Shapeshifter's Saviour by KS Augustin

Author:KS Augustin [Augustin, KS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SF Romance, Alien Hero, Human Heroine, Shapeshifter, Prison Planet, Republic
Publisher: Challis Tower
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Hoara hummed as she cleaned and dried herself. The facilities in the small hotel were primitive but in good order, and she delighted in watching the red dust swirl down the drainage pipe as she washed her hair and body.

Only water was available for cleansing, not the usual—and far more efficient—mix of water and sonics that was a staple of civilised Republic life. She reached up to a hook, where rectangular pieces of cloth hung. Cloth to dry herself! The entire world belonged in a museum, she thought, as she exited the bathroom and wedged open one of the room’s windows.

The days on Bliss were shorter than Earth standard. Already, the sun was blazing hot near the top of the sky. Dark film covered the window panes, blocking glare and ensuring privacy, but Hoara still stood to one side while she looked out at the traffic swirling beneath the corner hotel room.

Amid her current contenment was a nagging sense of discomfort. She was a part of this, part of the gigantic Space Fleet machine that had sent people to Bliss. Her small, mostly scientific, vessel had never had the occasion to act as an actual prisoner transport, but that was scant comfort. She had sat through the classes like everyone else, had known that a place like Bliss existed, and had been content with that.

She had learnt during those far-off Space Fleet courses that only the worst, most hardened criminals were sent to Bliss but, from her vantage point, she saw children, old people and everything in between cross the busier, sun-drenched street a little further up the laneway. Didn’t the children deserve better? Hadn’t the elderly paid for whatever crime they’d committed?

She had learnt that the majority of beings sent to Bliss were criminally insane, with no chance of rehabilitation, but—with the exception of the level of technology in use—was there any difference between what she was looking at and what occurred every day on every planet in the Republic? There were shops open, tradespeople bartering, transport facilities, even decent accommodation facilities, judging by where she and Toh were staying. Surely such commerce couldn’t have been built by a population comprised only of the criminally insane?

She had learnt that the inhabitants of Bliss understood only the rule of power and brute force, and had to be confined, away from civilisation, in order to maintain peace in the galaxy. And, yes, from tales of B’nen and the crimelords like him, she could believe that was true. But was it necessarily true of all the planet’s inhabitants? Had the crash of the Odyssey so deranged her that she could be deluded into thinking herself attracted to a violent, insane criminal? Or was there more here than what she’d been taught in her sterile classrooms?

She had deliberately put such questions aside but now, with only her thoughts to keep her company while she waited, they demanded answers. Exactly what had Toh, or his parents, done to deserve deportation to such a

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