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A Matter of Instinct	By : ehiltebe Category: M through R > Pitch Black Views: 2587 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don't own Riddick, Pitch Black, or any of the characters from that universe. All I have is Eileen... And I make no money from this story, either!

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A Matter of Instinct

A Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury Alternate Universe

Chapter Two

Kubla Khan, Bridge

“Ship is secure in Bay Three.” As the statement came over the speakers, Junner Front stalked over to the right-most sensor station. The screen on the back of the technician’s hood showed the bay in question and the emergency vessel they had just picked up.

“Report.” Red dots swiftly overlaid the image.

“Eight heat signatures, adult.” The man operating the station answered promptly. “Some residual as well, four sources. Too many to be burn-off from the engines. Could be juveniles.”

“Find out.” He hated having to babysit these idiots.

Skiff
(Riddick)

I put on th’ rig with th’ swingblades I got from Eileen, then pick up th’ cuttin’ torch an’ light it. Fuck knows why th’ thing is aboard, but I’ve got an idea for foolin’ th’ mercs.

“No offense, but I don’t think that’s gonna cut it against whatever it is that’s comin’ for us.” Kid’s gotten bold with me, but she still keeps her distance from th’ other men. Prob’ly means she’ll eventually get through whatever happened t’ make her run.

“Hold your breath.” Immediately, th’ pretty gal I can’t get enough of pulls down her shades an’ presses ‘em against her face so they seal. Good, she’s thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’.

“Sean, you’re responsible for Fry.” Th’ scientist pulls th’ limp woman ‘gainst ‘is body, covers her mouth an’ nose loosely. Jack starts t’ protest.

“Hold. Your. Breath.” My firm order snaps her mouth shut as I hold th’ flame close t’ th’ skiff’s fire sensor.

Kubla Khan, Bridge

“Running a tighter sweep.” But the blips winked out. “Wait a minute…” The data-cruncher sounded confused as his fingers flew over the keypads under each hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s the sweep. According to what I’m getting, they’re gone.”

“Gone?” Twelve, even eight people didn’t just vanish. Not from a sealed vessel in an unpressurized bay.

“Nothing inside that ship is putting out heat any more. How’s that possible?”

The tall, dark-haired man growled, then turned to face the golden throne, situated where its white-robed occupant could see everything going on at the nerve center of her domain. “Standard greeting party and a medic?” She gave a nod of silent permission.

He inclined his head respectfully to Lady Chillingsworth, then traded challenging stares with her bodyguard, the Asian woman he knew only as Beryl. With a smartly-executed turn, he headed toward the ready room, where the few mercenaries who were kept out of cryosleep had best be waiting. He’d take twenty-five. That should be enough to subdue a dozen crash survivors, especially with one seriously injured.

~*~

The magnetic soles of his boots made a rhythmic clang as he strode down the gravity-free corridor. Heavily-armed men and women followed him, ranged all the way around the cylindrical passage, a technician in a gray skinsuit and a skittish med tech hauling a hover-gurney at the back. Junner was looking forward to the possibility that he might get to pound on the person who had devised and implemented the masking of heat signatures… and then figuring out how to have that idea modified to fit the Kubla Khan.

Bay Three’s internal airlock came into sight, and the two thugs-for-hire who guarded it— a woman with an eye patch and a squinty-eyed man who absently chewed on a cigarette— stood taller at his approach. Good; well-disciplined lackeys lightened his considerable responsibilities.

“Anything?”

“No sir. No one’s been in or out of this bay since I locked it down myself. Zero atmosphere.”

“Pressurize.” The grunt hit a series of buttons, then waited out a series of pinging sounds.

“We’ve got O₂, sir. It’s a bit thin, but breathable. Green for breach.” Junner nodded once, and the slightly convex wall in front of him moved, bringing into sight a short corridor and a platform on the other side.

“Earn your keep.” The two-dozen-and-one mercenaries he’d brought streamed past him, spreading out in the large bay. Junner followed, catching a half-floating bullet dropped by the man who was loading his gun on the tongue of steel extending from the airlock. Then, passing it back, he addressed the entire group. “There is a woman aboard this vessel who is far more valuable alive than what anyone here has ever encountered. Should you damage her, this will be a day you regret for the rest of your life. Do not underestimate the importance of such a thing.” He gave it a moment to sink in. “Begin.”

The man in the skinsuit made a running leap, catching a clamp when he found himself off target. He moved down to the wing of the little piece of junk, then to the fuselage’s stern. He stuck a code-breaker onto the hatch there, and listened carefully as it worked. The technician propelled himself backwards, and Junner smiled in cruel anticipation.

Skiff
(Eileen)

I was damned glad that my shades had a nice, tight seal around the edges. The extinguishing foam pressed against me from all sides, but couldn’t get into my eyes. But my lungs were beginning to demand air.

Suddenly, I was pushed along as the pressure dispersed. Good, someone had opened the can without being sure of the label. I was ready to dish out some whup-ass. Dextra and Sinistra left their sheathes as I kicked my way closer to the surface of the fire-retardant bubble.

“Extinguishing foam?” It was an unfamiliar voice, full of confusion, but not near me. I stuck my face out, as little as I could manage and still get a breath. Someone yelped, and the smell of fresh blood joined the scents in the bay.

“Fall back! Everyone, fall back!” So the man I’d spoken to over the comm was here. I heard someone hurl themselves out of the concealing globe; somehow, I knew it was Riddick, so I decided to join the party.

I came out right in the face of one merc and hit him with an uppercut, half a meter of gleaming titanium carbon nitride sliding along his neck in the same motion. Blood spurted as I used his body for a springboard. The convict slammed his third victim into a bulkhead as I eviscerated my second.

Automatic rifles chattered, but part of my mind took control while I sailed from merc to merc, the part that had directed me through school dodgeball games; I’d always been the last student standing. Someone came up behind me and got an elbow to their nose, the point of the dagger in that hand going through their eye and into their braincase.

Another scruffy male tried coming at me from below, only to get a pair of steel-toed combat boots to his chin. His neck broke with a muffled crunch. I smashed into the next sideways, shoving his arm into his chest. He jerked, then his pistol fired, splattering bits of his head everywhere.

“You certainly know how to make an entrance.” I glanced up, seeing that the voice from the comm belonged to a tall, skinny, black-haired guy wearing trendy-but-useless green shades and a white coat that did his pale skin no favors. Still, even with a good line of fire to him, I didn’t bother grabbing one of the guns floating around. For one, I had no idea which ones still had ammo in them. For two, the shape of my dagger hilts made it virtually impossible to hold a second object in either hand. No way would I abandon a blade that I knew I could trust for a firearm I didn’t.

“That’s nothin’, scarecrow.” Oh, fuck. “They’re gonna kick your ass so hard—” Someone yanked Jack back into the ball of semi-liquid foam just before bullets tore into it.

I noticed my battle-mate— and where I’d come up with the term, I had no idea— grab a rifle, the hooked shape of his swingblades keeping them in his hands. He mowed down four or five mercs in as many seconds, then hit another in the throat with the stock before tossing it aside. My beast side was aroused in more ways than one by the battle.

I chose my next target and sprang toward her, my trajectory taking me within arm’s reach of the bubble hiding the other survivors. But I never got to the bitch, as a blow fell between my shoulder blades with the force of a sledgehammer. I heard Jack yelp as I was driven to the decking, seven meters down. The landing knocked the breath out of me, and the girl was thrown down next to me. She rolled to her back, then held up her hands in frightened surrender. Whoever had hit me— I suspected tall-and-pasty— kept one foot on me and turned an odd assault rifle on his other captive. The sword along its barrel hovered only centimeters from her face.

“I think not. What do you say?” I couldn’t see Riddick, but I could hear someone being choked.

“Call off your lapdog, before his trying to impress you gets him killed.” So the snobbish man wasn’t in charge here.

“Am I so obvious?” The female voice made me raise an eyebrow.

“Call it what you want, but tell him to stand down, now.” The last word came out of the convict in an angry growl. Material shifted with a slightly mechanical rustle, the sound coming from the same direction as the voice. Lapdog’s sword now pressed against Jack’s forehead, drawing a fat bead of blood.

Motherfucker will suffer for hurting her.

“You’ll have to excuse Junner’s excitement. It sometimes makes him a touch… quick.” The woman sounded like she was discussing the goddamn weather. “Though, I can’t say I blame him. You see, he’s just heard so much about you, Riddick.”

They’d identified him really fast. Not from a voiceprint, though, which argued for visual recognition. I hoped they wouldn’t be able to do the same with Shazza and the Arab boys.

“Yes, I know your name.” She paused dramatically. “Quite a bit more about you, I think… and Miss Bergenhaus, judging by her performance here today.”

“Careful.” The familiar, reassuring voice conveyed a large amount of ‘back the fuck off.’ “You may find what you’re lookin’ for.”

“I’m willing to share, of course, but I must ask that you both surrender your weapons… before any more of my apparently overpaid associates come to an untimely end.” Associates, my ass. More like trained chimpanzees, for all the chance they’d had against the pair of us.

“Mmm. Not gonna happen.” Despite the big guy’s words, I felt a surge of warm reassurance, threaded with a sense of planning.

“No?” A tiny click told me that Junner had tightened his finger on his weapon’s trigger. The girl began to shake, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Th’ girl… is nothin’ t’ me.” I knew very well that the statement was pure bullshit.

“Then enlighten me. Why would a stone-cold killer, such as yourself, go to all the trouble of keeping the likes of her and these others alive?” Well, damn, someone must have started dispersing the retardant and extracting the other nine. “Unless, of course, you’ve grown attached.”

“They’re a cover story, nothin’ more. You shoot ‘em now, an’ you’ll be savin’ me th’ trouble.” Tears formed in Jack’s eyes. Then the pressure on my back vanished, only to return as a kick that rolled me over and then settled just below my breasts. The modified rifle moved so I stared up its barrel.

“Then I have your blessing.” Out of the corner of my eye, I finally saw the bitch in charge. Lavender hair, lily-white skin, and a sleekly-clad body that most models would kill for spoke of cosmetic enhancement, while traceries of gold at her hairline and wrists, extending onto the back of the one hand I could see, said cybernetic modification. It must have taken a considerable fortune for her to have it all done, on top of the ship itself.

The trigger of the assault rifle clicked again, bringing my attention back to it. Riddick grunted, and then the swingblades whistled through the air, serrated edges lodged into the weapon as their kinetic force shoved it clear of me and the kid. Damn, he’d given in to her demands.

“Maybe I know more about you than you do yourself.”

“Now just ain’t th’ time.” Fury laced his voice as Junner used the unbalanced gun to move Dextra and Sinistra out of my reach. There was a wet crunch and a pop, killing the man that I knew the convict had been strangling through the entire conversation.

“Lock them down. We’re done here.” The fucking bitch’s voice turned brisk and business-like. More flunkies streamed across my field of vision, and I heard the other former passengers of the Hunter-Gratzner protest the rough handling they received. The head lackey kept me pinned until my hands had been cuffed, then tried to wrench my shoulder while pulling me to my feet.

I was forced to watch as the strongest, most deadly, and yet most intrinsically good man I knew was strapped onto a dolly modified to immobilize a human. Few would agree with me on the ‘good’ part, I knew, but stripped down to the basics, it was true. A rifle against my spine ensured that I joined the group of prisoners. The brunette heiress-cum-bushwhacker wore my duffel against her front, manacles locking her arms around it. I gave her a ghost of a smile and received a slow blink of acknowledgement.

“My apologies.” My ears focused on Junner’s voice.

“You know how worthless those are to me. You did well. People die in this line of work, Junner. A handful of men? A small price to pay.” If she called nearly two dozen corpses ‘a handful of men,’ it was a wonder anyone worked for her.

“What will you do with him? Or her, for that matter?”

“Slowly, Junner. Have them both brought to my conservatory. I’ve something beautiful in mind.” Somehow, I couldn’t see her keeping plants, which left me wondering what her conservatory held. “And, Junner? Unfreeze some more mercs.”
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A Matter of Instinct