Escape (Project Vetus Book 1) Read online

  Escape

  Project Vetus, book 1

  Emmy Chandler

  Emerson Ink

  Copyright © 2018 by Emmy Chandler

  Editing by Daisy Copy Editing.

  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.

  www.EmmyChandler.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  About The Project Vetus Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Dear Reader,

  The Prison Planet Series

  The Project Vetus Series

  About Emmy

  About The Project Vetus Series

  By Emmy Chandler

  They made him into a weapon.

  He’s determined to use it against them.

  Sentenced to death for war crimes they didn’t commit, Captain Carson Sotelo and the Zeta 8 special forces team were given a choice: die in disgrace, or live as something entirely new. Several dozen procedures and a medically induced coma later, they awoke on the prison planet Rhodon as super-soldier prototypes, spliced with genes from an extinct alien species.

  For now, they’re Universal Authority’s prisoners. But Captain Sotelo is determined to use his new alien features, abilities, and instincts to get his team off this planet. And to take revenge on the corporation that destroyed their lives and stole their futures.

  1

  CARSON

  “Screen’s lit up in Lab A.” Burke Jamison steps into the break room from the bright white hallway and taps the wall behind my head. I spin on a metal stool bolted to the floor as the display built into the wall lights up, then shows me the same alert he saw through the transparent wall of the primary lab: a blinking red dot headed straight for us. “Shuttle incoming,” he reads. “ETA: ten minutes.”

  I shove the last mini chocolate chip cookie into my mouth and speak around it. “Any idea who they’re coming for?” I ask as I wad up the empty package and toss it into the recycle bin built into the wall.

  “Believe it or not, Sotelo, the evil scientists don’t generally let me know which of us they’re coming down to poke and prod on any given occasion.”

  “A simple ‘no’ would have been sufficient. You let Coleman and Lawrence know. I’ll tell the lovebirds.”

  Jamison snorts. “Dreyer will twist your balls off if she hears you call them that.”

  “If Dreyer could break out of her cell, she’d have better things to do than play with my balls.” Right now, the only thing she has to do is Thiago Zamora.

  I follow Jamison into the hallway, where he turns right, heading for the lounge, and I turn left, toward the other end of the facility we’ve been locked up in for nearly two solar cycles, here on the prison planet Rhodon.

  There are only six prisoners in all of zone X. The other five were once under my command, deployed for several years to the planet Erebus. Fighting in someone else’s civil war. But now…

  Dr. Brennan and her team of mad scientists don’t come down from Station Delta much anymore. They still have us on camera twenty-four hours a day, but after the first year, during which we practically lived under the microscope, the initial procedures were declared a rousing success. Now we’ve moved on to the live-action phase of the super-soldier design process, and we only get poked and prodded on occasion. Mostly to check various hormone levels.

  But we’re still stuck here in the lab facility, though we only have access to the residential areas, including ten prison cells and a communal bathroom.

  All nine of the standard cells are standing open because their sliding doors are recessed into the wall, and they won’t slide closed until someone orbiting the planet up on Station Delta presses a button. Or fucking sneezes too hard. Seriously, sometimes the opening and closing of doors around here feels that damn random.

  The tenth cell is at the end of the hall on the right, across from the bathroom. That cell is three times larger than any of the others, and it has a private restroom. It also has a real bed, with a mattress and everything. Sheets. Blankets. Two hypoallergenic pillows.

  The bed is a double.

  Tirzah Dreyer claimed that cell for herself the second it was unlocked for the first time, a year into our imprisonment. For a while, Lawrence insisted that the lack of a Y chromosome didn’t entitle her to exclusive use of the only real mattress. The two of them used to fight over that bed like siblings bickering over the last damn cupcake.

  Then Dr. Brennan and her team started locking one of us in that room with Dreyer once a month, and we decided that the only woman on our team has every fucking right to a real bed for the other three weeks.

  Because we’re also in the breeding phase of the super-soldier design process.

  The front wall of Dreyer’s cell is transparent. This entire facility is built out of an alloy that can be rendered transparent with the tap of a button, which means that Brennan could turn this whole place into a giant window. She could give us a view of trees, and natural light, and the two other planets in this solar system, which are often visible in the sky. But she doesn’t. Ever. Yet she leaves the entire front of Dreyer’s cell transparent all day, every day. Which is fucked up—a viewing window in a bedroom.

  But then, this whole thing is fucked up.

  I pass by the nine open cells—we only use five of them—and stop in front of Dryer’s clear wall. I don’t want to look. But an imminent shuttle is one of the reasons we’re allowed to interrupt, so I tap the intercom symbol on her transparent door, then I knock with one knuckle.

  Dreyer is lying on the bed with her head thrown back, her long brown hair splayed out across both pillows. Her prison-issue tee is pushed up to expose one breast, but that breast is completely covered by Zamora’s large right hand.

  I can’t see the rest of him, thank goodness, because Dreyer has the sheet pulled up to her waist, and he’s…below that. Between the twin points that are her bent knees.

  They haven’t heard me, so I knock again, and this time Dreyer lifts her head to scowl at me. She grasps for something with her right hand, then she throws her shoe at the wall.

  If the transparent metal pane weren’t there, she’d have hit me right in the forehead. She never misses.

  Dreyer lets her head fall back again, without alerting Zamora to the fact that they have company, so I knock harder.

  This time she rises onto her elbows, her face flushed and damp with sweat, and yells at me. “Never interrupt the man while he’s working, Sotelo!”

  Zamora’s head pops up, and he throws the sheet off. He wipes his mouth with one hand as he twists to face me, brows arched. “Sotelo? What’s up?”

  “Shuttle inbound. Eight minutes.”

  “That’s half the time I need.” Dreyer plants her palm on his head and directs him back to where she wants him. Well, to where she needs him. It’s not her fault. Nor is it his. “Thanks, Sotelo,” she calls as she lies back again, effectively d
ismissing me.

  But Zamora rises onto his knees and drops her underwear on her stomach. “If there isn’t time for both of us, there isn’t time for one of us.”

  “Damn it.” Dreyer glares at me as she sits up and steps into her underwear. But this isn’t my fault either. She scratches at her wrist as she heads toward the window, picking at an already bloody scab.

  “Any luck getting that thing out?” I nod at the inflamed section of skin.

  “Fuck no. It’s too damn deep. And it itches like hell.”

  “It” is an intramuscular time-release capsule designed to deliver a steady dose of a hormonal stimulant over a seven-day period. Once a month, when her bio-chip tells someone up on Station Delta that she’s ovulating, we all get sleepy from breathing gas pumped through the air circulation system. When we wake up, one of us is locked in that room with her, and we both have brand new, itchy lumps in one of our arms.

  Poor Dreyer’s skin is scarred from all the scratching. And from the three times she’s tried to dig the capsule out with her bare fingernails.

  They leave us there for a full week, with a big stack of MREs, fresh bedding, and a raging hard-on.

  “How you holding up?” I ask her.

  “How do you think I’m holding up, you giant clit-block?” She presses her bare thighs together, trying to ease an ache I can only imagine, and I decide to forgive her grouchiness. The rest of us are only in rotation every five months. Twice each, so far, for me, Jamison, Lawrence, and Coleman. This is Zamora’s third shift. But poor Dreyer is locked in the “breeding room” every month without fail.

  “Maybe you should just give them what they want,” I whisper. “They’re not going to give up until they get it.”

  She gives me a bitter look. “You volunteering to play daddy, Captain?”

  “Well, no, Lieutenant, I’m not.” Not like this—locked up like a human lab rat. And not with Tirzah Dreyer. I don’t think of her as a sister, exactly. But I don’t think of her like that either.

  At least, not when I don’t have a time-release capsule keeping my dick hard for a solid week.

  “Yeah, well, neither is anybody else. And this isn’t exactly how I pictured the conception of my child. So fuck all of you sick motherfuckers!” She flips both middle fingers at cameras mounted too high up for us to reach. “You can make us rut like animals, but you can’t make us do it in any way that could get me pregnant!”

  “Which is the only way we haven’t done it.” Zamora snorts as he heads toward the window, clad in only his shorts, a prominent erection tenting the material. I don’t have to imagine how he feels. “So, what’s up?” He runs one hand through dark, wavy hair that would have been way out of regs, when we were soldiers. “They unlock the playground? Are we going hunting?”

  “No.” The door into our outdoor recreation area—a huge, walled-in section of forest—is still shut tight, restricting us to the indoor facilities. Which means the Universal Authority scientists and researchers who run this place probably aren’t on their way to drop off a new “challenge” to test our abilities in the field.

  “Shit.” Zamora grabs his pants from the floor and sinks onto the bed to shove his feet into them. “Then they’re probably picking someone up.”

  Dreyer sighs. “Well, it won’t be either of us.” After Zamora heads into the bathroom and slides the door shut, she turns to stare up at me through the window, a pleading look in her green eyes. “I can’t do this much longer, Captain.”

  We’re no longer on active duty. Officially, in fact, we’re all deceased—executed as war criminals more than two years ago. These days, Dreyer only calls me Captain when I’m being an asshole or when she’s feeling bitter and sarcastic. And when she truly needs my help.

  “This isn’t right, and you know it. They’re going to keep trying to breed me until I die of exhaustion or give them a baby, and I’m not going to let them turn my kid into a lab rat.”

  “I know. I’m working on it,” I assure her through clenched teeth. But the truth is that I’m failing her on a daily basis. It’s my job to lead and protect my men—even now—and I’m failing all of them. And just thinking about that makes the anger perpetually simmering inside me flare so hot that I burn from the inside out. My skin begins to itch, and I realize I’m scratching the underside of my left forearm, where a long, vertical seam in my skin wants to open. I ache to indulge that impulse. To let the beast loose.

  Fight. Defend. Destroy.

  The phantom scent of spilled blood spikes my pulse, and I feel the weight of a blunt force weapon in my hand. The ghostly sensations are so strong that my left hand actually closes around nothing, expecting to find a rough-hewn wooden handle in my grip.

  “Lock it up, Captain,” Dreyer whispers. “You lose control, and they’ll just poke you with more needles. Captivity is a puzzle to solve, not a bone to break. We’re not going to fight our way out of here.”

  She’s right. My second-in-command is always right. And she deserves better than this.

  “I swear, I’m going to get us out of here.” They’re all here because of me. Because I told them to take the deal. At the time, volunteering as test subjects seemed like a reasonable alternative to execution. But now…

  “I’m not kidding. Captain, I’ll end this myself before I let them breed me.”

  “No.” I capture her gaze through the wall. “Dreyer, don’t do anything stupid. I will get us out of here. So just stay hydrated and—”

  The bathroom door slides open, and when she hears Zamora step into the room at her back, her eyes fall closed for a second. Then she looks up at me again, and her mental armor falls back into place. She turns, hands propped on her hips, spine straight. “Whatever’s about to go down out there won’t include us,” she tells Zamora. “So I say we fix the immediate problem, then take a fucking nap. You can go first. Blowjob or hand job? Gentleman’s choice.”

  He gives her a mischievous grin. “I have a better idea…”

  I turn away from the window and march back down the hall, giving them a little privacy in which to temporarily relieve a constant, brutal ache. The door will unlock in four more days and they’ll emerge, sweaty, exhausted, and pissed off, but alive.

  As for the rest of us…I have no idea what’s coming down from Station Delta.

  “Jamison! What’s the shuttle’s ETA?” I call as I head down the hall. He, Lawrence, and Coleman emerge from the lounge, but before he can answer, a red light begins flashing in the hallway.

  “Prisoners, you have thirty seconds to enter your cells. After that, anyone found in the common areas will be rendered unconscious with a tranquilizer mist.” Because darts won’t penetrate Coleman’s skin anymore, and they aren’t taking chances. With any of us.

  I don’t know who they’re coming for, so I give them each a nod as they file into their cells. Then I step into my own.

  Three seconds later, the cell doors slam shut.

  There’s a deep grinding sound as the lab’s main entrance slides open halfway across the building. Dread crawls over my skin as I stare through my transparent cell door, waiting for someone to appear in the hallway. Like the rest of this place, our cell doors are made of that transparent alloy—a clear metal, basically—which is stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum.

  They can be made opaque with the click of a button. They can’t be punched out—I’ve tried—and they can’t be cracked, shattered, or broken. Not even by Jamison or Coleman.

  Boots clomp toward the residential hallway, and six guards appear, clad from head to toe in reinforced black riot gear. Including helmets with clear alloy face shields.

  The seventh member of the team is significantly shorter and thinner. She hangs behind the others until one of them gives her the all-clear hand signal. Then she takes off her helmet.

  Dr. Maryann Brennan, the scientist in charge of Project Vetus.

  Brennan marches past the guards, glancing into each of the occupied cells on her way to Dreyer�
�s. She never misses a chance to glance into the breeding room, in hopes that whoever’s in there is finally going to give her what she wants. But this time, Zamora is ready for her.

  The second she steps in front of the window, a white glob hits it, right in front of her face. His timing is impeccable, and his aim is almost as good as Dreyer’s.

  Brennan jumps back, startled. “Classy,” she mumbles, and I laugh. It’s a shame none of the other guys can see the show, from their cells.

  “Treat us like animals, and it’s animals you get!” Zamora shouts, stepping into sight, without a stitch on.

  Dr. Brennan turns to the nearest guard. “Knock them out and clean that up.”

  The guard grumbles as he taps on his wrist com, and I hear a soft hiss from the breeding room as gas flows through the vents. “What’s the point of all that, anyway? Why don’t you just genetically engineer a baby hybrid, same way you got these six?”

  He’s new to Project Vetus. Still wet behind the ears.

  “That isn’t how we got these six,” Brennan spits, sauntering toward him with both hands clasped at her back. “These six soldiers are the result of hundreds of trial-and-error splicing procedures. They’re prototypes—the only specimens that have both survived the procedure and been declared useful to Universal Authority, which makes them each more valuable than fifty men drawing your annual salary. And even if we had a baby to slice up on a genetic level, that would cost a fortune. The goal, ultimately, is for these ‘super-soldiers’ to be a self-sustaining resource. Do you understand what I’m saying?”