Chapter Two

Unbelievable Things

-oOo-

A young woman leant heavily on a windowsill looking out over a baron empty plain of land. Living on a moon was hard if you enjoyed the aroma of wild grown flowers, as the land was nothing but ash and dust, nothing grew, nothing survived except for the five thousand rebels living in what could only be described as a rubbish ground for dilapidated space vehicles and other garbage that had either drifted through space to settle there or been left by passing travellers.

The door to the woman's office opened, well, it was an old shelled out commercial shuttle, but it now played the part of the Commander's office. A young man, no more then eighteen, with straggly brown hair that mopped across his eyes stepped in. He had known Commander Fry since she were only fifteen, and over the years, he had grown fond of her, even more then he should, but with that adoration he had a great respect because he saw his Commander change throughout the years, she had once been full of life and an optimist, but now it seemed as though shutters had closed within her eyes, she was now harder to read and her expression was always hard, cold and calculating. Sometimes he thought the girl he had known and the Commander were two different people, but then she was the only one around who had ever shown him respect in return.

The young woman didn't look at the door as her guest walked in; she was still starring out of the window, her face more unreadable then ever. In her thin hand saw gripped a piece of paper tightly, as if she would never let it go. Her silky black hair felt over her shoulders and stopped just after the nap of her neck. She wore her usual fatigues of grey combat trousers, thick black boots and a dirty white tank top. Her skin was milky pale and almost flawless, save for the angry red scars on her arms. Only the young man knew the history of these scars and many of the rebels had queried about them, but he honoured his Commanders wishes not to let anyone know.

The boy took several steps forward, stopped, spacing his feet a foot apart and gripped his arms behind his back, "Commander. You summoned me?" he asked.

The woman refused to look up, not even acknowledging the boys existence in her office, instead she glanced down at the piece of paper in her hand and sighed softly.

"Commander?" he asked with a twinge of concern in his voice. The wall that she had built around herself had crumbled enough for him to see the sadness in her eyes.

"Do you remember when we first met, Tim?" she asked. Unlike most of the rebels, the Commander always called Tim by his first name, not just because she had been the one to name him, but because he had no second name to be called by.

"Of course, you were stealing from my shop" he said, proud of himself to see that his words had brought the faint ghost of a smile on her pale lips.

"I took you to Hell with me" she replied, still looking at the note.

"And you got us out again, Commander" he said sharply. It still annoyed him that she carried with her the guilt of getting him captured by a secret medical experiment operation called Cronos. At first, yeah, he had been pissed, but she came back for him once she had escaped and she stuck with him and looked out for him since that day. To him, their score was past settled.

"Still" Commander Fry muttered, "I got a lot of people killed"

"Not to sound insolent, Commander. But I believe it was that crazy son-of-a-bitch, Dr Redman who got those people killed. Not you" he replied, glad to see another small smile grace that sad face.

"I made two real friends in that Hell hole" she muttered and finally she moved around to face Tim, her eyes were heavy and fatigue was weighing her down. She leaned against the wall and fondled the note some more, "I promised to take care of both of you, but it seems I can't even do that right" she added glumly.

"Commander?" Tim asked fearfully, what had happened?

Commander Fry sighed again and looked Tim dead in the eye, "Kyra's dead" she stated.

Tim felt his heart miss a beat or two before he let the anguish wash over him. Kyra had been like a sister to him. She had always been there to give advice, to cheer him up, she even knew how he felt about Commander Fry, but now she was gone.

"Jesus" he muttered and felt his shoulders drop.

"I'm sorry Tim, you were as close to her as I was" Commander Fry said, stepping forward and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Tim's insides squirmed a little as her warm palm came into contact with his bare shoulder.

Now's not the time, he scolded himself mentally.

"How did it happen? She told me she was going undercover before she left" he asked. It was true, the Commander and Kyra had been organising some deeply secret mission that Kyra was expected to be away for a couple of months, but he had always expected her to walk back to the barracks with that cheeky smile on her face and boast about her adventures, now it seemed, he would never see her again.

"You're my friend, Tim. I trust you with my life, so what I'm going to tell you is strictly between us" Commander Fry said, suddenly turning back into the emotionless void that she now was.

"Kyra went undercover as me, I mean, how I was before all this" she said, pointing around her office and out of the window to a unit of rebels doing weapons training, "It was her mission to get into Crematoria and meet a certain individual who I believe was going to try and find me at some point, but his affiliation with the Necromongers would have compromised our position if he came looking for me, so I instructed Kyra to keep him away, to convince him she was me. However, along the way, the Necromongers captured her and…" she faltered for a moment, "…She died to protect me" she finished.

"It's how most of us would like to go, Commander" Tim answered truthfully, "You're the reason half of us haven't got spikes sticking into our necks"

"It's not the point though, is it Tim?" the Commander said with a wisp of a groan, surprising Tim, "I sent her to her death, all because I wanted to keep one man off my tail for long enough to take the Necromongers down"

Tim felt a tinged of jealousy in the pit of his stomach. A man? He thought, why was he chasing the Commander? He wanted to voice his questions, but he held his tongue, sure it was none of his business.

"I'm sorry, Tim. You don't have to hear this, I'm sure you want to grieve"

"I'm fine" Tim said, a little too quickly, he wanted to make sure his Commander was okay too, after all, she had been as equally as close to Kyra as he had, "Is there any way of getting her body back?" he asked timidly.

Commander Fry rubbed her forehead, "Intel says she died a week ago. Apparently she was moved and buried somewhere on Helion Prime. I can't think to disturb her, besides the planet's still swarming with the Necromongers, but we'll make sure she gets the recognition she deserves" she nodded.

Tim nodded, "She would like that"

The woman before him forced a smiled, "You're dismissed Tim, take the rest of the day off training and get some R & R" she instructed. Tim went to protest but her eyes turned back to ice and he was sure she was mentally challenging him to argue with her. He pursed his lips, nodded and left the room, careful to close the door behind him. He looked back once more and through the window he could see the Commander looking once more out of the window.

"I'm sorry" he whispered, "I'm so sorry, Jack"

-oOo-

FemmePhantom - Thanks for my very first review. I'm really looking forward to Part II, I got all manner of ideas for it.

angelwingz21 - Hey I remember you, thanks for reviewing again.

Death by Teacup - Still an awesome name! Hey, I made a promise to do Part II and I always keep my promises...well...most of them.

A/N : Now I know a lot of questions are going to pop up with this chappie. Why is Jack now called Fry? (I'm sure you can figure that out!) Why has Jack and Tim lost their tough, street lingo? That will be explained in the future, I promise. And probably, why didn't Kyra tell Riddick the truth as she died? All will be answered soon.