Stacy said, approaching him as quickly as her injured leg would permit. She removed her own helmet and sank to her knees beside him. She grabbed Lou’s hand in her own. She recognized death when she saw it. We had all seen enough of it to know what it looked like. “Lou, we’re here for you. You’re not alone.”

“You…will save them,” Lou said, looking into the night sky above. “You two…will save this planet. We are all here…for a reason.”

The finality in his voice was enough to give my anger pause. My mouth was dry. A lump formed in my throat, rendering me unable to speak. With that, Lou let out a long draw of breath, and he was gone.

We sat there a few seconds in silence with the smoking predator behind us still burning from the hood. Distant screams in the night told us our spare time, time to say goodbye to our friend and examine wounds of the others in the wreck, was up.

“We have to go.” Stacy was the first to speak. “We’ll come back for his body. He’s past Legion being able to infect him now. We’ll give him the burial he deserves later, but right now we have to go or his death will be meaningless.”

I rose to my feet, feeling so much anger burn in my chest I was ready to make a final stand against Legion right there and then. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was angry, grieving, and in pain from this loss.

John pulled off his own helmet. Tears filled his eyes, shimmering like tiny pools in the light of the many stars.

“What do you want from us?!” John shouted at the screaming infected. “You want to take everything? Is that what you want? You want to kill or infect us all and be alone again?”

John pulled the Judge from his hip. He began firing wildly into the night.

“Put your weapon down,” Stacy said firmly and loudly over John’s fire. “All that anger you feel? Bottle it up and get ready to use it the next time we come face to face with Legion. Right now, what you’re doing isn’t helping anyone.”

I had a moment with Lou, maybe the last moment we would ever have together. I looked down at my friend, the man with the faith and beliefs I didn’t quite understand but whom I felt privileged to know. The man I might have never known if we hadn’t crash landed on this god forsaken planet.

“I’m not going to let you down,” I said, closing his unseeing eyes with the tips of my fingers. “I’m going to make this count. I promise you. I’ll make this count.”

“Move!” Stacy shoved John toward the one working predator. “Now, Dean! On your feet!”

“Let’s go,” I said, helping her bully John backward.

It was clear John was still stunned, maybe even concussed from the accident, but I couldn’t tell and there was no time to check him.

The howls of the infected behind us continued to grow in volume. They couldn’t be more than a half kilometer off and were closing in quickly.

Sulk followed us as we all piled into the single working predator. I confirmed what I already knew by the sounds of the screams. They were coming, there were many, and they would be here in minutes.

Stacy slammed herself into the passenger side seat with Sulk in the middle and me in the driver’s seat. John and Tong squeezed into the back with the Blood Shot.

We were off a second later, the wheels spinning to life underneath us.

“Not far now,” Tong said as Sulk clicked something unintelligible. “Safety is close.”

We drove through the night like a heavy burden had been placed on our shoulders. Death was a possibility we all accepted and realized, but to see it so close and alive in the form of this nasty virus that spread to its heart’s content was something different altogether.

As we moved into the darkness, the screams behind us faded. I followed Sulk’s direction to the underground Rung base that we all hoped was still a secret and not under siege by Legion.

Time held no real meaning. For the moment, we were safe. No tiny symbols of infected showed in our HUD. We were left by the living nightmares that followed us, only to be hounded by the cerebral torment of losing our good friend.

Night broke into day as the twin suns rose over the horizon, showing us a sea of sand, a landscape we had yet to see on the planet of Genesis. The sky turned a bright pink and then orange, a beautiful sight on a tragic day. I couldn’t help but wonder what Lou would have thought of it.

More clicking emitted from Sulk.

“We’re here,” Tong said, interpreting for the Rung.

“Here, where?” Stacy asked, looking around at the barren landscape that was mostly sand dunes and the sporadic weed bushes that refused to die.

Sulk hopped out of the predator before I could stop him. He ran in front