Hercules 500 Read online

  They were closer when Chance tried to pass Sebastian a second time. That time when Sebastian slung out his arm, Chance ducked and went under.

  He managed to arrive at the table where she was seated first and plunked down two large okra plants—the entire plants down to the roots. Both stalks were studded with large lavender blossoms.

  Dismay filled Anika when she recognized the plant.

  She looked up and spotted a half a dozen security guards sprinting across the rec room in their direction.

  It gave her a really bad turn.

  Sebastian arrived, smiled at her with an obvious effort since Chance had beaten him to the table, and held out a large bouquet of flowers.

  Squash flowers.

  “Beautiful flowers for a beauti ….”

  The guards hit him with two tasers mid-sentence. He jerked all over and then went down like a felled tree, smacking into the floor so loudly it sounded like a gunshot. Anika was on her feet almost instantly.

  Cole grabbed her and when she looked at him he shook his head slightly.

  Chance, she saw when she returned her attention to her ‘courting swains’, had also been tased. The security detail had handcuffed both and were in the process of trying to get them on their feet.

  “Do you see what you have gotten us in to?” Chance growled angrily.

  Sebastian sent him a drop dead look. “I did not tell you to pull up the plants, you dolt! If you had only plucked the flowers the plant would have made more!”

  “Yes? So if I had done as you did then I would not be locked up again?”

  Sebastian managed to head butt him and put him on the floor again. Chance took three security guards with him as he fell and they were really pissed off when they managed to get back up.

  It looked like, for several moments, there would be a brawl, but the head security officer managed to redirect the others and they headed out with their prisoners.

  Anika watched unhappily.

  They hadn’t been out even a week and now they were going back!

  Damn it!

  She was never going to get laid again!

  She’d felt too ill to even consider sex at first and now that that had passed and she felt like it …! Very likely they would be locked up until she was as big as a whale and in no mood to mount or be mounted, damn it!

  Chapter Ten

  Anika’s first look at her new home world just took her breath.

  She wasn’t alone.

  When the crew pulled the view up on the screens there was a collective gasp of awe.

  Now she knew why it had been named beautiful land—Beauterre.

  Of course, there were stories. There were always stories when new discoveries were made and they rarely stood up to scrutiny.

  Anika was inclined to think Beauterre, at least from space, was every bit as beautiful as Earth.

  It was actually very close to being an Earth twin. It wasn’t quite as large as Earth, but the water to land ratio was pretty close and the gases that made up the atmosphere were very close.

  They could expect to weigh slightly less due to the gravity and density, but were told it would just give you a slightly energized feel. It wasn’t enough to make a significant difference for Earth born life-forms.

  “We will live there?” Chance said a little doubtfully.

  Surprised, Anika glanced at him questioningly.

  He’d been released for his latest infraction after only a couple of weeks—and then had a couple of weeks rations cut by a quarter, but the easy camaraderie she’d felt between them earlier seemed to have vanished while they were kept separated. She couldn’t decide if she’d changed or he had, if it was just her that felt there was a strain between them.

  Maybe guilt?

  She had no reason to feel guilt—nothing rational. She hadn’t cheated on Chance or been disloyal to him in any way.

  Because he was a machine and he belonged to her and she was free to do as she pleased.

  But she still felt guilty.

  She knew it was because she’d never really been able to think of Chance as a machine. As hard as she had tried to impress that upon her brain and psyche, he’d seemed too real not to be.

  And that still didn’t make it cheating to fall for a guy and have sex with him.

  Sebastian was real. She might actually have a relationship with him—might be able to.

  She couldn’t with Chance because, even though he seemed real to her, he couldn’t feel the things a real, live human could.

  It was her, she decided, realizing that at least a part of the excitement singing in her veins was the knowledge that Sebastian would be released at some point today.

  He’d been jailed longer because the raid on the garden had been his idea.

  “Why?”

  Chance glanced down at her and frowned. Before Anika could interpret that to mean he’d somehow figured out what she was thinking, or who she was thinking about, he returned his attention to the scene on the screen. “I cannot pick up any signatures that suggest industry.”

  Anika felt her heart jerk reflexively at that comment, instantly recalling what her mother had been about to say when she was cut off.

  Primitive.

  That just seemed so … unbelievable.

  Beauterre had been discovered several years before the company had begun transporting people out there—before she had signed up to go. Of course, it was primitive and raw then, but that was to be expected when it was so new to human intervention.

  But that had been over a decade ago, now. The impression the company had given everyone was that the industrious first colonists had made huge strides in bringing civilization to the planet.

  There had to be industry!

  Otherwise there would be no goods available that weren’t shipped in from Earth!

  “Well, only a few,” Chance amended.

  That not only relieved her, it irritated her that he’d given her such a bad turn—with misinformation!

  “It’s still a new colony,” she said pointedly. “We can’t expect much. Besides, everybody agreed that we wanted to do our best not to make the same mistakes here that we had on Earth. We’ll have to work harder and protect the planet’s resources.”

  Chance studied the view. “It seems a world that would have been abundant with life. There were no higher life forms?”

  It was an uncomfortable question, but she gave him the ‘canned’ answer provided by the company financing the colony project. “There were—are, but the dominant species is still really primitive. And there aren’t many of them. There’s plenty of room for everybody. But that’s a good point. Another reason we need to take good care of the planet and keep industry to a minimum.”

  Chance didn’t look convinced that they were taking care of the interests of the natives. “It was the company that pushed for hard regulation—and not to protect the native species. The regulation insures that they control everything—all industry—and the shipping trade. Everything, in point of fact, belongs to the company.”

  Uneasiness slithered through Anika.

  She dismissed it and, with relief, the effort to think up an argument when there was an announcement over the Com system.

  “The Anna Marie has been inserted into orbit around our destination world, Beauterre. All colonists whose surname starts with an A or B should collect their carry-ons and report to the shuttle deck—Deck Four—with any dependents—Shuttle One will carry you to the surface. I repeat ….”

  An adrenaline rush of excitement went through Anika. “We should go get everything together for when we’re called.”

  “Your surname is McNeil. It will be a while.”

  “Any belongings stored in the hold will be off loaded later this week when the cargo is off loaded and you will be notified so that you can claim it.

  “All colonists whose surname starts with a C or D, please collect your belongings from your cabin and report to the shuttle deck—Deck Four—with any dependent
s. Shuttle Two will carry you to the surface.

  “All colonists whose surname starts with E, F or G, please collect your belongings from your cabin and report to the shuttle deck—Deck Four—with any dependents. Shuttle Three will carry you to the surface.”

  Anika smirked at him. “Maybe it’ll be a while. Maybe not.”

  “What is dependent?”

  Anika glanced at him but decided she did not want to get into this discussion in a public place.

  “Come on. Let’s go get ready and we can talk about it while we wait.”

  “I will not be a burden to you,” Chance said tightly when they had entered the cabin.

  Anika threw him an uneasy look. “I know.”

  Chance studied her. “I was scrapped before they had completed my programming, but Sebastian uploaded the programming and data I lacked.”

  Anika turned and stared at him. “Sebastian?”

  “Yes. He said we must pass as human to live among the humans, otherwise they will want to destroy us.”

  “Sebastian’s … a Hercules500, too?”

  Chance gave her a strange look. “He is not. He is a CS … as am I, or at least was created to be. A cyborg soldier unit. The program was scrapped before I was completed.”

  Cyborg? As in the robots that had gone rogue so many years ago and had been destroyed?

  That was what her mother had been trying to warn her about?

  Anika felt her knees buckle.

  Fortunately, the cabin was very small and she was standing near enough to her bunk to fall into it, very ungracefully, when her legs gave out.

  Chance immediately surged toward her to keep her from falling off the bunk and helped her upright. “You did not know.”

  Anika was in too much shock to deal with any feelings Chance might or might not have regarding the matter.

  And she honestly didn’t know if Chance ‘felt’ or if his programming had enabled him to fake it so well it was impossible to tell whether he felt it or not.

  This was the difference she’d noticed!

  This explained why Chance had gone into jail sweet and mostly oblivious and had come out … different.

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe if I’d expected him not to be human I would have noticed. But since I thought he was … no.”

  Chance frowned. “That is why I do not seem human to you? Because you have always known that I was not?”

  Truthfully?

  She was damned if she knew anymore.

  “I was fond of you from the beginning,” she said slowly. “I was even fonder after you rescued me from the police. I wasn’t crazy about the method. I really don’t like heights, but you protected me and made me safe.”

  He looked tentatively happy and Anika decided to leave it at that.

  Despite every effort to dawdle and check and recheck everything, they had packed up the few belongings they’d brought and accumulated in short order and spent the remainder of the day waiting.

  Around noon, they finally called the M’s and Anika did her best to race Chance to Deck Four.

  For all the good it did.

  Despite the fact that Chance was loaded down with baggage, he managed to keep up with her and they arrived on Deck Four together.

  Only to discover that the captain had decided to keep her ‘problem’ passengers close. They were redirected from the shuttle that had been announced over the com as their destination to Shuttle Three—the captain’s transport.

  Cole and Sebastian joined them there.

  One look at her face and Sebastian instantly knew that Chance had told her he was cyborg, as well. He sent Chance a deadly look of promise and then focused on trying to control his anger until they reached the surface so that he could beat the fuck out of Chance without being jailed again.

  * * * *

  It was the scariest part of the entire trip as far as Anika was concerned, dropping to the planet’s surface in a shuttle—second only to taking off into space in the shuttle to connect with the Anne Marie. There was a sense of anticipation of finally arriving at her new home to offset the sheer terror of dropping through the atmosphere of an alien world, but there was also her latest discovery about Chance and Sebastian to offset her thrill of arriving.

  The bucking and shaking had leveled out and they had dropped low enough they could actually make out a little bit about the topography of the new world through a thinning veil of clouds when Anika spotted something that at first filled her with awe and admiration.

  A very large flying thing that appeared to be an animal of some kind.

  “Oh look!” she gasped. “It’s a … uh … well I don’t know. Looks kind of like a … well, a flying horse from here.”

  There was a chorus of snickers that made Anika’s face redden. Then someone else spotted one of the creatures. “There’s one! It does look like …. There’s a … something riding it. Well, on its back. It looks like.”

  Everyone craned to see the flying beasts a little better and discovered there was no problem with that at all. It looked like a huge flock and they were heading straight for the shuttle.

  “Oh god! Oh my god! We’re going to … hit ….”

  A chorus of screams erupted when there was a loud bang on the side of the shuttle as something struck with enough force to jar the ship.

  “Brace yourselves! We’re under attack!” Captain Lee announced.

  Anika clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle another scream, but she was the only one that felt the inclination. Everyone else screamed again and again as the shuttle was pounded from all sides over and over until it seemed to be losing altitude.

  The captain was white faced as she joined the passengers.

  “Unbelievable as it may sound, they’ve managed to damage the ship. We’re having trouble with the guidance and the landing gear. We’ll hold it as long as we can, but we may have to abandon ship.”

  She pointed to Chance, Sebastian, and Cole. “You, you and you—come with me.”

  Anika didn’t want to be left, but she refrained from clutching at Chance when he responded to the captain’s command. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or not when the guys returned a few minutes later and started handing out equipment and weapons.

  The other passengers clearly saw it as a heightened threat. Several of the women and a couple of the men went into hysterics.

  “Get a grip or you’re dead!” Cole bellowed at them. “This area is completely wild if we have to bail. Here’s a chute to get down, a weapon and supplies. Head southeast when you get to the ground. The nearest settlements will be in that direction.”

  Anika noticed they kept saying ‘if’ they had to abandon ship and ‘if’ they had to bail out, but they were racing to hand out supplies to everyone and hadn’t even finished making the rounds when the captain rushed back in and told them to get up and lineup. They were going to bail out. They couldn’t allow the pirates to take the shuttle, because they were after the goods in the hold of the ship and there was only a skeleton crew on the ship to protect it.

  Terror instantly filled Anika, but it was a different fear than before.

  She was pregnant!

  They couldn’t expect her to jump out of a shuttle miles from the damned ground!

  Shaking like a leaf, she got in line with everyone else. “I can’t do this,” she murmured shakily. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” the captain said bracingly. “You have the guys to help you. You’ll be fine.”

  “But … I’m pregnant!”

  “Yes, I noticed that. They’ve got plenty of cushion. Take care of you and they’ll be fine.”

  Anika nodded jerkily, but she really didn’t know what she was agreeing to. She was too mindless with terror as they shuffled forward towards a hole that had opened in the back.

  Chance, Sebastian, and Cole were lined up at the opening with rifles, clearing a swath among their attackers and then shoving out the next several passengers and then repeating the process.

&n
bsp; The sight actually heartened Anika in spite of her absolute horror of heights.

  They were protecting.

  They were seeing to it that the colonists managed to jump out without being killed.

  Cole pulled her aside and shoved her behind him when she got to the opening.

  When everyone else had bailed, he shouldered his rifle and turned to her. “Our turn,” he said, turning her and then moving up tightly against her back.

  Her teeth with chattering with fear. “You’re jumping with me?”

  “Yes, baby. I’m going to take really good care of you and the babies. Promise.”

  Anika felt her chin wobble. “Promise?”

  He patted her cheek. “You bet, angel.”

  She discovered Chance and Sebastian were arguing about which of them would jump with her as Cole turned. “You two—give us some cover!”

  Chance and Sebastian stopped arguing and whipped a look at Cole as he moved carefully to the opening with Anika.

  Anika felt like her eyes balls would pop out and her heart beat her to death as she stood on the precipice and looked down.

  She squeezed her eyes closed.

  She heard several loud gunshots close at hand that made her jerk all over and then she was falling.

  And falling.

  And falling.

  Thankfully, she hyperventilated and passed out.

  When she came to, she was still falling.

  “Oh my god.” The wind whipping past her tried to turn her mouth wrong side out when she tried to talk. She managed to collect her lips again and clamped them tightly.

  The foliage of alien trees flew up at them.

  “Pick your legs up.”

  That took an effort, but she managed to draw her legs up to avoid branches and then they dropped abruptly into a tiny clearing.

  “Hang on, baby,” Cole said when they were finally planted firmly on the ground. “I’ll get you lose.”

  Anika’s legs felt like rubber. Despite the fact that Cole lowered her gently, she discovered she couldn’t gather enough starch to hold herself upright and crumpled to the ground. Cole was on his knees immediately. “Are you hurt, baby?”