Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) (13 page)

“What about me?” Princess said. Her throat was dry as a desert, and beer should be safer to drink than the river water.

He looked her over again. She smiled bashfully as his eyes explored her legs and chest. For all the men she'd entertained as an
Undertakers’
girl, she hadn’t had a real boyfriend in years.

“I guess they might find a use for you, too. Maybe we should talk it over somewhere more private?”

He poured another bottle, and handed her the mug. She took it carefully, letting his fingers run over her hand. She smiled at the touch of his rough skin on hers. Perhaps the planet wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

She stepped closer to him as she drank. The drink smelled rotten, but looked clear and brown. She took a sip. Cool, wet, and hadn’t killed Brunhilde so far. She took another. Tasted fruity. Aside from the smell, it wasn’t bad.

Feet thumped outside, and men yelled. The old man was back at the door. His long, thin, wobbly arm was silhouetted against the daylight as he raised it. He pointed toward her.

“That’s them. That’s the ones in the Guards’ uniforms.”

Men swarmed in past him. Men wearing leather uniforms like the ones they’d taken from the dead men at the cart. Men with roughly-made, but sharp, swords in their hands, and scowls on their faces.

Oh, shit.

G
uy grabbed Daniel’s arm, and pulled him through the crowd, toward a wide circle of men on the far side of the casino. They were leaning over a wooden barrier, around a pit in the floor deep enough that Daniel couldn't see the bottom from there. A man with a white beard scowled as Guy pushed him aside, then stared into Guy’s face for a second before he backed away. Guy stepped into the gap he’d made at the side of the barrier, and pulled Daniel in beside him.

The King faced a row of cages on the far side of the barrier. His Guards stared at the spectators, with their hands on their weapons, and eyes void of emotion beneath their helmets. Each cage held a girl, some naked, others wearing the remains of their orange newbie jumpsuits.

The King’s steam engine hissed as he pointed to a girl whose jumpsuit was torn in a jagged line across her stomach. A long, black ponytail hung behind her back. The crowd yelled.

Two men slid back a bar on the cage door, and grabbed the girl. Her smooth face and skin looked no older than Daniel's. She struggled as they dragged her toward the far side of the barrier, then screamed as they tossed her over, into the pit. She grunted as she fell in a heap three metres below, then pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Three naked men moved in the shadows, smiling like hungry snakes thrown a mouse.

A tattooed girl wearing only a short skirt and high heels stood beside the pit, with dark makeup around her eyes and a leather bag on a cord around her neck.

“Two minutes,” a man yelled, and tossed a shiny toward the
PLACE BETS HERE
tattoo above her breasts. She grabbed it, and dropped it into the bag, then chalked his name and bet on a wooden blackboard beside her.

Down in the pit, half a dozen drones circled the girl. The crowd yelled louder as the men crept toward her. A muscular man swung a long arm at her, but she dodged aside. A short man with dead eyes kept his distance, as though waiting for her to tire. A lizard-skinned hybrid flicked out his long tongue as he ran toward her, arms outstretched, and dick swinging.

“What are they doing?” Daniel said.

“We’re betting on how long she can fight off the men.”

“That’s sick.”

Guy leaned on the barrier. “We don’t have VR here. Every man’s got to make his own entertainment.” He nodded toward a glass on the rim of the pit. Bright yellow sand ran into the bottom, and the top was barely half-full. “Besides, if she lasts until the sand runs out, she gets all the shinies they bet, after the King takes his cut. That could set a newbie up for a long time.”

The dark-eyed man lunged toward the girl. She screeched, and her elbow smashed into his nose. It crunched, and spouted blood. He slid past her, his hands now reaching for his face, rather than her body. The muscular man grabbed for her neck. She twisted aside, and his fingers caught her ponytail instead. He pulled on that, and she squealed, then slammed her elbow back into his guts.

“Sometimes,” Guy added, “they throw a newbie in against a pack of hounds, just to spice it up a bit.”

The crowd yelled as the man and girl fought. She twisted in his grip as he pulled harder on the ponytail, then smacked him in the face with the palm of her hand. He let go.

“How often does a girl outlast the sand?”

“Never, that I heard of. It’s just to give them something to fight for. What’s the point betting, if they just give in?”

The hybrid grabbed the arm of her jumpsuit. She kicked for his balls, but he dodged aside. The crowd cheered as the men pulled on the cloth until he tore away the front of the suit, and exposed her bare chest. She tried to pull away, and screamed as the dark-eyed man grabbed her arms.

“We have to stop it,” Daniel said.

Guy chuckled, then nodded toward the King and his Guards. “Good luck.”

The Guards were still scanning the crowd, with their weapons ready. What could Daniel do against them? He turned, and strode away. He didn’t need to see that, or join in. And he had no way to stop them. What if they were doing that to Erica, in another city? What if they’d already done it to her, right there, before he came in?

They did this for fun. And the King made money from it. What kind of world had the commissars sent him to?

Oh, yes. A world full of criminals, with no compassion, no morals, and no-one to protect the weak and innocent. Fuck.

The door was barely ten metres away, but might as well be ten kilometres with all the men crowded between him and the street. The girl screamed behind him, and the crowd cheered. Then she screamed again, louder and longer. The crowd cheered louder still. The King sat on a bench the size of a tree trunk, and laughed.

“One minute, fifty seconds,” the topless girl beside the pit shouted. A lanky man moved toward her from the crowd.

“The winner,” the King yelled, so loudly that his voice filled the whole room. He grabbed the man's arm and held it high. His own arm whirred as he took the shinies from the girl, and piled them in the man's hands.

Someone grabbed Daniel's wrist.

“Hey,” Guy said, and pulled Daniel's arm. “Give this a try.” He nodded to the left, where a wheel taller than Daniel clicked as it spun.

Guy dragged him that way, through the crowds. A tall, thin, naked girl hung upside down from the wheel as it stopped, her wrists and ankles chained to it, a wooden gag between her teeth, and her long, brown hair dangling to the floor. Her eyes met Daniel’s as he stared at her, then flicked away.

“What’s she doing there?”

The man standing on the far side of the wheel smiled at Daniel. “Spin the wheel, win the girl. Just one shiny a spin.”

Guy tossed a silver shiny to the man, and slapped Daniel’s shoulder. “Have a spin. You might win her.”

“I don’t want a slave.”

“You could let her go.” Guy said, then leaned closer to Daniel, and whispered. “Besides, it’s rigged. The wheel’s weighted, and you’d have to spin it a thousand times to win the big prize. The King likes making shinies, not losing them.”

Guy grabbed Daniel’s hand, and placed it on the wheel. Daniel pulled it away.

“No.”

He grabbed one of the chains that held her ankles. It was bolted to the wheel, and the manacle around her leg. He wouldn’t get that off without a crowbar.

The man standing beside the wheel stared at him, then glanced toward Guy. “What’s he doing?”

Guy shrugged. “Newbie.”

The man laughed. “Go on, kid. You look like you could use some action. Give it a whirl.”

Daniel’s face was glowing, not just from the heat inside the packed casino. His hands balled into fists. He swung, and punched the guy. The crowd looked on as he grabbed the chains, and his muscles strained until he tore them from the wood of the wheel. He pulled the girl to her feet, and pulled the gag from her mouth. She pulled him toward her, and planted her lips on his as her naked body pressed against his chest.

Or maybe it wouldn’t go that way if he tried for real. The casino man had muscles the size of lamp-posts, and probably just as tough. He grinned at Daniel, exposing a mouth half-full of teeth, the rest rotting yellow.

“You gonna spin the wheel? Or am I gonna kick your ass?”

Guy nudged Daniel. “Come on. At least she might not have to hang upside down for the rest of the day.”

Daniel clenched his fists tighter. This place was evil. If only he’d spent more time working out at EdCamp, like they told him to, or taking underground muscle enhancers. But who would have guessed he’d end his life on a planet where might made right, and the inhabitants only cared about themselves?

Screams and laughter came from the pit, and cheers from the men and women gathered around it. That was enough. He yelled as he swung his fist toward the man’s face.

But the man’s hand swung faster, and grabbed Daniel’s fist. Long, sun-tanned fingers wrapped around it. “Or maybe he’d like to play pussy in the pit next time? I hear they’re running out of newbies to chase.”

He squeezed Daniel's hand harder. Daniel stifled a yell as the bones crunched together. Guy grabbed the man’s arm, and twisted it until he grimaced and released Daniel, leaving a dull pain in Daniel's wrist, and a red welt around it.

“My boy’s no pussy,” Guy said. Then he leaned closer to Daniel and whispered. “I saw this girl in the pit last week. Spin the fucking wheel if you don’t want to end up there yourself.”

Can’t this all be a dream? Couldn’t he wake up back in the barracks, with his comrades, all together and happy? What did he ever do to deserve this? He glanced down at the girl’s face. Her cheeks were red, and she closed her eyes as he looked at her. What did she ever do to deserve that?

Fuck it.

He grabbed the edge of the wheel, and pulled down hard, using his weight to heave against the girl’s. The wheel clattered as it began to move, and pins tapped against the wooden peg at the top. The girl struggled as her head rose to the top of the wheel, then dropped to the bottom, then rose back to the top, and dropped again. Prizes scrawled on the wheel flashed past in front of his eyes.
Try Again
.
One
hundred shinies
.
A
night at the Cat House
, whatever that was. Then a narrow, gold-painted segment above the girl’s head marked
Bitch
.

He glanced toward the spinning slave girl, who twisted on the wheel as it turned. More screams and yells came from the pit. Just don’t think about what’s happening down there. The slave opened her eyes at the sound, and her gaze met his again. This time, she just glared at him. He turned back to the wheel, which clicked slowly as it wound down.

The gold-trimmed segment rose toward the pointer, and it tapped slowly against the pins. Daniel closed his eyes.

What if he won her? He’d let her go. Definitely. That's all.

But could he? Some other guy could just come along and enslave her again, if she couldn’t protect herself. He couldn’t just send her away, and leave her to her fate. It could be even worse than this. If he won her, he'd be responsible for her.

The wheel clicked, then nothing. He opened one eye. The pointer wobbled on the peg before the girl’s segment. Then it tipped back, and the wheel stopped.

“Almost,” Guy said.

The wheel man read the segment the pointer indicated. Then he slapped his big hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Better luck next time, boy.”

The crowd by the pit cheered. There wasn’t going to be a next time, no matter how hard Guy tried to convince him.

“Can we get out of here, now?”

They barged through the crowd between the wheel and the door, back into the cool, shit-smelling air of the city. Guy led Daniel through a narrow alley, then along the street beyond. A naked woman stared out of an open window above them. Then a hand grabbed her arm, and pulled her back into the room.

“Where are we?” Daniel said.

“Whoretown. Welcome to the next stop on your tour.”

P
rincess backed away as the Guards swarmed into the building, and spread out around the room. Two, four, eight, ten. More. Crap. And everything had been going so well, just a moment before. No-one chasing her, a handsome guy to seduce, and a hunky friend to protect her.

Brunhilde squared up in front of them, tensed her muscles, and stretched her arms. The men drinking near her picked up their mugs, retreated to tables far from the door, and continued to drink. Was this just a normal afternoon's entertainment for them? Princess glanced behind her. Was there another way out?

Not even a window. Just the door into whatever room was back there. Maybe a way out, maybe just a storeroom with no exit, where she'd be trapped.

The tallest Guard stepped forward, weaving carefully around the benches and tables, and between the customers and the other Guards, until he stood in front of Brunhilde. Sweat ran down his neck, from beneath his helmet.

“In the name of the King, you are under arrest on suspicion of murdering the King's Guards.”

She leaned forward, and blew her bad breath in his face. He coughed. The Guards behind fidgeted with their swords and crossbows. Brunhilde's eyes scanned across them.

“In the name of Brunhilde, you can eat my shit.”

“We don’t want any trouble.”

“That’s good. It means I won’t have to kill all of you, too.”

The crossbowmen aimed their bows. Princess reached for her revolver. It must have a few shots left, mustn’t it? She hadn’t counted, and had no idea how many bullets were in there to begin with. It couldn’t be empty, surely?

Two Guards on her side studied her body. She twisted away, but that just made her breasts swing, and their eyes opened wider as they followed the motion.

The barman leaned over the bar top. “How about you just say you never saw them? Then we can all have an easy time.”