Ian's Gang: The Orius Project

By Ian Kidd

When all contact is lost with the base on the moon of Orius, Sarah Vasquez is among a scientific/military team sent to investigate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Kidd
• Release date: Sep 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301577620

Ian Kidd

I grew up in South Yorkshire, England, before emigrating to South Australia at the age of sixteen. My writing ambitions began as a child, when I became notorious in my class for writing short horror stories that would probably have them calling in the child psychologists nowadays! I have written everything from non-fiction ebooks to published short fiction, and served as script editor on two proposed horror feature film scripts for an LA based director. In terms of fiction I have written dozens of novellas, including more than 70 stories in the "Ian's Gang" sci-fi adventure series. I still live in Queensland, where I work as a freelance writer.

Book preview

IAN’S GANG – THE ORIUS PROJECT

BY

IAN KIDD

Ian’s Gang © Ian Kidd 2012

Published by Smashwords

IAN’S GANG

Are:

Ian Williams

Matthew Parker

Scott Richardson

Banix

Robert Stevens

Steve Botham

Philip Vasquez

Sarah Vasquez

CHAPTER ONE

Orius.

One of the planet Cat's six moons, and the first of which to be chosen to be set up as a scientific colony, on which to study the moon's formation and environment.

In charge of the operation is Professor Malcolm Carver, a handsome and confident man at the awkward age between being young and middle-aged, a man with a solid reputation for being firm, stubborn, and unaffected under pressure.

Don't let them in! Malcolm Carver jabbered, pointing wildly at the airlock. Keep them out! Don't let them in! They want to kill us all!

The two security guards, Rick Jacobs and Alistair Montgomery, stared at him in disbelief. They had found their leader slumped outside on the desolate plains of Orius and had carried him in, assuming that their trusted friend and colleague had simply collapsed from exhaustion, but now it seemed that the immovable Carver had completely lost his mind.

Don't worry, sir, Rick soothed him. There's no one there. You're safe now.

Safe? Malcolm regarded him with a lopsided grin. No one's safe. They want to kill us, you see...

I thought he'd been behaving a bit oddly in the last few days, but this... Alastair shook his head, unable to believe the shaking mess in front of him was the distinguished scientist who wasn't afraid of anything.

Malcolm stopped shaking, and his insane grin was replaced by a look of inner calm.

They're here, he said softly.

Something began banging on the airlock.

Cat.

Two weeks later.

The Scientific Research Station (SRS), the moon base’s only contact with life on Cat.

Philip was engaged in a heated conversation with the head scientist, the somewhat gaunt Dr Leonard Smith, a man only a few weeks away from an early retirement and who really didn't need the crisis that had suddenly been