Chapter 31 - Uninvited Visitor
Riddick left Imam's house with the holy man's prayer beads in his pocket and the key from the bear on its chain around his neck. The lock box was tucked safely into a duffel bag along with some of Jack's clothes and personal things and a small, brightly wrapped box that the holy man had asked him to deliver to Jack.
"Her birthday is next month," Imam told him, "she was to come home," the older man sighed heavily. "Will I ever see her again, Mr. Riddick?"
He hadn't been certain exactly what to tell the man. "If Jack has anything to say about it, you will."
"Then I shall pray to see you both again soon."
Assuring himself that no one was following him, Riddick found the small barn where he'd stashed the hovercycle. He strapped the duffel securely to the back of the hovercycle, he'd come all this way to get the stupid thing, he'd hate for it to drop off while he was doing 150kph. Making certain it was still safe, he moved the bike out onto the road and headed back to Celedon.
He tried, on the long drive back, not to think too much about what he'd told Imam, that Jack was already a part of him, that he'd die for her. What did that mean, anyway? He wasn't sure he knew, or even that he wanted to know. It had just come out, it had just seemed.true. But if he thought about it, she'd been a part of him for a long time, hadn't she? And he now knew he would die for her, that surprised him a little. He'd very nearly died going back with Caroline to rescue Imam and Jack from that cave, but that hadn't been intentional. He wasn't suicidal, that had been just very bad luck, but he knew now that he would willingly sacrifice himself for her if he had to. That was an interesting development.
For weeks Riddick had been struggling with how he felt about Jack. He was having a very hard time getting past the guilt of sleeping with her. There shouldn't be guilt. Sex was a nice, simple pleasure enjoyed by two consenting adults. You had fun together, no strings attached, then you went your separate ways. He liked it that way. Clean, simple. But things just weren't that simple with Jack. God knew she was a beautiful, sexy woman and she'd wanted him every bit as much as he'd wanted her, and they'd certainly had fun together. She wasn't some virginal schoolgirl acting out some sort of fantasy that he'd taken advantage of. She was a mature, experienced woman who knew exactly what she had been doing. But would he ever really be able to see her that way? Would she always be 'his little Jack'? And would he ever not feel like he'd somehow betrayed her trust? There was only one way he was ever going to find out.
Riddick arrived back in Celedon just a bit before dawn. He returned the hovercycle to the rental agency and, hefting the duffel over his shoulder, headed back to the Bellerophon. His mind was on other things and, so, he didn't notice someone else in the ship until it was almost too late. The lights flared on and he instinctively dropped down into a crouch, narrowly avoiding being hit by pulse fire. Shielding his eyes against the unusually bright light, he ducked into an alcove, just as a pulse beam flashed past him. "FUCK!" Digging his dark sunglasses out of the pocket of his jacket, he slipped them into place and waited for his eyes to adjust.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." A man's voice echoed down the hallway. "I would have thought you would have been a little harder to catch, Riddick."
He knew that voice, but where from? Then it hit him and his face twisted involuntarily into a snarl. Carson. His blood boiled with anger and hatred. "You don't have me yet." He quickly assessed his options, there weren't many. He was trapped in the main corridor between the flight deck and the cargo hold. Nothing on either side of the wide hall but instrumentation and storage and the airlock he'd just come through. But the airlock was up the corridor toward the flight deck, toward Carson, and the cargo hold was just too far down the corridor. He'd be an open target. "Lights off." Nothing happened.
Carson laughed. "Do you think I'd leave the lights open to your voice command? How stupid do you think I am?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Riddick needed to get down the corridor just a few feet. There was a manual override for the lights there. Carson fired and the panel next to Riddick's head exploded, sending shards of metal flying. One caught him in the face, ripping a small gash just under his jawline. An inch lower and it would have gotten him in the artery. *Shit!* "You'd better watch out. Wouldn't want you to lose out on half the bounty."
"The way I see it, I'm doubling what I thought I was going to get." Carson's voice was indignant. "I was willing to settle for a quarter of the bounty before you killed Mikey, before you took off with AJ. Where is she?"
*Before I killed him? Before I took off with her? This guy is completely cracked.* A crazy person with a gun, that was never good. "I had to take her somewhere to get patched up after you shot her and damn near killed her, you crazy son of a bitch." *And when I get my hands on you I'm going to enjoy making you suffer for it too, asshole.* If Carson wasn't worried about collecting the whole bounty, well, that wasn't a good thing. More often than not it was the bounty hunters' greed that kept them from killing him. Riddick need a plan and he needed it now.
"I don't want to chit chat with you, Riddick. I want to know where AJ is and I want to know now." He shot again, this time a little lower than before.
"Why should you care? You shot her!" Riddick could feel his anger growing and all he wanted to do was get his hands on Carson and show him the true meaning of pain. Riddick needed to get the lights out. Carson might have a gun, but this was Riddick's ship and he knew her inside and out. Even if his eyes weren't shined, he'd know her blindfolded. That gave him the advantage.
"Why should I care? Because I love her." His voice was slow, deliberate, like he was speaking to a not so bright child. "I shot at her because I was trying to keep her from making the worst mistake of her life. Going off with you," he clarified.
It pissed Riddick off to hear Carson spouting vows of love for Jack. *Like she'd be so much better off with a whack job like you?* He needed to buy time. "Maybe we can make a deal. I tell you where she is, you let me go." Picking up a shard of metal, he hefted it in his hand. If he was lucky, he could distract Carson long enough to get to the panel. A little insurance never hurt either. "If you kill me, you'll never find out where she is." *Not that you ever will anyway, fucker.*
"Yeah." Carson laughed and it wasn't a pleasant sound. "I'll tell you what. You tell me where she is and I'll make it quick. I'll shoot you in the head instead of the stomach."
*Oh, this kid has a lot of balls.* He could hear the steady foot falls as Carson made his way down the corridor from the flight deck. *Now or never.* Holding the piece of metal carefully, he timed his attack. Riddick waited until his pursuer should be right next to the airlock. Stepping out into the corridor, his hand flashed out, throwing the shard of metal like a throwing dagger. He didn't wait to find out if it had hit his target, even if it hadn't he knew the other man would have ducked into the airlock, giving him a few precious moments to make his way down the corridor to the manual override.
It took Carson a few seconds to recover, he hadn't actually expected Riddick to throw something at him. Stepping out into the corridor, ready to shoot, he saw Riddick working over a panel. *What is he doing?* Taking aim, he shot the larger man in the shoulder. He didn't want to kill him, yet.
The force of the blast knocked Riddick back, but he finished his computations and the ship went dark. Grabbing his shoulder, he crouched low as Carson shot wild. He could see him standing there in the dark, shooting blind, stumbling backward. A wiser man might have made his way to the hold, licked his wounds and waited for Carson to either leave or run out of ammo, but Riddick was too pissed off to be wise. This man had sicced a merc on him, shot Jack and nearly killed her, broken into his ship, and shot him. Wise wasn't figuring into it just then. Pulling his knife from his boot, Riddick surged up the corridor and tackled Carson.
Carson felt the impact a second before he felt himself being rammed back against the bulkhead, seeing stars as his head contacted the hard metal. He tried to bring the gun up to bear, but Riddick's massive hand closed around his wrist and he could feel the gun slipping from his numbing fingers. Groping wildly with his other hand, he balled his fist and struck out, contacting flesh, but it seemed to do no good. He felt his face explode with pain as the blow was returned and he could feel blood coming out of his nose and sliding down his throat, causing him to choke. Then he felt the knife at his throat. "Why don't you just go ahead and kill me." He laughed, choking on his own blood, and feeling the uselessness of everything now. "It doesn't matter anyway. The authorities have been alerted, you won't make it off this planet."
*FUCK!* One thing Riddick could usually count on with your garden variety merc was the greed that kept him from contacting local authorities. He just wasn't used to dealing with certifiable fruit loops. "Well, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve yet." Deciding he'd wait to kill Carson when he had time to enjoy it, he hit him once, twice more until he felt the younger man slump against the wall. Riddick took just enough time to drag Carson down to the cargo hold and do a quick weapons search before securely tying him up. If it was true that the authorities had been contacted, he needed to get off that rock. And fast.
Riddick left Imam's house with the holy man's prayer beads in his pocket and the key from the bear on its chain around his neck. The lock box was tucked safely into a duffel bag along with some of Jack's clothes and personal things and a small, brightly wrapped box that the holy man had asked him to deliver to Jack.
"Her birthday is next month," Imam told him, "she was to come home," the older man sighed heavily. "Will I ever see her again, Mr. Riddick?"
He hadn't been certain exactly what to tell the man. "If Jack has anything to say about it, you will."
"Then I shall pray to see you both again soon."
Assuring himself that no one was following him, Riddick found the small barn where he'd stashed the hovercycle. He strapped the duffel securely to the back of the hovercycle, he'd come all this way to get the stupid thing, he'd hate for it to drop off while he was doing 150kph. Making certain it was still safe, he moved the bike out onto the road and headed back to Celedon.
He tried, on the long drive back, not to think too much about what he'd told Imam, that Jack was already a part of him, that he'd die for her. What did that mean, anyway? He wasn't sure he knew, or even that he wanted to know. It had just come out, it had just seemed.true. But if he thought about it, she'd been a part of him for a long time, hadn't she? And he now knew he would die for her, that surprised him a little. He'd very nearly died going back with Caroline to rescue Imam and Jack from that cave, but that hadn't been intentional. He wasn't suicidal, that had been just very bad luck, but he knew now that he would willingly sacrifice himself for her if he had to. That was an interesting development.
For weeks Riddick had been struggling with how he felt about Jack. He was having a very hard time getting past the guilt of sleeping with her. There shouldn't be guilt. Sex was a nice, simple pleasure enjoyed by two consenting adults. You had fun together, no strings attached, then you went your separate ways. He liked it that way. Clean, simple. But things just weren't that simple with Jack. God knew she was a beautiful, sexy woman and she'd wanted him every bit as much as he'd wanted her, and they'd certainly had fun together. She wasn't some virginal schoolgirl acting out some sort of fantasy that he'd taken advantage of. She was a mature, experienced woman who knew exactly what she had been doing. But would he ever really be able to see her that way? Would she always be 'his little Jack'? And would he ever not feel like he'd somehow betrayed her trust? There was only one way he was ever going to find out.
Riddick arrived back in Celedon just a bit before dawn. He returned the hovercycle to the rental agency and, hefting the duffel over his shoulder, headed back to the Bellerophon. His mind was on other things and, so, he didn't notice someone else in the ship until it was almost too late. The lights flared on and he instinctively dropped down into a crouch, narrowly avoiding being hit by pulse fire. Shielding his eyes against the unusually bright light, he ducked into an alcove, just as a pulse beam flashed past him. "FUCK!" Digging his dark sunglasses out of the pocket of his jacket, he slipped them into place and waited for his eyes to adjust.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." A man's voice echoed down the hallway. "I would have thought you would have been a little harder to catch, Riddick."
He knew that voice, but where from? Then it hit him and his face twisted involuntarily into a snarl. Carson. His blood boiled with anger and hatred. "You don't have me yet." He quickly assessed his options, there weren't many. He was trapped in the main corridor between the flight deck and the cargo hold. Nothing on either side of the wide hall but instrumentation and storage and the airlock he'd just come through. But the airlock was up the corridor toward the flight deck, toward Carson, and the cargo hold was just too far down the corridor. He'd be an open target. "Lights off." Nothing happened.
Carson laughed. "Do you think I'd leave the lights open to your voice command? How stupid do you think I am?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Riddick needed to get down the corridor just a few feet. There was a manual override for the lights there. Carson fired and the panel next to Riddick's head exploded, sending shards of metal flying. One caught him in the face, ripping a small gash just under his jawline. An inch lower and it would have gotten him in the artery. *Shit!* "You'd better watch out. Wouldn't want you to lose out on half the bounty."
"The way I see it, I'm doubling what I thought I was going to get." Carson's voice was indignant. "I was willing to settle for a quarter of the bounty before you killed Mikey, before you took off with AJ. Where is she?"
*Before I killed him? Before I took off with her? This guy is completely cracked.* A crazy person with a gun, that was never good. "I had to take her somewhere to get patched up after you shot her and damn near killed her, you crazy son of a bitch." *And when I get my hands on you I'm going to enjoy making you suffer for it too, asshole.* If Carson wasn't worried about collecting the whole bounty, well, that wasn't a good thing. More often than not it was the bounty hunters' greed that kept them from killing him. Riddick need a plan and he needed it now.
"I don't want to chit chat with you, Riddick. I want to know where AJ is and I want to know now." He shot again, this time a little lower than before.
"Why should you care? You shot her!" Riddick could feel his anger growing and all he wanted to do was get his hands on Carson and show him the true meaning of pain. Riddick needed to get the lights out. Carson might have a gun, but this was Riddick's ship and he knew her inside and out. Even if his eyes weren't shined, he'd know her blindfolded. That gave him the advantage.
"Why should I care? Because I love her." His voice was slow, deliberate, like he was speaking to a not so bright child. "I shot at her because I was trying to keep her from making the worst mistake of her life. Going off with you," he clarified.
It pissed Riddick off to hear Carson spouting vows of love for Jack. *Like she'd be so much better off with a whack job like you?* He needed to buy time. "Maybe we can make a deal. I tell you where she is, you let me go." Picking up a shard of metal, he hefted it in his hand. If he was lucky, he could distract Carson long enough to get to the panel. A little insurance never hurt either. "If you kill me, you'll never find out where she is." *Not that you ever will anyway, fucker.*
"Yeah." Carson laughed and it wasn't a pleasant sound. "I'll tell you what. You tell me where she is and I'll make it quick. I'll shoot you in the head instead of the stomach."
*Oh, this kid has a lot of balls.* He could hear the steady foot falls as Carson made his way down the corridor from the flight deck. *Now or never.* Holding the piece of metal carefully, he timed his attack. Riddick waited until his pursuer should be right next to the airlock. Stepping out into the corridor, his hand flashed out, throwing the shard of metal like a throwing dagger. He didn't wait to find out if it had hit his target, even if it hadn't he knew the other man would have ducked into the airlock, giving him a few precious moments to make his way down the corridor to the manual override.
It took Carson a few seconds to recover, he hadn't actually expected Riddick to throw something at him. Stepping out into the corridor, ready to shoot, he saw Riddick working over a panel. *What is he doing?* Taking aim, he shot the larger man in the shoulder. He didn't want to kill him, yet.
The force of the blast knocked Riddick back, but he finished his computations and the ship went dark. Grabbing his shoulder, he crouched low as Carson shot wild. He could see him standing there in the dark, shooting blind, stumbling backward. A wiser man might have made his way to the hold, licked his wounds and waited for Carson to either leave or run out of ammo, but Riddick was too pissed off to be wise. This man had sicced a merc on him, shot Jack and nearly killed her, broken into his ship, and shot him. Wise wasn't figuring into it just then. Pulling his knife from his boot, Riddick surged up the corridor and tackled Carson.
Carson felt the impact a second before he felt himself being rammed back against the bulkhead, seeing stars as his head contacted the hard metal. He tried to bring the gun up to bear, but Riddick's massive hand closed around his wrist and he could feel the gun slipping from his numbing fingers. Groping wildly with his other hand, he balled his fist and struck out, contacting flesh, but it seemed to do no good. He felt his face explode with pain as the blow was returned and he could feel blood coming out of his nose and sliding down his throat, causing him to choke. Then he felt the knife at his throat. "Why don't you just go ahead and kill me." He laughed, choking on his own blood, and feeling the uselessness of everything now. "It doesn't matter anyway. The authorities have been alerted, you won't make it off this planet."
*FUCK!* One thing Riddick could usually count on with your garden variety merc was the greed that kept him from contacting local authorities. He just wasn't used to dealing with certifiable fruit loops. "Well, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve yet." Deciding he'd wait to kill Carson when he had time to enjoy it, he hit him once, twice more until he felt the younger man slump against the wall. Riddick took just enough time to drag Carson down to the cargo hold and do a quick weapons search before securely tying him up. If it was true that the authorities had been contacted, he needed to get off that rock. And fast.