Author's Note: Man…sorry it took so long to get this out, I just couldn't think of where to take it…anywho, yeah, the title of the chapter's kind of corny, but I thought it was funny…And that's probably why it's not very funny, then. Oh well. Once again, I have not proofread this, so you'll probably find tons of mistakes and things might not make sense…Anyway, enjoy the story!
Chapter Eight, To the Bat Cave!
Despite a small amount of trouble with the Acid Flare Bombs, loading the sled had taken a lot less time than I would have assumed if someone had told me Jack was going to help. I suppose that, truthfully, I kept underestimating her. But then again, we had only just got here and I remembered the first time we had come to this planet, albeit unwilling, and how prepared we had thought we were even with the crash of the Hunter-Gratzner.
Yet, then again, we hadn't known. Hadn't known that we were being hunted and hadn't known that most of us would be dead by the end of that long, torturous night.
Yeah. You survived, if that's what you call the living you're doing now, a voice snarled in the back of my mind. Not even smart enough to stay away from a shit-hole of a planet and away from Jack, of all people.
I can't really be said to have fully rejoined the human race, but I'm definitely not as fucked as I had been all those years ago after the end of the Wailing Wars on Tangiers Six. Perhaps joining that mercenary outfit that had augmented E-TAC soldiers wasn't exactly one of the smartest moments of my life, but it had held respite.
Too bad I wouldn't know that I'd come out of it alone…I had heard the rumors. Out of an outfit of five hundred men, I had been the only one to come back alive. I knew what they had thought.
Murderer, they said. Killer.
Fuck them! Who are they to judge me?! No one. They're all fucking nobodies!
And Jack?, a voice asked.
Jack…was a different story. I didn't really know what was between us, what she was to me or I to her. Jack was just…Jack.
She had to be…or else, I'd be crossing a line that neither of us could see but everyone would know of.
She was a familiar and yet unfamiliar face. She was one of the few that actually had an interest in my well-being.
Jack was a stranger and a well-known…something…all in one.
I wondered briefly if she thought of me like that…like a killer.
Does it matter?, the voice asked.
No. It doesn't.
I leaned back in the seat as the Cover top slid smoothly into place.
"Well? What does it show?" I asked, voice low.
Jack looked up from the screen map on her lap, a line between her eyes disappearing as she let out a whoosh of air. "I had a bit of trouble from the receiving, but I was right. It'll take us about twenty to forty-five minutes to reach there, depending on speed. It's a straightway, no drop-offs or go-arounds."
"Perfect." I murmured, startlingly pleased, and shifted in the seat to start the terran. I pushed the button for lift and waited until we had leveled out, about three feet from the ground. A solid, yet far-away-sounding hum filled the vehicle. I pulled the safety shaft for the sled out and down, locking it in place. Other switches and buttons were pushed; solar and gas consumption, go-power, and systems-check.
I looked over the dash and then out to the landscape surrounding us.
I saw Jack lean forward out of the corner of my eye and turn on the air-conditioning.
I forced down a sigh as the cool air swept over my heated skin. I wasn't used to such luxuries. Most of the time, I was too busy being on the run or not having the time or money.
"Let's go." Jack said, looking over at me.
I pulled the steering column back and gripped the half-moon handles, placing my thumbs on the incredibly small "gas" and "brake" thumb-pedals.
I pressed down on the "gas" and the hover terran moved steadily forward until I had steadied the speed at around forty, not choosing to go the top speed.
The hum filled the silence of the terran, no one talking.
I heard Jack mumble something under her breath and I glanced sideways at her.
"What?" I asked.
She looked over at me quickly, startled, eyes wide. She glanced over my face and then color flooded her cheeks. She averted her eyes and then said, embarrassed, "I said, 'To the bat cave!'"
I didn't say anything for a moment, then, "Really? And that means…what?"
Her head jerked up and some of the color drained away. "Are you serious? You don't know what that is?" She was clearly astonished at this information.
"No."
"Back on earth, a long, long time ago, they had a television show called "Batman." It was a line said often, whenever the heroes would go to their headquarters. It was funny…" She trailed off, a grin starting upon her lips. "I can't believe you haven't heard that…"
I scowled at her, not seeing the amusement of that statement and therefore, deemed it unimportant.
"Sure, Jack."
She was quiet for a long time. I refused to break the silence, for at the moment, I was preferring it to conversation.
"Have you never seen one of the episodes?" She asked, her voice almost a whisper.
Well, well. Where should I start? How about the fact that I never had much of a childhood or otherwise…How about starting out as a baby in a dumpster with my own umbilical cord wrapped around my neck? Then, carted off to so many different foster homes…Never staying around for too long, never any time to watch television or play games with the other kids.
No.
My childhood was definitely a bit fucked up…
"No. I've never seen one." I answered, voice almost a growl.
I looked over at her and she shifted in her seat uncomfortably, a frown replacing her smile.
She didn't say anything until you we were about a mile away from the cave.
"Only a mile now." She pointed at a rise in the ground ahead of us, the landscape starting to move into foothills. "Just go straight through and we'll be fine."
I took the hills slower than we had been going and as we crested a hill, a wall of winding, twisting…vines?...blocked our path, interweaving amongst each other. As we approached the wall, I slowed the hover terran to an almost complete stop. We stared up at the intricate lattice work in front of us, realizing that we weren't going to get through it.
The bone…or wood, or whatever it was, stretched to both sides to two separate rock formations, almost like a web. It was taller than the hover terran by over twenty feet, I guessed. As I glanced further in, I noticed that the…web…stretched on and around the corner of one of the rock pinnacles nearby, like a tunnel.
"That's so weird…the TSM showed the area clear." Jack said, clearly confused. She hesitated, looking over at me, then, "We'll have to go around."
I didn't reply. I was too busy staring at the weaving, distorted thing in front of us. In fact, the longer I looked at it, the more and more it reminded me of a Mylian ghost trap. The funnel shape was almost identical, the material looked mostly the same…it even looked to have the same weaving pattern.
Only this one looked a little old.
I frowned, studying the structure for just a few more seconds, dismissing the ideas of going around or even ramming through, especially with the Maglamp and sled attached.
The ghost should be gone…Hopefully.
"We're not going around." I announced, placing the terran into a still-hover and slipping the Cover top backwards.
I got out, telling Jack to stay put first. I walked back to the sled and found the appropriate box. I punched in the correct access code and waited as the box top slid smoothly aside. I picked out one of the 3200PW automatic blasters and returned the top of the box to its original place.
As I walked back towards the front of the terran, I pulled the charge pin on the gun, waiting for it to hit above the 100% mark.
"What are you going to do?"
I turned to look at Jack. She was staring down at the blaster in my hands, watching the charger run up and over the safety mark. She looked worried.
I passed her and raised the blaster to sight down the barrel, making sure I had both hands tightly on the extending grips. I ignored the warning beep from the blaster and instead braced my legs. I finally answered Jack. "What does it look like? I'm making a road."
As I finished talking, I pushed the button for widespread streaming-fire and aimed near the middle of the structure in front of us.
The electrical beam hit the web and immediately began to fry a hole in it, spreading almost like a fast-working disease. It was almost like watching the hardened lattice work disintegrate before us, leaving a hole that continued to double and triple in size.
I was almost done when the blaster beeped once more and then an electrical whirr sounded inside the firearm and the beam stopped. There was a loud, metallic pop and something hit the side of my neck, heat spreading into my shoulder. One of the grips vibrated and then kicked sideways, twisting my wrist.
"Fuck." I said and tossed the gun away from me, seeing it twist in on itself and begin to smoke.
I got back in the hover terran, rubbing my aching hand against the side of my neck and encountered something in the skin. I growled as I pulled the small charging pin from my neck and tossed it out the vehicle.
Jack shifted beside me and leaned over, voice quiet as she said, "You're bleeding…"
I looked at her, eyes skimming over her slim and lovely body and swallowed the longing to take her right then.
Breathe, you fucker.
"Hold on, I'll go get a bandage." Jack said, moving to step out of the terran.
"No. Just wait till we get to the cave. Then it'll be taken care of."
She paused and then nodded, settling back into her seat.
After the Cover top was on, I moved the terran forward. We went in and under the alien formation, moving slowly. The three suns managed to cast weird shadows from the weaving over us and the ground below. There were countless numbers of very familiar skeletons scattered on the floor.
The creatures of T2.
I would recognize them anywhere.
"Look at all the skeletons!" Jack exclaimed, practically gluing herself to the window.
I didn't say a word.
As I figured it would, the tunnel we were in began to widen and grow larger. The walls grew further apart and the ceiling rose. The skeletons became fewer and fewer.
This definitely had to be a Mylian ghost trap.
We reached the end a few hundred feet later. On one side of the tunnel, the wall had completed collapsed, leaving a jagged edge. Something a bit bigger than the hover terran lay slumped against the broken wall.
"Holy Akbar…What is that?!" Jack exclaimed and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her tense in her seat.
I had to have been wrong about the age of the ghost trap tunnel, because the creature that was by the collapsed wall appeared to have died not too long before we had gotten there.
The creature's skin, strangely, was mostly still attached and in fairly good condition.
Its head lay crooked and to one side of its body. Its neck had been broken. The bone structure of the head was faintly reminiscent of the creatures we had encountered here before, though the jagged, oddly-shaped rows of teeth held no resemblance to them whatsoever. The neck was long and serpentine, blending into a barrel torso and body that was akin to the over-bred greyhounds you could find almost anywhere nowadays. The sickle-shaped tail lay across one incredibly huge, lizard-like hind leg, stained with some color of what I assumed was blood.
The fore legs were the strangest feature of the animal. They bent up and backwards over the ghost and then extended back to the ground, similar to the extinct grasshoppers of Earth. Instead of actual finger-like appendages, the beast had claws as straight and sharp as needles, the shortest of them longer than my upper arm.
I knew what they were for. I had seen them in action. The needle-claws were used to separate, weave, and build the trap tunnel. They were also useful when cutting up prey. Even the tail, which was used mostly for producing the silky material that would later harden into what they saw now, was convenient for defense purposes.
There were hundreds of thousands of these things on Mylia, so why was one here?
Jack's voice brought me out of my thoughts abruptly. "Riddick! What is that?"
"It's a Mylian ghost." I said, finally.
"A Mylian ghost?" She asked. "Looks pretty visible to me."
I sighed impatiently and pointed at the mottled white and pink skin. "The skin is camouflage. You can't see them until they move. Mylia is full of these ghosts and trap tunnels. They're usually indifferent to all the people that come around to see them, though if you're ever caught inside a ghost trap, you're dead." I looked at her as I said that last part and saw her shiver.
She studied the huge creature in front of us and then looked back at me, voicing the question that had been running through my mind.
"So what's it doing on T2?"
"I don't know." I replied, wishing I did.
Even as I drove the terran past the carcass of the ghost, something about the scene bothered me.
Why would a Mylian ghost be on T2? Especially since the climate was so much less hospitable…
I looked back at the structure and its dead builder in the rearview mirror.
Why did I feel like that wouldn't be the last Mylian ghost trap we'd see on this fucked-up mission?
Probably because it wasn't.