2 On the Run
Two years later
It was three am when they heard the pounding on the door. Jack burst into Tracy's room, "Quick, get your shit together, they're here," 'They' had to be someone after Riddick. Jack had developed an innate sense of perception. She could smell a merc a mile away. If she said they were merc's, then that's exactly what they were.
"Who is it, Jack?" Tracy asked as she jumped out of bed to dress and gather clothes and weapons. She and Jack always had a bag at the ready. They were sure it was just a matter of time before someone came looking for Riddick. Tonight was that night.
Tracy could hear Imam's quiet voice downstairs talking to a few men. She peaked down the steps to see what was going on and if she could help him.
Imam had always been adamant, if someone ever came looking for Riddick, Tracy was to take Jack and run. Not fight but ran, as fast and as far as they could.
"I do not know of a man by the name of Riddick." Imam told the intruders. There were four of them. The one speaking had dark hair and greyish eyes and he was a mess. He didn't seem to know if he wanted a beard or not and he was in dire need of a shower. The other three just looked skittish and weak. Sheep being led to the slaughter. Morons.
"You're lying old man. I know you got that brat kid too. Riddick will come for her, don't you think? Oh, that's right. We know that little bitch was the one that passed herself off as a boy. Jack's her name. Once we have her, Riddick will come to save her."
Imam gave a sniff to that. "Riddick would never risk himself for anyone."
Toombs slapped Imam across the check, "We know you were on that ship with him when it went down. Didn't think men of the cloth lied. Now, I'm gonna ask you this, One. More. Time. Where is that piece of shit Riddick?"
"I swear, Mr. Toombs, I do not know." Imam said as he trembled with fear. He wiped the blood from his lip and in that moment, realized how wrong he had been about Riddick. While the man was a murder, he wasn't evil. Not like Toombs was or how Johns had been. He lifted up a small prayer for forgiveness and for his lie.
"Fuckit, kill'em." Toombs said and the other three opened fire on Imam. Jack and Tracy watched, horrified, crouched at the top of the steps as their father was gunned down and fell dead to the floor.
Tracy eyes narrowed, she just found a new reason for living. To Kill Toombs. She grabbed Jack's hand and ran through her room and out the window. They scrambled up the fire escape and to the roof and ran across the buildings. The roofs were close enough to jump the distance. They could hear Toombs shouting at his men to fan out and find Jack but they just kept running.
They only needed to get to the spaceport two miles away. They had money, Imam had seen to that. Everything was in Tracy's name because of Jack's link to Riddick and because of the fact she was a minor. They never told Jack their plans, but they all knew that one day they would come looking for Riddick.
Tracy had found a small soft spot in her heart for Riddick, how could she now? She had never met him, but due Jack's and Imam's stories and the love Jack had for him, Tracy thought he couldn't have been that bad. Not like Johns or Toombs.
Jack had turned into Tracy's little sister, minus the blood. They even resembled each other. They may not have had a blood bond but that didn't matter. Jack looked up to Tracy and seemed too listen to her advice. Tracy wasn't sure how good of an influence she was, but she loved Jack and would protect her with her life. That was all that mattered in her book and apparently in Jack and Imam's too.
Imam noticed that just as he saw the way Jack had responded to Riddick but this was slightly different. Though Jack was young and she idolized Riddick, there was an undertone of a different type of interest. Jack loved Riddick and as she grew, even with Riddick absent, she started to fall in love with Riddick, his memory at least.
Tracy and Jack made it to the spaceport in record time. "What do we do now?" Jack asked her green eyes huge with fear and grief.
"We run," Tracy said and pointed to a small spacecraft. "Stay here. Don't fuckin' leave this spot Jack or I swear to Imam's God I'll beat you with-in an inch of your life. You hear me?"
Jack nodded and had a strong feeling she was serious. Tracy never made a move to hit her but this was something different. She was now in control of their lives and she demanded obedience for their safety. Just like Riddick had.
Tracy, at twenty-four, was eight years older than Jack and in the last four years, two of them had been on the run. Tracy had been to the most seedy, nasty places looking for Johns. She had come face to face with the shit of humanity and survived to talk about it. Jack respected that and hoped that she could find the strength to be the same way. She planned on starting now.
Imam was gone and so was Riddick. There was no man to hide behind now. Only her and Tracy. They had to make their way and Jack had to stop being a scared teenager and face her demons and her fears. She squared her shoulders and fingered the shiv at her side. The one Riddick had given her. It made her feel stronger. It was time for Jack to grow up and face life.
-
Tracy approached the desk and the slightly dirty and very married man that worked there. "Excuse me," she said and tried not to wince when he eyed her with a sickening interest.
"Well, hello baby. What can I do you for?" the man said and smiled. Tracy almost rolled her eyes and him. Please, how long had that line been going around? She had heard it more times that she could count.
"I need a ship. It doesn't have to be big, but I need it now and I need it fully loaded with fuel and some other provisions." Tracy said and then smiled at him, trying desperately to hide her repulsion and be sexy, "Do you have anything like that?" Oh God, did I just bat my eyelashes at him?
"We just might, depending on your choice of payment." He was leering at her body and it made her skin crawl.
Anything for Jack. Tracy gritted her teeth and shuddered inside, "I'm sure we can work something out," she looked at his name tag and purred, "Steve."
He grinned and Tracy wanted to throw up, actually tasted the bile in the back of her throat, but she would do anything to get her and Jack away from the merc Toombs and his men. Anything.
"How much will it cost me, Steve? I need this quick and I need it quiet." She lowered her voice and leaned in like she was telling him some dark secret, and she was but he was too stupid to know that. "Some men are going to be asking about me… I need discretion, it's very important. Do you think you can do that for me, Steve, or do I need to find someone else?" Tracy let her eyes roam over his body and pretended that he was some sexy hunk, her dream man. The image of a large caramel skin, bald man jumped into her mind's eye and she wondered where that came from? Must have been all the stories and talk about Riddick.
"I think we can work something out, baby." He told her as he ran a greasy finger down her arm.
Tracy smiled and died a little inside.
'Payment' consisted of a blowjob for the discretion and then anal sex and10,000 creds for the ship. Steve wasn't rough with her and he had used a condom but Tracy wanted to scrub her skin till it bled and throw up her socks for the next few years, maybe by then, the sick feeling she had would go away.
She never wanted to pimp herself out, never had too, but for Jack, she'd do anything, even fuck the devil himself if that's what it took to keep her safe. Imam knew that and that is why he trusted her to take care of Jack when he was gone.
When she finally found Jack, she was standing in the same spot she had left her, ghost white and covered in blood. There was a man dead at her feet and a shiv clutched in her hand. It was the shiv that Riddick had given her for her protection.
"He tried to touch me," Jack said and looked at Tracy. "He was going to rape me. He worked with Tombs." Jack told her as some of the color crept back in, followed quickly by anger.
"It's ok, baby. Come on. I got us a ship, come on, let's go." Tracy grabbed the girl by the arm, removed the shiv and tucked it away in her own pants. She didn't want Jack to get caught with it. If anyone had to go down for the murder, it would be Tracy.
They kept to the shadows as they ran to the no name, newly acquired ship. Tracy punched in the code to unlock the doors and went straight to the captions chair and strapped in.
Before Johns had slaughtered her family, she had been taking courses in piloting. The skill had come in very handy, even though she never got to become a commercial pilot like she had planned. The fact she could fly made her hunt for him easier and safer.
Jack strapped herself in as Tracy punched in the launch sequence. Thirty seconds later, after a quick sys check, they were airborne.
No more than an hour and a half had passed since the death of Imam and their previous life. Jack was now a murderer and Tracy felt like a whore and the day, for most, hadn't even started yet.
Tracy had a sinking feeling they would link the death of that man to Jack. She had caught a glimpse of him and was sure it was one of Toombs's crew. That much Tracy was grateful for. But Imam had come up dead and now Jack would go missing. She just hoped that they didn't think that Jack had murdered Imam and took off.
It was no secret that Jack had been a troubled girl that got into trouble in school. Fighting, disrespect and general antisocial behavior. Tracy and Imam had tried to work her through it and she had been getting better but this new turn of events would most likely change that.
Tracy suddenly felt sixty years old.
"Go shower, Jack."
Jack turned and looked at her, wide eyed and bloody, "What are we going to do now?"
"We're going to be fine, Jack. Imam and I had this all planned out," Of course they had planned on purchasing a small ship before anything actually happened. They were going to look next week, once Jack started school again for the year.
Yes, with Imam dead and Jack missing, they would tie that murder to her in no time and that meant they had to change plans and go into hiding. They never expected Jack to end up with a bounty on her head.
"Are we going to find Riddick?" Jack asked quietly and hopeful at the same time.
"I don't know where to look, Jack. I have no idea where he is. He's never contacted Imam. He would have told me."
Jack looked defeated when she finally got up to shower.
While Jack showered, Tracy searched for prospective new homes. They had to find a place that was a little bit seedy, but not so much that they wouldn't be safe in their own home. And they needed a new name for Jack.
Tracy contacted a man she knew from her time chasing Johns and had told him she needed new ID's and a new name for Jack.
"Jack, pick a new name for yourself. We need to change your name." she called into the back of the ship. There wasn't much to it, more of a skiff than a ship, but they did have a small bathroom with a shower and toilet. Little else.
Jack came out of the shower, free of blood but not of the stench of fear. She knew she was in big trouble. She had murdered someone, albeit in self defense, but she still took a life. Her first life. Would it get easier now? Like it had with Riddick? Kill or be killed, Kid. He'd always say to her, well, now she knew what she would do. Kill. It just proved to her they were one in the same. Destined to be together in her mind.
"Kyra. I want to be Kyra." Jack finally said after a belief hesitation. She had gone to school with a Kyra and she liked the name and thought it would sound nice when Riddick purred it like he had a way of doing. She suppressed a shiver at the thought of it.
Tracy just nodded and sent the info on to her friend. She had located a place they could hide for a while and entered in the coordinates. Tracy had been there once before for a short stay.
"We're going to have to cryo, Kyra," she used Jack's new name to try to get use to it. "It'll take a few weeks till we land and we just don't have enough supplies or space to stay awake that long. Kyra only nodded. She hated cryo but knew they didn't have much choice.
"I'll put you under, shower and then do myself." Kyra nodded again and sat down with a sigh. "Listen, everything is going to be ok. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, ok?" Tracy told Kyra, forcing her to look at her.
-
They landed on Jonas Three, two weeks later. Tracy had woken up a few days earlier than Jack to check and make sure they weren't being followed. She also found a small two bedroom apartment and rented that and had it stocked with food and everything else set up for when they landed.
Tracy decided to sell the heap they were on now and invest in something bigger, faster and more advanced in case they needed to make a run for it again. It would be theirs and she might even show Kyra how to pilot. After all the important details were seen too, Tracy enrolled Kyra in school to try to make life as normal as possible.
Jonas Three was a dump; there were no two ways about it. It was dark, seedy and dangerous. There were only a few hours of the day that a female could somewhat safely go outside alone. There were very few laws and even less lawmen but they had a whole lot of retired mercs and criminals.
Most people minded their own business but some were always looking to make a quick buck at the expense of someone else. It didn't matter if it was their life or their money, as long as they got something out of it in the end.
Tracy and Kyra quickly learned where to go and when to be back. Kyra switched her courses to online classes. Safer and cheaper and also she could take more of them at a time and finish school early. Tracy had promised Imam that she would make sure Jack got her full education and she only had one more year to go. They condensed that down into basic math, science and language courses. Imam tried to hold out for college, but Tracy wasn't pushing her luck with that one. Just getting Jack through high school had been a chore she didn't feel the need to repeat any time soon.
After they were settled in, they got a dog. Well, the dog kind of found them. He was a big black German Shepherd and was ornery as hell and not very nice most of the time. Kyra loved him instantly and he took to Kyra right away and they soon became inseparable. Tracy laughed and said he was her protector, like Riddick had been and that was what Kyra decided to name him.
"His eyes even glow like Riddick's." Kyra said once when she was laying on the couch, the dog laying on top of her legs. He picked up his head and cocked it to the side. They both laughed. There were times that Tracy felt that the dog was too smart, almost human like and it was unnerving but if he kept Kyra safe, then Tracy was all for him.
To kill time, they found a large map of the four surrounding solar systems. They decided to play Where is Riddick. Every time they came across a report or a sighting, they would mark it with a pin and tried to predict his next move.
He had changed his name but Kyra made it her life's work to study his patterns. They finally found the name of his ship, Brown Recluse and tracked his lift offs and landings and how long in-between. He never stayed long at one place, a week or two at the most. More times than not, they were wrong, but every once and a while Kyra would nail him down.
-
One Year Later
Over the next year, in their spare time, they researched other planets and were trying to find a friendlier place to settle down. They planned getting settled and contacting Riddick and try to talk him into coming there with them. They found a place called Luna Minor in the Gamma system. It was a very small place, not a very dense population but it was rich in resources and they would be able to get whatever they would want.
While not actually a moon, it wasn't actually a planet either. It was more of a mix. The atmosphere was stable and it had rain and bodies of water but the vegetation and wild life was on the smaller side, no large tree's or animals.
It also had only a few hours of light during the day, year round. It never changed. Most people couldn't take the extended darkness and would flee before they lost their mind in the world of darkness. It would be perfect for Riddick. Kyra and Tracy were used to living by only a few hours of light a day that was safe for them to move around, so it would be no big hardship for them.
Tracy had purchased a property and had set up their accounts and everything else they would require. Imam had a life insurance policy on himself and that automatically was deposited in an account for them.
It was a hefty sum, one million credits. She could almost see the salesman's face when Imam asked for such a large payout. He was truly puzzled. What would a man of God need with so much money? Imam explained that he had a daughter to think about. Tracy chuckled at the memory. The sales man was less than pacified but sold Imam the policy because of the commission he would reap. Sadly, a year and a half later, that was the only thing left for Imam to give to his daughter.
They had hid out there for almost a year and everything seemed to have blown over. No one had come looking for them and no one asked any questions about them. Kyra had graduated and they were set to leave Jonas Three for good in a matter of weeks. They were both excited and on edge. It seemed that everything was coming together perfect but Tracy and Kyra had always had a problem with things going smoothly for them. It just never did.
Their fears were confirmed one day when Tracy was playing Where is Riddick and hacked into the main database that the bounty hunters used. Every possible sighting of Riddick was in there. It didn't matter if it was real or just some large, bald man wearing black. The mercs were hot on finding him, but they just couldn't seem to catch him. They didn't know the way his brain worked, not like Kyra did.
There she found an old picture of Jack, the skinny, short haired little 'boy' with a price on his head for helping a known criminal escape and also a school picture of a slightly older 'girl' for the murder of a bounty hunter and her father four years later. There was also a charge of insurance fraud but Tracy had transferred the funds and they had no way of tracking them or retrieving them.
"Fuck me!" Tracy said when she saw the report. The surge of anger was fierce. How could anyone think Jack would do something like that?
Kyra, on the tail end of seventeen, she still bore a striking resemblance to 'Jack'. Tracy knew that if anyone had seen the photo they would recognize her and turn her in. While they had 'friends' on Jonas Three, people would still fuck you over for a few bucks. In this case, nine hundred K.
They described the murder and how closely the cuts resembled that of one Richard B. Riddick, the same man she helped evade the law, and they were sure she was in partnership with him, perhaps even his lover. The report said that Jack had killed Imam to collect the insurance money so she could run away with her much older and highly dangerous lover. Richard B. Riddick. What the fuck, she was only thirteen fucking years old last time she saw him; only a sick fuck touches a kid that age.
The report of Imam's murder was greatly altered. It said that he was cut down with a blade in the back. A quick and easy, if not bloody kill. One that Riddick favored. The sweet spot, it had been dubbed.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit!" The alert was a few months old; it would have taken some time for others to figure out who Kyra was and to get organized to take her down. Tracy didn't know why it had taken so long for the alert to be put out, but it was out now and that was all that mattered. Though most here kept to themselves, they were always out to make some quick money and that kind of money would draw a lot of attention and tempt a lot of mercs out of retirement.
Tracy called the spaceport and told them to ready her ship, fuel, water and enough food for two months for two people and a dog. Anything else they could pick up here or there, it was time to move their little trip up a few weeks. Tracy had a bad feeling; something was going to go down soon.
She ran around the house, packing what she thought they would need. She ripped the maps off the wall and tried to erase any tangible proof of who had lived there and who they knew. They would leave as soon as Kyra got back. Tracy didn't want to take the chance of running into any merc's and blowing Kyra's cover.
After she had everything ready, it was getting dark and Kyra wasn't home yet. She had Riddick the dog with her so she hoped she was alright. If she didn't show soon, Tracy would have to go and look for her and she really didn't like to go out at night. Given no other choice, Tracy armed herself with a few shivs and a couple 9 mm's and then looking for her.