kcalB hctiP..I traP

Opening shot: A small spacecraft flows by the camera as two words appear on the screen (accompanied by ominous scifi music): KCALB HCTIP.

We see Richard B. Riddick, Jack the Girl and Imam the Hoodoo Holy Man seated inside a small skiff, approaching a planet snaking around three suns. Riddick deftly handles the controls and dips the ship to within sight of a mining colony. The colony is lit, breaking the total (well, 'pitch') blackness of the planet's surface, but there are no signs of life. Instead of landing, Riddick pulls hard left and veers away from the base…

Jack: "Riddick, what are you doing? (The girl and Imam look apprehensive). We're almost out of juice...can't we just land?"

Riddick turns back and roars by the colony only scant meters off the ground, creating a sonic boom that rattles the metallic structures from one end of the camp to the other.

Riddick: "Can't arrive…without saying 'Good morning'!"

Jack: "You saw 'Top Gun' one time too many in Slam."

Imam: "There have been so many things to pray for, I scarcely know where to end."

Riddick: "Amen!"

Imam: "But that is for Christian prayers, Mr. Riddick. I praise Allah."

Jack: "Mazel tov."

Imam: "That's for….oh, never mind."

Riddick circles back and gently lands the skiff next to some juice pumps and then lowers the ramp. He directs Jack to recharge the cells while he scouts around for provisions. The night is ….well…pitch black, and rain is pouring down. As he is walking between two cargo containers there is a sudden screech overhead and a body comes from out of nowhere, falling directly into his arms. It's a woman!

Riddick: "Where the heck did you come from? Are you an angel from heaven? Are you not for me?"

Fry (pushing him away): "A hammerhead alien just dropped me, you big lug - they don't fly too well backwards and sometimes they lose their grip. No, I'm no angel...and I'm DEFINITELY not for you! Do you have others with you…do you have lights? I left some people back a ways and need to go rescue them. It's not safe here…the aliens could start moving forwards at any time, and they're MUCH more dangerous that way."

Riddick: "I have two crew members along…a girl pretending to be a boy and a holy man pretending to take good care of his wards."

Fry: "You wait here…I'll go get them and we'll go back for my friends together."

Riddick: "You call that a plan? How do I know you won't just leave me here and take off in my ship?"

Fry: "Frankly, I wouldn't know how. Hey, I don't even know the meaning of the word 'trickeration'!"

Riddick: "Neither do I." (He whips out his pocket Webster's and begins flipping through pages.) "Not in here, either! Do you think the writers made it up?"

When he looks up, Fry is gone…and he finds himself sandwiched by two rather scary-looking, big-toothed hammerhead aliens. They are both backing towards him, but both are facing away from him. Riddick ducks into the huge space between their alien buttocks.

Riddick (holding his nose pinned shut): "Bwind spot!"

The aliens fly off, wondering where the heck the meat-smell is coming from, and as Riddick muses about the levels of alien intelligence in the galaxy, Fry, Jack and Imam come running up, dragging four power cells. Jack and Imam are carrying a patio umbrella between them as well.

Jack: "This seems like a bad idea, Riddick. Won't we need these cells to take off?"

Fry: "Your little itsy-bitsy ship would never hold all of us plus my crew. We'll need those to power up my wreckage. And…hey…where did you get that umbrella? It belongs to one of my lost comrades, Paris."

Imam: "We found it back there, along with a very wet big gauge, a foot, a leather tool belt and a few turbans. I think perhaps there's no one to save…we should just save ourselves. And did you say 'wreckage'?"

Fry: "My ship's a little dinged up is all. Nothing I can't fix! And I'm not leaving anyone on this rock with those things!"

Riddick flips his goggles over his eyes: "How interesting. I have a better idea…you come with me….and you didn't answer me!"

Fry: "You're f**king with me, I know you are. You didn't ask me anything! But I'd die for them, yes I would, Riddick."

Imam: "What the hell are you two talking about?"

Riddick starts off towards the canyon.

Riddick: "Come on…you know the way!"

Jack: "No, we DON'T! Aren't you afraid to go running off into the…er…pitch blackness?"

Riddick: "Me? Afraid? Hah!"

Imam: "Yes, Mr. Riddick. I don't believe you know the meaning of the word 'afraid'."

Riddick gets out his Webster's, but Fry knocks it out of his hands.

Fry: "No time for that now…Run! We must save my ship-mates!"

Riddick (shaking his head slowly): "Strong suicide instinct…I hate that in a woman!"

The four of them race into the canyon, with Riddick dragging the cells. They pass a small cave in the canyon surface and Jack looks inside.

Jack: "Oooh…Bluey, wriggly things!"

Riddick: "Don't hide here..now!"

Imam: "We weren't intending to, Mr. Riddick."

Riddick ignores the holy man. He stares forward, down the length of the canyon.

Fry: "Riddick, tell me we're close."

Riddick: "We can't make it… I don't even know what the heck I'm looking for, but still…we can't make it!"

With a scream, Suleiman repels down the cliff face beside them and leaps off the back of a hammerhead, which then scampers back up the wall.

Suleiman: "Hey, Fry! You came back for me! Me, a nobody with no billing! And you brought a fellow Muslim with you!"

Imam greets the boy and they high-five…then, remembering their company, they bow respectfully.

Suddenly, it stops raining.

Riddick: "Where the hell's your God now, father? You know very well we need the rain!"

Jack is about to pop the umbrella closed when an alien beastie perches atop it and begins pecking down on the fabric. Fry runs to the rescue.

Fry: "Get off her…er…him! Get off him…er…her!"

Riddick races back into the beast's blind spot and tries to gut it, but it swipes him away with one swing of the tail and then flies off backwards, having forgotten why it had attacked in the first place.

Riddick (picking himself up off the ground and checking for broken bones): "Whew! I did NOT know who I was f**kin with!"

They race ahead and reach the mouth of the canyon. Riddick pauses to shine the area.

Riddick: "Only see one way off this rock…that way." (He points back the way they came.)

Imam: "Just because you do not believe we are on the right path, doesn't mean God doesn't believe…"

Riddick: "You got it right, holy man. I absolutely (!) don't believe."

Imam: "Let us rest and pray together before continuing on."

Riddick: "It's pointless, but the action needs a pause or the audience will become saturated."

Imam (pointing): "There's my God, Mr. Riddick!"

Their gazes follow Imam's stabbing finger. Coming to them out of the darkness is a figure swathed in back-light…an almost heavenly figure, seeming to float two feet off the ground…

Fry: "Oh, that's just Johns. He always walks like that right after taking a tear-duct full of Folgers crystals."

Johns is oblivious to them as he crouches down and scrounges around in the dust for his ammo kit. His efforts seem in vain in the dark and he begins to rail at the Gods of Coffee with an anguished whimper, causing Jack's eyes to mist up in sympathy.

Riddick: "Don't you cry for Johns…Don't you dare."

An alien suddenly swoops in close…very close. Johns races over to the group in obvious fright.

Johns: "Hey, everybody…glad to see you're alright."

Jack (shaken by the alien's close approach): "We're going to lose everybody out here! We should have stayed at the ship!"

Riddick: "Which half?"

Johns: "Your ship broke into two?"

Riddick: "Huh? We're just following the docking pilot's plan here."

Fry: "Yes…we need to get back to our crashed ship."

Riddick: "Back to the ship, huh? With these aliens around? And then what? Just huddle together until the lights burn out and you can't see what's eating you? That's the big plan?….Okay, sounds good to me. Let's go."

Johns has been eyeing Riddick suspiciously.

Johns: "Don't I know you? Didn't you once shiv me near the fifth lumbar vertebrae?"

Riddick: "I don't know what you're talking about. And besides, it's the fourth. And, besides, I told you to ghost me. And besides, you surely never should've taken the chains off, Billy Badass."

Johns: "It's coming back to me now. And don't call me 'Shirley'."

Riddick: "Remember that moment, huh?"

Fry: "Let's keep going! Everyone, pull!"

As the others pull on ahead, Riddick and Johns lag behind.

Johns: "Who do you think?"

Riddick: "I'm just wondering if we don't need a bigger piece of bait."

Johns: "All right. You do the girl, I'll keep the others off your back."

Riddick: "So which one caught your eye?"

Johns: "Are you deaf? I just said…the girl! We've got extra cable on the sled. We push the body forty, fifty feet in front of us."

Riddick: "Nice embellishment. Lousy understanding of the properties of cable, but nice embellishment."

Johns: "What's that term battlefield doctors use to determine who live or dies? Oh, yes…'murder'."

Riddick: "I think you mean 'triage'. Let me give you the quick and ugly version of my days as a MASH surgeon."

Johns: "I'll be the man to decide who's the one to die!"

Riddick: "Not if I'm the one. You just realized that?"

Johns: "Hmmm… Anyways, ain't all of us gonna make it."

The other four have stopped ahead, waiting for Johns and Riddick to catch up.

Johns: "Wow, you look slim, Carolyn. How much do you weigh now?"

Fry: "Shut your fallutin' blowhole! I always looked good, all movie! YOU, however, haven't been getting enough sun…er…suns!"

Johns: "We're just walking ghosts to you, aren't we?"

Jack: "What is he talking about?"

Johns: "I can see the future, kid, and at some point, when we take off from this planet, Owens is gonna try to blow the whole passenger cabin, try to kill us in our sleep."

Riddick: "My animal side will still be awake."

Fry: "Oooooo. Johns, your ESP does not help us."

Imam: "Just one question. Who in Allah's name is Owens? Is he, by any chance, an Islamic basketball player, about six-foot-seven, who can play the pivot?"

Another alien swoops low overhead, causing everyone but Riddick to cower.

Johns: "Well, I've been enjoying myself out here…and since my life is a meaningless pile rug anyhow, I say mush back! The crash's only a coupla hundred meters ahead - I guess, anyway - so butch up, take the cork outta that girl and let's go."

Fry: "This is not gonna work! I was wrong, I admit it. We should just get back to your skiff, Riddick."

Jack: "Not to interrupt at this trying time, but I need to tell everyone something. I'm not really bleeding."

Fry (moving to comfort the girl…er…boy): "Jesus, are you really not bleeding? Why did you tell us you were?"

Jack: "I thought it'd be better if I was taken for a girl. Riddick might see me as a threat if I was male, and, worse, Imam would probably have tried to convert me!"

Riddick: "Hmmmm…So it's not 'her'...it's 'him'."

Imam: "I think we should go now."

Riddick: "Listen!"

Imam: "Why haven't we circled? Why haven't we gotten lost yet so that Allah can guide us?"

Riddick: "Listen! The canyon behind us is filled with those creatures."

Jack: "We already know that! We just finished running for our lives through there!"

Riddick: "Hey, just cause you're a boy now, doesn't give you the right to talk back."

Jack: "SEE! I TOLD you. He hates me as a boy!"

Fry: "Can we pick up the pace?"

Jack: "Are we getting close?"

Riddick: "I circled once just to make the holy man happy."

Johns: "Well, it's good to see your sense of humor's okay."

They run on for a bit when suddenly a huge tongue of flame appears off to one side of the sled and Paris comes crawling backwards them with light tubes wrapped around him.

Fry: "Paris! You're back here! And thanks for the extra light…it helps!"

Paris: "This is a happening! This is a happening! This whole thing is way better than a trip to France! Of course I'm back, Fry, baby!"

They mush on and suddenly before them...the crashed ship! Riddick's crew looks over the hulking wreckage with growing skepticism.

Fry: "All right! I can fix it! We stay together and keep the lights burning."

Paris: "Are we actually going to do this? Try to take off in this twisted hunk of junk?"

Fry: "It will work!"

Riddick moves to the front of the group and looks inside the dark wreckage.

Riddick: "Looks…clear."

Johns: "Well, what's it look like now?"

Riddick: "You got wax in your ears, Billy Badass? I said it looks clear."

Johns: "You said clear!"

Riddick is about to smack the merc when, with a screaching cry, an alien zooms out of the interior darkness and flies off into the…well…the pitch black.

Riddick: "Looks clear!"

Jack (pointing): "Hey…the horizon is lightening!"

Paris:"No, girl...er…boy…that's just Twohy's way of adding reference…absolute pitch black wouldn't work well on film."

Fry: "You're wrong…it IS a little lighter. Let's work our way into the bowels of the cargo section and wait out the rest of the darkness. Unless the seventy-nine kilos of gutless white meat has a plan that involves mass suicide."

Johns: "How did you know my weight, you spy? You can find your way into a men's locker room, can't you Carolyn?"

Fry: "No, I can't" (She nods towards Riddick.) "But he can."

Riddick: "Absolutely!"

Johns (to Riddick): "Where you been going?"

Riddick taps his shiv near Johns' crotch.

Johns: "Oooh..that tickles."

Imam: "This solves nothing."

Riddick: "You think someone can spend half their life in the slam, with a horse bit in their mouth, and not believe?…"

Imam: "You already gave that speech later, Mr. Riddick."

Riddick: "So I will…and I will still absolutely hate the f**ker.."

Fry: "Can it! For now, we sit tight and wait for light."

Johns: "Well, if these creatures are phobic of light the sun will come up, but who's to say for how long? It might be a REAL short day! I say we sit tight through a few nights, just to be sure."

Fry: "I'm quite sure NO ONE said that, locked in that coring room. They MUST have been smarter than that!"

Imam: "I received a vision from Allah that the two planets will be moving as two and there will be a lasting light."

Fry: "Okay, so we stick to the plan...we leave the four cells that we dragged all the way back here and head back to the settlement. Johns, you've got enough sun-tan lotion?"

Johns: "Enough for freakin what?"

Fry: "For our stroll back. We can make it a moving beach blanket bingo!"

Paris: "I've got perhaps ten bottles of booze. Anything over forty-five proof sloshes one rather well. It'll be a REAL shindig!"

The party moves out into the next section. As Johns begins burning their way even further outwards Riddick wanders off into the dark recesses of the cargo hold. Suddenly, Hassan comes running out of the darkness and stops near him. Within seconds, two aliens emerge from the area where Hassan had come from.

Riddick: "Extremely good timing."

One of the aliens leaps to a spot above their heads.

Walking slowly backwards, Riddick and Hassan join the others. Imam embraces Hassan and welcomes the boy; Johns just shakes his head.

Johns: "Why do I get the feeling we've just gained another pathetic life form?"

Fry: "Shut up, Johns. That's from another scifi film. Come on, keep making our way outwards."

They cut through the outer bulkhead of the compartment and move through the opening.

Paris: "Now we're trapped in a much BIGGER compartment, with those creatures."

They have reached the outer hull of the ship. The air is filled with the echo-sounds of the alien horde outside. Paris tries to flee back the way they came.

Johns: "Where are you going?"

Paris: "I'm not staying here one more second."

Riddick: "We should check outside, see how many there are. Come on, Johns, you've got the big gauge."

Johns: "I'd rather piss glass."

Jack: "So what're we gonna do now?"

Riddick slides open the outer door, his goggles down. The air is swarming with the hammerhead aliens, their echoes filling the night air. He looks up at the gas giant and notes a brightening corona at its edge.

Riddick: "We watch the sun come out."

The sun breaks through the edge of the planet, though still partially obscured by the rings.
The huge aliens scream as one and fly back towards the conical entrances to their underground lairs.

Fry: "They're leaving!"

Riddick: "Like I said, now you only have me to worry about."

Paris: "Please now... I think we should go back inside. Let's close the door again, come on, let's go. They may just be going home for a nap!"

Ths sun brightens further and a swarm of hatchlings sweeps in from the horizon, buzzing the ship. Just twenty meters away they drop a body and then soar and dip their way towards the cones. Shazza stands and waves to the group.

Shazza: "That was quite a ride! Wow, like a roller-coaster! They almost tore me in two, they bloody did!"

Fry: "Hello. Since Jack is a boy now I'm glad to have another female along. Can you repair and drive a sandcat?"

Shazza: "Bloody well!"

They run to a conveniently-nearby sandcat, all the while watching the hatchlings form into tight helical swarms and begin funneling into the cinder cones.

Riddick: "Beautiful. Like synchronized swimming. I love it."

Johns: "How many are there?"

Shazza: "Can't bloody tell."

With a final screech the last of the hatchlings disappears underground just and the sun emerges full-force from behind the giant planet.

Fry: "Everyone! Sun screen on, now! Now, let's put those power cells into their places on the crashed ship and head back to the settlement."

To show his beefcakeness, Riddick carries a power cell on each shoulder. All are replaced and the group meets back at the sandcat. Shazza revs the engine and they drive off on the return leg, winding their way through the canyon and the boneyard.

Paris: "Why are we returning to the colony?"

Fry: "There's one more battery we need to retrieve."

Paris: "And we ALL need to risk our lives for ONE cell?"

Fry: "Yes."

Shazza: "Bloody cell!"

Riddick is fascinated by Jack's oddly-adopted look-alike garb and is staring at the boy. Jack points one finger forward and Riddick ducks just in time, avoiding being conked on the head by the rib-bones of some ancient beast. When they reach the settlement Johns prepares to leap off…Riddick helps the merc along with a push from behind.
Johns sneers at the con but races inside for a fix.

Suddenly, Riddick disappears.

Jack: "Where's Riddick?"

Paris: "Leave it to him to run off...he wouldn't wait for us."

As the rest jump off the sandcat, Paris stares at the gas giant setting in the east.

Paris: "What are my eyes not seeing?"

Fry: "We're in the clear, Paris. No chance for another eclipse anytime soon."

Fry wanders into the colony building in search of Johns. She hears the two Islamic boys calling to her and cups her hands around her mouth to yell outside.

Fry: "I'm not your freakin captain!" she screams in disgust, all the while backing into the room. Johns sits with a super-buzzed look on his face, watching Fry's …er…bum.

Johns: "Well! I'll look to thine ass first any time, Carolyn!"

Fry: "So you're an ass man. Anything else I should know about you, Johns?"

Johns: "Owens will be back soon, I know it. And I'll share my stuff with him."

Fry (looking over Johns' stash): "You have enough here to kick-start a mule team!"

Johns: "You have a little caffeine in the mornings and I have…a LOT of caffeine. So what? I never said I wasn't a coffee-freak."

Fry: "No, you didn't. You're a cop, aren't you? Goes with the territory… and the donuts."

Fry leaves, disgusted. Johns, his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, inserts a thread into the eye of a needle and begins darning his socks, all the while sipping a double, extra-caf.

In the skiff, Riddick and Fry are standing close together...too close, if you ask this author.

Riddick: "So now you know why he shakes like that. I truly don't know what is going to happen when we get off this rock, but I do know, once the living starts, this little psycho-f**k family of ours is going to have nothing to do with each other."

Fry: "DON'T waste my time. We're not gonna sleep together no matter how hard you try."

Riddick: "Oh, you still impressed with that nickle-slick badge of Johns', and that blue uniform? Well, your Johns ain't a merc, he's a cop. If this wasn't treateration, I guess he'd just put me in cryo-sleep for good, but I am worth twice as much to him on the loose…keeps him on the payroll and all. But I need to go back to Slam….and in one piece. I'm tired of running and I miss my cell. Do you think I can trust Riddick to chill me?"

Fry: "How the hell should I know what Johns is gonna do in the past...err...future! You don't scare me Riddick, is that what you didn't want to hear? Now, let me get back to work shutting this old skiff down. We need to take back the last cell."

Riddick: "I asked you what you thought."

Fry: "I think it's not good that there are two pilots here."

Riddick: "You're worried about a repeat of history? Don't be. I don't really know how to pilot, that's just part of my legend."

Fry: "I got the quick and ugly version. Now get outta my face, you big lug, so I can finish my work."

Riddick (laughing): "Oh, it just looks like you're shy."

Riddick leaves the skiff and runs into Johns doing the Twist under the influence of his 'medication'. Riddick sets to shaving his head with sandcat axle grease.

Riddick: "A bad sign, shakin like that in this heat."

Johns: "Hey, escaped cons shouldn't be havin shi…shivs…"

Riddick: "This? This is just an 'impersonal dooming device.'"

Johns (spitting): "Oh..okay, then."

Johns heads into the skiff to talk to Fry, still doing the Twist the whole way.

Fry: "Looks like you're dancing on razor blades here."

Johns: "He's a killer, and the law says he has to run and be hunted down. There's nothing I can do about that, you hear me?"

Fry: "He hasn't harmed any of us. As far as I can tell he hasn't even lied to us, so let's make a deal with him, freeze him, take him back."

Johns: "The only way you people are truly safe is if he believes he isn't going to be
frozen. If he IS going back to Slam, killing a few more civvies won't much affect his
life sentence. Let's say he stops believing…"

Fry: "Look, tell me we can trust him. Tell me we can make a deal."

Riddick: "He hijacked a prison transport…made a hell of a good run before I tracked him down. So wait on bringing this power cell back to the other ship. Let's just give him a chance to run again."

Fry: "Wait? Wait for what? Till all three suns are in the sky and it's so sunny we can't see our way back without our Raybans? Wait till one of us dies of heatstroke?"

Johns: "We don't even know when it's gonna happen so let's not get over-excited."

ONTO Part II...

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