Author's Note: I do not own Riddick sigh and I promise to return him in the same condition I borrowed him in. I did not create Slam, merely this interpretation of it. I did not have any hand in the creation of Pitch Black. I did however create Spook, and the other characters not seen in Pitch Black.
It was a maelstrom of flashing metal and spraying crimson.
The door slammed against the wall, Riddick's broad shoulders filling the gap of the frame for only a split second, a snarl splitting his feral face, his cold eyes showing fierce anticipation, the shiv gleaming, shining, in the bright halogen light.
In only a few strides he had leapt among the three at the table, three who were dropping cards with shouts of alarm, reaching for gauges, eyes wide with surprised, frenzied distress.
The huge tawny hand closed around the neck of the first, pulling the man close to the killer's snarling face, pulling him onto the wicked blade, pulling him into death's embrace. A choked cough, mingled with a small cry brought up blood and air, a small spray of it spattering the already blooded face. His only response was to force the shiv upward, still snarling, a slight hint of a pleased gleam showing in the deep silvered pools, letting a little more light out of the shadowed face.
A shot rang out, the stench of ozone, the ring as the shot went wild, striking metal. The guage fell from the deadening fingers.
The guard spasmed, then went limp.
The snarl vanished, ice descending over the face of stone as he dropped the first guard, a wet, squelching, sucking sound as he casually pulled the shiv from the man's ribs.
Twin barrels of two gauges stared him steadily in the face, the men behind them sweated but steady. One began to back away, still training the guage, backing towards a panel on the wall.
Again the lip lifted, quivering, baring gleaming teeth.
The hand shifted on the shiv.
And he lashed his hand, sending the shiv in a hissing arc to burry itself deep into the chest of the backing guard even as the inmate struck the ground, the shot ringing out over his back.
Without pause he bulled forward, fingers pushing with booted feet against the floor, his shoulder striking soft tissue and muscle beneath the sternum, his back forcing the guage up, pushing the barrel away. Riddick could hear the grate of his clenched teeth as he pressed, pounded forward, the guard skidding in resistance attempts, fumbling to bring the guage into a position where it could effectively be used against the behemoth of muscle and bloodthirsty balefire.
Muscle screamed out and bone gave with a sickening crack when the wall met them with equal force to the driving charge.
The guage roared again.
Growls accented the impact of solid fists against flesh; blows struck hard as stones, flesh yielding, ribs cracking, breaking, with stomach-turning, appalling wet cracking sounds.
And still the hard fists descended onto the guard, raining in a hail of increasingly sodden red mist.
All around him, Riddick could smell that metallic tang, feel it settle onto him like the gentle touch of a familiar friend, see it dripping from his hands, from his face. He tasted it on his breath, the taste of life being drawn in with each breath as surely as the trampled mass beneath him breathed it out, slowly, painfully, with each ragged breath.
An explosive snort, like a stallion pleased with its ability, accompanied the popping as his titan frame straightened.
A gasp, quiet, barely more than a sigh, brought him wheeling, crouching instinctively, his hand reaching out to wrench the shiv from the nearby corpse where it awaited his hand.
Spook stood face to face with the young guard, one of her pale hands resting on his chest, her frame close to his.
Her other arm was around his ribs, and she was gently lowering him to the floor, murmuring something Riddick couldn't work out. There was a look of shock on her face, and she looked more pale than usual. The young guard was mouthing something at her.
Her eyes met the stony stare of Riddick with a look of petrified fear, and she froze, crouched over the young man who was still franticly trying to say something to her.
Riddick's boots struck the floor dully as he approached them, watching Spook cringe away from him, her muscles shaking more with each step that brought him closer to her.
He towered over her, his eyes still boring into hers. His muscles were knotted. Blood dripped off his hands, off the shiv held tightly in his hand.
She simply froze, staring up at him, cowering, quailed beneath his viscous stare.
Still the guard tried to speak.
Riddick's frozen eyes moved slowly from the girl to the guard.
He lay on his back, his eyes wider with terror, mouth moving without sound. A small hint of red colored his lips, but there was a staining at his throat.
Where the hilt of her shiv stood silent testimony to actions unseen, the long blade bloodied to the finger guard.
She followed his stare, blanched at the sight of her blade sheathed in the throat, the pooling fluid beneath his head.
Riddick bent to take the knife, his other hand reaching to the girl, taking them both up with equal ease.
He carefully wiped her blade on his leg, slipped it back into its place at her thigh. His fingers then touched her face, took a hold of her chin, brought her face close to his.
"Don't think of it as murder, rabbit. Think of it as survival."
Still with his arm around her, he turned, shifted his focus to the hangar.
The shuttles hung from an overhead rail, a track that ran from one end of the bay to the other, and presumably partway up the launching shaft. The wings were folded over the tops, like the wings of the giant beetles they looked like, resting dormant from the rail. The fronts were domed over the flat belly, the windows of the front looking like dulled eyes. The back hatches were closed.
At the end of the bay, there were large blast doors, thick enough to withstand the depressurization as well as the engine blasts from the shuttles. The last in a line of six shuttles nosed up to those doors.
And it was to that one that Riddick half-led, half dragged her.
The keypad at the back hatch was simple, and the code Spook mumbled opened it.
The controls were just as easily manipulated beneath Riddick's hands.
The blast doors opened.
The shuttle eased along the rail.
The doors closed behind it, and there was a rush of depressurization around the metal carapace, then the roar of engines.
The little shuttle fled the System Lambda Asteroid Maximum Penitentiary.