Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity, however I do promise to return him. At some point in the undisclosed future. With no damages sustained in the time I had him. 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 characters not seen in Pitch Black.

There's got to be some rule somewhere that says that spacecraft have to be as uncomfortable as possible.

She hung, again, from a bar above a hatch, one knee hooked around it, scowling darkly at the floor above her.

Or at least as inconvenient as they can make them.

"Boss, what just happened to the grav unit?" He was growling in the circuit-laden interior of the ship; banging, metallic echoes rang in klaxons through the corridors. "Last time I checked, I wasn't supposed to look UP at the floor…"

It was becoming a disturbingly regular occurrence. A quick tally hashed up to 3 times in the last 7 standard days.

At least now they understood why there were rungs at regular intervals along the ceilings.

Her hair hovered before her eyes, waving slightly in the air currents that flowed through the dark interior of the ship, floating in a silent mocking of the nearly constant attempts to find the persistent source of the eternal malfunction.

The snarled curses were growing more creative with each occurrence, in a seemingly inverse relationship to the length of time it took for him to resort to percussive maintenance on the grav unit.

It sounded like the nearest thing at hand this time was a conduit pipe from some wiring he'd been working on.

It had a slightly more musical quality than the squawking clang that the wrench had made a few days ago, and the chiming tones of today's session reminded her a little of bells. She could tolerate it for a little bit.

They were still at least a week out from the next outskirter base. That meant a week more of an angry, increasingly violent man with nowhere to escape to. That wasn't a prospect she looked forward to.

He was ever more moody, sulking about the skiff, glowering, striking randomly at the walls. He spared her a snort of greeting most times, occasionally a quick, rough caress over her cheek and a mumbled "rabbit," but mostly he just snarled through the tight quarters and spent hours staring out into the endless expanse of stars with brooding silvered eyes.

She feared for anyone who looked at him wrong when they found something remotely reflecting civilization.

Then again, I suppose if this skiff had a sweet spot he'd have found it by now.

With a shake of her head, Spook kicked off the doorjamb, gliding towards the control room, trying to shake the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

The nagging ache, like a lump of slagged iron, weighed heavy in her belly. The concern of it showed behind the reflections in her eyes, in the distracted movements of her daily mannerisms.

It poked at her; a thing she should know, should recognize, but could not. It was something just below the surface of consciousness. Like all she was seeing were ripples, but should know what was causing them. Ripples that had been lapping at the edges of her thoughts for days.

She clicked the four point harness into place, sighing at the absence of the customary creak of the command chair, the normal comforting subtle give of the chair as it took her weight. Her hair floated about her face, a mousy-brown cloud that wisped into her vision and tickled her neck. Before her spread endless wastes of stars, glowing dully at her, sullen points of light echoing her misgivings.

Silver eyes wandered over the sensor readings, settling on one point.

There was an abnormality.

Off and on for a few days the sensors would ping something, just on the edge of their range. It tended to be interpreted as flotsam, something that was abnormal, but not to be worried about. Yet it seemed, as she looked over the logs, to always appear in roughly the same place, a bare trace of something, like an ice formation or some such. It normally appeared for one or two quick pings, then vanished, slipping out of sensor range, for all the worlds like a piece of everyday flotsam.

It seemed absurd for it to have been, over the course of days, the same piece of something, but the readings were all identical.

And an hour ago the sensors had picked it up in their wake again. But it hadn't vanished this time; it was still there now, trailing behind them. She reached forward, tapping at the sensors board.

Still there.

Not an anomaly in the sensors, in fact the sensors read that it was ever so slowly gaining on them. Her fingers flew over the controls, bringing up reading after reading.

Nothing more than what she had before, but it was definitely moving in their slipstream, slowly creeping up behind them. She pulled up the records of the communications scans.

And there it was; a low grade, nearly constant flow of transmissions, like a data-feed trace. A few more keyed commands, and she'd tapped into it.

On the screen flickered two things: the faces of herself and Riddick, and a brief account of their actions. His was the only name; she was simply listed as an accomplice.

Richard B. Riddick escaped from System Lambda Asteroid Maximum Penitentiary. Subject is male, 1.88 meters, 88 kilos, dark hair. Escaped in the company of an unknown female, 1.6 meters, 75 kilos, brown hair. Richard B. Riddick is highly dangerous, and is to be treated with utmost caution. Subject has proven to kill without provocation. Subject escape has initial released bodycount of 28. All victims were male, various ages and races. Female subject's role in escape unknown at this time. High credit reward for capture, higher for unharmed pair.

But there was more data flowing in now.

Details about her.

Warning: female subject is to be regarded as highly dangerous. Female subject is unidentified Psionic with unknown potential. Believed to be mentally unstable, female subject assisted in the escape, contributing to the high death count of the incident. Advised for only trained Psi handlers to confront. Report known position to GPLE, allow GPLE trained enforcers to capture. Repeat. Female subject is unknown Psi. Allow trained GPLE officers to capture. Do not confront.

"Boss! We've got a problem."