Author's Note: I had no idea when I started writing this story that it was
going to become so HUGE! I thought it would be a nice, simple romance, but
apparently the characters have stuff to say LOL I sincerely hope I can
manage to keep the story alive, and interesting until it's conclusion :)
Please review, I love hearing from people.
And yes, I promise, there really is romance in the story! It's just taking
longer than anticipated to get there.
Chapter 14 - How To Treat A Lady
Jack's day had passed slowly even though she'd gotten a rather late start. She had gone first to the Persephone but, of course, Riddick wasn't there; though a quick hack into the Dock Master's computer showed that he'd been very busy that day getting his ship restocked and ready to leave. All that was missing now was the fuel. As soon as that fuel shipment came in, he'd be as good as gone. She saw now that it was going to take more than a little convincing to win him over to the idea of her going with him when he left. What would he do if she just followed him to TO4?
She'd spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the park, trying to crack his security codes on the Persephone itself so she could repay him for the little breaking and entering incident, but the bitch wasn't giving it up. It wasn't a simple encryption system, he really meant for no one to get through it. *This is some serious shit,* she thought to herself, wondering who he'd had install it. If he'd done it himself, she had even more respect for him.
Typically, if she wanted to hack anything she would go to the park and use her hand held computer. It had a specialized chip in it, an illegal specialized chip, that scrambled its signature. If for some reason she was caught inside a system, the best they could do would be try to home in on the signal, but by then she'd be long gone and it could have been any of a number of people mulling about the park. So far, knock on wood, she hadn't been caught.
By the time simulated night was falling on the park, making it difficult to see, Jack wasn't any closer to cracking the Persephone's codes. They were almost as good as the military safeguards she'd come up against when she'd been trying to find out as much information as she could about Riddick. She'd been able to find out when he'd been born, the hospital he'd been taken to, the name of the group home he'd lived in as a child. But everything cut off at the time he was eighteen, all records after that were encrypted so deeply into the military computer system that she'd have to have a much more powerful computer, and a much more secure system, than she had to come anywhere close to cracking them. After that, all she could find out was what was on the news-net.
Sketchy reports of a small insurrection, an uprising of a handful of soldiers, on Sigma 3 that had led to the deaths of over 300 civilians; men, women, and children dead at their hands. The only mutineer to have been captured alive was Lt. Richard B. Riddick, the leader of the small band. After that, the reports of the trial had been splashed on every news system in the known galaxy, though the actual court transcripts had been deemed classified and no civilian personnel were allowed anywhere near the prisoner or the trial.
After that there was nothing, not even a bleep, nothing as to where he'd been incarcerated or anything until he managed to escape. That was when the Company had issued a one million credit bounty on his head should he be brought to them alive, five hundred thousand if he were dead. It didn't take a genius to know that there was more to the story. It also didn't take much of a leap of logic for Jack to know what a scapegoat looked like. She didn't know what had actually happened, but she knew that Riddick hadn't masterminded the killing of civilians.
After Riddick's escape, he became very popular with the intergalactic news media again, though after several cases of mistaken identity led to some rather nasty consequences there was another large gap of nothing. Jack assumed that the Company had put a gag-ban on the news-net, keeping them from reporting anything to do with Riddick. But that didn't keep his face from being posted on every wanted warning system across the charted sectors, or from being added to the black list system (a computer database that registered mercs and bounty hunters could gain access to, for a fee). And the gag-ban didn't entirely keep him out of the news, any time he would dispatch a merc that had been on his tail, his death count would go up.
According to the records she'd managed to retrieve, he was held responsible for nearly 60 deaths, not including the civilians on Sigma 3. She remembered asking Riddick once, while they were on the frigate, how many people he'd killed and he just looked at her for a minute. At first she thought he wasn't going to answer the question (like so many other questions he'd never answered), but after a moment he did answer after a fashion, though not actually telling her the count. "I never killed anybody who didn't deserve it." It wasn't so much his answer that had stuck with her as the look on his face, like he truly wanted her to believe what he was telling her. She did.
Knowing she wasn't going to get anything else, and not wanting to be in the park alone after 'dark', she packed up her backpack and went home. She could, she supposed, go looking for him at some of the bars, but she wasn't really sure she wanted to find him there, since she was fairly certain he wouldn't be alone. It was going to be a long night.
**************************************************
Riddick made it back to the Persephone about 8 o'clock that morning. He was glad to find her empty, he'd half expected for Jack to be waiting for him. That was an encounter he could do without just now. He hadn't really slept the night before, but he didn't much feel like sleeping. After he showered and shaved, he dressed for the day in a pair of coveralls. Since he was going to be in dry-dock for another couple of days, it would give him a chance to do some repairs on the Persephone. He could probably have paid someone to do it for him, but even though it took him a bit longer to do it, he liked knowing every inch of his ship. He smiled as a quick check on the computer system told him that someone had tried to crack the security codes, but the smile soon faded as he realized that she'd probably try again. He sighed heavily; he'd just have to deal with that if and when it happened, wasn't like he could stop her trying. Taking a few moments, he set the system to alert him when she broke into the system again.
Moving down into the service access space in the bowels of the ship, Riddick strapped a tool belt onto his waist and slid into an access panel below the gravity induction unit. He'd noticed that the artificial gravity had been a little sketchy for a while, but the only way to repair one was to wait until the ship was either planetside or in a larger artificial grav environment like the space station. It had been eight months since he'd been planetside anywhere, and the stations he'd docked at over the past eight months hadn't been large enough to house interior docking bays.
It was dark down there, though that wasn't a problem for Riddick. Leaving his contacts in his bathroom on the upper deck, he was able to work in the dark as easily as someone with a worktorch, probably better. In fact, most of the time he didn't bother running the lights at all. Saved on the generator that way. It was also quiet, very, very quiet. He could probably have turned on some music, but he'd gotten used to the silence. It made it easier to know if there was anything there that shouldn't be. In the middle of ripping apart the grav unit, he heard the warning alarm going off in the computer. Taking a deep breath, he slid out of the access panel and went to wait for his visitor.
******************************************************
Jack let her through the airlock to the docks for the third time in so many days. It was a good thing she didn't have a limited access pass or Customs would have been knocking on her door, asking her why she seemed so interested in the docks lately. Being an engineer did have its advantages, one being unlimited access. And having an innocent face made this kind of illegal endeavor easier too.
No one questioned her as she approached the Persephone, for which she was exceedingly grateful. She'd hate to try to explain what she was doing there. She could tell them she was visiting a friend, but if Riddick wasn't there, or decided to pretend he wasn't there, they'd just expect her to leave, and she'd have a harder time getting in unnoticed next time. But no one even seemed to notice her as she climbed up to the airlock door and punched in the code, holding her breath.
At first she thought she had gotten it wrong, and she felt a moment of panic flow through her. But just as she was about to try the code again, she heard the tell tale hissing of the airlock door being released. She let out a long breath as she stepped into the dark chamber and closed the door behind her. With the exterior door closed, it threw the chamber into complete blackness and Jack felt the panic coming back, but she'd been prepared for this. This was Riddick, after all. He was used to the dark.
Turning her flashlight on a low beam, the tiny beam of light making her feel much better, Jack found the controls for the other door and let herself into the ship. The Persephone was a Zephyr class cargo ship, designed to carry small amounts of cargo within star systems. Though it could be modified with a slipstream drive to travel longer distances like a Starjumper, most people preferred one of the newer models that were already designed for deep space jumps. This particular Zephyr was probably about fifty years old, not exactly an antique but damn close.
Jack could feel her 'engineer instincts' kicking in. Though everything she saw showed signs of age and wear, everything seemed to be in good working order. She wished she had time to get down into the ship and really see how she ticked. She'd also like to get a good look at the computer system. Most Zephyrs were designed for a three to six man crew, she would like to know what kind of modifications Riddick had done to make it a one-man ship.
Finding herself in the cockpit, Jack sat down in the co-pilot's seat and smiled, remembering back to the three days she, Imam, and Riddick had been stuck in the skiff. Riddick had been pretty badly injured, so he'd given her a very basic course in what to watch out for on the many readouts so he could take care of his wounds and get some sleep. He'd told her that she could be his co-pilot. Of course, since then she'd learned a good deal more, but she'd never forgotten what he'd taught her.
Unlike the other parts of the ship, the flight deck looked almost entirely new, or at least the flight and nav equipment did. She noticed that the ship had been modified for jumps, but she had already known it must have. It must have cost some major credits to get this ship up to these kinds of standards. She did notice that, wherever it was possible, he'd kept the original equipment housings. That actually would have cost more, to modify what was there to work with the new. Running her hands lovingly over the console, she smiled, talking to the ship. "Riddick certainly knows how to treat a lady, doesn't he, old girl?"
Riddick had watched her from the moment she'd entered the ship. He'd followed her as she looked around, making her way toward the flight deck. When she'd sat down in the co-pilot's seat, his memories had taken him back to their time on the skiff too. She'd been such a smart kid, picked everything up so quickly, he'd admired her intelligence and her toughness. He watched her as she caressed the console, obviously appreciating the beauty of the old ship. *She must just have an affinity for old stuff,* he thought, laughing to himself. He had to smile as she spoke to the ship like it was a person, how many times had he done that himself? "Do I?"
Chapter 14 - How To Treat A Lady
Jack's day had passed slowly even though she'd gotten a rather late start. She had gone first to the Persephone but, of course, Riddick wasn't there; though a quick hack into the Dock Master's computer showed that he'd been very busy that day getting his ship restocked and ready to leave. All that was missing now was the fuel. As soon as that fuel shipment came in, he'd be as good as gone. She saw now that it was going to take more than a little convincing to win him over to the idea of her going with him when he left. What would he do if she just followed him to TO4?
She'd spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the park, trying to crack his security codes on the Persephone itself so she could repay him for the little breaking and entering incident, but the bitch wasn't giving it up. It wasn't a simple encryption system, he really meant for no one to get through it. *This is some serious shit,* she thought to herself, wondering who he'd had install it. If he'd done it himself, she had even more respect for him.
Typically, if she wanted to hack anything she would go to the park and use her hand held computer. It had a specialized chip in it, an illegal specialized chip, that scrambled its signature. If for some reason she was caught inside a system, the best they could do would be try to home in on the signal, but by then she'd be long gone and it could have been any of a number of people mulling about the park. So far, knock on wood, she hadn't been caught.
By the time simulated night was falling on the park, making it difficult to see, Jack wasn't any closer to cracking the Persephone's codes. They were almost as good as the military safeguards she'd come up against when she'd been trying to find out as much information as she could about Riddick. She'd been able to find out when he'd been born, the hospital he'd been taken to, the name of the group home he'd lived in as a child. But everything cut off at the time he was eighteen, all records after that were encrypted so deeply into the military computer system that she'd have to have a much more powerful computer, and a much more secure system, than she had to come anywhere close to cracking them. After that, all she could find out was what was on the news-net.
Sketchy reports of a small insurrection, an uprising of a handful of soldiers, on Sigma 3 that had led to the deaths of over 300 civilians; men, women, and children dead at their hands. The only mutineer to have been captured alive was Lt. Richard B. Riddick, the leader of the small band. After that, the reports of the trial had been splashed on every news system in the known galaxy, though the actual court transcripts had been deemed classified and no civilian personnel were allowed anywhere near the prisoner or the trial.
After that there was nothing, not even a bleep, nothing as to where he'd been incarcerated or anything until he managed to escape. That was when the Company had issued a one million credit bounty on his head should he be brought to them alive, five hundred thousand if he were dead. It didn't take a genius to know that there was more to the story. It also didn't take much of a leap of logic for Jack to know what a scapegoat looked like. She didn't know what had actually happened, but she knew that Riddick hadn't masterminded the killing of civilians.
After Riddick's escape, he became very popular with the intergalactic news media again, though after several cases of mistaken identity led to some rather nasty consequences there was another large gap of nothing. Jack assumed that the Company had put a gag-ban on the news-net, keeping them from reporting anything to do with Riddick. But that didn't keep his face from being posted on every wanted warning system across the charted sectors, or from being added to the black list system (a computer database that registered mercs and bounty hunters could gain access to, for a fee). And the gag-ban didn't entirely keep him out of the news, any time he would dispatch a merc that had been on his tail, his death count would go up.
According to the records she'd managed to retrieve, he was held responsible for nearly 60 deaths, not including the civilians on Sigma 3. She remembered asking Riddick once, while they were on the frigate, how many people he'd killed and he just looked at her for a minute. At first she thought he wasn't going to answer the question (like so many other questions he'd never answered), but after a moment he did answer after a fashion, though not actually telling her the count. "I never killed anybody who didn't deserve it." It wasn't so much his answer that had stuck with her as the look on his face, like he truly wanted her to believe what he was telling her. She did.
Knowing she wasn't going to get anything else, and not wanting to be in the park alone after 'dark', she packed up her backpack and went home. She could, she supposed, go looking for him at some of the bars, but she wasn't really sure she wanted to find him there, since she was fairly certain he wouldn't be alone. It was going to be a long night.
**************************************************
Riddick made it back to the Persephone about 8 o'clock that morning. He was glad to find her empty, he'd half expected for Jack to be waiting for him. That was an encounter he could do without just now. He hadn't really slept the night before, but he didn't much feel like sleeping. After he showered and shaved, he dressed for the day in a pair of coveralls. Since he was going to be in dry-dock for another couple of days, it would give him a chance to do some repairs on the Persephone. He could probably have paid someone to do it for him, but even though it took him a bit longer to do it, he liked knowing every inch of his ship. He smiled as a quick check on the computer system told him that someone had tried to crack the security codes, but the smile soon faded as he realized that she'd probably try again. He sighed heavily; he'd just have to deal with that if and when it happened, wasn't like he could stop her trying. Taking a few moments, he set the system to alert him when she broke into the system again.
Moving down into the service access space in the bowels of the ship, Riddick strapped a tool belt onto his waist and slid into an access panel below the gravity induction unit. He'd noticed that the artificial gravity had been a little sketchy for a while, but the only way to repair one was to wait until the ship was either planetside or in a larger artificial grav environment like the space station. It had been eight months since he'd been planetside anywhere, and the stations he'd docked at over the past eight months hadn't been large enough to house interior docking bays.
It was dark down there, though that wasn't a problem for Riddick. Leaving his contacts in his bathroom on the upper deck, he was able to work in the dark as easily as someone with a worktorch, probably better. In fact, most of the time he didn't bother running the lights at all. Saved on the generator that way. It was also quiet, very, very quiet. He could probably have turned on some music, but he'd gotten used to the silence. It made it easier to know if there was anything there that shouldn't be. In the middle of ripping apart the grav unit, he heard the warning alarm going off in the computer. Taking a deep breath, he slid out of the access panel and went to wait for his visitor.
******************************************************
Jack let her through the airlock to the docks for the third time in so many days. It was a good thing she didn't have a limited access pass or Customs would have been knocking on her door, asking her why she seemed so interested in the docks lately. Being an engineer did have its advantages, one being unlimited access. And having an innocent face made this kind of illegal endeavor easier too.
No one questioned her as she approached the Persephone, for which she was exceedingly grateful. She'd hate to try to explain what she was doing there. She could tell them she was visiting a friend, but if Riddick wasn't there, or decided to pretend he wasn't there, they'd just expect her to leave, and she'd have a harder time getting in unnoticed next time. But no one even seemed to notice her as she climbed up to the airlock door and punched in the code, holding her breath.
At first she thought she had gotten it wrong, and she felt a moment of panic flow through her. But just as she was about to try the code again, she heard the tell tale hissing of the airlock door being released. She let out a long breath as she stepped into the dark chamber and closed the door behind her. With the exterior door closed, it threw the chamber into complete blackness and Jack felt the panic coming back, but she'd been prepared for this. This was Riddick, after all. He was used to the dark.
Turning her flashlight on a low beam, the tiny beam of light making her feel much better, Jack found the controls for the other door and let herself into the ship. The Persephone was a Zephyr class cargo ship, designed to carry small amounts of cargo within star systems. Though it could be modified with a slipstream drive to travel longer distances like a Starjumper, most people preferred one of the newer models that were already designed for deep space jumps. This particular Zephyr was probably about fifty years old, not exactly an antique but damn close.
Jack could feel her 'engineer instincts' kicking in. Though everything she saw showed signs of age and wear, everything seemed to be in good working order. She wished she had time to get down into the ship and really see how she ticked. She'd also like to get a good look at the computer system. Most Zephyrs were designed for a three to six man crew, she would like to know what kind of modifications Riddick had done to make it a one-man ship.
Finding herself in the cockpit, Jack sat down in the co-pilot's seat and smiled, remembering back to the three days she, Imam, and Riddick had been stuck in the skiff. Riddick had been pretty badly injured, so he'd given her a very basic course in what to watch out for on the many readouts so he could take care of his wounds and get some sleep. He'd told her that she could be his co-pilot. Of course, since then she'd learned a good deal more, but she'd never forgotten what he'd taught her.
Unlike the other parts of the ship, the flight deck looked almost entirely new, or at least the flight and nav equipment did. She noticed that the ship had been modified for jumps, but she had already known it must have. It must have cost some major credits to get this ship up to these kinds of standards. She did notice that, wherever it was possible, he'd kept the original equipment housings. That actually would have cost more, to modify what was there to work with the new. Running her hands lovingly over the console, she smiled, talking to the ship. "Riddick certainly knows how to treat a lady, doesn't he, old girl?"
Riddick had watched her from the moment she'd entered the ship. He'd followed her as she looked around, making her way toward the flight deck. When she'd sat down in the co-pilot's seat, his memories had taken him back to their time on the skiff too. She'd been such a smart kid, picked everything up so quickly, he'd admired her intelligence and her toughness. He watched her as she caressed the console, obviously appreciating the beauty of the old ship. *She must just have an affinity for old stuff,* he thought, laughing to himself. He had to smile as she spoke to the ship like it was a person, how many times had he done that himself? "Do I?"