III. Colony Spirit

Riddick never asked me my full name. I never told him. Not that it would have mattered—"Jack" is all the name I ever had. And if Imam ever wondered why I was so eager to help out in the Janus underground railroad—well, he never asked, either. But I doubt he would have known it was so personal.

Mom was deemed "too human"—slanted green eyes, a long, graceful neck, but the rest perfectly normal—and turned out of the Den she'd been bred in. That's right. My mom, a pet. And me, half slave. The other half came from some drunken client who didn't use a condom when he picked my mother up, stoned and half-dead from exposure.

I was ten when she ran me out to start making my own living. It's not like I hadn't been taught the tools of the trade. But that kind of life was never for me. I learned early to dress like a boy, and I tried to stay on the right side of the law—the spirit, if not the letter. Cops were the good guys, hookers and dealers were the bad guys.

Except that the last "cop" I met turned out to be one of the bad guys. And I guess mass murderers fall into a gray area for me.

I wanted to make love to Riddick, that first night back aboard his ship. Wanted to, but he wouldn't. Even after we moved to Eclipse, it wasn't really making love. We just sort of fell in with each other. They call it "colony spirit," the way prospectors, even folks who'd never met before, pair up almost instinctively. But it never was all that spirited for us.

Not until the first hive we wiped out—and then, oh boy, he was all over me. Something about the excitement of the kill, I guess. But I wasn't complaining. I'd waited five years for his undivided attention, after all. Hell, I hadn't even known if he'd come back.

I'm not saying he's a good person—he's not, not in any sense of the word. Sure, he thinks he's changed since the crash and all the shit that went down on Eclipse the first time around. But he hasn't, not really. Still dark. Still dangerous, bloodthirsty, and brutal. I know—I've seen him in action.

He's like one of those creatures. Humans came and stole a nest from Janus—it's the fault of the humans those monsters were the way they were. And it's the system that made Riddick what he is now. All those years in the hell of the three suns; all those years in Slam.

From ghoulies and ghosties and multiple murderers, dear Lord preserve us.

I don't know why he came back for me—either time. Guilty conscience? No. If the man had a conscience, it would have spoken out long ago. All I know is, he came back for me, not once, but twice. And then he never left. I still don't know why.

I was the one who left.

I'd been careless and stupid; it was my own damn fault. Nine years of killing off nightmares without a single major injury to either of us? Blind, stupid luck. One more year to go, one last nest to kill off. And then we'd be free. The planet would be ours.

Guess that's what had decided me, the right of Primacy. I never wanted to go back to that planet, but the thought of it being ours, mine and Riddick's... Well, mainly, the thought of Riddick being free. Freedom. That's what did it. What got me. Some things should never be caged.

Nine years down. One more to go. Almost through the worst of it. And I had to go in alone, stepping too close to one of the things, not realizing it wasn't dead yet.

I never had any problem killing those monsters. I enjoyed it as much as Riddick did. Even back in the caves on Janus, I never felt entirely safe with them. "Them." Like creatures from a horror film.

Imam thought my nightmares went away after a while, but they never did. I had nightmares every damn night I lived on Janus—nightmares of those things that had killed almost everyone else from the crash. And when I woke up, there they'd be, all around me. I never told him about it; I think maybe he still had nightmares, too.

So when Riddick and I got back to the planet—we named it Eclipse, ha ha—I had no problem killing off those damn flying teeth.

We had a few close calls at first. Like, we learned real quick not to start digging till after we'd set and blown the charges. Foot-long claws coming up through the sand is not my idea of a good day.

What you have to do is cave in the ground above the nests, chimneys and all, with explosives. Watch the critters that don't get out of the way quick enough have really cool allergic reactions to the sunlight. Then, when all the screaming has died down, you toss in a few flash-bang grenades. Talk about a double-whammy! The sound disorients them, the light hurts them.

Then you've got remote light globes. And energy rifles. And hollow point rounds. And then there's the phosphorous-tipped rounds. Those are my favorite—the beasts burn alive from the inside out.

But sometimes they turn blind and stupid after the first assault. Sometimes they just throw themselves shrieking right out into the triple sunlight. I don't know why it bothers me when they do that.

Just think about it, though! Two measly little humans—okay, one little human and one big, muscly human, but still! Two humans took out a whole planet full of monsters. It was so easy. With no eclipse to protect them, hive by hive fell to us. We felt like hot-damn conquering heroes.

Right up until I fucked up.

See, we were going to take a long vacation after we got our Primacy. I wanted to go to Heinlein City on Mars, visit Disneyland there. Riddick wanted to go skinny dipping in the Marineris Trench. Well, ocean nowadays, but everyone still calls it a trench. We decided that, what the hell, we'd do both. Pretty soon, neither one of us would have to hide any more.

So while we're happily blowing the hell out of the very last nest on the planet, guess what Jack's thinking about? Not Disneyland, I'll tell you that much. I should have kept my mind on my job. Instead, I carelessly stepped over—over, mind you, not around like I should have—some critter's tail.

It was still sizzling. You never go close to one that's still burning—if the skin's bubbling and blistering, the thing's still alive.

I hardly even felt the pain. I didn't even realize I'd fallen over until I looked up and saw Riddick leaning over me. He was yelling something, but I couldn't hear him. What was weird was that I knew I'd been thinking about something important just before. Something I had to tell Riddick, but hadn't yet. I'd been so worried about losing him, but now...

What if I never got to tell him how much I loved him? What if I died, and he never knew?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Riddick stumbled out of the maze of caverns and back under the open sky. Heavy rainclouds hung low in the sky, but he wouldn't have been able to see the stars anyway. The price for seeing in the dark—invisible stars.

They told him Jack's chances looked slim. They told him the next twenty-four hours would mean the difference between life and death—if she could last that long. They told him there was nothing for him to do but wait.

He picked up a rock and threw it across the courtyard. It clattered down on the other side, colliding with a large boulder.

The boulder uncurled itself, showing wicked teeth, and hissed at him.

"Son of a bitch." Riddick bent down and picked up another rock. "You know, you look just like the fucker that hurt Jack." He threw the rock, and the creature gave another rattling hiss, mantling its wings. "Then again, all you eyeless bastards look the same to me."

The beast chittered at Riddick, snapping its dagger-like teeth, its head swaying as it stalked toward him. They circled each other for a long moment, then the creature rose up on its tail, grinned again, and showed its long shooting spines.

That was all the warning it gave before it flew at him. Riddick threw himself on his back, kicking out as the thing landed on him. It somersaulted through the air, wings flailing, and landed with a crunch behind him. Riddick was back on his feet in an instant, but the monster had backed several paces away. One wing hung at a painful angle.

The creature snapped at Riddick. Then it bent its head down, scanning the ground, and plucked up a massive rock in one clawed hand.

"Go ahead, try it. How's a blind freak like you gonna see to throw anyway?"

A stuttered shriek, and Riddick suddenly realized he was exchanging insults with something that was completely aware of what he'd just said. He barely had time to move before he felt a pop in his shoulder as the stone hit with surprising accuracy.

With a roar of mixed pain and rage, Riddick hurled himself at the brute as if to tackle it—but stopped just short of the wicked teeth.

The massive head swayed to the right. Riddick moved with it. A locating shriek set his eardrums ringing. The head swung the other way, and Riddick rolled along with it again. Another rattling shriek and, with a puzzled huff of rotted breath, it turned to look behind itself.

Riddick sprang onto the creature's back, curled his arms around the sensory horns, and locked his hands together behind the mammoth head. It thrashed and bucked, but his grip only tightened. It threw its head back, and the crest slammed into Riddick's chest, but he just grunted. Hot pain lanced through his shoulder, and a spine grazed his leg, but he knew if he let go he'd be finished.

A crack. A tear. The long bone of one sensory horn tore loose with a wet snap, and Riddick dropped from the beast's back and rolled away.

The thing staggered in confused circles, a few membranes still dangling at the side of its head. Mewling and shrieking, it lashed out drunkenly at nothing.

Riddick watched for a while, until it finally collapsed to the ground, one wing still flapping uselessly. Then he stalked over to it and stabbed it through the chest with its own stolen shaft.

He rubbed his bruised shoulder and stretched it tenderly. "Fucker. You still all look the same to me."