He woke in his bunk, completely and suddenly aware that all was not as it should be on his ship. He rose from his sleeping space and began to prowl the corridors in boxer-briefs and bare feet, silently stalking the source of the nagging feelings in the small of his back. He had been in space three days and had ignored his soft-spoken discomfort throughout.

He should have checked when the computer glitch had come up on the pre-flight scan. He should have checked the cargo twice. He should have listened to himself.

Riddick started in the cockpit. Nothing, no one there. He sniffed the air, searching for a scent, a trace, a lead. Nothing. "Al," he rumbled; "do you comply?"

"Aye, captain," replied the cold female voice that the ship's AI used. "I comply and copy. What are your orders?"

"Lock the bridge on my exit. Do not allow entrance to anything but me. Enter on voice command. Record."

"Recording after three, two, one."

"Richard B. Riddick," he drawled slowly. There was a small silence, broken in seconds by Al's voice.

"Enter voice command confirmed." It played his voice back to him. "Bridge will be locked on exit, sir. What are your orders?" Riddick picked up a small black tab with a sticky back from the pilot's slot.

"Speaker system negative. Subvocal K2-84 operable. Test." He stuck the tab to his left earlobe.

"Testing three, two, one. Testing. Allopath, subvocal K2-84 operable. Confirm, sir?" He heard her quite clearly, but it was as if he heard it less as sound and more of a vibration, a feeling, in his bones. He replied almost silently, moving his lips while little less than a whisper escaped his lungs.

"Confirmed, Al. Run a scan. Find anything unusual and tell me where."

"Aye, sir. Scan in progress." Riddick slipped out the bridge and heard the soft, greased hiss of the bridge doors closing, then locking into place behind him. "Bridge secured."

"Good work, Al," he murmured. The lights were all but off, of course, so Riddick had no need for his goggles. He stalked the corridors, the mess and the galley, the spare bunk, the head and came up empty in all of them. The bay and the holds were all that was left to search. Riddick was oscillating between enraged and engaged; his instinct was this hunt, this search for prey, but his enmity of capture spiked his indignation. Someone was on his ship, in his space, and it put killing back in his mind.

"Scan complete. Unauthorized occupation in cargo bay, quadrant II. Does not match available files. Approximate weight unknown; approximate height unknown. Advise extreme caution."

How big is this thing? he wondered to himself, not realizing he had spoken nearly aloud until Al answered his question.

"Approximate size unknown. Relative to average crate size. What are your orders?" Riddick grimaced. "Average crate size" could be a wide range of sizes.

"Notify of forward movement or retreat."

"Aye, sir." He sniffed the air quietly and caught the scent of blood. Simple and unadulterated blood, untinged by fear or pain. Not exactly fresh, a hint of... new plastic? And sweat, dirt, grime -- flesh. He followed his nose until the scent was overwhelming and he knew the two were within reach. He wondered what the hell he was about to run into and figured it was time to find out. He shot a hand down into the darkness and ran into yielding flesh. Something below his hand shrieked. He closed his hand over whatever he had caught and jerked it up to where he could see his prize. He was not expecting a wide pair of golden-amber eyes in a young boy's face when he brought his prey eye-level. They stared at each other a long moment and it was a trial to guess who was more surprised.

Of course, when the boy's sister leaped over the crate they had been hiding under, aiming for Riddick's head, the big man probably won the trial. She latched onto his upper body, clawing at his face and scalp as he attempted, unsuccessfully, to move out of her path. He heard her teeth clicking together close to his ear and lurched away in a knee-jerk reaction to save his skin.

Riddick grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and wrenched her away from his face. He did not come away unscathed, either; blood trickled from where she had clawed his face and tried to bite him. Melena struggled in his grip while he spared a glance for the boy. When the girl had attacked, he had dropped Nico. The boy sat on the crate wide-eyed, staring at the pair of them. He brought his attention back to the squirming girl in his grip and pulled her closer to his face. She tried to bite his nose and he snarled, "Stop." The tone unmistakably said he was not kidding. Melena sagged suddenly, mutinously, and he set her down by her brother. She crouched between them, obviously trying to protect Nico. They were dirty and red-eyed; he assumed they had been hiding under the bay floor since before take-off and sleeping very little in their hidey-hole. The girl's hair was mussed and unkempt, leaving her feral-looking, while the boy just looked submissive.

Kids. Goddamn kids on his ship. And hers, no less.

What a clusterfuck. That was about the only thought that would accurately sum up his situation. He glared down on the two kids, clutching his shiv tightly with one hand, the only real sign of his irritation.

"The fuck are you two doing on here?" he growled. They responded with silence. Nico's lip quivered. Riddick leaned in closer and Melena shrank back. If she was a cat, she would have bristled at his invasion of her space. He knew how far he could push kittens into a corner, however, and only came just close enough. "Answer me."

"She sent us away!" Nico blurted. His sister whirled on him with a hiss but Nico continued, as if a dam had broken. "She tucked us up, said we'd be safer here than with her–"

"Callete, Nicolao!" she spat. Shut UP! The boy cowered under her fierce gaze until she turned it back on Riddick. A spark of defiance was lit behind her eyes.

"What does it matter?" she said softly. "We're here now." The big man had been pondering that himself. Delphi was the only body in the system one could safely land on, and despite the hyperjump once out of the planet's orbit, Riddick had still not crossed the systemary line. He might have been three days into his journey, but he was at least seven out from Delphi II now, because of that same jump. That left keeping them until he landed on Alba in two and a half weeks... or throwing them out of the airlock. The airlock was looking pretty shiny at the moment. Melena seemed to know what he was thinking, drawing herself up to a regal height – at least, regal as you could get for an eleven-year-old girl. "If you jet us, Sangre will know. And she would not be happy, either."

He snorted. "Don't lie to save your ass, little girl." She stiffened, affronted. I don't kill kids, he thought, sourly, and kept the thought to himself. He continued in a soft tone that was more menacing than a yell. "You stay 'til I drop ship. You stay out of the way an' you listen to me. You dick with me, I'll throw you to the stars faster than you can breathe. We clear?"

"Yes," Melena said out loud, Nico nodding his agreement beside her.

"Good. Now get fresh. You ain't smellin' up my ship while you're aboard." He stepped to the side and let Melena slide down and catch her brother. He led them through the main body of the ship and showed them where the spare bunk and the head were. "I'll give you clean stuff to wear when you get out. Don't put that stinkin' mess back on, understand?" Melena nodded sullenly and disappeared with her brother into the head. Riddick headed back to his room, thinking fast as he came up with ideas for what to do with his new cargo. "Al, changing security parameters. Primary user is Richard B. Riddick. Lockdown engaged. Require voice authorization for all internal commands. Additional password authentication for bridge commands. Notify captain of all forward movement in ship, unauthorized access attempts into secure areas. Affirm."

"Copy that, Captain. New security parameters confirmed. What are your orders?"

"Continue course to Alba. Run inventory of all cargo on board, sort category." Al complied, running through all the cargo he had amassed. When she mentioned "clothes," he stopped her. "Category within 'clothes'." She ran through it quickly as he headed for the cargo bay. He sorted through boxes until he found the clothes he was looking for. They were a size bigger than the kids and long-sleeved, made for teenagers in a different culture, but the ship was cool and it was all he had. He dropped the new clothes at the head door and went to the bridge to sit back and think about the situation that had dropped into his lap.

The "how" of it never crossed his mind; it was unimportant, being as the kids were already aboard and they were already way off-planet. It was the "why" that was driving him crazy. Why him and his ship? She knew who he was, of course, which made even less sense. Why drop a couple of kids off with a convicted mass murderer on the lam? Even if, or maybe especially because, you yourself were under the same social stigma? What did she expect him to do with a couple of kids?

"She tucked us up, said we'd be safer here than with her–" It's what Nico had said. Wraith was obviously in some kind of clusterfuck, worse than the one he was in. Otherwise, she likely would never have pawned them off on him. Like I did with Jack on the holy man... He shook those thoughts from his head. That situation was totally different; Jack was better off, with access to schools and clothes and stationary with somebody that could take care of her. The situation here was backwards – kids that, by the looks of them, had always had everything they might have needed, being passed off on a man with nothing to offer. It made no sense, even if she was counting on some sense of honor or need for company or whatever-the-fuck she was thinking.

Maybe it was a vampire thing. Now there was a fucked up thought.

"Captain, unauthorized access attempted on the bridge. Allow or deny?"

"Allow," he rumbled quietly, turning so his side was facing them. It was dark in the cockpit; dramatic and mysterious, with the starmaps laid out on charts and the starfields glowing softly through the window glass. The children came in abreast of each other, both wet-haired and cleaner for it, dressed in Riddick's borrowed clothes. He had given them both light-colored clothing, so as to see them better. They did not show well by themselves in Riddick's vision, but the clothes helped. He was headed for a port with a strong Chrislam influence and as such they were dressed in clothes appropriate for it: Melena in a long, hooded robe that dragged the floor and covered the dress and slippers he had also given her, and Nico in very baggy pants, tunic and a similar, open-front robe of his own that dragged far worse than Melena's. She seemed affronted by her clothes, picking at them distastefully.

"They're too big," she said. He shrugged.

"All you get. Suck it up."

"We trip over them."

"Walk more carefully." He turned full-front to them both, studying them. Nico, for once, did not shrink away from him but studied him carefully, like a bird studies a faraway cat. Melena glared, but there was something unsure in the way she would not look at him squarely. "Are you the same?"

"Of course we are," Melena snapped. "He's my brother." As soon as she was quiet, Nico piped up quietly.

"Yes," he replied. "We are vampires." And he grinned, like a dog grins, to reveal small, slightly-pointed canines. Melena twitched at seeing her brother show them off. Riddick now had no more delusions to maintain, just a whole hell of a lot of questions.

And no one, really, to ask.