Johns did all the talking when the merc ship hailed them. He identified them as the survivors of the Hunter-Gratzner and could they board, please.
The mercs allowed them to dock in the larger ship's spacious bay. As the hatch lowered, Johns warned them, "They'll be there with guns drawn. Standard procedure with unknown vessels, don't worry."
True to form, a dozen mercs with rifles aimed flanked either side of the hatch. Everyone filed out slowly, not wanting to alarm any itchy trigger fingers.
Johns strode up to the man in charge, noting the admiral's insignia on his uniform. Johns saluted smartly, "Sergeant, First Class, William K. Johns, sir."
Rather than return the salute or even acknowledge his presence, the admiral brushed past Johns and moved to stand toe to toe with Riddick. "Well, well...the infamous Richard B. Riddick, murderer and escapist extraordinaire." The corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. "I'm honored."
"Yessir, he's my prisoner," Johns was quick to assert his claim on Riddick. He knew it was within the admiral's power to claim Riddick for his ship, collect the full bounty, and distribute it to his crew as he saw fit. However, as long as Johns made his claim up front, the admiral would be the only one with that authority, and he would probably be easy to bribe with a fifty/fifty split, rather than the small fraction he would get if he spread it around to the crew of a ship this large.
Riddick's silver eyes stared right back into the admiral's cold blue gaze. "Actually, I'm no one's prisoner."
The admiral cocked a blonde eyebrow. "Indeed?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, Riddick?" Johns demanded.
Riddick looked at him with a smile, then back at the admiral. "The good sergeant and I have a verbal contract. If I don't kill anyone - and I haven't - and I help them escape that planet - and I did - then Johns would set me loose, forget I ever existed."
"I see." The admiral paced thoughtfully. "Is this true, sergeant?"
"No," Johns lied. Only he and Riddick had been in that chamber, so it was the word of a merc versus the word of a criminal. "He's just tryin' to save his sorry ass from prison."
He continued pacing, not looking at anyone or anything in particular. "Your claim to freedom has been disputed, Mr. Riddick. Can you prove your case?"
"I got a witness who can testify. She heard every word."
Fuck! He'd forgotten the sister could hear in the chamber even though she was outside. Though, that gave him an idea. "No, she can't," Johns protested. "She's Riddick's sister. She'd be biased in his favor, and she's probably a lying bitch too."
The admiral stopped pacing abruptly and faced Riddick. "I was unaware that you had a sister."
Riddick shrugged. "We thought she was dead." He reached back through the small band of survivors and brought Angela forward.
The admiral stared open-mouthed at Angela for a moment, but quickly remembered where he was and straightened. He whirled on Johns, but his orders were to the mercs surrounding them. "Commander, put Sergeant Johns in the brig for breach of a binding oral agreement. Then see that all of our guest are treated in the infirmary for any injuries and settled into quarters."
"Yessir, Admiral, but what about the prisoner?"
He looked Johns in the eye. "Mr. Riddick is mine."
Two guards disarmed a struggling Johns. "You can't do this!" he cried. "He's a murdering son of a bitch, and he's my bounty!"
The admiral held up a hand for the guards to halt. "Firstly, sergeant, I do not take well to such foul and base language aboard my ship. Ask any of my crew. Secondly, I outrank you. Therefore, I can do as I please on my own ship." He stood nose to nose with Johns so that only he could see the admiral's eyes shift from their icy blue to a flaming gold. "Lastly...Richard is my son, and I assure you that I am not a bitch." His eyes returned to normal as he walked away.
Johns went limp at the revelation that this admiral was another vampire, and Riddick's father at that. As the guards dragged him away, he began struggling again. One of them busted his head with the butt of a rifle, and Johns fell unconscious. The guards would rather handle dead weight than struggling weight.
Riddick put an arm around Angela and followed their father out the door.
Commander McConnel didn't see exactly why Admiral Lacroix wanted Sergeant Johns in the brig, but orders were orders. Besides, this Johns was a Grade A jackass if there ever was one, and he got on McConnel's nerves.
McConnel took the rest of the little survivor group to the infirmary. Only he and the head doctor knew that the admiral was a vampire. So Riddick and Angela were not only vampires, but the admiral's children too...interesting.
"Does anyone else want to claim a relation to Admiral Lacroix?" he asked the group behind him as they walked down a corridor.
Inigo spoke. "Four of us are vampire. The humans know about us, as I'm sure you do as well."
McConnel nodded. "Yes, I know, and so does Doc Ratcher. The crew is entirely human and entirely unaware of their commanding officer's state of being. We would like to keep things that way."
"So it shall be," Inigo replied. Everyone nodded agreement.
In the infirmary, Doc Ratcher - an aging but capable physician - gave the vampires a quick once-over and a discharge of perfect health. The humans stayed a little longer so Doc could patch their few scrapes and bruises properly. Though it had been almost a week since the crash that gave them their injuries, Doc liked to be thorough.
* * * * *
Elsewhere in the ship, Lucien Lacroix held his lost daughter. "Sweet Angelique, how I mourned your death, and now here you are."
Angela let the Frenchalization of her name pass. Normally she would have bitten out a correction and stormed away, but right now, she didn't care. She had been stunned and ecstatic by Richie's appearance, but this was different. This was her father, her master, her creator. Feeling his grip around her shoulders cemented the reality of it for her...she was home.
She looked up at him. It was the closest to tears Lacroix would ever be. He almost couldn't believe that she was here. He had accepted her death three centuries ago, but she was here now. "Where have you been, Angelique?"
"Long story, pops," Riddick said. "Maybe over a decent meal. Those nightcrawlers gave me a stomach-ache."
Lacroix raised an eyebrow. "Nightcrawlers?"
* * * * *
In the brig, Johns rattled the bars that imprisoned him. "Let me outta here!" he yelled. "I'm a Mercenary, dammit! We're supposed to be brothers here."
A guard appeared and slapped the bars with his baton. "Shut the fuck up, brother, or I'll shut you up. Admiral says you gotta stay here, so there's a damn good reason for him - and the rest of us - to not like you."
The guard left Johns clattering his cage and screaming in fury and pain. He was starting withdrawal again. Right now it was abdominal cramping, but that would soon progress to splitting headaches and nausea. Johns didn't want to find out what happened after that.
The loud noise eventually made the guard return, baton at the ready to hit Johns this time instead of the bars.
"Listen," Johns pleaded with him. "If you let me out, we can cash in Riddick together. Even half that bounty is more than you could ever get here."
The guard contemplated the idea for a moment. "How much he worth exactly?"
Johns smiled. The creed is greed, he thought. "Over a hundred and fifty thousand." He didn't bother to mention that it was closer to three hundred and fifty alive, and he still hoped to take Riddick that way.
"That so?" The guard rubbed his chin and tapped the baton against the bars as he thought. "Johns, was it?"
He nodded.
"Well, Johns, I'm Lieutenant Rorye, and you've got a partner."
* * * * *
"I think this is the admiral's table."
Shazza looked up from her drink to the voice that had spoken.
She had headed to the ship's lounge the first chance she'd got. The doctor had looked them over, and then they'd been given quite luxurious quarters. When she looked through her room, she'd found the large, full bed and realized anew that no one would be sharing it with her. That's when she'd squelched the urge to cry again and went for a drink.
"What makes you say that?" she asked.
Henri shrugged as he grabbed the chair opposite her and turned it around to straddle it. "It has the best view." He looked out the enormous viewports to the passing stars. "It is set apart from the other tables. Not to mention that it's acoustically private."
"'Acoustically' private?"
He nodded. "The acoustics here are set up so that noise from the rest of the room is muted, and any conversation held here cannot be eavesdropped upon. Vampires are very sensitive about what they hear and what they want kept private. If the admiral sat here, he would be able to listen to anything he chose and not have it blaring in his ear, and he would be secure in knowing that he could speak freely with whomever sat with him."
"Oh," she said, not really interested, and raised her glass for another drink.
Henri stopped the glass from reaching her lips. "Alcoholism doesn't suit you, ma cher."
"Don't plan on makin' it a habit." She freed her glass from him and downed the contents in one gulp. She hissed through clenched teeth as the liquid burned its way down her throat.
Henri shook his head and sighed. "Perhaps no, but that's a good way to start." He rose, stealing the bottle of whiskey from Shazza's hand. "Come with me, chérie. I know what will make you feel much better."
On their way out of the lounge, Henri gave the bottle back to the bartender. Lacroix and his two children passed them going in. He stopped long enough to order a bottle of his "special vintage" and inform the bartender that their guests would be privy to drink it as well.
Over a thoroughly nourishing and welcomed bottle of blood, Angela and Riddick told their respective tales of how they came to be on that godforsaken planet. Lacroix was particularly interested in Angela's time alone, surviving purely on animal instinct. When he last saw her, she had taken up the wayward ways of her deceased brother, Nicholas.
Nicholas had long doubted the bloodthirsty and superior attitude that vampires traditionally held. They were superior beings, surrounded by creatures who were more or less cattle to their species. However, he had looked upon humanity as brothers to the vampire community. He saw no reason to kill them, no reason to be superior. His guilt over his own bloodthirsty nature was what finally drove him to suicide.
Assisted suicide, Lacroix remembered with a pang. He had been the one to drive that stake through his son's heart...on the basis of being his friend, not his master. He had been right to help him die. Nicholas was simply not meant to be a vampire anymore.
Angela had known him only briefly, but those few years had been enough for her to start doubting as well. When Nicholas died, she became nearly obsessed with finishing what he had started: finding a way to become human again. Until she could find that way, she was content to be humanity's champion. She spent a few decades in law enforcement, but then decided she would be more useful to humanity and her own search in the medical community. That's how she ended up on that ship and on that planet.
The woman sitting before Lacroix now was not the wide-eyed, idealistic girl that had boarded that ship. She held herself rigidly in a perpetual defensive posture. Her eyes darted everywhere looking for potential dangers and enemies. Her ears twitched, noting the location of every heartbeat in the vicinity. Even in the safety of his ship, she was ready for attack and was prepared to defend herself accordingly.
More the animal that vampires are than the human she once sought to become, he mused.
After they finished their tales, they began discussing where they would go from here. Angela made it clear that she wanted to stay with her brother. Riddick didn't mind the idea of company. Lacroix told them where they could get in touch with Aristotle.
"Make whatever identities you wish," he told them. "Just make sure I'll be able to drop you a line every now and again."
They agreed happily, and Lacroix got up to arrange a shuttlecraft for them. Before he could take two paces, he and half the room were thrown to the floor by a ship-lurching explosion. Alerts blared over the comm-system, and the lounge's patrons scrambled for their duty posts.
"What the fuck was that?!" Riddick yelled over the din.
"Was it a shot? Are we under attack?" Angela cried.
Lacroix's eyes blazed gold with fury. "If it's an attack, it's not another ship." He nearly bared his fangs at the thought of his ship under siege. "That blast came from inside."