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

“Well, while we’re all playing detective, do you think I can get out of these restraints?” I asked, looking round the room.

“Yes, of course,” Arun said, nodding to Iris.

Iris merely glanced at the bonds holding me in place, and they opened. With a satisfying click, I was free.

“We need a plan to find and lure out this Disciple before he or she tries anything else,” Stacy said, pursing her lips in thought.

“Yep, right, so this has been great,” I said with a grimace as I swung my legs off the bed and stood up. “I’ll leave you to your Disciple hunt. I’m going to go lick my wounds and pretend there isn’t an invisible maniac on board trying to bring this ship down.”

“We need your help, Dean,” Arun said.

“Don’t you have an army of suits on board or a—”

“You’re the only one who has seen who we’re after. That makes you our key witness,” Elon told me.

“But I’m not a suit,” I said, then flicked my hand at Stacy. “And I sure as hell ain’t no spy.”

“Special Agent,” she corrected.

“No, you’re not,” said Elon. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not valuable.”

11

“Before we begin, we all know who you are,” Elon confessed. “Stacy had her questions when you assisted her in the alley, and it was confirmed when she looked up your history. It was acknowledged once more when we took in the gang member sent to kill Ricky. He had a lot to say about you too.”

“Wonderful,” I said, looking over at Stacy with a grimace. “You didn’t really need my help in that alley, did you? I mean, you could have taken those thugs yourself.”

“I was about to when you showed up,” Stacy agreed. “I couldn’t blow my cover, and you looked more than capable, so I let you be my knight in shining armor. It was kind of nice. Also, sorry for tasing you in the pen. I thought you were a Disciple.”

“Yeah, it happens, I guess,” I said. “Well, maybe it doesn’t, but it’s fine.” Now that I had everyone’s attention, I decided I needed a few answers. “What was that holo card you dropped in the alley? Your badge or something?”

“Undercover, we don’t carry badges, but it contained information I had collected, and I was going to drop it off to Elon and Arun,” Stacy said. “If those thugs had gotten their hands on it, my cover would have been blown.”

Looking back on it, the only reason I was even on Orion right now was because I’d stuck my neck out for Stacy in the first place—someone who didn’t even need my help. The irony in that wasn’t lost on me.

“If you’re done with your questions, we should move on. A plan to catch the saboteur we have on board needs to be hatched,” Arun said, reeling everyone back in.

“Just one more question,” I said.

Arun looked at me, giving me permission to go on.

“There was a satchel or a leather case of some kind left behind by the Disciple. I only saw it for a second, but it was by the pen with those wolf-dog things. What was it?” I asked. “Was the plan to poison the animals so we wouldn’t have them on Kronos Five?”

“That would have been my guess as well,” Elon said, anger smoldering in his eyes. “But I’m afraid the plan you stumbled upon is much darker than it initially appeared.”

“The satchel you saw was filled with a violent strain of rabies,” Iris interjected, picking up the conversation. “We believe the plan was to possibly inject all the animals with the strain, not just the canines, and let them loose on the ship.”

My mind went wild with images of animals foaming at the mouth as they burst from the cargo bay. This Disciple was sick, and it made me wonder what his next move would be. Anyone who could even consider doing that had to be out of their mind.

“So where do we start?” I asked.

“He or she had access to the cargo bay,” Arun mused, lowering her eyes. “We can start there. We may even be able to narrow it down by seeing who was granted access to the bay this morning. Iris?”

Iris blinked her bright blue eyes. “I can bring up all of that information for you as requested, but looking at the data right now, I believe I have a theory.”

“What’s that?” Elon asked.

“It is more likely that the Disciple used whatever cloaking technology they had to slip in alongside someone else. The logs show thirteen people checking in and out of the cargo hold this morning before Mr. Slade arrived.”

“None of this is to leave this room,” said Elon, rather insistently. “Not until Iris has time to run a more thorough investigation.”

“Elon and I will continue our efforts here with Iris while you and Stacy work separately on another leg of the investigation,” Arun said, looking at me to see if I would disagree.

I did.

“Boss Creed might have a few things to say about that, and I’m a mechanic not an investigator,” I said, trying to piece together the events that had led me to this point.

“He’s telling the truth,” Stacy said with a shrug. “Maybe he’s not the best asset to put into the field. I mean, I work best alone and—” She paused. “Well, look at him. He’s kind of a mess.”

“We’ll ask Boss Creed to send you two on a special assignment fixing something on the higher levels,” Elon stated as if he had already thought about this and come up with the solution. “And you’re both wrong. He’s the perfect person to help you, Stacy.”

“You possess more hand-to-hand training experience than anyone on the Orion,” Arun said, picking up where her brother left off. “And I won’t send one of our best into the field alone. Not now, when we know for certain there is a Disciple on board.”

“A cloaked Disciple at