Disclaimer: All characters pertaining to Pitch Black belong to USA Films.

Monsters in the Night (Part 1)

Lattelady

“This is the Hunter-Gratznia we’ve cleared the last planetary marker,” Carolyn Fry’s calm voice bid farewell to flight control on Kordis 12.

“You are in the primary shipping lanes and cleared for a main engine burn,” the voice on the radio answered. “Have a good sleep H-G.”

Carolyn smiled to herself as she pulled levers and pushed buttons. The deep rumbling voice of the main reactor jumped to life at her fingertips. It had been a good trip so far and very profitable. With each stop her .5% share of the trip was growing. A quick 28-week run to New Mecca, in the sparsely populated Tangiers System, then they would head back toward the more active Sol Tract shipping routes. They had taken the long way around, traveling what some called the ghost lanes. With every stop they had picked up something unexpected, but profitable. If their luck held, they would make the long run home with a full cargo hold and even fuller credit accounts. She did the math quickly in her head to tabulate her share so far. Was it enough to make the changes that had been plaguing her lately?

There were as many female pilots as men, but few of them chose to fly the sleep runs. Part of her wanted to move to the shorter trips, but the part of her that craved something she was unable to put a name to, kept her going. She was sure the missing piece to her life was out here some place, all she had to do was keep looking. Until she found it, or could at least put a name to it, the long sleeps with sudden spikes of adrenaline on waking would have to do. She shook her head at the flights of fancy her mind could take. Missing pieces, another life, working quiet runs…come on Carolyn, you’re thinking like a fucking woman again!

She had a hazy remembrance of another life, one with parents and a home. But she knew that wasn’t what she was looking for. When she was orphaned at six her Uncle Sean had come charging into her life, and changed forever what she thought of as normal. She grew up on sleep runs, and didn’t think any kid could’ve had a better childhood. At first she had been everyone’s kid sister, but as she matured into the pretty blonde woman she was now, she apprenticed with her Uncle. Often she was the only female on the runs, but few men tried to step across the line. In the beginning it had been because she was Sean Fry’s niece, but now, three years after his death, it was because she was Carolyn Fry, Docking Pilot.

She lived the life of a sleep jumper, as he had taught her, and she was still treated as one of the guys. Her talent as a pilot and with self-defense, kept any that would try, from changing that. Too often Carolyn had heard the men talking about the women who flew the sleep runs. She had no wish to jeopardize her position on the bridge by an indiscrete act. Even after all this time there was still a double standard. The male jumpers boasted of their many conquests as if they were badges of honor, but the women were just called whores!

‘Well Uncle Sean, you taught me well on that subject too,” Carolyn smiled inwardly as she thought of him and hoped she was making him proud. She was good at her job, and any social life that she had was kept carefully to herself.

“The passengers are all tuck in for the long night,” Owens reported to the Captain as he returned from checking the cargo and passenger bays and began entering coordinates into the navputer.

“Good…” the Captain muttered as he made one last entry in the log. “Another hour or so and we’re down for the long sleep.”

Owens watched Fry and Captain Mitchell discreetly as he worked. From his station he entered the route for New Mecca with all the complicated transfer points from system to system then carefully added an abort code. He knew it was the Mitchell’s practice to be the last to leave the bridge before cyro-sleep. Owens’s code would activate a different, much longer, route ten hours after the last person went into cyro.

“You almost ready, Owens?” Fry called out as she secured the ship for running under sleep conditions. The Nav Officer had been flying with Captain Mitchell for years and he was the bane of Fry’s existence. On their first trip together he had made a pass at her. When she’d rebuffed him in her usual no-nonsense manner, he had taken it personally. Too often since then she would look up to see his eyes moving over her. She had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew every inch of her body as well as she did.

“Don’t rush me, Fry, you wanna fly right through a black hole?” Bitch! Owens thought as he looked up at the petite blonde. He would get extra pleasure out of handing her over to the men who he worked for. He hid his smile when he thought of Ms High And Mouthy in the hands of slavers. Oh yes, she may be as tough as a man, but she has the body of a woman. He would enjoy getting a piece of that before she was sold. He had very definite ideas in that department. He knew how to make a woman beg. It was only a question of what she would beg for that amused him.

An hour later as Owens stepped into his cyro locker he breathed a sigh of relief. The Captain hadn’t detected his tampering with the navputer. For the first time in a long while the navigator could see the light at the end of the tunnel. He had let his gambling debts mount up, but he couldn’t help it, the lure of the dice kept drawing him back. There had been nothing he could do when the men came to collect. It was either hand over the Hunter-Gratznia to raiders or die a lingering painful death.

…………………..

22 Weeks later

The Hunter-Gratznia was moving through almost virgin space. It had left the shipping lanes weeks ago and was still 19 weeks away from the designated rendezvous with a black ship that crept along picking off unsuspecting merchant vessels.

A comet had just passed through the sector. If any had been awake to see it, they would have marveled at the beauty of its tail highlighted against the backdrop of the large planet, which was silhouetted by a sun in the distance. Or at least they would have marveled, if they had been stupid enough admire the amazing contrasts of light and dark; and large and small, that hid the disaster that was just in front of them. It was nature’s oldest trick: evil wearing the guise of beauty.

Small asteroids and ice balls pierced the hull of the large ship and continued on through, not stopping for anything that might be in their way. The hull breach caused the computer to go into wake-up mode for the crew, even as other asteroids took aim at the ship.

Carolyn Fry woke to the dizzying red of the emergency lights. As her brain fought to catch up with her body, she saw Captain Mitchell’s sleep locker get hit and he crumpled. Instinct made her explode from her locker, but her legs wouldn’t hold her.

“He’s hit, the Captains dead,” she mumbled as Owens landed on her.

“What the fuck, we’re 22 weeks out and still have 19 until gravity was to kick in.” He tried to clear his head, but all he could think about was where the hell were they. Had his associates double crossed him and hit the ship early?

Carolyn didn’t try to make any sense out of Owens’s rambling; she had to get to the bridge. They were leaking air like a sieve. “What the fuck,” she gasped as the computer showed them the view from the forward camera. They were being pulled into a planet’s atmosphere in a flat spin.

Owens grabbed the radio as Fry fought her way to the bridge, one deck up. He flipped the transmitter to the frequency instructed by the raiders. They may have been weeks away from their planned destination, but maybe he could still pull his ass out of the sling if he worked quickly. “This is ship Hunter-Gratznia, we’ve been knocked out of the shipping lanes and are now…”

All the while he was sending the message his mind kept working. This could turn out better than he expected. If the ship went down and he was the only survivor, who could blame him, after all he wasn’t the pilot? He worked quickly to try and cover his tracks in the navputer, but it had locked him out the second the emergency began. “Damn!”

As he worked, he heard the clank and bang of pieces of the ship ripping away. “Fry what the hell’s going on?” Damn that woman was she dumping the cargo? It would be signing his death warrant.

“Fry, where the hell’s our coms,” Owens worked more switches, still not able to get any control over the navigational systems. “Fry, they trained you for this, right?” He couldn’t help getting a dig at her, even in the emergency.

Then he heard it, the closing of airlock doors and heavy clank that signaled a purge. “What the fuck? Was that a purge, Fry?” Fear gripped his stomach as he realized the woman up front was royally fucking him over, as she calmly dumped the valuables from the ship.

“Too heavy in the ass, can’t get the fucking ass down.” Her tense voice came over the radio as she fought for control of the bucking ship.

They were going in and Owens checked the readouts for the better of the two planets. He was so busy that it only registered slightly that she had purged the next section of cargo. At least they still had the passengers, they would be worth something on the market. The rest he planned on taking out of Fry’s hide.

A sick feeling passed over him as he heard the crash doors behind him begin to activate. “Fry what the hell are you doing?”

“I gotta flush more load,” the fear in her voice was clear over the communications system.

Good bitch be afraid, be real afraid, but its nothing like the fear you’re going to feel when I get a hold of you. There was no way he could let her drop anymore load or he might as well die in the crash.

“I’ve tried everything I know…”

“Well you better try everything twice,” he fought to keep the anger out of his voice.

“Look if you know something I don’t, you get your ass up here and take the chair, Owens.”

“Listen, Company says we’re responsible for every single one of those people, Fry.” That sounded good. Personally he didn’t give a shit, but forty people alive would bring a tighty sum on the slaves markets, while forty dead bodies were worth nothing.

“What, and we both die out of sheer fucking nobility,” Fry ground out. Part of her was amazed the words were coming from her mouth, part of her so afraid she knew she was acting on instinct alone.

“Don’t you touch that handle, Fry!” Owens leapt from his chair looking for something to jam open the airlock doors, causing an over-ride in the purge system. It was his last hope to save anything from this venture.

Grasping tight to the sound of reason in Owens’s voice, Fry worked frantically to gain some control over the Hunter-G. She tried every trick she knew, and invented some along the way, but nothing worked.

As if someone else was doing it, she watched as her hand reached for the red purge handle and pull. “I’m not going to die for them,” she screamed as she yanked with all her might. “Fuck,” she ground out, as the purge was over-ridden.

“Seventy seconds,” Owens shouted to her. He had succeeded; the little bit that hadn’t been purged was safe. And maybe there might be enough money to be made from that to hold off his creditors for a while. “You still have seventy seconds to level this beast out.” If the crash didn’t kill the bitch, he planned on doing it, and as slowly as possible. She was costing him too much.

All the while she fought the ship and gravity, she felt dead inside, as if part of her mind was still locked in cold sleep: the compassionate part; the human side.

……………………………….

Carolyn curled in her chair, hands over her head trying to protect herself from flying plasti-aluminum. Oh my God, what did I almost do? Her mind was numb as she reeled from the implications of her attempt to flush the passenagers.

Deep inside her head echoed a voice that she remembered as her mother’s. “Don’t be afraid of the dark, Carolyn. There are no monsters there; it’s only the absence of light that keeps you from seeing that. There are no monsters in the dark, dear.”

“You’re wrong about that, mom,” Fry muttered to herself as the wind beat against her face and teared her eyes. She gripped the controls and slammed on the brakes. Her ears were filled with the death screeches of the Hunter-Gratznia, as she skidded along on her belly on a rocky planet, she was never made to touch. “You’re so wrong. I’m the monster in the dark.”

…………………………………

Fuck, Riddick thought as he tested the bindings Johns had added to the ones already there. When the ship began its downward spiral, he had been sure it was his chance to get away, but that blue eyed devil had found him before he had been able to leave the crash site.

What’s this, he sniffed, but was careful to keep his head down and not appear interested. What’s the new smell? He grinned to himself, woman, oh yeah! He sniffed again. Now he recognized her. It was the other one, not the free settler or the kid, but the one from the crew. He’d only caught a brief whiff of her before they left Kordis 12. But this was different. Before she had smelled sweet and innocent, though the tone of her voice when she had spoken to the nav officer had said she was tough and resilient. The contradictions in her could inflame a man’s desires. He had wondered at the time if she was woman enough to respond. But now her smell was changing. The sweet was still there, but maybe not for long, because the innocence was fighting a battle with darkness. Yes! That’s it, a kindred soul. Since he had been left alone in the ship, he allowed himself the luxury of throwing back his head and laughing.

To his surprise he felt swelling between his legs and his pants grew tight. The woman with the darkening soul and a voice like old scotch had given him a hard-on. Yes indeed he would have to find out if she was woman enough. What the fuck would it really matter all women were interchangeable? His laughter stopped as quickly as it had begun as he took another deep breath to savor all the nuances to her scent and found something that he had never smelled before, but wanted badly. He just didn’t know what it was.

But first things first, he rocked back against the post his arms were secured around and found it gave way. He rocked again and began the slow painful process of setting himself free.

………………………………….

His body ached from the beating Johns and the settler woman had given him, but he was damned if he would let it show. A few hours of freedom and he was back where he had started. Tied in the cool dark ship while the others flailed in the heat of three suns. Fools! Couldn’t they see the evidence that was in front of their faces? Naw, I guess they couldn’t, but then in his experience they wouldn’t be the first.

The air shifted, and he head footsteps coming fast and he was assailed by the scent of Carolyn Fry.

She needed answers and she needed them now. Earlier she had only gotten a quick look at Riddick. She wasn’t one to enjoy other’s suffering, besides on the ship she had been too busy to pay attention to anything but her job. But now as she walked quickly toward him she began to feel uneasy. It wasn’t fear; it was something else, but she pushed it aside. She needed to know what was really going on and she had an idea she had come to the one person who could shed some light on the situation.

“So where’s the body?” She stood waiting, watching. All the while he didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. It would have been easy to keep watching him, to lose herself in the sight of him. There was something hypnotic about the way he sat there. He was the one who was chained, but she was the one who felt trapped. Stomping hard on the feeling she tried again, and was surprised when her voice came out in barely a whisper. “Do you want to tell me about the sounds?”

More angry at herself for losing control of her voice, than at him for ignoring her, she gritted her teeth and tried again. “Well that’s fine, you don’t want to talk to me, it’s your choice. Just so you know, there’s a debate right now if we should leave you here to die.”

Carolyn turned to leave, feeling in control of things for the first time since she had been thrust from cold sleep four hours earlier. Then she heard it, a voice like a deep rumble, it made her think of the cognac she like to indulge in every once in a while: smooth, amber tones, with a bite that caressed.

“You mean the whispers?” I got you now Carolyn. I know all your little secrets. I’ve taken a peek into your soul and it’s mine now.

She was drawn closer as his voice touched her skin. “What whispers?” She heard the vulnerability in her tone and hated it. Johns had said he was a dangerous and she had a feeling that right here, right now, she was facing one of those monsters in the dark that she had been taught didn’t exist. Who better than she to face him down, it took one to know one.

“The ones telling me to go for the sweet spot, just to the left of the spine, fourth lumbar down. The abdominal aorta, it’s a metallic taste, human blood. Copperish with peppermint snaps, but that goes away.” He’d used that line before and it usually scared the shit out of a woman, but to his surprise, this one didn’t budge. He had figured with what he knew about her attempt to kill the passengers it would send her running. Yes this one was definitely worth a second look.

“Want to try to shock me with the truth, now?” Fry stood her ground. He was trying to fuck with her mind and she was damned if he was going to get away with it. Later when she was alone, she knew his words would play along her nerve endings, but not now.

“All you people are so scared of me. Most days I’d take that as a compliment, but it ain’t me ya gotta worry about, now.” He told it to her straight, she had earned that by not running.

“Show me your eyes, Riddick?”

“You’d have to come a lot closer for that.” He still didn’t look up, what kind of game was she playing with him? His eyes would tell her nothing.

The air around him grew heavy, as he sensed Fry moving closer. He could hear her hesitant steps and was surrounded by her fragrance. He concentrated and tried to fill in the colors of her soul by what he smelled. There was a quiet fear, but not of him, and a feeling of loss for the dead man. The battle between sweet innocence and darkness was almost completely buried under a strong scent of…..desire? Oh yes, Carolyn, there may be monsters out there waiting for us, but I’m gonna have a taste of you before they do.

“Closer,’ his quiet command made her steps falter.

Suddenly her palms felt sweaty and she wiped them on her pants. What the hell? He made her nervous. He made her feel things. Things she refused to examine, even as she felt them overpowering her. So for the time being she took the easy way out and told herself that he was a big muscular man and she was a small slim woman, if he were free and he chose to, he could snap her neck and be gone. Swallowing she moved within a foot of him.

Suddenly he lunged, catching her off guard. She lost her footing and her dignity as she scrambled back a few steps before she could stop herself. Face to face with shining gray eyes she had only heard about, she looked him up and down. Yes he could be the monster Johns claimed him to be. She could see that, the possibility to be THAT and much worse. But there was more, a potential for more. Lost in the reflecting pools of his soul she hardly heard the intrusive questions from the boy, Jack. But she heard Riddick’s answer, every word of it. He was speaking to her, for her. Telling her of the darkness that he had lived. So she stood there and listened, letting him say what he needed to. All the while listening in a quiet way that let him talk.

………………………..

As Carolyn walked away Riddick wanted badly to call her back. He had sent her to look in the hole for Zeke’ body. Somehow he knew she would be the one to do the looking. He couldn’t picture Johns volunteering for a job like that and he didn’t think Fry would be willing to delegate it to any of the others, not after what he had heard her confess to Johns. He tried to tell himself that because she was the smallest, of them all, almost as short as Jack, but smaller boned and slimmer, it made sense that she be the one to try and fit in that hole. Sense to who, a coward like Johns?

“Be careful, Carolyn,” he whispered to the shadows around him. “Damn!” He gave his bindings a good tug. Why had she stood there like that? He had told her what he was, and he knew she was smart enough to understand what he was saying. If there had been any doubt, the telltale quivering of her lip as he spoke told him she understood the deeper meaning behind his casual statement. But still she stood there with her huge eyes wide open just looking at him. Damn he had wanted to touch her, feel her skin against his just once before she went off on her fool’s errand.

Closing his eyes he remembered a few hours earlier when he had hidden inches behind her in the skull of a long dead animal. He had sliced a lock of her hair and pulled it close to catch her scent, for what he had thought to be the last time.

Sitting listening so the sound of her receding footsteps, he could still feel the electric tingle from the soft curl against his lips. It was what had made him blow it away as if it meant nothing. Now he wished he had held onto it. If what he suspected was true, he doubted she would come out of that hole alive and he would never get the chance to feel that tingle again.

Monsters in the Night (Part 2)

Fry had always loved the dark, but as she crawled along on her belly through the cramped black tunnel looking for proof that a convicted murdered hadn’t killed, she was beginning to change her mind. The small hole above had been splattered with clotted blood. The doubtful faces of her companions as she pushed her way past the gristly reminder that one of them had died, told her that all but Imam thought she was wasting her time. But it was her time and something about her encounter with Riddick drove her on.

She held her flashlight between her teeth so she could use both hands as she pulled her way along. The darkness in front of her stunk, and between the metal casing against her tongue and the smells all around her, it was leaving a funny taste in her mouth.

Riddick was probably sitting back in the ship laughing at how easily he had manipulated her. The thought lasted until she realized she had entered a large vaulted chamber. Everything else became unimportant, as she pulled herself to her feet, and looked around. A little bit of light slipped through the high ceiling, but it only added shadows to the already dark cave. There were strange hushed sounds and in places it seemed as if something was moving along the walls.

Fuck, was this what her soul looked like? She shivered as the words flitted through her mind, to be chased away by a feeling of evil, and pure dread. To bolster her courage, Carolyn grabbed her flashlight and tried to shine some light into the darker places of the cave.

She swallowed quickly as she looked around and tried to get rid of the odd sweet taste that was being intensified by the odor in the room and the flavor of the metal flashlight that had been in her mouth. That’s when she saw it, the blood covered boot that had once belonged to Zeke.

For one split second things were very clear. She remembered Riddick’s description of human blood and knew without a doubt what the smell was, and why her tongue was covered with the flavor of copper covered peppermints. Then she knew nothing but fear as something jumped out at her.

Fry thought she had been afraid when the Hunter-Gratznia was going down, but she had never felt fear like she did as she tried to claw her way up the chiminy shaped rock toward the light above. Her cries for help echoed loudly in her ears, she only hoped others heard them as well. Hell snapped at her heels and the lifeline that was cinched to her utility belt had become an anchor dragging her down. She knew she had to get into the light or she would be lost to the darkness forever.

………………………..

A voice screamed through Riddick’s head. It was pure fear, the kind born of desperation and need. In that moment he knew Carolyn had found Zeke’s body at the bottom of that hole. Grasping his chains he pulled and began pounding on the walls of his prison. He had to drive out the fear that was being seeded deep in him. The fear that he had been right, and she would never return from that hole. He didn’t question it; he just acted.

…………………………

Suddenly it rained dirt, as a hole was torn open a foot above of Fry’s head. She didn’t care what it was, or how it had gotten there, it led to the light. Hands grasp her and she tumbled out. She head voices and knew she was rambling as she answered their questions, but all she cared about was getting as far away as she could from that dark chimney to hell. There was something down there and it had killed Zeke and it would have killed her if she had been a little slower getting up out of the cave.

Carolyn gulped air in the planet’s thin atmosphere, in hope of gaining control of her racing mind and heart. As sanity began to return, she relaxed for just a moment. Then she was snapped back off her feet and dragged kicking and screaming like a madwoman toward the nightmare below. She could hear her own screams, but the words didn’t make any sense to her ears. All she knew was that she was being pulled back into the dark. As she fought, arms wrapped around her, to pull her back, but it wasn’t enough. The stench from the cavern was hitting her in the face as she begged and pleaded with the darkness to set her free.

There was a movement to her right and she sensed rather than saw Imam. The holy man’s face was serene as he pulled a knife and cut the rope that had been sucking her down. Sitting at his feet, she looked up and caught a glimpse of incredible faith in his eyes.

………………………

They had worked fast to get everything from the corpse of the Hunter-Gratznia that they thought they would need. All that was left were the remaining power cells and those they would retrieve on the next trip. Johns had been adamant about that, but he refused to say why. Privately, Fry thought he was being paranoid about Riddick, but she figured he was a cop, and knew his business. She chalked up her doubts about the redhead to exhaustion from her two little strolls down the corridors of the damned. In the last seven hours she had learned more about herself than she ever wanted to know. She figured if she worked herself to exhaustion, she might be able to forget some of it.

Carolyn had one more official task on the bridge, and then she could join the others. Working as carefully as possible she pulled the housing face off the main console and flipped out the crystal containing Captain Mitchell’s log. As she held the delicate communication device in the palm of her right hand, she froze in horror at the flecked brown of dried blood that smeared across her palm.

“Fuck,” she gasped as she shoved the log into her back pocket and scrubbed her hand on her thigh to get rid of the stain. In her mind’s eye she could see the bright red on the ground. The only true color in the glare of the sun, just before she climbed into the hole. She had no doubt that the boot in the cave and the smear on her hand were all that was left of the tall serious man named Zeke.

Riddick came around the corner of the Hunter-G and found Fry kneeling on the ground, rubbing her hand in the dirt as if to clean off something offensive. She still looked pale from her experience and he refused to acknowledge the relief he had felt when he had discovered she had survived.

“It won’t come off that easily,” he knelt facing her. His large hand turned her much smaller one over to see what she was frantically trying to remove. He blew away the dust on her palm and felt her fingers twitch in response. Even wearing his goggles in the bright sun, he recognized the currency of his trade when he saw it, though it was old and dried. He did a quick check to see where she had injured herself, but quickly came to the conclusion that the blood wasn’t hers.

“Let go of my hand!” She tried to pull herself free, but he just sat there and stared at the darkness on her palm.

His stomach did a slow roll. She was panicked, that’s new. How interesting. Maybe it was time to push a little? He had heard once that if you put an animal into water and warmed the water slowly enough, it would stay there until it cooked. Hhhmmm maybe it was time for a little experiment? Here you go Carolyn, ‘plop.’ How’s the water? Do we have time for a little heat?

“I’m only trying to help, Carolyn,” he whispered as she fisted her hand in his, hiding the stain from him.

“I said let go,” she snapped. His hand was warm on hers and she didn’t like that it felt so good to have someone holding on to her. Please, please let me go her mind cried out. Her rough tough exterior was wearing thin and she was afraid he could see right to the core of her.

“Now why would I want to do that?” He grinned as his strong fingers reached around her fist and pulled it open. Holding her hand spread-eagled in his.

“Damnit all, Riddick, wipe that shit eating grin off your face and let gooo…” her mouth went dry and her breath caught in her throat as he licked the thumb if his free hand and rubbed it across the dried blood in her palm. Every nerving ending in her skin screamed and centered on where he was touching. She couldn’t take her eyes off his slow stroking of her hand.

A moment earlier Fry had heard all the noises associated with a camp getting ready to move. The musical chatter of Arabic as the young boys finished their tasks; Shazza’s soft voice tinged with grief interspaced with Jack’s higher happier tones; Paris and Johns arguing somewhere very close and Imam trying to keep the peace. It all receded into background fuzz. It was just Riddick and Carolyn kneeling together in the bright light of three suns.

He watched her face as he wiped his thumb on his pants and leaned a little closer. When he felt her hand relax in his and saw her eyes darted to his mouth, he raised his thumb and sucked on it. As he slowly pulled it out and reached for her palm, he felt the stiff line of her shoulders give way. He had a feeling that if he hadn’t been holding her hand so tightly she would have crumpled. Why did that make him feel so strong, suddenly?

Until he started caressing Carolyn’s hand, Riddick thought he knew all there was to know about woman. Most of his adult life had been lived in dark places and those were populated by people like him. The women along the way had all been free and easy or came with a price tag. He had assumed that Carolyn fell into one of those categories. Her confession to Johns had added weight to his theory that she was a kindred soul. But as he played with her senses and her mind he remembered other things: a curl that tingled when it touched his lips; and wide eyes that understood that his shined eyes were only an outward sign of what his life had been.

What if he was wrong? What if her darkness was an accident that needed to be prevented? But it was too late now, he had started his game and Richard B. Riddick was a man who always finished what he started.

He ran his wet thumb over her soft palm a third time, removing any trace of the blood that had lingered for so long. He was sorely tempted to raise her hand to his mouth and take a taste of the delicate softness that was under his thumb, but the slightly spooked look in her eyes made him move slowly.

Carolyn sat transfixed as the hard cruel man slowly drove her a little mad. How had he known what she had needed so badly, when she didn’t even know it herself? As he licked his thumb again and moved it across her palm, she took in all of him. He looked like what he was: a criminal, a murderer. He was neither handsome nor kind, but it seemed so right that he was touching her as he was.

Briefly, Johns’s face flitted across her mind. She knew the man was interested in her. He was handsome and law abiding, but the thought of him touching her like this was unsavory. She had always found it less confusing to meet a man on his terms, so why was she sitting there letting Riddick make her feel like more of a woman than she had ever felt? Answers were too hard and her mind was refusing to work. A little voice was shouting in her ear to get up and move, but she didn’t bother to listen to it.

The fifth pass of his thumb over her palm was when he made his mistake. He let his eyes move from hers and saw her as a whole person. Her mouth was slightly open and her hair fluttered around her face, as she sat there watching him caress her. It was then that he realized his seemingly casual touch was the most intimate act he had ever taken part in. For the first time in his life he knew the difference between a whore and a woman. Carolyn was giving of herself to him on a level that he had never reached before and he was only touching her hand! Suddenly his pursuit of an easy sexual encounter had turned into something he had never experienced before. He felt a stab of regret that he couldn’t still see true colors. He wanted badly to know her eye as she did his.

As he watched her, his hand still moving over hers, he felt a tingling begin in his fingers and move up his arm. It was what his lips had felt; causing him to toss her curl to the wind, but this time it was becoming a steady buzz that reverberated through him. For a tiny space of time he had a picture of that cooking pot that should contain Carolyn Fry, as she slow simmered to a sexual frenzy for him. Instead of the petite blonde swimming in the heating water, he had a flash of himself doing a frantic backstroke to stay afloat!

In a moment of desperation, he reverted to type. An easy grin spread across his face and he pretended to look the skin of her hand over carefully.

“There you go Carolyn, that should do it, no blood on your hands now,” he smirked at her as he ran his thumb over her palm one last time. She ripped her hand from his as all the noises of the group came crashing down around her head.

“Fuck,” she spat at him. What had she done, letting her guard down around a man like him? Damn, what did he know? Her mind reeled with the possibilities.

“It’s a bit public for my tastes, but if you’re game?” He leaned in close and she shoved him away as he laughed at her.

“RIDDICK?” Johns called from somewhere in the distance.

Riddick stood quickly and touched his finger to his lips, asking Carolyn to be quiet, as he slipped into the darkness of the ship. Neither of them questioned his asking, nor doubted her obeying. Oddly, both trusted the other.

“Fry, you seen Riddick?” Johns came around the corner of the ship. His eyes were bloodshot and he had an odd tremor in his hands.

“He was around a few minutes ago,” she was able to answer honestly.

“What’cha doing sitting here in the hot sun?” He looked the small blonde over carefully. He knew she had had quiet a fright earlier. What she needed was a man to lean on!

“Enjoying the peace and quiet.” Her eyes and voice said leave me alone, but he didn’t take the hint.

Riddick grinned as Johns missed the insult. He was tempted to listen while she made mincemeat out of the other man, but he had let her distract him enough already. Sliding his goggles onto his forehead, he shoved thoughts of her aside, to get on with business. Something was very wrong and it had been eating at him ever since he had gotten a good look at the planet they had crashed on. He wished the suns would set so he could check out the stars, but that didn’t seem likely.

It only took him a few minutes to find the navputer. Someone, probably Fry, had already taken the facing off the main console, so that saved him time. Working quickly he searched for the black box. It was the Company’s way of keeping track of where its ships had been. The box was a well-guarded secret around the Company. Most flight crews, including the captains were ignorant of its existence. It contained the plotted course and all changes made to the flight plan. Only someone with Company authority could wipe it clean. For a computer the size of a small cigarette lighter, it contained a huge amount of memory.

He would bet his shiv they were nowhere near New Mecca. It was going to be real interesting to see where they really were and even more so to discover who had sent them careening out in space while in cold sleep.

He retraced his steps and listened to the conversation the man and woman where having just outside the Hunter-G.

“We gotta get going,” Johns squinted into the distance trying to catch a glimpse of Riddick. “Imam says there has to be water somewhere back at the mining camp and he thinks he can find it.” He licked his dry lips. Water wasn’t what he needed, but he was damned if he was going to tell Fry what his veins thirsted for.

“What about Riddick?”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and whatever got Zeke has gotten him too,” Johns reached for her right hand to pull her to her feet. At the moment he didn’t care how much money he would lose if the convict disappeared, he needed a fix and he needed it badly!

“I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.” She shifted and pulled herself up, avoiding his touch. It made her shiver when she thought of him touching her skin where Riddick had. Don’t go there, Fry, she warned herself.

“Let the fucker die!” His temper snapped at her odd behavior. What was wrong with the bitch anyway?

“You lookin for me?” Riddick strolled into the light. Between the heat and the need for a fix, Johns had lost it. For the moment, he was still needed, but soon very soon…

“What’cha doing in there, boy?” Johns frowned. What was going on? He would figure it out as soon as he could get to his stash and a spike. But it was hidden in the ship along with the H-G’s medical kit that he had appropriated for the morphine it contained. “We’re leaving soon and you need to harness up,” he grinned at Riddick. “Fry you go with him I’ll be back as soon as I get my things from the ship.”

Monsters in the Night (Part 3)

The caravan of weary people trudged over the sand dunes toward the deserted camp they had found early in the day. Fry in the lead, squinted at the three suns and wondered how much worse the heat could get. She had spent most of her life on a ship and her fair skin wasn’t used to the harsh treatment it was getting. With the exception of Riddick and Imam, they had all gotten sunburned. With any luck they would find a med-kit somewhere in that retched settlement, and it would have the necessary Sun-Out pills to protect them from the burning rays.

Looking over her shoulder she saw Riddick bringing up the rear, pulling the heavy sled with their equipment. Between the thin atmosphere and the heat, he had to be tiring, but it didn’t show. She watched him for a moment, under the guise of doing a headcount. It was a joy to see the way his muscles moved as he labored. She had never realized before that a man could have a beautiful body.

He had confused her badly, and nice to look at or not, she didn’t like that. Who was he really? At times he acted exactly as one expected, but at others he had been gentle, almost kind. Involuntarily her left hand ran over her right palm remembering how his skin had felt against hers. It had taken her breath away and left her feeling totally exposed.

For a moment she stared openly at the picture he made trudging through the sand his skin slick with sweat. Then she saw him grin, and give her a barely perceptual nod. It caused the blood to run out of her head, leaving her a bit dizzy. He had been watching her too, and wanted her to know it. Even as she turned and joined Imam, his gravelly voice echoed in her head, I’ve put my mark on you now, Carolyn. Shivering she rubbed her right hand against her thigh, much as she’d done earlier. But unlike before, there was no one to help her remove what had been left behind. Was she always going to feel his touch or was he just fucking with her mind?

“Imam?” Fry matched her pace to his; trying to show Riddick his little game meant nothing to her. “I never thanked you for saving my life today.” Her voice was hushed and she had trouble meeting the Holyman’s eyes. She knew she should have done this sooner, but any reminder of what had happened made her feel out of control.

“All life is sacred, so there is no need for thanks,” he smiled. “Besides, any one of us would have done the same. I just happened to be the man with the knife.”

“No,” she shook her head. “It was more than that. You kept your head and knew what to do. I would have been pulled back down that hole if you hadn’t acted.” She wanted to thank him for the calm strength she had seen in his eyes after he cut the rope. It had been a balm to her badly frayed nerves, but that would lead the conversation in a direction she was unable to face.

“Well then, consider it a small repayment for what you did for us when you landed the ship, Captain.” The tall older man turned and shifted the power cell that he was carrying so he missed the stricken look on Fry’s face.

“Please don’t call me that,” she cut in. “The title doesn’t belong to me. I could never fill Captain Mitchell’s shoes.”

“If you wish.” He looked at her closely and could see a pinched expression around her eyes. “I have distressed you, for which I am sorry. I was only using the title as a means of respect.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Fry looked around needing to change the subject, Imam was too perceptive for her to be able to get away with half-truths. “The last time we walked this way, you said you were on a pilgrimage. You called it a…I can’t remember the word you used.”

“Hajj,” he nodded remembering their earlier conversation. “When we left Kordis 12 I was taking three boys on their hajj to New Mecca. All young men between the ages of 8 and 14 are encouraged to take that trip before attaining manhood. But now it has become one of much greater proportions. It involves us all. It will be interesting to discover what each of us finds along the way.”

“You talk as if you think God is involved in this somehow.” She had never been much of a believer in a higher power, at least not anything higher than gravity wells, pulsars, and black holes. If there was a God, He wasn’t on this planet and He was definitely ignoring Carolyn Fry.

“God is everywhere,” he smiled. “The trick is to open our eyes and see Him.” He put his hand on her shoulder and looked into her troubled face. “What did YOU see in that underground cavern?”

The whispered question sent a shaft of fear slicing through her. She felt like she had been turned inside out. “Other than the remains of Zeke, nothing! I saw nothing!” She strode quickly ahead, as her mind screamed out, me, I saw me down, there!

…………………………………..

The skiff’s space doors closed and locked, and Fry breathed a sigh of relief. She was cut off from the others for a while, giving her time to think. That, along with most other things, she did best alone. Their situation had gone from bad to disaster in the amount of time it had taken the group to drink the water Imam and his boys had found. Her mind quickly started sorted facts as her fingers flew over the console to bring the twenty-year-old computer to life. They had thought they were safe from the flesh-eating aliens that lived in the darkness deep below the planet’s surface, but they’d been wrong. If their calculations were correct a total eclipse was coming that would darken the planet for a long time, giving them nowhere to hide, and the monsters from below free reign of the surface. The old skiff was all that stood between them and a gristly death.

Carolyn gave a sigh of relief when the computer hummed to life on the third try. She focused her mind on the Systems Check and tried not to think of the strange group of people that were on the other side of the locked doors. She had always made it a practice to avoid the sleepers she carried on her runs, now she knew why.

Turning in the pilot’s seat to remodulate the computer for the new power source, she felt eyes on her and jumped. Riddick! She quickly checked the readouts, but the sys-check had begun. If she hit the emergency exit, it could blow the one power cell they had and they would be back to square one. Watching his face as he walked slowly toward her, she realized he knew it as well.

“They say timing is everything,” he grinned at her. “And I’ve been meaning to get some more time alone with you…unrestrained, that is.”

“I got work to do, Riddick,” it took all her nerve, but she forced herself to turn her back on him. He might kill her, as he had the pilot of the prison transport, but she believed she was safe until all the power cells were in place. He had moved close enough behind her chair that the heat radiating off his body made her skin tingle. In an attempt to keep her hands from trembling, she focused on moving them carefully and precisely over the controls.

“So, what do ya think?” He let himself touch only the tips of her hair with his right hand as he grasped the overhead bar with his left. How she answered his many leveled question would tell him a lot about her. Would she take it as an easy sexual invitation as most women he had known would or was there more to her than met the eye?

“I’m afraid of you. Is that what you wanted to hear?” She turned in her seat and slid around him, feeling trapped in the cockpit.

“No you’re not, at least not right now.” He backed her up until she was wedged between the pilot’s chair and the wall. “I think you’re afraid of you, but before we get into that, I gotta ask you, do you think Johns is a do-right man? Can I trust him?” He could see the answer in her face, making part of him itch to reach for his shiv. He knew that before the skiff doors opened again, he was going to bury something deep inside of her. Her next answer would be the tiebreaker.

“He…” If he had been touching her, she would have lied, but he stood inches away from her and waited. Even though his goggles still covered his eyes, she knew he was seeing deep into her. “No,” she whispered. “You can’t trust him. He has no plans on keeping his end of the bargain, and I believe he’ll kill you if he can.”

“He won’t kill me,” he slid his goggles onto his forehead as he watched the shadowy expressions flit across her face. “I’m worth twice as much to him alive.”

“What!”

“He may carry that nickel plate badge and wear a uniform,” he shrugged. “But he’s just a merc and I’m just a payday!”

She rocked back as if he had struck her, “no!” She had trusted Johns with her darkest deed, and he was nothing but a bounty hunter. The only difference between him and Riddick was that the government put a politically correct spin on Johns’s killing. She paled as she realized the huge mistake she had made.

“And you’re right not to trust him,” Riddick nodded as if he could read her mind. “He’ll tell your little secret any time the going gets tough, and he can use it to his advantage.”

“Oh God!” She gasped, closing her eyes and leaning against the wall. “How did you know?”

“I was inches away from you, hiding in the skull,” he laughed. “Close as we are now, and that fucker, Johns, couldn’t find me, but I heard you loud and clear.” He watched her fight for control as her lip quivered and she paled under her sunburn. “But I was born in a garbage heap, so it wasn’t the first time someone tried to dispose of me. Just so you know, no one has ever tried it a second time.”

“Oh,” a small high-pitched sound escaped her lips before she opened her eyes, and wiped all emotion from her face.

“And you? I’m supposed to trust you?” She let the anger pour out of her. It was the only weapon she had against the soft female feelings he brought out in her and the overwhelming guilt her own actions had caused. “I should just sit around calmly doing systems checks, and waiting for you to slit my throat like the last time you wanted to hitch a ride somewhere?”

“Ahhh, so our boy told you about that did he?” Riddick stepped closer. He liked the feeling of her anger erupting over him, it bubbled against his skin and made him hard just listening to her. Oh yes Babe, feel the passion. He had known all along that she had the potential to sizzle, and this felt so much safer than before. Now it was Fry back in the cooking pot, and he knew he was going to turn up the heat as high as he could before that systems check was over.

“So? Are you going to kill me?” Her eyes dared him to tell her the truth.

For a fleeting second he wondered if she would trade her life for a fuck, but as quickly as the thought surfaced, he knew that when he took her, it would be because she wanted it, anything else would be a waste. “Carolyn, I’ll be honest with you, I truly don’t know what’s gonna happen when the lights go out. When the dyin’ starts I think this little psycho-fuck family of ours is going to pull itself apart.” It surprised him that he included himself in the group and, and even more so, that he spoke the truth. A lie would have been so much more convenient.

For a moment she stared at him across the small space. Then she nodded her head in understanding. He’d been honest with her, and strangely that put her more at ease than all the promises in the world.

“But we may have a more immediate problem.” He slowly pulled the black box from his pocket and handed it to her. “Now don’t say I never gave you nuttin.” He had known from the start that he would have to bring her in on this, unless he killed her before they left the planet, and that was looking less likely every moment.

“What’s this bullshit?” She looked at the small device and wondered what game he was playing now.

“It’s not bullshit, it’s a death warrant.” His voice rumbled deep in his chest as he stepped closer to her.

“Stop trying to fuck with me, I got things to do to get this ship ready.” She pushed his cupped hand away, and tried to get back to the cockpit, but Riddick stood like an unmovable mountain in her path.

“If I was fuckin’ with you, it wouldn’t be tryin’, it would be doin’.” He gave her a moment to be sure she understood exactly what he was saying. From the shocked expression on her face he could tell she had never run into a man she couldn’t control before. It’s going to be one interesting time we have, Carolyn.

“You sure you don’t know what this is?” He rubbed the box against her shoulder, pushing her a bit harder.

“No, I don’t! If it is so damned important, why don’t you tell me what it is, and I’ll get back to business!” She was hot and tired and his presence was a strain on her nerves. She just wanted to get on with the sys-check and pretend he wasn’t locked in a confined space with her. Though she knew that no matter how quiet he was or how far away he stood, she’d be able to smell his scent and feel his skin touch hers.

“That’s the Hunter-Gratznia’s black box.” He whispered.

“The what?” Every flight crew had heard stories about the supposed hidden computers on Company ships, but only the greenest rookie believed it. Plenty of searches had been done and no one had ever found anything.

“You heard me, Carolyn, you just don’t want to believe me.” He bent and pulled the housing off the main console of the skiff. “If we’re lucky I can get it to interface.”

“Wait, stop!” She grabbed his arm and pulled. “We only have a limited amount of power. You’re going to screw up the sys check, we gotta get off this planet before the eclipse.”

“The check is safe, it’ll run slower but it’ll run. Those aliens will kill us if they get the chance, but there are other things that can do that too, and worse things than dyin’.” He motioned her to the pilot’s seat and he took the one beside her. From there he could rig a connection somehow. It had been a long while since he needed to do this sort of thing, but he used to be able to do it in his sleep. “Do you know of a planet on the New Mecca route that has three suns?” He threw the question out casually.

“No, but I’m not a navigator and I figured we must have gotten off course somehow.”

“Somehow, is right,” he kept working until the computer in front of him came to life. “There we go, now listen and watch.” Riddick quickly scrolled through all the pre-flight data, and moved to the major course changes. He was almost to the end when he found what he was looking for. “How long were we in cold sleep?”

“Owens said something about 22 weeks, but that couldn’t be right. He must have been rambling. Sometimes getting pulled out of cryo like we did can cause Cold Sleep Disorientation for a while.” She forced herself to remember what happened after ejecting from her locker. “He insisted that we couldn’t be awake because we were 22 weeks out and still had ….19…to go? Maybe I’m remembering that wrong. It’s only a 28 week trip from Kordis 12 to New Mecca.”

“You’re remembering right,” he pointed to the last course that had been signed off by the navigator. “According to this we deviated from the flight plan about 12 hours after leaving the Kordis system.”

“Wait,” she threw up her hands and jumped out of her chair. “You’re telling me that I should believe this nonsense, without any proof. If that were really what you say it is then that would mean that Owens had sold us out! The guy was a chauvinist pig asshole, but he was faithful to Captain Mitchell.”

Riddick didn’t say a word, he just scrolled down a bit further and the computer was filled with the frightened face of Carolyn Fry as she fought to bring the Hunter-G under control.

“What the fuck?” she gasped over his shoulder.

“These little boxes not only record flight information, but in case of emergency, they record bridge activity.”

“Turn it off!” She gasped, her eyes locked on the picture of her frightened face. She broke down and backed away until the locked crash doors prevented her from further retreat. “Please, Riddick, don’t make me watch it. I believe you.” In the background she could hear the computer giving flight instructions to dump the loads. She was afraid the emotionless electronic voice would play in her dreams forever.

She never saw him leave the cockpit or heard him move toward her, but suddenly she could feel him standing inches away. The only sound in the shuttle was her ragged breathing, as she fought to bury the guilt that was threatening to overpower her.

“It’s off,” he growled, hating the panicked looked on Carolyn’s face. “That fucker Owens deserved the kind of death Johns gave him.”

“What?” She shook her head not sure she had heard him correctly. “Johns didn’t kill Owens, I did.” She caught her breath when she realized she’d said the words that’d been haunting her, and didn’t fallen apart; maybe someday she could learn to live with her actions that night.

“Owens killed himself when he was stupid enough to do a course change like that, and thought he could sleep through it. I was talking about the way he died, suffering, with no morphine. That was Johns’s doing. He stole the med-kit for the drugs.”

“Johns is a junkie as well as a merc?” She let out a rough laugh to try and keep the tears at bay, but one escaped, she hoped Riddick wasn’t able to see it in the dark corner they were in.

“You didn’t know?” Riddick ran his hand gently over her cheek, curious about the lone tear. It was the second time he had known her to cry over the crewman who would have sold her out. The first had been when she had made the others leave the ship while Owens died his painful death, but he had been there, listening; bound and gagged in the back of the ship. He had wondered what kind of con she was trying to pull. When he realized it wasn’t a con, but real, it frightened him but made him feel warm inside at the same time. Her response was unheard of in his world. “The man wasn’t worth your tears. He was going to turn you over to slavers.”

“Oh God, Riddick! I left the emergency beacon broadcasting on the H-G, if Owens was leading us into a trap, it’ll tell his partners exactly where we are! We gotta abort and get that thing turned off.” She pushed past him to see what damage had been done to the systems check. It was running, but much slower than it had been. They were going to be stuck in the skiff for at least another hour and a half, unless they did something.

“We’ll be long gone by the time they get here.” He grinned, but it looked more like a death mask. “I’m sure they’ll be invited to the eclipse party, for dinner. All that should keep them too busy to bother with a small shuttle, parsecs away.”

“I don’t think I can take many more surprises like this one,” Fry rubbed her temples as she tried to make sense out of all that was happening.

“Sure you can tough-girl,” Riddick wanted to touch her, but held back. Her vulnerability was showing through the hard exterior he knew she liked to present to the world. He understood all about building an image and how important it stay in tact.

“Ya think?” She turned from him, taking the time he offered to regroup. Owens worked for raiders, the outcome of that made her shiver. Johns was a merc and a junkie to boot. Riddick, what was he? Certainly not the average murderer being taken back to Slam that Johns portrayed him to be? And her, what had she become? She was a coward and a potential murderer. This was truly the planet of the damned. What other surprises were in store for her? “Is anyone on this fucking planet what they seem to be?” She threw up her hands in frustration.

“I am,” he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. “Make no mistake about that, Carolyn.” He watched her closely as she digested what he was saying. He knew of at least one other surprise, but decided to keep it to himself for the time being. Jack was probably safer pretending to be a boy, and Fry didn’t need anything else to worry about at the moment.

“I didn’t lie to you. I got the shine job in the Slam, not for mining corbinite or millinite in the asteroide belts, or for one of those special ops units. All my life, until I went to Slam, I needed my vision. Colors were important, when I worked for the Company. I did things for them you can’t even imagine, but that was how I knew about the black box, so maybe it’s….”

“No!” God, he’s a Company spook. We’re all dead! She tried to pull out of his hold, afraid of him for the first time. But no matter how hard she struggled, he wouldn’t let her go.

“Yes!” His fingers dug into her shoulders as he spoke. She was afraid, he could smell it on her, but he had to finish this so she understood what he really was. “Go to work for the Company and learn a trade. You know the game. They test you and try you and play games with your mind until they find the one thing you’re best at doing. In my case it was death. They were good teachers and I am a quick leaner. But they didn’t like it when one of their trained assassins turned on them.”

“Let me go!” She lunged toward him with her fists raised, more afraid of him as a Company spook than she had been when she thought he was a mindless killer. But under that fear there was also anger. She realized that in those unguarded moments when he had been gentle, she’d been harboring a hope that there was more to him than he’d said. That his attitude was an act, but it wasn’t, not only was he a killer, he was the worst kind of killer, one that took money and killed coldly with thought and precision.

Riddick didn’t say a word; he’d been a survivor too long to let a little thing like an angry 98-pound woman get past his guard. His large hands wrapped around her incoming fists and he pulled them behind her back. In one quick movement he shifted and sent her crashing against him. She looked up in desperation, her eyes swimming with tears. It made his mind freeze and his body explode. There was a beating deep in him and he felt himself grow hard again. Temper and tenderness, all wrapped up in one neat little package, who would have thought it would make a woman so desirable?

“What’re you really afraid of, and why are you angry enough to come after me with fists?” He held her tighter as she struggled to get free.

“Let go of me!” She ground out. He had made her lose control and that made her more angry, than afraid. She was drowning in his scent and touch. He was making her feel things she had never felt before and part of her wanted to hate him for it, but she couldn’t.

“You’re afraid of you, and losing control, because you know with me there is no control,” he growled and felt her nipples push hard against his chest.

“No,” she whispered in denial, though it was as if he had read her mind.

“Yes,” he whispered and pulled her closer, trying to still in his arms.

“Please, let me go,” her breath was warm and sweet against his face, but she held herself stiff, trying to pull away from him.

“Is that what you really want?” The air around them grew heavy as she gave up the fight and let him take her weight completely.

“I…” she bit her lip as doubt gnawed at her.

“What color are your eyes, Carolyn?” The huskiness in is voice caught them both by surprise, as they recognized the familiar phrasing. Had he lost his mind? He had a desirable woman in his arms and it would take just the slightest sensual push from him and he would be where he had wanted to be since he first caught her scent. He would be buried deep inside her. What the hell was he doing, giving her a CHOICE?

“Ahh,” her voice faltered. Held tight against him she felt the hardness that dug into her abdomen, and flushed as she realized he could probably feel her nipples grow ridged against his chest.

“I don’t think we have any secrets form each other now, do we?” He grinned at her, but didn’t make a move, just watched her with his silver eyes that saw all and missed much.

The choice was hers. She would either give herself to him freely, or not at all. There would be no seduction or question of force. Wetting her lips she took a deep breath and stepped off into oblivion, “blue, my eyes are blue.” Her voice quivered as she realized the odds were great that he’d leave to her crash and burn on landing.

“We’ve only got about an hour,” his whisper vibrated from deep within him, as he ran his nose over her cheek and neck. One hand held both of hers securely behind her back, while the other searched for the zipper that opened down the back of her shirt. “I think we need to make it really count.” Was that the rasp of his voice or the sound of her shirt being slowly unzipped?

“Yes,” she shivered as she felt air on her damp skin, and his hand moving across her warm flesh to cup the side of her breast. “Ohhh,” in frustration she moved her mouth over his chest and up his neck, while trying to turn into his hand.

“Easy does it, Carolyn,” he wrapped both arms around her and held her close to his aching body, shaking with desire as her small pink tongue traveled over his skin.

“Please, I want to kiss you so badly,” she moaned as she rocked her hips against his thigh. She wanted so much more, but was unsure of him and of herself, so she followed instinct and kissed anyplace his skin was within reach.

A kiss, she wanted to kiss him? She WAS kissing him. That changed things. Whores tongue fucked, they didn’t kiss. His mind came to a screeching halt. This was what he had discovered before: Carolyn wasn’t a whore. Suddenly he wasn’t sure how to treat her. He freed her hands and holding himself apart, watched her face as the emotions played across it. He wished he could see more than shadows, so he wouldn’t do the wrong thing.

“What’s the matter?” She pulled back when she realized he was no longer participating, just standing, watching her. Suddenly she felt very naked, her shirt had slipped down her arms, exposing most of her breasts. “Where you just fucking with my mind?” She whispered and moved her arms across her chest, mortified that she had been so easily manipulated.

“It’s not your mind I want to fuck.” Then because she deserved the truth, he told it to her. “You caught me by surprise that’s all.” With a hand that shook slightly, he reached for her cheek and pulled her close. Leaning in he covered her lips with his. His first kiss, he hoped she didn’t realize. It was like drinking from a fresh clean pool of water. The longer the kiss lasted the deeper he drank. Letting her fill him with a cool freshness that made his blood burn.

Slowly, slowly, he told himself as he ran his hands down her arms and peeled her top away until it fell somewhere in the shadows around them. His large hands kept hers captive as he pulled them behind her and used them to lock her hips securely to his.

“Oh yeah,” he murmured. He held her wrists tightly in a one-handed grip against the small of her back. Arching her hips against him and keeping her legs straddled snugly over a well-muscled thigh. Looking down at the beautiful blonde woman who trembled against him, as he ran his hand along the side of a small firm breast. Circling, circling, circling, until he filled his palm with one pink tipped mound.

“Ohhh,” little mewing sounds escaped her throat as she tried to move harder against his hand. But he had her too tightly in place. Her helplessness should have frightened her, but it didn’t, it only added to the passion that was sweeping through her.

“That feel good, Babe?” He watched her lips try to form an answer, but no words came out. Long strong fingers separated until they caught a swollen nipple between them, then closed tightly. His thumb moved in to play with the rock hard prisoner in his hand.

“Richard,” she moaned as sensations shot through her making her buck while he slowly played with what he had caught. If he hadn’t been supporting her, she would have fallen.

“Easy Babe,” he whispered as he leaned over to kiss her again. The sound of his name on her lips had made him weak in the knees, though he would never admit it, so he lowered them both to the deck. When he was seated, in the aft section of the skiff, between the benches, he held her securely to him with one arm, and reached behind her to pull off her boots.

Once her hands were free she dug beneath his shirt. Small strong fingers stroked his skin and worked their was around to his back. She pulled at the hem of his top, struggling to get it off him while his arms were locked around her. “I want to feel your skin against mine,” she ground out.

“I think that can be arranged.” He gripped Carolyn’s thighs to keep her splayed against him while she pulled the garment over his head. As his shirt disappeared into a dark corner of the skiff he lowered her beneath him and nibbles on her lips. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t know how, or if it was even right. He was traveling down a different road with Carolyn. For the first time he wanted to give as much as take. Her small whimpers of desire had made him want to hear more. It had become vitally important to him to know that he was able to give her pleasure. Was it the planet, was she right, was everyone different here?

She ran her hands over his shoulders and chest, lost in the feel of his skin until she found his nipples. He moaned at her touch. His large hands moved through her hair and pulled her head back until his mouth covered hers. She had never felt so out of control or so secure in her life. Her body caught beneath his, she felt the weight and hardness of him pushing against her, even through their remaining clothes. Every time she tried to pull at the waistband of his pants, he pulled her hands back.

“Please, Richard,” she cried out as she rocked her hips against his groin, but still not able to feel him where she needed him most.

“Not so fast, Babe,” he looked down into her shadowy face and even with his shined vision he could see she was lost in passion. Her eyes huge and her mouth full and damp, the expression of want plainly written for all to see. But he was determined to set the pace for reasons of his own. Shifting his legs, he straddled hers and locked them together.

She had had a few casual affairs between runs, but she had never felt anything like this. “You gotta help me, please!” She begged, and pulling at the back of his pants again. She was drowning in need so intense she could hardly breath. All she knew was that she wanted his touch everywhere, and she would do anything to get it.

“I’m right here, with all the help you need.” He slipped both arms under her, arching her back and bringing her right breast against his mouth. “Now hold on tight and I’ll take you where you need to go,” his voice was a deep growl, making her moan.

Pulling her breast to his eager mouth, he felt her shiver beneath him. Her hands reached for his back and held him tightly, the only solid thing in her shifting world. He took a hard nipple between his teeth and pulled while he sucked. When his tongue moved over the taught bud he felt her nails dig into him as she bucked wildly beneath him, and screams of pleasure tore from her throat. He relaxed his mouth slightly until her screams subsided into moans, then his mouth tightened and he pulled and suck as his tongue flicked over the still hard nipple. Carolyn’s body exploded again as she was rocked with sensations, and held on tighter to the large body that covered hers.

His mouth nibbled his way to her left nipple and taking it between strong lips pulled and sucked while his nimble tongue danced over the hard nub driving her to the edge where a little nibble of sharp teeth pushed her over. Twice more he relaxed his hold, only to tighten again and send her body shattering in all directions.

“Oh my God, Richard!” She gasped, the sounds of her screams still loud in her ears. She held tightly to him while she tried to catch her breath. Her body was on fire from him and still she wanted more.

Her short nails had dug into his back, but it gave him pleasure to know he would have small crescent shapes under his shirt where she had marked him. He slowly lowered her to the deck then sat up.

“No!” She reached for him as he pulled away.

“Shhhh Babe, just rest, we’re not done yet.” He whispered and dug his hands into the waistband of her slacks to pull them off along with the scrap of lace that passed for panties.

He quickly slipped off his boots then stood and pulled off his own pants, before lowering himself to the deck beside her. He ran his hands over her body, marveling at the contrast between his darker skin and her petite paleness.

“Richard,” her eyes fluttered open at his touch.

“I’m right here, Babe.” He slipped his legs between hers and spread them. Then knelt between her thighs. She lay before him like a virgin sacrifice, his for the taking. Her eyes were glassy with an expression he had never seen before. Was this real desire on a woman’s face?

Grasping her hips he pulled her round bottom onto his thighs. The soft blonde curls between her legs were damp and glistening as his long fingers probed and touched, learning her inner self.

“Oh, please!” She cried out as her back arched and she bucked against his hand. The total vulnerability of her position only added to her passion.

“Soon, Carolyn, real soon,” his voice was like melted honey. She felt wet and slick, from desire, and it was making him throb with need. Her muscles relaxed around his fingers, deep inside of her. She was a small woman and he was a large man. He had deliberately done all he could to prepare her for him. His touch verified what he had suspected before; it was going to be a tight fit. It gave him an odd feeling of pleasure and pride to know that if he hadn’t taken care with her, she would have only experienced pain.

“Now!” She gasped, unable to take his probing any longer. “Please, I need you inside of me.” Tears filled her eyes as she struggled with the animal need she was feeling. It was all about him, all about them. Her legs gripped him and she reached to touch him anywhere she could.

“Yes, now!” He lowered her to the deck and covered her body with his. “Wrap you legs around my waist. It’s going to be a tight.”

“It will work!” She gripped his face in frenzy.

“That’s what I like, a woman with determination!” He laughed as she pulled his face to hers and kissed him.

She felt him hard and large, touching her wetness then probing, until he slid inside her. She gasped as he filled her deep and hard. “Ohhhh yes,” her words were lost as he perfected the art of kissing, their tongues dancing against each other.

She was warm and wet and very tight around him. He tried to rock slowly, but her hips moved to meet his thrusts, increasing the pace and intensity. In that moment he let go and instinct took over. His hands roamed, fingers pinching and caressing as her legs locked him deep in her. Then he felt it, the quivering deep in her core and she began to throb around him as she cried out his name over and over again. He held her tightly as she exploded in his arms and then he followed her over the edge.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered as her brain cells finally began to reconnect. She knew her face was covered with tears, but she didn’t care. “That was so beautiful. I never knew it could be like that.”

Me neither, Babe, me neither!

Monsters in the Night (Part 4)

For a moment Riddick rested his weight on Carolyn as he fought to pull back into his shell. He could feel her raspy breathing beneath him and her body slicked with sweat. It made him want to hold onto her tightly, as he’d done when her orgasms had ripped through her. Instead, he balanced on his elbows and put some distance between them.

“Richard!” She murmured, as he would have pulled out of her. Her arms, which were still wrapped tightly around him, moved down his back. Her small hands dug into his buttocks keeping him locked between her legs.

He could have easily broken her grasp and freed himself, but the feel of her body wanting his and the way she called his name were too much for him to push away, though he knew he had to do something before he lost his edge. There was something about the woman beneath him that changed all the rules.

“Our time’s almost up,” he whispered in shock as her lips moved over his bicep and she kissed her way to his shoulder. It made him itch to feel her mouth move over other areas of his body as well. All he really wanted to do was fold her close in his arms, but he knew that was a dangerous road that he didn’t want to take.

“They gotta be wondering where we got to.” He looked down at her naked body below his on the hard floor of the skiff and knew she didn’t belong there. Her pale skin contrasted with his deep tan; her petite frame overshadowed by his larger one; and her dented soul fragile and new compared to the blackened pit that was all that was left of his. What did she want? And how could he possibly give it?

“Just another minute, please,” her nose ran over his chest and drank in his scent. The adrenaline was still rushing through her veins and all she wanted to do was feel him against her. He meant safety and comfort. She didn’t question it, because she knew too soon they would be back to work and she would be alone again. The systems check had cut them off from reality, so for now, she held tightly to the man who had been strong enough to cut through her reserves.

THIS HAD TO STOP AND STOP NOW! “If we’re quick, we can work it in,” he forced himself to chuckle, as he reached back and grabbed her wrists pulling them high above her head. Using his hips to pin hers roughly to the ground, he stretched her out below him. The shocked look on her face only served to strengthen his resolve. “Ya gotta remember that when you play with the animals, you might get bit.”

“No! Stop.” She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he ground his hips into hers, in a rough parody of their earlier dance. She fought the desire he was fueling even as it caused tongues of fear to lick at her senses. If he hadn’t warned her what he had in mind, the flash of bared white teeth would have. She bucked, as she watched his mouth move to her right nipple that was still sensitive from the last time his lips had covered it, and growing harder by the moment. This time there was nothing gentle about him as he bit and pulled, causing her scream to echo throughout the soundproofed skiff. Wild uncontrolled need pounded through her.

“What’s the matter, Carolyn, don’t have the stomach for it whore style?” He could hear her ragged breathing and knew he was missing something. Her scream had carried a note of fear, but it was mainly surprised desire. She didn’t have to tell him no one had treated her like this before, it was written all over her face. Why wasn’t she running scared? He pulled back and tried another tact. “One fuck is much like another, but ya gotta admit that there are some things that add spice to it.” He pulled hard enough on her wrists to send a quick shaft of pain through her shoulders before he rolled off her, his words dripping with distain. “Naaa I’ve never been one for rape. Give me an EASY woman any day.”

“You son-of-a-bitch!” She shouted. Still in a haze of want, she reached for the oxygen tank on the bench above them and aimed it at his head. His words had been a slap in the face. She had been easy for him, even when he had turned it rough she had still wanted him. The thoughts shamed her, but worse than that was what he had made her feel. He had let her feel safe. Let her feel that there was one person she might be able to trust on this damned planet. Worst of all, in her exhaustion she had let him get closer to her than any man had before. She had given him a peek at the Carolyn Fry that lived beneath the cool exterior of the Docking Pilot and he had taken what he wanted, then slammed the door in her face, laughing at her as he did it.

He easily deflected the incoming tank and grabbed her fists as they followed on the heels of it. The anger on her face was what he had wanted. What he knew how to deal with. He was back on safe ground.

“Are you sure you really want to try that?” His voice poured over her like honey mixed with ground glass. He felt her slight tremor as he looked pointedly at her bare breasts, inches from him. “You’re way out matched in this game so if I was you I’d watch my temper.” Neither of them questioned why he had warned her off, instead of just taking what each knew would have been his if he chose to take it.

“Just let me go,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “Just let me the fuck go!”

Fry grabbed her clothes and moved to behind the pilot’s seat where she quickly dressed. She could feel him at the other end of the skiff and it was making her hands shake so badly that she fumbled the zipper up the back of her shirt. She froze when she felt two large hands move hers aside.

“Don’t you touch me!” She turned on him in temper.

“I took it offa you, I’ll refasten it.” He turned her around and carefully moved the zipper into place and slid it up the length of the shirt; they both ignored the shiver that followed his movements.

He cupped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “You’ve been warned twice, now. That’s once more than I usually give. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating me again, Carolyn. I am what I am. Maybe this is one time you should believe Johns.”

“Go to hell, Riddick.” She threw back her head, her chin raised and a deadly look in her eyes. But it was the glint of tears as she quickly slid into the pilot’s seat, to put more distance between them, that caused his hand to reach for her, before his mind kicked in and he pulled it quickly back.

…………………………

The green hull integrity light began to blink and Riddick knelt beside Fry’s chair to quickly reattach the cover to the computer. “When we get back to the Hunter-G, I’ve got to have time to put the box back where it belongs and make it look like it hasn’t been tampered with.”

“But why? The ship crashed, it could have been damaged then, or the pirates could have gotten…” she felt a shaft of cold fear as he shook his head.

“No, believe me on this Carolyn, sometime, somewhere, the Company will come into possession of this box. When that happens someone like me will be sent hunting you.” He watched her absorb what he was saying, as he reached for his discarded goggles and slipped them over his eyes. “You think those aliens out there are scary, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

But she had, she had seen Richard B. Riddick in action. He was scary all right, but not for the reasons he though; for what he did to her peace of mind. She tried to tell herself it was only the planet, but she knew there was much more to it and him than that. So she took the only sane way out and slammed the doors on all that had happened between them. “So we aren’t going to tell the others what we found out?

“Not yet.” He stood and put the box in his pocket. “The raiders are too far away for us to worry about at the moment. Once we get this skiff launched will be time enough to figure out what to do.” He leaned over the back of her chair and whispered in her ear, “besides, Carolyn do you really want the others to see all that’s on this box?” He shouldered the oxygen tank and unlocked the skiff’s doors. His words were left hanging in the air behind him as he sauntered into the sunlight.

………………………..

It had taken a bit of searching, but Carolyn found Johns in a storage area behind the Coring Room. She watched him quietly from the hall as his trembling fingers opened what appeared to be a shotgun round and pulled out a spike. It turned her stomach to see him carefully inject it into the inner canthus of his eye.

“So who are you really?” She strode into the box and barrel lined room, and began digging in Johns’s ‘ammunition’ box . “You’re not a cop are you?”

“I never said I was.” Johns leaned back enjoying the buzz he was getting as the morphine sang in his veins. This was his favorite time, when the drug was fresh and new, giving him a high that said all was right with the world. He was damned if he would let the bitch interfere with it.

“You never said you were a fuckin’ hype, either.” She couldn’t believe she had ever thought the dazed lax man in front of her was attractive! It made her skin crawl just thinking about him, now.

“I don’t see the problem. You have your caffeine in the morning and I have my morphine.” It sounded logical to him, maybe it would get her to leave him alone.

“It becomes a problem when you let Owens die the way he did!” A little voice shivered across her mind reminding her of her own guilt in the matter, but she ignored it. “You’ve got enough drugs here to stop a fuckin mule train. Owens shouldn’t have had to die screaming!”

That was the last straw, Johns grabbed Fry’s wrist and pulled her close. “Sure it isn’t what he was screaming when he died that’s really bothering you, Carolyn?”

“Let go of me.” She wrenched her hand free and took a step back. “You’re nothing but a hyped up Company sanctioned assassin, and I’ve been letting you roll the dice with our lives.”

“You figured that part out too, that’s too bad.” He stood and moved slowly toward her, the morphine having lulled him into a false sense of power. “You been talkin to Riddick?”

“What the hell does Riddick have to do with this.” She stood her ground. She had been pushed by one big man already today, and she was damned if she would let another get away with it.

“Well you were talking about assassins, I thought maybe you and Riddick were doing a head count.” He grinned at her as he saw the fire explode in her eyes. “I’ve killed a few in my days, but old Richard B., well he puts me to shame. Then there’s you, Docking Pilot Fry, how many deaths were caused by you? There were easily forty passengers and you were going to dump us all!” He laughed at her outrage. “If you add in the crew, like your old friend Owens, that puts you in Riddick’s league.”

She moved so quickly his morphed out minded didn’t see her coming. Her right hook landed squarely on his chin, followed by a left upper cut that took his breath away. She swept his legs out from under him, but he brought her down with him. He got in one punch to her left jaw, but she had seen it coming and pulled back, so it landed, but didn’t do much more than bruise the skin. Grabbing him by the shirtfront, Fry dug her right knee into his neck just below his adam’s apple. She was taking in great gasps of thinned air and adrenaline pumped through her veins. Two men, the words kept playing in her mind as the fight with Johns was superimposed with her time in the Skiff with Riddick. Two damned men sending me into adrenaline overload because they wanted to get physical. Well you shit head; I can be physical, too!

“If you ever fuckin touch me again, you’ll find out if I’ve got it in me to be a murderer!” She let him go and stood over him, daring him to try something with her again. “Now I got work to do.”

You’re dead, bitch! His mind screamed as she turned her back on him and left. But first he had time for one more spike.

……………………………

When Riddick had left the skiff he looked longingly at the windmill and the small amount of water it was producing. He could smell Carolyn on his skin and clothes and it was twisting his stomach into a knot. He would have gladly gone thirsty to wash her fragrance off of him, but he knew that no amount of scrubbing could do that. He needed distance and anger. Setting his jaw, he knew he was a mean enough son-of-a-bitch to pull it off, or at least he had been before she had dared him to tell her the truth about Zeke’s death.

Shaking his head at the mess he was in, he saw Imam, Jack, and the two boys in a circle where they had buried the kid who had died a few hours earlier. He reminded himself to keep an extra watch on Jack. By not telling Fry she was a girl, he had taken on responsibility for the child. What the fuck? He wasn’t a man who took on responsibility. Damn you Carolyn!

“Mr. Riddick,” Imam called as the children went off to load water onto the skiff. “Is everything all right?”

“How would I know, Holyman?” The big man looked at the older one, trying to figure out what game he was playing.

“You know a great deal more than you’re telling.” Imam had seen him come out of the skiff, followed by Fry moments later, and they had both looked troubled. More than a systems check had gone on in that locked ship. “The skiff is it not the life raft we had hoped it would be?”

“We gotta get the other power cells here first, until then, that things just another place to keep out the monsters.” Yes, in there he had found a place where the monsters didn’t live, or at least he had, until he had brought them in to scare away Carolyn, but she had been much harder to scare than he had expected.

“Monsters?” The black man raised an eyebrow. “An interesting choice of words. Have you ever wondered what a Holyman is before he looks into the face of God?”

“No Father, I can’t say I have,” Riddick looked around wondering where Carolyn had gotten to, he had seen her leave the skiff a few minutes after he did.

“You should, you might be surprised what you….”

Riddick could feel the sudden change in the light and he stopped listening to the drivel Imam was trying to preach. He turned and saw the large ringed planet appear on the horizon. Time was running out.

The voices of Imam’s boys could be heard frantically calling for ‘the captain.’ Riddick turned from the awe-inspiring sight of the huge planet rising, his eyes darting to the entrance of each building. Where the hell was she and why didn’t she come when the boys called her. Suddenly he realized that Johns was nowhere to be seen either, and a knot formed in his stomach.

The rattle of a door opening to his right caught his attention. She stood in the entrance, her hair disheveled and a bruise forming on her left jaw line. She had had bumps and bruises from the crash and her fight out of the hole. He had seen each and every one of them in the skiff. Though he had been rough with her toward the end, he knew every place he had touched her and just how hard. This one was new! The hackles rose on the back of his neck as he met her eyes. How much more damage did Johns do?

Carolyn could read the question on Rich…Riddick’s face as clearly as if he had shouted it. She shook her head and shrugged. As she moved past him, he reached for her hands and saw the smattering of blood and broken skin on her knuckles. I can take care of myself, her expression challenged.

“We gotta get going!” She pulled her hands from his and pointed toward the sky. “Time’s running out.”

…………………………..

Riddick waited for Johns until the last minute, then he ran for the Sandcat. Let the fucker die here, he thought as he landed on the moving vehicle amide the frenzy of the group. Carolyn had been right, they were out of time. A noise to his right, caught his attention and he turned and instinctively reached out, pulling Johns aboard. He smiled as he realized that she had also been right about taking care of herself. Johns had gotten the worse end of that interchange. For the moment he would let him live. But if there had been any doubt in his mind that Johns would die, it had ended when the spiker had dared put a mark on Carolyn.