Free BloodandPassion by Emma Abbiss

Chapter One
     
    Hiding an injury carried a sentence of corporal punishment
but instead of reporting to Medical, prison guard Xyla Devi just squirted
seal-skin over the wound on her hip. Immediately the bleeding stemmed and the
pain subsided. But the side effect of seal-skin was that the slimy glob of
chemicals made her eyes water and her head fog.
    She wrinkled her nose. The nostril-searing drug smelled a
lot like the thousand-year-old pollution that had turned Earth into a
wasteland—a wasteland that was now a prison planet for the galaxy’s most
notorious criminals.
    This really isn’t my day.
    Blinking back tears, she left the dark corner where she had
hidden from the hovering security cam, or see-cam. Xyla forced herself to walk
steadily until she made it out of the ding-wing—the prison’s mental ward—and
down the max aisle. An image of her mother came to mind. Nothing like an injury
to make her want her mommy. And that was just messed up. Her mother was the
last person in the universe she should long for right now.
    You can only count on yourself , she thought, but
memories of her old school friends, Rish and Mikal, negated that idea. No
matter when, what or where, those two crushworthy guys had always had her back. Damn. How’d I ever lose touch with them?
    But she knew the answer. They’d graduated a year before her
and, no doubt gone on to bigger and better things while Xyla was now a
low-level guard on a nearly uninhabitable planet. No, Xyla and Rish and Mikal
didn’t exactly run in the same circles anymore.
    With this damn injury, I won’t be running anywhere for a
while.
    She wouldn’t report the attack. Not when it was her third
on-the-job injury this month and she was facing a transfer from the ding-wing
to the minimum security ward on the opposite side of the planet.
    “Six­­­-five!” An inmate’s shout echoed down the long
corridor, warning the other maximum security prisoners that a guard was coming.
    The chip embedded in the back of Xyla’s hand flashed red,
blue, green, signaling the end of her shift. She held her arm over her injury
and hurried past the six-by-eight-foot cells that caged lifers. Whistles and
lusty shouts followed her until the thick metal door that separated the inner
and outer prison sectors thudded shut behind her.
    She entered the crowded employee garage, keeping her arm
over the tear in her green slacks. There were too many eyes. Too many see-cams.
Even her boss Kith Rayorr was there, supervising departures from across the
hangar.
    A mixture of fuel from the ships and ozone from the outer
prison shield overpowered the coppery smell of blood that trickled from her
wound. Her colleagues, two hundred and twenty-two day-shift peace guards, said
goodbye to each other in tired voices. They powered up their ships and flew off
to their homes on one of the thirteen manmade moons that orbited Earth.
    “Night,” she said to no one in particular as she slid into
her wormhole-warped compact spaceship. The rusted door sealed shut with an
oxygenated groan.
    “Xyla,” Ship greeted in its haughty voice.
    “Hi, Ship.”
    “My fuel is depleted. Far below recommended levels for
off-planet travel,” it whined. “I advise we dock at the nearest AllStore to
fuel up…if you approve.” Ship preferred to have a full tank of fuel. Always.
For such a piece of crap, it really was a diva.
    “Can it wait?” She belted herself in.
    “I may not have enough fuel to fly to the closest AllStore
tomorrow.”
    The holo readout showed over half a tank of fuel. As usual,
ship was being a drama queen. Definitely not my day. With a sigh, Xyla
pulled the rubber band from her hair and speared her fingers through her blonde
curls.
    “Shall I dock?”
    “Fine.” Xyla didn’t have the energy to argue with the damn
machine.
    Doors rattling, engine choking, Ship accelerated down the
short runway and took off. Out of the cracked viewscreen, the system’s setting
yellow sun smoldered in the sky,