A/N: Well, really sorry about the wait. RL really can grab a hold of you. Had a bit of falling out with my beta, so please let me know what you think. This is kinda long. (This and chapter 9 were written as one, I divided it because of the length.) I hope you all like it.
I do not own Riddick or Jack; I do own Rae, Melissa, and Thomas.
Please review. Again this has not been beta-d. Please be honest. If need be - rip me to shreds.
To my reviewers:
ElleloveMax85 Thank you and welcome. hugs
Social Control: Thanks for stopping by. Hope you like the next two chapters.
Jordayna: Thank you. Sorry it took so long to get this out.
Skabs: Hey! Well here's your answer I hope you like it.
Chapter 8.
The winds had picked up out of the north, giving motion to the hot, sticky, and stagnant air. Setting the last crate of the dark, dirt covered vegetables down on the palate; she slowly straightened her sore and aching body. Bringing her hands around and kneading her lower back, she eyed the vessel that had been tucked in the back. The charcoal gray ship took up nearly the rear half of the large hanger.
Pulling her bandanna out of her pocket, she wiped at the sweat that ran down her temples, neck, and chest. The sight of The Arisen made Rae Lynn grin. Remembering that first rush of adrenalin that made her want to learn everything she could about flying, so that she wouldn't kill them but also because she felt so free at the controls. It was as if she were untouchable.
Walking alongside the ship, she slid her hand along the smooth exterior, leaving a trail amongst the thin layer of dust that had settled upon its surface. Her hands slowly traced the white reflective lettering that was painted on the hull. The Arisen. How she missed the confines of its thick metal shell as it flew through space. She closed her eyes, picturing the sights of the stars in the distance, so close yet still so far away. Remembering the feel of the weight, as it would settle onto her chest when they would star jump. The slight shuffling of feet made her open her eyes and glance over her shoulder. There stood a very brooding Melissa.
Acting as if she hadn't noticed the woman's tension, Rae continued to glide her fingertips over the outer surface of the ship towards the keypad that would unlock and lower the ramp. Quickly punching in a code there was a click and a light but drawn-out hiss as the ramp slowly began to come down.
Taking a quick glance at Melissa, Rae started up the ramp before it finished descending.
"Lights, full." Rae announced. The lights had barely begun to flicker to life as she climbed the stairs.
Once the ramp reached the ground, Melissa slowly followed Rae onto the ship. She had to admit it was one the nicer cargo ships she had seen come to Litre. It was old, but was very well taken care of.
After climbing the stairwell, and walking the main corridor, it quickly opened up into the largest living-galley area Melissa had ever seen. Looking around she counted six doors, three to the left, two on the right, with the last directly in front of her. A full-size kitchen was also to the right. A table lined with six chairs was bolted off to the right. There was a large vid-screen on the wall to the left between two of the doors with shelves full of books and vids from Old Earth, and cases with little trinkets and picture frames upon the walls around the rest of the room. A large half-circle couch faced the vid-screen as if dividing the room in half, with a coffee table in front of it.Turning in her spot Melissa stood in wonderment of this ship and its contents.
The door directly in front of her slid open silently, and Rae emerged carrying a green case. She nodded once at Melissa, to both acknowledge her presence and ask her to sit on the couch. Melissa was a little apprehensive at first, but soon found her herself sitting on the edge of the worn couch cushions.
"Nice ship. Why the hell do you and Jackie live in that shit hole of an apartment, when you can stay here? This thing is huge." Melissa asked puzzled. She stood to have a better look at the ship.
Rae chuckled, setting the case on the floor by her feet, "I ask my self that every night. The things I do for my sister, I guess. She wanted to live like everyone else. That and she wanted to live somewhere that couldn't leave the ground, considering she's never lived anywhere other than this ship before."
Nodding understandingly and turning slowly to face Rae, Melissa figured now was the time. Time to know what it was the Rae was hiding. Clearing her throat, Melissa asked, "You remember when I punched that locker couple weeks ago?"
She slowly inspected her hand. Though the evidence was gone, she remembered how she had broken three of the bones on her hand and dislocated one of her fingers with that punch. Seemed like a good thing to do at the time. Turned out not to be one of the smartest things Melissa had ever done.
"Yeah. How could I forget? You tried to take me out with a cup and a clipboard." Rae said over her shoulder as she walked in the galley to the fridge unit and pulled some water out for the both of them.
"You wanna know what it was about? You never did ask. And I know I never did tell."
"I assumed it had something to do with Jeff." She stated walking back towards the couch.
Sadness flashed in Melissa's eyes at the mention of her brother Jeff. Slightly smirking at Rae she said, "You know me, don't ask-don't tell. But there's been something bothering me about it."
"Yeah? What's that?"
"You ever hear of a guy named Richard Riddick?" She asked, watching Rae closely
Rae let out a heavy sigh then cleared her throat. "Yeah actually I have. Read about him in the papers recently, and… " She was cut off by a frustrated Melissa.
"Just wondering if that's who you where chatting with Thomas about last night. I mean 'cause I know that Thomas knew him. Found that out yesterday. See I had a little heart to heart with him too, regarding 'Captain Riddick'." She spat sarcastically. "Turns out Thomas was his captain few years back… But I think you already knew that, huh?" Melissa rose off the couch and grabbed the bottle Rae held loosely in her hands.
"What the hell are you getting at? … Yeah I knew him, It was a long time ago." She stood firm and meet Melissa's gaze. The woman's nose flared and her jaw tensed.
Melissa stood there waiting for an explanation, but even she knew there would be none: at least not yet. She knew Rae was smart, Won't show her hand 'til all bets are on the table.
"Yeah well you're assumption about the locker thing being about Jeff? You were right. You remember what I had told you about how Jeff died?" Melissa asked, turning and walking toward the shelves, staring at them, but not really seeing them.
Rae nodded mostly to herself, "Stray bullet, wasn't it?" She said curtly, as she ran her hand through her hair and sat down heavily on the couch. Relieved that both of them were able to hold their tempers for now.
Melissa chuckled, and hung her head. "My brother was one of Riddicks soldiers. The bastard slit my brothers throat as he slept. Super nice guy, huh?"
Rae frowned, explains the diner. Jackie had told Rae what had happened. "Yeah" Rae agreed to Melissa sarcasm.
"Then you wanna explain to me why it is that your baby sister defends him? Says he's 'not a bad man'. Granted I know she's only seven, but it seems crazy to me that a child that age, after hearing what he's done, can think that of man like him?"
"You think I had something to do with what she said?" Rae asked defensively, again standing toe to toe with Melissa. You did, she thought silently. Shaking the thought from her head, she stood thinking of how she should answer. She felt bad that Melissa's brother died, apparently at the hands of Riddick. How could she tell her that Riddick saved their lives? How is she gonna react? Shit, this could get really ugly. She ran the palm of her hand lightly over the hilt of her knife that rested upon her hip as a reassurance.
Melissa watched Rae in silence; she noticed that the young woman's actions were deliberate and purposeful as she slowly knelt down at the coffee table
Rae set the case on the table in front of her and dug into her pocket pulling out a key ring with only one key on it. She had bought the case many years ago when Jackie learned to walk. She was afraid that Jackie would hurt herself. Rae drew in a deep breath and held it when she unlocked the case and saw the contents that it contained. There lay the weapons that were given to her to not only protect them but also, as she saw it, to give her the strength to continue. She had realized that they also helped her keep her sanity, which is another reason she bought the case – to protect the weapons themselves. It had been a long time since she had looked at them, but given her thoughts the past few days, she knew it was only a matter of time before she brought them out.
Slowly she ran her hands over the gun and the handkerchief covered goggles and even over the empty space where she would normally have kept her knife that Riddick had left in the satchel. She smiled warmly before she removed the gun from the snug foam mold that held it in place. After sliding the clip out of the case and into the gun, loading it., she laid it on the table. Melissa glared at Rae unsure of her intensions. Rae smirked inwardly at Melissa's more than apparent threatened reaction. Rae then pulled out and removed the black handkerchief that covered the night vision goggles, setting them down next to the gun. Closing the case, Rae set it on the floor and rocked back to sit on her butt, crossing her legs in front of her.
Rae sat playing with her pants leg as she started to speak soft and low. "When I was 12 and Jackie was only a week old, Riddick and hundreds of Company Rangers invaded the small planet that we lived on. Riddick and His lieutenant had broken into our home and killed our parents. He was given an order to shoot me, and leave Jackie alive to die a slow death because I laughed at the lieutenant." She paused; wondering how many more times was she going to have to tell this story. "And instead of killing me he killed the lieutenant. He saved me… to save Jackie. I told him, and this is where I'm having trouble understanding what it is he has done, I told him that we would always know he was a good man.' Rae lowered her head again feeling the strong gaze of the woman in front of her. Feeling defeated she huffed, "He probably doesn't even remember what he did for us. But I know I will never forget."
The hatred that Melissa had for Riddick still thrived and was steadily growing within her. She knew she had to at least acknowledge where it was that Rae and Jackie were coming from. What good the devil had done in his past though, had relatively no weight with what he has done in the present.
Rae saw that her story had done nothing to ebb the woman's hatred and anger. She really didn't think that it would have made much of an impact on Melissa's feelings, and honestly she didn't blame her. There was no act of kindness to counteract the cruelty. No good came from his actions on that day. Slowly Rae picked up the gun that lay on the table in front of them and run her hands down the barrel, caressing it as if it were a lover, lost in her thoughts.
Melissa cleared her throat and looked around the living-galley her eyes stopping on the goggles and the gun in Rae's hand.
With a small smile of remembrance on her face, Rae began again, "He gave me his gun and these goggles, and... " Sliding the knife from its sheath on her hip and glancing at her self in the polished metal. "This knife."
Melissa gasped. This knife that Rae had, could have been the knife the enforcers had announced as evidence at Riddicks' trial. It was about 6 inches in length from the tip to the hilt. It had thick leather that covered its three-inch long handle, and the slightly curved blade was well kept and she guessed extremely sharp.
"He had left me with just the goggles and gun at first, but the rangers had come back for the body of the lieutenant. He came back in the house and told me he found a way off of Appi for us, and to warn me about the salvagers and clean up crews the company uses to cover up things like that. The next morning, I found a satchel in back of our house with hundreds of credit chips, this knife and a note telling me about The Arisen.
"It, surprisingly enough, hadn't been ransacked too badly. And I somehow managed to understand the manual enough to fly it off of Appi and land on Damis. But not without incident, I bumped into this monster-sized frigate, didn't cause any real damage thank god. They were some scary people that ran that ship." Rae Shuddered with the thought of the pale soldiers. "We stayed on Damis long enough to refuel, re-stock and move on. We stayed on most planets long enough to make enough credits to pay for our supplies and fuel. I didn't like to stay in one place to long; to many people would start asking questions about our parents. And I would get paranoid that they would take Jackie from me. So we would stay in space, flying to nowhere in particular, or anywhere we wanted.
"Over the years I taught Jackie every thing that I could about flying. Trust me I got a lot better. When we landed here, Jackie asked about school, and I figured that since I didn't have to worry about anyone taking her from me, and I could only teach her what it was that I knew, I figured we could stay a little while. I think Litre is the only place we've stayed for more than a few weeks."
There was a long silence between them when Rae spoke. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry Jeff died like that. You can't possibly know just how sorry I feel about all of this."
Melissa shook her head, "Don't Rae. Don't beat yourself up. I'm not sorry I asked, don't you be sorry for telling."
There was another long pause. Melissa was the one to break the silence this time, "Have you guys ever been back to Appi?"
Rae shook her head as she drew her legs to her chest and rested her arms on her knees, "No. It's now a mining planet for the Company; they have their own communities and such there now. Thought about it a couple of times, but no. It would be like testing fate. Not really into doing that any time soon. I've got enough of my own history slapping me in the face these days."
The sound of heavy footsteps on the ramp, and then the stairs made Rae grab hold of the gun and rise to her knees. Every muscle in her body was tense and rigid.
"Rae! Melissa! Are you guys…" Thomas' voice trailed off as he made his way through the ship and found them both in the living area. Heaving a sigh of relief, he smiled warmly at both women. Thankful they hadn't killed each other.
"Thomas" Rae said as she released the breath that she had been holding. Relaxing, she ejected the clip out of the gun and went to put it back it its case.
"What do you have there?" Thomas asked unable to keep his curiosity from getting the better of him.
Rae smiled, but it was Melissa that answered. "I would say they were souvenirs. But useful souvenirs, not like those damn figurines you bring back from your vacations."
"They're statues, I'll have you know." He said as he waved his figure at Melissa, but quickly looking back at Rae. He looked at the night vision goggles as she rewrapped them in the handkerchief. Then spotted the knife on the table.
"Where'd you get the shiv, darlin'?" Rae looked at Thomas questioningly. "This." He said as he lifted it carefully from the table. "It's called a shiv. We were taught how to make them from practically anything, bone, rock, scrap metal. This is a very good one. Light. Durable." His lips curled into a small smile, his eyes almost glazing over as he flipped the shiv in the air, seized the handle and cut the air in front of him with a few flicks of his wrist.
Gently slicing the hair on his forearm with the edge of the blade, he continued, "And well kept I must say, clean and sharp. He give this to you?" he asked, his gaze shifting from one woman to the other hoping not to offend either for the further intrusion into their previously private conversation.
Rae nodded. She continued to pack the items into the case. She took the shiv from Thomas as he handed it back to her and placed it back upon her hip. She locked the case and stood to return the case back to the pilot room.
Melissa rose from the couch and stood at its foot as she looked at Rae. "Listen, I understand why you feel the way you do, Rae. Really I do. And hell, I can even respect that, but just know that there is really no way for me not to hate him. What he did…Let's just…" she trailed off; Her mind clearly racing.
"Agree to disagree?" Rae asked with a smirk.
"Sure, let's do that." Melissa said flatly, then turned and headed out of 'the Arisen'.
Thomas stood stunned. He really had anticipated there being at the very least a few thrown punches, but nothing. He found the lack of violence more disturbing then if they had pummeled one another.
Rae sensed Thomas' uneasiness regarding the situation, "Don't worry. Won't be turning my back on her anytime in the future." The door to the pilot room slid open silently, and Rae disappeared behind it as it slid shut.
Thomas' gut flipped as Rae made the comment, but knew she was right. The woman was a time bomb. The answer she gave Rae was all the evidence that was needed to prove it.