The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [89]
The guard’s view through the gun scope cleared as internal electronics resolved the view. He sighted in on the lead runner—and hesitated. Puzzlement was evident in his voice as he looked up and over the gun barrel.
“Hey. Where’d the big guy go?”
Standing atop the molehole lid, Riddick swung the metal spike around and down, its tip describing a perfect arc through the ash. Formerly an anchor loosely attached to the top of the molehole, it had been pressed into duty for which it had not been designed, but for which it proved more than sufficient. Proof of this arrived in the form of a loud crunching sound as it made direct contact with the startled guard’s face. The face lost.
Finger convulsing on the trigger of his rifle, the already dead guard slipped backward. Stance lost, life lost, he tumbled down the molehole shaft like a rag-doll casually tossed aside by an uncaring child, bouncing and bumping off his stunned comrades who had clustered below. The single spontaneous shot from his weapon alerting the fugitives to the molehole’s position, they unlimbered their own weapons and charged into the fray, firing at the pop-up target Riddick had already abandoned. After years of misery and abuse, the thrill of finally being able to strike back at their tormentors reinvigorated each and every one of them as effectively as a Spring shower.
Man-made chaos complemented the natural state of Crematoria’s surface as the convicts attacked from several directions, careful to keep from spreading out too far lest they catch each other in a dangerous cross fire. Frozen lava provided plenty of cover that they used to good advantage, working their way ever closer to the molehole. Within, guards scrambled to bring their own weapons to bear. But they were constrained by their tight surroundings. With shells exploding on the ground and sending flesh-cutting splinters of rock flying through the port, and others exploding with ear-shattering force against the metal of the molehole itself, it was almost impossible to line up a decent shot.
Meanwhile, the convicts were closing in. As the guards went down the chute, the jubilant escapees crowded around and began emptying their weapons into the narrow shaft. For their part, the guards fired frantically upward, no longer even trying to take aim, just trying to hold off the rain of death that was being poured in on them from above.
Inside the molehole shaft there was no place to hide, no cover to be had. One guard went down, then another. Men kept firing, slamming into one another, bouncing off flesh and walls as they fought to get out of the shaft that had become a cylindrical metal coffin. When the last survivor, wide-eyed and frantic, finally spilled out of the bottom of the shaft like a panicked gerbil, the grim-faced boss slammed the control lever hard over.
Above, the molehole cap began to descend, ratcheting downward until it was once more level with the surface. Elated, the convicts stepped back to savor the small triumph over their despised tormentors. Only one did not. Unsatisfied, her face crazed with hatred, Kyra immediately attacked the edges of the cylinder with the barrel of her weapon.
“Gonna go down there,” she was growling ferociously. “Find ’em. Just cut ’em up, gut ’em up, into little bite-size pieces. Wolf ’em down and shit them over the nearest cliff. C’mon, Riddick. Let’s get nitty-gritty on their asses!” She looked up, frowned. “Riddick?”
There was no response—unless one counted the sight of a broad back and pistoning legs, moving fast and still picking up speed as they shrank steadily into the distance.
She wasn’t sure if the adrenaline flowing through them after their triumph over the guards allowed them to catch up, or if he had subtlety slowed his pace. If the latter, he wouldn’t have admitted to it. Irregardless, the escapees, now five, caught up to him atop an east-facing ridge. Between the ash and the creeping dawn that