The pilot's chair creaked as he shifted his tawny bulk, glancing again at the star charts arrayed before him. Thick fingers twitched slightly as he swiftly calculated time, the same calculations he had been running for the last several hours.
It should have only taken them a standard hour at the most to realize that the pursuit ship had gone missing, and that was if the shuttle control personnel had really had their heads somewhere anatomically improbable.
Chances simply were that the diversion shuttle had only bought about twenty minutes.
He scowled into the empty space before him.
There weren't many settled worlds ahead of him. That was why he had chosen to escape into these lanes. Logic would dictate that he'd get to the closest settled planet and trade ships.
Pursuers would waste more time checking that probability, giving him even more of an advantage.
All he had to do was make it to one of the little run down spacer stops, where they dealt with all sorts of flotsam, where a government shuttle wouldn't raises an eyebrow when cashed, where they didn't keep records of who stopped where and why, where he could get a good, fast little galaxy-hopper skiff for cheap.
The shuttle, after all, was in good repair. Its model was common enough that with a coat of paint there would be little to identify its origins.
And the bloodstains wouldn't drop the price by much.
He'd already found a little mining planet, devoid of surface population, where he'd dropped the former crew. Dark side of the planet, no population, it was a safe bet it'd be a long time, if ever, until they were found.
He had searched the ship from tip to tail for any sort of tracking devices and had found nothing to suggest that they'd be able to cut into his lead that way before he dropped the ship.
He really just had to wait.
According to the star charts, the little spacer stop he was aiming for did it's business with mostly salvage ships, although a few of the regulated transport ships did make short refuel stops there.
He glanced down at his clothing.
It was hard with dried blood, stained, yet still recognizable as a prison uniform.
Stormy eyes grew darker.
The creak grew to a vociferous complaint as he heaved out of it, moving back through the grated partition, stepping over the huddled mass of Spook, glancing momentarily at her sleeping form, shivering on the curved deck, her head pillowed on her folded arms, her shoulders hunched close to her cheeks, knees pulled up close to her body.
He moved a few steps beyond her, to a small compartment.
Within it there were emergency supplies, from which he took water packets and a few rations bars. He started to close the lid, then paused, reaching in once more.
He tore open a packet, pulled out a thin silver blanket, tossed it out over the sleeping girl with a soft snort.
He took his shiv in his hand, carefully set it on one of the stained chairs, then shed the gore-stiffened shirt. Exchanging the shirt for his shiv again, he carefully moved his mass back to the pilot's chair.
The interior was chill.
The shuttle hadn't been made for long trips with only two bodies in it, that much was obvious; with a full belly, the little shuttle would have been plenty warm. It hadn't been designed to take long trips without full seats, so it hadn't been equipped to be heated.
That'll drop the price a bit.
The bridge of his nose wrinkled as his heavy brows furrowed over his deep eyes.
The hours were long out in space.
"'What of the hunting, hunter bold?'" she settled her hand on his shoulder, leaning over him, her chin just to the side of his temple.
"'Brother, the hours were long and cold.' Sleep well, little rabbit?"
"I suppose. Did you really read all of my books, or just the parts that I quote?" That ghost of a smile played across his face. One had reached up to her shoulder, tugged, pulled her off balance and into his lap, a tumbled crash of limbs against him. She squirmed, settled against his chest, her arms around his shoulders, her cheek against his neck.
"Where are we going?"
"Far away, Spook. We stop at a little outpost, shady place, sell this piece for scrap or whatnot, get ourselves something less noticeable. And a change of clothes." Hair caught on stubble when she nodded, the gossamer strands trailing over his face, her laughter as she pulled them free washing over him, warm as life itself. He could smell her so clearly, a soft undercurrent of spice, of gentleness, underwriting the smell of blood and death. "After that, we just keep moving. Find us a world where they won't know us, where they don't know Riddick escaped with the help of a Spook."
"Does that place exist?"
He bent his head to her shoulder, string out at the endless expanse of stars, of swirling galaxies.
Any moment now there would be the report over the Comm waves, about the only escape ever from Slam, about the murderer Richard B. Riddick, and how he had escaped. It would announce the bounty on his head. It would alert a thousand worlds that he was free, and unite a thousand worlds against him.
It would be just him, and this one Psi, against them all.
"It has to, rabbit. It has to."