Match, point... game

Chapter two:
Hell’s gates

The old man had died by the time the skiff had begun the docking for the large prison planet Brigitus S.8, leaving the stench of death hanging and permeating throughout the hull of the ship. The mercs had thrown a right fit upon finding one of their paychecks dead and had jettisoned him out of the air lock and into the depths of freezing space where he would float until he entered the pull of a planet or star. The silence between prisoners had continued, the girl and Riddick no longer even looking at each other, each too far into their thoughts of their coming internment.

The docking had been rough and choppy, the ship shaking unnecessarily hard when it came in contact with the bay of the large prison. That only gave more discredit to the merc pilot, who clearly didn’t know how to land his own vessel. The humiliation at being caught by such idiots was starting to sink in even worse than before. They had all been released of their midsection chains but the others remained on, the shackles pulling from the wall and being latched onto the bottom of the skiff where huge latches laid in wait. With a lurch, Riddick, the girl, and the kid, along with their captors, was pulled towards the open cargo doors and the entire bottom of the holding area detached from the ship and started down a track like run. Now with their hands chained close together and their feet giving them hardly room to walk instead of run the prisoners were left with no choice but to wait patiently as the tracks lead them into the gaping jaws of the towering prison.

Anyone who has ever been in a Slam will tell you that the top means nothing. It’s for pure intimidation. So as they all stared up towards the dark, black spiny finger, stretching into the orange sky above, there was no sense of what laid above that held for them… but what was below. Through the yawning metal maw of the main gate they passed, the mercs guns needlessly pointed to all of their backs, and boy starting to sob over how it was self defense. They went deeper and deeper, darkness starting to envelope them and little more than red lights on either side of the cavern allowing for any kind of sight whatsoever. Riddick listened to the girl next to him shift and the youth with them start to blubber and beg for mercy. There was no mercy in the slam… the kid was going to die real quick.

The corridor that seemed to have stretched forever ended with a flash of blinding light, entering into the main complex of the prison’s first floor where a massive elevator pad stood in the center as well as ten to fifteen guards all holding their own weapons, staring at the coming prisoners. Among them, the only man without a weapon, stood the warden, watching the bottom of the ship come to a stop at the end of the tracks and the prisoners standing before him. The man looked like a pig, fat and round, with grubby hands and a slimy face that made the girl beside him cringe. The warden eyeballed the prisoners greedily before his eyes came to rest upon the one he had received special word on… Riddick himself. Oh happy day!

“Welcome, gentlemen, lady,” he opened his arms and the mercs shoved the guns into Riddick and his unwilling companion’s back, forcing them to step forwards. The chains released and they were left to walk in shuffling steps down a small stair towards the waiting guards and their waiting doom. “And especially welcome you, good sir…” the warden stepped forwards when they were free of the cart and was before the man for his inspection. He came right towards Riddick, licking his lips anxiously and giving the muscular man a once over.

“Lift his goggles, we need to make sure he’s the real deal,” the warden barked. One of the mercs grabbed Riddick’s head gruffly, causing the man to growl warningly low in his throat, and lifted up his shielding glasses and exposing him to the light of the room. His silver eyes opened slowly, unaccustomed to the brightness around him, and glared at the men before him. “Oh yes… it really is you. Richard B. Riddick, the murderer extraordinaire! You have quite a bounty on your head, but oh is it worth it,” the pig man muttered with a disturbing glitter in his eyes.

Riddick winced when a light was shown right in his eyes; he turned away slowly, his nose wrinkling in another warning. If he didn’t have his hands bound like this he would kill this pig man and all of his guards… He noticed, however, when the light moved and the warden was before the girl that he had begun to dub Red in his mind. The warden looked her over through her torn and disheveled clothing. The guards were eyeballing her as well. Female inmates were always a gift from whatever god existed out there. “And you my dear? What is your name?”

“Kiss my ass,” the girl snarled. She lunged at him but was stopped by her chain being pulled back harshly, causing her to fall down onto her backside and gasp at the sudden and painful action.

The warden made a disappointed clicking noise with his tongue, shaking his head. He turned to Riddick and then the boy, and then raised his hands out. “Rebelliousness like that will not be tolerated, I’m afraid. Punishment here… is severe,” with that Red let out a grunt like yelp as she had an electric prodder put to her throat, causing her body to momentarily convulse. There was the smell of burning flesh in the room and when the prod was pulled away there was a seared mark in the shape of the weapon on the girl’s dirty neck. Her brown eyes were smoldering with hatred. Riddick watched it all with his silver eyes narrowed but said nothing, did nothing.

At last it was the moment of truth as the warden came before them and put his hands on his fat hips, his watery eyes examining all of them. He pointed to Red and Riddick, sneering darkly. “These two will be taken down to the double max rings, and that blubbering mess…” he waved his hand at the boy who had collapsed and was sobbing uncontrollably, “will be sent to the pits right away. He will be of no use to anyone but feed.”

“What!?” the sixteen year old yelled as he was hauled to his feet. Guards flanked around Red and Riddick, forcing them onto the elevator, while the youth was pushed towards the edge of the platform. The prison, like all other slams, operated in a series of rings that went down and down into deeper parts of the earth, getting steadily worse as they got further down. It was easily a good three miles deep into the earth and where the rings and Slam ended there were grates and cages called ‘the pit’ where the aliens and other creatures were kept to purge the prison whenever the guards were bored. Red and Riddick stood with their circle of guards, each having their weapons trained on the criminals, as the kid was put to the edge. They watched, somberly, as the boy was pushed while still crying, over the edge. Screaming, he flailed about as he fell deeper and deeper downwards into the blackness that awaiting beneath. They didn’t even hear his screams after fifteen seconds or the splat of him hitting the cages beneath.

Red scowled but offered no more acts of foolishness, and the elevator started its way downwards to where they would now be staying. Leaving the merc’s and the warden to do whatever the hell business it was they were supposed to do.
“He didn’t deserve that…” she breathed.

Riddick didn’t respond but only rolled a shoulder, making it crack loudly in the thrumming of the machine. Time to start scoping things out and preparing for his escape.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was hell. That was all that this place could be described as. Grim and filth clung to every surface, the metal around them was rusting, and some of the railings surrounding the rings of platforms had rotted off and the ledges were left precarious and dangerous. There was a stench of the air of too many bodies smashed together, of urine and waste, and bodies decaying in the middle of it all. There had yet been a place to bath to be located, so that meant that the days would be spent being greasy and disgusting, as well as there was absolutely no way of going two feet without stumbling over some kind of rat or other carrion animal feeding off of thing she didn’t want to know about on the floor.

Georgina’s brown eyes flickered to stare up at the cell bars that she had chosen as her sleeping area for the ‘nights’. Really it wasn’t anything livable, it just so happened to be one of the only units on this level of the double maximum area that didn’t have a dead body inside of it. She shifted against her wall and scowled, her fingers clenching and unclenching in an aggravated way. She didn’t know how she had been so careless to bring only so many bullets and to dare to not clean her shiv’s before heading out with her wolf pelt. And the fact that she had not sensed them stalking her stalking the wolf only made her snarl at herself all the more. She was losing her edge in these times of peace. She remembered the good old days of fighting in the military, of being in space crafts, of shooting down enemies, black ops, the works! Well… at least now her life wasn’t boring. Now it was hot as hell, she stunk because she had yet to find a place to shower, and the water here was brown and questionable.

It was hell, put and simple. Her fingers idly thumbed at a small shank she had managed to make from one of the many dead bodies around and some rusted off metal. Took her a full three days to make it to where it was anything like a shiv, having to wrap the base in some of her jacket to keep it together while she was working on the hilt, and even still, it made it easier to hold. Plus… she didn’t have anything to mend her poor jacket with. Damn it all.

George stared out of her compartment once more and into the area where the ring was just that, a ring, where it fell off for a good mile down into the triple max area where only the damned went. This time of day the air was getting hazy from all of the body odor and the stench, as well as the gasoline and other fumes from running the cryo beds below. Around this time of day it was best to stay low or else the guards that were now patrolling would decide to have a little fun, one way or another. What fun the last two weeks had been… Her red hair, though, had been doused with the strange brown water, making it slightly more manageable if not slightly stinky, and was now held in yet another leather tie from her jacket. Oh the wonders of your own personal clothing being used for other measures. She’d already had to use her shank on someone for trying to be a bit too friendly on the fifth day, she had been punished again and the body thrown to the monsters.

George span her shank in her fingers momentarily before reflecting on how she had gotten here, or rather, who with. That man… she remembered that Riddick fellow. Sure she’d heard of him, all people in her line of work have; a killer so proficient that if you so much as look at him you won’t see his blades until your head is already rolling away. Somehow… she’d pictured him slightly different yet exactly the same. That muscular body, heavy and taught with power, intimidated her just from sight, knowing that he could snap her in half like a twig had sent a thrill of terror through her when her eyes had first laid upon him. Then she’d been struck by the fact that he was so quiet, so reserved, and yet there had been something in that silence that told her she was in the presence of a wholly dissimilar animal than herself. He was singular from anything she’d ever seen, just the feeling he gave off, just sitting there in the holding bay, had been filled with danger and her instincts had been screaming to run away. Then there was the fact that when one of the mercs had torn his goggles off of his head he had the most interesting eyes on the face of the planet. Swirling silver, molten glowing metal, and they had seemed like they could pierce into ones soul, judge them… it had made her body run cold almost as much as the fact that he could kill her in a thousand ways with just his hands.

It made her glad she hadn’t seen him on these fifteen something rings since they’d gotten thrown down here. It wasn’t that she was not confident in her own abilities to protect herself, she wouldn’t be a good fighter, killer, and assassin if she didn’t know how to fend someone off, but he… he was different.

There weren’t even beds on this layer. All the beds were for the first rings, where they weren’t much of a threat. Here all they had was the floor and whatever they could get their hands on. George sighed as she leaned back further on the wall, her eyes narrowing in disdain of this place. Though she had been secretly scoping this place out for any weaknesses she had yet to formulate a good plan. But considering that a ‘good plan’ had gotten her into this mess, perhaps a bad one would win her freedom.

“Hey, George! The guards are fighting with some inmates, c’mon!” George’s head snapped up. There, at the opened door of her small room, was the form of the only person she even spoke to in here. She was a girl around nineteen in for killing her family for some reason or another, or something like that, George really had not been listening, and she had what would have been beautiful blond hair and bright green eyes. She motioned for the red haired woman to follow.

“None of my business, Ave,” Georgina said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She picked her boot with her shank, prying free a large rock that would only get replaced the second she took a step. She hated this place more than she could say.

Ave sighed in exasperation and put her hands on her hips. She wore low slung, ill fitting jeans that were in complete and total tatters, and her tank top that was once white was now a dingy grey with black specks. She shot a sour look at George before waltzing into her cell with a put off glare. “Seriously? I mean, c’mon, this is one of the only chances we have to kill those fuckers! They come down here for a fight, and when they get one, then we get to do whatever we want with them,” Ave said with a wicked sneer.

George idly wondered how she would have been had prison not warped her mindset. The brown eyed other shrugged her shoulders. “Again, not my problem. I don’t like to fight when I don’t need to,” she murmured.

Ave scoffed. “I thought you were some bad ass!”

“I am,” George said with a smirk that spread from ear to ear, her brown eyes glittering, “I’m just a bad ass that likes to keep the peace when she needs to and likes to fight when she wants. And right now, I’m content picking rocks from my boots,” she threw a rock at Ave’s head to get the message across. Making a grunting noise the blond woman turned on her heel and stormed from the cubicle, leaving George once again in sweet silence. If only for a moment.

There was scuffling and yelling coming her way, informing her that the fight had spilled over into her ring and that her cell was about to be taken in by all of the violence. Rolling her eyes she stood and brushed off her jacket the best she could before putting her shank into the sleeves, holding the hilt with her thumb idly, and leaning back into the shadows. The male inmates were pushing and shoving at guards, punching and using homemade weapons to inflict damage, whereas the guards were using their tasers and plasma guns to either kill or immobilize. She watched from the shadows the whole scene take place, not moving to help either side, and frankly quite bored with these fights that broke out every five hours or so. She had already killed two guards; it wasn’t like they were hard to take down.

She spotted Ave at the edges, cheering the guys and burlier girls on, pumping her fist in the air. The blond was stopped dead when a taser was shot right into her breast and caused her to scream with the sudden jolt of high voltage. Almost as soon as the fight broke out it was over, each side retreating with their wounded to fight this battle another day. There were several inmates dead now, and George supposed that this was another way to purge the population, to let new blood come in. As twisted as that was… it made a lot of sense. That and humans were stupid, territorial creatures, they couldn’t help but fight amongst themselves… she included herself in this list.

Ave was walking away from the four bodies, rubbing her chest where there was now a burn hole in her tank. She had passed right by where George had been observing only the inmate in question snickered and asked sardonically, “was that as fun as you had hoped?”

Ave stopped dead and glared in the direction where her acquaintances voice had come from. “Shut it, Georgina!”

George growled under her breath, shifting her shoulders and settling into where she had hidden. It wasn’t wise to sleep during the day, when everyone was awake, but it wasn’t wise to sleep at night either, because then you were expected to be asleep and vulnerable, so one had to pick when one rested very carefully. In some ways her prison term was like a chess game, she was merely waiting for a pawn or rook to come across so that the passage way would be cleared and she would be able to make her way to the King and win this game. She could picture the wardens fat face now as she tore off his ears with her recovered daggers and then sliced him from forehead to navel, deep and hard, gutting him while he was still alive. The fucker would get what was coming to him. So would the mercs that put her in here. Oh but her list was growing fast…

Growing bored of sitting in one area she put her knife in her pants hem and started an almost leisurely stroll among the other inmates and the ring that she was currently on. She walked around for a good few minutes, dodging falling wire bundles, hopping over barriers with yellow and black lines, and was heading towards the edge where she would grip onto the railing and then pull herself up to the another ring quickly when she stopped cold in her tracks. She could feel someone watching her, and though that was never a surprise in this joint, this stare was different. This one was cold, calculating, as if sizing her up, and it had her stomach bottoming out within seconds.

George remained calm on the outside but she was starting to panic on the inside as she turned her head slowly to and fro to see just who it was that had her suddenly riled up. Her body was on alert of its own accord, the hairs on her arms were standing on end, and her breathing had hitched just a little. Surprisingly she was in an area where there were no other inmates; strange since the last time she had been around here there had been around ten just dangling their legs over the ledge alone. But still… she could sense something. Darkness gripped every corner, every wall, enshrouding whatever it was that had a beam on her, making it hard for her to pinpoint wherever it was. It moved, she could feel it, not hear it… no, it was silent, almost as if it didn’t exist, like it was one with the shadows. Shivering despite herself George drew her shank and started to hold it loosely in her hand, prepared, if need be, to jump down to another ring after throwing her hand made weapon.

Sensing she wasn’t welcome here she turned and balanced herself on one of the only railings that wasn’t rusted to the core on this level, and launched herself to the next floor, gripping into the metal and then hoisting herself up with the aid of her much toned arms. She left whatever was there in peace, leaving as fast as she could, all the while thanking her lucky stars that whatever it was had not moved to attack her. It had been… overwhelming. Just the knowledge that whatever it was had been staring at her, studying her, stalking her. George put the thoughts behind her and trudged off towards where she knew a small trickle of brown water was, licking her lips anxiously.

Riddick moved silently from the shadows that had been griping his form so tightly a moment before and glanced to the roof of a floor over his head, his unshielded eyes narrowing. He ran his tongue over one of his incisors, making a small tsk noise before he glanced at the railing upon which she had stood and escaped from him.

He had claimed this area as his own for the next two days. It would be where he slept, where he ate when he got food, and where he would be plotting his escape from here that was already half formed in his mind. The second he had arrived on the scene the ten convicts had all laughed and eyeballed him, making crude comments and shooing him away, saying that this was their turf and not to mess with them. When one had been stupid enough to get violent with Riddick he had snapped the man’s neck and then asked if anyone wanted to go next. They had all gotten up and rushed away from the muscle bound stranger, looking like they were going to piss themselves by just being in his presence. Then again, he had that affect on people.

Just the fact that someone had dared to come here when he was sure word had spread through the double max rings that this was where the new crazy guy was staying made him blink. She had obviously not heard about it… but how? Word spread like wild fire in the Slam, it was worse than his experience, or lack thereof, in school. He had stalked this new comer in his domain, watching them intently. Masking his footsteps to silence and making it seem like there was nothing but dark around them he watched the woman walk over to the edge of the railing and glanced down then up with a slightly puzzled look. Then she had stopped. The silence of the area had given him away, or rather that the place was altered, and she was on high alert.

Dread had radiated from her body in waves, but it was also mixed with nervousness and a strange curiosity, all of which caused his blood to pump faster. The animal in Riddick loved the scent of fear and nervousness, it was a sign of weakness, and weaknesses were the downfall of his enemies. If they feared him then there was no way he could lose. So when she had started to glance around with her mouth pursed and her hand now gripping onto a shank hard he was abruptly alight with the prospect of a fight from this girl. She had seemed strong enough, though her form was hidden with a nearly dead coat, she resonated cockiness even in her alarm that only a skilled fighter could have.

She could sense him moving so she had backed up a little and had glared at the dankness around her. He was enjoying watching her eyes dart around like a scared rabbits. But then the fun had ended when she vaulted onto the railing, jumped up, and was gone with a firm heave of her arms up to the ring above, leaving Riddick with nothing but a lingering scent.

He found it somewhat entertaining that she had managed to stay that long without immediately high tailing it. Then something slammed in his brain and his glowing eyes truly did narrow, his mouth coming into a slight frown. The red hair, he had not recognized it because it had been pulled back and beaten into submission by water, but that same hair and those same eyes and jacket. It had been the woman from the skiff that he was brought here with.

So she had lived her first few weeks in the Slam, huh? Well that had to say something for a woman, especially one that had been stupid enough to try and attack the warden of this place while still in chains. Riddick turned his attention back towards the cell that was in the corner with a look of disdain. He had not even seen her since they had gotten here together, he had not even thought of her until this moment. Deciding that there was only so much room in a prison, that he was bound to run into her eventually, maybe even again, he pushed it aside and started to look at the falling wiring of the platforms with interest. There could be something useful for these in his coming attempt…