The Prison Planet - a short story

He’s been shackled to the cold, emotionless, yet sentient metal chair for seven hours, this cylindrical chamber for seven months, and the seven-kilometer-wide starship for seven years.

For seven seconds, Aryon wondered what the empire’s fixation on the number seven was. He couldn’t generate any sort of logical conclusion. Only a ridiculous one, and it revolved around the emperor’s name being Septem, which means seven.

Aryon wouldn’t put it past the emperor to torment his prisoners and make them languish in ironic design. The emperor was a childish sort of monster, and if there’s one thing in common with children and monsters, it’s that they love to play with their food.

“You are awake,” a robotic female voice stated. “You are in pain.”

“You think?” She really did have a knack for stating the obvious. It was true, though. The left side of his torso had been nagging him ever since his first night aboard the Gen starship. The doctors had told him that it was nothing to worry about. Just some simple muscle aches, they said. He doubted it. Of course, the doctors never really physically examined him. No, the entire conversation lasted about a couple of minutes, with Aryon sitting on a chair similar to this one. The doctors were thousands of kilometers away, sitting comfortably on couches back on the empire’s mother planet, Lux. “How much longer, Sensus?”

“Exactly eight minutes until landing.” Sensus, the computer, replied.

Aryon took a deep breath. In a few minutes, he’d be dying. He could feel his palms sweating, and his arms and legs begin to shake. He tried to prevent his body from doing these things. He failed.

“You are afraid,” noted Sensus. Her voice came from the back of his head, from the chair. “Would you like some—”

“No,” commanded Aryon. “I don’t need anything. Leave me.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Try.”

“I cannot,” repeated Sensus.

“Try harder.”

Aryon wished the computer to leave him alone. He’d wished so from the first moment he met her. Sensus was all-knowing, and that’s what made her all-annoying. She tracked everything, from the number of steps the prisoners made, the food they ate, all the way to the weight of their feces before they’re flushed down the toilet bowls. She tracked the biometrics of all one hundred starship passengers.

No one can get anywhere without the computer knowing. Sensus was everywhere, hardwired into the very systems of the starship. She controlled everything.

“I cannot,” said Sensus.

I know, Aryon thought. He inspected the shackles along his wrists to see if there was any way he could break through them, as he had done for the past seven hours.

“If you knew, then why must you ask?” said the computer.

Aryon stopped. He froze. That’s never happened before. I didn’t say anything out loud, did I?

Then static sounded from the walls. For years, Aryon had learned that that sound preceded only one thing. Overhead, glowering in the middle of the chamber, a life-like projection of a man floated. He wore a lavish crown decked with jewels too big for his head, and a thick red robe that bore the empire’s sigil. A dragon encased in a sphere of crashing water. Emperor Septem.

“Hello there Aryon, the indigent,” spat the emperor. His voice sounded like the bubbling of rotten milk.

“Ahhh.” Aryon smiled. “How lucky am I to be visited by Emperor Septem… the impotent.”

“I am not—!” The emperor’s face flushed red. Aryon found joy in knowing that, even lightyears away, he could still give the emperor as much discomfort as possible.

There was a bright side in being exiled and thrown into a lifeless vehicle traveling through the empty void of space. The emperor couldn’t get his hands on Aryon, regardless of how much the man-child tried. It wasn’t like the empire had much more to take from Aryon.

They had stolen Aryon’s freedom, his work, his family, his life as he knew it, and in a few minutes, his life as he has had it. They could take no more.

Emperor Septem steadied himself. “You seem to be in good spirits,” he smirked, red quickly draining from his cheeks. “Ahh, but not for long.”

“Why? Are you sending me over another tray of dead ins—” The entire starship shook, as if it was hit by something from the outside.

“There we have it!” said Emperor Septem. “The booster ship has been connected. It won’t be long now.”

Aryon budged from his seat. “Booster ship? You intend us to go even faster? We’re minutes away from landing!” Behind him, Sensus burred.

“Landing?” The emperor smiled. “Who said you would be landing? Crashing is what you’ll be doing, along with all your other belligerent friends there on the Gen! Appropriate for you, my dear Aryon. After you crashed into my palace seven years ago.”

“Doubtless, Lux has been a better place since, no?” Aryon replied. “So you do intend to kill us after all. Why keep us alive after all this time?”

Aryon had expected no less from the emperor. The man-child acted subservient to his impulses, a main point of unpopularity among his subjects. But an absolute monarch rules absolutely, and if anyone dares to do something, they get jetted to a starship to die.

“No, I intend not to kill you,” or not, “even if that would bring me joys far greater than anyone could ever hope to realize,” the emperor said. “My advisors have brought to light how your skillset might be crucial in leading a group to survive in a wild new world,” he stated. “You are essential, Aryon, as much as it pains me to say that.” The emperor shrugged, then he lifted his arm. A new projection came to Aryon’s view, a flat projection.

The screen showed a vibrant world, where trees of massive sizes had roots that wrapped around the base of mountains. The camera panned to a vast green plain where animals ran in herds and packs. Some were small nifty lizard-like creatures with scales and feathers. Some were large, feathered bats with pointed mouths, flying and screeching overhead.

One animal stomped through the grassland. It had domineering legs yet incredibly skimpy arms. But its jaws… its jaws were massive and held teeth as sharp as razor blades. Beyond the plains, though only shadows, three large creatures walked together. They had necks longer than telephone poles and bodies as wide as than streets.

And Aryon thought Septem was a monster.

“This is…” he swallowed, at a clear loss for words.

“Your prison,” the emperor answered. “Your new home.”

On the screen and above the plains, a surging ball of fire radiated. The animals gazed at it in awe. “What’s that?” questioned Aryon. It looked offensively familiar.

With a motion from the emperor, the screen receded. “What else but the Gen?” he replied.

“You expect us to fend for ourselves there? Defend ourselves against those reptilian beasts?!?”

“Oh how I wish,” Emperor Septem turned away. But then he gave one last glaring scowl to Aryon. “Sensus will see to it that their extinction comes with your arrival. The starship will not falter with the crash. It can and will serve as your home until it is no longer. Sensus, along with the ship, will die in due time. Too much advancement too early is a recipe for cataclysm… I will miss you, Aryon.” He lingered. “You are dismissed.” The emperor’s projection disappeared with a sound of static, a sound that’s grown too familiar for Aryon’s ears.

“We are arriving,” Sensus declared. “Welcome to Earth.”

#shortstory #shortstories #literature #fiction #fantasy #earth