Lifeline

Chapter 11

Chikage heard the main engines roar to life and sighed, stuffing her shopping bags into one before discarding them and heading back up to the main deck. She lowered herself into her seat, all the while avoiding Riddick's eyes as she called up her computer programs to monitor takeoff. This time she wouldn't be calling any commands to him, letting him handle the piloting on his own. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance at her quickly before taking the controls.

"You okay?" He asked quietly. She nodded in silence, and he taxied the ship onto the runway. Engines roared to life as he accelerated, vibrating the entire ship, and she couldn't help but smile at the feeling. She'd always loved the feeling of being on a transport, whether it was the tingling in her toes as her bare feet vibrated with the engines on the floor or the gentle rocking of the entire cabin all in a quiet rhythm. He switched on the autopilot and leaned back in his chair, glancing at her again.

"I'm gonna go check out the guns," she said quietly. He nodded, standing to follow her. Neither said a word as they both sat at the kitchen table, inspecting, cleaning, and loading the guns she'd brought home.

"What are these?" Riddick finally asked, watching her eyes dart up to him at the broken silence. She shifted her gaze to his fingers.

"It's an EMP bomb," she answered quietly. He nodded. "Toss it in a room, power down whatever you have and hit the detonator."

"So why do they call it a bomb if there's no physical explosion?" he continued, hoping to keep her talking, even if it was superficial. "I've always wondered that."

"There is a physical explosion," she said flatly. "There's just no visible explosion unless one of the affected devices wants to short." He nodded, gently putting the bomb back on the table. He held up a small box, containing little hairpin like things and a metal box with one button and a belt clip. "Those are jammers. The box gets clipped onto your belt, and then you powe rit up and rub the pins on it. Gives them an electromagnetic charge so you can short an electronic lock or something without necessarily alerting the security system."

"Really." He sounded surprised, and she gave him a small nod as she put a gun back together after cleaning.

"Depends on the system, I guess," she said with a shrug. "On most systems, the lock just ceases to exist. It's supposed to compromise the connection to the system so it won't realize the lock was there to begin with. It doesn't just lose communication, which is what would trigger the alert, it destroys the port the lock is connected to without damaging the rest of the system. Sneaky, sneaky." Well, at least she was talking and joking a little bit.

"And this?"

"That's a gun, Riddick." He grinned.

"But you were doing so well at explaining everything." She shook her head, returning her attention to the weapon in her hand, but he saw the hint of a smile flash across her face. "What else did you get?" he asked quietly.

"Clothes and groceries." She glanced up at him, blowing a stray chunk of hair out of her eyes. "I put the stuff I got you on your bed." He nodded.

"Thanks." She stared at him for a moment, as though the word he just said was foreign to her. The moment passed, and she forced a tiny smile as she nodded.

"So are we going to go in hot or what?"

"I haven't decided yet," he said, setting his gun on the tabletop as he leaned back against the wall. "We'll probably want to do some surveillance before we work up a definitive plan anyway, so we'll have to see." Another small nod.

"I figured that would be the plan," she admitted. "That green box over there has surveillance darts. Video and audio." He picked up the box, taking out one of the darts to examine it more closely. "Silencers, too. If we can find a spot to hide the muzzle flash, we'll be good to go."

"Nice." This prompted another smile from her. He hated to admit it, but she was more on the ball with this little mission than he was. He never would have considered surveillance darts or silencers, just done the dirty work the old way.

"So is it later yet?" Her eyes met and held his for the first time in hours, and he blinked a few times, not sure what she was referring to. "What happens after we get the girl out?" He rubbed his eyes. "I mean, she probably ran away from New Mecca for a reason, so I doubt she'd willingly go back without planning to do the same thing all over again."

"You're probably right," he said quietly, shaking his head.

"Take her with you?" Her eyebrow was arched, seemingly challenging, and he paused.

"You make it sound like you're splitting the moment we get her out," he observed. She only shrugged noncommittally. "Look, I—" He cut himself off, looking up at the ceiling as an insistent beeping started, growing louder. "Fuck," he muttered, launching himself from his seat to run up the stairs. She followed quickly.

"What is it?" He was typing furiously on her keyboard, and the radar feed appeared with one small triangle situated behind them. "Shit." He nodded, moving away from her chair. They both strapped in, and she took over his typing. "It's not moving very fast," she commented. "Just following at a safe distance, I guess."

"How long do you think it's been there?" More typing.

"I don't really know. If it was already in flight they could have been surveilling us for a while, but assuming they took off after us, probably two hours." She glanced at him, watching his jaw tighten. "Maybe more, I don't know."

"Okay, we're gonna go planet side again," he said, pulling up a map on his monitor. The planets on his screen were numbered, not named, which was a typical characteristic of military mapping. Those maps were like the highways of the Midwest on Earth – every street had both a name and a number, and officials preferred using the numbers, just like star maps. "Can you find anything out about that ship?" He paused to look at her, and she nodded once, turning back to her screen.

"It'll take me a while," she said.

"Let me know." He guided the transport into a gradual arc, and now one planet lay off in the distance as nothing more than a glowing white sphere. She'd sent the radar imaging up to another monitor, one both could see, as she slowly broke through the security measures protecting the pursuant ship's information. It followed their slow arc, but didn't speed up. He shook his head. Definitely following them, and trying to be sly about it. Not a good sign.

"Small crew. Three listed."

"Sounds like a merc ship," he growled.

"Could be, but I don't know yet." She continued typing. "Military ID number," she said, tilting her head to the side.

"How do you know?"

"Starts with 429 and is two digits longer than civilian ships," she answered. "It doesn't mean it's actually Company," She clarified. "Just manufactured by them. Could be stolen or auctioned. Wait a minute." More frenzied clicking of keys. "Shit. It's Company. Pilot is Lieutenant Darius M. Roberts."

"You know him?"

"Of him," she said with a small shake of her head. "Never met the guy but I hear he's one mean asshole."

"What else can you find?"

"They've got quite the weapons collection. Armed like no small tracer ship I've seen," she said with a sigh. "I don't know if they know who we are or were just dispatched to check us out, but they could easily take this baby out if they wanted to."

"Well," he said slowly, "Wait. What do they know about us?"

"Nothing, really. We have no certificates, no crew listings, and as far as I know, no weapons they could access without hacking deep into the system to break through the encryption. Just the ID number."

"Which is military," he pointed out. Her eyes widened.

"You think they're trying to figure out if we're one of them?" He shook his head.

"They keep a list of the numbers they get rid of, so they know it's not active in Company's fleet. Probably traced it to the junk yard I bought it at, and not having any information for them to check out doesn't look too good." She nodded thoughtfully. "We might want to change that eventually. Set up a superficial log or something."

"I'll start on that after we land." His eyebrow rose. "If there's magically information where they tried to access it before and couldn't get anything, it won't do anything but make them even more suspicious."

"Do me a favor," he said quietly after a beat. She nodded. "Will you make sure all the guns and bombs and shit don't fly around if we hit any turbulence or anything." The click of her harness was her answer, and she trotted down the steps, loading the bombs back into their boxes. The guns were left out of the boxes, tucked in the waistband of her pants as she loaded the boxes of bombs and extra ammo back into the shopping bag, carrying them back upstairs to load into a locker. The guns were placed into locking hooks on the door to secure them as well. She turned back to the front window and her knees nearly buckled.

"Um, Riddick?"

"I know," he groaned. "Sit down and strap in." The color drained from her face, her hands clammy and cold as she buckled her harness.

"This is Regnet," she said quietly. He nodded. "Are you crazy?"

"Maybe," he said with a small smile.

"Do you have an open landing zone?" The quick glance he cast her from the corner of her eye made her stomach fall, her attention returning to the planet before them, drawing closer. The planet Regnet was uninhabitable on the surface, the few communities that existed there built underground. It was probably the most dangerous landing anyone could ever make if there wasn't a clear landing zone. Massive hurricanes covered the entire planet, dancing around each other. The only time the landing zone was completely safe was the intermittent moments an eye passed over it, granting a window of about forty-five minutes to approach and land before the eyewall passed over. She swallowed. The paths of these storms followed no pattern. Most times, transports would circle until a window opened if landing there was an absolute necessity. And then there was Riddick. She called up a satellite image of the planet, tracking down each of the three landing zones on this hemisphere. "Fuck." He glanced at her, watching her stare at the screen. "There's only one port open, Riddick."

"I know. The other two were damaged a couple months ago. They haven't made much progress with repairs," he said quietly. She zoomed in on the location of the open port, turning back to him with her mouth hanging open and eyes wide. He glanced at her, then the radar, then back to her. Their pursuer was closing in on them slowly. "What?"

"The landing strip is just inside the northeast quadrant of the eye," she said, voice shaking slightly.

"And?" He sounded agitated.

"And the storm is moving southwest a two kilometers per hour."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we'll have to land when the northeast quadrant of the eyewall is over the fucking landing strip," she snapped. His eyes closed for a moment, and he took a deep breath before opening them again. The eyewalls of the storms were the most powerful, these storms carrying winds exceeding 320 kilometers per hour, and the entire northeast quadrant of the storm was more powerful than the rest, meaning they would be landing in the most dangerous part of the storm possible. She took a shaky breath. "Riddick…"

"Trust me," he said quietly, tightening his grip on the controls. She looked back at the radar. Roberts' ship was 600 kilometers away and increasing its speed. Her eyes returned to the closing storms. From outside, the tops of the storms were beautiful; white clouds swirling in a perfect circle, all revolving around each other in a dangerously attractive dance. She shook her head slowly as Riddick engaged the thrusters, the ship lurching forward. "Chikage, listen to me very carefully," he started. She nodded. "This is probably the only time I'll say I need a navigator. I don't want angles. I want wind speeds, directions, any microbursts showing up on the weather radar, rotation – anything having anything to do with the weather, I want to know." Another quick nod. "And keep an eye on the monkey. I doubt he'll follow us, but just in case." She called up the weather maps.

"The landing strip is five kilometers inside the eye," she said slowly. "Max winds from the east southeast at 345 kph in the northeast quadrant of the eyewall, gusts up to 400 kph." He winced. No rotation yet." She glanced up at the radar. "550 kilometers at 556 kph and increasing at .38 kph per second. "Landing strip is 1.5 kilometers inside the eye. Forty-five minutes to impact." It sounded like a lot of time, but there was no eye the cruiser could push a speed fast enough to pass through the eye and still be able to slow down for landing, much less maneuver well enough to pull it off. Time crawled by, Chikage counting off five-minute intervals. "Riddick?" He grunted. "Landing strip is half a kilometer inside the eye. Fifteen minutes to impact." She inhaled sharply, gripping her armrests tightly to keep from feeling her hands shake. "400 kilometers and holding at 560 kph. What's our speed?"

"Holding at 570 kph," Riddick answered quickly. She nodded.

"Lower level rotation northeast of the landing strip, moving west northwest at two kph. It'll miss the landing strip," she added. "800 kilometers and slowing," she noted, glancing back up at the radar. Roberts was giving up, evidently not as crazy as Riddick. Her forehead creased as she thought of something, pulling up another monitor as she typed. "Um, Roberts is falling into orbit," she warned. "Autopilot just kicked in at 500 kph."

"Gravitational spiral?" Riddick asked.

"No. He's waiting, not going to sleep." Riddick swore, and Chikage returned to the weather maps. They'd have to worry about Roberts later. "Impact. The eyewall just hit the landing strip." She stared up at the ceiling of the ship suddenly, as the turbulence kicked in. Riddick cut a hole through the clouds, and the ship dropped, making her stomach lurch before kicking in a gain. Riddick increased the thrusters as she cruiser shook back and forth in the winds, rain splattering angrily on the window. "Riddick…" she trailed off, not really having anything to say. The muscles in his arms clenched, casting artful shadows along his skin as he struggled to control the spacecraft despite the winds. "Microburst imprint. Five kilometers north, two kilometers west," she informed, gasping as he struggled to steer away from it only to swerve violently to the right. "Landing strip is fifteen kilometers northwest." Her heart was thumping so wildly in her chest she thought it might leap out and break the window, her ribs already aching. Her breath came in short, sporadic gasps. "Ten kilometers north northeast." If it was possible, her heart rate increased the closer the landing strip came, Riddick bouncing to either side of it. "Five kilometers west northwest. Riddick, you're gonna miss it!" she yelped, her fingers tightening on her chair. "Two kilometers. One kilometer. Riddick?" At the last minute, he banked hard, sliding swiftly into the channel holding the landing strip, metal groaning as the ship slid across the tarmac, thrusters screaming as they struggled to reverse as the cruiser darted into a cave. The craft ground to a screeching halt and all was quiet, save both Riddick and Chikage's quick pants. They looked at each other, and started laughing.