Act II

Chapter 11

Hunt

Zoe was staying outside Serenity, enjoying the morning breeze. It would become hot in this desert world towards noon, but by then, she'd have other activities with Wash when hopefully some of the others would return and she'd give the supervision of the ship to someone else. She wasn't that worried about what Riddick would do, but wasn't about to stray too much from the ship to risk it. She had been given a duty and she would fulfil it.

She needn't had worried about Riddick's whereabouts anyway, as he was watching her from the top of the ship. This was good luck indeed for him. He didn't knew she liked her alone time off ship and the morning breeze before the scorching heat. To tell the truth, he had an aversion to stars all the same, although he had been told without them there would be no life, he didn't really understood why they couldn't just die after the sentients walked out of their primordial soups. At least then, he wouldn't need these fucking goggles so damn often.

Going back to his current thoughts, yes, he was agreeable that she had left the ship of her own volition, he had planned on cornering her in some part of this piece of junk and... convincing her to go outside and play. Not that kind of play, she was a married woman after all and he saw how she loved that scrawny coward, but his kind of fun. The kind that he'd had in mind since he looked her over when she was driving the truck.

He slowly and silently crept behind her, shiv in hand, taking his time yet always careful. She looked distracted by the open sky, and a second later his shiv was on her throat, pressing enough to stop her from yelling, not enough to stop her from breathing. With his other hand, he grabbed her around her waist, pinning him next to him.

"You and I are gonna have some fun." He purred in her ear.

"That's how you get your kicks? You couldn't settle for a willin' whore in town?" Her answer was stone as cold, but he smelled her fear on her. It wasn't much, this wasn't what she was afraid of. He had to up the notch a bit.

He snickered, keeping his voice down. "Not that kind of fun, girl. Wouldn't care if you were a girl or a man, and I don't much take to you. I was thinking more liiiiiiiiike..." he slithered his tongue for the next part "...the kind of fun that has one of us winning..." he moved her even closer to him "...and the other losing. Or dying. Or both."

He felt her heart race, and his was racing with him, his blood boiling in laughter and joy. She had no chance against him, he was sure of it, but he'd at least kill some hours. And a possible threat. Maybe he'd kill her, maybe he'd just toy with her, hell maybe he'd release his catch for a few times between deciding where to go with it, but he'd have fun. The logical part of his brain told him that he'd incur the other girls' wrath, but it was drowned by his bloodlust, by whatever River had opened up in him. Furya wanted the thrill of the hunt, to feel his knife blooded and his hand hot from it pouring out of a victim. It didn't matter who, it didn't matter why, it only mattered that it'd happen.

He released her and merely told her in a neutral tone "You have 10 minutes advance." Then the happy savage sneer came on. "If you don't play, I'll have to try my chances with the others. Not as fun as you, but I'm sure they're at least good at running."

Zoe believed him, so she started running not moments after he finished his little speech. At least she could get him away from the ship, survive a few hours and hope that the rest would notice they'd both went missing, maybe Jayne tracking them both... she needed every advantage she got, and she suspected trying to shoot him here and now would only aggravate the situation. He didn't tell her what this was about, but she suspected: for the fun of it. She remembered those like Niska wanted their pray tied up, this one wanted it running, wanted to hunt it. Strange and funny, she mused while running, how she had come to think of herself as it and of him as he. It should have been the other way, shouldn't it? But then, he had the high ground (if not morally, then with everything else) and she had her feet and some guns.

She kept her pace through the desert, counting the minutes in her mind, sometimes looking back to see if he's still at the ship, if he didn't just goad her into leaving the rest of the crew easy pickings. But he was still there, even if he became smaller and smaller in her sight, she could tell through the shine reflected on his goggles. Then, when she reached ten minutes, she turned her head back... and he was gone.

And she knew it had begun for real.

As Zoe took to her surroundings, she saw that she was halfway between the ship and a small rock range, probably containing water and some cave systems. She considered double-backing, but she knew she was being followed, shadowed, and to get Riddick away from the ship was her main goal. She continued towards the cave at a light jog, keeping her eyes open to anything around her. She still had the feeling she was shadowed, and saw possible places Riddick could hide to track her. Still, she continued on.

Finally reaching the shadows of the rock cliffs, if not water, then she at least found an entrance to a cave, and some shade. She entered, hearing drips of water falling below her, in the darkness. She heard soft steps around her, ones that would have been missed by anyone without her experience. She looked around, bothered by the dark but unable to do much except wait for her vision to adapt. She saw a silver glow and immediately took her weapon out and fired, only to discover she had hit nothing. She hoped to have the advantage in a relative confined space than being in the open in Riddick's sites, but the flaw of her plan became clear as now he would be harder to find. And of course, she didn't know about Riddick's most important advantage, though she now realized he had a better gain in channeling his hearing that he had boasted when they talked on Serenity. Still, she would not give up that easily, she had survived Serenity Valley and months with a good natured, but mentally unstable Aliance assassin, she could survive a mad man with a few shivs.

As her shot rang out, so did a barking laugh echoing throughout the cave. Zoe quickly deduced that he already had her position picked if he would sacrifice the quietness that would make her make noise. She did not panick, but searched all the shadows, slowly, methodically. She had some choices even now: stay where she was, with her location obviously exposed and set a trap for when Riddick would come close for the kill - if he was going to bother with that, which she suspected he would -, go deeper in the caves, set up some sort of ambush with the tools she had available - which wasn't more than her guns and her clothes -, or return from where she came, hoping she'd survive the run back towards the ship, and that the rest would have returned - an unlikely prospect.

Slowly she reached further into the caves, even as her vision didn't completely adapt to the little light she was leaving behind, when a knife flew past her face and embedded itself in the rocks to her left. From the angle it had been thrown, it was obvious it wasn't aimed to kill, otherwise it would have been lodged in her head already.

He was playing her.

She suspected his disadvantage was the darkness, since he'd obviously stopped her from going further in the caves, not for a moment realizing he just didn't see the fun in it if she were completely blind and he would be able to see everything. Again, two silver orbs at head level appeared in front of her, then white, grinning teeth and the light reflecting in the white bone-carved shiv in his hand. He motioned for her to take the one he'd thrown, apparently his way of evening the odds.

Zoe didn't know what to react to first: the fact that their psychotic traveling companion had silver eyes that glowed in the gorram dark, to reach for her gun and try to get a clean hit, or for the shiv for a one-on-one. She realized she wouldn't get this chance again, and that he'd probably just dodge any bullet she'd fire and blend again in the dark, and she now had a suspicion those eyes didn't exactly impede him in seeing in the dark, probably the opposite. She cursed herself for miscalculating such a situation: of course he'd see better in the night, he wore those gorram shades all day and night for some reason, of course she was the one vulnerable in the dark.

He was playing with her. Again. Worse: He'd played her and she'd fell, hooked, line and sinker.

He approached slow, methodical, eyes always on her, always ready if she'd reach for her guns, ready to slice and/or run if it came to it. He suspected she realized by now those guns of hers wouldn't do any good to her, he'd never been nicked by one. Only shivs and claws had any chance against him, and she didn't have the luxury of the latter. His blood boiled, ready with excitement for the fight to come, or rather skirmish. She wasn't a match, the other girl was, but she'd left before he could rattle her or outright challenge her and this one would do. If he were to think the truth, she was the second best choice on all the ship, that Mal looking more lucky than skilled, that Jayne more brutish than skilled, and the preacher more cunning, though possibly somewhat skilled.

Zoe took the shiv from the rock and stayed her position and her bloodrate and heart rate. She had to keep calm to win this, or at least make it back alive and return to Serenity and warn the others. Riddick came closer and feigned a shiv thrust, but she didn't react. He just smiled wider and came all out on her. She sidestepped his charging, but he rotated as soon as he reached her, scraping her shoulder before she could retreat. She was on the defensive now, strangely enough the two shivs blocking each other more often than such small and apparently weak tools had the right to. She had the feeling she was being played with, even in life and death battle. The struggle continued and it looked like he was taking her down one shallow cut at a time. It stung, but not more than her pride. She saw he wasn't even going all-out, and yet he was playing his own game exactly as he planned it from the start. And there was nothing she could do about it. Gorramit!

Finally, Riddick appeared to be tired of this little duel, increased his speed, disarmed Zoe while pinning her hand immobile behind her back, bringing her pain in the process, and grabbing with his same arm her other hand at the shoulder, immobilizing it as well. Then, with his free hand, he put his shiv to her neck and considered his options. He wanted to do it, but a part of him told him that'd get him in worse troubles with the crew. He could pretend to have been in the ship the whole time and not know where Zoe had "run off" to, and get rid of the body and any traces without anyone being the wiser. Of course, they'd suspect, and she'd know, but then she'd also know how he'd react if he was exposed, and he could hope she took it as being her fault, which well fucking hell it was.

Having mostly decided, he went for the k-

"That's enough." A soft, but clear voice said. This startled Zoe out of her pain and stun while she looked wildly for River's voice, surprised that neither of them had observed her, although Riddick just froze in mid-thrust and seemed to relax his muscles even so slowly. Sitting on a rock opposite them and a few meters from Riddick's back, her porcelain face was clear in the otherwise gloomy and dark cave. Looking her over, Zoe realized the reason she hadn't been seen was that she was wearing an all-black suit of armor the likes of which she hadn't often seen except on Alliance special ops and assassination crews that the Independents only heard whispers throughout the war and even less after. It was fitting in a way, considering River's background. She was cradling a black helmet in her hands, all of her clothing the pitchest of black either of them had ever seen. River looked like she had dressed to go to war, though her mannerism spoke the opposite with a nonchalance unexpected for the current situation she was observing.

Slowly but carefully, always aware of his surroundings, Riddick began to release Zoe while still cradling his shiv menacingly. Zoe returned to her upright stony position, a part of her, the scared part, the one that still could feel that, wanting to do no more than to run to River and hug her, not for the other girl's benefit, but for her own. She just wanted a shoulder to cry, to thank, to- She was about to do that, almost did that, ignoring the killer with a shiv and the tactical advantage she would give him over the both of them, when something locked her in place.

Only now did she see River's eyes and she just froze, attempting to analyze the situation and failing to do so. It didn't fit with anything she knew, with anything she suspected, with anything she had observed that helped her make deductions. For in front of her, after noticing River's face, now she saw her eyes and the same silver in it. But instead of the glowing fixed orbs that were Riddick's, River's were always moving, only stopping for a second or two before taking different positions and different shapes on (or in?) her eyes. River seemed unbothered or even unaware of this, and merely looked on at them with a bored expression, cradling herself a knife in her hand. This one was flashier and somewhat longer than Riddick's that they both guessed was made on the spot by himself. Zoe was more shocked that River hadn't displayed this... whatever it was before, that she hadn't required sun glasses or goggles during the daytime before and.

River looked at both of them and tried to defuse the tension and distract (and hopefully amuse) Riddick with her next statement.

"She's wondering where someone can get eyes like those. Considering even I managed to get myself a pair." She ended with a smile.

"Well, first, gotta kill a few people." He answered, with a ghost of a smile forming on his face that had been all frowns since he heard his voice. River didn't react in the slightest, though Zoe was trying to make sense of the situation while looking between the two like a caged animal. She was starting to hate being between two psychos probably even more than being at the mercy of the one who was clearly an enemy. Zoe liked black and white situations and didn't like the gray areas wherever those two would blend, and this is how she saw River, despite her, ironically, all-black armor.

Riddick continued his prefabricated story, his grin getting wider. "Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs."

River just rolled her eyes at him, got off the rock she was sitting and walked non-threateningly towards him, knife still in hands. "That works too, but I was forced to do it differently." She moved close to him, close to his ear, not bothering to whispering so that Zoe wouldn't hear. "First you get parts of your brain cut up." River said this in monotone, Zoe's skin getting goosebumps about how cool River could talk about something like this. "Then, you hear the entire 'verse yelling in your head. Eventually you manage to search through the sounds and images and hear it. Furya." Zoe understood part of it, but Riddick was listening fascinating. "It tells you it can't give you its "gifts" unless you do a few things for it. That's where killing a few people comes in. Then it tells you where its last King is and gives you permission to get into his mind." She smiled savagely now, he still looked fascinated at her. "Then you pull." She then frowned. "But pulling opens door. Doors he didn't want open. Doors he'll have to live with." Riddick growled, but didn't make a move. Now he understood better. Of course, he suspected, but it was better she had confirmed she didn't do it for the hell of it at least.

Apparently satisfied that she had rattled him, she stepped away and went towards Zoe and the exit. "Can we go back now?" she asked the two.

Zoe couldn't take it anymore. "Dammit, River, the psycho tried to kill me! How do ya know he won't be trying this go se on the rest of the crew?"

"It's not like it's something I haven't thought about going myself." She answered in a matter-of-fact tone, back already towards Zoe.

"But you didn't." Riddick answered, getting the shell-shocked Zoe's attention back to him. "And neither would I until now. You really gotta teach me how to do that, girl."

"Self-control. Nothing I can teach you, you have to teach yourself."

Riddick filed that information in his head, as useless as he believed it was, and ignored it in favor of his next jibe. "I know that's not all you could do to them." He said with a grinning smile. River didn't react much, but was hoping he would keep whatever he thought he knew a secret. He ignored her lack of reaction and again came closer to her, taking in once more her form. He whispered to her, this time so Zoe could not hear. "You did the same thing to Charlie, didn't you, witch?" He said this without venom and even a little smirk. He saw her game and he wanted her to know he knew. Maybe she'd slip that information to the crew herself now, or maybe she'd be rattled more than he knew she wanted him to be. Either way, he wouldn't tell them himself, or would so at an opportune moment. Like someone recently told him, after all, time and timing were everything.

With nothing much more to be said, they all left reluctantly in a line, River apparently unbothered with the murderer at her back, and neither Riddick with his would-be victim on his. Point in fact, Zoe mused, she herself might have been the only one truly rattled and on edge of the three of them altogether.

Book returned from his contact troubled. He was told known things, but also those he was not aware of until now and it didn't make sense. Or rather, what sense they made to him was not good.

He had gone to inquire about Riddick and got the long version of the recent history of the 'verse. Book was a patient man, so he didn't interrupt his friend when he told him about the so-called realignment event. Three years ago, the entire Alliance had been shaken up by the rearrangement of the known distant universe. This was not an exaggeration. Over-night, though technically there was no night in space, in the span of a second, the old suns, planets and known celestial bodies around the Alliance-controlled domain had disappear and in their place were other, unknown celestial bodies, discovered to be other suns with planets and what else you would expect in the deep of space. Except they were different, in the place of a red dwarf, a blue giant had appear some 20 light years away and so on. The Alliance did what it knew best to do: it tried to cover it up. Book scoffed at the idea and at the wasted resources. Of course, it had tried, because something like this couldn't be contained. But they had tried, hard, they had rewritten astronomical charts to reflect this new reality, trying not to "panic" their citizens. Of course, any amateur with a telescope would have observed the difference, and old star charts couldn't be removed from everywhere, especially not from the spread Rim-worlders. Even more preposterous, the Alliance had invested funds in once again, or several times over, "rewriting" the history of astronomy if something else... changed. Book pondered on the good use those funds could have gone to for the needs of Alliance citizens instead of the need of Alliance officials to cover up a natural event. No answers came on what the gorram hell just happened, and questions had been asked.

Worse, at least as far as the Alliance was concerned, they discovered they were not alone anymore. Some of the planets of the systems that had appeared out of nowhere around Alliance space were explored and the findings were unnerving to say the least. Extraterrestrial life was found, the kind that lived in the dark, had pointy teeth and wanted only to eat all other organics, including each other. The Alliance had feared they were an invasion force, but nothing came out of it. The creatures were studied, but there was no collective mind, no space-faring race sending them to combat. They were just over-big dogs or scorpions eating each other on more or less barren rocks.

But beyond that, a human civilization had been found, one, in Book's and his colleague's views, as depraved and nasty as the Alliance. The Alliance immediately considered this new shadowed Government a threat to them, but they were just too far from each other for all-out war. Expeditions had been sent since then, from the Alliance to the Government and vice-versa, to bring back as much information about the other establishment as possible. Government moles were found in Alliance territories and all Alliance spies had been caught, so neither side found out more about the other.

But the Alliance explored in other parts of its now neighborhood, and found other, more disturbing things. A race of people calling themselves Seers, fortune tellers that had prophecies that actually fulfilled, and a shadowy menace that enslaved populations and left barren rocks in its trail that made the Government's systems look insignificant.

But what Book hadn't known until now - hadn't needed to know - was the intricacies of the Gov, including what even the Alliance would call a heinous system of having planets used for the sole reason of imprisoning its most bothersome citizens. Even the Alliance would usually at worst strand their undesirables on a half-terraformed rock and let them fend for themselves. Actually posting guards and rules was a needless waste of resources in the Alliance's view - in contrast with covering up the complete change of the 'verse around them, Book mused.

Yes, Shepherd Book had definitely returned troubled.

Author's Note: Alright, things are picking up, plots revealed, actions taken, the works. However, put on hold until I get my mood back. Read my profile page for more details. Sorry for all who were following, hope you read of the other things I wrote and thanks for your support until now.