Doctor Who and the Great Eclipse - part 10 - Allies
Part Ten
Allies
His superior senses had, of course, alerted him to the stealthy approach even without the darkness attached to it. While River’s response to the overwhelming inhumanity of the animalistic creature creeping their way was understandable, he didn’t think his ears would enjoy hearing her scream. And it would have been a marvelous example of a banshee wail, had he not stopped it. Would have woken the dead. Considering their surroundings at the moment that might not have been good either. He’d been debating with himself over exactly how to deal with this little impending encounter ever since he first brushed mental contact with the uniquely desolate mind out there.
Simon’s suggestion that they rest put him in a better position, really. He could reel the other male in and deal with him on his own terms. There was something about the savage nature of this fellow that reminded the Doctor strongly of Leela, whom he missed a great deal. His leather clad and always-armed companion had been a bit chancy at times, but her ceaselessly unique outlook provided him with insights and often times an edge that he would have lacked without her. He could admit that there were indeed circumstances where violence and even death had its place, now that he was older and wiser and perhaps just a bit less idealistic. War really could change a soul. He’d fought two major ones in the span of one lifetime and imagined that his younger selves wouldn’t recognize him now he was so altered. But back to the situation at hand.
This individual approaching was both more amoral and smarter than Leela. And the Doctor suspected more jaded. While this male’s nature was just as savage, his bestial temperament was more evolved and carved with experience than Leela’s had been, until almost the end of the War. Only after she had lost just about everything, had the then Lady Andred Redguard become so dark. He pushed aside the swell of agony at the thought and forced his attention back to the moment. While the comparisons set him in the right mind frame to cope with the individual, the situation would have to be treated with care. He allowed River to gently poke about in part of his psyche to distract her and pondered exactly how to deal with the upcoming rendezvous.
Using his sonic screwdriver to cool the water bottles, perhaps just a shy bit too much, he went from winking at Simon and his plans for the lad to striding across the small area of clear soil. He knew exactly where the other man was going to appear, because he could feel him, like the man had laid down a timed path that he was locked into following. Odd that, the Doctor reflected as he stepped into the pulsing but invisible line.
The muscled form was hard to miss, all told. He wore black, from his eyewear to his combat boots. Only the silver coils of cable stood apart as though they didn’t really belong on the fellow. As he emerged from the shadow cast by a piece of the ruined ship, intent only on his next bit of cover, the Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver like it was a weapon. His entire body seemed to issue a non-verbal challenge to the ‘Verse in general, from the planted stance of his feet to the tilt of his head.
Behind him River went into a protective crouch in front of her brother. It was only her trust that the Doctor knew what he was doing that kept her quiet. Simon was, of course, startled by the sudden change in both of them, but there was no time to explain it. Not that the Doctor wanted any less to just rip the boy’s preconceived notions right out of his head and stomp on them. The brilliance that resided in doctor Tam’s head was nearly smothered by years of conditioning that the lad had been exposed to so that he would become the new head of the Tam clan while remaining ‘proper.’ Part of the Doctor’s mind resolved, ‘That has to go,’ even as the rest of him stood at the ready, waiting.
The figure took three steps before seeing the obstruction that the Doctor made in his path. A flash of silver in one hand shows that the goggled man is armed with a hand-made blade that is fitted to his fingers like an extension of his limb and not something created on the fly from a bit of spare salvage. Leela carried her blade and Janus Thorns that way, the Doctor knows.
This could be very deadly.
They stand as opponents, both ready for violence, and neither sure of taking the win. It is almost assured that the man will either fight or flee unless the Doctor can talk him down. And in spite the overwhelming ‘danger’ sensation that is near the reaches of the Time Lord’s endurance to stand, there’s nothing in the weapon he’s facing to take apart aside from the delicate physical systems of the body he’s confronting. And the Doctor would rather not injure the man, regardless.
The black clad individual is just an inch shorter than the Time Lord’s current form, broadly muscular yet sleek. His bronzed shoulders are reddened from the sun beating down on them. They are both standing at the ready, one coiled but fluid; the other statue-like but sure that only the smallest of movements will be necessary. Both are waiting for the other to break. But the Doctor knows that Simon is more likely to snap before either one of them will, and he’s unsure of how River will react if her brother becomes involved in this.
Lowering his sonic screwdriver into a less threatening position, the doctor cocks his head, much as he might when encountering a powerful, violent, but intelligent new species. While this person looks human, it is very clear that he doesn’t think like one, entirely. It is also clear that his mind is resistant to the Doctor’s (or rather his TARDIS’s) innate translations of one language into another, after the Doctor says, “We are not a threat,” and gets confusion as a response. ‘Right, fantastic. Haven’t run across this problem in years. I just hope my accent isn’t too horrible,’ the Doctor mentally rants.
He tries again, switching physically to other languages, and finally after attempting several other human tongues discovers that the man understands Chinese when he nods to “Dong ma?” But Chinese is not the Doctor’s favored language, so he takes a guess and says in English, “And this?” The other man nods again. “We are not a threat,” the Doctor repeats in quaintly accented English. Now, of course, Simon is confused again because he understood every word out of the Doctor’s mouth and only heard English and Chinese. And the Doctor can, on reflection, discern why the odd string of ‘how about this one?’ and ‘anything yet?’ and ‘do you understand’ might seem bizarre from that vantagepoint.
The self-crafted cutting edge wavers a bit. “I imagine that this heat is making you quite dry,” the doctor slips his screwdriver away, and pulls out the bottle of water again. “How about a trade?” he forces his body language into ‘soothing and reasonable.’ The other man’s stance relaxes slightly. That’s a good sign. He shows the bottle, shaking it a bit to illustrate that it is mostly full, “That fine blade of yours for my water?”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Zeke had set up the tarp to provide shade and the mister unit scrapped out of the umbrella is attached to the edge where the wind will blow the cooled, moister air his way. He’s tossed the ruined scrap of painted paper and bamboo where Paris can’t see it. The grave is about the right size to hold a body and a half, so he’s about half way done.
More important to him is the safety of his mate and their ‘adopted’ kid. But he’s been roped into this, and there are three corpses needing to be set to rest. It’s the least he can do for the woman who has saved their lives and taken on the responsibility for keeping them so. He can’t begin how he’d feel in her place, loosing people that he’d called family due to familiarity. Working on a ship like the Hunter-Gratzner tends to forge those kinds of bonds no matter what a body does to avoid them.
He pauses and scans the horizon, the crash, and the hills. Then he looks again toward his personal ‘Verse. The green-eyed woman waves at him. He smiles. They’re gonna be all right. He waves back at Shazza before returning to his task.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The canyon, Carolyn noted, is becoming narrower the farther they travel down it. There are huge rib bones hugging the walls and high above her head she can make out additional spires standing like sentinels along the top. She is both curious and filled with dread by the unusual shapes. ‘What are they? Just mineral deposits?’ she wonders.
Suleiman begins to chatter, in English this time, “Captain...captain...”
Little Ali is crouched down in front of them, fingers digging in the soil. Under his hands a toy robot, red in color with a solar powered cap, comes into view. Delighted, he pries the toy from the yellow soil and shakes it off.
The holy man seems very relieved; “We are not alone here, yes?”
Nearly everyone looks toward the final rise of the canyon, all but Johns. He tightened his jaw as he scans behind him, wondering if this is another one of Riddick’s sick games, “Never thought we were.”
“Come on Johns, you yourself said he’s not here,” Carolyn said as she caught Ali’s hand and began leading them up what she hopes is the last rise.
With a sigh, Johns pulls up the rear. He can hear creaking up ahead and prays that it’s not another one of those hellish scenes. He’s seen enough of those already today.
Suleiman begins to call as soon as he realizes that what he’s seeing is a human settlement, “Assalamoo ahlaykum!” The voice echoes through the empty lanes and buildings. Stacked shipping containers clutter the scene. Tattered sun-shades flap in the hot breeze with misting units still attached to their edges. They pass a rusty bike laying carelessly in the dirt road.
Hassan joins his brother in the greeting, “Assalamoo ahlaykum!”
Johns picks up a discarded metallic canteen and shakes it. The container rattles like the lining is busted, “Long gone. Whoever they were. Don’t think anyone is here to answer your scarf-head.” He tossed the useless container back to the ground.
Abu stops and looks at one of the awnings and the dried up hanging plants attached to it. Drip units run from the top of the structure down to each pot. He plucks one out and peers at it. “Water... water was here...” Now just to find the source of it. As a unit, they moved around a building passing a sandcat in its hanger, crossing what seems to be the main square of the settlement, and into what might have been a more industrial area. Bits of machinery are scattered about, but one makes the Imam very happy. He pushes a large section of mobile drill to reveal a moisture-recovery unit. It’s a hulking machine in great disrepair. Old jugs litter the ground. “This is the source of the water.”
His pilgrims all chant, “Allahu Akbar...” in unison but not quite together.
The Imam gives Johns and Fry his knowing smile, “ ‘God is Great,’ yes?”
The marshal is relieved enough to concede the point, “I'm born-again.” He doesn’t really mean it but it shuts the holy quintet up. Besides him Carolyn smiles. “Looks like it needs some work. Why don’t you look for a tool kit and Imam and I can figure out what needs repair, huh?”
“Alone?” She inquires.
“Yeah, Riddick must have taken another route. Maybe he followed the crash scar looking for easier targets? Who knows. The animal is impossible to figure sometimes.”
Fry figures then that it’s safe enough to do as he asks and sets off to locate some tools. Her exploration leaves her wondering, ‘Who were these people? Why did they leave so much behind?’ It’s impossible to ignore the cafeteria style table set for dinner with years of yellow dust coating it, or the photos of families working in their hanging gardens, playing sports, and posed with their children. She moves back outside, still searching for the tools the others need to make the repairs.
Her search prompts her to enter a dark room. “Lights.” Nothing happens. “Lights On?” Still nothing. She fumbles along the wall near the door looking for old-style wall switches and comes up blank. She peers into the darkness waiting for her eyes to adjust and notices black-out blinds on a window. Carolyn moves over to fling them open and finds Johns standing on the other side.
“Find anything?” she shakes her head. “Okay. Keep looking, yeah? And don't go too far.” Fry nods. Johns smiles and walks back to the others. Just as her heart settles, she hears a creak behind her.
She turns to see the source of the noise is an orrery, a mechanical device that shows the motion of the planets around their suns. This one shows this system and seems to be solar powered like most everything else she’s seen here. The orrery starts turning with sounds that make her think it needs to be oiled. One planet seems always bathed sunlight. And Carolyn can guess which of the worlds they have crashed on. She reaches out and spins the smallish yellow orb, “No darkness. No lights because no darkness...”
Stunned by this revelation, the docking pilot wanders out a side door and onto a cement porch. There’s laundry hanging on a line, stained dusty yellow, tattered and torn, from years of neglect. She sighs. This is quite depressing, all told. And she still hasn’t found any tools. She takes a step, a half turn and something flashes in her face. Freezing Carolyn squints into the mid-afternoon blue tinged light, trying to catch where the glint has come from. The clothes on the line flutter, and she sees it again. She whoops for joy before screaming, “Hello, New MECCA!” as she dashes off toward the find, too gleeful to mind the marshal’s cap as it flies off her head.
Johns looks at Abu then scrambles to his feet. Whatever could Carolyn have found to cause this reaction?
Fry comes to a stop. There’s a runway, and a hanger, and - she is too stunned for a moment to even comprehend what it is she’s seeing. It’s more than she could have hoped for. Sitting on the parking area of the runway is a skiff. It’s fairly lightweight as spaceworthy vehicles go, and an older model. Smaller then she would have wanted in ideal conditions, but she can’t be choosy here. While it’s a multi-duty hybrid, not meant for jumping from star to star, it just might get them into the shipping lane. They just need to make repairs to the wings and get it powered up. If she can do that then she’ll worry about the hull and how they are going to fit ten people on a six-seat shuttle.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
He’d started to eat just to stay awake. How long would it take Zeke to finish up with the graves anyhow? As soon as the traps guarding their outer edge were closed up he was going to take a siesta. He spooned a bit of expensive caviar onto some nearly equally costly toasted flatbread with a sigh. Paris carefully lifts the delicate edible to his mouth, which is watering now in anticipation because he’s figured out to keep the open tin in the cooler until he wants to actually eat some.
There is a sound behind him, like scratching and scraping. He pauses. If it is that little imp playing games again he’s going tan the boy’s hide. He silently eases out of his seat and sneaks over the edge where the noise is coming from hoping to nail the brat at it. He catches sight of a shadow darting closer to the hull, below his line of sight. Tiny grains of soil and rocks are still moving from their displacement by whomever was climbing about on the incline created by the fact that the ship is half buried at this end. “This now qualifies as the worst fun I've ever had. Stop it.”
He gets no response. That is not like Jack. Paris snatches up his weapon and scrambles to the ground, first checking the perimeter, then inside the main hull. Shazza must be back over at the cargo storage again, because there is no one around. ‘It must be the boy. It had better be.’ Oh, he sure hopes it is… he thinks as he marches off to find Shazza. “Jack? Is that you, child? Are you hungry, or something? Jack?”
“What?” comes the boy’s voice echoing from inside the cargo bay. Damn, that child has very sharp hearing. And there’s no possible way anyone could have covered the ground from the ship to the cargo bay in such a short time, is there?
He reaches the door and scrambles up with a huff. Near the far end he sees the dark headed woman and the bane of his existence searching through an open cargo hold. Owens’ key is still in the lock. Pinpricks of light slash into the hallway making it plenty easy to see that Jack is quite loaded down with stuff that he’s holding for Shazza, “Tell me that was you,” Paris orders.
Jack is game, “Okay, it was me. What'd I do now?”
The art dealer looks at the boy, “Assailing my fragile sense of security, that's what.”
“What're you goin' on about? The lad’s been right here for the last...” but Shazza cuts herself short when the light filtering in from outside created by the late afternoon sun blinks once, twice… Something or rather someone is moving outside. “Zeke?” she calls. Jack quickly places his armload on the floor and silent as a cat springs over to a pinhole so he can peer out as there’s no response to Shazza’s call. He can see Zeke in the distance just finishing up laying the last of the bodies into the grave. The bushwhacker turns and begins heading back toward the ship.
Then he spots muscled legs clad in black cargo pants… He turns and mouths silently, “RIDDICK!”
For all his bravado, this causes Paris to almost sink to the ground. Instead he leans back as his legs threaten to go. Shazza flashes him a frown and takes his weapon. She gracefully moves to the main door and poises there, waiting and ready to defend them. Jack is just behind her, boomerang in hand, willing to fight if necessary.
All the art dealer can do is watch, frozen and panicked as the light beams wink off then on as the form outside moves closer to the door.
A black clad leg appears.
Shazza swings hard, meaning to do serious damage.
“No!” Jack cries out, causing her to come up short.
It’s not Riddick. This man is burnt, dressed in a tattered and stained white tee. His left hand is heavily swathed in dirt crusted bandages and trailing a cable. Shazza stopped one inch short of killing him. He's jerked back slightly but relieved at the sight of other people.
“My God - There are others… Back there. Don’t know how many, but we - we thought we were the only ones who --” He stumbles forward, then begins to fall. Jack is confused at first, but unable to react. The boy watches in horror as his eyes pick up the slow motion splatter of the injured man's head like an overripe melon. Shazza lets out a gasp as thick red goo splattered across her face and chest. It’s only later that she hears the sound of the gun.
Jack's eyes focus past the fallen body at the raised gun then flick up to the shocked face of the man holding it. Behind the now brainless body is Zeke, too far away to have heard what the man was saying, with the gun raised still at where the man’s head had been. He reads Shazza's horrified face -- and understands what he's done.
“Oh, Lord...” It’s all Paris can manage to say. He thinks he might throw up.
But Jack turns on Zeke with anger fit to fry the bushwhacker’s balls; “It was just somebody else. From the crash. Another survivor, like us. And there’s more of them! How many of the those stuck in lockers might have been alive last night!”
“Cripes galore, I thought it was him. I thought it was Riddick!” Zeke says. He’s too stunned to realize that there might be others out there still in even worse shape.
Allies
His superior senses had, of course, alerted him to the stealthy approach even without the darkness attached to it. While River’s response to the overwhelming inhumanity of the animalistic creature creeping their way was understandable, he didn’t think his ears would enjoy hearing her scream. And it would have been a marvelous example of a banshee wail, had he not stopped it. Would have woken the dead. Considering their surroundings at the moment that might not have been good either. He’d been debating with himself over exactly how to deal with this little impending encounter ever since he first brushed mental contact with the uniquely desolate mind out there.
Simon’s suggestion that they rest put him in a better position, really. He could reel the other male in and deal with him on his own terms. There was something about the savage nature of this fellow that reminded the Doctor strongly of Leela, whom he missed a great deal. His leather clad and always-armed companion had been a bit chancy at times, but her ceaselessly unique outlook provided him with insights and often times an edge that he would have lacked without her. He could admit that there were indeed circumstances where violence and even death had its place, now that he was older and wiser and perhaps just a bit less idealistic. War really could change a soul. He’d fought two major ones in the span of one lifetime and imagined that his younger selves wouldn’t recognize him now he was so altered. But back to the situation at hand.
This individual approaching was both more amoral and smarter than Leela. And the Doctor suspected more jaded. While this male’s nature was just as savage, his bestial temperament was more evolved and carved with experience than Leela’s had been, until almost the end of the War. Only after she had lost just about everything, had the then Lady Andred Redguard become so dark. He pushed aside the swell of agony at the thought and forced his attention back to the moment. While the comparisons set him in the right mind frame to cope with the individual, the situation would have to be treated with care. He allowed River to gently poke about in part of his psyche to distract her and pondered exactly how to deal with the upcoming rendezvous.
Using his sonic screwdriver to cool the water bottles, perhaps just a shy bit too much, he went from winking at Simon and his plans for the lad to striding across the small area of clear soil. He knew exactly where the other man was going to appear, because he could feel him, like the man had laid down a timed path that he was locked into following. Odd that, the Doctor reflected as he stepped into the pulsing but invisible line.
The muscled form was hard to miss, all told. He wore black, from his eyewear to his combat boots. Only the silver coils of cable stood apart as though they didn’t really belong on the fellow. As he emerged from the shadow cast by a piece of the ruined ship, intent only on his next bit of cover, the Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver like it was a weapon. His entire body seemed to issue a non-verbal challenge to the ‘Verse in general, from the planted stance of his feet to the tilt of his head.
Behind him River went into a protective crouch in front of her brother. It was only her trust that the Doctor knew what he was doing that kept her quiet. Simon was, of course, startled by the sudden change in both of them, but there was no time to explain it. Not that the Doctor wanted any less to just rip the boy’s preconceived notions right out of his head and stomp on them. The brilliance that resided in doctor Tam’s head was nearly smothered by years of conditioning that the lad had been exposed to so that he would become the new head of the Tam clan while remaining ‘proper.’ Part of the Doctor’s mind resolved, ‘That has to go,’ even as the rest of him stood at the ready, waiting.
The figure took three steps before seeing the obstruction that the Doctor made in his path. A flash of silver in one hand shows that the goggled man is armed with a hand-made blade that is fitted to his fingers like an extension of his limb and not something created on the fly from a bit of spare salvage. Leela carried her blade and Janus Thorns that way, the Doctor knows.
This could be very deadly.
They stand as opponents, both ready for violence, and neither sure of taking the win. It is almost assured that the man will either fight or flee unless the Doctor can talk him down. And in spite the overwhelming ‘danger’ sensation that is near the reaches of the Time Lord’s endurance to stand, there’s nothing in the weapon he’s facing to take apart aside from the delicate physical systems of the body he’s confronting. And the Doctor would rather not injure the man, regardless.
The black clad individual is just an inch shorter than the Time Lord’s current form, broadly muscular yet sleek. His bronzed shoulders are reddened from the sun beating down on them. They are both standing at the ready, one coiled but fluid; the other statue-like but sure that only the smallest of movements will be necessary. Both are waiting for the other to break. But the Doctor knows that Simon is more likely to snap before either one of them will, and he’s unsure of how River will react if her brother becomes involved in this.
Lowering his sonic screwdriver into a less threatening position, the doctor cocks his head, much as he might when encountering a powerful, violent, but intelligent new species. While this person looks human, it is very clear that he doesn’t think like one, entirely. It is also clear that his mind is resistant to the Doctor’s (or rather his TARDIS’s) innate translations of one language into another, after the Doctor says, “We are not a threat,” and gets confusion as a response. ‘Right, fantastic. Haven’t run across this problem in years. I just hope my accent isn’t too horrible,’ the Doctor mentally rants.
He tries again, switching physically to other languages, and finally after attempting several other human tongues discovers that the man understands Chinese when he nods to “Dong ma?” But Chinese is not the Doctor’s favored language, so he takes a guess and says in English, “And this?” The other man nods again. “We are not a threat,” the Doctor repeats in quaintly accented English. Now, of course, Simon is confused again because he understood every word out of the Doctor’s mouth and only heard English and Chinese. And the Doctor can, on reflection, discern why the odd string of ‘how about this one?’ and ‘anything yet?’ and ‘do you understand’ might seem bizarre from that vantagepoint.
The self-crafted cutting edge wavers a bit. “I imagine that this heat is making you quite dry,” the doctor slips his screwdriver away, and pulls out the bottle of water again. “How about a trade?” he forces his body language into ‘soothing and reasonable.’ The other man’s stance relaxes slightly. That’s a good sign. He shows the bottle, shaking it a bit to illustrate that it is mostly full, “That fine blade of yours for my water?”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Zeke had set up the tarp to provide shade and the mister unit scrapped out of the umbrella is attached to the edge where the wind will blow the cooled, moister air his way. He’s tossed the ruined scrap of painted paper and bamboo where Paris can’t see it. The grave is about the right size to hold a body and a half, so he’s about half way done.
More important to him is the safety of his mate and their ‘adopted’ kid. But he’s been roped into this, and there are three corpses needing to be set to rest. It’s the least he can do for the woman who has saved their lives and taken on the responsibility for keeping them so. He can’t begin how he’d feel in her place, loosing people that he’d called family due to familiarity. Working on a ship like the Hunter-Gratzner tends to forge those kinds of bonds no matter what a body does to avoid them.
He pauses and scans the horizon, the crash, and the hills. Then he looks again toward his personal ‘Verse. The green-eyed woman waves at him. He smiles. They’re gonna be all right. He waves back at Shazza before returning to his task.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The canyon, Carolyn noted, is becoming narrower the farther they travel down it. There are huge rib bones hugging the walls and high above her head she can make out additional spires standing like sentinels along the top. She is both curious and filled with dread by the unusual shapes. ‘What are they? Just mineral deposits?’ she wonders.
Suleiman begins to chatter, in English this time, “Captain...captain...”
Little Ali is crouched down in front of them, fingers digging in the soil. Under his hands a toy robot, red in color with a solar powered cap, comes into view. Delighted, he pries the toy from the yellow soil and shakes it off.
The holy man seems very relieved; “We are not alone here, yes?”
Nearly everyone looks toward the final rise of the canyon, all but Johns. He tightened his jaw as he scans behind him, wondering if this is another one of Riddick’s sick games, “Never thought we were.”
“Come on Johns, you yourself said he’s not here,” Carolyn said as she caught Ali’s hand and began leading them up what she hopes is the last rise.
With a sigh, Johns pulls up the rear. He can hear creaking up ahead and prays that it’s not another one of those hellish scenes. He’s seen enough of those already today.
Suleiman begins to call as soon as he realizes that what he’s seeing is a human settlement, “Assalamoo ahlaykum!” The voice echoes through the empty lanes and buildings. Stacked shipping containers clutter the scene. Tattered sun-shades flap in the hot breeze with misting units still attached to their edges. They pass a rusty bike laying carelessly in the dirt road.
Hassan joins his brother in the greeting, “Assalamoo ahlaykum!”
Johns picks up a discarded metallic canteen and shakes it. The container rattles like the lining is busted, “Long gone. Whoever they were. Don’t think anyone is here to answer your scarf-head.” He tossed the useless container back to the ground.
Abu stops and looks at one of the awnings and the dried up hanging plants attached to it. Drip units run from the top of the structure down to each pot. He plucks one out and peers at it. “Water... water was here...” Now just to find the source of it. As a unit, they moved around a building passing a sandcat in its hanger, crossing what seems to be the main square of the settlement, and into what might have been a more industrial area. Bits of machinery are scattered about, but one makes the Imam very happy. He pushes a large section of mobile drill to reveal a moisture-recovery unit. It’s a hulking machine in great disrepair. Old jugs litter the ground. “This is the source of the water.”
His pilgrims all chant, “Allahu Akbar...” in unison but not quite together.
The Imam gives Johns and Fry his knowing smile, “ ‘God is Great,’ yes?”
The marshal is relieved enough to concede the point, “I'm born-again.” He doesn’t really mean it but it shuts the holy quintet up. Besides him Carolyn smiles. “Looks like it needs some work. Why don’t you look for a tool kit and Imam and I can figure out what needs repair, huh?”
“Alone?” She inquires.
“Yeah, Riddick must have taken another route. Maybe he followed the crash scar looking for easier targets? Who knows. The animal is impossible to figure sometimes.”
Fry figures then that it’s safe enough to do as he asks and sets off to locate some tools. Her exploration leaves her wondering, ‘Who were these people? Why did they leave so much behind?’ It’s impossible to ignore the cafeteria style table set for dinner with years of yellow dust coating it, or the photos of families working in their hanging gardens, playing sports, and posed with their children. She moves back outside, still searching for the tools the others need to make the repairs.
Her search prompts her to enter a dark room. “Lights.” Nothing happens. “Lights On?” Still nothing. She fumbles along the wall near the door looking for old-style wall switches and comes up blank. She peers into the darkness waiting for her eyes to adjust and notices black-out blinds on a window. Carolyn moves over to fling them open and finds Johns standing on the other side.
“Find anything?” she shakes her head. “Okay. Keep looking, yeah? And don't go too far.” Fry nods. Johns smiles and walks back to the others. Just as her heart settles, she hears a creak behind her.
She turns to see the source of the noise is an orrery, a mechanical device that shows the motion of the planets around their suns. This one shows this system and seems to be solar powered like most everything else she’s seen here. The orrery starts turning with sounds that make her think it needs to be oiled. One planet seems always bathed sunlight. And Carolyn can guess which of the worlds they have crashed on. She reaches out and spins the smallish yellow orb, “No darkness. No lights because no darkness...”
Stunned by this revelation, the docking pilot wanders out a side door and onto a cement porch. There’s laundry hanging on a line, stained dusty yellow, tattered and torn, from years of neglect. She sighs. This is quite depressing, all told. And she still hasn’t found any tools. She takes a step, a half turn and something flashes in her face. Freezing Carolyn squints into the mid-afternoon blue tinged light, trying to catch where the glint has come from. The clothes on the line flutter, and she sees it again. She whoops for joy before screaming, “Hello, New MECCA!” as she dashes off toward the find, too gleeful to mind the marshal’s cap as it flies off her head.
Johns looks at Abu then scrambles to his feet. Whatever could Carolyn have found to cause this reaction?
Fry comes to a stop. There’s a runway, and a hanger, and - she is too stunned for a moment to even comprehend what it is she’s seeing. It’s more than she could have hoped for. Sitting on the parking area of the runway is a skiff. It’s fairly lightweight as spaceworthy vehicles go, and an older model. Smaller then she would have wanted in ideal conditions, but she can’t be choosy here. While it’s a multi-duty hybrid, not meant for jumping from star to star, it just might get them into the shipping lane. They just need to make repairs to the wings and get it powered up. If she can do that then she’ll worry about the hull and how they are going to fit ten people on a six-seat shuttle.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
He’d started to eat just to stay awake. How long would it take Zeke to finish up with the graves anyhow? As soon as the traps guarding their outer edge were closed up he was going to take a siesta. He spooned a bit of expensive caviar onto some nearly equally costly toasted flatbread with a sigh. Paris carefully lifts the delicate edible to his mouth, which is watering now in anticipation because he’s figured out to keep the open tin in the cooler until he wants to actually eat some.
There is a sound behind him, like scratching and scraping. He pauses. If it is that little imp playing games again he’s going tan the boy’s hide. He silently eases out of his seat and sneaks over the edge where the noise is coming from hoping to nail the brat at it. He catches sight of a shadow darting closer to the hull, below his line of sight. Tiny grains of soil and rocks are still moving from their displacement by whomever was climbing about on the incline created by the fact that the ship is half buried at this end. “This now qualifies as the worst fun I've ever had. Stop it.”
He gets no response. That is not like Jack. Paris snatches up his weapon and scrambles to the ground, first checking the perimeter, then inside the main hull. Shazza must be back over at the cargo storage again, because there is no one around. ‘It must be the boy. It had better be.’ Oh, he sure hopes it is… he thinks as he marches off to find Shazza. “Jack? Is that you, child? Are you hungry, or something? Jack?”
“What?” comes the boy’s voice echoing from inside the cargo bay. Damn, that child has very sharp hearing. And there’s no possible way anyone could have covered the ground from the ship to the cargo bay in such a short time, is there?
He reaches the door and scrambles up with a huff. Near the far end he sees the dark headed woman and the bane of his existence searching through an open cargo hold. Owens’ key is still in the lock. Pinpricks of light slash into the hallway making it plenty easy to see that Jack is quite loaded down with stuff that he’s holding for Shazza, “Tell me that was you,” Paris orders.
Jack is game, “Okay, it was me. What'd I do now?”
The art dealer looks at the boy, “Assailing my fragile sense of security, that's what.”
“What're you goin' on about? The lad’s been right here for the last...” but Shazza cuts herself short when the light filtering in from outside created by the late afternoon sun blinks once, twice… Something or rather someone is moving outside. “Zeke?” she calls. Jack quickly places his armload on the floor and silent as a cat springs over to a pinhole so he can peer out as there’s no response to Shazza’s call. He can see Zeke in the distance just finishing up laying the last of the bodies into the grave. The bushwhacker turns and begins heading back toward the ship.
Then he spots muscled legs clad in black cargo pants… He turns and mouths silently, “RIDDICK!”
For all his bravado, this causes Paris to almost sink to the ground. Instead he leans back as his legs threaten to go. Shazza flashes him a frown and takes his weapon. She gracefully moves to the main door and poises there, waiting and ready to defend them. Jack is just behind her, boomerang in hand, willing to fight if necessary.
All the art dealer can do is watch, frozen and panicked as the light beams wink off then on as the form outside moves closer to the door.
A black clad leg appears.
Shazza swings hard, meaning to do serious damage.
“No!” Jack cries out, causing her to come up short.
It’s not Riddick. This man is burnt, dressed in a tattered and stained white tee. His left hand is heavily swathed in dirt crusted bandages and trailing a cable. Shazza stopped one inch short of killing him. He's jerked back slightly but relieved at the sight of other people.
“My God - There are others… Back there. Don’t know how many, but we - we thought we were the only ones who --” He stumbles forward, then begins to fall. Jack is confused at first, but unable to react. The boy watches in horror as his eyes pick up the slow motion splatter of the injured man's head like an overripe melon. Shazza lets out a gasp as thick red goo splattered across her face and chest. It’s only later that she hears the sound of the gun.
Jack's eyes focus past the fallen body at the raised gun then flick up to the shocked face of the man holding it. Behind the now brainless body is Zeke, too far away to have heard what the man was saying, with the gun raised still at where the man’s head had been. He reads Shazza's horrified face -- and understands what he's done.
“Oh, Lord...” It’s all Paris can manage to say. He thinks he might throw up.
But Jack turns on Zeke with anger fit to fry the bushwhacker’s balls; “It was just somebody else. From the crash. Another survivor, like us. And there’s more of them! How many of the those stuck in lockers might have been alive last night!”
“Cripes galore, I thought it was him. I thought it was Riddick!” Zeke says. He’s too stunned to realize that there might be others out there still in even worse shape.