Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick Universe, although I wouldn't mind owning Riddick. I do not make any money this is purely or my own gratification and joy, and also for the gratification my readers all two of them.

MayDay

Chapter 4

By: CosmicGibby

"Who?" Jet asked

"Riddick. He's a killer, a beast. He's the most wanted man in Company territory." Randy explained further, "He's a Company Ranger who abandoned his post and turned serial killer. Riddick's escaped from a few maximum hold facilities."

"Where was he supposed to go? Who was taking him there? Why is he on The Explorer anyway?" Jet fired her questions at Randy as they formed in her head. "The Company must be shittin' in their pants that we have him and they don't." Jet took a couple of fries and shoved them in her mouth, moaning in ecstasy at the taste.

Randy looked at her with bewilderment in his eyes realizing how innocent this spunky, blonde must be. He shifted in his chair trying to get more comfortable and tried to focus on her questions. "Well…uh…yeah, the…uh Company is really mad and…um…I think he was being transported to uh…actually I'm not sure where." Randy looked away from the woman with grease smeared tantalizingly across the bridge of her nose and onto her left cheek, he was able to gain control of his words and his thoughts. "We weren't told where he was going we were just ordered to get him ready for transport. I think someone was picking him up. Did I answer all of your questions?" Randy looked at her face.

"I think you missed the one about why he was on The Explorer in the first place." She said.

"Ah, well, now that would be the interesting story. If I remember correctly he was being shipped on a transport shuttle. He killed the crew and took over the transport as soon as he slipped into our space we sent out a couple of fighters to take his ass down. When he slipped into our space he didn't ask for clearance and…"

"And it's our policy to shoot down anyone who doesn't have clearance." Jet finished. "Go on."

"A couple of our fighter's chased him into the atmosphere of one of the moons of Siala 5and shot his transport down. They chased him on the surface of the moon, but by then it was too late. He had already high tailed it into one of the fighters that was left by the pilots chasing him. He used the guns to kill two pilots while they were on the moon's surface and injured another who died in the infirmary. He blew up two grounded fighters the fourth pilot was able to lift off the ground before they were destroyed as well. There was a dogfight in the air, but in the end our pilot shot him down. In fact I think the fighter Riddick Hi-jacked is the one…you've been…assigned." Randy finished and looked searchingly into Jet's face for any sign of emotion. What he saw was puzzling; for the briefest second he saw amusement then he saw face become a blank look of passivity. If he hadn't been looking he would have missed her look of amusement.

"That is quite a story. It definitely explains why my fighter looks like it should have died in a war. My only question is how did he know how to pilot our fighters? I mean even if he has credentials as a pilot, the CSG fighters are completely different than anything the Company has ever produced." Jet explained, "Believe me, I know. We studied Company Engineering in a couple of my classes." Jet took her last bite of cake and licked the frosting off of her fork.

"You know I've never thought about that." Randy said realizing that maybe there might be more to this Riddick than just pure animal.

"Hey, Randy." Jet interrupted his thoughts, jolting Randy back to the present. "This was a real nice treat, but…ah…I got to get back to the fighter hangar. I need to finish fixing up my fighter. I'd like to do this again sometime; you know when things settle down?"

"Oh yeah, I totally understand. Maybe when I heal up I can take you rock climbing. Whaddya say?" Randy asked eagerly.

"That would be great." Jet stood up and picked up her tray. "Would you like me to get your tray for you?" She asked concerned.

"Hey there Jet!" Randy and Jet turned to look at the face of Lutar with a tray loaded down with two burgers, a plate of fries, a large water and two pieces of chocolate cake. "I missed eating with you two?" He asked disheartened.

"Hi, Lutar. How about next time Randy and I meet up for lunch we give you a call on your com. That be all right? I'm real busy what with fixing up my fighter and all. I need to get back and finish up for the day. I'll talk to you both later." Jet turned and walked away to turn in her now empty tray.

"Randy, you staying for a while?" Lutar asked looking at his friend's eyes follow the backside of the young lieutenant that just left.

"Yeah, sure man." Was the reply from an obviously occupied Randy.

Lutar grabbed Jet's vacant chair and sat down. "Hello? Report in Randy." Lutar joked waving his hand wildly in Randy's face.

Out of instinct Randy stated, "Captain Randen Branners reporting in." Snapped his face to attention, and cringed in pain. "Ow! Man that hurt! Have you no respect for the crippled?"

Lutar laughed out loud causing more than few people to turn their attention to see what was so funny. "Man, you should have seen your face. You went straight from far away and dreamy to worried that your superior officer might catch you doing something you're not supposed to. How many times have I told you Randy. Don't. Wear. Your. Thoughts. On. Your. Face! Your opponent will use that against you man. It's a weakness and they will exploit it."

"I know. I know. I was just thinking about…"

Lutar interrupted, "You were thinking about a certain blonde who likes this here's commissary's chocolate cake. Am I right?" He said, nudging Randy causing his face to flood with embarrassment.

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"Rayan are you sure? What do you mean we can't fix it?" Jet asked incredulously.

"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. That piece of shit is broke." Rayan pointed to Jet's fighter and took a breath, "Sometimes a thing gets broke and can't be fixed."

"Well, what about the spare parts. I was told there was plenty of everything, why don't we just replace it?" Jet offered.

"No honey, that's not what I meant. The mother board, it's code has been completely re-written. It's in a code that I ain't ever seen before."

"You shittin' me?" Rayan somberly shook her head in response to Jet's question, Jet continued on. "You're freaking out over a mother board? We can just replace the motherboard and then we'll be back in business."

The shaking of Rayan's head became more frantic, "Jet honey, on any other fighter with any other motherboard I would have agreed with you. Honestly I would have had it done before you came back from lunch, but with this new code it's re-written all of the systems. Basically it's made your fighter a little row boat without the rows."

"Well then let's replace all of the systems. It might take a little bit more time, but we can do it." Jet said emphatically. "No. What do you mean no?" Jet said as she saw Rayan shake her head in protest.

"Jet what I mean by no, is that I replaced a couple of the systems and as soon as I did the screwy code messed with it and rewrote the code on the newly installed system. I know what your thinking and I'm telling you it won't work." Rayan explained emphatically.

"Okay, 'Seer', what was I thinking?" Jet said with amusement

"Girl, your thinking if we tear out all of the systems at once and then hook upnew ones, we'll have gotten rid of the damned code." Rayan said confidently.

"Why won't that work? It's a great plan and totally out of the box!" Jet rationalized her idea.

"Jet, I get the feeling that the fucker who rewrote this code knew exactly what they were doing. This bird is never going to fly again, not unless who have some magical way of procuring an answer to breaking that code." Rayan said defeated. "This fucker knew just how to cripple your bird and make sure it would never fly again. We gotta tell Fiarand and ask him for another fighter."

Jet's head whipped up from inspecting a freshly covered hole. "No! No way! No the fuck way!" Jet stated with surprise and finality, then continued. "You go on ahead to lunch. You need a break. I'll take a look over everything so I can talk to Fiarand. Who knows, maybe he'll extend my due date!" She said softly with no hope in her voice.

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'Rayan was right. I've run every diagnostic; this thing is dead.' Jet hooked up her Personal Computing Console to the fighter's mainframe. "Oh! Fuck wank bugger shitting arse head and hole! Damn you!" She yelled.

"Is that really conduct becoming an Officer of the CSG?" Behind her came the voice of Commander Fiarand.

Jet jumped at his voice and turned around in an about-face; she saw her Commander and Rayan, their faces lit with amusement. Rayan looked as if she was losing a battle with her laughter.

"I…I'm ssor…sorry, sir." Jet stammered. Rayan burst into laughter, clutching her sides.

"Lieutenant, what was the need for such coarse language?" He questioned with a hint of laughter in his voice, "and what's this I hear from Rayan that your fighter will never fly again?" he asked pionting to her fighter.

"Well, actually sir I can answer both of those for you. There's a code that's imbedded into the systems of the fighter, not just the key systems, but all of them. It's unlike any code I've ever seen before and quite frankly I don't believe I can fix it. It's like a computer virus if I remove one system and replace it with a brand new one, the new system gets re-written by the code hidden in the other systems." Jet explained, pointing to her Personal Computing Console and showed them the code as it ran accross the viewing screen. "Look at my PCC, I hooked it up to the mainframe of my fighter to run some of my own diagnostics and to see if I could capture the code. Now my PCC is infected as well. It's useless, sir. I got it for gradutaing the Academy."

"Come with me Lieutenant." He said, turned, and walked towards his office.

Jet looked at Rayan questioningly. Rayan shrugged her shoulders and motioned with her hands for Jet to follow the Commander. Jet walked quickly to catch up with the Commander's long strides.

Jet stood in front of Commander Fiarand's desk as he sat down, pulled out a file and started fill out some forms.

"Sir?" She questioned, trying to read the name of the forms..

"Lieutenant, I am filling out requisition forms. You're a pilot in need of a ship, so I am requisitioning you a new one. You lost use of personal property due to fulfilling orders so I am also requisitioning you a new Personal Computing Console. Copy?" He informed her.

"Yes, Commander, what are my orders until we get a new fighter?" Jet asked

"I want you to reduce that bird to scrap metal. Anything that was connected to the infected systems must be thrown out then break the bird down to sheet metal..." He told her.

Jet stared at the wall thinking about her fighter and what Randy had said to her. Her eyes widened with realization as the pieces came together in her mind. "Sir," She interrupted. "I was told by Captain Branners that a prisoner had access to my fighter before he was captured."

"Riddick." Jet heard the commander say under his breath. He answered her, "That's correct lieutenant."

"Sir, I'm willing to bet that this prisoner is the one who installed these new codes into my fighter. I know CSG work and these codes are not it."

"So what, lieutenant. That doesn't change the fact that your fighter is inoperable and has to be reduced to scrap metal." He countered, continuing to fill out the requisition forms.

"Sir, if I could talk to him and find out what he did to the systems you wouldn't have to requisition a new fighter." She offered him.

"I'm sorry lieutenant, that's against regulations. I can't allow you to do that." He said hastily.

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"Randy! Randy!" Jet yelled, frantically banging her fist back and forth against Randy's door. "I need you to open up!"

Randy's door opened and he looked at Jet like she had grown a third head. "What's wrong?" He asked concerned that something terrible had happened.

Out of breath from running down the corridor she said, "I need you to get me in to talk to Riddick!"

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Thank everyone for your lovely reviews. You have no idea what they do for me, or maybe you do.

Amita4Ever: You're absolutely right about Rayan's attitude of "carpe diem", but you are right there is a difference between quick friends and fast friends! Thanx for your wonderful reviews and your help.

LisLuv05: Thank you for your praise on my writing, it's words like those that get a writer through the times when the muses take vacations.

Ohmigod: All I can tell you right now is that this will be a sort of pairing. I just can't tell you if it will be a Jet/Randy or a Jet/Riddick, maybe both!

Wolven Jedi: Thanx for all of your encouragement, I hope this next chapter measured up.

JacklynK: Welcome aboard! It's great to see new reviewers. Keep reviewin' and I'll keep writin'.

TIMELINE INFO: For all who want to know, I've placed these events to have taken place before Pitch Black.