Terra Firma

Chapter Two – To the Threshold and Back Again

Richard B. Riddick almost felt like waving a smug good-bye to the thousands of ships that entered the rift to the Underverse, but he could not see them from where his ship sat thirty AUs away. He could imagine it though, having seen the rift for himself the first year of his reign. The ships would be sucked in, light would be bent and the ship would disappear. The Elemental had told him that it was most likely the ships were either crushed so immediately that the human eye could not see or it had passed into subspace and broken down to the atomic level… Either way, getting any closer than half an AU to the rift was suicide…and Riddick knew that the Necros were all about death…

Riddick listened to the command crew countdown the numbers, the thousands of ships disappearing off long-range scanners, and when only five remained, Riddick grinned.

“Glad to have them out of the way?” a wispy voice asked near his ear from where he sat on the command chair.

“Makes things less complicated, so yeah,” he growled, moving his silver eyes to the Elemental at his left.

Aereon had not left Riddick, and it did not seem she was likely to for a very long time. Riddick did not complain even though the pompous bitch often tried his patience. She gave good advice, from time to time, and if he were going to continue on as the new Lord Marshal of the new Necromonger Empire, he was not going to be as stupid as to dismiss advice. Riddick was never one to consider any person an ally, he could never trust his fellow man, but Aereon had never brought him any grief…besides being that annoying voice of reason in his often-chaotic mind. But it had not been Aereon who had brought Riddick to where he was now…it was Riddick himself who had managed to end the Necromonger ways…it was Riddick who managed to keep half of an Empire under his control.

One thing Riddick could not discount was the loyalty of those who had not crossed the Threshold.

It had been Aereon who helped ‘Those Who Remained’ to regain their humanity and it had been Aereon who suggested that every man who remained begin to think of how to heal the universe. If Riddick was the iron fist, the warrior Lord Marshal, it was Aereon who was the empathetic mother…despite being a being of logic and air.

Aereon had coined the phrase ‘Those Who Remained’ as those who renounced Necroism and no longer dreamed of death. She was a fair judge, and Those Who Remained respected her wisdom.

But Riddick reminded Aereon on a regular basis that he was still the Lord Marshal and if he wanted, he could easily dispatch her.

Riddick sat back into his chair, thankful that the Necropolis had also crossed the Threshold. He much preferred his smaller destroyer compared to the nearly defenseless, bulky and morbidly designed Basilica ship. Riddick liked having the firepower.

His fleet was cut in half, but most of the ships that had slipped through the Threshold had been non-military ships…large ships housing the millions of converts, none of which had ever been used in offensive campaigns, therefore it was not a major loss to Riddick’s mind. But still Riddick ruled an Empire of millions, and bit-by-bit, Those Who Remained were returning to their former lives, to their former worlds.

Riddick simply did not care if his army’s numbers were slowly diminishing. He hadn’t wanted an Empire to begin with… All he wanted was his freedom, and being the Lord Marshal of the remaining Necromonger Empire, all marks and paydays on his head had been repealed.

“My Lord, the last ship has passed the Threshold,” one of the command crew announced.

Riddick paid little mind, but he could feel that all of those around him were exuding a mixture of grief, loss, relief and hope. The True Believers were gone and Necroism would never terrorize the universe again…or so many hoped.

“Let’s get out of here…” Riddick growled to no one in particular, and soon the fleet, after witnessing the end of an age, fell in line to move on.

* * *


Riddick hardly slept. Of course, he had never slept much. It was part of his being, and it was part of his learned behavior after years in and out of Slam. But into his fourth year as the seventh Lord Marshal, it was dreams that kept him from sleeping.

It had begun back in Butcher Bay…visions of a woman and the strange landscape filled with graves. The woman was named Shirah and the planet was Furya. The dreams were not like the visions he had had telling him to wake his Furyan blood, his Furyan power. Instead these dreams were of the woman telling him to start his journey home.

There was one other dream that kept him from wanting to sleep…dreams of Kyra…dreams of Kyra dying.

“You have killed everything I know…”

Kyra’s body had felt so fragile in his large hands, the beating her heart like that of a bird’s, and when that heart stopped beating, he knew that he would never trust or love anyone again.

Her eyes haunted him, so clear at the moment of her death that he could see his own shined eyes in their depths. She did not blame him, she did not hate him, since the beginning, she had always been with him…

So he avoided sleep. If he thought about her, he would end up staring, locked up inside and oblivious to his surroundings.

It had been Vaako who talked with Riddick about Kyra. Vaako did not know the history, but soon learned that Kyra had been the last thread to Riddick’s connection with his humanity.

Vaako had been the most surprising of all Those Who Remained. He had only asked for one thing in return for his loyalty to Riddick…the right to dispatch Dame Vaako in a manner befitting one who would betray Riddick, and scheme her way into a more powerful position. Riddick remembered that Dame Vaako was perhaps the most outspoken Necro against Riddick’s rise to power. Riddick thought the bitch was beautiful, but far too charismatic and dangerous for her own good.

So, Dame Vaako was discretely disposed of and Vaako became the only man who Riddick could pretend to trust.

Pretending…it was something Riddick had developed a talent for. He pretended to give a shit when Aereon pushed for Those Who Remained to be restored to ‘Breeder’ status if the individual so desired. He pretend to give a fuck when Aereon pushed him to begin the 11th Campaign to repair the universe. And he ingeniously pretended to give a damn when some of Those Who Remained came to him for guidance. He had to keep up the pretense to keep the throne.

With Kyra’s death, Riddick found it so easy to pretend anything.

But one thing he could not pretend or mask was the instinctual urge to return to Furya. Perhaps it had been the dreams of Shirah, or perhaps it was because his blood was calling out for home…or even perhaps it was his morbid curiosity to seek out the origin of his being. Either way, Riddick was going to go to Furya.

The encounter with the Threshold had changed him in only one way…it forced him to accept the inner beast, and do whatever it took to sate the beast’s desires.

* * *


When Riddick gave Vaako the order to scout out Furya and explore the possibility of a safe return to his home world, Riddick expressed to his first commander that Vaako was to return with as much information as possible.

Who were the Furyans? Were there still any on the planet? Were there others, diaspora, making a pilgrimage home…just like he was? Was the planet inhabitable?

So many questions troubled Riddick…it was unlike him to wonder so…

But he knew Vaako would not dare disappoint him. It was obvious Vaako had his own convictions to do whatever he could to find his own form of forgiveness. As for Riddick, he knew that he was beyond redemption…and what hard ass would give a flying fuck about redemption?

Certainly not Richard B. Riddick.

So he traveled the galaxies in his destroyer, allaying fears and losing more and more of Those Who Remained to their formal lives…

“We all began as something else…”

Riddick had always been Riddick, and nothing, not even the title of Lord Marshal, was going to change that.

* * *


The last communication with Vaako’s frigate had been just before the ship had entered the Furya system. The last sensor reading had tracked the frigate on the surface of the fifth planet…and then the signal was lost.

Riddick did not think so much of the loss of the signal, it happened at times when ships passed through scorched atmospheres after the old campaigns. Vaako was capable of taking care of himself…Vaako was a formidable warrior.

However, Aereon was increasingly disturbed as hours with no contact turned into days and days into several weeks. An agitated Aereon was an Elemental who seemed phase out even if there was not a breeze.

“How fast do you think this ship can make it to the Furyan system?” Aereon asked Riddick at the beginning of the second week of communication black out. “Do you not feel that something should be done to locate Vaako?”

Riddick growled. “Send another ship then.” Once again, Aereon’s subtle agitation was beginning to wear on Riddick’s last nerve. He cursed under his breath as he headed toward the bridge of his destroyer, Aereon on his heels.

Aereon raised an eyebrow in reply…surely Riddick, the seventh Lord Marshal was not ready to face his past?


TBC...


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