THE MOTHER LODE BY ABRAXIS

Chapter 42 – The Journey to Sanctuary

The next six days passed without any further incidents, though the tension on board the Hole was as thick as a Hegelian fog. Riddick knew that he had been the cause of some of that at first.

When he had finally crawled out of his quarters, sober but a bit hung over, a full shift later than he should have, Jenna had recognized his morose mood in a way he could accept. She never openly reacted to it but she had taken steps to deal with it. She had given him the isolation that he needed by assigning him the task of using the BC to maneuver the outer pods of the ship, replacing any functioning ones with empty cargo pods at the locations for the three new bays and shifting a few more to fine tune the weapons pod configuration to include those that had been in the positions of the bays.

Riddick had to give her credit for knowing what she was doing, not only with him, with all of her new plans. It was like watching a hurricane but a very logical, well organized one. Riddick understood even better what Jeeter had been up against when she had decided that they needed the second lander.

She had located the second bay behind the bridge on the other side from the original but put the third and fourth bays on opposite sides of the central corridor at the other end of the ship. It was a military configuration rather than a commercial one, a longer run for the pilots to reach the third and fourth auxiliary ships but less chance of all the auxiliaries being taken out before they could launch. She also assigned the exact duplicate of the BC, the other hyper-capable one, to the bay on the opposite side and at the other end of the configuration.

He couldn't find any fault in the type of ships that she had ordered either. Though he would probably have gone with Keller-only for all three new ships, a second hyper-capable planet-lander wasn't a bad idea if you had the credits for it. The extra ships would not only give them some 'fighter power' but would also speed up the process of downloading the colony. He did think that she was a little optimistic on her refitting schedule but had to admit that she had more experience with that sort of stuff than he did. He had always stolen his rides not had them built to spec.

Riddick did have some serious doubts about the Rafferty part of her plans. First, he wasn't ready to trust the man that far. Second, the idea of having a couple of hundred mercs around him made his skin crawl. But, watching the redhead bust his tail to recruit his people and get them into position for pick-up was an eye-opener. A lot of them were older men with families and working as private security. Even the younger ones weren't hunters like Johns and Rafferty's original crew. The pick-ups also started to include quite a few grown, or near grown, sons and daughters and even some wives. Rafferty assured Jenna that these dependents were all trained fighters and no younger children turned up on the lists. That didn't make Rafferty's people 'safe' but it was a good bet that they would be more interested in the colony than in Riddick.

As Riddick's mood eased, the tension didn't. The visible cause was the 'terrible no-longer-a-trio' and, unexpectedly, Prince Casmir and Princess Mira. David was his usual quiet self; Sasha was playing faithful companion to him, even in the defense classes; and Jeff was heeding Jenna's threats and staying out of their way for the most part. However, every time the three of them happened to turn-up in the same place at the same time the temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. The same was true for the New Meccan pair. Riddick decided that he had been right about Casmir not being as willing to be as liberal thinking in his private life as in his public one. Watching this human-comedy, he had the thought that 'somebody up there' had really cut him a break by dropping Jenna in his lap.

The not so visible tension, which bothered Riddick more because it bothered Jenna more, was caused by Sen. The man had gone incommunicado, hold up in his quarters or his office, either requesting trays from the central kitchen or using the one in his rooms. As Syrus had snidely commented, "His royal highness is in a royal snit."

Riddick had to hand it to Jenna for cool, though. She just as thoroughly ignored Sen and put Ben to work hacking all of his personal files in an attempt to locate the coordinates of the planet he had chosen. She then worked on scanning the Central Core Records for newly established independent colonies that might welcome the addition of the group and Rafferty's people without trying to indenture them in the process.

As it turned out, Jenna found Sen's secret before Ben did. Just hours before they were to make their first jump, while checking out the owners of several promising newly-registered colonies, she found one that traced back through a complicated series of stock holding companies to one that she recognized as one of the group's front companies. The smile on her face was absolutely evil as she added it's coordinates as the end point of the routing she and Rafferty were developing for the pick-up of his people. Riddick fucking loved it when she smiled like that.

Jeeter lived up to Syrus' improved prognosis and they made the double jump to the shipyards on schedule. Rafferty rode the bridge with Jenna and Riddick for these. After the first had proved his tolerance for hyper, Jenna had him pilot the second, with her hand on the take-over, to prove his ability to fly it as well. The merc didn't have Jenna's unique talent and, in fact, wasn't even as good as Riddick but he could have passed the commercial requirements. When Riddick called him on this, the look of distaste that accompanied the "not in this lifetime" left no doubt that Rafferty shared Riddick's opinion of the regulation-bound pencil-pushers that most commercial pilots had to work for and the pampered passenger cargo that they had to deal with.

Business at the first shipyard went smoothly. Everyone who had any dealings with the shipyard personnel had to get used to a new set of names for themselves and the ships but otherwise no problems. Jenna was able to easily sell off the extra empty pods at a good price and the installation of the bays and the hyper-fitting of the one auxiliary ship were finished on schedule. At the second yard, with a second set of new identities, things went just as well with the weapons refittings but the conversation during a face-to-face with the owner gave Riddick a few bad seconds and a new appreciation of Jenna's people skills.

"You're buying an awful lot of firepower for a transport, even one as big as yours?"

"The company is getting into colony protection as well as supply."

"Raider's are getting that bad?"

"In the remote colonies, yes."

"You'd think that the Patrol would do something about that. We pay enough to support it to expect better."

"True. But then, that's why you're in business and my company is expecting good profits from expanding. Anyway, most of the colonies feel the same way you and I do. The farther the government stays away from our business the better."

"Well now, that does say it, doesn't it. Care for another jigger all round while we finish our business?"

During the process at the second yard, exactly at the end of Jenna's twenty-one day deadline, Sen finally left the coordinates for the location of the colony on Jenna's voice mail. Riddick couldn't keep from laughing at her fist-thrust-into-the-air, "Yes", as she compared it to that of the colony she had discovered and found that they matched. However, she gave no hint of either her elation or having already discovered the information when she left a polite 'thank you' on Sen's voice mail. She also reinstated his access to the external com.

The next two months were dedicated to making the pick-ups of Rafferty's people and testing out any that he designated pilots on the planet-landers and the two new hyper pilots on jumps. They also had to begin using their permanent names even though Jenna kept switching the ship's ID for each pickup.

Riddick discovered that the members of the group had been using theirs all along except for Jenna. But 'Djin ah' was just Jenna spelled a different way and 'Blakeney' was as good as any for a last name because Riddick hadn't ever had one for her anyway. Jeeter had picked 'Michael Lazarus' but everyone still called him Jeeter. Jack didn't have to have a new ID because Jenna just had a few twinks made to the one that she had assumed when she first arrived on New Mecca. As for Riddick, he was ok with 'Wade', the last name Jenna had chosen for him, and he could live with the nickname 'Rick' but that 'Elric' she had laid on him was going to have to change before she cut his final identity papers.

There were only two small ripples during that time. The first was a side-trip for Riddick and the BC to return Casmir, Mira and Imam to New Mecca.

It seemed that the pair had finally worked out their differences. The contract that Jenna ok'ed was at least two fingers thick and Riddick was certain that Mira hadn't missed a thing in her negotiations. While he still looked a bit dazed sometimes, Casmir was obviously falling in love with his tiny princess who had proved herself his intellectual equal.

Riddick had been surprised that Nagia and Sissua weren't in the returning party. It had turned out that Sissua, along with the rest of the children, was a lot better at understanding where her best future would be and adapting than her mother. The children took a vote and unanimously demanded to be allowed to join the colony. Nagia had no choice but to go along with their decision since Mira approved of it, had probably engineered it, and all but ordered her to allow Sissua her choice and to accompany the children since she would be the only one left to see that they didn't completely forget their own heritage.

Saying good-bye to Imam hadn't been what Riddick had expected. When Jack cried all over the holy man on the bridge of the Hole, Riddick hadn't felt anything. But, as Riddick stood on the ramp of the BC watching his passengers walk toward Casmir's circus wagon ground car, things changed. Imam had turned and walked back to him.

"I know that we do not agree on many things, Richard, and that it is doubtful that I will ever see you again. For this very reason, there are words that I must say to you. I have misjudged you. You have truly turned your life to an honorable and moral path." Then the man smiled wryly, "Though the people you have aligned yourself with are engaged in illegalities, they are doing so for honorable and moral reasons. This distinction is perhaps one that you have taught me to appreciate, my friend. Therefore, I will pray to Allah for safety, happiness and long life for both you and your most appropriate lady."

Imam had then held out his hand, Riddick had shaken it, and then Imam had walked away, entered the ground car and was gone. Riddick had stood on the ramp for a long time after that, trying to deal with what he was feeling. Fuck! It wasn't supposed to matter to him what the holy man thought. But he couldn't deny that what the man had said had done something to him. It was like when Carolyn had looked up at him with pride and Jack had told him that she 'never had a doubt' when they had returned to that cleft in the cliffs on T2.

With a muttered, 'Shit! This better not be happening too often.", Riddick had turned and stomped into the BC then made his lift off from New Mecca. But it was still bothering him when he went into hyper to rendezvous with the Hole. Oddly enough, during that jump, the effects of hyper seemed to allow his mind to get a handle on it. It still didn't matter what other people thought of him, wasn't something that he needed. It was just all right for it to feel good anyway.

The second ripple arrived at the next pick-up after Riddick returned to the Hole, another side trip for the BC that both he and Rafferty had taken; Rafferty to verify his people's identities and Riddick as back-up pilot but really because Jenna still didn't let Rafferty very far away without a keeper. There was an extra man among those expected. He was quite a bit younger than average for Rafferty's men and Riddick was expecting one of the older ones to claim the short, slim, blue-eyed blond as his son. Then a shocked look on Rafferty's face had Riddick reaching for his shiv. But, the first word out of the merc's mouth turned Riddick's concern into amusement.

"Charlie! What are you doing here?!"

"You didn't expect to be going on any grand adventure without me, did you, Red?"

Rafferty pulled the younger man further into the BC and then into one of the cabins and shut the hatch. Riddick chuckled softly to himself as he loaded the rest of the new recruits and headed back for the Hole. He did, however, resist being a total bastard and risked the possible enjoyment he was going to get by calling ahead and warning Jenna that they had an unexpected guest coming; that Charlie, "You know. The one that was mentioned when we first met Rafferty.", would soon be onboard the Hole. From the slightly strangled sound of her voice as she quickly cut the com connection, Riddick knew that Jenna had understood the warning.

Therefore, Riddick was surprised, when he dropped the BC's ramp in the bay of the Hole, to find Syrus in his usual place waiting to collect medical records, make cursory exams and schedule appointments for full medicals on the new arrivals. After getting the rest of the arrivals off the BC and queued up for Syrus, it was with evil delight that Riddick pounded on the still closed cabin hatch and told Rafferty to get his 'friend' in line for that procedure.

Rafferty didn't show until more than half of the other men had passed through Syrus' exams and been led away by some earlier pick-up into the main body of the ship. Then, he was keeping a tight grip on Charlie's arm and didn't allow him to get very far from the BC until the rest of the men had been processed and left the bay and there was nothing to do but present him for his exam. From the heated looks that Charlie was throwing in Syrus' direction and the rather agitated way he was talking to the anxious looking Rafferty, Riddick was sure that Charlie had been told exactly who Syrus was and what he and Rafferty had been up to.

Syrus, on the other hand seemed to be ignoring the redheaded merc and his companion, too obviously ignoring them. The other oddity was that rather than being dressed in the medical greens he usually wore for this, Syrus was wearing his dress uniform. This included one of the more flamboyant, open fronted, ruffled shirts that he preferred and his full weapons belt with the extremely dangerous long saber and both the vicious daggers that he was very accomplished at wielding. His hair was also clipped back at the nape of his neck, the way he always wore it during weapons practice. Oh, yeah, Jenna had definitely cued him in but Riddick was certain that this wasn't the way she had hoped he would react.

Riddick watched with dark anticipation as Charlie walked up and stood defiantly in front of Syrus. Unless Riddick had lost his ability to judge men, the cocky young idiot would be dead on the deck before he even knew it if he started anything and it looked likely that he would. As Syrus went through the exams with the same cold professionalism that he had with all the others, Charlie became more and more antsy. When Syrus finally dismissed him and walked away to place his medical file disk on a table with those of the other arrivals, Charlie just had to push it. Still looking directly at Syrus' back he spoke to Rafferty.

"Well, Red, now that that's over how about showing me where your quarters are so I can get settled in."

Syrus turned slowly then leaned back against the table with an almost believable look of surprise on his face. "Manuel, this is 'your' Charlie? You told me he was good but you didn't tell me he was such a luscious little piece. Should I get a bigger bed for my quarters? It would certainly save you from all the running back and forth."

The kid looked shocked, then he paled and then he turned red with anger. The only thing that saved him from a sudden, bloody death was Rafferty jerking him into a bear hug before he could take that first step toward Syrus and dragging him bodily out of the bay, struggling and spitting disconnected words like an enraged house cat. After watching this exit, Syrus turned his attention to Riddick.

"Oh my, did I say something that upset the boy? How impolite of me."

Riddick returned Syrus' evil sneer with one of his own then turned toward the bridge hatch as Syrus began collecting the medical disks. He found Jenna in the command slot. She was just moving the security screen back and pulling the nav screen forward to check their course to the next pick-up.

"Better or worse than you expected, sweet thing?"

"Since I hadn't anticipated Charlie being that young and that stupid and he's still breathing, it was a successful first round. I don't know what Syrus was for Rafferty but Rafferty was never anything but a pleasant diversion for him. Syrus has promised me that he will be civil if everyone else is. I can only hope that Rafferty can get some control over his boy-toy or, at the least, keep him away from Syrus. Syrus won't go out of his way to find him but he won't go out of his way to avoid him either."

For a while it looked like there still might be bloodshed. Rafferty actually was running back and forth. Charlie was ensconced in Rafferty's quarters but Rafferty was paying visits to Syrus' behind his back. However, by the time Charlie discovered this, he had already seen just what Syrus could do with those blades of his during weapons training. Good sense, or a healthy instinct for survival, won out and he reacted to this by moving into the communal bunkroom that had been set up in the common area.

But that wasn't the end of it. A few pick-ups later, a new arrival caught Syrus' eye; a calm, quiet dark-haired man in his mid-forties who could be taken for a somewhat reclusive college professor if you didn't look close enough to see the hard hands and the too world-weary look in his hazel brown eyes. Syrus, however, didn't behave as Rafferty had. He flatly told Rafferty that it was over between them, in front of witnesses, cancelled the redhead's access to his private quarters and, after a week of getting acquainted, invited his new interest to move in. Which William 'call me Bill' Archer immediately did.

When Riddick asked Jenna what she thought about all this, her answer revealed more than he expected.

"Did you think that Syrus wouldn't get his revenge on Rafferty? The one thing that he can't abide is a sneak. Since Charlie wasn't willing to be part of a triad, Rafferty should have stayed away from Syrus after he moved Charlie into his quarters. The only reason Syrus let Rafferty crawl back into his bed was to set him up for it. I'm just relieved that Syrus actually found someone who might be good for him rather than taking the first thing that came along that would do. As for Rafferty, I give it another week before Charlie moves back in with him.

"But the whole thing may work out better in the long run. Just before we jumped for the shipyards, Syrus requested I recruit physicians for the colony and he is training Nagia to handle things until I can get them. He plans to stay with the ship when we start bringing in the families and then going after more refugees from the Institute. Since then, Rafferty has assumed that he was taking the third pilot slot on the Hole. I'd rather have one of the other hyper pilots as back up for us; first, because he's a better pilot and second, because Rafferty needs to stay with the colony to keep an eye on Max. Now, I won't have to argue that with Rafferty. In fact, I can make it seem as if I'm doing him a favor and 'settling' for one of the others because I understand his situation. I still need him on our side in the colony."

Riddick agreed with her about needing to keep Rafferty at least semi-friendly since Sen still wasn't speaking to Jenna directly but using the merc as a go-between. But the part about Syrus was something new.

"Syrus is staying with the ship?"

"Yes. The reason he gave me was that it would be easier to prevent any contagious diseases from getting to the colony than to try and control an epidemic after it arrives. I think that the truth is that he liked the excitement of what happened during your mission to New Mecca and on McGhee's station and he wants to be part of snatching the Institute people out from under the noses of the Company. He rather enjoys playing the pirate.

"I'm also keeping Jack, Jeeter and Ben with us. I think that David may stay with the ship as well. He can handle any problems with the Keller engines as well as the hyper and he's working on giving me nav control while in hyper, not something he can do planet-side."

Riddick didn't like the sound of that. "What about Sasha?"

"Oh I don't think that will be a problem."

The tone in Jenna's voice told Riddick that she wasn't going to say any more on that subject. But he had enough to think about with the list of people that she was keeping with her on the ship. Jenna wasn't letting anyone who really mattered to her go down to the colony. She was making sure that she wouldn't be leaving anything behind if, or more likely when, she cut herself free of it.

Jenna was right about Charlie moving back in with Rafferty but wrong about the timing. It didn't take a week. The only other change in things before they arrived at the colony planet wasn't even a ripple as far as Riddick was concerned. It was what he knew would happen the minute Sasha had given him that wistful, too interested smile in the infirmary. With the influx of new meat, she had been unable to resist the temptation.

The only thing that surprised Riddick, but that shouldn't have after that cryptic remark of Jenna's, was that David quietly requested quarters of his own and divorced Sasha under the covenants of the new colony. He also made a formal request to stay on the Hole as permanent crew. After that, David and Jeff started talking to each other again, Jeff giving David a crash refresher course in the Keller side of Engineering. As for Sasha, she seemed quite happy to be single again and was playing the field without letting any one man take up too much of her time. Jenna's take on it was quite succinct.

"She's been so successful with overseeing the children's studies that Sen has her slated to be the Superintendent of Education for the colony. She doesn't need a man to give her an identity anymore."

Riddick wasn't sure that he understood that last part but the first meant that the blond would be off of the ship and gone and that was all he cared about. When it had only been the group or as things were now, the ship crowded with people, Sasha couldn't do much damage. But during long jumps in deep space with an almost empty ship except for bored merc types, trouble like her could tear a crew apart and destroy a ship. Oddly enough the idea of having David onboard didn't bother him at all. Riddick didn't have any doubts about Jenna and David wasn't the kind to make a pest out of himself where he wasn't wanted.

By the end of the pick-ups, Jenna and Riddick had filled out the bridge crew slots for the Hole and found enough fighter and planet-landing pilots to fill those slots for all of the auxiliary ships, for the usual three shifts, from Rafferty's people, mostly the younger ones. The only older ones were Bill Archer and Ted 'Teddy Bear' Mason.

Teddy Bear, a rather portly black man who was just as sweet natured as his name implied and had the touch of an angel on the controls, was their third hyper pilot. He also had no ambitions whatsoever to be responsible for anything but piloting and Jenna was able to leave Jack in the command slot with him as pilot on one of the shifts. Jenna reassured Riddick about this by telling him that she also felt that the man would, in a bad situation, give Jack a good stable second to turn to for advice.

Archer turned out to be a tough, deadly fighter and an intelligent tactician with a talent for command. It wasn't just to please Syrus that Jenna recruited him as Squad Leader of the ships security personnel and Riddick's second on any snatch and grab missions and let him pick his own men, all very hard looking thirty-somethings with no families. He also had enough talent with security systems to be Assistant Security Chief to Jeeter and the tact to be supportive to Jeeter's still somewhat shaky ego without making it obvious what he was doing.

As for Jeeter, he was a walking miracle as far as Riddick was concerned with more fucking guts than anyone Riddick had ever known. When he thought about it, Riddick had trouble believing that this was the same man that had been G's rat-faced little sycophant. Syrus had release him from the infirmary after a month and put him back on active duty, "under protest at the patient's request", after another two weeks. The little man had opted to keep his own arm and spent all of his off duty time that Syrus would allow in the infirmary doing physical therapy and some experimental nerve stimulation process that Syrus had either found or was inventing. Some days he still looked like hell-warmed-over when he almost staggered onto the bridge for his shift.

But 'give-up' just wasn't in Jeeter's vocabulary. Day after day, Riddick watched him push himself until now he was almost as fast at his slot controls with one hand as he had been with two and he used his bad arm for everything that he could managed to do with it, even if it was just as a weight to hold something in place. Riddick had learned from Jack that he was having her and Ben help him design and make special tools and vises to let him start working on his blade-jewelry again. The little man had also asked Riddick to help him work on his fighting skills when Syrus said that he was strong enough for that.

And the thing that got to Riddick the most was that Jeeter kept smiling, joking and trying to make everybody else feel better about the whole fucking thing all the time he was going through the hell of it. Whatever happen in the end, whether Jeeter got back the use of his hand or not, Riddick figured it didn't really matter. Jeeter was a survivor and more of a man than ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the universe. Jack couldn't have found better and Riddick could stop worrying about his 'little sister'.

The only problem that turned up with the crew scheduling was Ben. After Mira's return to New Mecca, Riddick had noticed the kid was acting strange; only talking when he couldn't avoid it, doing his bridge shift and then disappearing, not showing up for weapons practice. When Jeeter came back on duty, it got even worse. Riddick could feel the black anger radiating off Ben.

When Ben finally told Jenna he was going to stay with the colony, Riddick was just as happy about it as he had been about Sasha leaving. He knew that Jenna was worried sick about the kid but that just made him want Ben gone even faster. He'd seen people act that way before and was almost certain that Ben was on the edge of going psycho to the point that even Jenna wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Riddick really didn't want to be forced to hurt the kid.

The planet Sen had gotten them was four jumps from the last good supply outpost, which probably explained why something so good was still available. The usual independents couldn't have made a go of it and the Company wouldn't be interested until a more direct hyper path was discovered, if one even existed. It wasn't a total paradise but it was definitely at the top of the scale for colony planets.

Riddick held his breath and waited for something really ugly to pop up the way it had on T2 but it didn't happen. There were some large carnivores but nothing that couldn't be handled without even having to resort to the arsenal of illegal stuff. The worst was something that looked like a cross between a jackrabbit and an armadillo with a mouth like a shark that ran in packs. They lost two men and had over a dozen wounded in the first encounter with them but all it took was using flamethrowers on their dens and what was left moved out of the area. All in all, as was usual for the human race, the most deadly things on "Sanctuary", the name of their new home, were the colonists.

Everything went like clockwork in downloading the colony. Using the four planet-landers and working them all three shifts, they had the huge transport stripped in record time. Rafferty's men worked like ants on the ground as well and it wasn't long before they were bringing empty pods back to the Hole on every return trip.

But, as Riddick sat helping Jenna make the final plot adjustments for the routes to begin picking up the waiting families of the men already here and more of Rafferty's recruits, he couldn't shake a bad feeling that was beginning to make his gut twist and the back of his neck itch, a very bad feeling. Things had gone just too fucking easy. You didn't take on the Company and the Forces and pull off an operation of this size right under their noses and get away with it. Fucking geniuses or not, it just didn't happen. Maybe for now, maybe for this next run, maybe for the run after that; but sooner or later it was going to go fucking sideways and there was going to be a lot of bleeding and dying when it did.

The feeling in his gut told him it would be sooner than later.