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

The twin suns overhead were at their high point in the sky, beating down on us with harsh rays, as if to say, “I know you don’t belong here. Get off my planet.”

I fell into work, gathering steel pieces with the rest of the crew. A line of debris followed the deep indentation in the planet’s surface that the Orion had created when it had crashed.

It was a miracle in and of itself that Elon had managed to pull the craft up at the last minute so that it slowed enough to endure the crash. Rather than obliterate itself upon impact, major sections of the ship had survived well enough for its crew to walk away. Not all of us, sadly, but enough to start anew. The man had saved more lives than I could fathom. Better still, if the Orion had been allowed to strike the planet head-on, our food, water, and shelter would be entirely gone.

Thousands of metal parts ranging from giant sections of the ship’s outer hull to small metal chairs and tables littered the landing zone. About ten meters out in every direction, there was a suit stationed as a lookout. Each wore a dark blue uniform and black body armor. They held an assortment of rifles and blasters in their hands.

There were far too few of them to stop any serious threat, should something come our way. Still, I understood the reason for why they were there. The illusion of protection could often be just as important. It kept people working and allowed them to focus on the task at hand. Maybe that was all that mattered right now—getting the job done so we could move forward.

Something caught my eye in the rubble, buried between the dirt and a sheet of metal. It looked to be a pad—small, probably meant for a child. The screen was still active, although there were cracks running through the glass. I reached down and pulled it out, sliding the device from beneath the sheet and dusting off the screen.

“Draw me a sheep,” I read aloud. I touched the corner of the screen to see the title. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. I’d never heard of it but wondered who could have been reading it and how such a fragile device survived the crash. The screen was cracked in multiple spots, but the fact that it was still active was surprising, to say the least.

I flipped the digital pages forward with a swipe of my finger, avoiding the cracks in the screen, until I was at the second chapter of the book.

“So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago,” I read, then lowered the pad and looked around. With a slight smirk, I glanced back at the pad. “Too familiar.”

After flipping through the book for a short while, I encountered a glitch that caused the screen to freeze. I sat it down with some other salvaged pieces of tech, not wanting to completely trash it. Whether we could fix it or use it for parts, I figured the little pad still had some use left in it.

I found myself alongside an older man that had to be in his seventies. He was working on pulling a curved piece of metal across the dirt and back toward the workers constructing the wall.

He was covered in sweat, his thin arms struggling to slide the piece of metal that was as large as he was across the ground.

“Here,” I said, grabbing on to the steel piece with him. “I’ll give you a hand.”

“Thank you, my son,” he said with warm eyes and more cheer in his voice than had a right to be there. “I was praying for help and you came.”

“Yeah, well, if you can pray for help to come and get us off this planet, that may be a better use of your time,” I said as I gripped the cold steel in my hands. We pulled together, sliding the piece along the ground like a sled.

“Everything that has happened, has happened for a reason,” the man said with a crooked smile. He wiped a wide sleeve across his bald head glistening with sweat. “Even if we can’t see that reason now, we will one day. You just have to have faith.”

Great, I thought to myself. The one time I decide to help someone carrying parts back to the Orion, and he turns out to be a religious nut. Good work, Dean.

“Not everyone believes what you do, Padre,” I said, throwing out the term not because I actually believed that he was a pastor. It just seemed to fit. “Maybe this didn’t happen for any reason at all other than hate from a few people.”

“You’re hinting at the rumor going round that this was sabotage?” Padre asked.

It wasn’t widely known that the Disciple sabotaged the ship. Arun and Elon had not given that information out as of yet. Right now, the survivors were left to speculate on their own.

“That’s what the word on the street is,” I said, playing dumb. “I saw a kid die today. You think that was some part of a master plan as well?”

“I know it’s difficult to wrap your mind around, but you must keep faith,” the old man said. He looked up at me to make eye contact.

I avoided his stare. I knew how these religious nuts worked. You give them an inch and they wrap you up in some long-winded conversation that feels more like an argument. Next thing you know, you’re standing in a circle with them wearing deeply hooded cloaks and sacrificing virgins.

There was a religious group called the Church of Saints that used to go door to door in my housing block. I made the mistake of answering my door the first time they came around. What followed was twenty minutes of my