Prison Planet Barbarian Read online

  Prison Planet Barbarian

  Ruby Dixon

  Ruby Dixon

  Contents

  Prison Planet Barbarian

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Ice Planet Barbarians

  Fire In His Blood

  Ruby Dixon Reading List

  Want More?

  Copyright © 2017 by Ruby Dixon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover created by Kati Wilde.

  Created with Vellum

  Prison Planet Barbarian

  Being kidnapped by aliens is one thing.

  Being kidnapped by aliens and then sent to a prison planet is something infinitely worse.

  Here in Haven’s prison system, I’m stranded among strangers, enemies, and the most ruthless criminals in the galaxy. There’s no safety for a human woman here, especially not one branded as a murderer. I’m doomed to a fate worse than death.

  Then…he decides I should be his.

  His name’s Jutari. He’s seven feet tall, blue, and horned. He’s an assassin and one of the most dangerous prisoners here. He’s like no one I’ve ever met before…and he might be my only chance.

  This story stands completely alone and is only marginally connected to the Ice Planet Barbarians series. You do not need to read those books in order to follow this one.

  1

  CHLOE

  “New prisoners to be processed,” one guard calls out as the hatch lets out a hiss and our small transport ship opens its doors. “And you’re not gonna keffing believe what we’ve got today.” He makes a weird, whistling sound with his strangely petaled mouth that unfurls around each word. It’s not English that he speaks, but a strange tongue full of high-pitched whines and nasal sounds that I can’t replicate. Thanks to the large, bulbous translator someone’s installed in my ear, though, I can understand everything that’s said.

  I understand it…I just don’t care anymore.

  It can’t be worse than everything I’ve already lived through.

  Of course, even as I think that, I know it can. It can always be worse. In fact, every day seems to be worse than the last.

  The guard assigned to me tugs me forward. “Move along, prisoner.”

  It sounds so very much like something I’d expect a human prison guard to say that I want to laugh…or cry. Because the truth is, he’s not human in the slightest. The man that tugs me along has stripey fur like a housecat, except his mouth unfolds like a rose each time he talks. He’s short and squat, but strong and with four fingers on each hand. Not human at all.

  I’m starting to get used to that, though. In the nightmare week I’ve had since I was abducted from my college dorm in my sleep, nothing’s surprising me anymore. Cat people? Sure. Lizard aliens? Why not. Moon made of green cheese? I’d believe it at this point.

  My hands are bound before me in cuffs, my neck encircled in a stun collar. I’m wearing a weird, papery sort of white uniform that covers me from neck to foot, and I’ve got no shoes. It’s a little like being in a doctor’s office I think, at least when it comes to the lack of privacy. Behind me are three other prisoners, each one cuffed just like me. Two of them are muzzled, and the one that’s not hasn’t shown any interested in talking. They all stare at me, though. It doesn’t matter that two of them look like dogs and one looks like…well, fuck if I know what it looks like. A marshmallow with limbs, I guess.

  Out of all the weird aliens, it seems that I’m the freak.

  Another guard comes out to meet us—this one with scaly, lizard-like skin that looks as if it’s molting. He’s thin and tall and has six ant-like arms encased in the deep blue uniforms of the prison guards. His eyes are like jewels as they focus on me, and he stops in his steps.

  “What the kef is that thing?” he asks my guard.

  “I know, right?” Cat-guard nudges me. “You’re not gonna believe this, but it’s something called a ‘human.’”

  “A what?” Snake-ant-man slithers around me with obvious interest, ignoring the other prisoners.

  I stare straight ahead, pretending like I can’t understand them. Pretending like all of this is below me. I just hope they don’t notice I’m shivering with fear.

  “A keffing human,” Cat-guard says proudly. “I looked ‘em up on my datapad. They’re from a nearby galaxy but it’s a D-class planet. You know what that means.”

  “Dirt-eating savages, hmm? Fascinating.” One of the snake-ant’s hand-claws touches my hair. “It smells lovely. What’s it doing here?”

  “That’s where things get weird. You got a minute? I can tell you the story.”

  “You bet I do.” Snake-ant makes a weird choking sound that might be laughter. “Let me process the other two. We’ll send this one through quarantine check. Gotta make sure she can’t infect our other prisoners with some sort of disease.”

  Great. Special treatment. I’m still not surprised. Ever since I’ve been stolen, it’s been one person after another staring at me. As long as all they do is stare…

  I shudder, trying not to think of worse things.

  “I don’t know what this ‘human’ thing is, but I like it,” Snake-ant hisses.

  “Thought you might, Noku. I know the strange interests you.” Cat-man chuckles. “Thought I’d seen everything until this creature showed up on my transport. Guess where it’s coming from? The story gets better.”

  “Let me finish processing these others and you can tell me all about it,” Noku says to him. He touches my hair again and makes an interested sound. “Least it’s docile.”

  “That’s the funny part,” Cat-guard says. “This thing killed a dozen Tritarians.”

  The snake-ant pulls its claws back. “Is it…poisonous?”

  “Story gets better.” Cat-guard waves the other away. “I’ve got time. Process the others. We’ll wait. Isn’t that right, human?” He jostles me with one arm and then winks at Noku. “Thing doesn’t like the shock-collar much.”

  The snake-ant just watches me with a fascinated gaze. Then he shrugs it aside and gestures for the other three prisoners to follow him. They do, and I’m left alone in the room with Cat-guard. He doesn’t talk to me, just sits down on one of the little tripod stools and makes himself comfortable, pulling out something that looks an awful lot like an e-cig and puffing on it.

  I gaze around at my surroundings—my new home.

  There are windows, at least. Even in this place—what must be a loading dock or a processing center of some kind—there are large, clear windows that give a good look of the world outside. I know I should be looking more at the prison I’m in, with its sterile gray walls and the strange furnishings, but I can’t help myself. I stare out the windows with a sense of horror and yearning both.

  It looks like Mars out there. It’s all red and rock, except for one enormous difference. The sun in the sky takes up easily half of the sky, and I stare at it with a strange sense of awe. For all of its enormity, it doesn’t give off a ton of light and seems more red than bright yellow like Earth’s sun. I try to remember what I learned about planets back in grade school. There are different kind of stars out there, some dwarfs and some…giants? That’s it, giants. I remember something about the bigger the star, the less light it gave off. This must be a red giant. Maybe that’s why i
t’s so huge.

  It lets off a lot of red light, though, and that paints the entire world here in the same ruby glow. The room we’re in seems to be a high tower of some kind, and from here, we can look down at everything around us. Gray prison buildings are lined up in rows in the distance, and I can see people moving around between buildings, so small that they look like ants. The nearby ground seems to be covered with machines, reddish-tinged rows of strange-looking crops lined up all around the prison “base” itself. There’s a distant thing that looks like a smokestack pumping a gas of some sort into the air, and I can see tractor-like things maneuvering amongst the fields. On the horizon are huge cliffs that look like a red and white-ribboned cake was sliced in half, showing all the layers to the world. It’s a bizarre place and doesn’t look welcoming at all.

  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this place is a prison. Why anyone would want to live here is beyond me. Then again, maybe they don’t. Beyond the prison and the grounds itself I don’t see…anything. Nothing but barren rock and soil and red, red red.

  Maybe the prison’s the only thing on this planet. The thought fills me with a sense of despair greater than anything I’ve ever experienced.

  I’m not getting home again. Ever again.

  The thought makes tears prick at my eyes. Shit. I spent the first three days of my captivity crying, but in the last few, I thought that with everything that had happened, I’d be so numb that I’d never cry again. I guess not. I hate it, though. I hate everything about all of this.

  And as the snake-ant re-enters and gives me another lascivious look, I hate him, too.

  “Back?” Cat-Guard asks and makes a sound that my ear-translator determines is a belch.

  “I handed them off to Jajji.” Noku makes a slithering kind of shrug. “He’ll take care of them. Tell me more about this thing. It’s female, isn’t it?” The prison guard gives me a fascinated look as he approaches. “Any hidden claws or natural weapons I should be aware of?”

  “Nope. That’s the strange thing about humans. They’re the most defenseless things I’ve ever seen. Even their teeth are pathetic.”

  The snake-ant puts a claw at the corner of my lip. I grimace, showing him my teeth, because I don’t want him to stick that thing in my mouth.

  “Interesting,” Noku says again. “But you say this thing killed a dozen Tritarians?” He nods at me. “Is it…sentient? Can it speak?” As if this isn’t enough of an insult, he reaches out and pokes my nose.

  “Yes,” I say flatly in my own language. “I just don’t have anything to say to you.”

  The snake-ant flails its many arms and makes an exclamation. “Listen to its voice! So unique. And you said it’s female. They don’t send many down here to the Haven prison system, you know. Not much use in terraforming.”

  The cat-man snorts, which sounds as odd as you would think coming from a cat. “You call it terraforming on the books. We all know you’re just working these brutes as slave labor until they fall over dead.”

  “No one else cares about them. Why should we?” Noku gives a fluid shrug. “They’re sent here so the universe can forget all about them.” The jewel eyes narrow at me. “I assume that’s why this one is here.”

  “Mmm,” says the cat-man. “Got that in one. So you didn’t hear about the Tritarians? It’s a huge scandal over at Prefalon Station and every single system I passed through to get here.”

  “Nope. But I assume you’ll tell me all about it?” Noku picks up a piece of strange-looking electronic equipment and taps a few buttons. My shock-collar around my neck pings, and I know what that means—he’s activated it. Noku gestures at me. “Move to the wall and spread your legs.”

  Fear flares through me. I pull my arms close to my body, as if hugging them to me can somehow protect me. “Why?”

  The smile Noku gives me is evil, but it’s the cat-guard that answers. “Standard foreign object scan, human. Just do it.”

  Uneasy, I look at the two men. I don’t have much of a choice. In the next room over, I can hear voices—all male. And judging from their conversation, most of this facility—prisoners and guards both—are all male.

  On a scale of Not Good things, this definitely ranks higher than I could ever imagine. I don’t know what to do, though. I know how debilitating the shock-collar can be. One zap through my five-foot frame and I’m going to be out. Or worse, conscious and unable to move while they do whatever they want to me anyhow. It’s best to cooperate, as much as I hate it. With fear and loathing running through my mind, I move to the wall he indicates and turn my back to the two prison guards. I put my cuffed hands on the wall to support my weight and spread my feet apart.

  Noku immediately runs the scan up one leg, and I can hear it blipping. He pauses at my knee. “Foreign objects detected inside. Looks like metal. Care to explain, little human?”

  I glance over, because if a snake can look puzzled, he does. “I had screws put in my knee when I tore my ACL. That’s a muscle.”

  “How…primitive.” The two guards exchange a look. “Well, human, it is my advice that you do not mention this to anyone else when you are in the system. I would hate for one of the other inmates to rip your leg off for that metal.”

  I stare at him in horror, my mouth dry. He…I don’t think he’s joking. Oh god.

  I don’t belong here. God, this is a nightmare. I’m just a college student, not some space-faring murderer like they think I am.

  “I’ll mark this as a known anomaly. Any others we should be aware of, human?”

  I try to think of anything that an alien might not be aware of. “Um…this thing.” I point at the shiny silver bulb of the translator that’s been attached to my ear. At his nod, I nod at my arm, where a tiny little nodule is under my skin, no bigger than a mosquito bite. “I was told that’s a tracker. And…um, I have fillings in a few teeth. Porcelain.”

  He gestures for me to turn. “Show me.” After a cursory glance into my mouth, he grunts. “Still primitive, but at least they’re disguised well. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “She’s pretty docile,” the cat-guard says.

  “That just means she’s going to end up as someone’s favorite toy,” Noku tells him. “Those that sent her here, they’re aware our prison system is co-species and co-ed? This little thing’s not going to stand a chance.” He indicates I should turn around, and when I do, begins his scan again.

  Cat-man snorts. “I’m pretty sure that’s why they sent her here. Let me tell you what I know.”

  I’m silent and unmoving as the scan continues and the cat-man proceeds to tell his friend all about me. Or rather, what he’s been told about me through the alien grapevine. That even though owning a human is considered one of the highest of taboos because our planet is off limits to all ‘civilized’ peoples, someone still purchased me on the black market. That the particular someone that purchased me was a Tritarian ambassador who knew very well that I was illegal as hell and decided to buy me anyhow. That he was looking for a kinky little playmate that he could manhandle privately.

  Well, “private” for Tritarians apparently means “three on one.” Because in addition to having a tripod-shaped body and dual appendages, Tritarians are also tri-bonded, which means that they do everything together.

  And as a human captive, I really, really fucking objected to this. I might have kicked and screamed a bit, and my kicks might have landed square in the middle of a Tritarian’s soft stomach. And the force of such a kick in such a fragile area apparently is enough to kill a Tritarian.

  And here’s a tidbit I didn’t know until I experienced it: Tritarians are thrice bonded. That means when one dies, they all die. And since these were ambassadors, they were thrice bonded once more. Which means nine Tritarians died in one kick.

  How was I to know that I’d knock out three rapists and their entire entourage in one fell swoop?

  With rumors in play, it’s been bandied about that I’m an assassin sent by a rival pla
net I can’t even name much less pronounce. That I took out twelve Tritarians instead of “just” the nine. And my favorite—that I have a poison pussy, and human snatch is dangerous to alien skin contact.

  That last rumor kept me from being raped in the last holding cell I was in.

  No one bothers to ask me who I really am. No one cares that I’m really just Chloe Fuller, a college student working part time at a pizza parlor to pay for tuition and who dreams of a career in zoology. That I woke up one morning seven days ago—seven long days ago—to find myself captive on a slave spaceship, held hostage by orange-skinned aliens who wanted to sell me to others for money.

  It’s been a never-ending nightmare since then. Of course, I never imagined it would get this bad. That I’d be the focus of an international incident. They’ve done their best—from what I can tell—to hide the fact that the Tritarians were buying a human on the black market, and instead listed me as some other alien species. I saw one newsfeed in my last holding cell and was startled to realize that the face they were showing wasn’t mine, but some other stranger’s. That’s the focus of Noku and the cat-guard’s conversation right now—that the Tritarian “killer” wasn’t a mazu (whatever that is) but is a human.

  Basically I’ve been sent to this outpost prison to disappear. Me and ten thousand other serial murderers, rapists, arsonists, and whatever garbage the galaxy can scrape up. This is where they send the worst of the worst.

  And it’s now my home.

  The two guards chitchat for a while as Noku leads me through a series of tests to ensure that I’m able to be housed with the rest of the prison population. Even though no one really cares if the people here live or die, which is made abundantly clear to me through the conversations the men have, there’s apparently a large monetary investment in this planet—Haven—to have it terraformed by the prison labor. So singly, no one here matters. As a whole, we’re valuable only as muscle.