The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [66]
Riddick said nothing. Stating the obvious would only make the two men feel that much worse. It was transparently clear that if Helion Prime completely went under, the entire Helion system would fall to the Necromongers. He knew military strategy, even if these poor cage monkeys did not. There was no need for the Necromongers to attack Helion VI, or IV, because both secondary inhabited worlds relied on Helion Prime for the basics necessary to keep their commerce and societies functioning. The Necromongers knew this, too, hence their bypassing of the outer worlds to launch a straightforward attack on Helion Prime itself.
Faces turned to the Guv as the other convicts waited for him to announce the name of his home world. Whether he would have done so or not no one knew, because they were interrupted by the sound of multiple doors opening somewhere overhead. And another sound, different entirely.
To the prisoners, an all-too familiar, unearthly, and bone-tingling howling.
It was new to Riddick, however. Head tilted back, he stood and listened with interest. Meanwhile, the Guv put an end to the conversation. “Doesn’t matter where anyone’s from. Not here. There’s just one world now: this one. And we didn’t get to pick it.”
Above, security doors opened and shut as the detachment of guards entered the prison proper. Working quickly, they unfastened bridles and removed muzzles. As soon as the latter came off, they stepped back fast. No matter how much experience one had with the hellhounds, it was impossible to predict their initial reactions at being released. Usually, the beasts followed their training. Usually. It was the occasional, rare, but not unknown psychoflip you had to look out for. More than one guard bore physical evidence of this in the form of scars not even modern medicine could completely erase. There were also a couple of ex-slam employees buried Outside. One had not reacted soon enough to his animal’s drastic mood shift. The other had made the mistake of teasing a large male by withholding its food. The enraged hellhound had eaten the guard’s face instead. That was a gaffe every other guard handler was careful not to repeat.
The name of the creatures derived from their appearance, which was vaguely caninelike without possessing so much as a single strand of earthly doggy DNA. At times they could also appear strikingly feline, though there was no more cat in them than dog. They were wholly alien, imported from a world noted for the ferocity of its native fauna. That they were manipulatable at all was a tribute to a few small dedicated families who had settled on their home world and made quite a nice business out of training and exporting the animals. In nowise, however, could the hellhounds be called domesticated. Their inherent and unsuppressed wildness made them that much more useful in such occupations as prison work.
Occasionally, as a special treat, they got to eat a prisoner.
Just watching them deploy was a lesson in vertebrate efficiency. Flying over a walkway, their scaly, slate-gray skin changing color as the chromatophores within reacted to the animals’ heightened emotional state, they were a perfect image of racing terror. Seeing them, the last thing anyone, down to the toughest of inmates, would want to do was get in their way. Relaxed and at ease, knowing that the path ahead would be cleared for them by the eager patrolling beasts, armed guards followed.
Word traveled quickly throughout the prison. Shouts of warning made the rounds of the ranked tiers, descended to areas inhabited only by those who scavenged for food in the sulfurous depths. Cell doors slammed shut; not to keep prisoners in, but to keep four-legged berserker carnivores out. The inquisitive crowd that had gathered around Riddick evaporated as convicts sought shelter in open cells or among the rocks.
“Here they come!” The shouts rained down. “Slot up, slot up! Get off the tiers!”
Head back, the Guv all but shook a fist skyward. “A herd! A goddamn herd. Is that