Disclaimer: There's a poem by William Blake called The Tiger that I quote bits of.

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Conflict

Conflict keeps you from being in the Now.

Oh, shut up.

Zemma pulled off her cloak before she got to her door, and balled it up under her arm. Still, she hoped Jaron wouldn't be there to see it. She didn't want to explain anything. She wasn't sure she could.

Nature of the beast, remember?

Shut up.

The suite appeared empty but for Nor, who leapt up to greet her mistress but seemed to pause at Zemma's mood. Zemma made herself stop and reassure her friend with pats and strokes and soft words. It made her feel better too.

"Nor, I'm not like you, I wish I was." Zemma spoke quietly in Furyan. "I wish these feelings would go away and I could just focus on the moment."

"What moment is that?"

Jaron.

Damn it.

"I thought you weren't here."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

Zemma sighed. She didn't want more unintentional conflict. She apologized rather formally.

"Zemma, you can talk to me if you want to."

"I do. I really do." She explained the last hour from Vaako and the ring, to Riddick and the 'blue eyes' comment. She took a deep breath to finish but was interrupted by Jaron's laughter.

"I'm afraid I can see the rest of this coming…"

Zemma smiled and looked up at him from the floor for the first time, a slow grin spread across her face. "Oh, no, it gets much more ridiculous…" She continued the story, feeling perspective come back to her.

"Another poison ring, eh?"

Zemma nodded.

"And you think he let you hit him in the face?"

"Jaron, I've seen him move. I'm nowhere near as fast, no matter how much you flatter me."

"Then I trust your intuition. Plan on taking it as an apology?"

Zemma sighed. That was where her conflict lay. "Probably."

Jaron nodded, either as if it were expected, or he agreed, Zemma couldn't tell. Possibly both.

"Still mad?"

"Just sick, haven't got time for mad. Jaron, whatever chemist made Dame Vaako's ring has found new clients. And Riddick reacted very strangely to that Lady's words. I have to go back and talk to him."

"Yes," Jaron spoke slowly. "We do."

The comm. beeped for attention with the bridge signal. Jaron responded to it immediately.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Sir, that ship the Lord Marshal has had us looking for, we've found it."

"Good…"

"No, Sir, there's more… more of the ships…"

A view of space and a cluster of strange looking ships glowing in the blackness replaced the bridge commander's face. Maybe a hundred, it was hard to tell. Instrumentation probably told the bridge exactly how many but it was sufficient to say there was a lot of them.

"Sir," the commander's voice cut over the view. "The Lord Marshal isn't answering his comm."

"Shit," Zemma whispered.

"I'll take care of it," Jaron told the commander and turned off the comm. "It's Now."

"Apparently so," Zemma answered him.

At the Lord Marshal's door Zemma was surprised to discover her handprint didn't open the door immediately. Jaron arched an eyebrow at her but Zemma was undaunted. She still remembered the change of authorization code used to make this suite respond to Riddick on the first day she met him. That and her handprint opened the door.

"You could have just knocked." Riddick's voice was droll.

"You haven't been answering your comm.," Zemma smarted back to the darkness in the direction of his voice, somewhere in the sitting area. She twitched up her lenses but didn't look at him. She walked to the comm. and called up the message, pausing it at the view of the armada of ships. When he didn't come look at it she put it up on the scene walls, it made the room nearly bright. Riddick hissed but Zemma didn't apologize.

"There's been a development, Lord Marshal," Jaron's voice was all business.

"Is that what you've been looking for?" Zemma kept her voice neutral.

"Hmmn," Riddick mused. "Not exactly. But it'll do."

"Time to hamstring the Tiger." Zemma spoke in a whisper but she was clearly heard.

Jaron looked at her curiously, but from his position Riddick only smiled as he examined the pictures of the force ahead of them.

"It'll do," he repeated.

"Jaron, how many Furyans have you got transferred here, roughly?" Zemma's mind was already leaping at the possibilities.

"Not quite half of them."

"None of them are to join into this battle, I don't care how you make it happen." Zemma sat down at the computer and started punching in commands. "Damn it!" She punched in something else and spoke to the comm. "Damn it, 'Don, quit fighting me, I know what I'm doing."

W'Rdah's face appeared in the display, it changed from slightly annoyed to blank as Jaron's face appeared over Zemma's shoulder. Then the display turned off and Zemma sighed. "Thank you."

"What are you doing that has Don in a bunch?" Jaron asked.

"I'm locking Vaako in. His forces are going to have to go out without him. I don't trust him. Okay, you can start issuing orders from here and it will be as if they are coming straight from the Lord Marshal." Zemma gave up the seat in front of the computer.

Jaron glanced at Riddick who merely shrugged his acquiescence. Jaron took his place, called W'Rdah back and explained what needed to be done.

"You ready for this?" Riddick's voice was blank.

Zemma shrugged. So far the odds had been something like five hundred thousand against five. Releasing a vast number of the faithful to their final reward seemed like a fine idea to her. As long as Furyans weren't in the ranks…

Another thought leapt to mind. Once the Tiger was crippled, was Riddick planning on leaving?

'You ready for this?'

No. No, I'm not.

"I thought I'd have more time," Zemma spoke softly, looking straight into Riddick's eyes.