Feedback please
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This is chapter 1 of my new sci-fi book.
Can I have some honest feedback?
1
Cells and Pod
Boots in the corridor, echoing off steel. Coming closer.
His hands are shaking, so he sits with them between his knees. He's been here before, sitting in a cell with some other cunt's blood drying under his fingernails.
"Right," he says to the door. "About time these pricks show up."
The boots get closer and stop outside the door.
It unlocks with a thick metallic clunk. Two guards step in. One has the bored eyes of a man who has ruined hundreds of lives before breakfast. The other one is younger, jaw tight, trying to look hard.
Hard men don't try to look hard. They manage it buying milk in flip-flops.
The bored one looks at Flynn.
"Get up."
"Up where?" Flynn says.
"Off the bench, dickhead."
"Could've said that. I thought you were about to break into a dance routine."
The young guard strikes the side of his face. The sort of open-handed crack you give a dog. Flynn's head snaps sideways, teeth clattering together. His cheek burns.
The bored guard sighs. "Don't get him excited, 28-Bravo. He's new."
Flynn works his jaw and tastes blood. "Cute. Does he do any tricks?"
The bored guard steps close enough for Flynn to smell his manky breath. "He does one."
The young guard drives a baton into Flynn's stomach.
Air leaves him in a pathetic little grunt. He folds over, but the bored guard catches him by the collar before he drops to the deck and hauls him up straight, feet dangling off the floor.
"There it is," says the bored guard. "Fucking good trick, that, eh?"
Flynn hangs there, eyes watering.
"Felt more in the showers," he manages.
"You remembered to pack lube for planet-side, then?"
The guard smiles without any joy to it, then launches him into the corridor. His head clatters off the opposite cell.
Flynn counts nine others in the line. Eight weeks in solitary, orbiting Rogue Planet and waiting for drop 28 to launch. It's nice to see some unfamiliar faces.
Flynn waves theatrically.
The first he sees is the fridge. Six foot six and wide enough to make the corridor look badly designed. Dark-skinned, mohawk, wrists thicker than an anaconda. Every prison has big men. This one is something else. He moves with his head down and his hands loose. Flynn takes one thankful look at the chains holding his wrists together.
Behind him is a compact Chinese woman with a clean-cut face, prison-short black hair, and hands so still they look rehearsed. Flynn follows her eyes. She isn't looking at the guards' weapons. She's looking at their throats.
The next one is loud. Cropped blonde hair. Scar through one eyebrow. Mouth working like a faulty engine.
"Cheap. Cheap fucking clasps. Look at that. Pin's wrong. Pin's wrong, you useless boot-polishing cocksucker."
"Shut the fuck up," says the guard ahead of her.
"State of your boots, mate. My dead nan had better kit, and she was buried in piss-soaked slippers."
"Shut it."
She shuts it for about two seconds.
"Concordat budget must be smaller than your cock."
The guard turns and smashes her in the face with the butt of his rifle.
She hits the wall shoulder-first, spits blood onto the floor, then grins with red teeth.
"Touched a nerve there, baby-dick?"
Flynn likes her immediately.
The other six are broken already. Two are crying. One is standing in a puddle of piss, legs shaking like a shitting dog. There's one praying, muttering the same three words over and over under his breath.
"Goran save us. Goran save us."
There's a fat guy with soft hands still trying to look official. A woman with a black eye stares blankly ahead, bottom lip trembling. Behind her, a wiry bloke with grey stubble and prison tats up his neck, jaw set, saying nothing.
Flynn looks at the youngest one's nose. Flat. Broken more than once, and probably will be again before they drop.
Ten criminals. Ten problems being removed from society, launched at a five-hundred-mile-square stretch of hopelessness.
Rogue Planet.
"Officer, I really must—"
The bored guard doesn't even flinch. He steps in with the kind of economy you earn with practice and slams a gloved fist into the fat guy's jaw.
Three teeth click across the deck.
The fat guy drops to his knees, making a weird noise halfway between boiling kettle and stunned turkey. The young guard drags him upright by the chain between his cuffs.
Flynn kicks one of the teeth back at him.
"Waste not, soft lad," he says.
The bored guard turns to face him.
Flynn looks up. "Just saying. Planet might have a tooth fairy."
The guard grins broadly. Flynn imagines stamping on his throat.
"Last warning," the guard says to them all. "If your face does anything I don't like, I change the shape of it."
"Good system," Flynn says quietly. "Very transparent."
"What?"
"Said you're better looking than my bollocks, mate."
The cropped-hair woman snorts blood.
The fridge doesn't turn his head, but Flynn sees him nodding. He starts hoping the big bastard survives the drop. A meat shield will come in handy.
The pod bay is a simple hangar laid with a carpet of blood.
Bad light. Worse air. Hot metal, old sweat, hydraulic oil, disinfectant sprayed over things that need a jet washer and perseverance. Red warning strips flash along the floor, and far above them a pair of huge fans circulate the stench.
The drop pod sits upright on its launch frame, doors open.
It is black, dented, ugly, and narrow at the top.
Flynn stares at it.
"Fuck me," says the cropped-hair woman. "It's a metal butt plug."
"Move," says the bored guard.
"Give me a second. Never seen government-funded arse-tillery up close."
The young guard grabs her by the collar and slams her into the frame. Her head clips the metal, splits open, and starts sheeting blood down her face. She drops to one knee, shakes it off, and starts laughing.
"Careful, maggot cock," she says. "You'll fall in love again."
He kicks her in the ribs.
That shuts her up for a few breaths.
At the foot of the ramp stands an intake officer with a clipboard. Thin. Dead eyes. Clerk's posture. A necklace made of teeth hangs around his neck. A shrivelled ear is threaded among the teeth.
The officer looks at his clipboard and starts reading.
"You have been capped, sterilised, and removed from all Concordat civic registers," he says, voice flat. "You are scum and your sentence is planetary disposal. Rescue, recovery, and remains retrieval are not authorised. No death notice shall be issued. No appeal survives the launch. Upon hatch seal, you cease to be citizens, claimants, dependants, or persons of record."
He turns the page.
"By Concordat statute, and under the eye of Goran, you are declared civic waste. Your names are struck from existence. Your claims are void. Your souls are beneath notice."
He glances up at them.
"Goran despises what remains. May the planet finish what the law began."
Flynn raises a hand as far as the cuffs allow.
The officer looks at him.
"Question?"
"Yeah. Is there an in-flight vegetarian option?"
Nobody laughs except the cropped-hair woman, who stops abruptly and starts coughing blood.
"Strap him in first. Make it tight."
"Glad we cleared that up," Flynn says. "Would've been shit to arrive hungry."
The bored guard punches him in the bollocks.
Properly this time.
Flynn folds up and rattles his knee off the ramp. Pain radiates from his nuts up through his guts.
"Every comedian thinks he's funny till I rupture his cum-sack," growls the bored guard.
Flynn sucks air through his teeth. "Every guard thinks he's got a personality because he holds a stick."
The young guard lifts the baton again.
The bored one stops him with a hand. "No. Let the planet have something fresh."
They haul Flynn up and shove him into the pod.
Inside is worse than he expected.
The restraint frames hang from the walls in two facing rows, metal arms folded open like robotic spider legs. Harnesses. Shoulder locks. Thigh clamps. Neck braces covered in spikes. Puke drains in the floor. Blood sits around the drains. They must reuse the pods, retrieve them off the surface.
The guard clamps his wrist as tight as he can. "If you don't shut the fuck up I'll be taking that jaw home in a lunchbox."
"Nonce," Flynn mutters and stops resisting.
The chest frame snaps down. The thigh braces lock. The neck ring closes with a sharp, final click.
He's part of the pod now. If it doesn't open, it's a coffin.
The fridge is strapped opposite him, hands open, compliant, looking pretty zen for someone that's about to be blasted at a planet full of scum. The clean-faced woman sits beside him, eyes steady, breathing slow.
The cropped-hair woman is three seats down from Flynn, testing the restraints with little shoulder movements.
"Don't," says the guard.
"I'm doing nuthin'."
The Goran-botherer is next to her, whispering faster now. "Goran save us, Goran save us." The guy with the busted snout is staring at cropped-hair, blood dripping down the front of his jumpsuit. The corporate woman sits bolt upright, eyes wide with fear, lips slightly parted. The fat bastard is rammed in last, barely conscious, half his mouth hanging wrong, jaw broken and floppy. Blood bubbles from his lips and he makes a soft whistling noise through his ruined nose.
The intake officer steps into the doorway.
"All pods launch in sequence," he says. "The odds of surviving impact range between acceptable and hilarious."
Flynn glances at him. "Can't stop laughing."
The officer smiles back and the hatch begins to shut. The cropped-hair woman shouts, "Tell my mother I died doing what I love!"
The hatch pauses for a moment and the bored guard looks at her through the crack.
She grins. "Being violently mishandled by a bunch of government cunts with tiny cocks!"
The hatch slams shut and seals. Then darkness drops over them and for two seconds, all Flynn can hear is breathing and crying, the moron praying, and the fat fucker whistling through his broken face.
The speakers in the pod come alive.
"DROP SEQUENCE ARMED."
The voice is calm and female. The same shit voice that reads out specials at the food-rep counter. Except this time the planet's ordering, and ten poor bastards are the special.
"FINAL RESTRAINT CHECK."
Metal tightens across Flynn's chest.
"Nice and tight babe, just how the boys like it." Cropped hair looks at Flynn, big grin on her face.
A man at the far end starts weeping. "No. No. No. No, please."
"Bit late for tears, pussy-boy," she says.
Flynn tries to swallow, but his mouth is bone dry.
"Anyone else want to write a formal complaint?" he says.
The pod drops.
Flynn's stomach goes one way and his lungs go another. His bollocks have climbed into his chest to keep his lungs company.
Someone screams. A female voice laughs.
Then the engines fire and the pod blasts forward so hard Flynn swears he can feel his brain flatten against the inside of his skull.
His head slams back into the brace. His teeth slam together. Vision tunnels. Everything stretches.
The Goran-botherer loses his faith and wails.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND ENJOY THE RIDE, BITCH!" she starts laughing again.
The pod spins like an astral cat has found a drop pod shaped mouse to bat around the heavens. Flynn's restraints bite into his flesh, every joint aches like fuck, and his eyeballs rattle in his skull.
Vomit erupts from the Goran-botherer's mouth, shoots across the enclosure, misses Flynn by an inch and slaps the big man in the face.
"You gotta be shittin' me," he moans.
Then the pod rolls again twice and Flynn feels his bollocks fall back into place.
"RE-ENTRY IN FIVE," says the calm female voice over the Tannoy.
Flynn blinks. "Five what?"
"Four."
"That's not very helpful."
"Three."
The big guy shakes the puke off. Twisted nose, scar under one eye, a face built by violence.
"Breathe out," he says to Flynn calmly.
"What?"
"Breathe out, do it now."
The atmosphere hits them and the pod becomes a ball of fire.
Sound drops out, then slams back in, metal shrieks, bolts rattle, something shears off the hull. Flynn can feel the heat through the walls, can feel the sweat pissing off his face. White flames flash past the window slits, illuminating ten doomed faces. The fridge sits serene. He looks at Flynn and mouths it again. Breathe out.
"The fuck is wrong with you?" Flynn shouts.
Flynn exhales as instructed, why not? Fuck all better to do.
Pressure crushes him into the chair, lips fly back, eyes streaming, he feels something give in his shoulder and his spine feels like a stack of plates someone has decided to kick fuck out of.
The fat guy squeals, the sort of noise people make during a prostate examination.
"Don't you fucking cum in your pants meat-sack!" cropped hair shouts.
The squealing stops, his face goes purple and he jerks once then stops still. Strapped upright, jaw hanging open and smashed, eyes open and staring, looking offended by death.
The cropped-hair woman barks another laugh. "Oh come on. He fucking cheated. He's skipped the whole planet."
Flynn tries to laugh with her but it comes out like a nervous giggle, it feels insane to be laughing in this situation. The small Asian woman is calmness personified, she's watching the seals and hatches, the windows, the release hatch, eyes scanning. Her boots catch his eye. Weird laces. Multiple colours. Tied really neatly. Then he clocks her face, practical, unafraid, the face of someone that's figured out the contingency plan before he's even figured out you need Plan A.
Flynn makes a mental note—don't piss this one off.
The pod spins harder with every second. A siren starts wailing.
STABILISER FAILURE.
"Marvellous," Flynn says. "I was worried the flight was going to be boring."
STABILISER FAILURE.
"We heard you the first time, sweetheart."
A panel rips free overhead and smashes into the kid with the broken nose. His head disappears behind a spray of blood. He grunts like a spiked pig—and that's him done.
The corporate woman's eyes snap to her harness.
"No," she says.
The strap's broken and it flails. The metal harness has slipped—ridden up wrong. The pod lurches and wrenches it back onto her. A wet crunch. Arterial blood jets from her throat. Her head slumps forward.
Flynn takes a face-full of claret and feels his gut churning. He clamps his mouth shut and holds it down.
"Don't you fucking dare," says the fridge.
The wiry bloke across from her has gone limp in his harness, head lolling, a dark patch spreading down the front of his jumpsuit. Nobody saw it happen.
Heat surges. The stink of burning leather fills the cabin. Electrical systems dotted around the cabin burst into flames. Sparks shower the cabin. Even cropped hair has stopped laughing now. She's staring at the hatch. Flynn watches her face try to find the joke and fail.
Then she finds it.
"Best fucking holiday I've had in years," she shouts at Flynn.
"You need a better travel agent."
"I need cock!"
"We're about to get fucked by the planet."
The pod bucks and everything goes sideways.
The female voice starts rattling off terminal velocity. Halfway through the sentence it glitches—warps into something like a cheap slut on a porn feed hitting climax.
He's not proud of making that association.
The ground comes up fast.
The pod hits.
The first impact slams Flynn into blackness. The second drags him back out. Then a succession of equally impressive impacts before he loses count and focuses on screaming better than everyone else.
Slammed. Bounced. Rolling.
Stone tears at the hull. The pod smashes a path through everything it meets.
Then stillness.
Metal groans, steam hisses. An alarm somewhere off in the distance. Someone is choking, someone else is sobbing quietly.
Flynn opens his eyes.
The pod is lying on its side, red strobe lights tick on and off. Blood and unidentified meat hang in threads, an arm torn at the elbow sits against the wall. The fat fucker hangs above him, split open down the middle, face hanging slack, dripping blood from the mouth onto Flynn's neck.
One lands on his lip.
He spits it off.
"Give it a rest you fat pathetic cunt," he moans, turning his head and getting some in his ear.
Cropped hair groans off to his left.
"Anyone alive?"
"No," Flynn says. "I'm haunting you."
"Shame. Can't fuck ghosts."
A cough from the clean-faced woman. Small. Controlled.
The fridge breathes in. Once. Twice. Then says, "Six."
Flynn blinks through blood and sweat.
"Six what?"
The fridge doesn't answer straight away. The pod creaks and a body shifts against straps.
"Alive," says the fridge.
Flynn clears his throat. Six out of ten left alive. And they haven't even touched grass yet.
The Goran-botherer is dead, hanging opposite him, head at an angle, spine sticking out the side of his neck. His prayer has stopped, Flynn misses it.
The corporate woman is dead. The wiry bloke too, slumped quiet in his harness like he never wanted to be a fuss.
The cropped-hair woman coughs again. Laughs wetly.
"Six. Good number. Very intimate. We can all get to know each other before the cannibalism starts."
"Bit early for cannibalism."
"Never too early if you're organised."
The clean-faced woman speaks. "Quiet."
Her voice is soft and everyone shuts up, even Flynn.
Outside the pod, something heavy moves.
A scrape of metal on stone. Slowly. Then another, but closer this time. Something hard is touching the hull with care. Testing the metal, probing for weaknesses.
Flynn holds his breath without meaning to.
The scrape comes again right beside the hatch. The cropped-hair woman whispers to Flynn, "That better be the fucking welcoming committee."
Something knocks. Then knocks again. Almost polite.
"No one's in, fuck off," Flynn shouts.
The fridge looks at the hatch. His hands flex inside the restraints.
Very quietly he says, "Shut up."