This story is my version in the continuation of Riddick in Chains written by Moonscribe. Since it got so many good reviews, it was a shame to not write a follow-up. This is homage to the original story and the author. Some of the characters and places are copyrighted and owned by David Twohy, Jim & Ken Wheat and Universal Studios. No money is being made from this story and no infringement is intended.
Bryant, Riddick & Background
Maintenance Crew No.32 Ashka Bryant walked back to the security room situated above the holding cell in the basement, where Riddick was still chained to the walls.
She reached the security console just in time to catch a glimpse of red in monitor one, where the live feeds from a perimeter camera was being streamed. The others were returning to the Watch Outpost with supplies.
Planet LV 426 was discovered by a science cruiser about ten years ago. It was deemed suitable to set-up human colonies as long as the vast deserts that encompassed the planet were converted into livable conditions.
The only way to achieve that was to terraform the lands with Land Converter Towers (LCT), which had unmanned smart computers to search and mine water that subsisted below the deserts.
It had taken almost ten years to finish building the LCTs and the towers had started doing their actual job since two years ago.
Currently there were two LCTs, one in the southern hemisphere and one on the northern. They were monitored by a ten-man maintenance crew in the Watch Outposts.
Maintenance crew handpicked from prison planets on account of good behavior were trained and sent to the Watch Outposts.
The Outposts were the only human presence on the planet. As it was deemed too dangerous of a job, prisoners were recruited as a part of a service-pardon package.
If they survived the one year service, they will be pardoned and released no matter how heavy their crime had been.
The harsh conditions on the planet will probably kill them anyway and this was an insurance of sorts for legislators that many of them will not be released.
The maintenance crew consisted of a military supervisor who was also the Outpost's Commanding Officer, a volunteer medical officer and the rest were prisoners. Sometimes, there were no volunteer medical officers and to date, there has been 22 deaths on the planet.
The current CO of the southern hemisphere Watch Outpost is the second officer to take over leadership. The last one disappeared when he went out to retrieve supplies from orbital drop-ships.
Bryant had been posted here for the past six months to service the big machines that ran the LCT. Before she was sent to Slam City, she had been a tech engineer with a cargo ship. Her job was to repair anything that was busted.
Not too long ago, she repaired the brains of her ship captain who got aggressive on her. She ended-up in Slam City for a measly two years before she was recruited as a maintenance crew to LV 426.
The desert heat, utter boredom and the CO's lack of sexual finesse (her sometime lover) drove Bryant to take a shine on the new guest they unwittingly received a week ago.
They found him in a crashed escape pod half dead on a small hydro-phonic farm inside the Outpost complex. The left side of his body had sustained mild burns and there was a huge gaping wound in his stomach. It was a miracle his innards hadn't sprung out.
There wasn't a medical officer with this crew and part of Bryant's job was to attend to minor injuries. She had a Class 2 cert in nursing, something she picked during a boring layover on a planet called Earth. He was unconscious for over a week after they had brought him to the infirmary.
Being a vet of Slam City, she recognized who he was when she noticed the "shined" eyes while examining him.
During her attempt to suture the wound in his stomach, he regained consciousness long enough to strangle her almost to death.
If it wasn't for one of her colleagues who pinned down the sick man in time, she would've been casualty number 23.
She didn't forgive him for that and she vowed her revenge soon. A revenge she fulfilled when she raped him in the holding cell.
Bryant made sure that when he was healthy enough, he ended up in the holding cell in chains as a prisoner. She told her CO to check if there was a bounty on him.
If Riddick was not in prison, then he must be running away from something, which meant there was probably a bounty on his head.
She was right as they discovered a five million dollar bounty on him, client unknown. It was decided to be a ten-way split after they had sent a message across the system about their prisoner.
They had already received two feedbacks and one of them was a guy called Toombs. Toombs and company's ETA was 48 hours 20 minutes and 15 seconds counting. A ghost of a smile played on her lips when she thought about the split.
Toombs in LV 426
"2 million?!!!!! You gotta be kidding me man!!!" Toombs slammed his fists on CO Steiner's desk.
"Look man, if I take 3 million to my crew, they will cut my throat and throw my corpse into orbit on this shitty planet," he said, pacing around the small office.
Steiner stared at Toombs for a bit, and then he bent down and took out a bottle of whiskey from the desk drawer.
