Rise of the Resistance (War for Orion Trilogy Book Two) (22 page)

“Falcone!” Nimesha hit him. “You left too
early!”

“I saw Kanti right behind us!” He replied
coolly. “I could've sworn I timed it perfectly!”

“Go back down!” She yelled. “Kanti is over
there! We're leaving without her!”

“Why is she just standing there?” He asked.
“She was right behind us!”

“I'm right here,” she said, jaw dropping
when she saw herself outside.

Nimesha turned around in her seat and
stared. “You were right, Falcone. She was right behind us.”

“Then…” He started before being
interrupted.

“Camillus!” Kanti peered out of the window.
“We can't leave him! Land the ship.”

“Too late,” Falcone pushed the ship forward.
“We can't go back now.”

“Camillus!” Kanti shouted, banging on the
ship’s walls.

Nimesha put her arm on her shoulder and
pulled her back. “He sacrificed himself to save you. They won't
care if we get away. They don't want us. But now that they think
they have you, they'll let us go.”

Kanti slouched down in a chair and buried
her face in her hands. She’d just lost two close friends and
couldn't process it all. She’d met both of them on Gaea after
running from Demeter, and now they were gone, just like that. It’d
never occurred to her that they could die. Inside, she wanted to
give up, but she knew that wasn’t an option. It would never be an
option. Anlon had warned her she could die when she’d left Gaea,
and she was okay with that, but she’d never that about what would
happen if it wasn’t her who died.

Donnchadh blinked his eyes open and looked
around him. He couldn't remember exactly what’d happened after he’d
gone in the cave, just a figure hovering over-top him. Now, he was
lying flat on grey ground, next to a small cackling fire. There was
something near him half-wrapped, which he assumed to be some type
of food left for him. He slowly got up and saw a group of figures
huddled in a circle around a separate fire a few yards away.

They were wearing light cloth wraps that
covered their entire bodies. The cloth was sloppily wrapped and
looked like they’d put them on in a rush. On their heads, were two
large circular tubes, in the area where eyes should be and some
type of rebreather over their mouths. Erebos was a brutal place,
but he’d never gone out far past any city, so he didn't know if
this was common dress.

He slowly walked over to the circle. On his
way, he reached for his weapon, only to find it’d been taken. One
of the figures stood up and walked towards him. The strange
circular tubes seemed to adjust as the figure came to him and the
wrapped arm came up, signaling him to halt. Donnchadh obeyed and
waited for it to come to him. As it did, it reached up with its
grey arms and pulled off the grey helmet.

Donnchadh was surprised to see a human woman
hidden underneath all of the grey cloth. She had bright radiant
skin, luminous red hair, one blue eye, and one green eye. He stared
at her without a word until she finally broke the silence.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” he
crossed his arms. “You took me. So, who are
you
?”

“I’m Leilah,” she answered. “And I
saved
you. I didn't take you.”

“What are you talking about? How did you
save me?”

“You were poisoned,” she revealed. “That
cave you went in was a hive of chlidorians.”

“Chlidorians?” He repeated.

“Yes,” she nodded. “They're an insect that
sprays venom in the air. You walked right into their home and you
breathed in a lot of that venom.”

“Oh,” he looked at the ground. “Well, thanks
for that.”

“You're welcome,” she smiled. “They're
pretty common out here and everyone gets sprayed with the venom at
some time, so we always have an antidote handy. Luckily, we were
around when you were sprayed or you'd be dead,” she looked him up
and down with her two-tone eyes. “What are you doing out here?
You're definitely far from home.”

“I ran into a little bit of trouble. I had
two options of death and I chose the one I thought would be
better.”

“I’m sure the other way would’ve been better
than letting the planet consume you,” she shook her head. “You
didn't have anything on you. Even if the chlidorians hadn't gotten
to you, something else would have.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to ensure I survived
the first threat trying to kill me,” he shrugged. “So, you live out
here in this wasteland?”

“Yeah, apparently,” she replied. “We're
nomads. My father broke us off from the larger tribe long ago.”

“Is your father over there?” He
pointed.”

“He is,” she gave a slight nod. “He's our
tribe leader.”

“There's more of you out here?”

“Only what you see. Big groups don't last
very long out here. They slow you down, and when you slow down,
predators get to you. That is, if the storms and environment
doesn't first.”

“Are there other tribes that stay in big
groups?”

“There are, but my father doesn't want to
join any of them. They stay in one safe place, our group is a
little more adventurous.”

“Adventurous?”

“Sure,” she replied. “We like to move
around, discover things, you know, stuff like that. We don't like
to stay in one place for too long. You become weak when you settle
and feel comfortable.”

“I didn't last very long myself. I'm not
sure how you're able to do it.”

“You learn in time,” she assured him. “We
run into large groups every so often, and when we do, some of their
own leave to travel with us. Being cramped up in a cave isn't fun,
even if roaming the land usually means death.”

“How do you do it?” He asked. “Living out
here with the predators and storms?”

“We have a good leader,” she smiled proudly.
“My father's father taught him how to live out here without dying.
I'm still learning everything, but I'm positive I could live on my
own now. The first thing you learn is how to tell when a storm is
coming, which you saw firsthand. The storms out here tend to be
much worse than what we see hit the cities, we're not sure why, but
they just are. We're able to tell hours before a storm forms and
what kind of storm it'll be just be how the land acts. After that,
we learn about predators and how to survive. To tell you the truth,
the hardest part is just surviving off the land.”

“What kind of predators are there?” He
asked. “I've never seen any near the cities. Nothing that poses
much of a threat anyway.”

“Just, deadly, dangerous things,” she
shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. “There are so many different
kinds out there, depending where you're at, it's hard to name them
all. You met the chlidorians which are pretty common everywhere.
You have a scorlf, which roams the land and it's probably one of
the most lethal. Once it gets its claws on you, you're dead.”

“I'm not sure I want to know what that
is.”

“Let's just hope you don't have to meet
one,” she chuckled. “It makes the chlidorians look like child's
play.”

“How is living off the land the hardest with
creatures like that running around?”

“There's not much to live off of,” she held
her arms out. “Look around. All there is, is a bunch of grey dirt,
and smoldering hot lava. You have to know what to look for to find
food. Unless of course, you're brave enough to hunt down one of
those creatures.”

“I figured it was tough living out
here.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why'd you run out
here then? Obviously, you overestimated how long you could live by
underestimating almost everything out here. Why would you willingly
come this way when you could’ve gone towards a city?”

“You don't know anything that happens around
the galaxy, do you?”

“You mean politics and that stuff?” She
asked with a chuckle. “We have enough of our own problems here.
Keeping updated on that is a waste of time.”

“Well, now is a good time to keep up with
that stuff. Orion’s problems will soon be your problems too.”

“How so?” She crossed her arms. “No one has
ever bothered us before, why bother us now?”

“I betrayed a race called the crodillians,”
he told her.

She shrugged and raised her eyebrows.
“Doesn't mean anything to us. Races betray races all the time.”

“This does affect you,” he placed his hand
on her. “They aren't from here, well, at least not since long ago.
Anyway, they've come back and they're destroying Orion.”

“Destroying Orion?”

“They've already burned one entire planet. I
was being held for crimes when they freed me from Keres. They found
out I knew certain things, possessed certain skills, and put me in
charge.”

“What are you talking about?” She backed up
with fear in her eyes. “Who are you?”

“That's not what's important right now,” he
waved his hands. “What is important, is this race wants to
destroy
Orion. They claim to want peace, but I've seen their
leaders' eyes and I've seen eyes like that before. The crodillians
won’t be satisfied until they destroy Orion.”

“Where have you seen eyes like his?” She
asked. “If he's as bad as you claim, this other person must have
been terrible too.”

“I used to work for another man who has
similar goals,” he replied. “I've done many bad things in my life,
but I'm trying to change that, or I was. There’s not much I can do
from here.”

“And just what do you expect us to do about
that?” A voice boomed from behind Leilah.

“I need to get back to the city so I can
warn others and try to stop the crodillians.”

“What goes on in Orion is none of our
concern,” the large wrapped man told him. “We cannot help you.”

“You're in as much danger as the rest of
Orion,” Donnchadh insisted.

“We aren't holding you back,” the man held
out his hands. “You're free to go, but we're not going with
you.”

“I'll die out there.”

“Then you have a choice to make. You stay
with our tribe as one of us, or go out there and die. It doesn’t
matter to me which you choose or when you choose it.”

Donnchadh clenched his fists. “You're making
a mistake.”

“And it sounds like you've made your
choice,” the grey figure turned around and walked back to the rest
of the group.

Anlon held on to the corners of the pod as
it roughly broke through the atmosphere of whatever planet he’d
chosen. The pod was shaking violently back and forth and was
beginning to turn in a circle. He was sure he was going die, but it
was completely out of his control. There were no controls in the
pod, leaving him with only one option – hope for the best.

The pod slammed into the ground and threw
Anlon forward, banging his head on the front of the pod. Once the
pod came to a stop, he slowly got up and pushed open the hatch,
ready to finally get out of the cramped area. He jumped out of the
pod, rubbing the bruise on his head and looked around to see if he
knew where he was.

Unfortunately, he had no idea where his pod
had just landed. It was dark, almost no light at all, except a dark
orange hue in the black sky. The land was solid black rock with
many enormous hills surrounding him. As he kept looking at the
land, he noticed a large opening in the distance, and walked
towards it, figuring it was his best bet to get out. As he began
forward, an orange fog formed in the air. It’d appeared in an
instant and thickened until he couldn’t see more than five feet in
front of him.

The further that he walked, the more sure he
became that there was no help on this planet. It was too dark for
any cities to be nearby. If there were any, he’d have seen at least
some light illuminating in the sky. It also didn't appear like this
planet could support any type of life. The hard black ground wasn't
viable for a race to live on or any plants to grow.

Anlon was quickly losing hope when he heard
something move in front of him. It was quick and caused a stir in
the fog. He stopped and held his hand in front of his face to see
if he could make out anything, but was unable to see anything.

“Hello?” He called out. “Is there anyone
there?”

There was no answer as he heard the noise
again from his right. He turned to face the noise, but still saw
nothing through thick orange fog. This time, he walked towards the
sound, but when he reached the spot, it was empty. The noise came
again, and when he whipped around to see what it was, he saw it
standing before him.

It was a creature ten feet tall with the
body of a snake and a dozen legs. The golden brown body rose
straight up and had three hissing heads on top. The red eyes were
focused on him and slowly inched towards him. Anlon reach for his
laser rifle, but realized he’d left it on the pod. He looked back
and forth frantically, unsure of what to do. He stared at the
monster for only a second more before he took off running in the
direction he’d originally been traveling, or at least what he
thought was the direction. There was no way of knowing if there
were any more of these things out there, but all he cared about was
getting away from the one after him right now.