Author's Note: As you can all see, I'm trying very hard to make sure everything in this story is consistent with the 'real' world of Riddick. This means that there will be no romance between Riddick and Jack (though there is an undeniable attachment there), or between him and any one else for that matter. Honestly, if you want my opinion, I don't think Riddick's been involved with any one in a long time. His number one priority is his survival, and I think of him as a person who would see involvement as dangerously compromising (even if it was 100 percent physical). I think he does his best to avoid women. Don't get me wrong, sure he's got his 'needs'... but I think he's taught himself to suppress them (or what have you). When you're bidding for your life day to day, every thing else gets put on the back burner.

Chapter Ten


"C'mon," the man ordered belittlingly, "C'mon tough guy. Lets get you down to that clean little cell."

Riddick stalked up to him and pushed his goggles up. The man twitched a little. "Should tell you..." he said, quiet and coy, "I'm not used to taking orders."

"Get used to it."

Riddick smiled slightly, "Probably don't wanna know what happened to the last man who said that."

"Quit shittin' me. Lets get this over with."

"Fine," he growled.

He was double fisted in a flash. A sour shing sounded in the room as the two curved blades pulled past each other in their unsheathing. Riddick kicked the enforcer out into the hall, who slammed solidly against the far wall, but was able to find his footing again in an instant. Immediately, they were surrounded. The guard had been smart enough to bring buddies. Promptly, Riddick numbered them all, one through six. Poor odds... for them.

"Put down your weapons!" Number Two shouted, targeting him in his view finder.

Riddick pirouetted, bringing one blade down across the man's throat and slicing the other across his tender belly. Another ran at him from behind, Three. Riddick dropped down, extending one leg to sweep the assailant off his feet. He plummeted to the linoleum floor, yet escaped being skewered by the goggled man's shiv with a carefully timed roll.

While he was still on his haunches and focused on the somersaulting man, the first, whom he had so forcefully expelled from his suite, rejoined the fray. Riddick launched himself backwards with a twist, barreling into his abdomen. They knocked down guards Four and Five as they flew through the corridor. Riddick flipped to his back, still hugging his quarry around the middle. When he hit the ground he pushed his blades in on both sides of the vertebral column, ripping open that coveted sweet spot.

Pushing his second victim away, he jumped to his feet. Two dead, four more to kill. He vaulted against the wall, pouncing on one of the two he'd knocked over. His left shiv carved a beautifully straight, vertical line from his navel to his nose. The other, guard Four, struggled to his feet and tried to clasp Riddick around the neck with his massive hands.

What Riddick did next, the man decided right before he collapsed for the final time, he shouldn't have been able to do. He did a standing back flip right over his head, just scraping the ceiling. As he tumbled through the air he drug his blades over the man's shoulders and down his back, flanking and filleting his spine. As he fell, Riddick pulled the blaster from his dead grasp and used it to burst open a gaping hole in the dodger's, Number Three's, chest, all the while still maintaining an acceptable grip on both his knives.

That was it, one left. Throwing the spent balster aside, he turned to face Six, his expression heavy. It told the other man he had no qualms about cutting down one more.

The solder was green, young and new on the job, hadn't been there half a year. I told you so, he heard his mother's voice inside his head. "Mother knows best," he whispered out loud, then shirked his gun and turned tail.

There was always one in a pack, the one coward who's blood flashed yellow at the first sign of a skirmish. A small voice in the back of his mind told Riddick to let him go, but he knew that wasn't an option. That dithering rabbit would sound the alarm too soon. He needed time to find Jack and Imam before the crimson lights started flashing and the sirens started screaming. So he took up the chase. Quickly, he replaced his shivs and scooped up the loaded, pre-readied blaster, scampering down the hall with the confidence of a spider who has a fly struggling in his well woven strings.

His mouse darted into a hole the first chance it got. Riddick slid in after him. The space was small and cramped, a control room with rows of computers and servers that kept the whole operation up and running. Number Six thought he could hide here, in the dark. Poor thing, he'd never heard of a surgical shine job before. He'd never seen a no daylight slam, had not idea what kind of animals were bread down there in the underbelly of underbellies. If you weren't a monster before you went there, it wasn't long before you were forced through a metamorphosis. And if such a change didn't take place... you died. It wasn't that the guard had underestimated the con- there was just no way for him to know what he was up against.

Riddick made no noise as he slipped from isle to isle, the weapon poised for accurate discharge. The man was huddled on the floor with his back against the end of one of the massive shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. He was quivering slightly, hugging himself. Get a grip, get a grip, he chanted over and over to himself. With a shaky, sweaty palm he extracted a small side arm from a concealed holster. He kissed it's grip and held it up in front of him, it's barrel pointed at the ceiling, waiting. Cautiously, he peered around the partition down the isle to his left. Something moved at the other end, retracting. Riddick's boot. Get a grip, get a grip. He pulled back, his heart thumping urgently in his ears. Keeping his back pinned to the bulk behind him, he rose to his feet slowly.

Riddick glided back into the isle that had just been scanned by his victim and advanced. Each measured step spelled doom for the shaking newbie.

Maybe he smelled him, or maybe he just lost his head. Either way, The boy split. He rolled into the next isle- away from Riddick, who heard him go and immediately dashed around the corner. After two more steps he fired at a slight angle, forcing the fleeing man's body into a wall of wires, plugs, and blinking mechanisms. The blast not only made a mess of the guard, but also of the machines he'd been launched against. Sparks flew through the air around him, and the sound of something large winding down was clearly audible. On a near by switch board, all of the lights winked out.

Riddick discarded the blaster and reentered the hall. He could see perfectly. All of the lights, left and right for as far as he could see, where out. He could only speculate as too how far the black out extended. In truth, every where had lost lighting capabilities. Every where except for the two hangers, which were hooked up to a separate power grid. And that wasn't all he'd knocked out. The power locks that kept the automatic doors shut were failing through out the main body of the facility. Every where from Kali's private wing to the labs, doors were opening.