A/N: Karla Shepard – Colonist/War Hero/Soldier.
Takes place during Pitch Black. Jack from the movie is the same Jack from Mass Effect 2 and 3 – all of that will be explained throughout the story. Shepard is 18-years-old, Jack is 11, and Riddick is 28.
I plan to write a sequel set in Mass Effect 2 if all goes well with the story.
Summary: Karla Shepard lost everything on Mindoir and learned the hard way that the galaxy was a dangerous place. Now that she's old enough, she has booked passage on an old ship to Earth to join the Alliance and make something of her life. But when the ship crashes on an unknown planet, Shepard finds three unlikely mentors – a woman named Carolyn Fry, a "cop" named Johns, and one of the galaxies most dangerous murderers, Richard B. Riddick. One will lead her through a path of deceit, while the others will lead her out of hell. She just doesn't know who the wolf in sheep's clothing is.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pitch Black/The Chronicles of Riddick or Mass Effect. I'm just playing in the sandbox.
The first thing Karla Shepard became aware of was that the fog in her head was beginning to clear as she slowly woke up.
She remembered that she had been planning to catch a lift to Earth on one of the newer passenger ships – one of the nice ones that traveled through Relays and where she'd have a room of her own – but passage on one of those ships was incredibly expensive. Not to mention, she ended up using a chunk of her credits to buy a ticket for a runaway girl named Jack. She didn't know the biotic very well, only that Jack was on the run from a group called Cerberus and that she'd been abused after running away, thus the girl was left wanting people to believe she was a boy. Jack was looking to sneak aboard a ship when Shepard found her.
Feeling sorry for her, Shepard bought her lunch and shortly after offered to buy her a ticket to Earth as well, and the girl gladly accepted. Her mother would have thrown a fit if she knew Shepard was helping a runaway, but Shepard felt that the girl had a legitimate reason for wanting to run.
Taking into consideration that she'd be purchasing two tickets as opposed to just one, she was forced to buy passage on the cheapest transport she could find just so she'd have enough credits left over to get to where she needed to go on Earth. Unfortunately, the ship she found did not travel through Relays, being a much older ship model. Instead it traveled the old fashioned way which left everyone in cryo-sleep. The moment Shepard entered cryo-sleep she'd been out cold in a dreamless sleep, and now her mind was so foggy that her head almost hurt. She was told beforehand that waking from cryo would leave her disoriented and may result in temporary memory loss for a few minutes. She was told right, but the disorientation and memory loss were already fading and she finally opened her dark blue eyes.
Across from her cryo-locker, she saw that a few others were also awake and appeared to be highly confused, and after a moment she too became confused.
Why were they waking up? Why was the ship shaking so badly?
Straining in her locker, hands pressed against the glass, she tried to see what was going on but saw no one walking around and no sign hinting as to what was happening. There were only three crew members on board but surely someone would be by to explain the situation.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement and pressed her face to the glass in an attempt to see who was walking around. It was that cop she'd seen bringing in the prisoner when she first boarded the ship with Jack. Who exactly his prisoner was, she didn't know, but he looked downright frightening with his hands and ankles cuffed, blindfolded, and silenced with a bit in his mouth.
Why the hell are you walking around? She thought, craning her neck when the cop walked out of sight. Checking the prisoner's cryo-locker, she saw the guy still locked inside, so ruled out the possibility of him having gotten out.
Whatever was going on, the cop would probably be safer in his locker.
The ship jerked violently all of a sudden, jostling her in her locker.
And then they crashed.
The ship hit the ground with enough force to throw Shepard around in her locker like a rag doll despite the restraints meant to keep her safely in place like a seat-belt. Light erupted in the cabin and she shut her eyes tightly, bracing herself with her hands in an effort to avoid getting hurt. Opening her blue eyes against the glaring light, she gasped in horror as lockers were sucked out of the ship. She could only pray that the people in them were still asleep. Other lockers were torn from the wall and rocked around the cabin madly but remained inside the ship.
One of the freed lockers rammed into hers violently, causing her head to smack against the glass door in front of her hard enough to make her ears ring and vision blur before falling into darkness.
Thump, thump, thump.
"Child? Child, are you all right?" an accented voice asked as he hit the glass door a few times with his palm, hoping the noise would wake her.
Shepard slowly came to, opening her eyes despite the throbbing pain in her skull. Everything was blurry for a moment and then began to clear until she could make out the face of a dark skinned man in foreign clothing.
Forcing back the nausea, she gave a careful nod. "I'm okay."
Unbuckling her restraints, she pulled the exit latch and the glass doors opened a few inches but no more, jammed from the locker that had crashed into hers. With the man's help, she pushed forcefully against it while he pulled, finally managing to make the doors open completely.
Wobbly on her feet, she stepped out, holding onto some metal debris for support.
"My name is Abu al-Walid," the man said, grasping her arm to help prevent her from falling. "You may refer to me as Imam."
"Shepard," she replied, deciding against giving her first name, having not gone by it since the batarian raid on Mindoir.
While she was running to escape the slavers, all she could hear was people calling her first name, begging and anyone else they saw who wasn't caught to help them. Everyone but herself tried to help those people, and now hearing her name, Karla, brought back too many unwanted memories, so she went by her last name, finding strength in the name she was so rarely called before her family was killed.
Looking around, she saw a few others wandering about, some calling for their companions, others helping people out of their lockers, and her mind went to her young friend.
Pushing aside the pain in her head, she searched through the rubble for Jack, peering into unopened lockers. A few times she felt her stomach lurch. Not everyone in the lockers was alive, and some had their eyes wide open in permanent fear.
Spotting a woman with a cutting touch working on getting through the doors of an over turned locker, she rushed over to her side and looked into the banged up locker. Relief flooded through her whole being and she sat back on her haunches, patiently waiting for the girl masquerading as her little brother to be freed.
The moment the doors were cut through, Jack rolled out, looking from the Australian woman and then to Shepard. "So, I guess something went wrong?"
Shepard breathed out a laugh, and replied, "You could say that." Rising to her feet, she took hold of Jack's hand and pulled her to her feet. Giving Shazza a small smile of thanks, she said, "I'm Shepard. This is my brother, Jack."
"Shazza." Looking behind her at a dark skinned man with short curly hair, she added, "That's my friend, Zeke."
Zeke gave her a curt nod before continuing his search through the lockers, making sure they found all of the survivors that were still in the wreckage.
Shepard looked at all of the faces of those lucky enough to have survived. There was Jack, Imam, three boys, Shazza, Zeke, a man in nice clothes and glasses, and a woman wearing a crewman's uniform clambering through some rubble.
Out of forty-plus passengers, this was all that was left?
She didn't want to believe that so many had perished in the crash, not when she'd seen so many waking up a few seconds after she did.
Abruptly, Shepard recalled the cop wandering around and her heart started pounding.
"Wait here a second," the young blond instructed before starting her search for the man.
The chances of him surviving were slim to none seeing as he hadn't been in his locker during the crash. A slim chance was better than no chance, though, so she continued to look under debris and all around.
Craning her head to see above a particularly large pile of twisted metal, she saw a booted foot sticking out from under a metal plate and some bars.
"Shit…" she swore under her breath and hurriedly moved through and around the debris until she reached him.
Tossing away the bars, she then pulled at the metal plate, gritting her teeth and straining to lift it off the redhead. When at last she managed to get it off of him, she knelt beside him and gave him a gentle shake, not wanting to cause too much harm if he'd broken something.
Groaning, the cop brought his hands to his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose and attempting to sit up.
"Take it easy," Shepard cautioned, helping him into a sitting position. "You okay?"
"Fantastic," he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds and raking his fingers through his short red curls. Taking a deep breath and shaking his head a few times, he looked at her. "Anyone else alive?"
She nodded. "A few, yeah. Not a whole lot, though."
The cop sighed but didn't look too surprised by her reply. After a moment, he pulled himself to his feet and she followed his example.
He looked at her again from head to toe before he introduced himself, offering his hand, "Name's Johns. William Johns."
"Shepard." She gave a small shrug while shaking his hand. "Just Shepard."
He smirked as he released her small hand, probably because she'd only given her last name, but the moment he looked past her the smirk left and he reached for something behind him. Whatever he was looking for wasn't there and his jaw clenched.
"Get back to the others," he ordered tightly.
Confused, she looked behind her at what had caused him to change his tune, and she swallowed.
The locker that had held the prisoner was open and the occupant was gone.
Doing as she was told, she hurried back to the others, hardly wanting to have a run in with Johns' prisoner.
Finding Jack waiting for her where she'd left her, Shepard stayed close to the girl, not about to let anything happen to her. At Jack's questioning stare, Shepard just offered a small smile, not wanting to worry her. The girl looked mildly put off by Shepard keeping close in a protective manner, but she didn't move away. In fact, she moved a bit closer. Shepard figured that she wasn't used to someone looking out for her.
A minute or so later, she heard a loud thump behind her from another part of the cabin and her throat tightened.
"Imam, can you watch Jack, please?" she asked. Unlike last time, she didn't want her to be left alone.
Frowning, the man nodded and put a hand on Jack's shoulder.
"Hey," Jack called as Shepard started walking off. "Where you going?"
"Just stay there," Shepard ordered and went to the back of the cabin.
Everything was turned over and she had to kick some debris off the steps that led to the lower portion of the cabin. The short walk down the steps left her out of breath and she had to pause, sucking in gulps of air.
No way am I this out of shape.
She ran two miles every other day and swam a lot so there was no reason she should be out of breath from doing nothing more than walking down a few steps.
Breathing heavily, she searched for the source of the thud, knowing full well that she would find either the cop or the prisoner standing. Stepping through some doors, the weight on her chest lifted as she saw Johns walking the prisoner to a busted beam, undoing his handcuffs just long enough to restrain his hands behind the beam.
She stared at the man and was suddenly very aware of the kind of danger they had all been in before Johns got him re-chained. His arms were incredibly muscular and his shoulders broad. She didn't have a clear view of him, but his arms looked like they could do some serious damage if given the opportunity.
Holstering a pistol, Johns caught sight of her and walked over, taking her by the arm and leading her back the way she came. "Best you stay away from him, princess," he cautioned. "Pretty girls like yourself ain't safe around him."
Princess?
While she didn't like the girly nickname, she paid no mind to it and said nothing. She was use to nicknames like princess, sweetheart, honey, angel, and the like. Most of it was because she was young – eighteen – and had long light blond hair, dark blue eyes, and wasn't very tall – only 5'4 if she stood perfectly straight. Not many people took her seriously unless they were aware that she was the only one left from the Mindoir slaver raid, but even before that she faced issues with her appearance. She worked just has hard as her brother on her family's farm but was never taken seriously by those who didn't know her. It was enough to drive her insane. But seeing as Johns didn't appear to mean anything negative by calling her princess, she let it go, and allowed him to lead her back up the steps to join the others.
Unlike before when everyone was talking and moving all over the place, everyone was quiet and huddled around someone. Pushing her way to the front, curiosity getting the better of her, she saw the woman in a crewman's uniform kneeling next to another crewman in a chair, a long metal bar sticking out of his chest.
"I'm sorry," the woman whispered. "I'm so sorry."
The woman cried silently and lightly touched his cheek in sorrow.
"Get it out of me!" the man shouted, eyes snapping open and making everyone jump. Even Shepard, who had grown use to sudden movements, nearly jumped out of her skin.
Shaking, the woman who she assumed was the Captain grabbed the bar.
"Don't touch it!" the man shouted, gurgling on blood, and she let go immediately. "Don't… Don't you touch that handle!"
What the hell did he mean by handle? The woman must have known because a look of dread, sorrow, and guilt washed over her face, causing her to bite her lower lip.
"Get it out of him!" Zeke shouted at her.
"No, no, no, it's too close to his heart," Shazza stated, shaking her head.
Back on Mindoir, Shepard had witnessed some of the worst wounds ever. Though she only sported a scar across her lips from having a knife swung at her and scars on her feet from having run barefoot for hours, she'd seen slit throats, bullet and stab wounds. A few colonists and herself had taken refuge in an attic before they were discovered hiding and one of the men had had a similar wound as the man in the chair did.
But when the raid first began, she'd seen one man in particular who had sported a wound that had been just as similar, and that man had been her older brother, Brian.
She'd been home sick with the flu when the raid began, and only Brian was there with her, having ditched school to keep her company while their parents were in town for supplies. When the batarians came, Brian dragged her out of bed in her tank top and shorts, shouting at her to run when a batarian kicked down the front door. Her brother attacked the batarian in order to buy her the precious seconds she needed to run into the woods.
She hid in the woods until the batarians left and then she snuck back into her home in search of her brother. She found him lying on the floor with a long knife protruding from his chest as he took in labored breaths, unable to fill his lungs completely as blood continuously flooded his throat no matter how many times he tried to swallow to clear it. Through the agony, he begged her to take it out, and shouted at her when she refused. Only when he cried out in pain did she give in and remove the knife.
Brian bled out a few short minutes later.
It took her a long time to accept that she'd spared him an agonizing death by removing the knife. In the long run, it had been for the best.
"Maybe… maybe you should take it out," Shepard offered. "I mean, I don't see any way we can help him."
"You want him to die?" Shazza asked incredulously. To the woman, she urged, "Don't take it out, Fry, he'll die!"
"He's going to die either way. He'll bleed out and die sooner rather than later if she takes it out. Might be more humane to let him go that way than to prolong it."
Shazza scoffed, looking away.
Fry looked to Shepard, then Shazza, and then said to everyone, "There's some medi-gel in the med-lock in the back of the cabin."
For a moment, no one answered.
Solemnly, the man in expensive clothes replied, "Not anymore, there's not."
Shutting her eyes tightly, Fry said quietly, "Get out of here. Everyone."
One by one, each of the survivors began to leave until only Shepard, Jack, and Johns remained. Jack stood behind Shepard and Johns leaned against the wall.
Sniffling, Fry looked at them. "Get out of here."
Shepard sighed and nodded, turning Jack around to walk out of the ship, followed by Johns. If the woman wanted privacy with her dying shipmate, Shepard would give her that, knowing what it was like to not be able to do anything for someone who was hurt.
On their way out, Jack looked to the right and Shepard couldn't help but follow her gaze to the chained prisoner.
Johns put his hand on Shepard's shoulder and gave her a nudge forward.
Taking the hint from the cop, she led Jack out of the ship.
Once outside, Jack asked, "How come I can't breathe? Feels like I just ran or something."
"Low oxygen," Johns suggested, looking around as they reached the others. "Least there's enough to keep us living."
"Yeah," agreed Shazza, "But I feel one lung short."
"Same here," said the man in expensive clothes. When Shepard looked at him questioningly, he seemed to realize that he'd yet to introduce himself and walked over, extending his hand. "Paris P. Ogilvie. And you are?"
"Shepard," she replied, shaking his hand growing tired of having to give her name.
"Pleasure to meet you."
"Mhm," she muttered, attention on the others survivors. "Should we go looking for others?" she asked, looking at Johns who had climbed to the roof of the ship. If there were other survivors, they needed to help them.
For a long moment, he did nothing but stare out at the desert. "Think I found them."
Everyone moved at once, climbing onto the ship to see, the Muslim kids scurrying up to the front. What they saw made everyone gasp.
The remains of the ship lay scattered across the desert, and among the debris were the other lockers and bodies of their fellow passengers. Some bodies were whole while others were nothing more than a twisted mess of meat and bone.
Some of the survivors looked ready to be sick at the sight, but Shepard, Johns, and Jack just stood there looking out at the sight. Shepard had seen worse on Mindoir, she suspected that Johns had seen some gore as he was a cop, and Jack… well, she didn't know much about Jack, only that she'd been abused and that she was on the run, but for her to stare at the carnage so blankly...
Shepard sighed, moving to sit down with her back to the gore. Only eleven and the girl can stare at something like this without blinking.
Ushering the young pilgrims away from the sight, Imam said to the boys, "Come. Let us pray for those who are lost."
Johns watched Shepard as she sat on the roof of the ship after the pilgrims walked off.
He was surprised that she was as composed as she was after seeing the bodies. The boy with her didn't seem shaken either, but he figured it was because the kid was trying to be tough and not worry his sister. But Shepard's lack of reaction was strange, not looking the type to be able to stand such a gory sight. It seemed as though there was more to her than just a pretty face. She was quite pleasant to look at with her long light blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, her dark blue eyes, and slim, petite figure. The jeans she wore certainly accented her nice looking ass, and the brown top she wore underneath her black jacket showed just enough cleavage to tempt any man with eyes without revealing too much.
Deciding that if he played his cards right his time stuck on the planet wouldn't be so lonely, he put on the charm and walked over, kneeling beside her.
"You all right?" he asked gently.
Turning her eyes to him, she sighed. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just don't like seeing dead bodies, is all."
"Don't seem too torn up about it," he observed, cocking his head to the side.
Keeping her eyes on the ground, she mumbled quietly, "Mindoir."
That was all she'd needed to say.
Everyone knew about the colony that was attacked. When the batarians hit a colony on a raid, everyone was either killed or enslaved, but Mindoir had been the exception. Unlike all the other colonies the batarians hit, one person managed to survive the raid on Mindoir without being enslaved.
Shepard… Karla Shepard. No wonder the girl hadn't been torn up. She'd already been to hell and back.
He hadn't heard that her brother survived as well, but that could be because the boy would have been rather little at the time. The media probably wasn't given that little detail, given the kid's age.
"I heard about that." He gave her a smile, "You've got some guts, princess, if you survived that with your brother and aren't crazy."
She barely smiled, but the smile was there. "That's what everyone says."
"What everyone says is true." Rising to his feet, he held his hand out to her.
She stared at it for a moment before accepting his help and rising to her feet. Meeting his eyes again, she smiled, blushed a bit, and walked off to her brother on the other side of the ship.
Watching her leave, a slow smile slid onto his face. The girl, like so many others, was nibbling at the bait. It was only a matter of time before he had her.
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