"Shit…" uttered Jaxxon. He wasn't ancient after all. That explained why he had knowledge of so many different languages that modern societies still used. And only the treacherous yet enterprising Gedex could have such technology. They were known to pillage from all corners of space, targeting many small and defenseless civilizations, while avoiding the wrath of larger military forces where they did exist. It those frog-faced devils were able to gather a larger army of their own, they would gladly take over this entire planet, and every other planet.
As it was, they simply took what they wanted when they could, and traded for more and better technology. Their ships were fitted with the only known deep space drives, which would explain how they were able to find Simone and Bree's human ship so shortly after it was leaving the space around their home planet.
18
-Simone-
"He's been in there a long time," Simone said. They might have been waiting an hour, but it was hard to tell without any clocks, and when they had no idea how the days and nights changed on this planet. "I think I should go and check on him. Are you going to be okay with her?"
"Sure. How much trouble can the girl get into while she's snoring and drooling on my shoulder?" Bree laughed. "Hey, at least she's keeping me warm. I really wish we'd been wearing jackets or something when they kidnapped us."
"Yeah, me too," said Simone. "Here, take my coat then. You two stay safe alright?" She took off her white lab coat, which now had droplets of blood on it and some other various stains, including those left by sweat. Placing the thin but more than welcome coat over Bree and Kalyss, she headed down into the darkness of the tunnel. The door to the facility was still open, so there was a low chance that he had suffocated or passed out. That was something, at least.
"Jaxxon?" she called out, hesitant to raise the volume of her voice too much, as though one of the fallen criminals might spring back to life and come after her. "Are you okay? Oh, there you are." She hadn't expected him to be sitting on the floor among the dead bodies, beside the broken down robot with all the laser holes in the front of its metallic carcass. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he said. The alien cyborg was kneeling down on the floor with his head slumped. "This is the other thing they sent me to collect. I guess I can tell you that much. Don't ask me for any other information though. I just… can't talk about it."
"Oh, right. You'll be wanting to get back and tell your General all about that soon then, won't you? Do you think there might be a new life for us in that city of yours? Maybe someone else who escaped also ended up crash landing near here and went there."
"That's a possibility. Although, you should know that slaves are often taken from people found wandering the wilderness by themselves. The lost, destitute, or those whose caravans were attacked and left for dead."
Simone's heart sank. "That's terrible. Is your whole planet this savage? Isn't there any other place that would have us?"
"There is. Bakloferians are not the most hospitable people in the world when it comes to strangers. That is largely because of our enormous arena. It takes a lot of slaves to keep the crowds entertained with bloodsports." He was speaking so flat, detached. It was like he didn't care about the things he said, one way or another; wasn't condoning the actions of his own culture, but neither was he affected by the obvious cruelty.
Sitting down beside him and placing her hand on his shoulder, Simone asked, "What's wrong? What happened in here? Is it this thing, this—is that some kind of communications device?"
"Yes, it is. If you're not going back to Baklofer anyway, you might as well know… I wasn't turned into a cyborg by the ancient people in my city. In fact, it seems that I'm not from there originally. It was the Gedex—those are the frog-faced aliens who I'm fairly certain kidnapped you and your crew members. They were the ones who brought me to the city with my fellow cyborgs. And there is going to be a trade-in soon. New for old, with a large helping of gold pieces from Baklofer to even up the deal."
"That's not true. How can that be. I—" It suddenly started to make sense to her. "Although, that would explain why your translator is so good at dealing with our language. Just how long have these Gedex creatures been going around and attacking helpless civilizations?"
"Longer than our records go back. If they weren't so greedy and selfish, they might have actually taken control of all known life by now. I suppose we're lucky in that regard. This does explain why I have always felt so different to the other people in my city—less primitive, less savage?"
"You don't seem like someone who came from an iron-age society, no."
"It was hard to compare when I was always going in and out of deep sleep, never forming any strong attachments to anyone. The General is the closest thing I have to a friend, and he just views me as another piece of machinery, I'm sure. Well, he was like a friend, I thought. Deep down, I knew that was naive but it didn't seem to matter if I held onto a harmless fantasy." He was looking away from her and hiding his face.
She pushed up close to him and lifted her arm around her. "You know you don't have to go back there. This is still your life, no matter who found you and turned you into a cyborg. Do you really think you'd be better off if you were just a regular man? Or, do you think things would be better if you really were made by some long dead Bakloferian? Think about it for a minute."
"I shouldn't even know what a minute is. That's an Earth unit of time measurement that has no relevance on this planet." He lowered his head and sighed.
"At least you're calm now?"
"To be honest, my skin is still burning intensely and having you this close to me is making it hard to breathe."
"Oh, well Bree and Kalyss are out there alone. I'm worried about them, so let's get out of this stuffy old facility. I hope no one ever comes back here again, especially me."
They walked out of there and closed the door behind them. Jaxxon carried the case, having closed it back up with the receiver inside. "This thing should be destroyed," he said. "And you're right. I don't have to go back to that city. I have no allegiance or loyalties there now. The girl though, we have to take her back to her home. She did nothing wrong."
"You're right," agreed Simone.
19
-Jaxxon-
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but Jaxxon had to leave Simone and Bree behind. They closed themselves up in the escape pod, saying there was no way in hell they'd go back into that facility. And besides, they couldn't close the door without suffocating. He had to take Kalyss back to her home, which is exactly what he did. Once they were at the gates, he simply told her, "Go to the guards and tell them who you are. If you want to thank me for rescuing you, tell them you came back alone. Tell them that I perished to save your life. Will you do that for me?"
"I have many secrets that I must keep from my family in order to have any kind of personal life. Yes, of course I will do that for you." Kalyss was a beautiful young woman, her long black hair now dusty and tangled after being dragged around like a side of meat. She reached up and kissed him, then went toward the city gate as asked.
Jaxxon retreated back into the still dark sky. It was going to be morning soon though, and he had to hurry. The chances of strangers finding the mysterious hole in the desert ground and the two beautiful Earth women sitting in their metal can would increase greatly after the sun rose.
When he got back to them, he was relieved to find that Simone and Bree were still asleep inside the escape pod. Disconcerting was the fact that they both remained asleep as he opened the door. Just thinking about what some men with ill intentions might do with two such lovely, yet far from completely helpless, women was enough to make his blood boil. His body was not in such a state of turmoil any more, but adapting to his new found lust was going to take some time.
"Oh, you're back," said Simone as she slowly opened her eyes and realized that he was standing outside the escape pod. "Did you do what needed to be done?"
"I did, and Kalyss i
s going to tell everyone that I died saving her. It turns out she doesn't hold much loyalty to her own father either. There is one other thing that we must do though." He was still holding that golden case, which he set down on the floor and opened.
"What are you doing with that? Jaxxon, maybe you shouldn't mess with it?"
"How do you think I found out about my true origin, and the General's sinister plan? And we can't let him continue in his position of power now, knowing that he's so corrupt that his own daughter doesn't trust him." Jaxxon opened the case and pressed down on the receiver button again.
"Foolish Bakloferian animal, we told you to never contact us like this. You are on the bottom of this partnership, and only until we find a way to take your gold without trade. Do you understand?"
"I told you already, you disgusting green slugs—the deal is off. If you want my gold, you can try to take it from me. I'll cut your ugly frog faces to ribbons." Jaxxon released the receiver button and quickly smashed the device against the hard wall of the tunnel. He then swung the case against it as hard as he could, turning it into a hail of splintered fragments that would never be put back together.
"That was brilliant. Do you feel better now?" asked Simone.
"I'll tell you something, I really do feel better. Where do we go now though?"
"Where do you want to go? You must know this planet better that most people, you've been living here long enough." She got out of the pod and went to him, allowing herself to be encapsulated in his powerful cybernetic arms.
Jaxxon kissed her and his pants grew tight, but that was something he would hopefully learn how to control in time. For now, the idea of making the most out of his raging libido sounded like a fine way to spend his retirement years, decades, possibly even centuries. And while he might outlive everyone currently breathing on the primitive world of Lustrya, there was still a whole lifetime in front of them.
20
-Simone-
They didn't actually end up going far for their new life. At first, the three of them had gone to a small town just half a day's walk away. That was as far as they could go without some kind of transportation, which would require something to trade with. It was easy for Jaxxon to procure a job working in the fields tending to the local crops.
But soon enough, word about the assassination of General Plahter came to him. The old bastard had never given a shit about Jaxxon. That was all just a stupid illusion that the cyborg had been holding, because he didn't have anyone else who even pretended to see him as a real person.
"Are you almost ready to go?" asked Simone, coming up to him with a wooden cup of fermented fruit juice. It was common for them to drink this mildly alcoholic beverage instead of the water, which was often not potable. "I don't know why you insisted on finishing out these last few shifts. Talia said that she was going to wait for us all day, from sunrise to sunset."
Sinking his plant cutter into the soil and accepting the drink thirstily, Jaxxon shrugged. "I told them that I would work ten days for ten coins. That's how much I plan to work. Anyway, it's over now. We can go and meet your friend from Earth and her warrior husband. Although I'm not sure I like being around someone who's even more impressive than me."
"You'll just have to get used to that. Talia was a tournament prize and Karthid won your precious arena of death."
"It's not my arena, but I'm still looking forward to going back there. Wherever I might have been harvested from to be turned into this cybernetic stud you see before you, Baklofer is my home."
A woman shouted loudly from the dirt road at the edge of the field, letting out an elated "YEEHAW!" It was Bree, sitting in the driver's seat of a covered wagon. They'd been able to afford their transportation after all, but chose to just rent something and save the rest of the coins that Jaxxon had earned in the fields. "Come on, we're going to miss out on the festivities!"
"The feast is in our honor, you nut," replied Simone with laughter in her voice. It was true, honest laughter too, without the faintest hint of irony or cynicism. "I doubt they'll start it without us."
"Okay then, just hurry up and get your butts onto the wagon anyway! I haven't hung with Talia since, well, since we were all fucking abducted!"
"Well, let's just try to put all that behind us now," replied Simone. She and Jaxxon approached the wagon and climbed aboard. It was going to be a long trip back to the city, even though they didn't have to make it on foot this time. At least the desert was quiet and serene. It would give them some time to think. And the wagon gave the two lovers some privacy from Bree, which they soon took advantage of.
More Savage Planet Action!
Savage Planet Book 1
(Book one in this stand alone series introduces The New Horizon and how it was attacked by aliens, then takes you, along with two more potential lovers, to a different part of the savage planet!)
Stranded in a primitive place where violence is a way of life, Talia's only hope is the strange, red alien man who shared the escape pod with her. And this is before she becomes the grand prize in a sacred tournament of death, one in which her new alien lover must compete!
Karthid is a hot warrior from another solar system, covered in tribal tattoos, red skin bulging with gigantic muscles. He's the last of his proud people, and he's taken a real liking to Talia's curvy body and pretty blue eyes. How could a guy from an alien species be her fated mate?
Buy it or read on Kindle Unlimited for free!
Savage Planet Book 2
Crash landed in a primeval jungle where death lurks behind every tree, Loraine, self-defence trainer of The New Horizon, must venture out alone (not to mention, in the nude!) to seek help for her gravely wounded crewmate. Falling in love with one of the natives was never on the cards!
Raxar is a sexy caveman who calls the savage jungle home. He's bigger than any human man who's ever lived, bulging with muscles, and deadly with a club—especially when it comes to the monstrous beasts who share his home. He's always felt different than his fellow cave dwellers, but has hopes the fire-haired star woman from another galaxy might appreciate his more tender side.
Buy it or read on Kindle Unlimited for free!
If you want me to keep writing more of this series, don’t forget to leave a review. I appreciate the support of my fans, the people I write for. You can also drop me a line at [email protected] if you’d like to join my review team, or just to say hi!
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ALSO BY CHEYENNE HART …
Read my shifter series, Outlaws, Fangs and Claws, starting with Shifting Solitude. Buy or borrow on Kindle Unlimited.
The sequel, Hunter’s Revenge, is also out now.
Wolf and Street Rat is a short, sweet, and intense read that you’ll love! Buy or borrow on Kindle today.
Savage Planet Cyborg Page 10