Mutant Mine (Mutant Mates Book 1), page 1
MUTANT MINE
by
Venus Nox
MUTANT MINE
by Venus Nox
Copyright © 2024 Venus Nox
Published by Gubbins Pubbins Limited
This edition (ebook) published 2024
ISBN: 978-1-83781-100-7
Other editions
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-83781-101-4
VenusNox.com
facebook.com/VenusNoxAuthor
Content warning
Mutant Mine is a romance between Rory, the only female guard on a prison transport starship, and Roth, a mutant prisoner. They are thrown together when the prisoners break loose. Whilst fun, the story contains elements that might not be suitable for some readers.
Graphic violence, death, the threat of sexual violence, abusive language, and explicit sex scenes are present in this novel. Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please be aware.
1
Rory
THE HADES. That’s what they named this god-forsaken ship. They didn’t pull any punches there. It’s the biggest, bleakest starship in the fleet… and it really is taking us to hell.
Well, to Chronus. Same difference. The notorious prison planet sits way out on the furthest edge of explored space. Interstellar transport is so expensive that the government will only pay for a one-way ticket for every prisoner. Humanity’s worst, most vicious criminals are sent there, to labor in the luminum mines — and they never come home.
The thought makes me shiver. Personally, I won’t be spending a second longer than necessary on Chronus. As soon as the prisoners are unloaded, I’ll be jumping on a shuttle to the nearest space station. Cosmic cocktails all round, a fat paycheck in my pocket, and the whole galaxy at my feet. I cannot wait.
For now, though… I’m awake early enough to see the overhead lights flick on in our cramped four-man cabin. The glow is faint at first, but grows steadily brighter, to mimic an Earth sunrise. It’s accompanied by a recording of birdsong, which also starts out soft, before growing louder and louder, piped in through the speakers above our heads.
Bodies begin to stir. It’s morning (or what passes for morning when you’re far beyond the solar system), and time to get up.
“GOOD MORNING, WORKERS!” says the ship’s omnipresent computer, in its usual friendly tone. “YOUR DAILY TASKS HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED.”
“Ugh,” groans Ellis from the opposite bunk. “Why is it always so happy? What has a computer got to be happy about?”
“I think it’s nice,” I say. The computer can hear us, and I don’t want to hurt its feelings. Which is dumb, because it doesn’t have feelings. I know that. But still.
My back twinges as I sit up in my bunk. Ellis catches the discomfort on my face.
“Aww, is lunch duty really taking it out of you?” he asks. “Imagine how you’d feel after a real day’s work.”
“It’s harder than you think, slopping out that nutrient goo hour after hour,” I tease. “The ladle is so heavy.”
But really, my back is killing me — not because the first few months on the Hades have been hard work, but because of my breast binder.
The Hades only takes male crew. Which is totally unfair, because there’s no gig like it: simple work, a free ride so far out into space, and a huge payout because the job is so undesirable. Most people don’t want to leave their families for a year, and get landed at a planet full of violent lunatics, with a nauseating, unpaid journey ahead of them if they ever want to get home again.
But that’s no problem for me. I want to get as far away from Earth as possible.
Tommy, the skinny young guy in the bunk below mine, reaches up a hand to help me climb down the ladder.
“Did you sleep badly?” he asks, peering up at me.
“Nah, I’m alright,” I smile at him as my feet settle on the floor. “Just… still not quite used to the whole space thing, you know?”
He nods sagely. This is Tommy’s first trip aboard the Hades, but he used to live in a lunar colony, so he’s used to space travel. As for me? It’s my very first time off Earth. Artificial gravity, recycled air, no natural light, and the constant hum of the engines beneath our feet… It all takes some getting used to.
So, it’s not exactly a lie to say that’s what’s bothering me. I stretch, cracking my back and subtly adjusting my binder.
I’ve always been tall for a girl. Years of hunger and hard work have made me lean and wiry (Ellis might not believe it, but I really do know what it means to put your back into it). My voice is on the low side, too. I’m twenty-three, but figured I could pass for a slim nineteen-year-old boy.
It means cutting my blond hair as short as a pin and binding my chest down. I’m hardly voluptuous, but they’re there, titting around, obviously being tits. Sharing a cabin with three men, I even have to sleep with a binder on. I hate it, but it’s only for a few more months. Then I’ll be free, in more ways than one.
I’m hoping to get a job on the nearest space station. They’re always desperate for staff, apparently. Maybe someday I’ll meet a space pirate with his own ship, who’ll fly me out into the New Frontier and find a place to call our home.
… Yeah, right. I know by now that no one comes to rescue girls like me. We have to rescue ourselves. So that’s exactly what I’m doing.
“Rory, have you seen this?”
Ellis is looking at the rota which has just appeared on the cabin’s screen. I pause on my way into the hygiene pod. I’m carrying a clean black uniform, ready to pull it on behind the safety of the locked door.
“What is it?”
“You’re on maximum security today.”
“What?”
I head over to the screen to see it with my own eyes. Sure enough, it says: RORY FINCH, MAXIMUM SECURITY DECK.
“No way,” breathes Tommy. “That’s so cool!”
“Is it?” I ask.
That doesn’t sound cool to me. It sounds scary. We’ve been aboard ship for almost three months, and so far I’ve mostly been doling out food on the standard security decks (where the prisoners pretty much ignore you), or on a cleaning loop, trailing along behind the robot vacuums.
“Hell yeah,” agrees Ellis. “Haven’t you heard who they’ve got in max this trip?”
“No, who?”
“Roth. That’s what they call him. He’s the Watergap freak. The one they caught.”
“Jesus…”
Watergap was all over the news a few years back. Some dead-end town out in Oregon with a big government office. It got attacked by terrorists — but the biggest shock was the way they looked. Head and shoulders taller than the average man, blue stripes all over their skin, goddamn horns sprouting out of their foreheads. Crazy stuff.
Apparently some terrorist cell had been experimenting with genetic modification, trying to turn themselves into superhumans and take over the world, or something like that. I didn’t even believe it was real when I first heard the story.
Most of them managed to escape, but they caught one — this guy, I guess. Roth.
“He’s a psycho, I heard,” Ellis continues cheerfully. “Even the other max security whack jobs don’t bother him. Too scared he’ll bust out and rip their heads off, or laser them with his eyes.”
“Sounds really cool alright!” I say, aiming for breezy but landing on shrill. “Um… Does he really have laser eyes?!”
Ellis snorts, so I guess the answer is no.
“He’s contained, Rory,” says Carl, our older bunkmate, kindly. “You don’t need to worry about him. Just focus on doing your job, same as ever.”
Right. I can do that. Right?
2
Rory
SO FAR, handing out breakfast on the maximum security deck hasn’t been that different to working on the standard decks. This long corridor of cells looks almost the same as any other — although there are subtle hints that these prisoners are considered more of a threat. The government has splashed out on more powerful force fields for the fronts of the cells: not just creating an impassable barrier, but actually shocking you if you touch it. Each man has a cell to himself, containing just a bed affixed to the wall, and a toilet and sink behind a metal partition.
“We won’t be taking them for any showers,” my new supervisor, Gregory, informed me during my brief induction. He’s a harried man in his fifties, who (it’s already clear) wants both me and the prisoners to keep our heads down and shut up.
“They’ve each got safety razors, soap, a toothbrush, and a towel. They can wash up at the sink if they want — not that many of them do. All you need to do is feed them twice a day: once in the morning and once at night. They can drink water from the faucet. Bed sheets, towels, and uniforms are gathered for laundering once a week. That’s it.”
No showers, and the same clothes worn for days on end. Yeuch. No wonder it smells so musky down here. Intensely male.
I’m pushing a heated cart down the corridor, depositing a pot of warmed food into each cell as I go. It’s a soft, rehydrated gruel that offers all the essential nutrients a body needs, but not much flavor. I know that because it’s not much different from what we get to eat in the crew canteen.
Each cell has thick walls bordering the force field. One side of the wall has a drawer in it. This can be pulled from the cell out into the corridor — where it locks into place and a metal barrier blocks the other side. This allows us to safely pass things back and forth with the prisoners. I open each drawer, put
“Hey, new kid. What’s your name?”
A mean-looking guy is leering out of this cell at me. I ignore him, like we’ve been trained to. They tell us it’s for our own safety. I suspect it’s also to dehumanize the prisoners and stop us from forming any attachments.
It’s hard though, ignoring people who are talking directly to you. It feels so rude.
“Come on. What’s your name? We gotta call you something, don’t we?”
I say nothing, getting another portion of gruel out of the cart.
“Tell me your name, or I’m just going to call you ‘the Lunchlady’.”
The other prisoners in the few cells around us laugh. For a second I panic — does he know I’m a woman?
“Kid like that shouldn’t be down here anyway,” says another prisoner.
“Right,” smirks the first guy. “It’s like waving a red rag in front of a herd of bulls.”
My brow furrows. Without thinking, I ask: “Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong? No, little Lunchlady. But I could teach you how to do something oh so wrong… and make it feel so right!” He sticks his tongue out at me and does a little hip-waggling dance, while the other men laugh.
Oh. I see. He’s just being standard-issue gross. Okay. No worries.
I carry on delivering food to the next couple of cells without reacting.
“Kid, I’m sorry,” says Mean Gross Guy with an apologetic grin. “I don’t mean no harm by it. Just tell us your name.”
“I’m not a kid,” I say.
“How old are you then?”
I’m twenty-three.
“I’m nineteen,” I say, remembering myself.
“Oh, nineteen!” Mean Gross Patronizing Guy guffaws. “Well do pardon me! I’m in the presence of an elder!”
I manage to get a few cells further down before another voice pipes up from a different cell.
“This food is fucking disgusting.”
“I know,” I say. “If it makes you feel any better, they feed the same stuff to the crew.”
“You saying you don’t cook this up for us with your own fair hands, Lunchlady?”
I really need them to stop calling me a lady. I don’t want that idea planted in anyone’s head.
“Please stop calling me that,” I snap.
“We’ll stop calling you that when you tell us your name.”
The less they know about you, the better, our training told us. Keep the relationship as functional as possible. Nothing personal. But what harm could a name do?
“Finch,” I say. “Officer Finch.”
“Finch!” one of the men croons. “So sweet. He’s just a little bird!”
“Finch, my food is cold. Could you get me a new portion?”
I roll my eyes. “No I cannot.”
“Aren’t you basically our maid, Finch? Could you come in here and make my bed for me?”
“Turn-down service!” another cackles.
Crap. Are they so bored that this is the most entertaining thing that’s happened to them in weeks? Maybe the other guards just blank them completely. I shouldn’t have risen to the bait. I’m not cut out for this kind of work. Being hard and stone-faced isn’t in my nature.
Reddening, I scuttle to the very last cell. I just want to get the job done and get out of here. I get the last steaming pot out of the cart, and keep my eyes down as I put it into the drawer and push it through.
“Thank you… Officer Finch,” says a low voice. It sounds rough, like the grinding of a gear that’s rarely used. I look up — and my heart stops.
The creature in the cell is like nothing I have ever seen.
He’s tall. So tall, closer to seven feet than six — tall enough that I have to crane backwards to look at him. He’s broad, too, and bulging with muscle. But that’s not what’s made my blood run hot then cold.
His skin is marked all over with swirls and stripes of iridescent blue, like a peacock’s breast. Those blue markings look a little like pictures I’ve seen of Māori tattoos; intricate patterns that go up and over his skull, down his forehead, striping his cheeks, framing his mouth, winding down his chin, down his neck… disappearing under his jumpsuit. But these are no tattoos. They shift and shimmer under the dim artificial light, and look as if they’ve ripped their way through his normal human skin.
And for a less subtle indication that those markings aren’t just really clever ink: two midnight blue horns curl backwards from his forehead.
This is Roth.
Oh god. This is Roth. The terrifying, murderous, genetically mutilated psychopath.
His hair is dark, long and loose. There’s stubble on his jaw. His eyes are a piercing, glowing blue, and they’re looking right at me. Roth is studying me, unblinking. As I stare up at him, his head tilts to one side like a curious bird.
The force field is an invisible barrier, so it seems like he’s standing just in front of me, with nothing but air between us. He’s close enough to touch.
“You’re welcome,” I mumble, and hustle back up the corridor behind my cart. The prisoners’ laughter rings in my ears all the way.
3
Rory
AT DINNERTIME, we sit down to eat our own gray mush in the crew canteen. Ours, at least, is sprinkled with a little powdered strawberry, for flavor and color.
“So?” asks Tommy, around a mouthful. “How was max security?”
“It was fine,” I say. “Honestly, not that different from the lower security decks.”
I don’t want to mention that the prisoners were poking fun at me. That would only end with Ellis calling me ‘Lunchlady’ too. He’d get a real kick out of that.
“Did you see Roth?” Tommy asks. “Is he in your section?”
“Yep.”
“No way! So what does he look like? Is he really blue?”
“Sort of. Not all over. He’s got, like, stripes?”
“Huh,” says Tommy.
I’m not sure Tommy thinks that stripes are as cool as being blue all over. To cheer him up, I say:
“He does have horns, though.”
“Wow!”
“Sometimes I feel bad for the prisoners,” says Carl. “I wouldn’t wish a lifetime spent digging luminum on anyone. But that’s one man I don’t feel guilty for… If I can even call him a man.”
“You wouldn’t feel bad for many of the others if you knew what they’d done,” says Ellis. “These are real lowlifes, y’know. You don’t get sentenced to Chronus for nothing.”
“Some of the guys in my section were bragging about what they were sentenced for the other day,” says Tommy, sounding queasy. “It made my skin crawl just listening to it.”
“If you’re going to feel bad for anyone, it should be us,” says Ellis. “We’re going to have to spend six freaking months surrounded by luminum ourselves.” He shudders. “Not fun.”
Luminum is the element that changed the world. Almost a century ago, an unfamiliar ore was recovered from a meteorite. Scientists discovered that you could refine this ore into pure luminum, a metal with very unusual properties. It produces an effect similar to magnetism, but which acts on space-time instead of matter.
From the ore alone, this effect is minimal — causing only minor distortions of time. But once the ore has been refined, wound into coils, and amplified with an electric charge, it’s a whole other story.
That’s how they make the superluminal core of interstellar ships. The effect on time becomes so intense that it creates a temporal field, which encompasses the ship. Time seems to pass normally inside the field, but dilates around it, allowing you to travel at multiple times the speed of light.
It was the biggest scientific leap in human history. With faster-than-light travel, space exploration beyond our solar system became possible. Superluminal technology changed everything, almost overnight.
The problem is getting hold of the goddamn stuff. At first, we were just using the small supply of luminum ore gathered from the meteorite, while Earth’s most powerful space telescopes frantically searched the skies. At last, they discovered that luminum can be mined on one extremely remote planet: Chronus.
It’s way, way further out than the authorities have otherwise established their presence in the galaxy. But Chronus was so important that they carved a route through space just to reach it, with a few authority-controlled planets and space stations along the way.
