Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity. I did not create Slam, merely this interpretation of it. I did not have any hand in the creation of Pitch Black. I did however create Spook, and the other

Her new hole wasn't quite as nice as the old one, but she had managed to get almost everything into it in only a few near tragedies. And she had found a guard washroom in her searching for the new hole, one they didn't use on account of the electricity being out and so a lack of light. The guard barracks was nearby, so the other inmates avoided it.

She kept a heavy crate against the "door" of the new rabbit hole; the passage in was larger, but the crate kept both light in and intruders out, and she would hear them when they did try to get in with plenty time to grab a shiv. There was also the addition of a bolt to the outside grate, but she had only a small amount of faith in its ability to hold against a determined intruder. Her books were carefully stacked next to the minicells for the torch and the pile of blankets, cleaned in the abandoned washroom, that served her as a bed.

The nice thing was that it was almost safe.

The assailants who had tried to corner hadn't been heard from since, and that corridor reeked of blood and death- She now avoided it. Her strange savior, for she felt he had indeed saved her, had not reared his head again. However, the guard from the mess had taken to finding her when she ventured into the slam at large, and he had enlisted a pack of thugs to round her up if they saw her. They had, once or twice. She shuddered, thinking about her near miss. Both times she had been delivered to the guard, she knew his name now as Talbot, and both times something had interfered with whatever he had planned. The first time a riot had broken out. The second his commanding officer had entered, interrupting him, and she'd made her escape.

Now, though, she was contented to lay on her nest of slightly damp blankets and remember.

The afternoon was chill, and leaves swirled around her, caught in the wind's soft hands. The sun was warm, golden through the trees. Mum and Dad had something they wanted to tell her- they had said so over the comm, so Kiran hurried home.

There were strange hovers in front of the house, big, new looking ones, so they must have company. Kiran wondered what they could want to say to her in front of company. Had she done well on her testing and the visitors wanted to hire her straight out of school? She ran up the steps, setting her pack on the bench near the door.

"Mum, Dad, I'm home!"

She could hear them moving and talking in the other room, her mother's polite, but strained laugh. Her father greeted her at the door to the sitting room, guiding her in with a flourish.

"This is Kiran, our daughter, gentlemen."

"Not much to look at, is she?" piped up the younger man, a man in a dark uniform. "Not what I figured she'd look like."

"Are you sure she's gifted?" The older man looked her up and down, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, gentlemen. We're certain! I assume you'll want to take her for testing before we work out the particulars of her employment?" Her mother stared in shock at Kiran's father, but his eyes were on the strange men.

"Dad, what's going on?"

Noise, shouting, the falls of many booted feet echoed down the short passage to her haven, and she extinguished the torch, pulling the crate aside, crawling along the tunnel. Through the grate she could dimly see boots as men ran by, but there were no uniform legs. Prisoners. She heard their voices as she started backward. A name. A name she recognized. A name she had only heard once. The name sworn by her pursuers before she changed hideaways.

Riddick.

She rushed out of the passage as soon as the hall was clear, pulling the grate back hastily and bolting after the last group. She heard their boots ahead. Then, slowly, the sound of fighting. Her feet hit the floor hard as she ran, the thump of the boots lost in the roar of the crowd in a room filled with a single gang and pale blue light.

The gang had ringed a man; she could see his shaved head above the circle. The gang shouted, roared, cursed at the man. The man who stood calm, his shining eyes staring coldly around at them. The pack leader pushed a man from his gang into the center with her savior, a man nearly as tall as the one she was here for. With a nervous glance, the new man pulled his shiv, circling warily.

Riddick didn't move.

She crept closer, peering between rough bodies. The fight was not much of a contest as she saw it. The man, now pouring his blood from a torn throat, never had a chance- the huge form of the one called Riddick hadn't even seemed to move, but there he was, now in a crouch. Thick, visceral red dripped from the cold gleam of his shiv.

With a howl the gang leapt as one. She cried out softly as he disappeared beneath the press of bodies. She felt the wall at her back. The cement and metal was cold, and it threatened to bite her hands and arms as she slid herself along it out of the room.

And she ran. She ran away from the horrid scene. She ran blindly down the halls, through passages she dimly recognized, until she crumpled to the ground. The image of the man who had saved her, of his body borne down beneath the weight of the gang burned behind her eyelids. My fault, her mind screamed. Why didn't I do something.

A boot crunched on the cement and dirt near her. Someone leaned heavily against the wall with a grunt. The smell of earth and blood was strong, and she could smell sweat. The breathing was heavy. She looked up, and her blurry vision recognized twin pools of quicksilver. She peered in the dim light.

"It is you." Her voice was another shadow in the passage, but the eyes rapidly fixed on her. She heard him inhale sharply through his nose. She rose, reaching her hand towards him, touching his arm. "Follow me." She moved a step away, to where her fingers barely contacted his skin, then turned back. "Please. They'll be here soon." And she moved slowly through the dark, hearing his silent step behind her.

There was only one safe place. She was leading him there.

To her haven.

She pushed the grate in, then pointed to him. The man paused for a moment, then lowered himself to the floor to pull himself along on his belly. She crawled in after him, sliding the grate into place. Then the footsteps of his pursuers echoed to her ears. Their boots thumped along, pausing a short distance away. She slid the bolts of the grate into place, then rushed down to the hole, throwing herself around the crate at the end, sliding it into place. Her hand reached for the torch, but hit hot flesh instead. Muscle rippled beneath her fingers, and she yanked her hand back, gasping softly in fear.

"Nice hidey-hole, rabbit." His voice was harsh, deep, cruel. Then the light flared, backlighting the hulking man against the feeble glow of the torch. "I assume you were reaching for this." She nodded. In response he did something terrifying.

He smiled.

It was not a pleasant expression on him; his eyes lit up with an inner glow that did not appear altogether natural, or sane. His white teeth flashed in the low light.

He took the opportunity, with her wide eyed and backed against the wall, to study her. The eyes were near black, slightly slanted beneath thick brows. Her face was thin, with a haunted look, a rounded jaw that came to a slightly pointed chin, soft cheekbones, all framed by dark hair that fell over one shoulder in a loose, short braid. She was not a large girl, nor was she small.

"You're the girl with the match, aren't you, rabbit?"

And she stared at him. He was larger than she remembered, with broad shoulders and taut muscles sliding under richly golden skin, but if the color was from the torchlight or his skin she couldn't tell. He was easily twice as broad as she. He had nearly a foot of height on her, and who knew how many pounds.

She somehow managed to nod, her eyes fixed on his. "You- you stopped those men..."

"Ah, the rabbit has a voice." He tilted his head, looking at her. She swallowed, her eyes breaking contact to flit to the sides of the room, to the crate, to her bed behind him. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself, staring up at him. "I need to rest, rabbit. Move to the side." He stood, moving to the corner by where she huddled, sinking with his back to the wall. She scrambled onto her blankets, still staring at him with wide eyes. He lowered his brows against the torchlight, pulling off his slashed shirt to peer at the slice across his side. "Is that tunnel secure, rabbit?"

She nodded. "I b-bolted it myself. We'll hear if anyone tries to enter." She shifted. "I have a medkit... If you need it..." She moved the three books to lift the small metal case, offering it to him, biting her lower lip, staring with wide eyes.

He paused for a moment, then reached out one long hand to take the kit. She shrank back again as soon as he had it. "At the moment, rabbit, I owe you. Stop cringing." He pulled the lengths of thread and needles, popping them out of their sterile packages, and began to stitch up the long cut in his side. "Just gunna patch myself up and wait for things to die down."

She nodded, shifted, blinked, then shifted around again. She pulled one of the blankets off her little nest. "Here. It gets cold in here." Again, she snatched her hands back as soon as he had it.

He reached for the books, his hands dwarfing them, opening the tattered, worn covers. The Art of War. The Oddessy. Beyond Good and Evil. All well worn, with tattered pages, yellowed by time and the torchlight.

Glancing up, he watched her curl up into the remaining blanket, completely covering her small form. Her eyes glinted through a small gap in the blankets, then even that stopped. He opened the book most worn. Beyond Good and Evil.