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

He went down like a sack of beets, and I landed on top of him. I looked over to the woman who was charging with him. She had stopped moving and was looking at me stunned along with everyone else.

She dropped her baton and took a step backward.

Smart girl, I thought. That’s the most sense any suit has shown in here today.

“That’s enough, Dean Slade,” Captain Harold said. He pushed the barrel of his blaster against the back of my head. “Get up.”

I went through my options. I could give up here or press the fight. There was a chance I could spin faster than he could pull the trigger and knock the blaster out of his hand.

“You are clearly very highly trained,” Captain Harold stated. “You have assaulted multiple Civil Authority Officers. I would be within my rights to kill you where you stand. You pose too much of a threat to the colony. Turn around slowly. If you try anything, I will kill you.”

I lifted my hands into the air and obeyed. Something he said tickled the back of my mind. I turned to look at him.

Captain Harold took a step back to create separation between himself and me. He held his weapon in a two-grip stance, eyes trained on mine, finger on the trigger.

“Died a long time ago,” I said with a sardonic grin. “You’re fighting a ghost.”

Captain Harold’s hard eyes betrayed his surprise and confusion. The barrel of his weapon never left my chest, but I thought for a moment I recognized empathy in his expression as if he understood exactly what I was saying.

He’s lost someone, too, I thought, noticing the same, tired expression I’d found on my own face so many times before.

“What is going on here?” Arun’s voice echoed into the silent tent. “Who is responsible for all of this?”

I didn’t turn my back on Captain Harold. There was still a chance he would pull the trigger. If I was going to go out, I wanted it to be with my eyes open and in the chest, not the back.

Whether it was luck or fate that had other plans for me, Captain Harold holstered his weapon. He looked over my shoulder at Arun.

“We were recruiting new Civil Authority Officers for the Orion Colony when a mob mentality broke out.” Captain Harold explained the events as if he was talking about Sunday brunch instead of the circumstances that put half a dozen people on the ground.

I turned as Arun pushed through those gathered with Stacy beside her. Both women wore angry scowls on their faces.

I knelt down next to Ricky’s side as they began to sort things out. Ricky was already coherent. He was on his back looking up at the tent ceiling.

“That was a really strong current,” he said, breathing out deeply. “I feel like those stun batons have to be recalibrated or something. That much charge shouldn’t be legal.”

“Can you stand?” I asked.

“Let’s see,” Ricky said, taking my hand.

I pulled Ricky to his feet. He took two unsteady steps then evened out. Boss Creed was already on his feet. Stacy knelt down and helped Martha out of her cuffs.

Arun and Captain Harold were having a heated debate just above a whisper.

I couldn’t catch much, but I did hear Arun say, “Not here, in private.”

While the suits were getting to their feet, those gathered in the cafeteria began to trickle out now that the fun was over. The large man who had volunteered to become a suit to begin with, came up to me with knowing eyes.

“I know who you are,” he said. “I saw you use that same flying knee move against Victor ‘The Vice’ Crane. Knocked him out in the first round. The stands went crazy. I still remember his teeth flying from his mouth.”

I didn’t say anything. It was pointless to try and lie my way out of this one, not after the show I’d just put on.

“You’re good at dispatching a couple suits who went through a few months of hand-to-hand training. I wonder how you’d do against another gladiator, someone who’s been in the ring himself,” he said.

I understood what he was getting at, although I didn’t recognize him. His large nose and meaty figure didn’t ring any bells. This wasn’t that much of a surprise. There were thousands of gladiators across the globe all working their way up from neighborhood gyms to city fights and state exhibitions.

“Well,” I said, looking straight into his dark eyes. “If you see another gladiator around, I’m not hard to find.”

“Right,” the man smirked before retreating with the suits out of the tent.

“I’m not dumb, Dean,” Ricky said, placing his hands on his hips. “I get now that you used to be a fighter or maybe even a gladiator before you were a mechanic. I want the truth.”

My cover was blown sky high. I might as well be wearing a bright neon sign saying that I was a trained fighter. But who knew? Maybe that would actually be better. Maybe people would stay away from me now.

“I was a gladiator, Rick,” I said, coming clean. “It’s a life I wanted to leave behind, but I guess some parts of you, you just can’t shake. I’m sorry for lying to you. I guess I was lying to myself that I could ever really be rid of this past.”

Ricky’s scowl disappeared after my apology.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I’ve—I’ve just never heard you apologize to, well, anyone ever before,” he said, cracking a smile.

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m not really sorry for much these days,” I said. “So, we good?”

“I mean, yeah,” Ricky said, lifting his hands to his face and throwing a few wild punches. “Maybe you can show me a few moves sometime soon. Or—”

“You two okay?” Stacy came up to us.

I turned to see Boss Creed being treated by Doctor Allbright. A shallow cut alongside his