Glass Cage Read online

  Glass Cage

  A Prison Planet Novella

  Emmy Chandler

  Emerson Ink

  Contents

  About this novella…

  About the Prison Planet series…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Dear Reader,

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Emmy Chandler

  About Emmy

  About this novella…

  Glass Cage is a 35,000 word stand-alone novella set in the Prison Planet universe. It can be read as an introduction to the Prison Planet series or as a bonus story for veteran readers.

  Please be aware, if this is your first Prison Planet story, that most of the full-length novels are darker, more violent, and contain more sexual content than this novella does.

  You can find the entire series, free with a Kindle Unlimited membership, on Emmy Chandler’s Amazon author page.

  About the Prison Planet series…

  Rhodon. The Red Rock. Devil’s Eye.

  Whatever you want to call it, Universal Authority’s most profitable prison planet is home to more than four million criminals. Convicted murderers await execution. Everyone else gets life—and eventually death—in the open population.

  With no guards on the ground and no way off the planet, it’s every inmate for him- or herself…

  1

  KAT

  Light shines through my closed eyelids and my teeth start chattering. I’m so cold. My breath echoes back at me like it’s bouncing off of something. The sound has a strange quality, as if I’m all alone in a very small room. But I’m lying down. The surface beneath me is cold and hard.

  I open my eyes, and at first I don’t understand what I’m seeing. The world seems to have a film over it. I blink, but that doesn’t improve my vision, and when I try to lift my hand to my face, I understand why. My hand hits the transparent surface in front of my face and will go no farther.

  I’m in a box. A cold, hard, clear box, like a coffin.

  A glass cage.

  Panic flutters in my chest and I scream. My breath fogs up the clear surface just inches above my nose. I begin to shake all over, which is when I realize that I’m naked.

  If I’m not dead, why am I in a coffin? Why is that coffin in a well-lit room, rather than underground?

  Wait, they don’t bury dead people anymore, do they? I mean, maybe on the more remote, backwater moons on the edge of the galaxy, but not—

  “Settle down, Mathern,” a voice says, and I go still as a face appears over me. Peering down at me through the lid of this glass cage. “You’re fine. You’re just coming out of cryosleep. We’ll have you out of there in a minute.” He’s wearing a distinctive gray cap with red trim. There’s a Universal Authority emblem on the front of it, and that’s what finally clues me in. What brings back memories I wish I could bury all over again.

  The lawyer. The courtroom. The judge. The end of life, as I’d known it.

  What’s left of my life will be spent on Rhodon, the infamous red prison planet on the far edge of the galaxy. I remember that now. But I didn’t expect to arrive like this—alone in a box. The other women awaiting transport with me had been expecting a crate or a standard cage. A pen of some sort. No one ever mentioned cryosleep. But maybe that’s for the best. Maybe I’m better off, not having experienced weeks on a prison transport.

  I hear a hiss, and the clear panel above me slides back. Warm air rushes in around me. I sit up, and the world spins. Coarse material lands in my lap.

  “Put those on.” The guard stares at my breasts until I cover them with both arms. “Take it slow. If you puke, you’re cleaning it up yourself.”

  “Katerina Mathern?” the man sitting across the cold metal table from me says, and I nod. He’s wearing a dark gray Universal Authority uniform, just like the one worn by the guard who woke me up half an hour ago.

  All around us, the space station receiving bay is bustling with activity—prisoners shuffling through various lines, uniformed guards shouting orders, shuttles taking off and landing. I pick nervously at a thread hanging from my tee-shirt as I watch everything going on around me. It’s difficult for me to concentrate on the man across the table, but I think that’s in part because I’m still groggy. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks.

  I blink, trying to pull his face into focus. His expression is not unkind, which feels like a bit of a miracle, considering that he’s a prison guard, and that the space station we’re on is orbiting the prison planet where I will spend the rest of my life.

  Voices and footsteps echo from all around us as other prisoners are issued supplies and instructions. But I am alone at this table. Apart from everyone else. And I don’t understand why.

  Finally, I open my mouth to answer the question, but I begin to retch instead.

  The guard grabs a narrow plastic bag with a cardboard collar around the opening from a bin of supplies next to the table. It’s a puke bag, like they have in hospitals, planes, and short-range space shuttles. He shoves it into my hands, but despite my violent heaving, I can only spit a little yellow bile into the bag. Which means that my stomach is empty.

  “The nausea is from the drug that kept you asleep on the transport,” the guard says as he settles back into his chair across the table, leaving me clutching the bag. “It’ll pass.” He sets a pouch on the table between us and gestures for me to take it. I exchange the puke bag for the pouch and flip the lid open so I can sniff at the contents, but there’s no scent. “It’s just water,” he assures me. “Drink slowly, or you’ll only throw it all back up.”

  I take a sip, and the cool water feels like a miracle against my dry throat. I didn’t know I was thirsty until I took that first taste, and now it’s hard not to gulp the whole pouch. But he’s right. Gulping water will only give my stomach something to reject. So I take another sip, then I close the pouch and lay it on the table.

  Harsh voices erupt from behind me, and I turn to see two other uniformed guards restraining a large male prisoner. He curses in a language I don’t know and spits at them. He tries to kick one of the guards, and the other fires at him with a laser pistol.

  I gasp as the man collapses to the metal floor. But then I realize he’s still breathing. They’ve only stunned him.

  “So? What’s the last thing you remember?” the guard on the other side of the table repeats, unfazed by what we’ve just seen. And as I turn to face him, I glance up for a second, mesmerized all over again by the sight of the infamous, bright red planet visible overhead, through the honeycomb of transparent metal panes making up the ceiling of the huge bay.

  I’m on Station Alpha, where all new inmates are processed before being abandoned on the surface to serve out their life sentences. At least, according to the other women who’d been awaiting transport with me, in the jail on my homeworld. Though their information has already been found lacking.

  “Clothes,” I say as I finally face the guard again. “The first thing I remember is these clothes.” I pluck at the scratchy new tee-shirt I’m wearing. “I was naked when I woke up on the transport, and they gave me these to put on.”

  The guard frowns at me. “I asked about the last thing you remember before you woke up.”

  “Oh.” That takes more effort. I close my eyes and think back. “Sentencing. In the courtroom.” A crowded space that functioned a bit like a merry-go-round for criminals, where convicts were hauled in through one door, parked in front of the judge for the reading of their sentences, then hauled out
a door on the other side of the room, so the next in line could undergo the same quick, brutal process.

  My chest aches at the memory of my own panic, even as a fresh dose seems to set my lungs on fire.

  Life in prison. On Rhodon. The Red Rock. Devil’s Eye. From which no one has ever escaped.

  “No.” I shake my head, my eyes still closed as I force myself to suck in a deep, hopefully calming breath. “After that. I remember going in for the procedure.” Sterilization. All women sentenced to Devil’s Eye are sterilized, to make sure the prisoners can’t reproduce. As horrifying as that prospect was at the time, I have to admit that it now feels like a bit of a relief.

  I always thought I’d have kids someday, before I was arrested. But now?

  Everyone knows women are not safe on a prison planet. Not from the guards. Not from the male prisoners. Not even from the female prisoners.

  Surely sterilization was a brutal mercy.

  “After that, there’s nothing until I woke up naked.” I open my eyes and frown at the guard, as my thoughts finally begin to clear. “Why was I in cryosleep? Where are the prisoners who were in the holding cell with me?”

  “Are you in any pain?” the guard asks, instead of answering my question.

  “No.” And there are no scars. However the procedure was done, if there was pain afterward, I must have slept through it. There’s no telling how long I was on that transport. Unconscious. “Why aren’t I over there?” I glance pointedly at several lines of prisoners being issued supplies. “What’s happening?”

  “Ms. Mathern, you’ve been granted a special and rare mercy. Rather than being assigned to the general population, you’ve been selected to work in zone twelve. One of the special zones.”

  My pulse spikes and my gaze narrows on him. “Doing what? Hard labor? I was told there were no mines on Rhodon. No factories.”

  “There aren’t. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Prisoners selected to work on Rhodon are considered exceedingly lucky. You’ll be fed and clothed. You’ll be issued a bed and have regular access to bathing facilities. None of that is true for prisoners in the general population, who typically have to fight for everything they have. And to defend themselves. Your life here will be nothing like that, if you follow the rules.”

  “Why?” I don’t dare indulge the relief lapping at the edges of my mind, begging me to relax and accept my good fortune. This all sounds too good to be true. “Why was I selected?”

  The man taps the surface of the metal table, and it becomes transparent for a second as the built-in screen is activated. Then my face appears on it, staring up at him from the first page of my file. “You were selected based on a number of factors. You have no history of violence or of challenging authority. You’re smart, which means you can follow a series of instructions. And you were convicted of a relatively minor crime.”

  “Relatively? I stole a tube of lipstick.” I’d expected probation. Maybe a month in jail, if the judge was a real hardass. “That’s hardly the kind of conviction that usually earns a life sentence.” Which was why my father could only stare in shock as I was dragged from the courtroom.

  The guard scrolls through my file, then drags one finger toward me on the surface of the table, spinning my file to face me. “Universal Authority doesn’t sentence convicts; we simply take custody of them for the duration of that sentence. But I will say that it probably wasn’t the theft itself that got you sent to Rhodon.” He taps my file and the document zooms in until my sins fill the table, in large print. “That was your fourth conviction. On many planets, two would have put you here.”

  I stare at him in silence. I know he’s right. Still, on my homeworld, a life sentence for petty theft is unusual. Even for a frequent flyer like me.

  “But like I said, you’re lucky. Zone twelve was looking for a prisoner with exactly your qualifications, so if you can keep your impulses in check and your head down, you might just live out most of your life in relative comfort and safety. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  I nod.

  Be a good girl, Kat. The warning may be coming from the guard across the table, but the voice in my head belongs to my father.

  I wanted to be a good girl. I always tried to be good. But life isn’t fair for a girl like me, and I had trouble resisting little opportunities to even the scales. To give myself small luxuries that most girls my age didn’t have to steal.

  But that’s all over now. This is my second chance. The only shot I’ll get, on the Red Rock.

  This time, I will be good.

  “Clothes are in the closet.” Ava, my fellow prisoner and new roommate, taps a small panel next to the door, and it slides open to reveal a long row of prison-issued tee-shirts and pants hanging from a metal bar. Shirts on the right, pants on the left. Beneath them stands a row of sneakers. “We’re all about the same size, so it doesn’t matter which one you grab. Though if you do find any of them to be too tight or too loose, let me know. I work in the laundry, so I can get you whatever size you need. Same goes for shoes and underwear.”

  “Thanks,” I say as she taps the panel again, and the door slides closed.

  “Both bottom bunks are taken, but that one’s available.” Ava points to the top bunk on the right, but it looks identical to the other three. There are no sheets or pillows, but a single blanket is folded over the end of each mattress. Which is really just a thin vinyl pad.

  Other than the two sets of bunkbeds in this “dormitory” there is no furniture. There are no personal belongings, other than the shared uniforms in the closet. Three women sleep in this room—four, now that I’ve arrived—but it’s obvious that no one truly lives here. Still, the alternative would be much worse.

  I will do whatever it takes to avoid the general population.

  “Did they give you your assignment yet?” Ava asks as she crosses the room.

  I nod. “I’m on the main floor. Whatever that means.” The view as the shuttle landed showed me that there are only two buildings in zone twelve, and so far, I’ve gathered that this building is a medical facility of some kind. But no one has offered me any details.

  Ava shrugs. “It could be worse. Lara and Logan push a mop and empty trash cans all day. Nanette serves food and washes dishes in the cafeteria.”

  “There’s a cafeteria?”

  “Yes, but it only serves the staff. We get MREs dispensed from a machine in the hall. Just hold your hand under the scanner, and it’ll spit out food for you, three times a day.”

  I look down at my hand. At the seven-digit number tattooed on my palm. My prisoner number.

  “This is the bathroom.” Ava taps another panel on the wall, and the door next to it slides open to reveal a small room holding a sink, toilet, and tub with a built-in shower. All made of shiny metal. “We have to clean it ourselves obviously, but running water is virtually unheard of in gen pop. Hot water alone is enough to make this a sweet gig. So don’t screw this up for us, okay?”

  “I won’t,” I assure her. I understand the break I’ve caught.

  “Okay. I have to get back to the laundry, but I’m supposed to take you to Tinsley on my way.”

  “Who’s Tinsley?”

  “He’s the guard in charge of the inmate workers. There are just eight of us women—four in the room next door—and only two men, in the dorm across the hall. Tinsley’s mostly okay, as long as you do what you’re told.”

  I blink at her, as a chill washes over me. “What I’m told?”

  “You should be fine. He likes blonds. Which means he’s mostly Nanette’s problem.” Ava reaches out to touch a strand of my long red hair.

  “Is that natural?”

  “Yeah.” I run one hand over my hair, smoothing down the loose, messy curls. What I look like has never mattered less, yet I’m still self-conscious about my hair.

  “Engineered?”

  I snort. “If my parents could have afforded to genetically engineer an embryo, I wouldn’t have had to steal
lipstick.” At the very least, I could have afforded a better attorney.

  “Huh.” Ava cocks her head to the side, studying me. “Not sure I’ve ever met another natural redhead.”

  “Other than my dad? Me neither.” He’d always said there were very few of us left.

  “Come on.”

  I follow Ava into the hall, then to the right and up a flight of stairs. The second-floor hallway ends in a suite of offices. Ava leads me into the waiting area, where a prison guard seated behind a desk stands to look me over.

  “You must be Katerina Mathern,” he says, and I nod. “Do people call you Kat?”

  I shake my head, but that’s a lie. All of my friends back home called me Kat, but no man who looks at me the way he’s looking at me can be considered a friend. Even if he weren’t wearing a guard uniform.

  Even if I’m not blond.

  “Thanks, Ava. You can head back to the laundry,” the guard says. According to his name tag, this is Officer Tinsley. He hardly glances at Ava as she leaves; his gaze is glued to me. “Aren’t you the lucky girl, being chosen to work here?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  He frowns as he circles the desk, which is when I realize that he towers over me. “Would you rather be in gen pop?”

  “No! I’m grateful to be here.” I’ve known men like him before. Men who expect you to be thankful. If you ever forget how appreciative you should be, men like this usually have ways of reminding you.

  “Good. Come on, I’ll show you the ropes.”

  I really hope there aren’t actual ropes.