The Prison Planet - La Carcela

 

The Landing

 

Jaison Blackwell decided quickly the only way to survive his life sentence was to only think of himself.  It didn’t matter whether he was guilty or not he was gagged, shackled, drugged and shipped off within in minutes of his conviction.  The Justice system was skewed towards the rich and powerful.   If he could have paid for a better defense maybe just maybe.   Once convicted there was no appeal, there was no sentencing or leniency.  All crimes got the same sentence.  It made things simple. 

 

It didn’t matter any more.  He had only a few minutes before his pod would open and then he would face the unknown of La Carcela.  He thought that maybe it would have been cleaner to have just been put to death.  But in The Global Dominion, there was no capital punishment.   It was too messy to kill someone as a punishment.   Letting them kill themselves on this forsaken planet was the GD’s version of humane treatment.

 

GD considered the trip to La Carcela part of the punishment for convicts.  Barefoot and with just a jumpsuit Jaison was put in the pod that would eventually be launched to the surface.  Depending on budget cuts they mostly didn’t bother to put the convicts to sleep.  The IV they injected could easily have put them to sleep and medicated them to better absorb the 6 or 7 Gs.  The unspoken truth was that the brass wanted most of them to die in transit.   The IV supplied drugs to immobilize and feed the convicts.  With the luck of the draw some convicts received a mixture that knocked them out completely.  This was rare but Jaison was one of the lucky ones.  He drifted in and out of sleep which kept him sane.   The long 60 day trip was a test of sanity for most convicts.  In his moments of consciousness Jaison thought that even those that survived the trip and the drop, insanity would likely be the outcome of the trip.  Jaison figured that La Carcela was just one big insane asylum.

 

Jaison came to consciousness just as the pod was being released from the transport ship.  The drop itself was a short 30 minute drop.  The adrenaline from the speed of the drop pulsed through him.  He was so charged he was no longer immobile and pulled his IV out and tried to brace himself for the impact.  The unknown just below him approaching so quickly he had no idea what to expect so he just expected the worst.

 

He could see out of the glass door the flames from the reentry.  The internal temperature of the pod was getting hotter.  Not too hot that it was uncomfortable.  Just as he started to see the ground, for some reason the pod seemed to slow down.  He figured that the pods had booster jets to slow the drop.  The final drop was fast and sudden.  The last 1000 meters took only a few seconds and he crashed right into the ground.  Surprisingly, Jaison felt that the impact was far less aggressive than what he had expected.  On the ground now he waited for the pod to open.

 

 

The pod’s lid opened slowly.  The sun was hot and blistering.  It was 20 degrees warmer the GD’s home planet, Clestra.  Jaison thought that this might make it difficult to find water.  He squinted and could see thousands of other pods.  It seemed that half of the pods had decayed bodies in them.   All the pods were firmly set in what looked like white sand.  It looked more like snow than sand but with the heat how could it be snow.  The mind has a way of playing tricks.  Jaison’s cognitive dissonance was almost visible in his face as he starred out at the endless white desert.   In the distance, in all directions there was a tree line.  This desert was a landing clearing for the pods.  Jaison wondered if it was a natural phenomenon or something the GD brass fashioned for dropping the pods into.  Based on how many prisoners were being shipped here, GD may have made hundreds of these around the whole planet.

 

The pod had now fully opened and Jaison, was looking around feverishly for something.  He needed to find a weapon or something he could use as a weapon.  He was clear in his priorities – me first, weapon , water, food, shelter, stay away from others.  He had no idea what to expect. 

 

He spotted some broken glass from a long discarded pod and decided this could easily be used as a knife.  Ten inches long, sturdy and sharp.  He stepped out of his pod and slowly placed his bare feet in the sand. 

 

“What the fuck!”, Jaison blurted.  The sand was cold not hot.  His senses and his mind could not reconcile the dichotomy.

 

There was a gentle hum in the distance and an occasional roaring sound .  Some wildlife noises, he assumed.  He walked cautiously and picked up the shard of glass.  He ripped the sleeve from the dead prisoner from the pod next to his new best friend.  He wrapped the sleeve around the end of the glass to fashion a makeshift handle.

 

 

In the drop from the ship, Jaison imagined he would be attacked right away by scavengers.  He expected to be in a fight for his life right away.  Here now, Jaison could only have a puzzled look on his face.  The calm of the situation only built up anticipation for what he new would eventually happen.  Now that he had his weapon his next mission was to find some water, food and shelter.  He had to choose a direction to walk in.  Looking at the empty pods, he was looking for foot prints that would help him decide on which way to go.

 

Everyone must have had the same idea as what footprints he could see, led away towards the east, or what he guessed was the east.  The sun looked like it was setting, it moved closer to the western horizon.  Jaison clung to his concepts of Clestra, sun sets in the west.  He made his decision to go west, away from the tide of footprints.   East was more people so west would be better.  With this heat, he needed to find water and shelter from the sun as quickly as possible.  The cool sand just made his feet cold and didn’t do much to keep him his body temperature down.  He figured he could roll around in the sand but it was chafing his feet and would likely chafe his body as well. 

 

Jaison did a quick calculation based on his progress.  He would make the tree line in maybe 48 hours of walking.  In this place what did that mean?  Jaison knew that the nights could be colder than Clestra to the same degree that it was warmer in the daylight.  He needed water.  He needed to get some protection for his feet and scrounge some extra jumpsuits from the other pods for the coming cold night.

 

Many of the pods had been ransacked, so there were few jumpsuits available.  He approached a pod that had not opened, the body of the prisoner was long decayed.  The dead prisoner still had a full jumpsuit on.  Jaison surmised that based on the markings on the pod, it was here for at least 10 years.  He wondered if they were more humane 10 years ago and left them some water or food?  He looked around the pod for a latch release.  Maybe it was just his dumb luck that no other prisoner found this unopened pod.

 

Jaison felt around the undercarriage of the pod for a manual release but everything was flush and smooth.  He tried to use his weapon on the seam but did not want to push to hard so as to break his new friend.  Looking through the glass door of the pod, he could see the jumpsuit still had the prisoner’s name.  Alistair Brooks looks like died from the G forces.  His chest bones seemed compressed.  Jaison thought there was definitely some trauma here from the long trip to La Carcela.  Alistair had little to worry about now.    Jaison spotted what looked like a rock just a few feet away.  Strange how even the rocks in this desert were as white as snow.  Jaison hoped it would have the density of those on Clestra.

 

“Don’t break on me, be my diamond.” Jaison uttered out loud to himself.

 

The rock had a pointy edge.  Jaison held the back side of the rock with both hands, raised his arms and slammed the rock in the middle of the glass door of the pod.  Nothing happened except for the vibrations Jaison felt through his arms and body.  At least the rock was his diamond. 

 

He decided to try and run the sharp edged along the glass to see if it would score the glass.

 

“Yes, it’s cutting through!”, Jaison was excited at how well his diamond cut through the glass.  These rocks probably killed many prisoners as the pods dropped into this clearing, Jaison thought.  The glass door was scored in a cross pattern.  He smacked the diamond as hard as he could right in the middle.  The glass broke into four nice, and usable pieces. 

 

“Okay let’s see what you have with you Mr. Brooks.”

 

Jaison pulled Alistair out of the pod and placed him in the sand.  “Sorry but I am going to have to take your clothes.”  Before he took the jumpsuit he decided to climb into the pod.  It was no more than the size of a coffin.  He rummaged around with his hands and to his surprise found a canteen.  Based on the weight Jaison though there was something in the canteen. 

 

“Why, it looks like GD was far kinder to us ten years ago”.  Jaison unscrewed the cap, smelled the liquid and decided it was worth taking a drink. 

 

“Water!”.  Jaison felt sure he could make it through the next few days.

 

He didn’t notice it but the sun had dropped fairly low to the horizon and the temperature was dropping rapidly.  Jaison sat there for a minute and decided that he would spend what he thought would be the night in the pod.

 

In his preparations, Jaison made sure that no one would know he was there. He moved Alistair’s body as far as he could.  He used Alistair’s jumpsuit as a rake and raked up as much of his footprints.  The four glass pieces from the pod he placed in Alistair’s pod.  He placed the jumpsuit, knife, and rock in the pod.  He rolled the pod over so that it had little exposure to anyone approaching and slid into the pod.

 

“Safe for the long good night”.  Jaison stayed awake for a few hours until fatigue hit him and he fell into a deep sleep.