Haunted Planet: Chapter Two-Ghost Voices

Hey pretty
Don't you wanna take a ride with me?
Through my world
Hey pretty
Don't you wanna kick and slide with me
Through my world
-Poe, Hey Pretty

“Rough night?” Riddick growled from the darkness with a sly knowing smile as Arwen,
looking disheveled and tired out, entered the control center unaware of his presence.

She started with a surprised gasp and put a hand to her pounding heart. “Bugger me!
Oh God, it’s just you,” she sighed, relieved. “I didn’t know you were in here and when I
heard your voice I thought...” she stopped herself, shaking her head. “Never mind.
Good to see you up and about, you must be feeling better. How are your friends?”

“The priest is still unconscious,” he answered, keeping his gaze on Arwen as she
nervously went about her business while trying to avoid going anywhere near where he
sat, always keeping a reasonable amount of distance between him and herself. “The
girl was awake last night and this morning but she’s still very weak. You’re not going to
ask?”

“It’s really none of my business,” she smiled, then admitted, “not that I’m not curious.”

“What about you?” he asked, coolly raising an eyebrow. “What’s a girl like you doing
in the dark part of the galaxy.”

“I’m part of a scientific team sent to survey and evaluate the surface of Ammet3,”
Arwen replied, leaning against the console and for the first time daring to look him in
the eye. “To see if it could be used as a colony. We set up a settlement on the surface
and everything was going really well until...” Again she stopped herself short, clearly
unsure of whether or not it was wise to continue. “Well,” she sighed finally, “you might
as well know since it affects you and you friends now as well. Team A disappeared,
one day communications just... ceased. We sent Team B down, doctors Jantz, Reuel
and Xiou, but they reported back only once before they too were gone. They said the
settlement was abandoned, but everyone’s personal effects were still there so they
couldn’t have just gone off. They wouldn’t have anyway. I mean, there’s no place for
them to go.”

“Why not just leave, bring back help?”

“Me and Trist have thought about it,” she scoffed. “The expedition’s ship is down on
the surface, we have only a shuttle on the SpaSta meant for the sole purpose alone to
ferry teams to and from the settlement. Anyways, it wouldn’t help us very much seeing
as neither me nor Tristan can pilot.”

“But you can,” Tristan said, suddenly making them aware of his presence, lurking
silently in the doorway, “can’t you stranger? I think there’s something you ought to
hear.”

Riddick sat and listened quietly as the horrific sounds coming from the comm washed
over him, screams, cries, laughter, many voices whispering all at once, some seemingly
speaking in reverse. They seemed strange, detached, unnatural and Riddick reacted to
them on an extremely primal level. Though he remained outwardly calm, inside his
stomach clenched and churned and his heart pounded against his ribcage like a bird
trapped in a cage. In a purely animalistic way the voices inspired terror in him, it
seemed to be their intent, their sole function. Suddenly all went quiet save for the small
sound of one single voice, that of a woman whispering breathlessly again and again
‘please send help, please send help’.

Tristan clicked it off and turned to Riddick who sat perfectly still, emotionless, cold.
“That was the last transmission we received from the surface. The last voice, the
woman, we think it’s Nathalie Jantz, the extra-terrestrial environmental expert who went
down with Team B. Then nothing. I had assumed external communications was busted
but I kept a channel open hoping to hear from them again and that’s when we got your
message. I think you know where all this is going?”

Riddick nodded with a mocking scoff, “You want me to pilot the shuttle down to the
surface so you can have a look around. So what, I’m not you goddamned chauffeur.”

“You will be if you want to get the hell outta here,” Tristan replied bluntly. “The main
ship is down there, remember? We find ourselves in somewhat of an akward position,
Mr. Riddick. We don’t know each other, we don’t LIKE each other, but we need each
other. Ammet3 is a completely hostile environment, you wouldn’t survive but three
seconds down there alone, even with your admittedly formidable survival skills.”

Riddick stood and sauntered over to Farrar, stopping dangerously close him, his face
only about a foot away from Tristan’s. To his credit, he neither flinched nor shrank
away, he held his ground with a cool casual manner and a smooth unconcerned glint to
his eyes. Riddick was in serious danger of actually respecting the little bastard. “I’ve
been in completely hostile environments before,” he growled coldly. “Ain’t nothing to
stop me from taking your shuttle, going down to the surface myself and leaving you
here stranded after I take the main ship.”

“Maybe so,” Tristan shrugged, but something in his voice warned Riddick to beware.
“But do you really want to go down there unprepared? I don’t think so, you’re smarter
than that. Think it over, talk it over with you friends and come to us with your decision.
After all,” he added with a sharp grin, “we’re not going anywhere.”

“Where’ve you been?” Jack asked, restlessly shifting in her bed trying to turn so she
could face Riddick as he strolled into the medical bay.

“Talking to the assholes that run this place,” he replied, taking a seat next to her bed
and placing the back of his hand against her flushed forehead. “How’re you feeling,
kid? Better? Try to eat something,” he said throwing her a packet of rations. With only
minimal effort the girl managed to sit up though she was still unable to muster the
strength to rip the foil package open. Riddick did it for her. “How’s Imam?”

“He was awake for a little while before but I think he was kinda delirious,” she
answered through a mouthful of the rations. “What were you talking about, you and the
assholes that run this place?”

“Um, they want me to do something for them,” Riddick sighed deeply. “Usually I’d tell
them to go fuck themselves, or each other as the case may be, but I don’t think that’ll
help us very much. As it is I don’t think I have much of a choice if we want to get the
fuck away from this hellhole.”

“Plus, helping them,” Jack added brightly, “that would be, like, a good thing, right? I
mean that’s the kind of the Fry would...” She bit her lip and frowned. Even just the
sound of herself saying that name caused her great pain. It was like she was wounded
on the inside and no matter how much time went by, it would never be enough to fully
heal the ache. Though she was sure it would dull eventually it would never go away,
not completely, but neither would the memory, which was a good thing. And that’s how
she’d honor the woman who gave her life to save them all, by remembering.

“You’re right,” Riddick said quietly, braking the sad silence. “Guess I haven’t gotten
the hang of this whole ‘human’ thing yet, huh?” he teased with a wry smile. “Anyways, if
it’s the only way to get us out of here...”

Once again, Arwen’s wild pleasurable moans filled the hallway outside the crew’s
personal compartments. Riddick grinned, leaning against the wall next to the doorway
to Farrar and Rose’s quarters and waiting for them to finish. The sounds intensified,
climaxed and then died down slowly. He could hear them moving about inside, the bed
covers rustling and the patter of bare feet on the cold metal floor. Coolly, Riddick
slipped inside only knocking and clearing his throat to make them aware of his
presence after he’d entered. He smiled innocently as, startled and embarrassed,
Tristan, who was standing stark naked in the bathroom entrance, fumbled to cover
himself with a nearby towel and Arwen, who still had one wrist tied to the bed and most
of her voluptuous body exposed, cried out and rushed to throw the blankets over
herself. “Son of a bitch!” Tristan managed to get out, humiliated and raging at the same
time. “W-what the hell do you want?!”

Shrugging and scratching his chin in a mock casual movement Riddick answered
nonchalantly, “Just cam to tell you that we’ve talked it over and I’ve decided to do it...
as it were. If you two can come up for air long enough to help me that is,” he added with
a wicked, wicked grin, then left.

Feeling quite smug and pleased with himself, Riddick lay on his bed in medical. He
was tired and his muscles ached something awful from the strain of forcing his still
unwell body around all day. Relaxing, he closed his eyes and heaved a long steady
sigh, folding his arms behind his head. Then, all at once, the ghostly voices from the
transmission came rushing back to him, flooding him until he felt he was drowning in
them. The quiet laughing and pleading and crying filled his senses as he struggled
against their suffocating tidlewave. Slowly one voice began to stand out, a woman
singing simply and playfully in the distance, a song that sounded like a warped fairy rhyme:
‘Dearest, don’t you be afraid, take me to the garden you made. Lose me in your house
of three and I’ll let you have your way with me.’ Riddick awoke with a desperate gasp
and did not sleep again.
* * *


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