Valley of Death
Chapter Five : News Flash
Somewhere above the light-harvesting planet known as Helion Prime, a news net screen flickered to life within the darkness of the planet's night cycle. A dozen headlines immediately began scrolling across the display, all irrelevant to Riddick's shining silver eyes. It wasn't exactly breaking news to him that some shit hole planet along the outer rim was at war; there was always someone fighting somewhere. He was familiar with war, enough to know that it was something he wanted to stay far away from.
It was the first time he'd been back to this system in seven years, the third time in all his life, and it still looked and felt the same as he remembered. This time, like last time, he was here because of a message from the holy man, a message concerning Jack.
Always about her...seven fucking years and you can't stop thinking about her.
It was hard to admit but that girl had gotten to him. He'd always thought she was half-crazy, choosing him as her hero, but now that he thought about it the whole thing made perfect sense. She'd been a run away looking for someone to latch on to, someone who was strong enough to keep the bad shit she'd in her past hurt her again. The fact that she'd shaved her head to look like him still made him laugh and that look in her eyes made him stop.
Shouldn't have left New Mecca.
The first message had arrived a month after he'd left them both on New Mecca, he remembered it well because he'd been stitching up bad cut on his arm from a run-in with some cocky ass son-of-a-bitch merc near Chor. He still recalled how cold the air had gone when he'd read it and how furious he'd been with himself because damned if it wasn't his fault.
Jack had gone missing not even three days after he'd left and the holy man had put off sending a message to Riddick in hopes that she would turn up. But she never did and she had left all her things, all of which were still there, sitting in that unused room at the back hall of the holy man's house. At the time Riddick had been sure that this meant she was dead and he'd spent a long while trying to track down whoever had killed her.
But there was nothing to go on, no leads, no witnesses, and no dark alleys...not on Helion Prime.
At least until this new message had drawn him back here.
Riddick pulled up a week old news file and stared at the screen, reading it all over again, soaking in every detail.
Kartos System - Faction Report #314
Kartos Core Military reported last week the hijacking of one of their main transport ships from Verdan Spaceport, currently under Core control. Normally such an incident would not be of much concern, but General Markos of the Core claims the ship's computer contained valuable information. The ship and its pilot were recovered unharmed on Chor three days ago, however the hijacker was nowhere to be found, neither was the computer's memory chip. The Core is offering 500k reward for the return of the chip and the capture of the hijacker...
He stopped reading right then and pulled up one of the attached files, a rather clear still frame from the ship's onboard security camera system. It was bit odd that a transport ship would have a camera in the cockpit, but then again the whole situation was odd. But that single frame showed a familiar face, Jack's face, it had to be, no one else had such expressive eyes, angry and hurt as they appeared in that picture.
Those rage-full eyes reflected back the pain of a rough life, he knew because he'd seen that look many times before. Her hair had grown out long enough to be pulled back into a tangled mess of a ponytail. It was obvious she'd been through hell, there were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and as he stared at that picture one question kept running through his mind.
Damn Jack, where are you now?
Riddick had thought she might head back to New Mecca, as had the holy man. She hadn't shown up, which meant one of two things. Jack had either been killed or something else was going on.
He really hoped it was the latter.