10. The Truth About Gin: Part Two

"Still hungry?" Riddick asked, dropping his spork into his now empty bowl. Day after day of beans and jerky, but he was still willing to shovel the stuff into his mouth if it meant having a full stomach rather than an empty one. He'd be more than happy when they finally touched down on Dres-Aries, though, and could pick up something, anything, other than beans and jerky. They'd been on course for thirty-two days as it stood. More than a month.

Please, no more beans, he thought to himself.

"Yeah, but you know about beans right? Too many and. . ." she trailed off, a smile tugging at her lips.

He nodded slowly, his lips twitching. "Yes, I think I understand where you're going with that. Jerky, then?"

Gin smiled at him. "Sure."

Riddick got up and flipped open a storage bin, pulling out a few hunks of dried beef strips. He handed her one. "Enjoy."

She ripped off a piece with her teeth, easily. "No problem. Too bad you don't have my teeth." She flashed her canines.

He frowned and yanked as hard as he could on his own strip, finally wrestling a piece off. "Those are handy, aren't they?" he said around a mouth full of jerky.

She nodded, tearing off another piece and chewing thoughtfully.

Together they finished off their meat in silence, then Riddick watched as Gin slipped far away from him. Her eyes took on a distant look as she stared at something he couldn't see.

"What are you thinking?" he asked her quietly, his voice low.

She jerked out of her trance and looked at him quizzically. "Hm?"

He repeated the question. "Oh, nothing," she replied. "Just about Ven and Brand. Wondering if they miss me, if they want me to even come looking for them. I've been gone a long time, Riddick. Too long." She sought his eyes in the dark, as if hoping he could tell her what to expect.

"I can't tell you what they'll do. I'm not exactly a people person," he answered.

A corner of her mouth lifted wryly. "I gathered as much."

"You aren't either." It wasn't a question.

"Nope. And I never have been. People slow you down. Too easy to get entangled in someone else's problems. I have my own." Her voice was casual and a little cynical.

"Yeah," was all he said, thinking about Jack and how he'd allowed himself to become attached to her, despite himself. That's why he'd left.

Gin shifted suddenly so she was facing him full on. "Do you miss Jack?"

Riddick kept his expression controlled as he thought about how to answer her. "I'm not used to caring about anyone. I guess I liked the kid, but I couldn't be in her life, and she can't be a part of mine. Too dangerous for us both."

She just stared at him. "But do you miss her?"

Riddick didn't like the fact that Gin could see through him. Her senses, he supposed. "Yeah. A little," he admitted reluctantly.

"Was that so hard? Admitting you missed another person?" she asked him, half serious, half teasing.

"Hell yes, it was hard. It meant admitting it to myself." He scowled darkly at her.

She lifted her brows. "Don't worry your little shaved head, Riddick. I won't tell anyone you actually missed a cute, sweet kid. Especially one that adores, idolizes, and would gladly follow you to ends of this universe to the next."

His scowl just got darker and he grabbed their empty bowls, taking them into the bathroom to be rinsed off.

Ignoring his suddenly souring mood, Gin stood and walked to the pilot's seat, checking their position on the monitor. Still four days from Dres-Aries. She growled at that and then plopped down in the chair, staring at the monitor that showed a view of the stars ahead of them. She could just make out a few distant planets to the left. They were green and blue, like Trys and Crip, and she longed for home and its lush forests and rivers.

Riddick suddenly appeared at her side and she glanced up at him. "Spill," was all he said, his voice low and quiet.

She turned away from him and gazed at the stars, that far-away look coming over her face again. "When they found our place," she began quietly, her tone distant, "I wasn't home. Again." Her mouth twisted wryly. "I must really have some timing for deer hunting.

"It was a year after the bar incident, where I killed those Rangers that got our parents. When I got back, Ven and Brand were gone and there was a Company transport with a Ranger insignia on its door parked in the clearing near our house." She shoved a hand through her hair angrily. "I knew something was wrong so I went looking for them.

"I found Ven and Brand cornered by two Rangers, but I was too far away to do anything about it. The first Ranger pointed his rifle at Ven, she was standing between him and Brand, and she jumped forward, dodged the bullet and slit his throat." Her lips pulled into a sadistic, teeth baring grin. "I'd never been more proud," she gritted out between her teeth.

"But Ven wasn't fast enough to get the other guy. He was steppin' back and gettin' ready to pull the trigger when I jumped on him. I snapped his neck.

"After that, everything changed. . ."

------

Gin loaded her younger siblings into their prowler, everything they could carry onboard without being too heavy to take off. Ven sat glowering at Gin in the corner, unhappy that she was being left behind while Gin went off to get the Company off their trail. Brand was held on her lap, his small hands clasping her shirt in an iron grip. He didn't want Gin to go, she was his hero.

After Ven and Gin had killed the two Rangers, Gin had climbed aboard their Company transport and flown it into a ravine. She cut the main fuel line and then threw a match at it as she walked away. The heat of the blast seared her back as she left, ship pieces raining down about her.

Now she sat behind the wheel of the prowler, the little ship being the pride of six years hard work. She hated it but it had to be done if Ven and Brand were going to have any sort of future.

With the flip of some switches and the punching of some buttons, Gin was off for the nearest minor's camp, hoping she could get directions to one a lot farther off than that. She'd heard of a system called Aries, and it was about as far from Trys, both in distance and scenery, that one could get. She'd try to get Ven and Brand there.

It took four months to reach Aries. The planet with the highest population was Dres, so that's where she ended up leaving them.

Brand clutched at her wildly, tears streaking his small, dark face. His silver eyes were almost black with sadness. "D'ya hafta go, Gin?" he asked plaintively.

She bent down and held him away by his shoulders so she could look into his eyes, that were so much like their father's. "Yeah, I do, kiddo. If I don't leave, those bad men will find us and they'll try and kill us like they did Mama and Daddy when you were a baby. If I leave I can keep them away until I figure out a way to make them leave us alone. Then I'll come back for you and Ven."

He launched himself at her and wrapped his small arms around her neck tightly. "Promise?" he whispered in her ear.

"Promise," she replied, and she squeezed him to her tightly, knowing she was going to miss him more than anything in this world.

When she finally pulled away from Brand's small body, she stood and looked at Ven. She knew her sister was mad about being left behind like this, but it was necessary.

Ven stepped towards her sister. "I don't like this," she said slowly, gazing intently at Gin. "But I realize you know what's best, so I guess I'm all right with it."

Not knowing what to do about the whole situation of leaving, Gin held out her hand for Ven to shake. Ven took it tentatively, then with a sad little sob yanked Gin close and hugged her.

"Thanks for takin' care of us, sis," she murmured into Gin's neck. "You will come back, won't you?"

"You can count on it, Ven. You ain't gettin' rid of me this easy." She pulled back and smiled, glad they were parting on good terms. "I love you guys, both of you. And I'll come looking for you if it means wiping out the Company all by myself."

With a wave and a smile, Gin left Dres-Aries, only hoping she would come back to them someday. She'd left them with almost all the supplies and plenty of cash. They'd be fine, she told herself. How she'd be was another question.

A few months passed with Gin planet and colony hopping. She was barely a step ahead of the Company. They were right behind her all the way, and she could feel them behind her. She was often able to smell them close by. Everyone associated with the Company had a distinct smell.

Four months of running, ducking, and hiding, found Gin on a far off planet that didn't even have a name. Just a number; TS-215. Population: Sixty-three and a half, if you counted her. And that's where the Company finally caught her.

With Slam in her near future, Gin tried to escape, fighting with all she had, and taking out three Rangers before being jumped on and taking a pistol whipping in the skull.

She woke up in a make-shift court room. A canvas tent on another numbered planet in the same system, at some shit hole Company base. TS-34, she'd thought she heard a guard mumble when they threw her on the dirt floor, face in the dust.

Holding her head up high, she pushed herself to her feet and looked around slowly, taking in her surroundings. Ten guards, three official Rangers, and someone who looked like a very bored judge.

The bored looking judge took his seat at the front of the tent and set doleful mint green eyes on her.

"All rise for the honorably Judge Jackson," the Ranger acting as bailiff announced in a bored voice.

Already standing, Gin sat down hard on the ground. One of the guards rushed forward and tried to force her to her feet with a fist in her grungy hair, but merely succeeded in almost losing a finger to her sharp teeth.

Receiving a backhand to the face for her disrespect, she was knocked sideways and lifted to her feet by three guards. She didn't cooperate and had to be held up until the bailiff said, "You may be seated."

She stood.

The guards stepped away from her when the judge raised his hand, waving them off of her. She bared her teeth at him, but didn't bother to growl.

Jackson shuffled some papers on his dusty table before looking up at her. "Gince Wolf, of Trys-Ornay, daughter of Drake Wolf and Reese Alexen, you have been charged with the crime of brutally murdering..." his voice trailed off as he read and reread the statement saying how many Rangers she'd killed in the past year. "For brutally murdering ten Company Rangers, in cold-blood."

Gin didn't feel the need to say it hadn't been cold-blood. Her blood had been boiling every time she'd dropped one of the bastards for good.

"Do you have anything to say in defense for yourself?" he questioned, lips pressed thin in disapproval.

Gin lifted her arms above her head and stretched lazily, letting out a low rumble as her tense muscles pulled loose from their knots. When she saw the judge looking at her expectantly, the guards going tense at the sound she'd let out, she lifted her brows questioningly. "I'm sorry, you were saying something?"

With an exasperated expression the judge repeated the question. "Lemme think? Okay, I could say I'm sorry, but then I'd be lying." The Ranger bailiff took a threatening step forward and she bared her teeth at him. He froze and she shot him a feral grin. "How 'bout I say, 'Fuck you. You're throwin' me in Slam no matter what the hell I say'?"

Jackson nodded to the bailiff and Gin got her one-way ticket to the slam, where she spent the next four years.

One pit expedition, three dead guards, two dead fellow prisoners, and a stolen transport later, and Gin was back to her old game. But now she'd learned some new rules. Like how to die only without the dying part. One of the guards she'd killed had been her height and build as well as female. She'd dragged the corpse on board and staged a crashing of the small transport.

The guard had had some cash credits on her and it was enough to book a transport to a free-settler colony. When she got the time she made the identity Reese Drake. New name, new job, denied her Trys-Ornay origins, and made Gin Wolf disappear in a cloud of smoke.

At the colony she ended up being a bounty hunter. Sometimes a merc, she earned a quick rep of always getting her man. . . or woman, whatever the case may have been.

She met Jack for the first time almost right after she got out of the slam, and stayed with her for six months. A year later, she was close enough to Dres-Aries to make a jump in that direction. That's where she ran into Jack for a second time.

------

"You know the rest from there. If I'd been able to make it back to Dres three months earlier I would have found Ven and Brand. But I missed them and they could be anywhere by now," Gin finished wearily. "I might never find them," she whispered, her head low. "They might not want me to find them now."

Riddick dropped a heavy, comforting hand on her shoulder. "We'll find them, Gin. And they'll want you back, I'm sure of it."