::TWENTY THREE::
You can feel it, even out here. Epsilon 4. No lights, no power. Floating like a ghost ship in front of us. Both Johnson and I are already on our feet, waiting for a quick and dirty docking. Going to be a little difficult, given that there’s no light, except that reflected off the planet below, and the Virago’s own lights, which are off, in the interests of stealth. Johnson looks over and grins at me. The both of us thinking the same thing.
“Jane”
Can’t help but smile a little, at the thought of her wreaking that much destruction. My kind of woman. Franks had prepped a missile, prepared to blow a hole in the loading bay doors, if we had to. No longer necessary. With the power cut, they’re gaping open. Wonder if they leave them open all the time, or if they were left open, expecting a ship to pick up Jane. Don’t want him sending any missiles in there now, not when I don’t know where she is.
“The power looks down everywhere, she must have taken it out at the engines.”
“Where would that be?” He’s pointing to a spot on the Epsilon’s hull, down near the bottom. Pretty far from the docking bay. Both by distance and by level. She’d have to clear the distance of about half the ship to make it to the Virago. Johnson must have read my concern.
“She’ll make it Riddick. She’s probably already found the crawlspace. I used to send her into the one on the Decatur enough. That should take her here, provided the insides of the ship are similar to the Decatur. Don’t see why they wouldn’t be…”
He’s pointing out a spot, higher up on the ship. Still half the length of the ship away. No way to tell where she is now.
“.. Then she’ll have to make her way across here…”
Johnson’s drawing a line across the side of the Epsilon, her lightless shadow floating in the front shield of the Virago. Franks lets out a low sound of concern, at where Johnson is pointing.
“She’ll have to get through at least two wards, before she gets to the loading bay. That’s provided she’s taken the crawlspace at all….”
I turn away from Franks then. What he’s saying is sensible, logical. What he’s saying could mean she’s dead, and part of me wants to kill him just for saying it. She’s not dead, she can’t be. Run a hand over my stubble, nothing left to do but wait for the drop. Johnson’s come up behind me, I hardly heard him, but he wasn’t really trying to be quiet.
“She’ll make it Riddick It doesn’t matter what she has to go through. No one else will ever know how bad those last moments on Trieste 9 were. Making a run for a ship that we couldn’t even be sure would be there. She’ll make it. This is a fucking cakewalk for her, no matter what Franks says.”
He’s checking straps, doing all of the little things you do before a combat drop. Things we’ve done already, several times. Things you keep doing, because it’s the only way to calm your nerves before you jump. Looking back out front at the Epsilon, one last time, before he asks, his voice quiet, sincere.
“You know she’s alive Riddick. In your gut, you know.”
Not wanting to say anymore, maybe not wanting to piss me off or embarrass me, he turns back up front. Leaving me by the back hatch, waiting for that quick bump, when we’ll have to jump out quick, before the hatch is even all the way down, onto the loading bay. No way to know how hot the landing will be. Small, looking a little green, sitting at the back, with flares.
I know she’s alive. I’d feel it, if she was gone.
—
Sound travels, in the crawlspace. No way to tell for sure where it’s coming from. Echoes. It’s still dark, they haven’t got the lights back on. More sound from below. I’m going to have to get out of this crawlspace soon, it won’t be long before they get to the engine room. Although, I have been hoping that having every cell door slam open all at once could keep their attention elsewhere.
Fighting claustrophobia. Everything in me wanting to take the nearest offshoot off this tube, get out into the bigger hallway. Better to be stuck in a close confined place in the dark, alone. Than be stuck in a dark hallway, on the wrong floor, not knowing how many prisoners I’ll have to fight through to get out. Keep moving, passing another hatch. Second deck. Third deck. The map in the engine room had the loading bay access off the fourth deck. Moving up a little, in the dark. Looks like third deck is as high as I’m going to get.
Move back down, resting one foot on the ledge, the other on the ladder. Exposed up here. Completely exposed, if somebody decides to come through that hatch at the bottom and shoot off a few rounds. Press my ear to the hatch and try to get a feel for what I’m going to be walking into out there. It’s muffled. Shouting. Running. No shooting. Yet. One floor up, and half the ship to run, to get to the loading bay. Riddick. Rest my head on the hatch, not listening anymore.
Trieste 9. That last run. Three miles through the jungle, in the dark. Nineteen of us started that last run. Nineteen left, out of a thousand. Only four of us lived through it. No way to know how many hunted us, but we were hunted. The sound of dogs, in the dark. A night that seemed to last forever. Nothing I face when I open this hatch can even come close to that. Keep the knife tucked against my forearm, as I open the hatch door, and step into bedlam.
—
“We stick to the fucking plan, Franks!
“She might be injured.”
“If she is, you’re not going to do her much good if you’re dead, are you? You’re definitely not going to do her any good if the Virago gets blown to hell by anyone that’s come here to get her. Stay on the ship. Small will send up a flare when it’s time. Be here when we need to go. No arguing.”
Johnson already has a terrified Small by the scruff of the neck. Out on the bay, with his flares. Don’t like using a kid, but if it comes down to it, I’ll take him being killed over the medic. Over Jane. Turn my back and jump off the still hovering Virago before he can say anything else. A bit of muttered cursing, but he’ll do what he’s told.
Small is hiding at the side of the bay. Still terrified. Looking at the Virago, the heat shimmer, as she pulls back out of the bay, disappearing. What little light there is fades quickly, as Johnson and I, at a crouch, make our way to the deeply shadowed wall at the side of the bay. It’s probably dark enough that I could take the goggles off, but I don’t know when, or even if, the lights are going to come back up, and I don’t want to be caught off guard.
The bay’s a little bigger than the Decatur’s. All these military issue ships are pretty much the same. If Jane’s going to be coming out anywhere, it’ll be that corridor to the left, the direction Johnson said the engine room was in. Administration would be on the right. Wonder if Dufresne would be there. For a second I’m torn. Wanting Jane. Wanting to butcher Dufresne. At the end, Johnson and I start to make our way down towards the corridor on the left. I can kill Dufresne anytime, and if she’s gone, I’d like to take my time with him.
The first prisoner comes running out of the corridor, as we get about halfway there. Doesn’t look angry. Looks afraid. Johnson and I both pull back further into the shadows, as we edge closer to the mouth of the corridor. More prisoners come running out. They’re looking back as they come out, some are bloody, all look terrified. The screaming grows louder. No gunshots yet. Still no lights.
Edging ever closer to the corridor, both of us hunched low now, weapons drawn. Johnson with an assault rifle, a grenade launcher slung underneath. Having seen the man carry nothing more threatening than a wrench up to this point, it’s a little strange. A submachine gun hangs off a military harness on my right side, but the minute we touched down, in the dark, it’s a blade I turned to. I have the feeling whatever we face is going to be up close.
—
I’ve stepped into what appears to be a good start on a full scale prison riot. All of the cell doors are open. Stay low, keeping the knife hidden against the side of my arm, while I take it all in. Get over that first wave of panic that grips you, when you’ve just walked into a place where so many others are terrified. It’s so easy to succumb. Especially when you’re a woman, when you’re small.
Personal belongings, stuffing from torn up mattresses, shredded pieces of paper, all filter down through the dark of the hallway, like some bizarre confetti. Screams. The sound of flesh being slammed into the bars of a cell. Crying. The smell of terror.
Drops of liquid splash through the grate overhead. The good news would be that it was blood. Running. Terror in the dark. Doesn’t matter that I’ve never set foot on Epsilon 4. I’ve been here before. I know this place all too well. The place my nightmares take me, where I wake up screaming and fighting against the darkest part of me. I stop fighting it. Let myself go dark.
Move out, into the herd of screaming men. Hunched low, the predator. Circling, looking for the weak, those that are more easy to frighten. Those hiding in the back, in the dark of the corridor, seeking protection. Smell the fear, the terror. A quick cut here, and gone, vanished in the darkness. Onto another. Cut and cut and cut. Circling, stay low, stay in the shadows. Those on the outer edges start to push forward. No longer caring that there are bigger men out there, out front. There’s something worse back here. Something unseen in the dark. Something with teeth.
Panic. Screaming. Pushing. The scent of blood intoxicating. If not for this grate floor, the ground would run red with it. The wave moves forward, advancing down the corridor. A huge man, angry at being pushed and shoved, his torso slick with blood, from those that have brushed past him already, struggles to look back. His eyes grow wide for a moment, catching a glimpse of me, as I slip between two men, stabbing up under the ribs of one. Not aiming for the heart. Aiming to have him scream that watery, blood filled lung scream.
The man’s at least six five. Doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is the killing. Drop even lower, feeling everything in me bunch. Stalk towards the man, who’s smiling now. Thinking he’s found himself a bit of fun. My teeth bare, the predator in me so close to the surface. Let him advance, let him feel sure. Circle slowly. The hand reaching down to grab me. A quick slash across the brachial artery above the crook of the elbow. Watch as the shock sets in. This was supposed to be easy. His left hand moves to cover the wound, blood spurting with the pumping of his heart.
Turns away from me, trying to shield himself. A quick slash at the bottom of his spine, the blade sticking for a moment, letting loose, the torrent of blood following. The man falls, dead before he hits the ground, taking several men with him. The terror heightens, seeing such a large man taken down. The pushing and shoving, the screaming, intensifies, as the men fight to get ahead of the others. Follow behind at a lope, until the stairs to the next level.
So many are already fighting for the stairs. I worry for a moment, whether I can even make it up them. Cut a few in the back of the herd. The growing screams enough to ensure that the bunched up group of people surges forward. Up the stairs to the next level, the level I need to be on, to get to the loading bay.
There are fewer prisoners on the fourth level, and those that are there had already started to make their way down to the landing. The influx of so many terrified prisoners from a lower floor drives them into a frenzy. A stampede. Fighting and screaming. Survival instinct winning out over nobility, as the stronger shove the weaker to the back of the crowd. To the back, where whatever it is that’s there in the dark is killing people, driving them forward, with quick slashes.
Listen to the echoes deepen. The hollow sound of footsteps. Listen to the voices change, as the loading bay looms up ahead, making the individual voices sound both louder and smaller, all at the same time. The pleading cries of “Run!”, “Run!”, urging the mob to move ever faster. Trampling the weak beneath it.
—-
“Run!…..Run!…..”
Someone in the back, down the corridor, looking behind him screaming, “She’s coming….” I forget about Johnson. Not that it matters, the man stays on my hip the entire way. She. Jane.
Fighting past people determined to run the other way. Cutting my way through the wave coming down the hallway. The mob starting to firm up into a mass in the middle. Not sure where to run now that the killing is happening from front and back. Some of the prisoners start to turn towards the back again. A burst of fire from Johnson, carefully aimed, makes the prisoners scatter again.
So much easier for me to kill in the dark, the crush of prisoners thinning, as they fall dead, and dying. As those that survive run out into the loading bay. A glimpse of her, crouched low, behind the pushing mass. A crude blade flicks out, cutting down a man in front of her. Watch her as she slips to the side, never getting caught in the midst of the crush. Staying at the back, driving them forward. The path down the side of the corridor clears. I kill anything that gets within reach, wanting to clear a space for her. Johnson sweeps the hallway with gunfire, once he knows he won’t hit either of us. The few remaining stragglers break out into the loading bay.
Jane.
Watch as she slowly uncoils. Killing one last prisoner that pushed too close to her, trying to find a way past Johnson’s rifle-fire. She’s completely covered in blood. I doubt it’s hers. My breath catches, watching her stand, and turn to me fully. We watch each other for the span of a heartbeat. The sounds in the corridor fade, in the few steps it takes to reach her. Her hand, still red with blood, reaches out to touch my chest, almost as if to see if I’m real, or if I’m just something she imagined. She had no way to know I’d come for her. No way to be sure.
Dropping her blade on the ground, both hands spanning across my chest, her face buried between them.
“I came back for you, Jane.”
Move my hands over her blood soaked hair, brush across her ear, resting on her neck. One whispered word, her lips brushing against the fabric of my shirt.
“Riddick…”
Her nose pressed hard into me, inhaling deeply.
“I’m real, Jane.”
My hand at her back, holding gently. Leaning down to nuzzle the skin of her neck, where I marked her. Still holding the shiv, wanting to have my hands on her, but not willing to risk being unarmed, unable to protect her, to do it. Looking up to me finally, once she’s assured herself that I’m real. Her smile wide and radiant. Beautiful, so beautiful. A laugh in her voice.
“What took you so long?”
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