The Prison Planet

[Little]

Long ago....

"Oh, God! What the hell happened!?! What HAPPENED!?"

Officer Smith looked nervously at Captain Johnson as his superior began to wonder and grow steadily afraid.

"I mean, Jesus Christ! We had them in contact, right? And they disappear! Right off the com-link! I knew things were getting bad, but not THIS bad! I have family back on Earth!"

Officer Smith began to feel afraid. He'd been Mark Johnson's loyal friend since gradeschool, and had never seen him upset. He was always very calm, even when his mom died. He just accepted things, and fixed them.

And here his most trusted friend was, afraid.

His line of thought was interupted as Johnson yelled: "Ok! We need to think here. No time for panic. Mother says Panic makes things go wrong. Smith, old buddy, tell Technical to send up a location probe. Don't tell them anything, just tell them Johnson will demote you so badly you'll count as outside Flight Branch. Also tell them I never give idle threats."

He paused for a moment, taking several deep breaths.

"Thank God nobody else is on the bridge. It's the off-shift, isn't it, Johnson? Means the ship will run on auto-pilot, until we get to the asteroid colony. Nobody else is up...."

Johnson nodded, still uneasy. Officer Johnson Smith wasn't going to ask questions, not when his commander was like this. A move like that could lead to demotion, although in the back of his mind he wondered if demotion even mattered anymore.....

***

Thomas Elder, Head of Technical Operations for Prisoner Flight 178, was feeling very pissed off at Officer Smith. He had to go up and wake Byran, and Byran was likely to be hungover.Not the funny kind of hangover, the mean kind, and you don't want to mess with Byran when he was drunk or hungover. Which he probably was both.

Thomas decided that, screw Byran and Micheal, he could do it himself. It was just a simple probe launch. He didn't even have to go outside the ship, just tap a few buttons. He grabbed a cup of coffee and headed down to Tech Center.

He wearily walked down the corriders, hearing loud yelling. Another riot, most likely. The people they were transporting couldn't do anything anyway. They were all contained in the remaining four fifths of the ship not taken up by engines and other important functions. He figured he should radio the guards, but decided not to. The prisnors were sealed off from the rest of the ship behind thick steel doors, all two thousand of them. He arrived at Tech Core, about halfway done his coffee.

He wearily tapped in the oders for a Scanning Probe on the Command Board, which would launch a probe that scanned the space surronding them for a fair distance.

After sending the oders to the ship's computers(which promptly sent up the probe), his weary eyes scanned the Command Board. He noticed one red, blinking light. The com-link was was not connected to Earth's radio signals, which meant something was either displaying wrong, or something was wrong.

Thomas decided to quickly reboot the Command Board's display. It shut off for a brief second, then snapped back on with a friendly Welcome, user, what are your orders? The light was still out, which meant something was messed up.

He decided to stop the ship while the probe was scanning(a decision that would save all their lives). The process took about twelve hours.

Thomas left the Technical Core, heading back to his room. He was deeply concerned by the com-link not connected to Earth, as he knew that Earth told them the co-ords they needed to go. Without the signal, the auto-pilot would slowly drift off-course, due to fluxations in space. He picked up his Info Pad(which were issued to all crew members) and tapped out a brief message to Officer Smith on the touch-screen, saying that he stopped the ship due to a display error saying the com-link was out and the probe was scanning.

He turned off his pad (against protocal and would result in a court matrial if anyone found out, but everyone did it anyway) in case Officer Smith replied, which his Info Pad would notify him about the reply with a loud beeping noise.

He layed down on his bed and fell asleep, not even bothering to take off his Tech Head suit.

[Little]

Kyle Gacy was nervous as hell, but he still kept his rifle leaning against the wall to try to convince the others he was calm. He was a guard, on a prison ship, and right off the bat you have bad odds. The prisoners were rioting, all that stood between them and him was a thin, rusted metal fence with a charge running through it.

Also against him was him limited ammo supply, the fact he had to reload, that there were only twenty guards and two thousand prisoners, the large steel doors keeping the prisoners(and anyone else) from leaving....

Kyle laughed loudly as his good friend Austin began his nightly staring contest with the thousand prisoners facing him, only a few feet away. He grinned as Austin lit a cigarette, and chuckled as Austin continued staring, smoke rising lazily in front of him.

Abruptly, Austin blinked and turned towards Kyle, looking concerned: "What the hell was that?"

Kyle laughed, thinking Austin was kidding: "What was wha?"

Austin frowned: "It made me blink. Ship rumbled for a second. Maybe we hit something?"

Kyle was about to reply when he smelled smoke and heard a loud pop, followed by a sizzling noise. He spun around, and looked at the source. A prisoner had thrown himself on the fence and was roasting.

Austin swore loudly and grabbed his assault rifle, spitting out his cigarette as he flicked the safety off. Four more prisoners flung themselves onto the fence, the fence smoking.

Austin said:"Oh, sh*t! Kyle, get your gun!"

Kyle grabbed his gun, still unconcerned: "Why? It's not like they can break out."

A hundred prisoners threw themselves on the fence. The fence sizzled, sparked, smoked and then went out. The low hum that signified the fence's charge stopped.

Austin raised his assault rifle and began to fire as a thousand angry prisoners charged the fence at once. Kyle could've sworn he'd seen a ram made of the ration trays, which were plastic.

Somewhere along the line, he knew, the fence would break. He was right.

He and the other four guards open fired on the breach, but another opened. Then another. Suddenly, Kyle heard Austin go down,screaming, surrounded by a mob of adreline-high fugitives.

It wasn't long before Kyle was surrounded and had his throat slashed by a smuggled-in knife.

[Little]

Ten years later.....

Jack 'Killer' Davidson was feeling quietly concerned. He was the proud leader of his group, which was over half of the population. He controlled two of the massive prisons that dotted the planet, each which could easily fit half a million people. The first year was the first major population boom, shooting to 5,000! The next year was even bigger, and the population of his group which consisted of former criminals, was still growing. He had about a hundred and fifty thousand people living in his prisons.

Other ships had landed, mostly from the asteroid colony, all filled with people. The authority figures aboard had been executed, and the prisoners absorbed into any of the three 'families'. He knew a mafia like structure had set up. There were two other families, and peace could not last for ever. Still no new from Earth, which was odd, but he had figured long ago that it was gone for some reason or other.

The planet they occupied was basically built by a race of some sort or other. Gigantic prisons, most with cells filled to the brim with bleach-yellow skeletons that were definitely not human. Whatever they were had degenerated long ago, hopefully. He knew that the sentients that built the prisons were long gone but the tunnels that connected the prisons(so that the travel routes could not be attacked from the ground without taking one of the giant, spiraling, fortress-like prisons) were still inhabited by some monsters.

The 'family' had cleared out the tunnels connecting their prisons and the other 'families' did the same, but anytime an exploration party was sent beyond what was cleared with concrete walls and fluorescent walls almost never came back. The only exception was the one scout, a man convicted of the murder of twenty back on Earth, came back gibbering about: 'The thing that moved with the dawn and the da*ned. The EYES! KILL THE F**KER!'

Anything beyond that could not be interpreted.

The thing that had really bothered Jack this morning was when he arrived at his office, the door was slightly ajar. He went inside his office and found one of the officer's silver lighter on his desk. Which was odd, because he kept Officer Smith(the name engraved on the side) in the third drawer of his desk. He was even more concerned when he flicked it and instead of a flame flickering up, a blue light shot up and covered the light. After swearing loudly, Jack had hit the light switch twice. The light still didn't turn on. The lighter was whirring on the desk, and a second later, and incredibly detailed map appeared. Jack didn't recognize any of the planets, and all the characters beside them were in a writing that could be coined as gibberish.

He spent a few moments looking at the vastness of space, and the planets yet to be discovered. Some were blanketed with cities, smog clouding the atmosphere of the planet floating in a convicted serial killer's office. Some covered in forest, others in ice, a few in yellow gas and fire. Those planets bothered him the most.

He knew someone or something had been in his office, and that being wasn't human.

****

History:

Jack 'Killer' Davidson birth date is unknown, but he is approximately thirty at the time of this scene. He rose to the top of the 'family' by sheer brutishness when dealing with enemies.

He was convicted for the murder of forty in a bombing and another twenty for his shootings, and is reputed to be one of Old Earth's most famous criminals.