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    Gateway Planet
    Gateway Planet
    Gateway Planet
    Ebook141 pages2 hours

    Gateway Planet

    By E.S. Malka

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Hidden deep in the bowels of a remote star system is a planet more terrifying than anything humanity has ever encountered… until now. 

    The USS Panthera, a colonizing contingent containing a massive prisoner work force and the soldier power to oversee it, crashes on a mysterious planet. All of Panthera’s resources are scattered and prisoners and soldiers are pitted against each other in desperate fight for survival.

    Gateway Planet follows the journey of one escaped prisoner who risks her life for a taste of freedom. As she battles the mysterious creature that hunts by the light of the red moon, she will discover that survival and freedom don’t always go hand in hand…

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherE.S. Malka
    Release dateMar 13, 2015
    ISBN9781507058633
    Gateway Planet

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      Book preview

      Gateway Planet - E.S. Malka

      GATEWAY PLANET

      By E.S. Malka

      Copyright 2015

      This ebook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the reader. It is copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

      Mia could barely remember the time before she was locked away.

      She knew she’d hated the outside world and the aftermath of war. Hated the toxic air, hated watching the flowers and the trees wither away and die and hearing about people getting sick off of bad water and bad food.

      All that anger, and for what?

      It meant something at the time – and if she hadn’t been so stupid maybe she would still be out there hating all of it still. Now she longed for just a breath of outside air, as long as it was fresh. Anything was better than the rank, fetid sludge she breathed in the prison.

      Her anger died the fourth year she was behind bars – or was it the fifth? It was hard to put a finger on it now that the memory of the boy had faded. One day she was seething against her circumstances and the next acceptance washed over her and turned her into one of the others. Worse than a zombie that you’d see in one of those old movies because technically the prisoners were still alive. Alive, but just going through the motions.

      You’re next, whispered old Hannah, Mia’s cellmate.

      About fifty years old, Hannah had grey hair that hung like straw to her waist and her face was pockmarked from the scars of cigarettes put out on her. Some said she had put them out on herself but Mia knew better. Hannah was a crazy old bat, sure, but she wasn’t stupid. She did have an odd sense of premonition about her and if Hannah said she was next, well, there was a damn good chance the madwoman in Mia’s cell who’d been there for twenty years longer than anybody in this place knew what was about to happen. They said Hannah was in there for murder but, then again, who in C-Ward wasn’t put away from something nasty?

      You’re gonna disappear and no one will miss you. No one will know where they took you, Hannah continued as she picked dirt from beneath her fingernails.

      Mia grunted in acknowledgment but said nothing in return, which was her standard response to Hannah’s ramblings. She gave her cellmate wide berth as they trudged single file to the dining hall, but try as she might, she could not help but turn it over in her mind. It was true no one was going to miss her, but she knew exactly where she was going. To the new place, the unspoiled land, the last hope for humanity, the place where they send prisoners to work and die like slaves. All for the good of everyone else.

      Because Hannah predicted it, Mia was ready when they burst into her cell that night. It took four guards to hold her down, and even then she managed to kick all but one of them hard in the groin. They were going to take her, but she wasn’t going down without taking something from them as well.

      We got a fighter, do we? said the guard still standing. He smiled.

      Hannah curled up into a ball on her cot and watched as the remaining guard knocked Mia across they jaw with his baton. Blood filled her mouth. She spat at his face and grinned. The last thing she heard was the buzz of a taser. Her body spasmed as electricity shot through it and then she went still.

      And time passed. Minute, hour, day, week, month and year. And year. And year. And so on. Mia, like the other inmates taken to toil in the mines, was asleep for it all. Until she wasn’t anymore.

      Until the crash.

      Mia woke naked and alone to the sound of a klaxon trilling in the distance. Her eyelids were heavy and it took a full minute for her to slit them open. Light blinded her, so she squeezed them shut and then opened them again slowly in increments. Her brain was sluggish and full of cobwebs. She remembered nothing but the feeling of being struck as if by lightening, the white heat coursing through her veins and then came the darkness.

      She immediately wondered what time it was but she soon banished the thought. The better question was where the hell was she and, even better than that, how had she gotten there?

      Mia noticed the sound of the klaxon was not as far away now as she flexed her fingers and her toes, rotated her wrists and ankles and then stretched her limbs. Her eyes could open fully now and she could see that the source of the light was a small window a few inches in front of her face. She turned her head to the side and could make out that she was in some kind of container or coffin – she couldn’t really tell. She felt a drip of moisture on her right side, which told her that the container was cracked open slightly and something was seeping through.

      So that was what woke her.

      She got up slowly, feeling stabs of pain as her nerves adjusted to movement. How long had she been trapped in that box for? She had no idea, but something here didn’t feel right. Once she was out of it, she saw why. Emergency lights flickered, illuminating her surroundings for seconds at a time. Row upon row of metal containers just like hers, welded to the floor, were crushed. Some hung open and others were flattened shut. The vast majority of them, though, were mangled beyond recognition.

      The containers that hung open were empty, and Mia instinctively took off, stumbling on shaky legs toward a shaft of light at the end of the chamber. But the sudden burst of speed was too much for her body. It had been asleep for… well, who knew how long, and was just readjusting to the idea of being in motion. She fell to her knees and wretched. Only fluids came up, so she knew that’s how she had been kept alive in that little chamber.

      Mia got to her feet and took shorter, careful steps. The floor was slick with pools of vomit, along with other fluids she didn’t want to think about, and smears of blood. She did her best to avoid them, but they were everywhere. Those that had escaped before her clearly went through the same adjustment that she did.

      There was a wall of lockers to the side of the room, which were flung open haphazardly. A mass of clothing scattered across the floor; some pieces were still in the shiny, sealed packages and other garments had been ripped open and thrown to the ground. Mia found some underwear and a dark grey jumpsuit made of sturdy, tough material that fit. Next came heavy boots that laced up past her ankles. She didn’t see any socks and didn’t bother to look.

      She started moving again and this time she didn’t stop until she reached her destination. The soles of her feet were on fire as daggers of pain shot through her limbs, but she felt uneasy here alone. A jagged opening, lit by a beam of reddish light, led out into the world…

      And what a world. Mia stared in wonder.

      The strange pod with the metal containers full of prisoners had crashed in the middle of a lush, pristine jungle. The kind that no longer existed, or that people weren’t allowed to go to anyway. With the most of the Amazon gone, only tiny swatches of forests like these existed in Russia, Canada and Peru, but no one was allowed to visit them anymore.

      Mia heard nothing but the sound of the wind whistling through the trees and felt a pleasant breeze cool her body.

      The shaft of red light that had guided her way found its source in a large crimson moon, illuminating pockets of the jungle with uncanny accuracy while the trees shielded the other parts of it in shadows. Her lungs screamed for air and Mia gulped it in greedily, feeling the clean, sharp breaths blaze a path down her throat. She stood there for several seconds, hands to her knees, just breathing it in. It felt like freedom, or something like it.

      A gunshot rang out.

      Mia dropped to her stomach and looked up to see a soldier dressed in fatigues and another dressed in a dark coloured combat suit, encroach on a prisoner about a hundred feet away from her. The prisoner wore the same grey jumpsuit as Mia had on, but his was stained with blood. The soldier had shot him in the shoulder and the man was pleading for his life. They were lit by the red moonlight but she was still in the long shadows cast by the pod.

      They hadn’t seen her yet.

      Mia crawled on her stomach to the edge of the trees and risked a backward glance. The soldiers were dragging the prisoner back to the pod by his legs. His screams filled the air and one of the soldiers, the one in the combat uniform, kicked him in the stomach and the man cried out in pain. This time the gunshot found its target and the man fell and moved no more. Another handful of soldiers in fatigues came into view and that was all the information she needed.

      She moved as fast as she could until she felt there was enough cover for her to get to her feet without being seen. Then she ran, glad now that the strength seemed to be returning to her legs.

      Whenever she heard rustling around her, or noises in the distance, she would drop to her belly then wait until the silence enveloped her again. Once, she ducked behind a tree and

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