Condemned (Death Planet Book 1)

by Grant, Edward M.

  The city of Nova Stalingrad had quaked in fear at the very mention of her name, and crowds had parted when they saw her approach. Until the day someone feared too much, and turned her in to PubSafe for dozens of murders.

  Some of which, she’d actually done.

  Oh, she'd like to find him. Not to rip his head off, though. She'd start by ripping off the toes and fingers, one by one, then move on to his balls, and anything else she could find to detach.

  The head would be the last part to go.

  But that was the future. Something to look forward to. Right now, this planet's sun was setting behind the mountains, and their long, rugged shadows stretched across the landscape around her. She needed a place to spend the night. And food. And water. And a job. On a world full of criminals, there had to be demand for a girl with experience in the punishment and persuasion business. If those idiots who attacked her pod were anything to go by, it would be an easy job, too. Smack a few heads, and she'd be running the whole planet in a year.

  A drone buzzed around her face like a giant mosquito, the dark eyes of its cameras and sensors staring at her as she moved. She swung her big, furry paws toward it, and it dodged away, circling just out of arm's reach. It was bad enough that the fuckers were watching everything through her own senses with the skulltop recordings, without following her everywhere.

  She turned toward it and raised one finger.

  “Stick that in your props, metalsucker.”

  The drone's whine grew louder as the fans spun up, and it rose into the sky above her, keeping a safer distance. She raised a paw to shade her eyes from the glare of the sun. It glittered on the ocean waves a few kilometres to her right, and shone from a wide river running down from the mountains. If there was a town, that was where she would build it, down by the river with lots of water, and a harbour for transport. Just made sense.

  A faint trail of smoke rose in the distance. She squinted and followed it down toward the ground. Some brown, rectangular objects stood out on the riverbank against the black of the plain and foothills. And was that a wooden wall around them?

  Worth a look.

  A muffled, high-pitched noise floated toward her from the wood to her right. Someone yelling? She twisted her ears that way. It definitely sounded like someone yelling. The shitheads must have found some other poor bastard to capture. Probably just torturing them.

  It was none of her business. She strolled on.

  There it was again. Sounded more like a call for help than a fight. It was probably a trap. Sure to be. She should just leave them, and find a safe place to sleep. If the fucking racket didn’t keep her up all night. They yelled again.

  Crap.

  She trudged into the trees, toward the noise. At least the rain had stopped. Her fur had stuck to her skin where the storm had soaked it through, and the water sucked the heat from her body as the air cooled. She needed a nice fire to dry herself out.

  She also needed a new outfit. This ugly orange jumpsuit was a liability. Not only would they see it from a mile away, but it marked her as a new arrival, easy meat for the locals... if she wasn't half-bear, and over two hundred kilos, with claws that could rip a normal man's throat apart with one blow.

  Ah, screw it. She had fur. What did she need the suit for? Her claws made short work of the cloth, and she tossed it aside. Her naked body would be much harder to see in the woods.

  Something dripped on her head. More bastard rain. She reached up and wiped it away, then glanced at her paw. A faint red smear covered the fur. She looked up. A dead hunter’s wide eyes stared down between a long beard and scraggly mop of hair matted with blood. His arms and legs hung loose, and a drop of blood fell from the hole in his chest where a branch had impaled him, until it caught on his ribs and tore them apart.

  Serves the cocksucker right.

  She stepped aside, and wiped away the blood on wide-leafed plant. A voice mumbled up ahead, muffled by the trees. Flying things scattered as she crunched into the undergrowth, and the drone flitted between the tree branches above her. She slowed and crouched as she approached the voice.

  She grabbed the nearest tree and peered around it. No-one moved among the plants ahead.

  “Comrade,” a hoarse voice yelled. “Help me.”

  About a metre from the tree, the ground disappeared into a dark square about three metres across and the same deep, with some rotten branches and dead leaves scattered across it. The interior walls were metal, as though someone had pulled apart one of the pods, and buried a metal box there to make a pit trap the occupant couldn't climb out of. Would be a good way to catch newbies without having to put in much work. She should have thought of it before now, and been on the lookout. There were a whole new class of dangers here she'd never seen before.

  She stepped closer to the edge, keeping her distance in case there was another pit nearby, and scanning the surrounding trees in case some asshole was trying to set up an ambush. Nothing moved, other than a hundred-legged beetle-thing crawling down the tree toward her hand. She flicked her arm and smacked the thing away. It flew through the air, into the pit, and the voice squealed.

  “I said help me. Not throw bugs at me.”

  Thumps came from the pit. She leaned over the edge, and stared in. The sun had almost set, but the light-intensifiers in her eyes boosted the shadows into a grainy green glow. One of the most useful damn body upgrades she ever bought.

  A man in an orange jumpsuit hopped around the base of the pit, slamming his boot onto the ground as he tried to squash the bug. It ran up the arm of a skeleton draped with tattered orange cloth, and sat on top of the skull, hissing at the newbie. He kicked toward the bug. His boot hit the skull of the skeleton, sending it flying across the pit. But the bug had already crawled down into the rib cage, and spat a stream of black goo toward him. The newbie screamed as the goo splattered his face, and bounced from wall to wall as he tried to wipe it away.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Brunhilde said.

  He backed into the corner farthest from the bug, crunching the rib cage of another skeleton as he stomped on it. The bug raised a dozen legs and waved them in the air as it hissed at him.

  “I was running, and fell in. I've been stuck for an hour.”

  She shouldn't even think of helping him. Who knows why he was Condemned? Scrawny little fucker, but what did size matter, with all the black market body mods these days? Still, someone who could afford those kind of mods could also afford to bribe some PubSafe commissar to keep him out of Hades.

  The drone that followed her buzzed past, and descended into the pit. A light on the front clicked on, shining a narrow beam toward the man, then the bug. The bug spat goo at the drone. It dodged, and rose out of spit range.

  “From the look of those bones,” she said, “whoever built this pit forgot about it a long time ago.”

  The man glanced up at her hairy face, then at her hairy chest, where her breasts swung free. His eyes followed them for a second, then he hunched down in the corner.

  “On second thoughts, maybe I'll stay here with the bug.”

  She leaned forward, and held out her paw. “Come on. I'll help you out. But don't expect any more than that. And don't forget you owe me a favour, if I ever run into you again.”

  He waved her away. “No. I'm happy down here, thanks.”

  Some people had no gratitude. She grabbed a thick branch on the nearest tree, and twisted it. The wood stretched and creaked, and she twisted it in the other direction until it gave way with a loud snap. Then she tore it away, and pushed it down into the pit. The bug hissed at her, and she turned the branch until it was leaning toward the man.

  “Please, Comrade Furry,” he said. “Just go away.”

  “I'm not going to eat you.”

  Though she was hungry. The newbie ignored the branch, turned away, and began to hum. She swung it toward him, but he dodged out of the way. If he was some kind of trap, it was the stupidest fucking trap she’d ever heard of. M
aybe she should just smack the stupid shit on the head, and leave him there.

  Then again, she’d be quaking in her boots if she was in his position, too. Perhaps some gentle persuasion would work?

  “Grab the fucking branch, Comrade Fuckwit, or I'm going to eat your head and shit it down your neck.”

  He stared at her. She growled, and bared her teeth. He got the message, and grabbed the branch. She pushed it in until it touched the bottom of the pit, and the broken wood scraped against the dirt-covered metal. He stared at her as he clambered up, and finally grabbed the edge of the pit to pull himself out. As his knees reached solid ground, he rolled away, keeping the pit between them.

  He stood, and brushed the dirt, debris and mud from his jumpsuit. “Thanks. But I hope you won’t mind if I don’t want to stick around.”

  “Just get the fuck out of here before I kill you.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, then his head disappeared. Blood spurted from the torn, red remnants of his neck, and he continued standing for a few seconds before the legs gave way and his chest tipped forward. He went over the edge of the pit, and tumbled down. The branch cracked as he landed on it, and the bug scuttled away.

  A black mass crunched on bone, in the shadows beneath the trees. The bug waited a few seconds, then scuttled across the floor of the pit, into the expanding pool of blood around the man’s severed neck. It climbed on his back, and began to chew.

  Something squeaked behind Brunhilde. A furry creature about half a metre long stood on a rock, its long ears twitching, and eyes locked on the crunching black thing.

  The black creature turned and stared at Brunhilde with all three of its eyes, one on each side of its head, and the other in the forehead. It twisted gently from side to side as it studied her, and pushed itself up on its haunches until the eyes rose almost to her chest. It opened its mouth, and bared four rows of sharp teeth. It took a slow step toward her, and growled.

  Fuck this shit.

  She raised her arms, extended the claws from her fingers, and slammed her feet onto the ground. Then she stretched out as far as her arms would go, and roared.

  The creature lurched back, and hissed.

  “Fuck you, motherfucker,” she yelled, and ran toward it, swinging her arms as she jumped onto a nearby rock.

  It raised itself onto two legs as she swung her claws toward its face. Then it twisted around, and slammed down to the ground, facing away from her. As she swung again, it jumped away, and raced into the darkness between the trees as rapidly as its six legs could carry it.

  “If I ever see you again, you’re dead,” she yelled after it.

  The long-eared thing was still hunched on the rock, staring at her. It backed away slowly, and she crouched, retracting her claws and holding out her paw toward it. It took another step back, then stopped. It sniffed the air, then took a step forward, and sniffed her paw. It looked up.

  Its small, dark eyes stared into hers. She stroked its head. Its ears twitched at the touch. Kind of like Fluffy Bunny, the rabbit she befriended at the barracks in EdCamp. He used to hop around beneath the barracks building, and stare out at her whenever she passed by. Almost as though he thought she was a relative, not a person.

  That was nice to come home to, when the instructors had spent all day shouting at her, or the other kids had been making fun of her. At least someone loved her, and didn't think she was an abomination that should never have been born.

  It sniffed her fingers as she wrapped them gently around its head. She smiled, then tightened her grip, and twisted until its neck snapped.

  Supper. And about fucking time.

  CHAPTER 6

  Red hobbled along the path at the edge of the wood, keeping his legs wide apart so his thighs didn’t rub against his aching balls. They no longer felt like they were about to burst, but he had to force his lips together to hold back a gasp of pain every time his leather pants rubbed against them. Slaphead and Snake were still giggling behind their hands every time he winced. He’d kick their balls too, if he could just lift his leg high enough. He couldn’t afford to lose control of the gang, or they’d slit his throat while he slept, and take over.

  The King’s Guards stood beside a row of carts further down the path. Little shits. Just because they had shiny uniforms, and some of them had pistols in their belts, they looked down on everyone else. Except when they were on their knees, sucking the King's cock to get the job. He'd rather be free.

  Haulers snorted and tapped the dirt with their eight furry feet as they stood yoked to the front of the carts. The carts wobbled as the haulers tried to walk on, and the Guards grabbed their reins to pull them back.

  The ball-breaker’s head lolled as she walked in front of them, naked, smeared with mud, with blood dripping from her mouth. He hadn’t meant to damage the merchandise, but his hand just reacted naturally to having his balls crushed. His hound growled as she slowed, and she sped up again.

  The other two girls just glared. The blonde had been a good fighter at the start, but soon wore out when half a dozen of them surrounded her. The redhead hadn’t even climbed out of her pod before Snake grabbed her and tied her up. The fat guy, well, not much chance of outrunning a pack of hunters when you weight two hundred kilos and aren’t even two metres tall.

  Wooden cages stood in the back of each cart, and an older man wearing a fancy fur-trimmed leather outfit stood beside them, waiting for his pick of the day’s catch. The King’s own slave-master, he was always there, every year, but he’d never had a smile on his face as wide as when he watched the Meat Packers stroll toward him that night.

  “Evening, Garry,” Red said as they stopped beside the carts. He pushed the newbies into line.

  “Good hunting I see, comrade.”

  Garry grabbed the ball-breaker by her chin, and lifted her face toward him, studying the bruises, staring into her eyes, then pulling back her lips to examine her teeth.

  “What happened to her?”

  “Thought ssshe could get away,” Red said. Then he nodded toward the one-armed man. “Gave Ssstubby a new ssscar.”

  “And made Red see stars,” Slaphead said, and mimicked a knee to the groin.

  “So that's why you're talking funny?” Garry said.

  “No. Bitch bit my tongue.” Red opened his mouth wide to show the scar. It still hurt like a motherfucker, and he could taste fresh blood every time he spoke and tore it open again.

  Garry laughed, then moved on to the blonde alongside. As he prodded her teeth, she opened her jaw wide, and bit down. He pulled his fingers back, then held them up in front of his face. He'd moved fast enough to avoid having them bitten off, but blood ran down the index finger where her teeth had torn away a chunk of skin. She stared up at him, and smiled.

  “Your name’s Garry?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I'm gonna kill ya, Garry.”

  She cackled.

  Garry stepped away. “Gag 'em.”

  The hunters grabbed wooden gags, stuffed them in the slaves' mouths, and tied leather straps behind their heads to hold them in place. Garry glanced at the redhead alongside, who glared back at him with red eyes. Then he scratched his chin.

  “The King will like the little one, once we tame her. The redhead has a bright future in the whorehouse. The crazy one... I guess someone can find a use for her, somewhere.”

  He circled the fat man, whose bulging stomach wobbled, and thighs flapped, as he tried to turn away.

  Garry shook his head. “He’s not much good for anything.”

  “What about a farm ssslave?”

  Garry grabbed the man’s arm and slapped it. Fat wobbled. “Farm slaves need muscles, comrade. He doesn’t have any.”

  “He must have sssome, to carry all that weight around.”

  Another group of hunters strode down the path, led by the bull hybrid, with three men tied up in front of them. Garry nodded that way. “It’s been a good hunt today. There’s plenty of choice. No need for th
e King to take second best.”

  The fat man mumbled around the gag.

  Red slapped the man's side. “There'sss a lot of meat on him.”

  “Fatty, though.”

  “Fat’sss good for frying.”

  “I have my own cook.”

  “He’sss gotta be worth a few ssshiniess, even for ssslaughter.”

  The man struggled against his bonds, and tried to hobble away, but the hunters grabbed him, and pulled him back into line. He mumbled louder, until Stubby pulled a knife, and pressed the point against his stomach.

  Garry shrugged. “Ain’t worth a single shiny to me. I could get better meat at the mines, after they’re all used up.”

  “Out of the way, Fudge Packers,” the bull hybrid said, and barged past. His hounds growled, and Red pulled his back.

  Assholes. If there weren’t twice as many of them, he’d kill them right there. One day, they were going to regret treating him like shit. But that would have to be a day when he could still feel his balls.

  Garry grabbed the bull’s hand and shook it. “Ah, Comrade Dozer, you’ve got a good selection for me today.”

  “Take your pick.”

  Dozer and his hunter pack lined the slaves up. The men pulled against their bonds, and their teeth ground against the gags. The hunters pulled them back into line, and the hounds growled when they tried to move away.

  Garry looked the men over, then grabbed their arms, to measure their muscles with his fingers. “These two should do well in the mines. This one,” he slapped the third man’s ass, “can go to the whores.”

  He reached into a wooden strongbox, and pulled out a handful of shiny circles, which clinked as he tossed them into a leather pouch.

  “Would have been worth a few more if you'd been more careful.” He nodded toward the ball-breaker. “Those bruises are going to take a while to heal, and the King won't want her 'til she looks pretty.”

  “Heard he wasssn't getting any action, now he'sss knocked up all his bitchesss again.”