Jack's eyes shot open as she was shaken awake by Riddick. It took her a second to realize what was going on, then she heard it.
Screams, terrible screams. Coming from everywhere, everyone. Screams of pain, of fright. Merciless laughter could be heard through out the city as home after home was invaded and its occupants slaughtered before each others eyes.
Riddick was crouched down by the door and he kicked Jack's blades and boots over to her just as the front door burst open. He heard anywhere from five to eight people enter and start up the stairs. He heard a bedroom door get kicked open and that was the lovely time that he remembered the other occupants of the house. "Mercuri." He muttered. Riddick looked at Jack, Who was crouched down next to him, shivs in hand, and said, "I have to go help her. You get Shaen and get the hell out of here. Meet me back at the skiff."
Jack nodded and followed Riddick as he stealthily and quickly left the room. Just as they were about to split up, They saw the red flash of Shaen's hair below them and watched as she ran into her mother's room, slaughtering two of the eight people on her way. They heard a scream that was full of both pain and rage before dropping down and taking out the remaining six soldiers.
The house seemed void of any kind of threat now that the first eight were gone and none had followed them. Shaen sat in the far corner, hunched over Mercuri's lifeless body. She was bleeding from her left arm and the blade was still in the wound. It had lodged itself in her bone and she didn't care.
"No. You can't die. Please don't leave me. I need you here. You took care of me. Please. I'm sorry I killed Marco. I'm sorry. Please don't leave me. Mercuri...please." Shaen muttered as she rocked back and forth in front of the body. Her eyes were filled with tears and there was blood surrounding her mouth and covering her hands. Her eyes burned a brighter green than before and they had a wild yet scared and lost look in them.
"Shaen…" Jack started after making sure the house was clear for now. "Come on we have to go."
Shaen turned to face her and said, "I can't. I don't have anywhere to go. Mercuri's….she's dead."
Riddick, who couldn't be worried with small talk right now walked over and threw Shaen over one shoulder.
"Jack. Let's go." He said.
They raced down the stairs and out the door, into the blood filled streets. Shaen had scrambled off of Riddick's shoulder and ran back inside of the house and grabbed a black backpack and the keys to her ship. She muttered a holy prayer of rest for Mercuri before heading after Riddick and Jack. She caught up with them just as they reached the docking bay and stopped them.
"I've got a better, faster ship." She told them as they were about to board their beaten to hell Skiff. "Get whatever you need from that thing and get over to dock H."
With that she sprinted off towards the dock and opened it. Shaen had flown the ship before so she had it running and the hyper drive almost fully loaded when Riddick and Jack got onboard. Riddick immediately headed over to the controls only to find that everything was ready to go. Shaen also still had the knife in her arm.
"Sit." Shaen commanded while punching digits in on the holographic control panel.
The ship's lights blinked red and then green and Shaen shut the hatch and got them into orbit. Once they were a safe distance away from New Mecca and the Helion system, she got out of the captains chair.
"Wait another ten minutes before using the hyper drive…if you're going to use it." She said hollowly and walked away.
Riddick looked after her, feeling bad about what had happened before checking the coordinates that Shaen had put in. He tried to change them but found that they were locked and that Shaen had a password on them. He decided to find her and find out where they were going.
Jack stared dully out the window at the diminishing Helion system and felt the need to cry. She didn't intend to break down just them, thought, and thought it better to occupy her mind with exploring the ship. It was a good sized ship and very unlike anything she'd ever seen. Probably another one of Shaen's creations. She thought, walking down a short corridor. It looked small from the outside, but Jack supposed that it was just another illusion of Shaen's, because it was quite large on the inside.
Riddick followed both the scent of blood and the sound of someone beating the living hell out of a punching bag until her found Shaen in a training room. It was good sized and had just about anything you could think of, due to the coarse generator that Shaen had installed. She was currently in the corner, beating the shit out of a punching bag with her bare hands. She still hadn't seemed to notice the blade protruding from her arm and Riddick figured he should get it out as soon as possible and not risk infection.
"Shaen." He started. The girl whipped around and executed a perfect roundhouse kick to the punching bag before stopping it and looking at him.
"What?" She asked, her knuckles bleeding and her blood mixing with the blood of the men she'd slain earlier.
"Does that hurt?" Riddick asked, not fully believing that she couldn't feel a knife embedded in her arm.
He pointed to it and Shaen looked down at the knife and looked sincerely surprised.
"Actually…no. It didn't know it was there." She said as she tried to pull it from her arm. She winced as the pain finally hit her. "Alrighty then…that hurts now."
"Come here." Riddick told her.
He led her towards the bathroom he'd passed earlier and looked for a Med-kit.
"There's a med-kit under the sink." She told him.
Riddick nodded and grabbed it. He then stuck his head out of the door and looked around for Jack.
"Jack. Come here and help me with this." He called. Jack rounded the corner just as he'd finished the sentence and smiled at him.
"Alrighty." She went into the bathroom and made sure Shaen didn't move her arm from the position that Riddick had it in and also made sure that Shaen didn't pass out from the pain. "So Shaen…did you finish the hover board?" She asked, trying to keep her conscious.
"Yeah. It's in the blue 4x6 box in my backpack." Shaen said, not looking at Riddick, who was waiting until he was sure that she wasn't paying attention to her arm before removing the knife.
"Cool. Hey where are we going?" Jack asked now.
"Khrebet." Shaen replied. She gasped as Riddick pulled out the knife and her surroundings started to get fuzzy.
"Jack. Keep her with us." Riddick said as he hurried to staunch the bleeding of Shaen's arm. He wiped away the blood and applied the acid that would close the wound for now, before wrapping it with gauze. Then he cleaned up her hands, wrapped them too, and cleaned the blood from around her mouth. He finished and turned to Shaen.
"Shaen…are you okay?" He asked, not wanting her to pass out on them. He hadn't ever heard of Khrebet and wanted to make sure that it wasn't hostile.
"Just spiffy." She said softly and hopped off of the sink. She followed Jack and Riddick out of the bathroom and into the control room. "I suppose you want to know where Khrebet is."
"Not really. I don't care, just as long as it isn't hostile." Riddick said. Jack nodded in agreement.
"It's not hostile. In fact it's barely populated. Mostly just underground junkies that need to lay low or recuperate. Oh yeah, and there's some pretty cool shops there, apartments too. The works. All kept in a low profile. No mercs, police, or really anyone outside of the handful of underground junkies that live there, even know it exists." She explained. "So it's just dandy."