Planet Kill

by Sebastian Wilde

  Despite Pierce’s ship having stealth, since he was this close in, they’d spot the thing with their eyes. His radar evasion would do nothing to prevent them from blowing him out of the sky. The only way onto that transport ship was to be small enough for the human eye to miss him. So he had to launch himself out of the stealth ship, send the ship on a trajectory back to his hiding spot inside the crater, and hope that his attempt to infiltrate the transport ship’s hull would be successful. This meant there would be no protective barrier between him and the vastness of space or the warship missiles.

  It wasn’t even slightly ideal or safe, but this was the only way. Pierce prepped in a hurry, making sure to pack a few extra rations inside the lining of his suit. He had no need for weapons. They’d be confiscated anyway. In under a minute, he was ready to go, physically at least. Mentally, he still wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

  He closed his eyes and pictured his lost love. His soulmate. Her long, curly red hair. Her high cheekbones. Her knowing eyes. He allowed himself to imagine the touch of her skin against his. Then the worst things intruded. Harrowing images from her abduction filled his mind’s eye. She’d been taken in the middle of the night. Tased, bagged, and scurried away by masked figures. No one had believed him of course. They all just said he needed to get over it. Find someone else. That maybe she’d run away and he was imagining the abduction.

  But he couldn’t forget the day he saw her face on screen the following volunteer arrival day, known as Reckoning Day. Sure, it was possible that it wasn’t her, with all the chaos, blood being spilt, and explosions. Perhaps the smoke obscured another redhead woman’s features just enough for Pierce to believe it was her. But it wasn’t just about the details. The sight of that woman, who he knew to be her, stirred him, tied his stomach up in knots, and filled him with an insane vertigo.

  She’d been abducted and forced onto Planet Kill. There was no way she was a volunteer. But his friends and colleagues, even her family, all said the same thing. Maybe she wanted to go. Maybe she faked the abduction, so she didn’t have to argue with him, so that he couldn’t stop her. Maybe she wanted a better life and couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth, that she didn’t love him anymore. Even though it had been almost two years since her disappearance, Pierce had no intention of letting anything go. His entire being was on a collision course for not only the truth about his lost wife, Mara, but also the truth about the conspiracy that some of the volunteers weren’t there by choice at all but forced. As he believed Mara was.

  That was the one thing he knew he couldn’t share with Dregg. Pierce was going to the most dangerous place in the universe to prove that his love didn’t abandon him, and if possible, save her and others like her. Dregg would never have trained him and given him the inside scoop if he knew his real purpose. But now Pierce was ready for his turn on the planet, even if it meant finding out that Mara had faked her abduction to get away from him. They did have their troubles and disagreements, and they were always short of cash. But at least he would be stuck in the one place where such horrible agony would be followed by the end to his misery within seconds of his being lost to that revelation. There was no way he would have the will to keep fighting if it were true that she’d left on purpose. His pain was going to end one way or another. And now it was time to dive into the heart of it.

  Pierce swiped his hand across the control panel, and the hatch opened in front of him. He squeezed inside the small launch tube. The back hatch sealed.

  Decompression commenced. Within seconds, the outer hatch opened, and he narrowed his eyes as he pressed the control panel on his forearm. It launched him out of the tube and on a course for the Volunteer Transport Ship.

  11

  What Goes Around Comes Around

  Planet Kill, Aero’s Camp: One Day Until Reckoning

  Everyone at Aero’s camp was getting along splendidly, and Letha learned something new about him that night. He was apparently a brew master, because he had managed to set up all sorts of beers and meads. He saw a different value in the black market, and right now Letha was damn glad he had.

  This, along with giving her the kill in the valley, was almost enough to convince her this alliance was set. She insisted guards be set up, but allowed everyone at least one drink. She drank so seldom that even half a cup made her feel tingly inside.

  “Aero, what brought you to this planet?” she asked as she sat on Brink’s lap, running her fingers through his short hair. They sat in a circle around one of the smaller fires, along with Kale, Redwood, Rodrigo, and a few of Aero’s “nurses”—apparently, he was a sucker for that outfit. Letha doubted they could all know about medical practices. She had to admit that it was hot, especially when the nurse from earlier came over to check on the med kit, removing it and smiling.

  Sure enough, the wound looked much better already. Advances in medical technology were astounding, even out here. The nurse lingered, kneeling there and rubbing her hand along Letha’s other thigh, a gentle smile on her lips.

  Aero grinned at the sight, clearly the type that enjoyed watching. “Like everyone here, I came for glory.”

  “Glory?” Brink asked. “That’s what you call this?”

  “Not this, but what comes next. What, not you?”

  Brink shrugged, cupping one of Letha’s breasts and then kissing her hand. “It has its moments.”

  Letha shrugged, then reached behind her to grab his crotch. “Mmm, yeah it does.”

  Aero laughed at this, leaned back in his chair and held out a hand to one of the nurses. She went over to him immediately knelt down, pulled down the front of his pants, and let his cock flop out.

  The sight caught Letha by surprise, simply because she hadn’t been expecting it. It was gone a moment later, into the nurse’s mouth as she went down on him right there, as if that was a normal part of group conversation.

  “I was one of the volunteers,” Aero admitted, “but only because you couldn’t get much worse than where I came from. Lost my parents before I can remember, raised with my brother teaching me to run tricks. This right here?” He pointed to the nurse giving him head. “There weren’t many nights that I didn’t do this as a teen. If I wanted to get ahead, I had to give head. You know what I mean?”

  Letha frowned. She’d heard stories like this, but her youth hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as that.

  “That said, I was soon able to pick the men I liked and got a reputation so that even the richer women were coming my way, those whose husbands couldn’t please them, those who weren’t wealthy enough to move to other planets, but had enough money to spend on an hour of pleasure.” He sighed, closing his eyes and grabbing the nurse’s hair. A spasm went through him and he moaned, the sight of it causing Letha to shiver. Then he opened his eyes again, bit his lip, and watched as the nurse pulled back and wiped her mouth. “I came here,” he continued, “figuring I’d been doing a lot of what gets ratings anyway, so why not go for bigger rewards?”

  At this, he took the nurse by the waist and flipped her over onto his lap, head down, and legs around his hips. He pulled her up by her ass and kissed the inside of her thigh. A quick glance showed she wasn’t wearing anything under that nurse’s outfit and was very tidily kept.

  “And the killing?” Brink asked, his massive erection pressing into Letha.

  Aero leaned forward, arranging the girl so he could still talk to Letha and Brink as he kissed the side of her labia. He winked and ran his tongue over her clit once before lifting his head to say, “Surviving the slums as a whore, you learn to kill. Trust me, there isn’t much here so different from back home. Only real difference is here it’s about something bigger, and we have fans.”

  A screen popped up and there were several bids and chats going. One of the main themes was for the four of them to get it on together. Letha had actually been thinking exactly that. Work hard, play hard.

  Standing and hitting accept on her end, she swiped her hand across it toward Aero,
who hit accept too. Letha pulled Kale over by the waist of his pants, then led him over to the other two. She made him kneel and first pulled the nurse’s top open to kiss her breasts, watching hungrily as Aero continued to eat the woman out. After a moment of this, Letha turned back to Kale and reached into his pants. His cock was fully erect, slightly wet at the tip, and ready to go.

  Others nearby were watching. Brink licked his lips with hunger. None of these four minded being watched, and soon others started to follow suit in their own groups. The after-battle orgy—a loved tradition of Planet Kill. Fans back home would be tuning in now, pleasuring themselves, maybe joining in with virtual viewers that set them up with their own robots. They could make it seem like they were right there in the action.

  But Letha tried not to think of that as she moved Aero aside to press her lips to the nurse, tasting her sweetness, running her tongue along her thigh, and then tearing open the rest of the outfit. She stood, removing her own clothing, and bent down on top of the woman to lick her neck, one hand massaging her breasts. Kale came from behind and entered Letha, his cock sliding in and then moving as if they had always been one. The nurse turned her head and took Aero’s cock in her mouth, close enough for Letha to alternate between the woman’s breasts and watching the skillful blow job.

  She’d never had the hard life of this man, this man with his soft, delicate balls inches from her face. She reached out and caressed them, yelping as she felt Kale’s cock growing larger in her, throbbing as he got into it. A moan took her over and she had to bury her head in the nurse’s breasts, wrapping her arms up under the other woman’s, then rocking the chair as if she were fucking the nurse while Kale was fucking her.

  Before Kale finished, Letha pulled him out and gave the nurse a curious glance. She then guided her up and put the nurse’s mouth around his cock, moaning and touching herself as she watched Kale’s muscles stiffen and his eyes roll back into his head as he quickly came in the nurse’s mouth.

  Letha was glad to see Aero was erect again, so she pushed him back on the chair and rode him like a cowgirl, the other two reclining in a cuddling position on the other chair and watching.

  When Letha screamed out, scattered applause could be heard throughout the camp. A screen popped up showing more credits in the accounts of all four participants. That part, oddly, was the only thing about this whole encounter that bothered Letha—if money arrived in her account after sex, it felt too much like prostitution.

  Fuck that, she thought. She’d wanted this—if people wanted to pay for the right to watch, and that didn’t particularly bother her, even acting as a turn on sometimes, who was she to fight it? She managed to stand and accepted a cloth from one of the other nurses so that she could wipe between her legs.

  Aero reached out as he reclined back in the chair, but Letha smiled gently, slid over to Kale, and motioned for the nurse to step aside. She reclined into her general’s embrace, smiling as the nurse instead lay with Aero.

  “That was… pleasant,” she said, then laughed.

  “Fucking amazing,” Aero said, finger tracing the areola of his nurse, then moving down to feel the moistness between her legs.

  She slapped his hand away and giggled. “You know I’m sensitive after.”

  “Did you…?” he asked.

  She shrugged, then nodded. Even the act of asking the girl if she’d enjoyed herself impressed Letha. She surrounded herself with the type of men who would always ensure she got hers, and saw this as a good sign of character. Maybe in a world where survival and sex weren’t the two most important aspects of life, this wouldn’t be so important. But on this planet, a man who considered a woman’s needs could go a long way.

  Chivalry wasn’t a dead concept to him, and he knew how to wield his sword. Double points. Double entendre.

  Another screen popped up, but Letha wiped it away without looking.

  “You aren’t curious?” Kale asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s time for us to relax. Reckoning Day is less than two days away, and we have to be ready. Get our recruits, and then be prepared for combat. No more pleasure until we’ve earned it, got it? Until we destroy Fireshot, I don’t want another erect cock or wet pussy among my warriors. Got it?”

  He laughed. “If I see either, I’ll be sure to punish the owner accordingly.”

  “You do that,” she said. A sudden weariness took over. She leaned back into him, letting her eyes close, and drifted off to sleep.

  12

  Infiltration

  Space: One Day Until Reckoning

  Infiltrating the Volunteer Transport Ship was going to be no easy task. Pierce was going to have to use an ejection chamber. These were normally utilized to jettison misbehaving volunteers who tried to gain an advantage or even take out potential rivals before arriving on planet. Although there were no rules when it came to dispatching others on Planet Kill, the journey there required everyone to stay in line.

  Luckily for Pierce, the jettison chambers functioned as decompression chambers to protect those still onboard. It was a flaw in their design that Pierce had discovered for a hefty price. He had to fund and send a crate to the planet, in exchange for the intel. It was worth every penny. He needed a way onto the planet, and the Volunteer Transport Ship was the only means that would provide solid cover for his mission.

  Finding an ejection chamber that was about to be used took half an hour, and Pierce was running low on oxygen. If it took any longer he was going to have to take more drastic measures, maybe even try to find an alternate way onboard. Finally, one lit up. The ejection chamber was about to end the life of a volunteer who’d gotten out of line.

  With a few bursts of oxygen to avoid detection from an energy burst, Pierce quickly made his way toward the ejection chamber and waited. After a moment, the outer hatch opened, and a volunteer floated outside and into view. The volunteer was still alive, and his eyes met Pierce’s and widened in surprise. Pierce looked back with something almost resembling pity. In a few seconds, the witness would pose no danger of exposing him.

  Pierce grabbed the hull and launched his body into the ejection chamber. He waited for the outer hatch to close. As challenging as that had been, getting through the inner hatch was going to be more difficult.

  He had to hack the locking mechanisms and trick them into thinking they were being opened from the inside of the ship. This was more of a manual hack. No software mirroring or infiltrating a backdoor computer was even possible from inside the ejection chamber.

  Getting the inner hatch to open required a more personal touch. He reached down and pulled out a small canister from his left cargo pocket. With his oxygen running low and the risk of having to face off against well-armed guards running high, he sprayed a gooey liquid into the locking mechanisms. The liquid morphed and formed a seeping ooze that penetrated down and between the interlocking parts.

  Pierce waited, holding his breath. Another moment passed. Then the liquid did its job. He heard the distinct sound of metal gears grinding against each other, unlocking, and opening the inner hatch. The groaning of metal made him nervous, something he hadn’t anticipated. If a guard were still lingering nearby, Pierce would be dead on arrival.

  To his surprise, the trick had worked, and the inner hatch opened. Pierce scurried out, pulled off his helmet, and gulped in fresh oxygen. It was as fresh as ship oxygen could be, anyway. It always held a funny metallic taste that Pierce didn’t care for, but it was better than being dead.

  13

  Nurse

  Planet Kill, Aero’s Camp: Early Morning of Reckoning

  Kale woke her in the wee hours of the morning and asked if she wanted to return to base to prepare for Reckoning Day. The sky was still the pre-dawn black and dark blue that came before bright, hot rays of orange lit the land. Somewhere in the distance a gunshot went off, then another.

  “I’ll check with the scouts,” Kale said, hand gently brushing her shoulder before heading out.

  Let
ha wiped the saliva from the edge of her mouth, looking around for Ghost as a yearning for his touch took over. After a couple of sleepy moments, memories of his death hit her hard. She felt her insides convulse, spasm, and bile rise up her throat.

  When she was fully awake and rested, pushing such emotions aside was no problem. She had wanted to be an actress long ago. As a child, she had even set up one of those floating cameras to follow her around for a day while she quoted classic movies from the twenty-first century. It had felt natural for her, until her mentor had pointed out that actresses only came from the elite planets, never from ‘trash planets’ like her home.

  Still, she had learned that she was comfortable in front of a camera. Even if it meant more people were watching her, she felt like the screen was a wall between them and her. Whatever they were seeing wasn’t really her at all, but the character she portrayed.

  In the dark of early dawn, being trapped in this flesh with her emotions was unbearable torture.

  Letha pushed through the feeling, reminding herself that Ghost had died honorably, that he’d be a hero among his people. Standing now, she tried to ignore the memory of his strong body pressed against hers, in such stark contrast with Kale’s, and even Brink’s. He had been pale, every inch of him. It was a miracle he hadn’t died of sun exposure long before she’d even met him. He’d worn extra clothes when outside during the day, and black-market sunglasses to protect his violet eyes when it was bright… ah, those violet eyes.

  With a sigh, she remembered the first time she’d seen him looking up at her with those stunning eyes while between her legs. Legends had built up on the fringe planets about his kind, saying they were gods, kissed by Aphrodite. She had certainly felt that kiss throughout her body that night, and let it come back again many times after.