The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [88]
“And he’s not alone,” Anatoli pointed out. “Couldn’t get a for-sure count, but maybe half a dozen total. All armed.”
This revelation spurred more concern. When the uneasy chatter had died down, the slam boss stepped in. “All right. We make sure they don’t get to the hangar first.” His expression was hard. “We make sure they don’t get to the hangar at all. Move out.”
They did so, wordlessly and faster than before.
Up above, it was raining. On Crematoria, that meant ash: sometimes brown, occasionally white, but most often black. Where the crust was weak or thin and swirling magma came close to the surface, distant volcanoes and cinder cones erupted from the volatile ground, spewing hot tears of feathery-soft rock. Like black snow, it drifted down to layer the uncompromising ground with shards of shroud.
It also draped the fast-moving escapees in speckled cloaks. The freshly vented volcanic material was always hot. Fortunately, this particular ash fall was not searingly so. Under assault by falling ash and accumulated perspiration, the fugitives found themselves discarding bits and pieces of clothing as they ran. The ash clung to damp, sweaty skin, but it was still better than overheating inside attire that had not been intended for outside use. And there was at least one ancillary benefit: themselves covered in ash, the escapees blended in astonishingly well with their now ash-covered surroundings. Having unintentionally acquired the look of ancient tribal warriors, they ran on, following the big man in the lead.
Except he was no longer in the lead. Or at least, the Guv decided, squinting into the dense ash fall, he was no longer in view. He started to slow, only to be jostled from behind. Angry, he readied a choice couple of words for whoever had bumped into him. Unexpectedly, it was Kyra, the ferret of a girl no one had been able to get close to. Running steadily, smoothly alongside, she communicated without words. A nod forward, a quick shake of the head, and then a lengthening of stride as she moved into the lead. He understood her meaning perfectly. He just wasn’t sure he accepted it.
But there was nothing else to do. Out here, on the surface of hell, he was no longer the Guv. He was just another batch of bound-together carbon molecules, another sack of animate water, waiting for the sun to come up and evaporate him. While it was not an end he looked forward to, it was an end he anticipated and was prepared to suffer. It was one he would probably meet, too. Unless the soft-spoken newcomer who had now vanished into the ash fall could pull off some kind of miracle. The Guv was not confident.
Miracles tended to elude convicts.
Directly ahead of them and still some distance away, the ground shuddered and cracked. Not from tectonic forces, but to allow for a thick cylinder of metal to rise above the surrounding stone and accumulating ash. It was the cap to a second molehole. As soon as open ports appeared below the cap, the lethal tube shape of an assault rifle eased forward out the opening.
The slam boss might move slow at times, the guard behind the weapon thought, but he knew his business. Estimating the best speed the escapees could make over the difficult, tricky terrain, he had chosen this shaft as the site for the ambush. Even so, the guard noted, they were almost too late. The fleeing convicts were really hoofing it. The key word, he knew, was “almost.”
He saw them through the ashfall; not clearly, but well enough to count individual shapes. They were just silhouettes moving toward him, but that was enough. A hand whacked his lower leg and he looked down and whispered.
“We’re just in time. They’re right here. Three o’clock and moving fast.”
“Tough bastards,” another guard muttered from where he was squinched in below the first.
“Be dead bastards in a couple of minutes.” The guard who had spotted the fugitives adjusted his electronic scope. Below him,