by Frank Lauria
As Johns shuffled across the corridor, a shaft of blue flame shot through a plexi window. A cutting torch. Someone was trying to open a jammed locker. The window fell away and a small, dark figure crawled out. John realized it was a little girl, no more than ten or twelve years old.
The girl smiled, eyes bright in the dusty gloom. “Something went real wrong, huh?”
Intent on searching for his lost weapon, Johns didn’t answer. He didn’t see the shape coiled snakelike above him. And he never saw the chained feet lowering silently behind him like a two-headed python.
Johns glimpsed the little girl’s eyes rolling upward just before Riddick’s ankle chain grabbed his neck and yanked hard, nearly pulling his head off.
Riddick twisted and squeezed, as Johns scratched vainly at the heavy chain. Feverishly, Johns pawed for his baton and flicked it open. As the weighted blackjack sprang out, Johns swung blindly over and over again. The baton smacked Riddick’s thighs and groin but the goggled killer clung to a ceiling support and rode out the blows, pulling tighter at the metal noose around Johns’ neck. Skull booming, Johns felt himself swimming into blackness. Gathering his strength, Johns grabbed Riddick’s ankles and strained forward. One step, then two . . . and suddenly Riddick’s grip broke, heaving both men forward. Keeping hold of the chained feet, Johns slammed Riddick headfirst to the floor. He dove on top of the stunned killer and jammed his baton into Riddick’s neck.
“One chance and you blew it, Riddick,” he said hoarsely. “You never cease to disappoint me.”
Johns glanced up and saw the little girl watching him, her face oddly blank.
Fry could hear sounds, but the thick, heavy darkness encased her limbs like cement. Unable to move, she strained to see, but the dust stung her eyes. Abruptly a thin beam of light sliced into the cockpit. As the light swept the cabin, Fry saw it was packed with dirt.
The beam started to recede. “Hey!” Fry called out. “Wait!”
The light curled back. “Hey, who?”
“Hey, me. Over here!”
As the light found her, Fry saw she was buried to the gills. She turned her head and saw a red-haired man bending over her. “Owens?”
“Johns,” the man growled. “The name’s Johns.”
“Carolyn Fry. I’d shake hands, but . . .”
The man managed a smile, then began digging her out. He worked gingerly, as if dreading what he’d find inside the mound of heavy black dirt. For the first time it occurred to Fry she might be injured. As her shoulders and chest emerged Fry pulled her arms free and started to help him. She reached out for the nearest hand hold then pulled her fingers back. It was the PURGE handle.
Johns didn’t say a word during the long minutes it took to get her out. He helped her stand, then ran the light up and down her body checking for wounds. Thankfully all she had were a few minor scratches.
“Are there any others, Johns?”
Fry’s question failed to elicit a response. Without a word he turned and started walking. Still unsteady, Fry followed.
A sudden blaze of sunlight blinded her and she stumbled forward. Johns took her arm and guided her through the tangle of dirt and twisted metal, to the Nav Bay. Realizing Owens must be inside somewhere, Fry pushed past Johns and began searching frantically, scratching at the dirt like a terrier.
Her fingers found a headset, then a face. Scooping away the loose dirt Fry saw it was Owens, still strapped in his chair. A metal rod shot up from a jagged hole in his chest, like a steel tree with shiny red roots. His blue eyes stared at her sightlessly.
Dead.
Tenderly, Fry reached out and touched his cheek.
Owens’ mouth opened. “. . . Out, out, out! GET IT OUTTA ME!”
Fry recoiled and slammed into Johns. At the same time two or three dark shapes loomed up around them. “Ohmigod . . .” someone whispered. “Pull it out of him!” another voice croaked. “Pull it out now!”
Dazedly, Fry reached out.
“No, it’s too close to the heart.”
“You gotta do it, just do it fast . . .”
Fry’s fingers brushed the metal rod. Owens swiveled his head.
“Don’t touch it!” he rasped, eyes fixed on hers. “Don’t touch that switch!”
His words shot through her brain, echoing amid the rising jumble around her. Voices and shapes swirled in the dust.
“You’ll kill him, I’m tellin’ you.”
“Shit, just leave him alone.”
“Delirious.”
“Don’t touch that switch!” Owens repeated. Then he began to scream.
“Doncha got some drugs for this poor man?” a voice demanded.
Fry looked up. “All right, all right . . .” She struggled to remember. “Okay, somebody—there’s Anestaphine in the med locker at that end of the cabin . . .” Fry half-turned and saw a glaring strip of sunlight where the cabin used to be.
Writhing in agony, Owens’ shrieks grew more urgent.
“Get away, everybody!” Fry shouted. She looked at Johns. “Get them out of here.”
The shapes melted away, except one. The little girl remained, her features glazed with morbid fascination. Johns appeared and collared her, leaving Fry alone.
Standing in the shadows, his wrists cuffed to a bulkead, Riddick watched Johns intently. His eyes, still hidden by goggles, tracked Johns and the little girl as they moved toward daylight. Then he turned back to Fry.
Still screaming, Owens’s eyes were squeezed shut, so he never saw Fry grab the rod and push it into his heart.
A sudden silence fell over the carnage. Numbly, Fry cradled Owens in her arms.
The other survivors straggled outside, their hair and skin matted with dust.
Zeke and Shazza looked at the forbidding desert terrain, then at each other. They had plied their trade in enough alien wastelands to know they were in deep trouble. All around them was a stark, unforgiving landscape composed of rocks and black sand. The ship had crash-landed in a valley, and the barren floor was relieved only by low hills on one side spiked with sharp earthen spires. Scorching down on everything were two suns—one red, one yellow.
Shazza, the female of the pair, had thick black hair, clear green eyes, and carried herself with a certain savage sexiness befitting a professional space hunter. Zeke, her partner in life, was dark-skinned and powerfully built. His rugged features hinted at aboriginal blood. Zeke and Shazza were registered “bushwhackers,” as they were called by the space colonists. Hunters mainly, who took trophies, guided tourists, and occasionally cleared mining areas of hostile beasts. Once in a while they took other assignments for the Company. But nobody actually knew what they did on those assignments. Rumors persisted that the pair were mercenary killers. Whatever they did, they were good at it.
Paris came up to join them. “Well. Our own little slice of heaven,” he wheezed, short of breath from the effort. Zeke and Shazza looked at him without interest. Paris was a puff pastry of a man; overfed, overgroomed, and overimpressed with himself.
Behind them, the screams inside the ship rose higher.
“Shouldn’t we be looking for the others?” Paris asked nervously, glancing at the others. “Send out a search party or something?”
Johns stared at the desert floor. “I think we found them. Unless maybe some of you boys want to go digging.”
The four males standing a few feet away didn’t answer. Their head scarves and the religious icons around their necks identified them as Muslims. They were pilgrims on a sacred journey to New Mecca. Three of the pilgrims were young and high-strung. However their leader, Imam, a bearded man in his forties, exuded a quiet, pillar-steady strength.
Abruptly the screaming stopped.
The three young Muslims fell to their knees, as if to pray. There was a flurry of confusion as they tried to orient themselves. Imam separated himself from the group and approached Johns and the others.
“Please,” Imam said calmly, “which way to New Mecca? We must know the d
irection in order to pray.”
Johns squinted at the burning sky and shrugged. He snapped open his wrist compass and checked the readout. The needle was swaying rudderlessly, and the digital display was blank. Zeke and Shazza glanced at each other.
Imam moved back to his pilgrims. He whispered something and they began to rearrange themselves. Shazza saw what he was doing and nudged Zeke who reacted with an admiring grunt.
Imam had devised a way for his pilgrims to pray. Backs together, each man faced a different compass point.
Leaving the ship, Fry passed by Riddick’s chained form. That metal bit in his mouth must hurt like hell, she thought. What is he anyway, a cannibal?
As Fry stepped into the glaring brightness, she saw the survivors gathered on the damaged hull. The pilgrims were circled on the ground, bent in prayer. She moved closer to Johns. “Any others around?”
Johns scowled. “Big talk of a scouting party,” he muttered, glancing derisively at Paris. “Until we saw that out there.”
Following his eyes Fry spotted the deep, smoldering gash in the ground behind the ship. Whatever was left of the cryolockers was buried in the scorched, smoking grave. There were no other survivors.
“Anyone else having breathing problems?” Paris spoke up. “Aside from me?”
The little girl nodded. “Like I just ran or something.”
“One lung short,” Shazza said, patting the little girl’s head. “All of us.”
“Well, I tend toward the asthmatic,” Paris announced as if the news were of vital interest. “And with all this dust . . .” He looked at Fry expectantly.
Fry was aware that other faces had turned to her. They were looking for answers.
“It’s the atmosphere,” Fry said slowly, although that part was obvious. “Too much pressure, not enough oxygen. Might take a few days to . . .”
Zeke stepped up. “So what the bloody hell happened, anyways?” he growled.
“Something knocked us off-lane,” Fry told him. “Maybe a rogue comet. Maybe we’ll never know.”
Shazza glared at Zeke. “Well, I for one, am thoroughly fucking grateful!” she said emphatically. “This beast wasn’t made to land like this. But cripes”—she gave Fry a quick grin—“you rode it down.” She turned to the others. “C’mon, you lousy ingrates, only reason we’re alive is cuzza her.”
The others chimed agreement, moving closer to lay their hands on Fry’s shoulders. In the midst of their gratitude, Fry felt a sickening pool of guilt spreading through her belly. At that instant she hated herself.
“Okay,” Fry said curtly. “Let’s break out the pressure suits.” She led them back inside to the emergency locker. There were a dozen suits hanging from a metal rod. Like the rod that skewered Owens, Fry thought. Struggling to erase the image, she began pulling the suits out of the locker and passing them around. “Liquid oxygen canisters are inside,” Fry instructed. “Start ripping them out. When you breathe, quick hits only—try to make it last.”
The little girl regarded her gravely. “Well, is someone coming for us?” she demanded. “Or are we all gonna die of exposure? Or dehydration, or sunstroke, or maybe even something worse? Hey, you don’t have to worry about scaring me.”
Shazza gently ushered her away. “We’re worried you’ll scare us,” she confided. “Your name’s Audrey, right, love? And you’re goin’ to Taurus Three like us?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Audrey’s face took on an impish glint, “. . . do we even have enough food to get there? Or will we have to resort to cannibalism?”
Shazza smiled. “That’s quite a vivid imagination you got there, love. Are you travelin’ with your mum and dad, then?”
“I ran away,” Audrey said proudly. “I’m practically a stowaway. My folks are still back on Scorpio One.”
Gutsy little brat, Shazza conceded. Might make a bushwhacker someday.
“Cap’n Fry.”
Startled to hear her name Fry looked up. Zeke had a canister in one hand and a knife in the other. “I’ll see ’bout makin’ this air go a bit further, Cap’n. With your permission a’course.”
Fry blinked. They actually think I’m the captain. “Go ahead,” she told him. Then she found herself staring at another problem. Riddick.
She turned to Johns. “And him?”
“Big Evil? My prisoner—highest priority.” He flashed his holobadge.
“We just keep him locked up forever?”
Johns moved to her side. “Be my choice. Already escaped once from the max-slam facility on—”
“I don’t need his life story. Is he really that dangerous?”
Johns shrugged. “Only around humans.”
Fry glanced at the manacled figure in the bulkhead. He was half-turned so she couldn’t see what he was doing at first. Then he shifted his head.
Riddick had his cheek and mouth pressed against the bulkhead wall, virtually licking the metal, despite the bit between his lips. Fry moved closer and saw something shiny sheeting down the wall. Then it hit her. They were losing water!
“Oh Christ . . .” Suddenly Fry was running. She snatched up an emergency lamp and started climbing the wall rungs leading to the life-support compartments. Luckily the access hatch was operative. Fry pressed her palm on the ID pad and the hatch slid open. She crawled through the dusty pipes and girders of the superstructure until she reached the water cistern. Behind her someone was clambering up the wall rungs.
Breath heaving from the effort, Fry yanked open a crank-hatch. A bright flare of sunlight illuminated the interior. Numbly, Fry slumped against the wall.
“Well?” Zeke called out, crawling toward her. “Is it just the pump?”
He paused when he saw her face.
“Ask if anyone has anything in cargo,” she said woodenly. “Anything to drink.”
Riddick could hear Fry organizing the survivors, but his attention was focused somewhere else. Even his pain—his cramped arms, his ripped, bleeding gums—was secondary. His consciousness was consumed with a single imperative.
The abandoned cutting torch lying a few feet away.
With his hands cuffed behind him, around a bulkhead, a few feet might as well have been a light-year, unless . . . Riddick twisted his torso and examined the bulkhead. A section, just above his head, had been fractured in the crash. There was a slim separation in the metal where a chain could slip through. All he had to do was get the cuffs over his head—behind his back.
For a long moment he visualized the task ahead. Then he stood and took another few moments to lean forward and stretch his stiff, aching arms. Suddenly he glimpsed a familiar foot cross the sunlight at the end of the corridor. Johns. Fry had left the bounty hunter to stand guard while the others checked cargo. Riddick crouched down and remained motionless, his eyes fixed on the cutting torch.
Riddick knew how to lay low. When he was an elite Company Ranger assigned to Sigma Galaxy, he had learned to remain perfectly still to stay alive. The native life-form on Sigma 3, a large slimy creature his fellow Rangers called Spitfire, had motion sensors instead of eyes. Spitfires lived in the dark tunnels that composed much of Sigma 3’s grim terrain. They liked to hunt the humans who invaded their habitat with heavy drills and ravenous greed . . . The human drones so eager to consume Sigma 3’s mineral resources and move on—like a pestilence.
At first the Spitfires had it all their way. If one man or thirty were working a tunnel anywhere near a Spitfire’s nest, they’d be dead meat. Barbecued meat, Riddick noted without humor. The huge, fanged reptile would spray victims with a particularly nasty acid that seared flesh from bone on contact. The only way to avoid being barbecued alive was to remain totally still, to defeat their motion sensors.
Riddick’s rookie job as a Company Ranger was what they called a sweeper. He and two others would clear Spitfires from tunnels that were about to be mined. Their MO was simply to make some noise and scuffle around so as to attract the alien predator. They would throw dice to see who would be the dec
oy.
While the loser shuffled around the tunnel the other two found shelter and waited. The decoy had to keep his position out in the open until a Spitfire crawled into view, fangs extended to spew its acid venom. Then the decoy remained rock quiet.
If a Spitfire couldn’t locate an intruder within a minute its fangs would retract. At that moment it was helpless. The hidden sweepers would “dust” the creature with poison gas that killed it instantly.
More than once Riddick had been badly burned by stray drops of venom.
Then he learned how to cheat at dice.
It didn’t take him much longer to learn the Company was running a crooked game everywhere it operated. Riddick was promoted to the prestigious Strikeforce Academy on Sigma 3’s moon, where he learned all there was to know about killing. Then the Company turned him loose to enforce security on Sigma 3.
Which was a polite term for slavery. When the murder and torture became too much for Riddick to stomach, he blew the whistle. But instead of reforming the system, Riddick was branded a criminal. The evidence he’d gathered disappeared and he was put in Deep Storage. However, Riddick had been well trained. Before the third year was out, Riddick was out. He overpowered a guard, took his uniform, and slipped free. Once outside he shot two guards and a pilot, and took off with the prison planet’s only space freighter. The Company promptly put a million-credit contract on his head.
He became a cosmic outcast pursued by every bounty hunter and bushwhacker in the space lanes. And each assassin Riddick eliminated was added to his list of “serial killings.”
Johns had been smarter. He blasted two children to get Riddick’s attention, then threatened to execute two more unless Riddick surrendered. There was much Johns would answer for, Riddick mused. And the bastard’s time was at hand.
When he felt certain Johns had left, Riddick stood. He moved his shoulders back and forth experimentally. Then he began lifting his arms behind his back, running the chain along the bulkhead. When his wrists were neck-high, Riddick dislocated both his shoulders.
Through the flash of incredible agony Riddick heard a gruesome popping, as his bones tore from their sockets. He wrenched his cuffed wrists above his head, yanked the chain through the narrow fracture, and brought his hands down in front of him.