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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 Three

The hover-stretcher bearing Fry’s limp body peeled away from the rest of us pretty early on. I felt torn between wanting her life saved and hoping that she died without telling anyone anything about us. Then again, it probably didn’t matter either way; she’d been the next best thing to a furnace on the skiff, which had probably fried her brains pretty badly.

Vegetable would be an optimistic outcome.

The path chosen by our guards eventually led to a long, high-ceilinged corridor, fanciful golden curlicues framing clear panels that displayed rank upon rank of cryotubes, more advanced than the boxes we’d been in before the wreck. Many held nothing. The humans were segregated into two groups, one on either side. One set tended to the unkempt, people who looked like they’d been going a long time without the opportunity to clean themselves up. The other consisted of hard-faced individuals, everything on them appearing to be in good or even nearly-new condition.

“Have you ever seen anythin’ like this before?” Shazza sounded disgusted. I couldn’t look at her to be sure, though, as I’d been placed near the head of the line of eleven prisoners. Riddick was being towed along just in front of me, unable to do anything but move his head and his hands below the wrists.

“Merc ships? Plenty.” The convict craned his head to look at one bank of tubes. “Just tryin’ t’ figure out how it all goes together.”

“I’ve heard rumors of something like this.” Most of the office had dismissed them as tall tales, but Jamie wasn’t the only one who’d agreed with my sentiment that there had to be something real that spawned the stories. “Keep your employees and ‘merchandise’ in deep freeze until or unless you need them active.”

“It is a converted plantation operation.” Something about Abu’s statement made me acutely uneasy. “A ship like this loads up at port, signs on as many men as it can hold, then goes out for months, sometimes years, at a time. However long it takes to fill their stores.”

“Except a merchant rig’s usually harvesting ore, maybe crops. Not people.” The gruff statement caused my mind to make an intuitive leap.

“Captured bounties on one side, contracted manpower on the other.” And the holy man knowing how it all worked did not sit well.

“Just add heat.” I was tempted to chuckle at Jack’s facetious addition. Riddick, though, fixed his shielded gaze on the imam.

“You know a lot ‘bout this shit… for a holy man.”

“I hear things.” The reply was much too casual for my comfort. We’d have to keep a careful eye on the dark-skinned man once we got out of this fix.

Then the big guy flashed me a wicked grin. “Must be a special kind of desperate dick, signs on t’ this.” Several of the mercs I could see flinched at the statement, except for a fat, piggish man to my left. He raised his rifle and smashed the butt of it into Riddick’s jaw, but the only effect was a brief deformation of the man’s cheek.

“Shut up!” I considered that a truly pitiful attempt at a growl.

“You’re the exception, of course.” Riddick’s voice turned smug. “For you, it’s life experience.” If the idiot’s next expression was intended to be a snarl, he failed with flying colors.

“So, what’s the plan?” Ah, so the kid had managed to get in line right behind me. “It’s not like we haven’t gotten outta worse.”

True, the grues on the eclipse planet had put us in a bad situation, but devouring their own kind had been just as important as killing us. Bounty hunters, on the other hand, would focus solely on us.

“The way I see it, we can take these jerks when— hey!” A lean man with lank, truly red hair grabbed Jack’s shoulder firmly, turning her to one side as we reached a cul-de-sac. It looked like Riddick and I were going the other way.

“This is where we get off, princess.” She fought his pull as the others filed in obediently.

“I will pray.”

“Not for us.” The response to Abu’s offer got more familiar every hour.

“I won’t leave without you!” The teenager looked like she’d never let us out of her sight, if she had anything to do with it. “I’ll find you both!” The hatch closed, cutting off any view of that section.

Our own destination was not much further. A wide door opened onto a gigantic room, the walls and floors done in white, amplifying the light and its color. That eerie blue glow was emitted by something inside an inverted cone of statues. Some of the figures were contorted in ways that would be very painful, even to me.

“Set him down and leave.” Junner again. Wonderful. He gestured for us to come down from the little landing. As we passed him, I turned until my back— my armor plate feeling odd without my daggers either in my hands or their sheathes— just brushed that of my battle-mate. Then I began scanning for threats, obstacles, and potential weapons; the Sergeants hadn’t needed to drill me in that, as I did it automatically all the time.

Riddick stopped for a moment, and I glanced briefly over my shoulder. An incredibly life-like sculpture of a naked man had drawn his attention. Then I looked to my front again, and the lean merc froze. I did not like the look of the hypo-spray in his hand.

“Whichever one you can reach, Junner.” The man at my back jerked half a second before the merc bitch queen spoke. I kept her flunky under a careful, wary stare.

“The hell—” Taking advantage of Riddick’s startlement, Junner rushed me. Without a thought, I lifted my arms over my head, briefly feeling smooth scalp. The chain between the manacles was gripped firmly as my partner leaned forward, lifting my feet off the floor. With every bit of leg strength I had, I kicked out; my left foot sent the hypo flying, and my right connected with the bastard’s chin. Knocked on his ass, he slid several meters across the slick decking.

Riddick crouched as he straightened his back, gently setting me down and waiting for me to move my hands in front of me before standing. Then he twisted around a bit, saw the results of our move, and flashed me a triumphant smirk. I shrugged, not knowing where it had come from, especially as we hadn’t discussed anything even remotely like that reaction. It felt both instinctive and very cool.

The good mood didn’t last long. An airgun discharged somewhere in the room, sending something zipping through the air to hit the big convict in the side of his neck. He went to his knees, and I snarled at both mercs I could see, waiting for him to recover. When he stood again, he briefly showed me the injector dart with its huge needle, then threw it aside.

“All right. Now you have my attention.” Any normal, sane person would have run away in terror upon hearing that sort of growl from Riddick, and with good reason. But mercs don’t have half the sense of your average human.

“A necessary precaution.” The woman waved her hand as if nothing had happened. “Either of you attempts something uncivilized— killing me, for example— I detonate the explosive charge you’ve just been implanted with and sleep very well tonight.” Her lips curved in a parody of a smile. “Walk with me.”

“You’re not puttin’ me on a pedestal.” I agreed wholeheartedly with my battle-mate’s statement. But the lavender-haired bitch just looked more smug.

“No, of course not.” I waited for the other shoe to drop. “You’re strictly for my private collection.”
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A Matter of Instinct