The Animal Side

She had slept, she wasn’t sure for how long but it felt good to recharge the batteries, she tilted her head over to where he was asleep, or was he? Still, she needed to stretch her legs and she was thirsty so in one movement she had rolled off of the bed and was striding towards the door, quietly opening and closing it before he had a chance to say anything to her. She had spotted the crate of beer bottles in the aft section of the ship hours earlier amongst other rations, slowly she made her way to the back of the ship only to be brought to a halt as a figure launched himself at her crashing into her and then onto the floor.

Springing up and into an immediate defensive position she pulled a shiv from her boot and slowly gauged the area in front of her as the figure pulled his own blade out, one of the Mercs from the station had obviously crept on board and been hiding, waiting for the opportune moment and he had found it. She moved forwards then and had grabbed him, lifted his body slightly and pushing him up against a small glass cabinet smashing the glass, the sound of it echoing through the ship as the Merc caught her in the shoulder with a blade he had hidden on himself. From her right she had heard the heavy footsteps of boots as Riddick was instantly awake at the first sound of noise and as he made it into the corridor Jack’s bedroom door opened.

“Stay there” he pointed to her as he leant over and closed her door again before shifting his gaze to where Alex had the Merc pinned.

Leaning back, Alex head butted the Merc not once but twice to break his grasp on her as she let him go but he was stronger than most Mercs and in that second she had dropped him he had made off down the corridor with her flat out running after him. Bending down she grabbed the shiv that had fallen from out of her hand and took off after the Merc hearing the heavy footfalls closing in fast from behind, footfalls she recognised in the empty corridors of the ship.

“Son of a bitch” she muttered as she skidded to a halt, the lights going from dim to nothing.

A hand on her shoulder stopped her from advancing any further as Riddick took another step forwards in front of her pulling her backwards and scanned the area ahead, she looked across to him and studied his face, shine jobs were getting rarer and she hadn’t seen someone with a shine like that in years until now. She kept close though as he moved forwards slowly only to stop when she thought she had heard a noise from her left, Riddick had missed it and had continued onwards. She tilted her head round to stare into the inky blackness of the room having not memorised all the rooms she wasn’t too sure where they were on the ship but the noise sounded like someone had accidentally knocked something.

Reaching down to her other shiv she pulled it slowly from out of her boot and stood upright once more before making her way inside the dark room, the door suddenly closing behind her and locking. She stood very quietly for a long few seconds as she tried to adjust to the complete blackness, she saw something move out of her peripheral vision and felt a presence in the room as she ducked and felt the air shift around her. The Merc was in the room with her and now toying with his victim but Alex had learnt a long time ago to rely on other senses when one had been blinded by either a lack of sight or a lack of light, her training had bought her many extra lives in the whole scheme of things.

“Why wont you fucking die” the male voice was angry as it came at her full force, pushing her into the corner of the room by the door

Riddick had heard the commotion and hadn’t made it in time when the door locked shut, already at his side Jack was pulling out a small data pad and had hot wired it to the access panel to the keypad and was furiously hitting the data pad whilst trying to hold a small mini torch in her mouth, at this moment Riddick felt useless. He could hear the sounds from within and deep down inside, his head had stopped telling him how much of an idiot he was, his mind had completely shut off where she was concerned, now his gut was leading his instincts and his instincts were telling him he needed to get in behind that bloody door.

“Hurry up Jack” he said as he heard the banging inside the room intensify along with the sounds of shouting and grunting.

“Shut up” she muttered through her lips as she tried not to drop the torch from her mouth, her fingers were moving quickly as they hit barrier after encrypted barrier.

“Open the door Jack” he rested the palms of his hands against the cool steel door frame.

“Oh shit, oh shit…its on a cycle” Jack panicked then as Riddick looked down to her.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The door, it’s been put on a countdown, it’s the fucking airlock…I can’t stop it from here, I’ll have to try the main cockpit” she pulled the wires and ran without waiting for his permission towards the main flight deck where she jacked back into the system.

“Fucking open this door” he began to beat his fists on the cold surface.

“C’mon you piece of shit, work” Jack smacked the top of the control panel as she heard the first of the sirens engage and the audible countdown begin.

“You set the timer? You fucking moron” Alex hissed at the Merc as he was catapulted forwards hitting the front airlock doors.