II. A Rescue
Jack hadn't meant to fall asleep, but her anger with the whole situation had stilled her remaining fear, letting exhaustion creep in. Like one of those nightmarish flying teeth, sleep was stalking the darkness of her mind.
It seized her as soon as she closed her eyes.
The blue sun beat mercilessly down on Jack's shoulders. The grainy earth under her feet was a flat but blinding white, broken here and there by mottled gray, smoking carcasses. Blue ichor sizzled under the glare of the suns. She gagged on the stench carried on the gritty breeze.
The rifle she held was not much different than the one Johns had carried, though heavier than she would have expected. It felt good in her hands. She hefted it appreciatively, gazing out with satisfaction at the carnage strewn over the unforgiving plain.
The wind shifted.
She wasn't sure she heard it at first. Cocking her head, she strained past the crunching of her boots on the sand. There! A voice. Someone was crying--someone...
"Fry!" She took off sprinting toward the helpless wails. The crying abruptly stopped, but Jack kept running. "I hear you, Fry! Where are you?" In a near panic, she fell with a yelp headlong over one of the carcasses.
Sitting up, Jack cursed in disgust; her hands were covered with the ichor that had pooled under the beast. She rubbed them on her pants, but the stuff didn't come off. She tried again, wiping them on her pants, on her shirt, even scrubbing them with sand, frantically trying to clean them. But the sticky blue gore remained.
The corpse she'd fallen over began to twitch.
Sand flew as she scrambled backward, whimpering. The thing curled in on itself, clutching at its gaping wounds. Its mouth opened, razor teeth gnashing on empty air as it wept. It was Fry's voice again, Fry's pleading sobs spilling from the monstrous carcass.
Groping in a frenzy, Jack's hands finally found the dropped rifle. It shook as she got up and took aim at the unnatural horror convulsing at her feet. Her finger curled over the trigger as Jack clutched the weapon, slippery in her bloody hands--clutching tighter and tighter as the impossible creature rose onto its tail. Dead flesh hung in strips.
The hammer head bared its teeth. Its breath smelled of old blood, decay, and hopelessness. "Jack." It was Riddick's voice.
She screamed at it and fired.
Riddick wasn't surprised when Jack began shuddering and whimpering in her sleep. He glanced back at the pair of silent silhouettes behind him. Imam's shadow made a curt gesture from Riddick to Jack, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. With a sigh and a shrug, Riddick leaned over and said Jack's name.
She screamed.
"Hey! Jack!" Riddick snapped, but it had no effect. "Take it easy!" Jack's eyes rolled open, but she was still thrashing wildly, tears streaking through the grime on her face. He gritted his teeth against her terrified moans.
Imam's robe brushed past Riddick's face, smelling of blood and grief--and anger. He heard a slap, followed by a gasp from Jack, and looked up.
It was Imam's robe, but Riddick had forgotten the pet was wearing it. The slave's eyes widened when she turned around to see Riddick staring up from the pilot's seat. Riddick let his gaze wander down the robe hanging loosely on her body. Small, dark rosettes meandered over her form. The way she stood said she knew exactly what she'd been made for.
"Got a name, Spots?"
A pink tongue slipped out to lick a drop of sweat from her lip. Her voice was the barest whisper: "Kat."
He felt a sudden urge to touch her, to see if that fur was real, but no sooner did he move his hand, than she'd sidled away back to the bench where Imam still waited silently. The priest gave Riddick a long, dark stare.
"Shit!" came Jack's shaky voice.
Riddick snapped back around to see Jack running frantic hands over the console, where a light blinked to unsteady life. The radio crackled and squealed.
"This is the Flip Side, calling unidentified ship. Anyone still alive in there?"
Jack hit the radio's respond switch and fumbled for a reply. "Roger, Flip Side, this is... this is... uh..."
"Last Resort," the pet supplied quietly.
"This is the Last Resort, and hell yeah, we're alive," Jack said, grinning.
"Roger, Last Resort. Prepare to be boarded."
Riddick exchanged glances with Jack, but her eyes slipped from his, her grin melting away. "Um. Yeah. I'll get out the 'life insurance'."