I got a few comments about the music mentioned in the first chap. I'm incredibly diverse in my music, hell just to be evil I might quote Josh Groban (a.k.a. the guy my mom wants me to marry). Anyway...on with the second chapter.

Chapter 2

The road to full alertness was a long one and when Riddick finally came to he ran a hand over his shaven head.

Fuckin prison drugs. He thought fiercely and saw his goggles on the nightstand next to him, grabbing them and putting them on. He listened to the ship engine to try to figure out what kind of ship he was on. Warden in Butcher Bay didn't tell him much, just that he was being shipped out as a D-Man before they pumped the drugs into his neck. It came to him after a little while, the merchant freighter Dark Angel, her engines were one of a kind. Hundred man crew and a few civvies, Company issue. He vaguely remembered being trussed up, a bit shoved into his mouth - just incase - and shoved into a cryo-tube. He barely remembered the trip and his closest memory was of one of his guards talking to the Captain of this ship. He remembered hearing the guys' fear and if he could have he would have laughed. There was beeping, the steel door slid back and the man he recognized as the Captain stepped in.

"You're awake, it's about time." He said and Riddick shrugged standing to his full height, a few inches taller than the man. The man held out his hand, trying to be nice. "Captain Derek Townsend, you're on the Dark Angel." Riddick looked at the hand, but didn't take it.

"I know where I am." Riddick said and the hand withdrew.

"I don't imagine that they told you a lot of where you were going."

"They didn't. Sound of the ships engines tipped me off."

"Ah, well...time for the tour." Derek said and turned walking back to the doorway, stopping in the frame. "After you." Riddick walked past him and Derek stepped out of the doorway, the door sliding close.

They walked along the halls, Derek pointing out this and that. Mess hall, dojo and gym, docking bay and whatnot, Riddick's eyebrow perked as a young woman came bouncing up and kissed Derek on the cheek.

"Hi daddy!" she said and Derek beamed.

"Hi sweetheart. What's up?"

"I just finished the Astrogation charts and wanted to know if you wanted to check them out before I hand them over to Owen, you know how anal he can be about those things. I went through one of his rants and I so do not want to go through one again." She requested.

"Yeah I know all too well. He damn near bites your head off if you get even a half-parsec wrong. How many did you do?"

"Oh four or five, different shipping lanes to the Tangier system, staying far away from the one the HG was on, just in case."

"Yeah probably a good idea. Okay I'll check them out for you, just in case you missed anything."

"Thanks dad."

"No problem." Derek said and her eyes flicked to Riddick and back to her father.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me to the new D-Man?" she asked and he sighed.

"If I have to. This is my daughter Roberta Townsend, Roberta this is Riddick." Derek said and she extended a hand, only Riddick took hers.

THE Riddick as in Richard B.? She thought, impressed.

"Everyone just calls me Bobby, or Bob." She said as they shook hands. They withdrew hands as a man walked past them in the hall and raised his hand to her.

"Hi Bob." He said and walked away.

"Hi Malcolm." She said and turned back to Riddick. "See what I mean?" Bobby turned to her father. "Those charts are in the main deck, on the Navigation consul. Thanks again." She kissed his cheek again and turned to walk away. "It was nice to meet you Riddick." She said over her shoulder as she walked away. Derek noticed a corner of Riddick's mouth twitch.

"Riddick I don't care who you are, or how many people you've killed, don't touch my daughter." Derek said. "You do and you'll be back in Butcher Bay so fast your head will spin."

"I know what the guard said, about how I've never raped a woman but I might start. And it's complete shit."

"How did you...?"

"Well that's the thing about prison drugs, they've really worked on me, I was still awake, kind of. I could hear and smell, but I couldn't move. I will tell you right now that I would never force myself on a woman. If a woman says to stop then I will. I'm not a rapist and I don't plan on being one, ever." Riddick said matter-of-factly and Derek nodded.

"That was oddly reassuring." He said.

"Good, now if the tour is done I'm going back to my quarters." He said and turned walking away without waiting for a response.

When he got back to his room he stopped just inside the doorway, a new scent was in the room; a familiar one but he couldn't place a face to it. He took off his goggles and scanned the room his eyes falling on an old looking hardcover book propped up on his bed against his pillow. He went over and picked it up looking at the title, The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. He opened the cover and a note fell out, he caught it before it hit the ground and looked at it.

Here's something to pass the time with between jobs. I hope you enjoy it, it's one of my favorites. Welcome to Dark Angel.

-Bobby

The corner of his mouth twitched again and he rolled onto his bed opening the book to the first page.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of Light; it was the season of Darkness. It was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us; we had nothing before us. We were all going direct to Heaven; we were all going direst the other way. In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on being received. For good, or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The further Riddick got into the book, the more he was sucked into it. It was beautifully written, he'd have to thank Bobby for lending it to him. The chime on his door rang and he put the note in the page as a bookmark, closing it. He got up from his bed and went to the door as the chime rang again. He opened the door a crack and looked out seeing a man in a standard issue jumpsuit on his front step.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Captain ordered me to give these to you." The man said and held out a couple jumpsuits. Riddick took them from him. "You are to report to the docking bay at oh-five hundred hours tomorrow to begin working."

"Okay." Riddick said and shut the door in the man's face unfolding one of the suits, by the fact that the door didn't chime again he knew that the man had walked away. He looked at the extra large standard issue jumpsuit. It was blue with a patch on the breast pocket of an angel with black wings holding a sword in one hand and a scythe in the other, the wings spread as if it were flying. Flinging the jumpsuits into a corner he laid back down on his bed and started to read again, feeling restless energy coursing through his body. Riddick could still smell Bobby in his room; he pictured her in his mind from when they had met in the hall. She was smiling and radiant, glowing with a kind of inner light.

Long mahogany colored hair and pure green eyes; her hand had been soft and her smile beautiful. She couldn't be more than twenty-four or twenty-five, but she shined with a type of innocence. Bobby had been wearing blue jeans, a Ford seat belt type belt around her waist, and a wallet chain hooked to her belt loop and going to her back pocket. Her thin, filmy long-sleeved over shirt had been a dark red (the color of blood) with a thin strapped black tank top underneath, and her nails had been painted black, the color starting to chip around the edges of her nails. As she walked away he noticed that she moved with a kind of a grace that only women who are comfortable with themselves and everything around them possess. Definitely worthy of a closer look, even if she was the Captain's daughter.

Even if she hadn't been freakishly beautiful she could definitely turn a head or two with the bounding, warm energy she exuded. After reading the same line for the last half-hour he got up and went into the small bathroom connected to the room he didn't bother with the lights, he could see just fine without them. He took a shower scrubbing the feel of Slam and the prison drugs off his skin with copious amounts of the body wash and a loofah. His mind couldn't help but wander back to Bobby. People just gravitated towards people like her; it made them feel good. The last person he met who was like that was Johns and that bastard used his charisma to bend people to his will. But this wasn't about him, Johns was dead and his death was painful. It seemed that Bobby used her drawing power to help people feel more at ease, she didn't seem to have any kind of hidden agenda. He bet that her laugh was beautiful too. Smiling slightly he rinsed and shut off the shower, getting out and wrapping a towel around his waist. He found a toothbrush and toothpaste in a cabinet under the sink and brushed his teeth, gargling with a swig from the small bottle of mouthwash and spitting it into the small sink. He hung up the towel and walked naked back into the bedroom area, only when he was not in prison did he sleep in the nude.

Riddick put the book on his nightstand and crawled under the covers. He lay there for a very long time with his hands behind his head, getting accustomed to silence of not hearing the inmates of Butcher Bay, the occasional shout of a guard, the clang of a nightstick against bars. Eventually his eyelids started to droop and he let them drop, falling into peaceful slumber.