CHAPTER SIX:

The Needs of Survival

/or/

He Made Me Shoes!

AN: 2:09am. Can't sleep.

And I have to work today.

I have a feeling this isn't going to go well. (meaning work)

Erg. But here's another chapter for you guys!

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Free yet again, Richard B. Riddick sat down to contemplate on his next steps. He wasn't about to go out and join the others. All any of them knew of him was that he had been in a cryo chamber with a warning label, and that didn't exactly gather trust. He didn't need to be shot by some paranoid survivor.

`Food. Water. Shelter. Weapons.` The needs of survival were simple…except when they weren't, and all of his senses were telling him that there was danger here. He could hear it; the sounds of something underground. A scurrying, scuttling sound.

`Weapons…..` It wasn't like there were any guns lying around haphazardly, but Riddick was a master at crafting prison knives (called shivs) and there was plenty of broken metal everywhere. Quickly, he had two shivs ready and hidden in his boots, not made out of bone or ivory like his favorite, but they would do in a pinch.

Next, he set to work tying up the passed-out Captain. It wouldn't do at all if the frail managed to beam him in the back of the head or something. Then he really WOULD kill her.

Once the blonde-haired woman was chained to the same metal pillar he himself had been chained to, Riddick turned to the next necessity-`Water`-and headed towards the ships radiator.

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THE OTHERS;

"What the heck happened?" Zeke asked no-one in particular as he stood atop the ruined ship and surveyed the damage, the dead bodies, and the long groove the ship had left.

Cassie, hearing him, pressed a hand to her forehead and called up. "We flew through the tail of a comet, that's what happened!"

They all looked down at her. Shazza jumped down the side of the ship nimbly and looked at the young woman. "And how on earth would you know that?"

"Because I was awake during it." Cassie mentioned, glad that she didn't have to yell anymore. She stood very carefully, placing a hand on the ship when she wobbled. When Zeke slid down the ships side to stand by his wife, Cassie jabbed a finger in his direction. "And you, YOU are going to STAY AWAY FROM HOLES. Got it?"

With that parting shot she started to move back into the ship.

Zeke and Shazza looked at each other and the Australian woman shrugged. "How hard do you think she hit her head?"

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CASSIE

When she managed to wobble her way back into the ship she came upon a scene she definitely HADN'T thought she would see; Carolyn Fry all chained up with a broken nose.

Cassie stopped in her tracks and blinked, rubbed her eyes and blinked again. When the scene didn't change, she cautiously made her way in. "Oookay, not what I was expecting, but okay." The sounds of metal being unscrewed made her look over to see Riddick who was pulling off a vent and looking down inside of the ship wall.

The convict looked over at her and arched an eyebrow.

For a minute or two neither moved, simply studying the other, then Riddick looked back to what he was doing. "Did that man check your head?"

She started to nod, thought better of it, and instead gave a verbal response. "Yeah. I've got a knot the size of a chicken egg."

The convict eased the vent down onto the ships floor then turned his full attention to her. "Come'ere."

The man WAS intimidating. Six feet of solid muscle radiating a kind of dominating aura, like he could take on ten-thousand war ships and win in minutes without even a scratch. Like some primitive animal from bygone times, top of the food-chain.

"Like what ya see?"

Riddicks voice was now slightly teasing and she blushed, snapping herself out of her little admiring show.

"Come'ere."

She went.

Long, calloused fingers brushed the back of her head with surprising gentleness, feeling the knot. "Dizzy?" he asked the question still in that no-nonsense alpha timbre.

Cassie shrugged. "A little, but not too much."

"Head hurt?"

She snorted. "Heck yeah."

She could feel her face beginning to swell from the hit Johns had landed on her face and winced. A soft growl made her eyes snap open again.

"Stay away from Johns." He made it an order and she blinked at him.

"I'll try, but I can't guarantee how well that'll work out."

"Just stay away from him." He nodded his head towards the radiator. "There's water in there for you in the others. Make sure you drink some. Don't let that merc hog it all."

She looked over at the radiator and nodded. "Okay."

"And," Riddick continued, " know we're not finished.".

Cassie blinked at him, more than a little confused. "Wait, what?"

Then Riddicks fingers dug into pressure points on her neck and everything went black.

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RIDDICK

Her entire body went limp into unconsciousness and he caught her up in his arms easily before easing her onto the ground with a gentleness he hadn't intended.

"Can't have you telling the others where I've gone. Nothin' personal." He informed her comatose form. He frowned when he realized that one of his hands was smoothing back her long hair and quickly stopped the motion before rising.

He was about to search for a container to fill with water when he noticed her feet again. . . . .Her bare feet. . . . . Growling to himself the convict seemed to be fighting an inner battle, dancing with indecision. Finally, he went over to the dead captains corpse and ripped off his vest without ceremony. Pulling out one of his newly made shivs, Riddick began to slice the vest up into strips before kneeling down to wipe the sand off of the bottom of her feet then wrap the fabric around her feet till she wore some make-shift shoes.

"Don't know why I'm even bothering." He mumbled to himself as he finished, standing and moving back to the radiator to drink. Cupping his hands, he quickly took several large mouthfuls of the metallic water before moving to make a container. An empty cylinder from part of the ship made a good water bottle and he had just finished filling it when he heard the heavy tread of boots. Male.

The scent of morphine came next.

Johns. The blue-eyed devil.

And just like that, Riddick was gone like a shadow when the sun went behind a cloud.

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…..only he wasn't really gone.

Perched up in the ceiling of the ruined ship, carefully holding his cylinder of water, Riddick watched as the mercenary took in the scene, gun drawn.

Johns cursed a blue-streak under his breath when he saw the blonde woman chained up, but didn't immediately drop his gun to rush to her aide. He noticed the other woman, Cassie, the strange one, next, lying on the floor with cloth wrapped around her feet, then the removed vent on the floor.

Gun still at the ready, the mercenary did a sweep of the immediate ship (even if he had looked up, Riddick would have been tough to spot) before he peered into the radiator vent.

Giving off a grin that would put a jackal to shame, the greedy mercenary immediately began cupping handfuls of water up to his mouth to drink.

Riddick barely contained his growl, his free hand going down to unsheathe his shivs. The water should be going to the pups first, then the women, but obviously the mercenary had no sense of …..pack.

After he had drunk his fill, Johns moved towards the prone form of Cassie and Riddick readied himself to pounce, only Shazza, Zeke, and Paris chose that time to conveniently walk into the remains of the ship.

Convenient for who, Riddick couldn't quite decide. On one hand, he didn't get to ghost the mercenary, on the other hand the woman remained unharmed.

Shazza gasped when she beheld the chained Carolyn and Zeke cursed.

"What the ***** happened here!?" Zeke demanded.

Johns moved away from the radiator, probably not wanting to give up the source of the water, Riddick thought. Greedy b*stard.

"Riddick." The Mercenary growled low. "Knocked out Carolyn and Cassie. Who knows where he is now."

Shazza looked at Cassie on the floor then Carolyn chained up with a bloody nose as Zeke moved to try to unchain their 'Captain'.

The Free-Settler woman knelt down to Cassie's side and gently began shaking her shoulder. "Heah, come on sweetheart, wake up."

Up in the rafters, Riddick barely contained his own growl. The woman shouldn't be shaken like that. The pressure points he had used wouldn't cause any problems, but being jerked around during the ships crash then hit by Johns and now shaken couldn't be helping her head-ache at all.

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CASSIE

Cassie groaned and opened her eyes slowly, half expecting to find herself on the floor of her bedroom, maybe after running into a table or rolling off of her bed and hitting her head on the floor. Instead, she saw Shazzas concerned face and the ceiling of the ship.

What on earth had happened!?

"Careful now, sweetheart." Shazza said soothingly.

Then her memories came rushing back. Riddick had made her pass out; he had checked her head, told her about the water, then made her pass out. The feeling of added cloth made her look down. Apparently, Riddick had taken the time to wrap her feet as well.

Well, if those weren't mixed signals, she didn't know what were!

"Are you alright?" Shazza asked, snapping her fingers infront of Cassie's face. "Oy, are you in there?"

Cassie instead fought a smile and pointed at her wrapped feet. "He made me shoes!"