The Slow Burn, Chapter 5

5.
Riddick: Pouring One Out

Well, that had been several exercises in futility.

The inside of the crash ship was relatively cool and completely deserted. It was a good place to regroup and collect his thoughts.

Riddick had seen a lot of things on his tours of duty, but he’d never seen a planet with three suns before. Not one where people could survive on the surface. The disappointment and frustration over completely losing the cover of darkness was almost eclipsed by his sheer, absurd wonderment at the existence of such a thing.

He’d shadowed Billy and his little brigade for part of their water hunt, but had soon found himself doubling back to check on the prospects closer to home. That merry troop had moved far enough away that they no longer posed an immediate threat. The ones who had been left behind, though, might be vulnerable.

Not to him, in particular. Johns might like to tell stories about him killing indiscriminately, but that was far from the truth. He was more concerned about whatever was behind the bloody cryo locker and its missing contents.

The Englishman incongruously named Paris, he’d soon decided, was the ’verse’s worst sentry, too focused on his cigars and caviar to even notice Riddick’s approach. When something finally did catch his attention, he proved even less impressive.

Idiot, Riddick had thought as he climbed up on top of the ship and watched Paris stalking toward the cargo container. You don’t desert your post. You sound an alarm and stay where you can see what’s happening. Guess I’ll have to do that part for you.

He’d vaguely recognized the man who was staggering toward the container as one of the unconscious-or-dead people he’d seen in the cryo lockers he’d unlocked. Not a threat.

Zeke, however, creeping up behind the man with Johns’ pistol drawn… that was a problem.

Resting now in the cool depths of the ship, Riddick took a small pull from the wine bottle he’d liberated and considered his options.

Zeke would be trouble. Paranoid, on high alert, willing to shoot without warning or provocation… and a damned good shot. His first order of business would have to be getting that gun away from him. Then maybe they could have a nice conversation about what was really what… once he knew that the man couldn’t shoot him. Until then, Zeke was a mortal threat, and not just to him.

One more sip from the bottle and he decided he was done. Any more and he’d lose his edge. The wine was probably the only liquid they had to drink, but that actually made the alcohol in it more dangerous than ever. Better the others got tipsy first; he needed to keep his head clear. Especially because disarming Zeke might not be as easy as he would like.

He carried the bottle with him to a rent in the ship’s hull, on the side away from prying eyes. He was pretty sure the crazy girl had spotted him, but for whatever reason she had kept her mouth shut. Still, he’d prefer not to have people aware of his movements. Not until he was in a stronger position, anyway. Not until he’d dealt with Zeke.

“Sorry about that, man,” he murmured, lifting the bottle for a moment in a toast to the newly-dead. He wondered if any others would wander in from the tubes he’d unlocked and hoped if any did, the survivors would be less jumpy about them. Tilting the bottle, he poured a little out for the fallen, whoever the hell the man had been. And, he thought with a frown, whoever had been in that bloody locker.

He set the bottle down in a nice, shadowy, almost-cool nook of the crash ship before exiting. It was time to deal with Zeke.

As he circled around the area Zeke had chosen for a burial ground, he felt a chill move through him. Some of the same whistling he had heard near the opened cryo locker was sounding through the strange formations nearby. And other disturbingly animal-like noises, as well.

That ain’t just the wind, he thought after a moment and frowned again. Zeke, dragging the body of the man he’d shot over to the grave he’d just finished digging, seemed completely oblivious to the sounds. So much for being on high alert.

Palming his makeshift blade, Riddick decided that he definitely needed that gun more than ever.

A moment later he realized it was already too late.