Chapter 1

Know your enemy

AN:

Italics are thoughts

[marks memories]

[[marks display on digital screen etc]]



"Obsidian Sun, this is Port Madagascar-989, you are cleared for landing in Bay 130-22. Enjoy your stay," the voice clipped in its mechanical tone. Riddick ran his fingers over the piloting console and prepared his ship for descent. Obsidian Sun had been a capricious choice. It indulged his macabre humour and seemed to suit the sleek ship, with its glassy dark exterior and smooth seams.

The landers barely clicked as they floated onto the ground. A perfect landing. Riddick flicked over the console, locking down his ship and preparing for some planet trading. First, he planned on getting some decent food, then he'd scout the job market. Maybe slice the public stellnet. He withdrew a small square of teleliquid crystal from one of many pockets. It was the only remnant he'd kept of the last merc who'd attacked him. Scrolling down through the entries he came to the one that had caught his interest.

[[LyHAR Move faster. Maev's gone on cougar retrieval. Don't get between. VaS]]

It was dated just days before 'Lyhar's' unfortunate demise. Riddick wet his lips thoughtfully. Cougar, he'd found out some time ago, was a class mercenaries assigned to the most difficult payloads. He was one of currently eight, so it was safe to assume Yohar wasn't hunting two at a time. VaS seemed strangely familiar, but he passed off the déjà vu, the acronym had too many interpretations to mean much.

Besides, it was the Maev who intrigued him. Another kamikaze militia? He chuckled at the thought they wanted to take him alive. That wasn't courage, that was insanity. And it made for the most interesting enemies.

Coolly intent, he left his ship and found his way to the main market area. Rheon 6 was little more than a farming moon. Wide pasture land, beautifully attuned climate and the best grapes grown all year around. Wine afficiandos clamoured for rooms in the sprawling villas. Apart from that it was a vacuous hole of interest for a wide universe. Riddick was pleasantly surprised when he found a public stellnet library and paid the enormous fee without protest.

Settling in front of a console, wolfing down a local concoction, he entered 'Maev' into several search systems. It was more an interest than a preparation. No decent merc had hunted him since the two after Johns, almost nine years ago. He'd spelled out a warning in fragments of bone, flesh and an artistic touch of organs. That had kept them at bay for years, but he'd known it wouldn't last forever.

Riddick swigged back some water and flicked over the results. His primary concern was of course the Rogue Register, a collective of input from criminals. Strange, this honour among theives, murderers and the basest residues of humanity. It had started decades ago as a pet project of one of the richest smugglers of the time. Then it had been smuggling routes, authorities they could bribe and security breakdowns. Through the years it had expanded, almost uncontrollably until any criminal might find some use in it.

The Mercenary subsection was where Riddick spent most of his bedtime reading. Contributers sent in descriptions, tidbits, incidents, pictures if they were lucky, of any known bounty-hunters. Just to access the info required a slicing skill he'd taken years to hone. It wasn't something generally known and despite the careful protection, red herrings filled most of the content. Still, Riddick had used it on many occaisons, even contributed and found the incidental clue.

[Search Result foh//dd2}{Maev} 1]

One?!

Who the hell gets one result? Riddick grumbled thoughtfully to himself. This guy must be fledgling, and even then it was strange that there was so few. Had no-one heard of him, he was so inconsequential? And why would another merc have a letter warning not to get between them? A stray thought wandered by, maybe Maev had just ghosted anyone who knew anything.

He paused before opening the single file. Riddick sent in a cheez to sniff out traps. His eyebrow raised slightly when it returned quickly positive. Cocky little bastard had set up a trap. Anyone accessing this file would be immediately reported to an offsite watcher, their access details recorded and passed on. Riddick smirked and bypassed it easily with more software. The file loadly smoothly, and an animation of a piece of weathered paper unfolded in front of his silvered eyes.

[See you soon.]

His deep chuckle reverberated around the room.

Riddick nodded his head tauntingly, still smirking.

Look forward to it.

He went to close the console before remembering the other search results. The public gallery returned with several thousand, as usual. Scanning quickly down the first page there was the usual amount of glazier and plumbing companies named Maev Inc.

1 Mmm.

Colodon University, Cultural Mythology and Folklore Dept.

Interest peaked sufficiently, he opened the file and scrolled down to the blinking 'Celtic Mythology'.

"Breathe easy," he mumbled as it blinked insistently.

A few more clicks and he found what it'd been protesting.

[.though Ailell was king, Maev was the ruler in truth, and ordered all things as she wished, and took what husbands she wished, and dismissed them at her pleasure, for she was as fierce and strong as a goddess of war, and knew no law but her own wild will.]

A woman.

"Interesting."

* * * *

"Predictable," Maev muttered. She tsked her prey and saved the information to a tlcd-plate, just a standard palm-sized display.

[Madagascar-989, Rheon 6] It was in one of the godforsaken outregions, barely populated, just the kind of place he'd been confronted, unsuccessfully, by all the other mercs she'd been able to research. There was a chance that it hadn't been Riddick who'd found her little trap, but something visceral was telling her otherwise.

She had to admit it'd been a bitch to set up. A feint-trap like that had taken her a month of programming and more to hack it in. Also, there'd been almost a hundred files about her to scratch when she'd first succeeded in breaking into the RR. They hadn't said much, but it was enough to unnerve her and professionally, she didn't like the thought of any of her payloads knowing anything more than what she'd told Riddick. She would see him soon. But that wasn't a reason to let him see *her*.

Maev closed the screen and sighed to herself. She hummed something off-tune as she wandered around her room, undressing slowly. She sloughed off her loose pants and dragged her baggy shirt over her head. Kneeling down, in minimal support-wear, she started the ritual. It was something like what she did every morning, a shiv-katta of sorts, but faster now, longer, wearing herself into it until she would collapse sweatily, unable to continue. Everytime she started a hunt she would prime herself this way.

Maev removed a bone shiv from the band of elastene around her thigh. She rubbed at the mark it left before raising the shiv over her head. Her hands twisted down, executing a series of elegant movements. It was a practiced dance of hands and shiv and body. Her arms stretched out as she punctured the air in front of her and slung a hand out to counterbalance. Maev bent into her knees several times, before standing straight again. Breathing deeply, she flung her weight out, flipping and twisting - her torso and legs moving as fluidly as the shiv in her hands. Without stopping, she continued to cut the air, slicing imaginary opponents into ribbons as she went.

Her mind was silent as instinct ran her. Her feet bounced off the wall as she flipped backward, landing with one knee lowered and enough force to crush a ribcage. It was never this simple, this free, in the real world. She could never fight quite like this - without the armour and weapon-belts - when some brutish smuggler was firing doxocin at her. The shiv swished the air and Maev let her world condense into a honed, ivory edge.

[Pushing and grasping and tearing - never had this much blood.]

Maev pushed the memory away.

The way muscles seem to flow, and the momentum of hair as it snaps your head around to.

[Looking in dark eyes - catching light with the iris until it shines like mercury.]

"No!" she wrenched her face away, trying to escape the face in her mind. Unfocused, the shiv slipped through the skin along her hip. Maev looked down to see rivulets of dark red before she felt the pain. Hurt like hell. She pressed a bare hand over the cut and collapsed to the floor.

"Get up. get up. get up," she ordered herself. Curled into a foetal position and shivering, the woman forced back hot tears.

"Stop being a fucking child!"

But her abuse didn't free her either. His face was there, every time her eyes were closed. It was the scent of blood that was trapping her there - with nothing to hold onto but a vision of a face she couldn't fight.

Eyes flying open Maev pulled herself up. Blood was flowing over her fingers, wrapped around her hip. Holding her hand there, she strode to her bathroom and flung open the med cabinet. She cleaned the wound hastily and wrapped a regenerative poulstice over it. Scrubbing at her hands in the basin Maev let out a tremulous sigh. The face was gone, for now at least.

She slammed a hand onto the wide mirror in anguish.

This job was a mistake. It's not too late to back out.

"Damn it."

She lifted her eyes, staring at the hand. Slowly her eyes drifted sideways and met her face in the mirror. Dark brown curled around the sides, spilling down to her shoulders where it had escaped her plait. She raked it back with one hand as she examined one eye intently. A pool of green, high- lighted by the sharp blacks of the tattoo marking her face. Whorls of reds and blues drifted through the character, forming illusions of creatures painted onto her skin. She studied it and broke into a grin suddenly. Placing one hand over it, she stared at half a face of plain ivory skin.

It's not too late to run.

The smile dropped away.

"Always been too late."

With that acknowledgement she stripped away the rest of her clothing and slid into the shower to let the hot water wash away the blood.

* * * * *