Notes: Sorry it takes me awhile, everyone…end of the semester stuff! I'm thinking of adding a Riddick POV, what do you think?
Chapter 6
As they walked towards the hole where Zeke had disappeared, Johns tried to convince Carolyn that Riddick had killed Zeke and buried him in the hills, while Carolyn remained convinced that something else had killed him. Alex didn't know why, but she, too, was more willing to believe Riddick's story that something else, something deeper in the hole, had killed Zeke. And if that was the case, they could have a lot more problems than one escaped convict.
The stare Riddick had given her was intense. She kept coming back to it. Those eyes and that voice. Definitely someone who was used to intimidating. Alex knew that he'd bear watching.
As Jack blurted out that she would go down the hole, and Carolyn said only she would go, Alex, who had been walking behind Jack, put her hand on Jack's shoulder and walked to catch up with Carolyn. Shooting Johns a look telling him to back off, she spoke to Carolyn in a low voice.
"You know, Zeke wasn't out there very long. Whatever killed him, and I don't think it's our chained friend back there, either, acted damn quick."
Carolyn looked at her, as if she was giving Alex some credibility for the first time. "He tried to shoot it, too. We all heard the gunshots. Still got him."
Alex nodded. "Just…be careful. None of us know what the fuck is in there. I could go with you, watch your back."
Carolyn seemed poised to refuse, then reconsidered. "I would, but…no. The answer's no. There isn't enough rope, and if it's tight down there, I'll be better off alone. I'm responsible…"she trailed off, a distant sort of look in her eyes, as if she were remembering something.
"Okay," Alex said. They had reached the blood-smeared gravesite.
Carolyn, Imam, and Alex jumped into the hole. With Imam holding the other end of the rope, Carolyn crouched down and slowly made her way into the hole. As she went in, no one said anything. The hole seemed to go pretty deep, as Carolyn descended for a long time.
"This is fucking stupid. There's no body in there, Riddick stashed it somewhere," Johns mumbled, as if to ease the tension they all felt. Shazza seemed to agree with him, but then again Shazza was still barely functioning after Zeke's death. Alex didn't know what their history was, but it seemed that those two definitely a "couple" of some sort. Poor Shazza.
Unbidden, the face of the man she loved came to her. A face she swore she'd never remember, swore that she burned out of her mind. The eyes, the contours of his face. He hadn't died of old age while she was gone, but rather, from a hit-and-run car accident. It was somehow more raw, the taking of a life so young, instead of the end of his years. That was part of the reason she had agreed to be in the experiment. She needed an escape, to get away from her grief. For that long year of preparation, she had seen that face in her dreams. Then, one day she had decided the only way to relieve the sadness she felt was to burn it away. That, and not after, was how she had discovered the flame. To feed it all into the flame.
Though she only remembered the face for less than a second, when she saw Shazza's blank stare, she felt the emotional-physical response of her body that meant she was hovering around the edge. To mask it, she crouched down as if to look into the hole herself, and allowed herself to clench the one hand the others couldn't see into a fist while she went through her mental exercise. It was harder, now. All she wanted to do was leave, get away from these others, turn the grief into anger and then into the cold steel. Her hand, instead, went to the sword hilt and held it for a moment imagining herself doing the forms. Then, without having betrayed any emotion to the others, she straightened. Though she wasn't about to let them in past the walls, she felt a kinship to them, the "lost at sea" syndrome she suspected. That since they were in the same situation together, they had to band together for survival.
As she looked around at the others again, her attention focused on Jack. The girl did a very convincing job of being a boy. Alex supposed it might be to keep attention off of her, for there were some seedy characters that would take advantage of any female, even a child. Alex noted with a small amusement that Jack had somehow attached the knife to her belt, so it would be at hand.
Suddenly Imam let out a startled grunt, and said, "The rope, it's tighter. She's pulling on it more and I can't give her much more of it. Terribly tight…" He seemed, somehow, alarmed. Alex was, too. Carolyn knew how much rope there was and wouldn't ask for more unless she really needed it.
Alex bent down near the hole and shouted, "Carolyn! What's going on?!" No answer. Alex looked at Imam, surprising herself by being worried. Johns jumped into the hole, also.
"It's…getting stronger," said Imam, now struggling to maintain his hold on the rope. He looked at Alex, "She could not have this much strength. It is not possible." Alex, alarmed, went to help Imam with the rope. Then, there came Carolyn's voice from inside the hole, but very far away. Imam bent down closer to listen, but neither he nor anyone else could make out what it was. "Thought I heard something," he said.
Jack, however, straightened from the crouch she was in, her head cocked as if she was listening to something. She started walking away from the hole, towards the large chimney structures. As the tension on the rope got stronger and stronger, Johns grabbed onto the rope to help Imam. Alex clambered out, and asked Jack, "What, what is it?"
"I hear her! I hear Fry!" shouted Jack. Now Alex could hear it too. It was coming from the chimneys. It was Carolyn, screaming that she was inside. Inside? The chimneys! They must be hollow, and connected to the hole. And the sounds that Carolyn was making were desperate. Alex hesitated for a second. Did she help them out? Was there much that she could do for Carolyn? But then she thought of how Carolyn was brave enough to go down there by herself, to take the responsibility. She was the captain of their little group, and she was deserving of respect and help that Alex could give her. Alex, who wasn't all that altruistic anymore, could at least recognize it in others, and respect that. Yes, Carolyn deserved her help.
"Imam, let the rope go! She's inside these!" Alex shouted, running closer to Jack, who was trying to locate the sound. After another second, Carolyn screamed again, and this time it came from the chimney closest to them on the left. She sounded scared.
"Shazza! Your pick! Quickly now, she's inside! Let go, Imam!" Alex shouted to the others. They all came running over and Shazza knocked a hole in the side of the chimney. Imam and Jack reached their hands inside, trying to get to Carolyn. As Imam was able to grab her hand and pull her out, Johns grabbed her other hand.
Carolyn's head emerged, and Johns, angry, asked her, "What were you god damned thinking!?!"
"I heard you, Fry, I heard you first!" said Jack, trying to help out, too. Imam and Johns brought Carolyn about fifteen feet away from the chimney, the rope still attached. All of them tried to find out from her what had happened, and what was down there.
"FUCK!" Carolyn shouted, breathing heavily. "That was so fucking stupid. I don't know…what the fuck is in there, but whatever it is it got Zeke and it nearly got ME!"
But as she shouted me, the rope had been pulled by something, violently pulling Carolyn back towards the hole. She was able to grab onto the sides of the hole, with her body half in, screaming "Get it off me! Get it off me!" Imam and Johns turned her around to face the hole so more of the rope was exposed, and then Alex, next to Johns, wasn't close enough but she quickly produced one of her arm knives and offered it to Johns, who stared at her for less than a second, then took the knife and cut the rope, which quickly disappeared into the hole. Johns then glanced at the knife, and gave it back to Alex, hilt first, in five seconds.
Carolyn, released from the tension on the rope, had fallen on her knees. "Shit. Shit!" she gasped, still trying to get her breath controlled. Alex could see that Carolyn wasn't going to be able to get up herself, so she put out her hand to help her up. Carolyn took it, and with a great deal of pulling on Alex's part, Carolyn got to her feet, still shaking. She started walking away from the chimney area, back to the ship.
Alex came up alongside her.
"What the fuck was down there?" Alex asked Carolyn.
"I don't know," she answered, breathing heavily. Probably more from shock than exertion. "It was dark down there, and all I could hear were these screeching, or howling noises. Fuck. It could have killed me. I don't even know how many there were. So stupid…I was so fucking stupid."
"Do you…do you think that they'll come up, come up here?" A small voice asked behind Alex. Jack had run up to join them, looking shaken herself.
"I don't know," Carolyn said again. "But I think…that they stayed out of the light. Maybe if it's light up here, they won't come up here." Alex thought Carolyn sounded a bit unsure, but a bit more reassuring than she actually felt. If something was strong enough to pull the rope that hard, and to be intelligent enough to know that Carolyn was on the end of it, then damn, they were facing more problems than no water on this godforsaken rock.
They had reached the ship, and everyone was again gathered in a group, heads down, each pondering what they had found out. They were not alone. Johns stepped forward. "Look, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that what was down there is more dangerous than anything we ever considered. I think that we need to be on our guard all the time, and I think…I think that we should let Riddick be free."
At this, Shazza and Paris looked up and started shouting at Johns, who put up a hand, and shouted above them, "Just let me finish! Let me finish." They quieted down. "Look, Riddick's a killer, and I've got the gun and training here, but I'm gonna place bets that none of you others have had real combat experience"
Alex bridled at this, but then again, he did have a point. Apart from the street toughs on the planet, she hadn't been in anything but hard-core sparring.
"You're right," Paris said. "So what do you suggest to prevent our friend there from killing the rest of us, and what are we going to do in the meantime?"
Carolyn, then, had her turn. "We didn't tell you yet, but we found a deserted settlement. First-landing geologists, from the look of it. We also found an emergency skiff."
With those words, those of them who hadn't known suddenly had a look of relief on their faces. Alex certainly felt some long-forgotten happiness color her face. Up until now she'd been living by the moment, but the thought of a ship brought back to her the possibility that they would be stranded on this planet with its unknown fauna. And it dashed that possibility to pieces. A ship, as long as they had a pilot for it, would get them the hell out of here. As she looked around, Alex saw the same sort of expression on the rest of their faces, giving them momentary relief from the horror of what they had discovered a few minutes earlier.
"Right now, it's grounded, and it doesn't have any power," Carolyn added. "But I think we can use some of the power cells from the crash. We won't need them here, anyways. So. We have a way out. But we need to be on our guard from these…things. Whatever they are."
"Back to Riddick," Johns said, quietly. "If we make a deal with him, he'll stay bought, more or less. That's his one flaw. If we say, for example, that we'll let him go his own way after we get out of here, say he died in the crash, then he might just be willing to help us. Or at least not kill the rest of ya. I've got the gun. He can do what I say."
Shazza, remembering Zeke, spoke up. "But you don't," and stopped as Johns put a finger to his lips, indicating the section of the ship where Riddick was bound, probably listening to our every word. She continued, almost whispering, "you don't mean to keep him free, do you?"
"He's a killer, and it's my job to bring him to justice," Johns said. "That's all you need to know," and he left it at that, insinuating a double cross. Alex didn't think that was particularly fair, if the man was going to stay bought they should keep up the end of the bargain. However, she wisely kept her mouth shut, as the majority of the people around her seemed to think it a good idea. She'd just have to watch her back when the time came that Riddick found out about it.
Imam spoke up, having said nothing the entire time. "If you think that this will keep the rest of us safe, then so be it. We must all work together to get ourselves off of this planet and back to New Mecca."
Carolyn looked around at the group, sighing. "So we're agreed then?" As everyone else nodded, the group consensus was to go with it. Alex felt her heart beat a little faster, as now the man in chains would be released, and that danger she had felt emanating from him earlier could be unleashed on the rest of them. If he stuck to his deals, though…she trailed off. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad.
"I'll go talk to him," Johns said, going into the ship's hull. After a few minutes, a gunshot rang out, startling the group who had been standing in silence around the crash. Jack started to go inside, but Carolyn held her back. "Don't," she said, "Just not yet."
Five minutes passed. Ten. Johns emerged from the ship, and at the look on everyone's expectant faces, nodded.
"Is he in there?" Jack said.
"Yeah. He'll do it." Johns answered.
"Okay," Carolyn said. "Everyone get only what they need from the ship, and meet back here." She then gave individual orders to get a power cell, oxygen canisters, and other things. Alex decided it was now or
never to get the remainder of her things from her case, and made her way into the section of the ship where it was.
As she turned the corner to retrieve the rest of her essentials from her case, Alex stopped dead in her tracks, nostrils flared. Riddick was at her cryotube, with her case out in front of him, attempting to pry it open. Shit, she thought. Shiiiiiiit. She had stopped far enough away so that he hadn't heard her. At least she was pretty sure he hadn't heard her, as he hadn't made much of a motion indicating he had. Which really, could mean anything. That, however, was HER property and she'd be damned if she'd let Riddick have it. Which meant facing him down. She crept soundlessly down towards it, and just as silently drew the sword from the sheath. Holding it in front of her, crouching, she got closer and closer to Riddick, who curiously enough had begun to take apart the thumbprint identification hardware to hardwire it. That was going a little too far. She was close enough now. Five feet away, directly behind him. Riddick was bent over the case. She leveled the sword in offensive position. She fed any fear she had into the flame.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's not polite to take other people's things?" she spoke, coolly. Hah! He stiffened into a fighter's crouch without turning around. The stance of someone prepared to leap at her, instantly. She noticed the curving metal knife in his hand, ready to strike at her. He apparently hadn't heard her coming. After a split second, he turned his head only, and his eyes, shining slightly in the dusky light of the hull saw her. Something behind those eyes changed as he stared at her, mentally cataloging Alex's voice. Then he visibly relaxed, confident again, and raised his eyebrows. He ignored the three feet of gleaming steel that lay leveled at his neck.
"Oh, is this yours?" Riddick asked, in an arrogant and sarcastic tone.
Damn him! He wanted to play cute with her, did he? Alex may have been afraid, but once she had her sword drawn and emotions repressed, she was the confident one. And his arrogance made her angry. If he had thought she was any sort of dangerous, he should have known to stay away from her private stash. Her eyes seemed to freeze into chips of green ice, so cold was her stare at Riddick. Remember to put him off guard, she told herself.
Her lips curved into a smile but her eyes couldn't be farther from humor. "You appear to have missed the point," with that, did she notice those shined eyes moving slightly to the sword's tip? "That," and the sword moved slightly towards the case and back, without Alex's eyes moving from Riddick's, "is mine." She placed all her emphasis on the last word, still staring at him. She heard the swordmaster's voice in her head, from long ago, to lose eye contact with your opponent is to lose any advantage you have. Watch for movement in the shoulders. Though it was her first contact with a dangerous opponent who could very well kill her, Alex's fear of him was in the flame, behind the wall.
Again, Riddick spoke in that mocking tone of voice. "There's no need for violence, is there?" Now he was sarcastic. "Besides, we're all friends now, aren't we?" He spoke with laughter in his voice. He still didn't consider her a threat, just weak, like the others.
Alex's smile this time made her seem a naive, innocent schoolgirl, which would have been complete were it not for her eyes. Her eyes betrayed her anger, all she had was anger, that one more male wouldn't give her any credit. "Well this one doesn't play well with others," she said. Then her entire face hardened, giving way to that anger. "Now, leave," she spat.
Riddick's face lost its joking demeanor and became that of one who uses ruthless violence to get his way. He wasn't used to being talked to like that. "And why should I do that?" he growled.
In response to his change in attitude, the fear welled up and almost pushed through. Alex before the freeze would have never been capable of facing down a known killer. Even after, she couldn't ignore the raw power emanating from this man. Though she was strong from her training, Riddick could probably lift all of her 140 pounds and toss her through the air, easy. In kilos, said a voice in her mind. It's kilos now. She somehow managed to quell any emotion. What could she say to him?
"Because if you fuck with the thumbprint, then you have to do a voice ID. If you fuck with that, it releases a poisonous gas. Like I said. Mine. And since we're all 'friends' now", here she used the same laughing inflection that her voice that he had a minute earlier, "that just wouldn't be nice."
The tension, which before you could almost see in the air, lessened. Riddick laughed, amused. Alex could not figure out why. This man was so hard to read. He relaxed, and stepped away from the case and away from her sword.
"Now that's an expensive little toy," he rumbled.
"Oh, I've paid for it. Very expensive," she answered, not willing to tell him what exactly the price had been. Her life.
Riddick began to walk away. Waiting until he was what she considered a safe distance away, Alex sheathed her sword. Riddick heard it, and turned around.
"You sure that's the smartest idea, little girl?" He was still amused. Not threatening. Alex couldn't stand it when men didn't think she was a threat. Or smart.
Alex smiled girlishly, and with a barely discernible flick of her wrist, brought the knife into her hand. A neat little trick that she spent weeks perfecting. He hadn't seen it. She then brought the hand with the knife up and moved the knife as if she was scolding him. "Tsk, tsk, this one is no little girl."
She saw the confident demeanor slip for just a second, and then he laughed again. "I believe that," he said, and walked out of the hold.
Alex felt her nervous energy rush out of her, and leaned against a support beam, shaking.