Ch 23
The tech officer, bored with his job, swept the area again. It was hard to track for certain attributes in Trieste system’s nebula; it threw everything off, sometimes only by a little, and sometimes by a lot. On his fourth cup of coffee he blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes and scanned the list of planets and tried to discern what attributes could be gleaned from them on the console in front of him. Usually he would just let the computer do this mindless chore, but nothing worked quite right here.
The only way to be sure was to investigate each planet that looked even remotely promising, by entering orbit. They had already investigated three planets that the ship’s systems had insisted contained sizable bodies of water. Two were completely uninhabitable. One was a hell of molten lava, apparently liquid enough to meet the criteria. Another would have required any inhabitants to live far underground; it was little more than a frozen ice ball. The third was a desert. So, rather than trust in the computer’s systems, he drank cup after cup of coffee and scanned the console, in the hope that something would make sense.
At first he had been upbeat as he scanned but he had quickly grown bored and, as time went by, annoyed. Mr. Bishop would be back over his shoulder, and he would demand some sort of progress, so he took a hard look at the screen in front of him and took a gamble between two planets, like a fork in the road. There wasn’t a clear signal, at least not a steady signal, but underneath there was a small pulse, and he did get a steady reading at that one precise moment. Whether it was accurate or not he didn’t know, but at least it was a direction.
He plotted the course and buckled in to prepare to enter orbit for a deeper scan, the only way to be sure. A short time passed and he dozed off.
‘His wife kept talking and refused to answer the phone no matter how often it rang….’
The tech officer jolted out of his daze with a start to the insistent blare of the alarm and knocked his cup of coffee over into his lap; it was cold, which wasn’t much comfort at this point. They were in the steadily decaying orbit around the planet whose trajectory he had plotted earlier. That was a guess. As the instruments swung wildly out of control there was no way to be sure exactly where they were, he had to go by the most basic of methods, to look out of the window. He was again reduced to simplicity as he sent up an alarm. All of the shipboard communications were out so he shouted and yelled until someone came to see what all the noise was about. As he strapped himself in, he had to trust that others would do the same; it wouldn’t be a pretty landing.
—
Riddick wrapped the rope around his wrists for leverage and squeezed hard once, to test the reality of the rough rope as it bit into his hands. The Moorglade looked a lot bigger from down here and the hard ridge of her bow threatened to break him in pieces if he played it wrong. She looked bigger; she looked like more somehow, as the storm blew up and whipped the trees of the forest behind her.
He looked up once more at Shazza and stepped back, to pull the line taut. ‘How the hell am I gonna do this? Pull a ship half a mile across the grass? This is fucking nuts.’ He tried hard to convince himself but didn’t do a very good job of it. He stepped back further and settled his weight into the rope and watched the bow dip fluidly which snapped the sails out hard as they caught in the gale. ‘I did that.’
He looked back out over the grassland and all of a sudden it didn’t seem as crazy as it had before he had the rope in his hands. He squeezed the rope again and flexed the muscles of his upper body; he felt powerful in a way that went far deeper than just the physical. Theo manned the tiller, the rudder at the stern of the Moorglade; no one was sure if it would even work but the idea of the ship pulled loose only to smash against the rocks made the decision clear. Neither Shazza nor Jack could pull the Moorglade, not only for the weight alone but for the risk involved; her bow would break his back with the same ease that she would part the grass if he was too slow. He turned and settled the rope against his shoulder, tried to put away thoughts of doubt, and stepped forward. He could do this.
Shazza reached out to hold Jack’s hand; she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move. All she could do was stare frozen and watch Riddick as he settled against the rope and proceeded to do what should have been impossible. With anyone else she believed that it would have been impossible; that no one else could do what Riddick did now, because Riddick was meant to do it. She kept coming back to her dream and tried to push it away but it wasn’t going anywhere.
She tore her eyes off Riddick only once, to watch Jack. The young girl gripped her hand fiercely when the ship started to move and she looked as though she was close to tears, despite the huge radiant smile on her face. ‘Too many emotions all mixed up at once’, Shazza knew exactly how she felt. They both turned forward again, hands still linked, to watch Riddick.
“It’s moving, the ship is really moving…” Jack’s free hand rested on the rail at the bow, and she felt every shift of the Moorglade. She turned to look up at Shazza and spoke quietly, her words nearly whipped away in the wind. “Theo should be up here for this…” Jack tried to pull her hand free from Shazza’s but it was no use, she wouldn’t let go but stood frozen, her expression distant as she focused only on Riddick. Jack turned back to look at Theo as he sat intently by the tiller, she couldn’t see clearly but knew that his knuckles were white.
Riddick walked forward and the rope bit into his shoulders and hands with every step, it didn’t matter how much he adjusted the weight. He lowered his head and grinned, ‘someone’s always making me pull shit.’ If this was fate, it had a fucked up sense of humor. He broke into a gentle lope and looked up only to see that he had nearly cleared the outcropping of rocks. His life didn’t suffer self delusion kindly, and he could tell himself all he wanted that what he had done was impossible but it didn’t get around the cold hard facts. The ship had moved; not a little, not a budge, but a substantial distance. A little further and she would be fully out in the open sky, away from the shelter of the forest wall.
He felt a hard tug as the Moorglade cleared the stone outcropping and risked a quick look over his shoulder. If he didn’t see it with his own eyes he would never believe it. The sails, Jack’s ‘wings’, didn’t look silly or improbable anymore. Jack was right, the wind would come from underneath and fill the sails; it would require very little effort to shift those sails to allow the ship to be driven forward, or to stop altogether. The Moorglade nearly cleared the tall grass, which meant that it flew about three feet off the ground right now. If it weren’t for the blade of the keel that bore down on him he would have stopped in wonder to watch it, but that was not to be and he ran a little faster.
His muscles burned and his hands bled but he kept his pace. Hurt was something he was used to but this feeling of incredible power was something else entirely. Maybe the Moorglade had the technology and maybe even the power to lift off the ground, but she couldn’t do any of those things until he helped her. Without him, she was grounded.
He risked one last look over his shoulder and adjusted the rope across his shoulder. He couldn’t run forever, not as the ship picked up speed. Riddick moved to the side and gripped the rope hard as the Moorglade flew past him, her wooden skin mere inches away. He jumped at the last second and the ship’s momentum swung him up along her side and onto the deck where Shazza and Jack waited to help pull him over.
Shazza couldn’t let go of him; her heart had nearly stopped as she watched the ship nearly overrun him. She ran her free hand over his chest to feel his heart race in a need to convince herself that he was here; this was all so unreal. “You did it…” She looked up at him finally and grinned back at him, her thumb traced a pattern over his wide smile. Riddick dropped his head in an attempt to stifle it and settled for burying his nose in her hair instead. “Your hands, oh god Riddick, you’re bleeding!”
He looked down as the blood ran over his hands where the ropes bit in; he didn’t feel it, nothing hurt. There was just this incredible feeling of power that stayed with him. “It doesn’t hurt…” He looked back over his shoulder at Theo, who craned his head to watch what was going on. He yelled back that he was all right. “I’m going to switch places with Theo. I think he’s waited his whole life to see this Shazza.”
Shazza watched as Jack ran back into the cabin for supplies to bandage Riddick’s hands and said a silent thanks that they had brought medical supplies from the Odyssey. She didn’t think Riddick would appreciate being told that he was decent and considerate, regarding Theo and his dreams, so she tilted her head up to his and kissed him. He still smiled; in fact he looked perfectly happy. She wondered how often that had happened in his life. She didn’t think he’d appreciate being told he looked beautiful either, so she moved out of the way as Jack brought the small med kit back with her.
Riddick stopped Jack before she could start cleaning his hands. “Let’s do this over there.” He pointed back at Theo and they walked across the deck so that Riddick could take the other man’s place.
“Are you sure Riddick? Your hands…” Theo was already out of the tiller’s seat, he wanted to be up front more than anything, but one look down at Riddick’s bloody hands had him feel guilty for having wanted anything for himself.
Theo grinned back at Riddick, he couldn’t help it, Riddick’s smile was contagious. He had seen him grin, sneer, smirk, and occasionally laugh, but this full radiant smile was so unexpected that he had no other answer but to smile back. “It’s incredible, Theo. Go stand up front.” Without another word Riddick Theo’s place, and listened as Theo gave a quick set of instructions about the tiller. “Shouldn’t we be able to do this from inside?”
“Probably, but it’s more interesting out here.” Theo rested his hand on Riddick’s shoulder for a moment before he turned and half ran to the front of the ship.
Riddick looked back up front, to watch Shazza as she stood by the mechanism that controlled the sails; he would have preferred that she sat with him. Jack caught his steady gaze and glanced away down the deck at Shazza before she pulled a bottle of alcohol out of the med kit. Jack took a deep breath to sweep away the memories of all the times she had to do this in the past, for herself, before she began to clean Riddick’s hands. He didn’t wince. “Theo says that when we run across the ley line we’ll have to turn the ship into it or we might overrun it altogether, especially in this wind.” He hadn’t crossed the ley line yet, the wind pulled the ship faster than he could run, but they should hit it soon. Shazza stood beside a lever mechanism that would adjust the sail on the left side of the ship.
Riddick tore his eyes off Shazza to watch Jack bandage his hands. “Nice work, Jack.” Any other compliment from him would have earned one of her wide radiant smiles, but not this time. Her eyes grew flinty and hard and he watched the muscles twitch in her jaw, her answer ground out in a low voice that sounded nothing like her, full of bitterness and anger. “I know, I’ve had practice.”
He hadn’t hurt her, he would never hurt her, but he hurt for her nonetheless. When his hands were bandaged he ran a hand over her stubbled head and asked her to sit with him and they both sat quietly for a while.
Jack felt bad for being upset, it wasn’t him. Neither one of them knew what to say. She reached out and rested her hand over his, on the tiller and he kissed her forehead before he returned to watch Shazza.
He felt that tingle first; all of his hair stood on end, and knew that they had reached the ley line. He adjusted the tiller as Theo had shown him and felt the first shudder as the Moorglade responded, almost resentfully, at the change in plans. His heart raced as he watched Shazza, he didn’t know if what she did was dangerous or not but she had to get very close to the sails to do it. Theo was on the other side of the ship, at the other sail.
Shazza could feel the resistance of the massive wind-filled sail fight against her; she hadn’t expected it to be this hard. Perhaps in calmer conditions it wouldn’t be. She braced herself against a small worn divot in the deck, probably where countless people before her had done this very thing, and pushed hard against the lever.
Riddick nearly dumped Jack over onto the deck as he pushed to get up. Shazza had moved the sail finally but in doing so she had stumbled forward. The sail had deflated for a moment as it adjusted to its new shape; he watched the ripple as it filled again in the strong wind, a rolling wave that raced toward Shazza.
Riddick ran for her but it was too late, the hard snap of the filled sail sent her flying, to lie crumpled against the low wall of the cabin.
—
Duncan felt the ship slew underneath him and reached out to catch his cup as it flew off the table. He felt nauseous and light, which meant only one thing, a loss of the ship’s artificial gravity. He pushed his way past mercs and crew as they tried to run down the central corridor to strap in. “What the fuck is going on!” The merc tried to pull out of his grasp but it was no use.
“Some sort of system malfunction, we lost all power. We’re going down!” Duncan let the man go as his panic took hold. There was nothing more the man could tell him; that was probably all he knew.
The light blared hard against the forward shield as the ship fully entered the atmosphere. He had to squint against the glare but made out Bishop’s form strapped to a chair in the cockpit and made his way forward to join him. “This went well.” That earned him a hard look from Bishop, who sat pale and white knuckled in the seat. A quick look over the tech officer’s shoulder confirmed it; they had lost all power, most likely due to some sort of electrical surge.
“For his sake it had better end well.” Bishop nearly spat the words out, without as much as a look at the tech officer. Duncan had seen Bishop kill men before for lesser infractions. He doubted this was the tech’s fault, not that it would matter.
The ship broke free of the burning mantle of the atmosphere and plunged downward, only barely slowed by the parasails that deployed automatically, whether the ship had power or not. “Let’s let him land first before you talk about killing him.” He listened to the tech make a small strangled sound, and swore that he would do what he could to keep Bishop from killing him.
He closed his eyes tightly as the forest raced up towards them.
Copyright © October 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx