THE MOTHER LODE BY ABRAXIS

Chapter 27 - Candle in the Window

Jenna sat in the command slot on the bridge of the Hole, going quietly out of her mind. The last four weeks had been nothing but a pressure chamber of conspiracies and tense interpersonal relationships. The last three days had been a personal hell.

First had been the construction of an alternate reality that would allow Imam and Jack to give their depositions to MMM&P while preserving the lie that Riddick was dead. This was complicated by the fact that the independent trader that had picked up the skiff and given them transport to New Mecca, no questions asked, also had to be protected. He had been well paid for both his service and his silence by Emir Kaseem but silence didn't last long in the interrogation rooms of either the Forces or the Company.

Jenna's first thought had been to 'create' an independent trader to replace the real one. This had earned her an amused look from Riddick and an open snicker from Jack. They had then informed her that, on any given day, New Mecca was probably hosting at least half a dozen 'legal traders' that were actually illegal smugglers berthed under false identities. It had been time consuming, but not particularly difficult, for Ben to locate a ship that had been at New Mecca at the same time as the trio's arrival that had 'disappeared' shortly thereafter.

The next phase had been to decide on a believable scenario for Jack and Imam having been able to use the skiff to escape the planet after both Carolyn and Riddick failed to survive. Luckily, that model skiff had been designed for emergency survival. It's operation had been kept as simple as possible and it had an auto pilot. Once prepared for flight, it wasn't much harder to get off planet and speeding through space than getting a common skimmer into the air. Since the really tricky part that required a great deal of expertise, a planet landing, wasn't involved, it was believable that a curious child could pick up enough information to manage it. Jack's excellent grades in her classes at the New Mecca University would give credence to this.

Then came the hard part; the statements themselves. MMM&P hadn't adhered strictly to the rigid question and answer format that Jenna had specified. The initial questions were specific inquiries: the testifier's identity; reasons for taking passage on the Hunter-Gratzner; intentions of filing claims for loss (none); the cause of the crash of the Hunter-Gratzner (the answers to which were supplied by Riddick and attributed to statements by Carolyn Fry to Jack and Imam); the identities of the initial survivors; cause of death for those who did not continue to survive; etc. But, the final question required an essay type description, in as much detail as possible, of the events after the crash until their escape from the planet. Particular emphasis was put on describing the actions of any initially surviving crew, the merc William Johns and his prisoner Richard B. Riddick.

The essays presented no problem as far as insuring that Imam's and Jack's stories matched. The only alteration necessary was that Riddick had perished with Carolyn Fry rather than returning to the skiff and that Jack had been able to fly the skiff off planet. Nor did Imam have any reservations about telling these two lies. The difficulty was that Imam and Jack had to relive the terrible events to write them.

Imam, who was recovering from the poison very quickly under Syrus' talented hands, had been pale and stoic. His report of the events was concise, factual and contained a minimum of emotional or personal remarks. He had, however, made it clear that he thought that Carolyn Fry had shown great courage after her initial lapse during the crash landing, that William Johns had been an evil man and that Riddick had been, somewhat reluctantly, their savior.

Jack had broken into tears many times and, while her report was chronological and supported the facts given in Imam's, it was far, far longer and filled with personal opinions and emotional reactions. It gave a much more graphic picture of both the people involved and the horror of their experience. It also demonstrated her love for Carolyn, growing hatred and fear of Johns and complete hero-worship of Riddick from the very beginning. Imam's betrayal of Riddick was there as well, along with several other uncomplimentary images of him. They demonstrated nothing more than the fact that the man was human; human and under a great deal of stress and emotional turmoil. However, stacked against Jack's idolized image of Riddick, it wasn't a pretty picture.

That the stories were basically in agreement while containing discrepancies in opinion, perspective and knowledge of the events had satisfied the lawyers of MMM&P as to their veracity. But for Jenna, they highlighted the differences in the opinions the two had of Riddick and each other and brought another problem to a head. As she read and compared them, she came to the conclusion that Jack and Imam must read each other's versions, Riddick must read both and all three of them must sit down together and not get up from the table until they had agreed on what the truth was. Riddick and Imam didn't need this but Jack did.

After reading both reports, Riddick had agreed with Jenna but had insisted that she "join the party" because,

"Jack's going to need a shoulder to cry on when she finds out just what a rotten judge of character she is".

Jenna set up the meeting in the lounge of the infirmary. It turned ugly almost immediately and ended explosively. When Riddick had validated Imam's opinion that Carolyn should have saved her own life instead of his, Jack had argued with him until he had lashed out angrily.

"I didn't ask for it! But she did it and now I have to pay for that! When she suckered me into coming back for the two of you, she asked me a question, 'Didn't I want to rejoin the human race' and I told her I didn't know how. But now, I've got to learn how! Debts have to be paid and I have to do my damnedest to see that she didn't die for nothing! And every time I think about it, I wish that she had left my fucking ass behind and saved her own!"

Jenna had her answers to a great many questions but she could see that Jack had lost everything after Riddick's admission that he hadn't intended to return to the cave for the others. Jack stared at Riddick with shock widened eyes throughout the rest of it and for several moments thereafter. When she finally spoke, her voice was anguished and barely above a whisper.

"You ... you weren't coming back for us?"

Riddick stood, leaned over the table and fixed the distressed young woman with a sneer. Jenna knew what was coming and silently damned Riddick for his choice of this harsh method of breaking Jack's too idealistic image of him. She suppressed a shudder as his voice, filled with anger just seconds ago, became brutally cold.

"No. Carolyn saved your life, not me. Fuck, kid. You lived on the streets long enough to know how it is. You just got stupid and went soft. Get over it."

With that, he turned and walked from the room without a backward glance.

Imam had immediately reached a comforting hand toward Jack. Like any animal in pain, she had turned on him.

"Don't touch me, you fucking hypocrite! Sure, you were right about him! Why not?! You weren't any better back there. You and your praying! What a crock of shit! At least he killed the mother fuckers!"

Riddick had been right that Jack needed a shoulder but he had been wrong that Jenna could provide it. In the next breath, Jack turned on her as well.

"And don't you give me any of your yoyo bullshit! You and your money and easy life! You don't know nothing about nothing. You're just as lame as Imam. Both of you can just leave me the hell alone!"

Jack seemed to run out of words. Slamming both fists into the table top she jumped up and ran from the lounge.

After comforting Imam, Jenna had returned to the bridge. Assuring herself that Jack had retreated to a safe location (her quarters), Jenna got a very strong cup of coffee, spent about a minute and a half considering just how much she wanted to kick Riddick's ass all over the ship and then began searching for the best way to handle the situation that his shock-troops approach had created.

Of the four other people that Jack knew well enough that she might allow them to approach her, three were not candidates for counseling her. Aside from the fact that they should not be privy to Riddick's secret, Nagia had serious problems of her own to deal with and Mira was still basically a naive child. This naivete also applied to Ben even though he was older. That left Jeeter. The street-wise little tough was the only one with the background and experience that Jack would trust. If Riddick didn't like Jeeter knowing who he was and spending a lot of time alone with Jack, he would just have to live with it. Jenna hoped it would lead him to reconsider his methods of dealing with people.

Explaining the situation fully to Jeeter, letting him read the reports, Jenna left it to his discretion how he handled it. She never asked him what was said between him and Jack but the results proved that she had made the right choice. After three days of shunning silence to everyone but Jeeter, Jack had apologized to both Jenna and Imam for her outburst and, though she still avoided Riddick, had taken up her bridge position and training on Jenna's duty shift.

If Riddick had a problem with Jack's close association with Jeeter, he kept it to himself. Jenna wasn't sure that he was dealing as well with the new attitude of respect and admiration that Jeeter was sending his way. She suspected that Riddick was not aware of the true reason for it; that it had nothing to do with his public reputation as a mass murderer and master of escape but, rather, with whatever had really happened in the Forces incident for which Riddick was originally sent to prison. It seemed that the lower echelons of the Forces agreed with Jenna's opinion of the raw deal he had been given and it was still mentioned occasionally, even years later, when Jeeter had been part of them. But, that was something that Jeeter and Riddick would have to work out on their own.

Jenna had also had her own little session of dealing with unpleasant memories. Since the poison had been of his own design, Syrus had demanded a full report on the incident of her use of the deadly earring. He had insisted on brutally graphic detail in her description of G's reactions. His opinion that less than thirty seconds of massive head pain was a relatively painless death and that the conscious brain would have been detached from any awareness of the convulsions did little to ease Jenna's loathsome memories.

Finally, his explanation that nothing better could be devised for the limited volume of a camouflaged dispenser forced her to accept that this, like most things, would remain imperfect and that she would just have to reconcile herself to that. On further consideration, she had to agree with him that such a death was very much preferable to capture; to suffering interrogation, the guilt of betraying the others and then a life time of virtual slavery, allowing their work to be twisted to the perverted uses the Company and the Forces would find for it.

No questions of conscience or morality arose. Jenna preferred to believe that this was because Syrus trusted her judgement that G was a valid threat rather than the probable truth that he really didn't care one way or the other as long as Jenna wasn't having any difficulty dealing with it. If she had been, Jenna was quite sure Syrus would have blackened her perception of his soul twice over to remove any stain she had painted on her own.

Syrus had also used this opportunity to spring a little surprise on Jenna. It seemed that while she had been busy with the creation and supplying of the ships, he had 'lowered his standards sufficiently' to make use of the flight simulator and the coursework in navigation and felt that he was prepared to qualify as bridge crew in both of these slots. While Jenna had no doubt of this, Syrus would never make a claim he couldn't back up, she sent him on a qualifying run with Riddick in the BC. Upon their return, Jenna read Riddick's terse, "He'll do", as the high praise that it was.

Though Riddick and Jenna remained the only hyper pilots, Syrus' addition to the bridge crew did a great deal to simplify the duty and training schedules. Shift one became Jenna and Jack; shift two, Riddick and Ben; and shift three, Syrus and Jeeter.

During the on duty shifts, Jeeter and Syrus trained each other and Jenna and Riddick trained Jack and Ben in all the bridge slots. All six also used this time to do their studying for Sasha's weekly cultural picks, choosing the parts they wished to play and designing their costumes. Off shifts were spent in training for the rest of the crew.

That turned out to be a short list. Nagia concentrated on her plants and medical training from Syrus and refused to participate in any defense training. Imam remained a patient under Syrus' care and basically a passenger. David and Jeff both qualified to carry non-lethal stunners and then quit defense training. Sasha stunned herself silly and went back to party arranging and redecorating without qualifying for any weapon. None of the three showed interest in training for any bridge position.

Though the terrible trio did seem to be cooperating with the rest of their crew assignments and all three were taking their turns at tutoring Mira, Jenna's internal alarm system went on yellow alert every time one of them crossed her path. She couldn't get a clue as to what they were up to but she would bet her last credit that they were up to it. Also, no one had approached the tracking device planted in the hanger and there was still no clue as to who was responsible for the tarantula, either. Jenna took out her frustrations about these matters in physical exercise.

The gym sessions became an exchange of talents between Mr. Sen, Syrus, Rafferty, Jenna, Riddick and Jeeter and the six of them cooperating in training Ben, Mira and Jack. To Jenna's amusement it soon became apparent that Jack and Mira were going to be the more deadly students. Outside of his fits of uncontrolled fury, Ben truly had a gentle nature. Though he was working on getting the right to carry a rather flashy dress sword, he was more than content to limit himself to painful but only disabling techniques for the rest of it. The two young women, on the other hand, were seriously intent on becoming just as dangerous as their teachers.

Though Jenna issued everyone gas masks and demanded that they take the training necessary to use them and carry them on their person at all times, training with the remainder of Mr. Sen's more modern arsenal would wait until they settled planetside. Putting a disrupter hole in your spaceship really wasn't a good idea.

In unspoken agreement, the shift that Syrus and Jeeter sat the bridge had become Jenna's and Riddick's time alone. They retained their own apartments with no mixing of their belongings, but the connecting hatch between had been unlocked. Jenna would bathe and go to bed, perhaps even doze off to awaken to Riddick sliding in beside her and pulling her into his embrace. Sometimes they made love, sometimes only kissed and touched comfortingly, before falling asleep wrapped around each other. In the 'morning' Riddick would slip away back to his apartment just before Jenna's alarm would sound.

It was a dream-like time. No words passed between them except for those murmured, moaned or cried out during their love making. For those hours, nothing existed for Jenna but the pleasure of being with Riddick; not anything in their pasts, not whatever might lie in the future, not even whatever else was occurring in the present.

Afterward, sitting her shift, she sometimes wondered if it was the same for him but didn't allow even this thought to intrude on the time they were together. She had told Riddick that whatever happened between them would be his to decide. In honor of this promise, she allowed herself no expectations; concentrating on memorizing every moment of their private time; storing them away as a miser hoards his treasures. If this was all that she would ever have of Riddick, she was determined to have it untainted by any negative emotions.

The corollary to this was that during their visits to each other's duty shifts to discuss ship's business were completely devoid of the sexual tensions and teasing that had occurred before they became lovers. The only exceptions were the weekly Saturday parties and Sunday dinners. In both situations, they were quite obviously a courting couple playing whatever games the culture being studied allowed them.

These play sessions had turned out to be a great deal of fun for Jenna. After the first set, based predictably on New Meccan culture, where both Riddick and Jenna had played it fairly straight, Jenna had decided to heat things up. Sasha had unknowingly cooperated with this by choosing the quite barbaric culture of Tannic 5 for that week. After ascertaining that Riddick had chosen to dress as a chieftain, Jenna modified the native slave costume to include a little modesty.

When she had walked into the commonroom, handed Riddick her leash and then proceeded to kneel beside him and begin hand feeding him the meal, she actually saw his eyes widen slightly in surprise before they slitted wickedly and a matching leer curled his lips. Riddick had countered during the formal dinner, where couples ate from the same trencher, by feeding her the whole meal from the tip of his dagger and stroking her under the cover of the table; keeping her close to climax for most of the meal.

Sasha had given Jenna a grudging smile when naming her and Riddick as the winners of that week's contest and had chosen a much more civilized culture for the next weekend. Still, Riddick and Jenna had found ways to keep up the game even under those limiting conditions.

Though there was a great deal of intermingling, the parties had revealed other pairings. The established trio of David, Jeff and Sasha continued as soon as Rafferty's disinterest became apparent to Sasha. Mr. Sen, Imam and Nagia seemed to have formed another, though strictly social, triad. That Jack and Jeeter were together didn't surprise Jenna but that Ben and Mira were making shy overtures to each other was a pleasant one.

But most surprising of all was the fact that, to Jenna's discerning eye, Syrus and Rafferty seemed to be engaged in something more than the general conversation one would expect from two men thrown together only by the groupings of the others. While Syrus had always protected any aspect of his personal life very jealously, Rafferty's sexual preference was a known fact and Syrus, though not handsome in the classical sense, was very compelling in both looks and personality.

Jenna only hoped that Syrus had progressed far enough beyond his past mental instability that he was interested in Rafferty as a sexual partner rather than one for an assisted suicide attempt. The long period of time since he had last sought out the darker side of society, returning disheveled and sometimes injured, and his making the effort to learn to pilot and navigate seemed to suggest that he had. Since Jenna did not trust Rafferty sufficiently to make him aware of Syrus' possible weaknesses, she couldn't do anything but watch and wait.

Rafferty also occupied Jenna's thoughts in another matter; the rescue of Nagia's daughter, Sissua. He had accepted Jenna's challenge and had spend a great deal of time with Nagia and Imam finding out everything he could about Sulleman, his resident slave quarters and any contacts that either Nagia or Imam might have that could give him access to the girl if she were still there or provide her location if Sulleman had followed through with his threat to sell her.

In the end, he had decided that Nagia must accompany any rescue party not only to ensure the identity of the child but also the cooperation of the contact in Sulleman's household. Nagia bravely accepted the necessity of returning to New Mecca but Jenna sensed real terror under that facade. This and the fact that Jenna didn't want to risk either the Hole or the BC by arranging a rendezvous to transfer Nagia to one of Rafferty's ships made the rescue another job for 'Captain Jen's raiders'. When she announced that she and Riddick would accompany Rafferty and Nagia, she was met with a full mutiny of her bridge crew. They were united in their demand that Jenna not be part of the rescue party.

Though Jenna knew that their real concern was her safety, the reason they gave, that both hyper pilots couldn't be put at risk, was not one she could argue with. When she tried countering it with the flat statement that she wouldn't allow the BC to return to New Mecca with only one qualified pilot aboard, Syrus had immediately volunteered to join the rescue.

The thought of what could happen between Syrus, Riddick and Rafferty during a long period of forced close contact was almost terrifying. Syrus' whispered promise to bring her 'dark knight' back to her 'intact' didn't help very much. That Nagia seemed much less fearful when informed of the choice, reassured Jenna a great deal more.

But now, the group had been gone for almost six days and Jenna's imagination had gone through every horrible scenario possible and was beginning to repeat itself. As Jenna looked across the bridge at Jack, she could see that she wasn't the only one suffering. Jack was in worse shape.

"It will be ok, Jack. He's tougher than anything they can throw at him."

This open the flood gates for Jack, just as Jenna had known it would. She found her lap full of sobbing teenager.

"Oh, Captain Jen, I ... I didn't even tell him goodbye ...... didn't tell him I love him anyway."

"It's all right, Jack. He'll be back. You can tell him then."

Jenna rocked the girl and made comforting noises. All the while, she was praying like hell that she wasn't lying.