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

obstructions that the predators had to swerve around. It was jarring at first but having the power armor jump over or skirt around the obstacles without having to prompt it was liberating. One by one, like real life soldiers, we sprinted forward with ease.

As much as I wanted to forget about what had happened in the Rung bunker, I couldn’t. Maksim’s bloody face appeared in front of my eyes every time I closed them.

It had taken a very serious threat for him to realize it was time to stand together. Crashing on the planet hadn’t done that nor did finding out aliens existed. The villainous threat Legion posed of getting off planet was what did it.

What did that say about Legion? What did that say about Maksim?

I didn’t know. These were all questions that had to be saved and answered over the years or maybe never answered at all. Right now, our focus had to be singular. Kill Legion.

After a few hours of off and on sleep, I came to the conclusion I’d rather stay awake than live through another nightmare of a dead Maksim calling me his brother.

I played with the power armor interface, coming to a menu where I was able to communicate privately with the other power armor units via private channels. They were numbered R14, R15, and R16. I couldn’t be sure which one was Stacy, but I figured I had a thirty-three percent chance of getting it right, even if I guessed.

I decided on R15.

“Hey, you there?” I asked, deciding this was the best way to start a conversation if it were John or Tong.

“How’d you know this one was me?” Stacy asked. “I was going to send you a private message but didn’t want to start spilling my guts to John or Rung. Actually, I don’t know which would be worse.”

“Lucky guess,” I said, trying to figure out how to begin the conversation I wanted to have. Not wanted, maybe needed to have. I could face down an opponent that outweighed me by a hundred pounds no problem, wade into a mob of infected (as long as they weren’t oozing that black stuff), or grab a flying alien, but this conversation scared me more than any of that.

“You still there?” Stacy asked.

“Yep,” I said. “I just need you to hear me out.”

19

“I don’t know what the fallout of all of this is going to be,” I began, already feeling like I was messing up the conversation somehow. “I mean, this is the worst time to bring this up, and I get that, but…well, tomorrow is promised to no one, right?”

I paused, thinking back on the many people we’d lost. Too many to count. The faces of Ira, Maksim, and others floated by. They were all dead now. The last image to come to mind was Lou.

“I don’t even know if I can be good at a relationship again, but I do know that I care about you—my gosh, why is this so hard?” I asked out loud, frustrated at myself.

“You’re doing great,” Stacy said softly. “Keep going.”

“Well, if we live through this, I want you and me to have a future together, to at least explore the possibility,” I said. “And if we don’t, I don’t want to take this to the grave.”

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” Stacy asked playfully now. “Because if you are, the answer’s yes. I feel the same way about you, Dean. We both have a lot of red in the ledgers of our past. But I know we can look past that. The past just shapes who we are today. And I think we’re both better for it.”

I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I slumped back onto my harness, and a smile touched my lips that no one could see but me.

“Hey—hey, you guys?” Tong’s voice came through the channel hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to connect to your channel. I was going to say something, but the conversation was so intense, I didn’t want to butt in. I don’t know how I joined the line. I’m trying to figure out how to leave.”

“Me too,” John said, swallowing so hard I could hear it via the comm unit. “I wasn’t going to say anything and just figured out how to get off the line once you two ended it, but since Tong’s being honest, so will I.”

“Lucky for you two, I’m too tired to be embarrassed and too happy to care,” Stacy said with a laugh.

“Yeah,” I added. “I guess it’s not really a secret anymore anyway.”

“You two are wonderful together,” Tong said. “I know everyone will be happy for you.”

“Man, that would have been really awkward if she shot you down,” John said with a whistle. “I mean, I can’t imagine how awkward that could have been.”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if that were the case,” Tong said. “It would have been better for me to just stay quiet and let you stew in your shame as opposed to letting you know I was witness to it.”

“Well, okay, guys,” I said, rolling my eyes. “She didn’t say no, so we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Still,” John said. “We all dodged a bullet on that one.”

The way John said those words made Stacy laugh, then Tong joined in, and eventually a laugh burst from my lips as well, breaking the tension of the awkward moment. I couldn’t help it. We were all exhausted, and to be honest, laughing didn’t just feel good. It felt great.

We spent the next few hours talking about the dumbest things, like how we missed our favorite places back on Earth. We explained to Tong what bowling was, the rules of pool, and watching our favorite holo films. He thought it was all so confusing and asked us several times what the purpose of these things was. I didn’t think he understood fully even after we explained, and he must have thought Earth