Disclaimer: I don't own the recognizable characters or places mentioned in this obvious work of fiction.

Enjoy and leave feedback if you are so inclined.


"You wanna know why I'm doing this? Why I'm really doing this?" Kirby turned and looked out at the stars spinning madly past. "Revenge." With her eyes still fixed upon the stars Kirby began her tale. "Ya see, one day there was a family, and that family was happy. The Mother and Father had three loving children, the oldest, was a girl, her name was Amy, the middle child was a boy, and the parents called him Jhonathan, after his grandfather – tradition ya know? Their youngest child was – "

"You." Kirby turned back to look at Jack. She had forgotten for a second how astute the girl was, despite her earlier bout of shock.

"Yes. Me." Kirby turned back to the window and continued her tale. "One day when the boy grew to become a man, he and his father quarreled greatly about his future. You see, the father wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and become a great scientist like him, but the son, the son had other plans…"

Didn't you just Jhonny Kirby thought silently Didn't you just… and you damned us all…

An unexpected spurt of guilt accompanied that thought. She owed her brother much; it was, after all, his careful planning that had gotten her out of the hospital, his money that was even now helping her wreak her revenge on those who had wronged their family, wronged her. He was her only family left now. She owed him.

But what about all he owes you… whispered a voice inside her mind.

Quickly, so that she was unable to analyse that last traitorous thought, Kirby went back to her tale.

"Now one day the parents of the now two child family, the son having decided to seek his fortune far away from their sedate, intra-planetary home, traveled to a conference on Melbourne Station, near the Stralian System. But while they were away, something terrible happened…" She could hear it even now, the dreadful tearing pop, like that of a lung being burst by a jail-shiv, as the airlock doors had been breached. The pure overwhelming terror when they'd been found…

Without conscious thought Kirby's voice dropped.

"Bad men came… men who knew my brother, had worked with him. For my brother had not been idle with his time…"

No, never idle were you brother dearest. You orchestrated the biggest Dilaudid ring in the Southern Sector of Amalgamated Space. God damn you for you sins…

The last thought almost shocked Kirby out of her tale. What was wrong with her? She owed her brother so much! Why was she suddenly questioning him? Judging him?

But when did he ever have to suffer… A new, more insidious thought slipped into her mind, whispered by the same voice as before.

Hurriedly, in an attempt to drown out its words, Kirby went back to her tale.

"He had run off with something of his employers, it wasn't his fault, he was just like that sometimes. If he had have known, he wouldn't have done it to them, not them, not his family." Kirby wondered suddenly why saying it out loud made the act seem ten times more heinous, made it seem like she was justifying what Jhonny had done, "Then he hid, and the bad men came looking for him. But they found us instead..."

"What do you mean jammed?" Riddick growled, deep in his chest. The tech he held by the shirt yelped audibly. He was pallid, rank with sweat, and very close to wetting himself. Riddick, Imam, the Docking Pilot and the technical analyst were current crowded around the door that let into the main hallway through which you could access the Cruiser's Helm.

"The doors are-" he gasped, "Not working. She must have the codes-" Riddick looked down at the little man he was holding, face hard

"What codes?" He asked with deceptive calm, tightening his fingers around the tech's throat.

"The access codes to the ship. They control everything - from the door locks to the Nav system. But I don't know them!" The tech squealed, trying to pre-empt Riddick's next question. "I swear. Only Main Hanger knows them." The young technician started to sob, so with a growl Riddick dropped him and began to stalk back towards the Luggage Compartment where the girl had been held. With a frustrated snarl he drove his fist in the cemnoplast wall. Damn that little bitch to hell. He didn't know what he thought had happened to Jack, well he did, but it definitely wasn't this. And she knew who he was as well, that much was certain, and much more besides. From making him in the Dining Cabin, to returning the correct military salute, while prone, to an officer of a superior rank. She knew he had been military, he could have sworn he'd seen the recognition in her eyes. And that was something about his past that few people ever found out – and lived.

Riddick gave an appreciative sniff when the lift doors opened, depositing him in the hallway in front of then Luggage Compartment, though it was the size of a Cabin and took up most of this floor of the Cruiser. The smell of blood was thick in the air, its metallic tang coating the back of his tongue like street sugar – thick and bitter - copperish. Slowly and thoughtfully Riddick walked the room, taking in the scattered luggage, the blood splatters, both old and new, as well as the still dripping spray coating the majority of the bags and walls. Riddick's eyes fixed on a pair of cuffs, held together by a chain and looped through a luggage hook on one of the utility poles. The cuffs themselves were covered in old, dry blood. He crouched down and picked up the unlocked pair of smaller blood soaked handcuffs, studying them carefully. A corner of his mouth twitched in appreciation. She was damn resourceful this girl, but she'd made one mistake. The little bitch hadn't kept her hands to her self. She'd taken something that didn't belong to her, something of his. No one took something of Richard B Riddick's… and lived.

And Jack was definitely his.