“She did not order us to remain on the ship,” Jared growled. “Prep the gods damned lander or I will disassemble your hard drive!”
“Prepping secondary lander,” the computer responded after a short pause to collate the data and arrive at the conclusion that it could not prevent them from prepping the lander if it was disassembled and therefore it served no purpose to allow itself to be destroyed.
Chloe’s shuttle had departed the bay before they reached it. Grabbing arms for themselves from the arms locker, Jared and Kane jogged to the lander and up the gangplank. The secondary lander was actually an emergency escape pod and as such, smaller and swifter than the shuttle. They were able to get a visual on Chloe’s ship within a few minutes of departing the main ship and maintained visual contact until she landed at the planet-side space port.
“Identify,” a voice commanded over the com as soon as they’d dropped through the atmosphere.
“Secondary lander, Salvager Omega-3,” Kane responded. “Two crewmembers aboard.”
“What’s your business on Thagorous?”
“Pleasure,” Jared responded.
The man on the other end chuckled. “Just watch yourselves. Your captain won’t be pleased if you end up in jail. She didn’t sound like she meant to stay long and you know how women are when they’ve got their period! She sounded pretty pissed off already about having to detour here for supplies.”
“Affirmative. Will watch our asses.”
Relieved when the com went silent, Jared glanced at Kane, pleased with himself. “He did not think I sounded like a cyborg,” he said with a touch of triumph.
Kane shrugged. “He was not expecting to speak to a cyborg. Mayhap that is why Chloe is convinced that we sound like cyborgs? Because she knows that we are?”
Jared frowned thoughtfully. “According to my data, this slang refers to a female’s reproductive cycle.”
“Except that this is not her fertile period of the cycle.”
“Yes, but, there is a hormonal fluctuation that often causes mood swings. Mayhap that is why she is behaving so irrationally? The comments of that man seemed to suggest that this was not something of great surprise.”
“That is the damndest thing!” Kane exclaimed. “My dick got hard when you mentioned the reproductive cycle.”
“It is only a process of thoughts,” Jared said dryly. “My dick is hardmostof the time now, but I have noticed that it always gets hard when fucking crosses my mind and naturally it would when we are discussing Chloe’s fertility.”
“Well, she is not fertile now and I still do not see how that would affect my dick when I cannot impregnate her even if she would allow me to fuck her! And mine is hard most of the time, also!”
“If it is hard most of the time as mine is,” Jared said tightly, “why would it be remarkable that it is hard now?”
“Because it responded to something you said and it usually only jumps up when Chloe is nearby, gods damn it! I was merely wondering if there was significance in that!” Kane said indignantly.
“I do not see how there could be … unless the gods damned thing is going to begin to stay hard all of the time. I have to say that I do not particularly care for this change. It is gods damned uncomfortable! And I cannot get my mind off the gods damned thing!”
Kane slid a speculative glance at him. “You said that it was already hard most of the time.”
“Well, that is not the same asallthe gods damned time, is it?” Jared snapped.
Chapter Three
Chloe wasn’t certain of whether it was a fortunate thing that Thagorous was such a wild frontier colony that her weapons didn’t warrant even a second glance or a bad thing. As confidently as she marched from the space port and into the little burg of Manard, though, she felt uneasiness begin to prickle along her spine as she caught glimpses of the locals and some of the other visitors.
There didn’t seem to be any females on the dirt-packed streets beyond her, but then again it was dusk and that tended to be the time of day that predators began to crawl out of the woodwork. She’d thought the timing couldn’t be more perfect. She was beginning to have second thoughts by the time she reached the brothel she remembered.
It looked a good deal more rundown than she remembered. Then again, it had been a couple of years since she’d been here and she had been a little tipsy since her and her father had hit the local bar first.
The interior didn’t look a lot better, but then, from what she’d heard, they tended to be on the sleazy side, especially in frontier areas.
The proprietor hadn’t changed. “Can I help you, young lady?”
Chloe smiled brightly. “I heard you had a sexdroid here—a male.”
His lips tightened. He uttered a disgusted breath. “Had being the key word. The rangers descended on us yesterday and cleaned me out—took the sexdroid. I got the real thing … if you’re in to girls.”
