First and foremost, I want to take a moment to convey just how much I LOVE my reviewers. It makes my day to open my email and find review alerts. It means a lot to me that you all like this so much, I certainly didn't think it would ever get this good when I started. You guys are the driving force behind most of this story, –smooches- THANK YOU ALL! This is my longest chappy EVER! I hope everyone likes where this is going. I'm working hard to keep it believable and keep every one in character so questions and comments, praise and otherwise, are welcome!
Also, there is quite a bit of this chapter in italics. Those parts are dream sequences, not real life.
Disclaimer: The only things I own are the plot and the characters that aren't in the movies. The rest of it is all David Twohy.
Warning: There is some material in this chapter which some readers may find offensive, read carefully.
"Fucking mercs. They must've followed us!" Jonas grumbled, doing what he could to avoid the ship that was intent on slamming into them.
"MOVE!" Riddick hollered at Jonas as he charged to the front of the skiff.
"There's not time, they're trying to cripple us and drive us back to the planet. I can maneuver just fine, but I need ideas on how to shake 'em!" Jonas yelled back as their vessel was struck again. Riddick growled and took his place in the gunner's chair behind the pilot's seat. He didn't like sitting second seat to anyone, especially when his own life hung in the balance. Kyra sat in the co-pilot's seat and checked the spec screen for damage, finding one engine out.
"We've got an engine out, if we don't shake these guys were not gunna make it!" The merc ship came alongside the skiff and bashed into it again.
"They're not trying to kill us, they want us alive. That's why they haven't fired on us yet." Jonas was busy flipping switches and trying to restart the defunct engine without success.
"I can't get a clear shot!" Riddick yelled, "Keep this shit heap steady!" Riddick tried shooting again, but still couldn't hit the other ship and it came around behind them for another backend ramming.
"I have an idea! Everyone's strapped in, right?" Jonas looked over his shoulder at Riddick, "When I give the mark, start shooting, ok big man?" Riddick nodded having a clear idea of what Jonas had in mind. Jonas waited a moment until he felt the merc ship was close enough then cut the engine and inverted the skiff. "NOW!"
Riddick started shooting just as the merc ship flew under them and it ran straight into the fire, exploding in their faces and blasting the little skiff with shrapnel. Suddenly an alarm sounded and Kyra checked the spec screen.
"Shit! A piece went through the hull of the cargo hold!" Kyra was yelling over the hiss of their cabin pressure escaping. Jonas righted the skiff and managed to lower the access door and closed off the cargo hold before they lost too much pressure. They all breathed a small sigh of relief, though they were far from out of the woods.
"Is everyone alright?" Jonas asked. Kyra nodded to him shakily then looked back at Riddick who was smiling.
"What the fuck are you so smiley for? We were just almost killed!" Kyra asked astonished.
"Just a little impressed, that's all. I wouldn't have thought you had balls like that, Jonas." Jonas smiled briefly, "However, next time, move or I'll move you myself." Riddick added with only minor threatening. Jonas still chose to take it as a compliment.
"You learn a few things as a dumbass rookie merc." Jonas beamed for a second, then got back to the problem at hand, "Now what do we do? We're all highly wanted, we have a hole in our ship and only one engine. Any ideas?" There was only silence. Kyra checked the galaxy map.
"All of the closer planets are going to be crawling with mercs, since we got Mr. Big-ass Payday over here." Kyra said pessimistically nodding in Riddick's direction.
"We should split up," came Riddick's voice. Kyra spun her head around to face him so fast she almost gave herself whiplash.
"What the fuck is it with you and splitting up? Splitting up is the LAST fucking thing we should do! We've done pretty damn good together so far, so we should keep it that way!" Kyra yelled. Riddick went to interrupt but she kept going, "Shut up! Splitting up is the worst fucking idea EVER! Let me clarify for you, WE'RE NOT SPLITTING UP ASSHOLE!"
Kyra stared at him deadpan, and Jonas stared at her with wonder. It seemed to him that yelling at a convicted murderer and calling him names was the worst idea ever, but maybe he was wrong, since said murderer only grinned at her.
"Well, kid, if you can come up with something better…" Now he was just trying to piss her off and was doing a damn good job. Jonas could almost see the sparks flying between them as they stared each other down.
"We can make it back to Helion Prime," Kyra suggested through clenched teeth, wondering at the same time how she had ever kissed this stupid, arrogant, pain in the ass. Riddick scoffed at her.
"You think they won't track us back there? Besides, you've done enough to Imam and his family."
"Me! Goddammit I-"
"Look, there's no reason to get all unpleasant about this," Jonas spoke up to cut the tension, "I have an idea if anyone's interested, and it may not be a very good one but …" Slowly they looked from each other to Jonas.
"I have contacts on Ajilon still. Haven't been back in a while, but I know they're still there. It's a long ways away I know, but if we can get there we can lay low for a while, get our ship fixed, figure things out." Jonas looked between Kyra and Riddick expectantly. They each thought for a moment.
"How do we get there with only one engine?" Kyra asked, trying to shoot holes in his plan.
"I can probably jerry rig the other engine so at least it will work for a while, we'll just have to go slow. It'll take longer, but we can do it if we stay off the beaten path."
"How much longer?" Riddick asked. Jonas called up the system map on his screen and did a few calculations.
"I figure we can make it in seventeen weeks give or take a few days."
"What the fuck are we going do for seventeen weeks!" Kyra yelled. Jonas looked back at the older model cryosleep stations toward the back of the skiff.
"You can't be FUCKING serious!" Kyra yelled, "I've already had my life ruined by one crash in cryosleep, I don't fucking think so!" She unbuckled herself and began pacing anxiously.
"We won't crash because I'll stay awake. Cryosleep doesn't affect me. My physiology is too different. I can stick out four months by myself. I've done it before, and if anything does happen I can wake you guys up." Kyra stopped and stared at Jonas, and Riddick began laughing darkly.
"You think we're going to sleep and leave you up and awake?" Riddick unbuckled and quickly stood, grabbing Jonas by the throat and lifting him out of his seat, slowly squeezing off his air. "How stupid do you think I am?" Riddick growled.
"Riddick…" Kyra started to interject, but the look Riddick shot her told her to shut her mouth, so that's what she did.
"What's going to stop you from taking us back to Toombs and collecting on our heads? 1.1mil is a lot of money." Riddick asked.
"Ack… I'm just… gasp… as wanted …hee… as you… ech … you'll have to … agh… trust me," Jonas choked out the words around Riddick's grip on his throat. Riddick thought on it for a moment while Jonas started to turn colors. Riddick pulled him closer, growling.
"I have shown trust to two people, one of those two is on this damn ship. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't jettison you out into space." He dropped Jonas who began violently coughing and gasping for air. He caught his breath and rubbed at his throat. 'That's going to leave a mark,' he thought.
"Because I consider you and Kyra my friends. Why else would I have come back for you two at Toombs'? I could have easily made an escape, but I didn't. I don't turn my back on friends, haven't had enough to risk losing any of them."
Riddick thought on it. Up until now there really had been no such word as 'friend' for him. Imam was the closest he'd come, and that was only because he wouldn't give up on him. Kyra was something entirely different. 'Look at it like this,' he thought to himself, 'Cryosleep doesn't really affect you either, if anything goes wrong you can always kill him later.' His logic was undeniable.
Kyra agreed after a lot of convincing and she went under quickly. But Riddick's plan backfired in this face and though he fought it with everything in him, he eventually succumbed as well.
Riddick:
He was cold, shivering and naked and covered with afterbirth, but he was being hugged close to something warm and soft. A woman. His mother. She was hurrying through the streets with him clutched as tightly to her as she could manage without crushing him.
"I can't let them kill you, oh God help me, they can't take you from me." She was desperate and crying. He heard angry voices behind them and the woman began to run faster. Then she stopped.
He was jostled, and suddenly the warmth was gone and he was surrounded by cold darkness. He heard shouting and a woman screaming and he waited for the warmth to return, but it never did. He felt so alone he didn't even bother howling like a newborn should. He was unwanted, unloved. He just lay quietly in the trash bin with the rest of the shit waiting to die. But fate had another notion.
Suddenly something sparked in him; instinct. The pure, powerful, animalistic instinct to survive. He screamed out once, then again and again until someone found him. They took him and cared for him and taught him to trust. There were gentle touches and voices cooing at him. He was wanted now. He got to play, and eat, and found out what life was supposed to be. He could have had a happy life. It was a cruel thought.
Then one day, his trust was broken and he was sold, traded for drugs and from then on there was no such thing as love. Shortly after he learned to kill.
He felt himself trying to swim blindly to something, anything that would keep him afloat. He was too heavy and was sinking in the thick liquid. He was going to drown soon if he didn't get out. The liquid sloshed into his mouth and it tasted metallic, almost coppery. He was weary and beginning to lose hope, resigning to the fact that he was indeed going to die. He reached out hopelessly one more time and was surprised when he felt something hard hit his hand. He felt it with the other hand and pulled himself to it. He crawled up onto it and opened his eyes. He was bathed in crimson. Blood. He'd been swimming in blood. It was all he could see, all over and all around him.
'No, NO!' He had to get it off. He started wiping at himself, but it wouldn't come off. It only smeared, staining him red. He began to tear at himself trying to get clean. Scratching, ripping, shredding his own skin. Soon his own blood mixed with the blood on him and he felt different. He looked over into the liquid below and saw his reflection was still that of a boy, but his eyes had changed into something else. He felt wild, fierce like something had been released in him, something that never should have been.
Kyra:
She was cowering frightened of the man above her who was swinging a wooden cane menacingly in his right hand. His face was twisted in anger, and she scooted deeper into the corner. She didn't recognize the man, but she had the feeling that she was supposed to be able to feel safe in his presence. This was far from safe. He teetered to one side, then to the other. He was drunk. Looking through his legs she saw something broken on the floor, a cookie jar. Kyra looked down at her hands and found them to be very small, she was very small.
"You've been a very naughty girl and naughty girls need to be punished." His voice was dark and slurred by the booze. He smiled cruelly down at her as he brought the cane back over his shoulder. Kyra closed her eyes, awaiting the blow that was to come. This, too, was familiar.
Suddenly she heard a loud 'bang' followed by a spray of something wet and sticky all over her tiny face and hands. She opened her eyes to see the man on his knees in front of her, a stricken look on his face and a gaping hole in his forehead. Kyra looked down and began to shake violently as she was covered with blood and globs of gray matter and little shards of bone. The man dropped to the side, revealing a shaking woman behind him holding a shotgun. With wild eyes the woman looked at Kyra, dropping the gun and swooping down to pick her up. The woman whispered to her frantically.
"He's gone, he's gone, he'll never hurt us again, he's gone baby, let's get you cleaned up, huh? Shhh, don't cry baby, it's ok now, he's gone."
The woman bathed her hastily, the tiny bone pieces scratching her skin and the water turning pink around her feet in the shower. She got Kyra redressed in clean pants and a clean shirt. Suddenly the woman went still, listening intently. Her eyes went wide, and when Kyra listened too she could hear sirens coming closer. The woman grabbed her face and forced her to look into her eyes.
"Ok baby, I need you to listen to me very closely. Mommy has to go away for a while, so I want you to hide. Hide until you don't hear anyone in the house, then go out and find someone who will love you as much as I do." Kyra began crying, and her mother kissed her forehead and hurried her into a crawlspace in the floor of a closet.
"Shhh, you have to be very quiet and brave for me, ok little one? Shhh, here's your favorite bear, shh, don't cry, I'll find you someday, I promise." That was the last time she ever saw her mother, and the first of many empty promises in her life.
Riddick:
He began to run through visions of his own life. Like a vile Midas, everything he touched turned to ash and faded away. All his memories turned to a stone cold armor around him, keeping him safe and alive. He couldn't be caged, even if he went to slam, they couldn't close him in. He cut fence every time. He was all animal now, like a jaguar trapped in a man's body. Only worse. He was conscious and calculating. He was an animal aware of his place in the world, knowing he was at the top in the grand scheme of things, knowing the lives around him could be at his disposal if he so desired.
Suddenly, he was back on that hellish planet again, face to face with one of those wretched creatures. He stared into its eyes, and for the first time ever he found coldness and menacing that closely mirrored his own. It drove a stake through his icy heart to think that he was anything like these… things. Unfeeling, deadened, just going through the world feeding on one life after another. He heard an echo of Carolyn's voice around him:
"There must be some part of you that wants to rejoin the human race."
Then he saw Jack's face, the look in her eyes when he had come back for her and Imam. It was a look of hope, of knowing that everything was going to be okay, even though he himself wasn't sure. A child's naiveté in a woman's eyes.
Now he heard the sweet sound of tiny bells, and when he turned toward the sound he found himself in a large hallway. He looked around bewildered. He felt something slither into his hand and looked to see himself as a small boy, bright hazel eyes smiling up at him with amusement. He wore a white suit accented with golden dangles and bells.
"She's here, come with me." The boy whispered. He led him quickly down hallway after hallway until they reached a doorway, and then he disappeared. Riddick walked closer, moving into the doorway he had to take a step back and he held his breath from what he saw. Instead of a room, it was simply an abyss, a void where walls and ceiling and floor should have been. It was the loneliest feeling place in the world. There was another door across the room from him, he noticed. A figure appeared, it was Kyra.
Kyra:
She felt a rocking sensation now, and she opened her eyes to see that she was on a tiny boat. She looked around seeing only clouds and fog. The water around her was so still and black it was like looking into an obsidian mirror. She started to hear words and pulled her knees up to her chest trying to comfort herself.
"Oooh, look at that little slice. How much for her?" An older man's voice. "Come here, little one, it'll only hurt for a minute." Wicked laughter.
"You little whore, I'll show you to take my hospitality for granted." This time a woman, one who had slaved her out to any paying customer.
"You're such an ugly little shit, no wonder your parents didn't want you." One of her foster mothers now.
"Look at the new little bitch, let's show her what happens to little bitches in here." A girl she used to room with in the group home. More wicked laughter.
"Did you run away from your parents or did they run away from you?" That chickenshit bastard Paris from the Hunter-Gratzner. Kyra covered her ears trying to block out the sounds and words around her.
Suddenly she was trapped beneath the shield again. One of those creatures was on top trying to break its way through to her. 'This is the end, my only friend,' she thought of a song she'd heard once. Suddenly the weight lifted, she heard the creature screech, then the snap of bone. She looked up and found Riddick standing over the thing. He turned his head to her.
"Did not know who he was fuckin' with."
She got up and to her surprise she was standing in the middle of a large hallway and Riddick was gone. 'What the fuck?' she wondered. She heard the sound of little bells and she looked up. She was staring into the bright laughing green eyes of herself as a small child. She was dressed in a beautiful white dress accented with tiny golden dangles and bells so that she jingled delicately when she moved.
"Follow me, he's this way." The little girl whispered and ran away. Kyra ran after her down the hall, following the sound. She turned a corner, then another. Kyra followed until they reached a doorway and the girl disappeared. She stepped to the door and found nothing. Really, there was nothing beyond the door, no ceiling or floor or walls, just… nothing. A void in space itself it seemed like. However when she looked up she saw another door across from her, and in it stood Riddick.
They stared at each other across the abyss, and though he looked on her expressionlessly, she was unafraid. Her eyes shone with defiance, daring him to believe in her and love her. She saw the animal in him and did not care, which was something he'd never come across. She saw the hurt and the pain and the anger and simply took no heed.
His eyes softened and began to fill with warmth she'd never seen before. He had never felt anything like it. He could feel the animal in him being soothed by her, not tamed, just contented. Only she could make him feel this way. She made him…feel.
This truth of feeling radiated from him suddenly and she felt it wash over her like warm waves from an ocean. As though by some unspoken agreement, they both backed up as far as they could go then ran forward, launching into the abyss toward each other. They grappled onto each other, once again locking eyes. There was no fear, only love and understanding. They fell…
Kyra blinked, then blinked again, hardly able to make her eyes focus. She felt drugged. She blinked again, and a voice filled her ears.
"Kyra? Hey, you okay?" It was Jonas. She looked toward his voice and through the haze around her eyes she saw him looking at her with concern.
"Wha… what the fuck?" She groaned. She was stiff, and achy. Then something hit her, "We're not in trouble are we?" she asked, quickly remembering the circumstances in which he was to awaken them. Jonas chuckled.
"Glad to see your memory's not faulty. No we're not in trouble, but we are almost to Ajilon." He moved out of her sight and she heard him flipping switches or something of the like. She tried to stand, but her legs failed her and she fell to the deck of the skiff.
"Careful there, you've been under for four months, you're gunna be a little shaky for a while. Just sit." Jonas helped her back up into her station. Just then she heard a groan from across the skiff. Riddick was coming to as well. Suddenly, she heard a clang and Jonas gasped in surprise. She looked up, able to focus better now, and saw Riddick standing with his hand around Jonas' throat pinning the man to the roof of the skiff. He was disoriented, his eyes were wild and she almost didn't recognize them. He caught Kyra's eyes and though he didn't seem to recognize her he released his grip on Jonas and fell back down into his station.
"Are you ok, Riddick?" Kyra asked him carefully. He said nothing.
He was dizzy and felt weak, which was a new feeling for him. He couldn't remember where he was or why he was there. He looked around anxiously, trying to identify his surroundings. He found Kyra's eyes again and everything came flooding back to him; New Mecca, the transport ship, Jonas, Toombs, the showers, the kiss, the dog fight with the merc ship and finally the feeling of being dragged down into his own consciousness, the cryosleep. It almost stole his breath away. Kyra's eyes were still filled with worry.
"I'm alright now," he said. Kyra looked at him skeptically, "Really."
"Ahem. Well glad to see you both slept well. Had good dreams I hope?" Piped Jonas. The two looked at him, then back at each other.
Kyra felt as though she was missing something important, something buried somewhere in her subconscious now. Something covered in a thin film she could almost see, but not. Riddick too felt he should remember something, but nothing would come past where the cryosleep needle had gone in his arm.
"I don't know if I had good dreams or not, I don't think I dreamt at all." Kyra said solemnly. Riddick nodded as well. Jonas just shrugged.
"Well, we've got about a week until we get there. Figured you guys could use the time to recoup." Jonas began filling them both in on all the little things they'd missed out on over the last four months. He was happy to have the company, since he'd been all alone for four months. Kyra and Riddick listened only half-heartedly, each trying to remember something from the dreams they were sure they'd had, something that nagged at them whenever they met the other's eyes.
(A/N: There will be more about what Jonas did with his time in the next chapter, so stay tuned!)
