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

of tires masked whatever she was going to say next. Turning to my left, I could see the suits at the gate opened fire on a dumpster truck bulldozing its way toward the front entrance to the yard.

The next thing I knew, the gate snapped open and the truck came barreling inside.

Gunshots muffled the screams from the men on the catwalk, followed by the yard’s alarms. In seconds, the entire facility was so loud, I could hardly discern one noise from another. I could barely think.

The dark grey dumpster weaved like a drunk trying to find his way home, finally turning and aiming itself directly at the medical building.

4

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said out loud as my adrenaline spiked for the second time that morning.

The behemoth of a dumpster truck was bearing down on us too fast to make any calculated moves. For those few seconds, I made eye contact with the maniac behind the wheel. He looked younger than me, somewhere in his late twenties, and his wide-eyed expression looked fanatical as he fought the steering wheel.

There was no more time to think. I could only react.

I tackled Allbright to the floor, pushing her back inside her office and far from the door. A second later, the dumpster truck tore off the small catwalk outside her building, along with most of the door. Metal screeched as the dumpster truck scraped against the walls, finally breaking through them and sending a mist of dust into the compartment.

The entire med station shook with the impact from the blow.

“Th-thank you,” Doctor Allbright coughed as I removed myself from her. “What—who’s doing this? The Disciples?”

“That would be my guess,” I said, going over to the doorless exit, out of the med station. The yard was in chaos. Mechanics and workers ran all around, looking for safety as the suits continued firing at the truck. More of them piled into the yard as they arrived from the station down the road.

My stomach soured as I realized the reason why this truck had come. The Disciples were the most outspoken group against the colony missions. They hated the Eternals and refused to go along with the colonization plan. As they’d said, this planet belonged to the Transients, not the mutated and disfigured Eternals, who, in the Disciples’ eyes, were no longer human.

We had multiple key sections of the colony ship in our yard, which made us a target. I don’t think there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that the truck carried a payload of explosives. The Disciples had threatened as much, time and time again.

This wasn’t my fight, though. I was only here to do a job, but that truck had almost killed me, so I couldn’t help but take all this a little personally.

“Screw it,” I muttered, heading for the torn doorway.

“Wait!” Doctor Allbright screamed behind me. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I shouted back, unable to afford the time to give her a decent answer.

I sprinted down the yard, but the truck was going way too fast. The suits were peppering the area with red blaster fire as they tried to bring it down before it reached one of the larger construction centers. One lucky suit got a shot off, blowing out the truck’s front right tire.

The vehicle careened off course from its beeline for the ship. For a second, it seemed like all would be saved. Then the runaway truck slammed into the lunch tent, set up for the contingent of mechanics that worked around the clock on the Orion. Right now, it was smack dab in the middle of two lunch breaks.

My lungs burned as I ran toward the nightmare unfolding in front of me. Mechanics raced out of the tent as they saw what was about to happen, but they were too late.

The truck detonated in a terrible display of heat and force.

A wave of intense pressure slammed against my body, even though I was still a good sixty meters from the point of impact. It lifted my feet and hurled me through the air a short distance away.

I crashed violently into the hard ground, the wind knocked out of me. A cut opened on the left side of my face, and the familiar metallic tang of blood filled my mouth.

I rolled onto my back and lay on the ground, trying to focus on where I was and how I’d gotten here. I could barely breathe, see, or think.

For a moment, the clouded sky opened enough for the sun to beam down on me. The yellow light hit me in the face, but I couldn’t feel the warmth at all. I closed my eyes, trying to focus. A second later, the clouds rolled back in, killing the light.

The screams of the dying and wounded finally broke my temporary stupor. I pushed myself to a sitting position, wincing at the pain. “Holy crap,” I said, holding my head as I finally sat up.

Nothing felt broken, but then again, I could barely feel anything.

“Mr. Slade!?” Doctor Allbright rushed to my side, sticking her thumb on my eyelid and forcing it open. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said then pointed to the destruction in front of us. “I’m fine. Help them.”

Doctor Allbright gave me a quick nod and raced toward the demolished section of the yard. It really wasn’t much of anything now. Nothing of the massive white tent remained; not the steel rods that kept it in place or the anchors that ensured it withheld the winter winds when they came.

Large pieces of the truck were still smoldering in the wreckage, while countless bodies lay strewn across the gravel. Several of the mechanics and engineers moaned in pain as others remained still.

“What—what happened?” Ricky asked, out of breath. He’d arrived at my side from our workstation, a decent walk from here. “Are we—are we under attack?”

“I think the attacking part already happened,” I said, looking at him. I was grateful