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

we go!” Ricky yelled, slamming his fist onto the button that would separate us from the falling Orion.

23

As soon as Ricky hit the disengage button, we were jettisoned into the air. We didn’t fall away from the Orion— it was more like we were shot out from the ship.

My stomach twisted inside my gut as I held on to the harness at my chest. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold back from yelling.

Ricky wasn’t holding back at all. He was calling out for every saint, god, deity, and higher power I had ever heard of.

“Oh, Virgin Mary, save me. Save me!” Ricky was yelling. “I promise I’ll never gamble again if you see me through this.”

The fall felt like an eternity. I focused on what I knew about the escape pods. They were equipped to take a fall like this. They had measures to hit their own thruster once they were a certain distance from land and again to deploy a landing buffer when we were about to make contact with the planet.

This knowledge really didn’t help as we waited for the inevitable end of the fall.

“Help us! I’m sorry, I repent from my evil ways!” Ricky screamed. “Just don’t let me die. Not like this!”

The sphere righted itself, and the thrusters kicked in, slamming my tailbone hard into the seat. The seatbelts pressed against my shoulders, knocking the air out of me.

Glancing out the window to my right, I saw the Orion was still falling. Breaking into multiple pieces, it scattered across the planet like a jigsaw puzzle. While the bulk of the ship headed somewhere to the north, smaller pieces that resembled comets landed haphazardly around.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of escape pods and shuttles made their way down to the alien planet below. Overhead, two strange suns shone brightly. One was almost orange while the other was a bright yellow.

“We-we made it,” Ricky said, breathlessly as we descended to the planet below.

“Not quite yet,” I reminded him as the thrusters slowed our fall. “We have one more—”

A pop sounded from outside the sphere as the landing bags were deployed.

The air was really sucked out of my lungs this time as our pod finally reached the planet’s surface. A violent tremor rocked our ship one last time. Ricky was coughing. He touched himself over his arms and chest.

“We made it! We’re alive,” he said.

My brain immediately kicked into action. We were on an unknown alien planet, only halfway through the journey to Kronos Five. We had no idea of knowing if the planet we were on had any water resources, let alone breathable air.

“There’s a holo pad here somewhere,” I said, releasing myself from my straps and digging into the supplies every escape pod was equipped with. “I remember from the training videos we had to watch.”

“You actually watched those?” Ricky asked, also unclipping himself and reaching for his groin. “Oh man. I feel like my balls were sucked into my stomach, we landed so hard. There goes the idea of ever having kids.”

I ignored Ricky for the time being, looking into the side compartment between my seat and the right side of our escape pod. Sure enough, a holo pad came away in my hands from a section of the seat.

I opened the display, searching the strange menu. I clicked on the tab that said “environment” and read the data as it appeared in front of me.

Location: Unknown

Temperature: 75 degrees Fahrenheit

Air Breathability: Positive.

Fresh water sources: Detected.

Life forms: Detected.

I hunched back into my seat, grateful after reading the display. Ricky followed along with the readout as well.

“Life forms are the other survivors from—from the ship, right?” Ricky laughed nervously. “I mean, we’re not talking about aliens, right?”

“I’m sure it's just the other survivors,” I said, waving away the idea. “As far as anyone knows, we’re alone in the universe. No intelligent life, unless the government has been hiding something like in those old conspiracy holos.”

“Right, right, of course,” Ricky said, trying to convince himself that was the case. “I’m sure that’s true.”

I grabbed the holo pad again, searching for the option to communicate with either the Orion or the other escape crafts in the area.

“I really wished I would have watched those training videos now,” Ricky said, looking at me helplessly.

“It’s all right. We’ll figure it out,” I said, maneuvering around the options menu. My eyes landed on a button labeled “communication.” I tapped it, opening a screen that showed another button with the word “talk” on it. I pressed it down. “Hello, can anyone hear me out there?”

I released the button and waited for a response.

“Hello, hello, can you hear us? This is—” a voice I didn’t recognize answered. “Oh god, what is that? What is that? Some kind of mist. Help us—”

Ricky looked up at me, horrified.  Static cut through our transmission. I pressed down the button again.

“Say again, say again,” I said, swallowing hard. “Do you read me?”

Static.

“There has to be thousands of escape pods out there. Why don’t we hear any others?” Ricky asked.

“Maybe it’s only meant for short-wave transmission? Maybe our antenna was damaged in the landing? I’m not sure,” I responded. “But we’re not going to figure it out in here.”

“Did you hear those people on the other end before it went all static?” Ricky looked at me shaking his head. “No thank you. They were terrified. Something was coming for them. I’m not going out there.”

“Well, there’s not exactly a future for us in here,” I said, maneuvering around my seat and beginning to take stock of our surroundings. “We’ve got to find others. We have to see if the Orion is salvageable.”

“Salvageable,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “You saw what happened, right? The ship completely broke apart. There’s no way it survived. “We’re stuck. We’re stranded here. Wherever here is.”

I was getting annoyed. I knew all of this as well as Ricky, but what was I supposed to do? Roll over and die? That wasn’t me. I