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

It grabbed a maw full of my shirt and drew me up the rest of the way. I gasped for air, sucking the much-needed oxygen into my lungs and the rest of my body.

Mutt growled and licked my face as if to ask if I was all right.

I wasn’t the world’s best swimmer, but it had been part of my training when I was a gladiator. It promoted overall muscle health and lung strength. I was able to tread water, even wearing my clothes.

The events surrounding how I came to be in the water collapsed on my mind. I looked up to people screaming on the beach and in the water.

“Something’s in the jungle!” Mark yelled over his shoulder.

“Stay back!” Boss Creed ordered. “Whoever you are, stay there. We’re here to help!”

More than anything, I wanted to look to the beach and try and figure out what was happening. I couldn’t afford even the few seconds I’d need to do that. Stacy’s body was floating in the water, her back to the sky overhead. Elon sat on the prison cell level, dazed. He had been the one farthest from the blast when we opened the door. Apparently, he had been thrown backward into the level while Stacy and I catapulted into the water.

I swam toward Stacy’s still body as fast as I could, the shouts from the beach still echoing in the back of my mind.

Come on, Stacy, come on. Not you too, I thought to myself as I crossed the distance between us. You’re all right. Just be all right.

I grabbed her with Mutt barking and swimming by my side. I flipped her over on her back. Her eyes were closed, wet lips not breathing.

“Here, bring her here,” Lou was halfway to us, already waist-high in the water.

More shouting came from the beach, someone’s voice I didn’t recognize.

“You fools! You idiots! We’re all dead now! That explosion will bring every single one of them here!”

“I’ve got her,” Lou said, reaching us at the same time my feet made contact with the sandy floor of the ocean.

“I don’t—I don’t think she’s breathing,” I gasped. “Hurry, get her on the beach.”

Together, the padre and I carried Stacy’s limp form to the beach. We placed her on her back.

Doctor Allbright was by our side a moment later. She checked Stacy’s pulse then listened for her breathing.

“Stay with her. I’ll get Elon,” Lou said, rushing off again.

Tom stood at the edge of the beach with his mouth open, his face a picture of shock.

I knelt next to Doctor Allbright, helpless as she performed chest compressions and CPR on Stacy.

More screaming erupted from the beach about ten meters away, right between the water line and the edge of the jungle. A man exited the jungle. A stranger, clearly a transient, but there was a look of wild fear in his eyes. He was the one yelling.

On the opposite side, Boss Creed, Hannah, and Mark leveled their blasters at him.

“They’re coming now, you idiots,” the man yelled with frustration. “They’re coming, and they’re going to kill us all. Why don’t you make more noise and tell the jungle monsters we’re out here too? Why don’t you just tell the whole damn world?”

I saw but didn’t fully comprehend what was happening at the beach. My focus was on Stacy.

“Is there something I can do?” I asked, hating the feeling of sitting by and not being able to do anything to help someone I had begun to care for.

“Chest compressions, one hand over the other, here.” Doctor Allbright showed me. She placed her hands on Stacy’s chest and gave a brief compression. “Like this. Give me thirty and then let me breathe into her.”

My hands shook as I counted to thirty out loud and provided the needed compressions. Flashbacks of Natalie dying in my arms wavered in and out of my mind as I counted along with the compressions.

“One, two, three…” I rattled off. “Don’t you die on me too, Stacy. You come back. You come back. You’re not allowed to leave!”

“They’re coming!” The lunatic from the jungle fell to his knees in the sand sobbing. “And hell’s coming with them.”

“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…” I continued on.

Stacy’s body felt cold and lifeless under my hands. There was no way in hell I was giving up on her. I just wondered if she was there at all to keep fighting.

“What are you talking about?” Mark shouted. “Keep your hands where we can see them. Who’s coming?”

The man who came from the jungle was performing a laughing kind of sob as the first shriek echoed from the jungle interior. First just one, then more and more screams added to the call as if a hundred voices rose together at once answering Mark’s question.

“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty,” I said, resting back on my knees to let Doctor Allbright lean in and perform mouth to mouth.

The doctor tilted Stacy’s head back and made sure the airway was clear. She pressed her lips around Stacy’s and blew twice.

“Again.” Doctor Allbright’s voice was firm and commanding despite the circumstance we found ourselves in.

“One, two, three…” I said. On the third compression, Stacy trembled. Coughing, she spat up a lungful of ocean water.

“There you are,” I said, rolling her onto her side so she could expel the water from her lungs without fear of choking on it again.

“I found Elon!” Lou shouted from his place on the Orion. “He’s breathing, but I could use a hand.”

“Stay with her,” Doctor Allbright ordered and ran off to assist.

“What—what happened?” Stacy panted, sucking in the oxygen she so desperately needed. “Did I—did I die?”

“You’re all right,” I told her, pushing my long hair from my eyes. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

There were so many shrieks coming from the jungle, it was hard to talk. They were still distant but growing both in quantity and volume as they approached.

“My blaster, I lost my blaster somewhere in the water,” Stacy said, fighting her way to her feet to try