Beastly Bonds
Chapter VIII
Thanks to these reviewers:
Iridescent Twilight – Your reviews are always long and this one was still just as good! Yes, I'm quite talented at evading questions, but like I said before, it really all depends on how long I drag this out. Hope you like it enough for me to do that.
NightmareWeaver – Well, I hope this chapter clears it up because in your last review you said something that well…never mind, you'll get it now I think. sadI wish I was named after a Greek deities…
Onto the story! Longer chapter than the last.
Hours later found Jack raging in her room, empty handed. She knew none of them slept, considering the amount of noise she was making. Just minutes before Meth had asked her a simple, inoffensive question and she had thrown a knife at his head. Luckily with all his training he ducked out of the way, only receiving a semi-deep scratch right above his ear. It only took seconds for them to leave, all heading towards the med bay.
"Tip, you gotta check on Jack." Litman said, ripping open the outer packaging of a antibacterial wipe. Tipner, not against this nickname, was threading a needle as Litman said this.
"The captain will survive. Let's stitch up Meth here and let her stew for a bit. Krent, he isn't losing too much blood is he?" He asked the tallest of the group. He leaned over Meth, who was knocked out on the surgical table, pressing some gauze to the side of his head.
"No, he isn't. I think it's almost stopped now." He replied, stepping back and bending down to dab it with a clean part of the cloth.
"Good, Litman, if you please." He gestured to the wound and Litman stepped forward and began to clean it carefully, making Meth moan quietly. "That's a good sign."
"But," Krent continued, now standing back. "Litman has a point. Something about this is really pissing her off. We didn't find a trace of anything either, she's going to beat us into a pulp."
"Now now, she may be mad but certainly not at you." Tipner gently corrected, taking Litman's place. He started the stitches with ease, his hands never shaking. "What do you think is really underneath that anger?"
Krent was confused for a moment and glanced over Tipner's bent back and caught Litman's just as confused stare. He shrugged and this left both of them at a loss.
"Let's see…imagine you were back in Crematoria. You're faced by two guards, who are there just to abuse you. You rage and roar at them, trying to itimidate them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."
"I don't see what this has to do with Jack, Tip." Litman interrupted, receiving a harsh command from Krent to shut up.
"Thank you, Krent. You see," he continued, finishing the stitches on Meth's head, "why would you suddenly want to inspire fear in the guards? What are you hiding?"
"Fear itself." Jack's cold voice came from the door, making all of them whip their head around and stare at her. "You're afraid of dying, like everyone else. You hide or change that fear into anger and hope to transfer that fear into them. An old method of defense."
She pushed herself off the open doorway, letting it hiss closed behind her. Walking forward, Litman moved out of the way as she approached the table. Tipner stepped back as well, completely done with his job. Jack rested one hand Meth's head and gently ran her hand down his head, looking like a relieved mother from far away.
"Jack, you must understand, I wasn't trying to undermine your-" Tipner started, still feeling that aura of rage around her.
"I know, Tip, I know. It was good of you to do that. He is right you know." She said, looking at Litman and Krent, who looked on warily.
"You're afraid?" Litman asked outright, sounding amazed. Krent smacked him on his arm with the back of his hand, glaring at him. This made Jack smile slightly.
"No need, Krent. Yes, to some extent I'm afraid. We have come so far. Two weeks until Caribi and suddenly some ship makes a move on us? I don't know who it was, I know they left something on this ship and I can't find it."
"I think you know who it was." Tipner commented, looking directly into her green eyes. They flashed with a mixture between hope and hate.
"You do?" Krent asked.
"It's just a guess."
"A good one at that. How much time did you spend directly next to him?" Tipner asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Who is this 'him'?" Litman demanded.
"You know very well how much time I spent with him. Still doesn't mean anything." Jack continued, ignoring the other man.
"Enough time to know his breathing patterns." Tipner shot back.
"STOP! WHO IS HIM!" Litman shouted, making Jack glare at him. Swallowing, he stepped back and moved behind Krent.
Jack looked down at Meth, who was deeply sleeping. She had been his age when she first arrived in Crematoria, maybe a little younger. Inexperienced, afraid but with the knowledge that she was never alone. To her Riddick has always been nearby, most likely because he had trained her to think, act and be like him. Sighing, Jack closed her eyes.
"To make a long story short, I was…trained by Riddick."
Silence took hold in the room, but emotions still ran amuck. Litman's eyes bulged out, completely surprised and taken back by this information. Krent looked fearful, as if he had another reason to regard her as a very good ally, but never someone to rub the wrong way.
"Riddick. As in the guy who escaped Butcher's Bay? The guy that is the universal mass mur-" Litman was cut off as Jack stormed towards him.
"Don't you ever fucking refer to him as that! You stupid," she backhanded him to the floor, "fucking," kicked him, but not enough to damage, "BASTARD!"
"Jack!" Tipner grabbed her wrist, but she flung him off. Stepping over Litman's form, she roughly grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him up, slamming him against the wall behind him.
"You fucking shit. He is more than you'll ever be and don't you ever fucking forget that." She hissed at him, dropping him to the floor.
Stepping back, she let out a long snarl before exiting the med bay. As the door closed behind her, Krent knelt and helped Litman up.
"Holy mother of pearl, I just said-"
"Too much. She is very sensitive about that topic. He saved her life more then once and apparently they became quite close. So you see now how it's no wonder that she survived in Crematoria and escaped it." Tipner supplied, helping Litman to a nearby chair that he gratefully sank into.
"So that ship, it was being piloted by Riddick?" Krent asked, leaning against the metal table where Meth still slept soundly, even after the small fight.
"It seems so. I believe he left a tracking device on this ship."
"That's just fucking peachy." Litman muttered, looking sourly around the room. "We've got one of the most-wanted convicts in the known universe on our ass."
"No, I don't think so." Krent replied, looking thoughtful. "If he and Jack are as close as we think, then is it too much to assume that he is just keeping watch on her? In all that time in Crematoria, she could've done nothing to offend him, so it's not like he is after us."
"Interesting theory. But what if it isn't Jack that he is looking for?" Tipner asked, making the two other men pale.
"I ain't done shit to him, hell, I've never even met the guy." Litman quickly denied this.
"Even if that was true my idea still works." Krent argued.
"How so?"
"Well, if he is 'after' us, it could just be to make sure that Jack is safe. He knows as well as anyone else here does that in this situation, many greedy men would just try to kill or overthrow Jack and take off. He could be watching us to make sure Jack is safe."
"I believe you're entirely correct. But now, what if it isn't even Riddick to start with?" Tipner asked the room, glancing at Meth as he moved in his sleep.
"Then we're fucking screwed." Litman growled out.
---#---
Jack paced the length of the cockpit, not taking notice of Neunzhen's blue silvery eyes following her. She hadn't meant to go after Litman like that, but how dare he insult and stereotype Riddick like that?
Then again, no one can really 'stereotype' Riddick.
"True." Jack mumbled, replying to her thoughts. Throwing herself into her chair, she moodily grumbled, watching the screens. Two weeks. She should get started on changing the ID's of the crew. Settling herself in for a while, she idly began to create the fake IDs.
Tipner and Litman left Krent to watch over Meth, who was still peacefully sleeping, completely unaware of the happenings around him. Peace had taken hold on the ship, even Jack had calmed down considerably.
Blue eyes came into focus, blinking slowly, the sleep breaking and cracking, hurting momentarily. A dark figure loomed above him and he recognized it as Krent. Meth struggled to sit, helped by a pair of large warm hands on his back, holding him up. Moaning, he raised his hand to skim the side of his head, where it felt like a burning poker had been viciously speared into.
"Unngh…Krent?" Meth mumbled, throwing his legs over the side of the table. He then realized he was shirtless but it didn't bother him. As he moved to get off the table, one hand disappeared and then reappeared on his stomach, pushing him back. Even at full strength he wouldn't have been able to resist it.
"I'm here. Stay. Do you want painkillers?" His warm voice was gentle yet commanding.
"No, no, I'll do what Jack told me. Work through the pain." He replied, looking up into a pair of eyes that held suspicion and denial. "Seriously, I'll be fine."
"Emphasis on will be fine." And suddenly he smirked. Krent's eyes, a darker shade of blue, glittered with mirth and mockery.
"What? Spit it out! What the hell is so funny about this?" Meth began to yell and Krent stopped chuckling and ran a hand over Meth's hair, which was shoulder length. Well, almost all of his hair. Meth felt one of the older man's fingers come into direct contact with his scalp and he jumped.
"Fuck, you shaved my head." He mumbled, feeling incredibly stupid.
"Want to shave the rest of it?" Krent asked, moving towards the air-sealed cabinets.
"Yeah, guess so." He replied, watching his back move. Meth wondered if he would ever be so well built as this man was, every muscle worked to perfection, easily moving in sync with the others connected to it. His eyes lingered on his lower back, where the fitted shirt folded and twisted with the muscles in action.
"Alright," Krent said, turning around.
He did his best to ignore the spreading blush across the younger man's face.
"I'll do it for you." He added quickly, moving forward and placing the electric razor on one side of Meth while watching him bow his head in a sort of embarrassment. He smiled briefly and ruffled the long hair in front of him. Meth glanced up and with a nod, turned around and waited for the other man to start. With the electric growl and whirr, the small razor started up. Krent worked quickly and thoroughly, not missing a spot with anything. Soon there was a fine fuzz over the boy's scalp and Meth opened his eyes, finding Krent picking up the hair and dropping it into the sanitary incinerator.
"Thanks." Meth said quietly, moving off the table. "Uh, Krent?" He asked, glancing towards the doorway. The man straightened his back and made his attention known with a patient stare.
"Look, I was just…er…wondering that when you…I mean if you want…well, you see-" He was cut off by the intercom.
"This isn't an emergency, kids. Get your asses up to the cockpit. We've got ID's to finish up." Jack's voice ordered from the ceiling.
Before Krent could open his mouth Meth was out the door and down the hallway. Shrugging, he made his slow way out of the med bay, fixing a chair's place before leaving.
When he arrived in the cockpit, Litman and Tipner were already there, arguing something over Jack's head. Neunzhen sat at her feet, eyes alert and watching. Meth was leaning against the wall near Litman, whose voice began to rise.
"That's enough." Jack's voice evenly cut through their banter and they quieted. In the beginning of the trip it would've taken threats of castration to make them shut up, but they were better now. "Now, I didn't want to make names for you, since I would probably pick awful names. So, take a minute each of you to come up with your own names. Now, before you start, I'm making this so that Krent and Meth are brothers, Tipner is Litman's father that he is taking on a nice vacation and I'm just a free single woman. Complaints?"
All four voices started and she continued to talk.
"Good." They were quiet now. "So, in pairs feel free to decide the last names."
"What about you?" Litman asked, glaring at Tipner who leveled a mean glare back. "Captain Jack with her trusty first mate, Neunzhen?"
"I am Captain Jack regardless, but I'm pulling the full name out to Jacqueline and working on the last name. Neunzhen will stay Neunzhen and he is my companion." She replied, turning her chair back around to face the screens.
In exactly a minute she demanded the names from everyone, amused by some of their choices. Entering on the screen it followed as such:
Leonardo Conti – younger brother of:
Antonio Conti
Neil Buckner – son of:
Theodore Buckner
Jacqueline Laurent – Captain, without familial relatives,
with companion of Neunzhen, a hellhound adopted in the Helion System
"So I want us to use these names all the time. If there is an emergency and you slip, that's fine. It most likely means we can't stay there anyway, so new ID's would have to be made again. Leo?"
Meth stepped forward. "Here."
"Tony?"
Krent stepped forward.
"Neil?" She asked with a snicker.
Litman stepped forward with an insulted look.
"Theodore? Would you like to referred to as Theo? Father Theo? Grandpa Theo? Mr. Buckner? Buckner Senior?" She joked, grinning as Tipner stepped forward.
"Mr. Bucker to you, Captain…what is it? Laurent?" He mocked back, earning a glare from Jack.
"In the beginning we all go by our full names and you must refer to me as Captain Laurent. As time goes by I will be more 'comfortable' with you all and you may call me Jacqueline. Never Jack. Feel free to nickname between your 'relatives', but be careful." She ordered, receiving nods from everyone.
"Captain Laurent?" Meth asked.
"Yes, Leonardo?"
"Neunzhen, if news gets out that we broke out of Crematoria, most people will be suspicious of a hellhound." He said, pointing at Neunzhen, who was receiving an ear scratch from Jack.
"I adopted Neunzhen and news doesn't get to Caribi fast. Nor do many people consider it important enough to receive such news. Like I said, Caribi has it's own justice system." She replied. "Alright. Two weeks, spend them as you wish. No training, though. I don't want you all to look like a perfected army when we arrive. Dismissed."
They all shuffled out, leaving Jack with Neunzhen. Sighing she faced the window and brought both hands up and propping her elbows on the control panels and holding her head there. It would only take them a few guesses.
My real name, Jacqueline Laurent. Becoming a captain in her position wouldn't of been that hard. Her family had never abused her, she had had a good childhood, with father and mother. Why did she run? It had never been her choice, she didn't want to run away but after those first few flights before flying on that doomed ship it had changed her.
Late one night she had heard voices shouting and she quietly slipped out of her bed. She passed her desk, filled normally with a teenager's personal effects. A laptop, schooldiscs, a few vid discs, speakers, a wallet and a few random articles of clothing that hadn't reached the hamper yet. Posters of old world favourite bands watched her from her walls, dressed in a green tank top and navy sweat pants, her school name running down the leg. Opening her door she didn't close it, not wanting to make noise. Her feet made small pad marks in the fuzzy rug as she made her way to her parent's room. Their door was opened, but the shouting was from downstairs, not there. Her father and mother loved each other deeply and would almost never argue.
Pushing the door open with her hand she peeked in to see her mother sleeping. Her father wasn't there and she climbed onto the high bed and crawled over to her mother's side, shaking her gently.
"Mom, mom, wake up!" She whispered, shaking her shoulder a little harder. Finally she rolled over and sat up, long brown hair falling down over her shoulders, hazel eyes hazy from sleep.
"Jackie? What's wrong?" She asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. Before she could reply a smashing of glass was heard downstairs.
"Mom, mom! Don't go down!" She said, watching her mother get out of bed and pull on a pair of discarded pants. They were loose and from when she was pregnant with Jack.
Sure enough another Laurent was on the way, a brother, only a few months along. Jack followed her mother, not wanting to leave her alone. They tiptoed down the stairs where from between the banisters they saw her father arguing with another man.
"Get out of my house! You just walk into my home, accusing me of killing your brother and expect me to fix it? Get out!" He yelled, his form overshadowing the other man.
Her father was no small geek. He had been in the military and had retired two years ago, when Jack turned ten. Now that a boy was on the way he threw himself into doing everything possible to keep them going strong. Yet his body was still in military form, the ability to fight just itching beneath his hands.
"In that war! You killed him! I know you did!" The other man shouted and Jack noticed he was crying. She felt that in a few minutes she might know what it felt like as well, losing a brother.
Her mother gasped softly when the hysterical man pulled a handgun, shakily pointing it in the direction of her husband. Both men heard it and looked for the source of it. Jack tugged on her mother's hand, wanting to go back upstairs, go back into bed and wake up to another normal day.
"Marie! Take Jackie and go! Now!" He commanded, but in a protective tone. "Hurry!"
"No bother! I'll get them too! You'll feel the pain when you're dead, watching your precious family die! You'll feel my pain!" The man yelled, pointing a gun at the stairs.
"Your problem is with me! Not with them!" Her father stepped forward and made a move to grab his wrist. The gun was directly pointed his forehead and suddenly Jack found herself being dragged up the stairs.
"Dad! Dad!" She shouted, grabbing onto the banister, struggling to see him. Her mother dragged her back as she saw the last glimpses of her father luring the man outside, closing the front door behind him with the automatic 'click' of the lock.
"Jackie! Pack your things! Bare necessities, we'll get more later! Hurry!" Her mother said, pushing her into her room. She was in shock – her father had basically sacrificed himself for them and she and her mother were going to run away. Just hours before they had eaten dinner together. They had music playing in the stereo and she and her father danced in the kitchen, much to her mother's amusement. She had laughed and giggled as she fell into her father's arms over and over again, tripping over her own feet.
"Hurry Jack!" Her mother's voice cut her memories, making her immediately pull a few things together and throwing them into a worn out knapsack. She pulled on the clothes she would be wearing a few weeks later on that ship piloted by Carolyn Fry. She met her mother at the top of the back stairs and they ran down together, holding hands the entire time. As they ran out the back door a gunshot echoed over the roof of their house.
Jack sat back in the leather seat, skipping over the memories of her mother being kidnapped in one of the ports, leaving her to her own devices. She hadn't even known if her father was dead until she looked it up a few days later on a public computer.
After all that she ended up here, a survivor of a hell planet who was trained by Richard B. Riddick, who had gotten thrown into one of the worst slams in the universe, broken out of it and now piloting her own ship.
Next chapter: Welcome to Caribi!