Return to Eden (15 page)

Aidan cupped her chin with one hand and
tilted her face up to study her expression. “You want
me?”

Anya smiled. “I didn’t convince
you?”

He grinned. “Not completely. But I’m
open minded if you want to try again.”

The End.

Also available through New Concepts
Publishing by Kaitlyn O’Connor:

Cyberevolution I: The
Awakening

Cyberevolution II: Total
Recall

Cyberevolution III:
Abiogenesis

Cyberevolution IV: Cyborg

Cyberevolution V:
Illumination

Cyberevolution VI: Cyborg
Nation

Cyberevolution VII: Rules of
Engagement

Enslaved One: Genesis

Enslaved Two: Spawning, The

Enslaved Three: Gladiators,
The

Adaptation

Below

Chaos Forged

Dark Solstice

Discovery: The Forgotten

Dragon Lord

Lords of Mayhem

Night Raven

Ninth Orb, The

Portal, The

Sleeping with the Enemy

When Dawn Breaks

When Night Falls

Read an excerpt from an upcoming book
by Kaitlyn O’Connor:

New Earth Colony One:

Barbarian Prince

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

Chapter One

Every day was a struggle for
Noel.

Truthfully, it had been a struggle to
keep fear and hysteria at bay since she’d boarded the ship bound
for the newly discovered worlds of the H32 system in the Clarion
Galaxy.

Sometimes she thought she
must have been
insane
when she’d agreed to go, signed up, fought for a place on the
colony ship!

Her motives had seemed perfectly
logical when she’d been working on her decision. The list of
reasons to go had far outweighed reasons to stay where she was. And
yet ….

Day by day—almost minute
by minute—she was torn between terror and delirious excitement—and
for the same reason—the alien world they’d landed on, the world
that was destined to be
her
home world forever more. Officially, it had been
named Gemini for the fact that the planet had a twin, Sparta, but
most people referred to it as New Earth.

She thought it would’ve been easier if
the other colonists weren’t determined to call it New Earth. That
made it impossible for her to put ‘home’ from her mind,
particularly since ‘new’ Earth looked nothing at all like old
Earth. And every time she heard the word ‘Earth’ her mind instantly
produced images for a comparison that only brought home how out of
her element she was.

To each his own, she supposed. She
could only think this must be their way of coping with being torn
from everyone and everything they’d known and thrust into a terror
filled situation of new everything.

It didn’t work for her, however. She
could repeat the mantra all day long and it wasn’t going to change
the view. The new world looked like Earth only in the sense that
some of the terrain was vaguely familiar to places on earth. None
of the flora or fauna was. Even the colors of the dirt and rocks
weren’t entirely the same. The sky was blue, but not Earth blue,
and they could see the world’s twin, Sparta in the sky for hours
each day and a trio of moons at night.

The
smells
weren’t even the same! Nor
the sounds. She couldn’t even have the comfort of closing her eyes
and
pretending
she was home.

The indigenous people called it
K’naiper—she’d yet to discover what that meant in their language.
For even though they’d managed (or their computers had) to crack
the ‘code’ of the alien language en route, naturally enough there
were some words that simply defied translation because there was no
word to associate them with in the English language—any Earth
language.

It was a word that was nearly
impossible to wrap her tongue around—because it included sounds
beyond the limits of human vocal chords—but she still rather
thought they should call the world what the natives did. Or as
close to it as they could manage.

If the natives were anything like human
beings beneath the skin, it seemed to her that they might resent
the arrogance of humans taking over the place and renaming
it.

Physically, they were certainly very
much like human beings. Naturally, there were notable differences,
too. They weren’t likely to ‘mistake’ one another when the stature
and pigmentations alone differed drastically from humans. Their
pigmentation ranged from blue to yellow. Like humans, the skin
tones varied from light to medium to dark, but the blues were
definitely blue. The yellows ranged from pure yellow to a very
definite orange, but they hadn’t observed one that was actually
close enough to the yellow skin toned races of Earth to confuse
them.

And then there was the
stature.

On average they were around a foot
taller than a typical human male—the females were. They hadn’t seen
a male and they’d begun to believe these people only had one
gender.

Which was another factor that made
mistaking them for human unlikely!

Beyond the color and height, though,
they seemed to be proportioned much like humans and shaped much the
same. Their features, not surprisingly, were definitely exotic next
to humans, but they looked more like a different human race than a
different species.

And that was the only
point about the entire situation that made Noel’s decision
palatable. She’d trained as a xeno-biologist
specifically
to make herself
eligible for inclusion in the colony project—but also because she
was extremely drawn to the field.

If she’d stayed on Earth it was
doubtful she would ever have had alien biology to study!

And yet it was beginning to look like
she might be old and gray before she was allowed any contact at all
with the natives!

Any
indigenous life!

She didn’t know what the damned hold up
was!

Unconsciously, she began to drum her
fingers on the desk in front of her, staring at the window although
she didn’t see any of the view beyond it. She was too focused
inwardly to register the bustling little colony she had as a
view.

It was a slice of Earth, their little
colony. Naturally enough it was made from indigenous materials, but
the design ….

Then again it had been pretty
unanimously decided to program the builder droids to focus on
functionality. They could give their new home ‘character’ when they
got there. It would be therapeutic.

She didn’t think anyone
had considered how damned depressing it was going to be to live in
a …
void
until
they had the time to ‘make their space reflect their personality’!
As utilitarian as the ship had been, it wasn’t as bad! At least it
hadn’t looked so … antiseptic!

But everything was so uniform in
color—so generic—and so flawlessly, perfectly constructed that it
made her think of a cardboard cutout of her home city—on
Earth.

It
was
sterile!

Very deliberately so.

The warm hand that settled over her
fingers and squeezed them almost painfully jerked Noel out of her
abstraction. She blinked at the person standing beside her, slowly
bringing the dark face into focus. Monica’s full lips were pulled
back in a strained smile, displaying her bright white teeth, but
there was a spark of irritation in her dark eyes. “Let’s take a
walk.”

Noel glanced around but she didn’t see
anyone else in the cubicle ‘lab/office’ she shared with her best
friend, Monica.

It wasn’t exactly private, though. The
walls surrounding their area did cut off a good bit of the noise of
the lab, but privacy was mostly an illusion.

Deciding Monica must want to talk about
something she didn’t want everyone to hear, Noel shrugged and got
up. “Is it break time?”

“
Lunch,” Monica responded
with determined cheer.

Surprise flickered through Noel and
then her spirits lifted a little. Lunch time meant they were over
half way through their shift! Only a few more hours of deadly
boredom and she could go to her apartment and stare at the f’ing
walls! “Hot damn! We get off in a couple of hours! You want to do
something tonight?”

“
First lunch,” Monica
responded succinctly.

Noel stopped in her tracks, dismay
replacing her mood of moments before. “We do last lunch,” she said
irritably.

“
Not today.”

Surprise flickered through Noel and
then a touch of hopefulness. “Why not today?”

“
Because you’re driving me
out of my fucking mind!” Monica snarled under her breath. “I
figured it would be better to take a break than choke you to death.
I don’t want to end up being the first colonist executed for a
major crime.”

“
Me?” Noel demanded
indignantly. Fortunately they were outside the lab by that time and
in the corridor leading to the cafeteria. A man and woman coming
from the opposite direction cast a glance at them when Noel raised
her voice and then quickly looked away when they saw the frown of
indignation she was wearing. “What did I do?”

Monica rolled her eyes and shook her
head. “I think it’s the breathing … in and out ….”

Noel gaped at her. “You aren’t
serious,” she said a little doubtfully.

Taking her arm, Monica guided her
determinedly to the closest exit instead of continuing toward the
cafeteria. She shook her head again. “It’s all the twitching—the
deep sighs—the drumming your fingers ….”

Noel blinked at her friend, casting her
mind back, but she didn’t remember doing any of those things. “I
didn’t ….”

“
Yes, you did,” Monica
said, interrupting her denial. “You’ve been at it since you got
here this morning.”

Noel glanced around to determine where
they were. They’d emerged from the building into the tiny ‘garden’
area between the science building and the med-center, but Monica
was heading briskly toward the gate that opened onto the main
thoroughfare of the colony. Confused, she sent Monica a questioning
look as she paused to open the gate with her retina ID.

“
I haven’t …. Where are we
going?”

“
I don’t know, but I’m
going to explode if I spend another minute in there!”

Despite her irritation at what she
perceived as unjust complaints, Noel perked up at that. “We’re
going to … uh … play hooky from work?”

Monica threw her a startled look.
“What’s hooky? And how do you play it?”

Noel frowned at her. “You’re the
sociologist! You ought to know—truancy? Absent without
permission.”

Monica frowned, but thoughtfully. “Oh.
Well I’m a xeno-sociologist, damn it! I specialize in alien
sociology! My god! That’s archaic! Where did you hear
it?”

Noel felt a lump form in her throat.
“My grandmother ….”

Monica bit her lip. “Sorry!” She
gripped Noel’s arm, squeezing it sympathetically. “I wasn’t
thinking.”

Noel smiled with an effort. “No. It’s
ok. I like remembering ….”

It was the truth—to an
extent. She
did
enjoy remembering her grandmother and the happy childhood
she’d had because of her.

But it hurt
so
bad to know she was
gone forever, to only have memories!

She’d never really known her parents.
They’d left her with her maternal grandmother when they’d taken
jobs mining on one of the new outposts/colonies in the asteroid
belt because it was deemed too dangerous for children. They’d
planned to make their ‘fortune’ mining and return with enough
credits to buy a home to raise a family, but they’d never made it
back. Someone had broken into a gas pocket and the entire asteroid
had exploded into pebbles, killing all 600 miners—including her
parents.

Fortunately, she’d been too young to
really feel the loss. She hadn’t been too young to see her
grandmother’s grief, though. And her grandmother had never gotten
over losing her only child. Noel knew her grandmother had loved her
and that she’d brought her grandmother some comfort, but nothing
ever healed the wound of loss.

She thought it hurt most to think her
grandmother had been glad to go ….

Which sucked for
her
because she’d been
the one left alone.

As sorry as she felt for herself,
though, she was ashamed for feeling that way. Her grandmother had
endured a lot of suffering to be there for her as long as she
had.

Besides, a lot of the people who’d
volunteered to colonize were in the same boat—alone—which was a
major incentive to start over somewhere else.