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

I had lost all sense of time underground in the Rung bunker. When we were lifted to the desert landscape overhead, I was surprised to see it was the end of the day. The twin suns were beginning to disappear against the horizon.

“We’ll head for the Orion,” Stacy said, moving off the platform onto the soft sand. “I’m not sure how fast these things can move, but if we travel through the night, we might be able to get there by morning.”

“You will. There’s an autopilot when springing,” Sulk answered. “It’s by your right foot. Once you start running, tap your foot to the left to engage and disengage.”

“We’ll head to free this bunker and then others,” Dama said. “We’ll have enough pilots to arm more power suits but not all of them.”

“Do what you can,” Stacy said. “If we’re able, we’ll bring soldiers back to man the suits you were unable to. Will this channel remain open over the distance we have to travel?”

“It should,” Dama said as we all stood off the lift now. “Go to the Orion. You have my word that once we free the other bunkers and arm ourselves, we will come to your aid as you have come to ours.”

The way Dama said the words, there was no doubt in my mind the Rung would do exactly what they said.

“Thank you,” Stacy said, looking over to Tong, John, and me. “Let’s go. We have to make it back to the Orion as fast as we can.”

That was it. Tong took the lead in his power armor suit as we made the run back to the Orion. I thought it would be tiring at first, but once the autopilot was engaged on the power armor suits, we were as cozy as could be.

Our stations inside the armor didn’t seem to move at all while the armor’s legs sprinted over the desert landscape.

The section of armor my own legs were in separated from the rest of the unit and tapered, while the wider portion of the leg spread outward. This way, the armor’s legs could take massive strides while my own legs sat comfortably inside the inner section.

“Oh dear,” Tong said over the speakers inside our units.

“That sounds ominous,” John said.

“Didn’t think you’d know what that word meant,” I teased the big man. “You know, with all the concussions.”

“Hey, don’t judge a book by its cover,” John said. “I read. I can be smart.”

“Apparently, not smart enough if we all signed up to come on this trip,” I said under my breath. “I guess that goes for me too.”

“No argument there,” John said.

“Tong, what was it that you saw?” Stacy asked, interrupting our banter and reining in the conversation. “Legion?”

“Yes. I’m going to see if I can send you the image I have on the smart pad to the armor unit’s screens. One moment,” Tong said as his line went silent.

“Can we just appreciate what we’re all doing for a moment?” I said, not able to control the level of awe I felt. “We’re sprinting over an alien world in giant mech warriors.”

“Going to war with an intelligent virus,” John added.

“And our allies in this are aliens,” Stacy added. “With tails.”

“Good,” I said. “I just didn’t want the craziness of the moment to be lost on anyone.”

“Oh trust me, this one’s going in the diary,” Stacy said with a half laugh, half sigh. “Amongst a myriad of days to be remembered since our crash, this one’s in the top five.” I was happy to see that her humor was returning and that her stress level was decreasing. She had been pretty tense and emotional for a while, and understandably so.

She was right, in any case. Today would be one for the books.

No matter how it played out.

I settled into the smooth ride of the power armor unit while the auto pilot course kept us straight, running across the desert toward the canyon we had entered to get here in the first place. It had almost lulled me to sleep when Tong’s voice came over the comms.

“Here we go.” he said. “I’m tapped into the feed of our low-flying satellite. “I can only see a certain number of miles ahead of us, but I think it’s pretty obvious what’s happening.”

A small square screen popped to life beside me on the bottom right of our three-hundred-and-sixty-degree viewing screens inside the power armor.

The smaller screen showed an aerial view of the canyon ahead of us. Small dots ran sporadically, away from us and in the direction of the Orion.

“He doesn’t care about getting to us anymore.” Stacy said what we were all thinking. “He only cares about getting to the Orion and taking it out before we get there and then getting off-world.”

“Can’t these things run any faster?” I said, trying to urge my power unit to go faster, even though we were traveling at a dead sprint. “We have to get there faster.”

“This is it,” Tong said. “I do think we are traveling just as fast, perhaps faster than on a predator.”

“I think we’re going faster. It seems like it at least,” Stacy answered. “The canyon is coming up ahead of us. As hard as this may seem, we should try and rest. We’ll have to run through the night and maybe we’ll reach the Orion as the sun rises.”

“I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think sleep is going to come that easily,” John said. “Not with everything going on.”

“Just try,” Stacy said. “We have no idea how long the battle tomorrow will last.”

The comms went silent for a time then as we each got lost in our own thoughts. I knew Stacy was right. I even managed to fall in and out of sleep a few times.

When we were in the canyon, we found out our units had sensors that kept them from slamming into a curve when the canyon wound right or left. We were also able to avoid the boulders and