Eyes In Darkness

chapter 6

Fry and Johns thought no one was paying attention when they slipped into the main house.
I passed Ali to Imam and followed at a distance, keeping to the shadows.

Inside, dust coated everything. Johns ran a gloved hand over an old wall console while Fry tapped at the controls until a dull blue glow filled the room. The display flickered, showing orbit lines and three suns sliding toward one another.

"What is that?" Johns asked.

Fry's face tightened. "An eclipse. All three suns—total blackout."

The words made my stomach twist.
No light. No warmth. No safety.
Not after Zeke vanished.

I slipped away before they saw me and walked back outside. The air felt heavier, the color of the sky already deepening toward bronze. I found Ali and Jack stacking bits of scrap metal near the water pump. Their laughter echoed through the empty settlement, thin and small.

I started wandering—anything to keep from thinking about the eclipse. The wind kicked up dust along the far edge of the outpost, where the ground sloped into a flat ridge. And that's when I saw it.

A skiff.

Not buried, not wrecked—just sitting there on its landing struts, angled slightly to one side, its hull scoured by years of sand and wind. It looked abandoned but whole, like someone had walked away and never come back.

I climbed the short ramp and peered inside. The cabin smelled stale, metallic. Controls were dead, but the structure looked sound. I pried open the engine housing—empty. The power cells were missing. My heart sank.

We had a ship that could fly... but no way to power it.

"Riddick!" I called.

He appeared at the bottom of the ramp, silent as always, goggles reflecting the fading suns. "You found this?"

"Yeah. It's operational—just no cells. We'd have to pull them from our wreck."

He studied me for a long moment, then nodded once. "Smart. Good eyes."

The compliment caught me off guard, but I managed a smile. "Guess we've got a plan, then."

By the time we returned to the others, the suns were sliding low, the air cooling fast. Fry called everyone together. "There's a working skiff here," she said. "We can use it to get off-world. But we'll have to retrieve the power cells from the crash site before dark."

No one mentioned Zeke. We all knew what had probably happened.

Shazza got the sandcat running. Its engine roared to life with a cough of smoke. We loaded up tools, cables, and lights. Riddick took the back platform again, scanning the horizon.

The ride to the wreck was rough and loud. The dunes rolled under us like waves, the sky turning violet. Then the temperature dropped sharply.

Fry looked up. "It's starting."

The eclipse.

A scream shattered the silence. It came from the pit where Zeke had disappeared. Then the ground split open, and the sky filled with movement—wings, claws, impossible speed.

"Go!" Johns shouted.

Shazza slammed the throttle, the sandcat lurching forward. A rib of old bone cracked under the treads, flinging shards into the air. One struck my back; before I could react, Riddick moved, shielding me with his body until the debris settled.

We reached the wreck just as the last light vanished. The world plunged into shadow.

Then came the screeching.

Something hit the hull. Another shape dove from the dark and caught Shazza mid-run. Her scream echoed once, then was gone.

Riddick shoved me through the hatch before the next impact slammed the door shut behind us. Gunfire exploded through the corridor—Johns firing blindly. A smaller creature slipped in through a vent, its skin slick and brown, its head shaped like a hammerhead with teeth that glinted in the beam of Fry's flashlight.

Johns kept shooting until it stopped moving. The light hit its body. The skin sizzled, smoked, and melted into a black puddle.

"They burn in the light," I whispered.

Riddick was already moving down the corridor. I followed close behind. His voice came low and steady: "Stay still."

Before I could ask why, a split tail slid from the ceiling, swinging inches from my face.