Ice Planet Prison

SERIES: Sagittarius Quadrant
BOOK: 1 of 2
STANDALONE? Yes
TROPES: Fish Out of Water, Prison Planet, Alien Shifter, Domed City, Alpha Male, No Pregnancy, Forced Proximity, Knotting, Warrior Hero, Tribal Aliens

“The courts sentence you to ten years of hard labor on Boreas…”

Even facing down a decade behind bars on an inhospitable alien world, Keira Wescott is still able to hold her head high. Protecting her little sister from her sleazy stepfather’s advances was worth any penalty, any price.

Tired of the world turning a blind eye to injustice, Keira refuses to be cowed by anyone. Not even the other residents of the Boreas Prison Colony. But pride and prison don’t mix. Soon enough, others who want to break her rear their heads. 

Ylur is the sole Bera prisoner in the colony—and easily the biggest and baddest one roaming the prison yard. An intimidating giant with white hair, turquoise eyes, and wicked horns, only a fool would get on his bad side. He’s unmoved by the weak-willed humans, except for one little inmate who seems to carry herself with honor…

As the enormous, clingy alien takes a keen interest in Keira, the colony is besieged by native creatures. When it’s partially destroyed, can she really take a chance and escape with his help? The planet might be cold, but Ylur’s bed is warm enough for both of them. Can she possibly survive the dangers and intrigue of the ice planet, or will the tribal beasts of the frozen wastes break her?

ICE PLANET PRISON is an alien shifter romance novella with dark themes. A content guide is included on the authors website at www.alexisbosborne.com

The judge stared down at her with an unreadable expression on his time-weathered face. Rheumy eyes flicked left and right as he read the jury’s verdict off his courthouse datapad.

Despite his snow white hair and rosy cheeks, this man looked nothing like Santa Claus. Instead, his eyes were cold. The lines on his face showed that he’d rarely smiled over his many years.

“Is there any reason why a sentence should not be imposed at this time?” he asked, his eyes trained on her and the lawyer sitting next to her.

Useless public defenders.

She’d known where this was headed the moment she met her appointed lawyer in the station’s interrogation room. He’d told her to take the lottery plea deal instead of going to trial.

She’d refused. Keira wanted the world to see what happened to powerful men who tried to hurt little girls.

The courtroom was silent as the judge waited for an answer that never came. They were looking for an apology. Some sort of breakdown, or a plea for mercy. They would find none of that from her. 

She didn’t have any tears or regrets left in her after spending a month in jail. It had been torture while she’d waited for this moment to come. Now that it was here, all she felt was numbness. A cold sort of acceptance.

The judge’s icy stare flicked back to her, and she looked up at him, unflinching. She refused to wilt under the weight of his uncaring gaze.

“Do you wish to say anything before a sentence is imposed?” the judge asked once more, setting his datapad aside. Steepling his hands together, he stared down his nose at her from his pulpit.

Standing up straighter, she ignored the strain in her shoulders and back.

Metal shackles, a heavy burden, chained her wrists together. Another set of ankle cuffs tethered her feet, linking her to the table and locking her into place. To stop her from fleeing.

A ridiculous notion.

Where was there to run? Nowhere. Escape was the last thing on her mind. 

Armed guards flanked the doors of the courtroom, bored expressions on their faces as they stood there with their palms resting on the butts of their guns.

If she tried to run, they’d just stun her and drag her right back into her chair. After a month in jail, she didn’t need any more shocks to remind her how much they hurt.

She gathered up the last of her resolve, standing taller.

“I do, your honor,” she answered. 

Her voice was soft and hoarse, cracking from disuse. She hadn’t spoken in a month. Not even when they’d called her as a witness and threatened her with contempt of court for failing to answer their relentless questions. She had nothing to say to them. Her words wouldn’t have swayed their minds. She was already guilty in public opinion. This legal verdict was merely a formality.

This world they’d created didn’t care about women. Not really. Not once you got past the veneer of refinement that covered up the rot underneath. Like caked-on makeup covering the bruise from a lover’s fist. The only justice her gender had was the kind they made themselves.

The judge tipped his head forward, bushy white eyebrows pinching together. His frown deepened, but he rolled one hand in a wave for her to continue.

Licking her chapped lips, she folded her hands in front of her and smiled. Angelic. Serene. Composed and full of calm acceptance. “I-If,” she started, swallowing hard as her body remembered how to talk.

A hush fell over the courtroom. They waited to hear her words.

“If I could do it all over again… I would have made sure he bled to death.”

The courthouse erupted into chaos as people, witnesses and gawkers, and the press alike, shouted from behind them. Her aunt screamed shrill obscenities from the row right behind her. The angry woman made promises of pain and damnation. Judge Milston frowned down at her, his cold eyes hardening.

Lights flashed as photographers took photos of her smiling. The lawyer heaved a heavy sigh at her side. He turned away, shuffling the contents of his briefcase around as he started to pack up his things.

“You bitch! You’re gonna get what you deserve,” her aunt sobbed. “They’re gonna kill you in there—rip you apart.”

“Keira! Keira! Why did you do it? Tell us in your own words why you did it,” a reporter leaned forward over the barricade. “Tell us your side of the story, Keira,” one begged. “Did you like stabbing him, Keira?” another tried to shock her into responding.

“Order!” the judge bellowed. “I will have order in my court.”

The uproar of the crowd died down, one by one. His wooden gavel hit the pulpit in rapid succession with a round of dull smacks. The sound reverberated through the once again silent room. People settled, their voices tapering off as they listened.

“Keira Wescott,” the judge stated, setting his gavel down. ”You have been found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree, and the courts sentence you to ten years of hard labor on Boreas. You will be remanded into custody until your transportation has been secured on the next outbound shuttle. Take her.” He motioned to a bailiff with a wave of his hand.

The bailiff walked over, his grip on her arm tight as he practically dragged her across the courtroom. He brought her toward the door that led back to the jail. She tripped over her ankle chains and fought to get her legs back underneath her, knowing that they’d drag her if she didn’t. Keira still had the bruises on her legs to remind her how much that sucked.

The door slid shut, closing her off from the noise of the courtroom as gawkers and family and reporters talked over one another.

She was dragged down the utilitarian, gray hallway. The gold and cream and warm Earth tones of the courtroom were gone. The bailiff half-dragged, half-pulled her down the filthy concrete and steel hallway that led back to the jail. Back to her cell.

He turned them right instead of left, instead.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Craning her neck to look down the familiar path they left behind, they went down a hallway she’d never seen before.

He was silent at her side. It was pointless to talk to the guards. She should have known better after all her weeks spent in custody.

Legs burning from the strain of walking so fast with the chains weighing her down, she panted from exertion. The guard took her through a winding path. They were in a part of the ship she’d never seen before. Dirty concrete gave way to sleek white walls. A doctor dressed in pale blue scrubs and a white coat passed them.

Right… If she was going offplanet, then she needed immunizations and sterilization. Can’t have your prison planet sweatshop workers dying from plague before they earned back the cost of their trial and the sum of their fines. Or getting pregnant.

Hysterical laughter built up inside of her until she couldn’t contain it any longer. Keira laughed so hard that tears streamed down her cheeks. It was over. Finally. She was going to prison.

A doctor walked up to them while the guard shoved her onto an examination table, chaining her shackles down. “Psych ward?” the doctor asked, his expression one of concern as he looked her over from head to toe.

The guard shook his head. “Nah. She’s going to the ice house.”

A scanner was waved over her as a nurse took her vitals and handed the datapad to the doctor. She hurried away, off to complete some other task. The doctor glanced down at the pad in his hand, reading it.

“Young and healthy. Pretty too. What a shame. What’d she do?” he asked the guard.

They both ignored her, talking about her as if she wasn’t there or couldn’t hear them. Lying back on the exam table, she studied the ceiling as the tears dried on her face. Her eyes felt hot and scratchy from crying, but she couldn’t stop smiling.

“Tried to kill her stepfather,” the guard answered.

The nurse returned with a tray of instruments and Keira’s eyes widened at the size of the needle on the syringe.

Nope. No way. There’s no way they’re sticking me with that thing. No fracking way.

The chains rattled as she gasped and struggled against them, fixated on the steel tray of needles and sharp things. The nurse slid the sleeve of Keira’s baggy jail uniform up her arm and rubbed it down with disinfectant-soaked gauze. The smell of it was sharp and acrid in her nose.

She was so fixated on the doctor and his tray of instruments that she didn’t even notice the nurse injecting her with something. The medication burned inside of her deltoid.

“F—frack, a little warning next time,” Keira hissed, turning to glare at the nurse.

The nurse blinked, silent and unapologetic, then turned around to work on her next task.

The world tilted, and it felt like she was swimming through gelatin. Everything grew fuzzy and soft and slow. Her eyes slid half-shut as whatever they’d just shot into her took full effect.

This is some good shit.

“Hard to believe she’s capable of killing anyone. She’s so tiny,” the doctor murmured. 

It sounded like she was hearing everything underwater. There was a weird echo to his words that made her dizzy. Mouth gone dry, all of her saliva left her until her already cracked lips stuck together.

“He wuz triing ta raape mah lidl sisster,” she slurred, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth.

“What’d she say?” the doctor asked.

“Here you go, doctor,” the nurse said. Metal clacked. Her arm burned. She felt as if someone had taken her dial and turned it down to one. Head wrapped in cotton batting, she struggled to follow their murmured conversation as they worked. The cold pebbled her skin as her jail gray jumpsuit was worked off of her. Cold and hard, the table underneath her was chilling against her bare skin.

“Cut the whole thing off. I heard it took four hours of surgery just to keep him from dying,” the guard added.

“Ooh! Oh, yes. I heard about this one,” the nurse said, her voice bright with interest. “It was the penile amputation that Dr. Jonestown and Mulaney worked on last month. Senator Wescott.”

The doctor inhaled, the air hissing over his teeth as the man sucked in a breath. “Yes… heard about that one. Urology had a hard time with that surgery. Salvaged what they could.”

“Did she really put it in a blender?” the nurse whispered. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”

Keira’s eyes fluttered, then shut and refused to open again no matter how much she fought against their sedatives. Her consciousness flickered in and out. Something hot and sharp pricked against her belly button.

***

Eyes opening, she looked around for the doctor and nurse. Time had passed while she was unconscious. One moment she’d been naked on a steel table, and now… she was in a cell?

Her view around her was limited, her breath fogging in the cold air as she exhaled. Whatever room she was in was tiny. No… not a room. A travel pod. The kind meant for long-distance travel. She had never been in one before. Droplets of condensation beaded together, rolling down the plasticine that surrounded her. It was a good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic.

Shadows moved beyond it, and then her pod hissed. A seal broke as the door was lifted off of her. A guard in black tactical gear met her eyes, then looked down her body. Reaching in, he pressed a button on her five-point harness. The straps fell off her body. He grabbed something from her stomach and yanked. There was a tug that pulled at something deep inside of her, and then the connection broke.

Holy frack.

It felt like he was pulling her guts out of her. Stifling a panicked scream, she watched as the guard unhooked her from the pod’s life support and let the hose recoil back into its housing. The front of her orange jumpsuit was unzipped and opened all the way down to her hips.

Craning her neck to look, she saw the silver button of a feeding and waste port implanted into her belly. Her stomach churned at the sight of it.

That’s disgusting.

“Get up,” the guard ordered, his fingers flicking at the pod’s control panel as he shut it down. He stepped back and stared at her.

“It gets easier,” a second guard said, coming closer. 

The first guard huffed and walked away, tapping at a screen on the wall. The transport ship’s engine hummed. She grasped the edge of the pod and tried to take a step. Her legs wobbled, stiff from disuse. He reached out for the tab on her zipper and worked it up, stopping just shy of covering her breasts.

Keira frowned and moved to finish the job of sliding the zipper up over her cleavage.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the second guard said with a pointed glance at her chest.

She looked up at him and blinked. He ran a hand through his wavy hair and gave her a sheepish look. “This is a rough prison. I don’t know what you did, but… listen, your best bet for surviving this sentence is to find the biggest beast in there and get on your knees for him.”

He grabbed the zipper and worked it back down until her breasts threatened to spill out.

“Th-That’s…” she hesitated, her voice barely more than a croaking whisper. How long had she been in cold storage? She had no idea how far away the Boreas Prison Colony was from their mothership, The Sagittarius.

He shrugged, his lips quirking up on one side. “That’s reality, babe. This is a co-ed prison. If you’re not putting out for one of these big bastards, then they’ll think you’re free for gen pop use. The last thing we want is them fighting over the pecking order. It’s better if you pick one, and do it early before they pick for you.”

“Stop flirting with her,” the first guard said. He rolled his eyes, slamming the cover down over the console.

The second guard looked over his shoulder and grinned at his co-worker, then stepped back from the travel pod. “I’m just warning her, that’s all. Do you want to spend the next month of our watch here breaking up yard fights over pussy?”

He motioned for Keira to climb out. Gripping the edge of the pod, she tried to pull herself up. Her muscles strained. They were weak from lack of use over however long it had taken her to go from sentencing to prison. She fought her way out of the pod.

She stood, ignoring the trembling of her legs. Boreas, the frozen wasteland of a prison, was where the worst of the worst were sent. She’d arrived. Looking around she saw that the rest of the transport ship was quiet. Rows of empty pods lined the walls. It looked like hers had been the last to be opened.

“Let’s go. I’m hungry, and we can’t take a break until the last one’s settled,” the first guard ordered.

Keira grabbed her zipper and yanked it up, closing her orange suit up all the way to her neck. The second guard shrugged with a grin as if to say it was her funeral. She tightened her lips in response. Talking back to the guards was a bad idea. Her month in jail had beaten that urge out of her.

“Suit yourself,” he sighed. “If they get too rough for you to handle, you can always try a guard,” he winked.

She leveled a flat stare at him and raised one eyebrow. “Like you, you mean?”

His grin widened, showing off a row of even teeth that were too white to be natural. “Maaaybe.”

The first guard keyed the transport door open to reveal a lit-up walkway. It was the sort of covering that was temporary. Thick plasticine walls wrapped around a metallic skeleton. The walkway connected the transporter to the prison’s outer shell. 

“I wouldn’t put my dick in that one,” he grumbled. “Might not get it back.”

“What… Oh! Oh…” the second guard uttered, taking a half step back with widened eyes. “Shit, didn’t realize it was this one.” He stepped away from her, his lips twisting down into a frown. Thick eyebrows knitted together as he looked her up and down.

“I’m. Hungry. Let’s go,” the first guard interrupted, motioning for Keira to start walking.

She stepped around the second guard. Her legs still felt rubbery, but she managed to walk on her own. Without the shackles to weigh her down, it wasn’t too difficult. The wind howled, the sound of it barely muffled by the covered walkway. Frost was growing on the metal joints and her breath fogged the air in front of her. The thin material of her prison jumpsuit barely kept the cold off her skin.

“Rules are simple,” the guard started. His boots stomped against the metal-plated floor, the sound of it echoing in the narrow passage. “Don’t start fights in the yard. You can’t take food out of the mess. If you want anything extra, you either have to buy it from the commissary or you can trade extra time for it. Report for work and do your job, and we’ll leave you alone. If you make trouble with another prisoner, the guards won’t help you.”

At the end of the tunnel, they came to a door. It was thick and heavy with scratches cut into the frost-covered metal. A dent in the middle looked like something heavy had hit it until it nearly buckled.

The guard held his palm up to the scanner. With a whoosh, the door slid open revealing gray painted walls and an equally depressing looking floor.

“If you manage to get outside of the dome, just know that nobody’s coming to rescue your ass. It’s negative fifty out there, and this prison is the only thing on this miserable planet. It’ll take you maybe an hour to freeze to death. C’mon, I’ll show you to the ward matron and she’ll assign you your bunk and give you your supplies.”

The first guard led her through the prison while the second guard hung back, standing watch at the door to the transporter. With one hand resting on the butt of his gun, he leaned against the door.

Frowning, Keira followed him.

Dull and decaying. The prison dome on Boreas hadn’t seen a legitimate repair in quite some time. Cracks webbed over the walls, the paint chipped, and dust lined the grimy corners. They passed a slim prisoner who was mopping the hallway. The floor didn’t look any cleaner once he was done with it, despite the blackness of the water in his bucket.

She looked at where the guard pointed. Prisoners were scattered around the room on folding chairs, their eyes glued to the projected movie in the middle of their circle. A book printer took up one corner of the room. Did they read on plasticine instead of datapads?

“That way leads to the mess hall. You get fed three times a day. If you miss a meal, that’s it. There’s no food between meal hours. I suggest you get there early. Sometimes they run out of things.”

“Right…” 

“The males and females and nonbinary intersex have their own dorms, but other than that, everyone’s mixed together.”

Keira frowned. “It’s not just humans here?” she asked. She hadn’t known that.

“There’s a few aliens. They stick to themselves. Leave them alone, and they’ll leave you alone, and then the guards are happy. That’s the yard,” the guard pointed to a massive  steel door that showed the glinting curve of a clear dome beyond it. “Follow the rules and you’ll get an hour outside every day, weather permitting.”

He paused, so she took the opportunity to step up to the window in the door. The air that radiated off the plasticine window was cold. She looked out into the small dome, getting her first view of the planet.

White. It was just nothing but white and a pale gray-blue sky and the faded black and gray of mountains in the distance. Beyond the thick walls of the dome, there was nothing much to look at. No guard post with armed soldiers or a wall topped with plasma beams. They truly didn’t guard it, certain that the inhospitable planet would keep its prisoners in check.

Humans littered the yard, most of them collected in small groups, but a few solitary figures were on their own. Some walked or exercised, and others stood and talked. There was a row of workout benches and weights where the males gathered. They stood around with their prison jumpsuits unzipped to the waist and hanging behind them despite the cold. Swollen biceps flexed as they worked out. 

Off to the side, she saw the brightly colored skin of a group of Rounaiis. Their vivid blue, green, and purple skin tones clashed against the orange of their jumpsuits. Looking for the aliens, Keira scanned the prisoners, taking note of which groups mixed and which ones didn’t.

A big, gray alien with sweeping horns and a flicking tail talked among the males who gathered around the bench press. The alien male stood on digitigrade legs that stretched the legs of his jumpsuit into odd angles. She’d never seen one of the Ma’arat before.

Just as she was about to turn away, she saw the hulking form of a large male standing at the outermost curve of the dome. His pale skin and white hair blended in with his surroundings. If he hadn’t been wearing the orange prison uniform she might not have noticed him at all.

Standing stock still, he camouflaged into the snow as he leaned against the dome with his thick arms crossed over his broad chest. Small nubs of horns swept back from his forehead, disappearing into his hairline where they grew bigger and longer.

Her breath hitched. He was huge, towering over everyone around him. He was also alone. Looking around, she saw that he was the only alien of his kind in the yard.

“W-What’s that one?” she asked, looking back at the guard.

The guard looked at where she was pointing. “I’m not sure. He must be new. C’mon, I don’t have all day.” He turned and left.

Taking two steps for each one that he made with his long legs, Keira hurried after him. “Is the weather here often bad?” She wasn’t normally much of an outside person, but she had a feeling that the hour of exercise a day was going to keep her sane.

He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at her. “There aren’t as many snowstorms as you think there’d be. Too cold. That’s recreation over there. Damage any of the holo screens and they’ll kick you out,” he warned her.

The guard unlocked the keypad on the door to the female dorms and all but shoved her inside.