Age of Nox
Chapter 11
And it continues…
If anyone would've asked him what he was doing, he probably could have only answered with: "I honest to fucking God don't know."
Yet Riddick was out of the atmosphere of the forest planet and starting to pull up anything he could on Toombs and on his little sidekick, Caliber. Many instincts told him it was her, it was Jack, but he had to check. Then again, how many times had his instincts been wrong?
He leaned back in his pilot's chair and breathed deeply. Did he truly want to find her? With him? That bastard had been chasing him half his life, or so it felt. So if he did see her, what would he do anyway? He suspected she detested him for just leaving her like that and whatever she did after he left was her choice, he just wished it wasn't as stupid as something like signing up with a merc. But it seemed the fates were against him. He chuckled to himself quietly, if in fact she were out of trouble and doing the right thing then he would be worrying much more than he was now.
Riddick was interrupted from his thoughts as a small beep brought him to reality. The outdated computer had brought up every existing fact and article on Toombs since after he had abandoned Jack. Hours passed as he continued to read, soaking in all the information.
When he finally finished, he sat back heavily and dragged his hand over his head.
"You've been busy, Jack."
"We can't look conspicuous, so hide your weapons, will ya?" He gestured at her holsters and obvious knives sitting in sheaths all over her body.
"Fine, if I'm doing that you gotta clean up. Wear clean civilian clothing. None of this vest and tape business, wear normal people clothes," she grinned at him. "And maybe…just clean up. You could start by taking a shower."
"And you could start by keeping your punk-ass little trap shut, Jack." He snapped back but she smiled at him again, unbuckling the belts. She was struggling with one that wasn't pulling out and her low growls became audible snarls as it wouldn't budge. "C'mere, babe."
With an offended snort she walked over to him and let him take a try at it. As his hands easily worked the worn leather belt, Jack did her best not to blush but it was hard. Really hard when he kneeled down and his breath was smoothing over her bare stomach. After a particularly vivid curse he pulled it loose and Jack had to swallow as he slid the belt off her hip and around behind her, his arms encircling her for a moment.
"There you go, not so hard." He held the belt out to her as she stood there, barely getting reaction time in as she took it from his hands. "You alright there, Jackie? Look a little feverish."
"Huh?" She glanced up at him and her eyes were locked with his. "Yeah…'m fine. Uh, I'm going…" she gestured to her clothes and he quickly backed away and mumbled a vague affirmative.
Jack nearly sprinted to the bedroom, double-checking the lock on the door before she sunk down onto the bed. What the hell was wrong with her? She had never froze up like that when he touched her, but suddenly it was twelve year old crushes all over again. Jack shook her head violently, this was not Riddick at all and the two were nothing alike.
A few minutes later she had changed and was laying on the bed, stretched out and calm. Her mind was traveling at a much more normal speed, wandering from what she should get Toombs for Christmas to what Imam was eating for dinner this very night, all the way on Helion Prime. She barely heard Toombs angrily ask her to unlock the door.
"My bad, Tums, was out of it for a second." She looked over at him as he came into their all-too-small bedroom.
"A second!" He turned from finding clean clothes for himself to look at her. "More like ten minutes!"
He tried not to linger on the bare skin Jack showed while stretched out on the bed. Truthfully, he wanted nothing more than to climb on there with her and just spend the rest of the day there. The question was, how would he spend all that time in bed?
"Tums!" Jack exclaimed, her foot shooting out from the bed and kicking him in the thigh. "Why the hell are you grinning like that? It's creepy!"
"Hm?" He looked down at her, her scowling and questioning face just making her even sexier. "Nothing you gotta worry about."
"Right. So, what's the plan?" She grabbed the pillow instinctively and pulled it against her stomach. He had never understood it and it pissed him off, there was only one pillow and she often just took it like that during the middle of the night.
"Well, cause some bossy bitch said so, I gotta take a shower and wear normal clothes, whatever the fuck that means. Then I'm going into port and seeing what sorta accommodations I can find." He summed it up as she glared at him, tossing the pillow at his face.
"In that case, I'm going to take a nap." She reached out for the pillow and without resisting, he gave it to her. "Have a good shower, know this is a sorta rare occasion for you, so wishing you the best."
"Shut it, Jack." He warned, taking his clothes and leaving the bedroom.
Only after she heard the shower turn did she let out a huge breath of air she had been holding in. Jack turned a few times before staring up at the ceiling.
"This tension has gotta go."
"That better be edible," he commented, glancing over her shoulder. Jack swatted him away and kept cooking, inwardly decided she would let Toombs try it before she did. Honestly, she wasn't a great cook and she wasn't even seventy percent sure this was edible.
"You'll get what you get." She turned around to see him lean back on the other half of the tiny kitchen counter. "How was the great outdoors?"
"Not so great. Cold as fuck. It's gonna snow soon, you got a snow…jacket? Coat? Cause you'll be needing it." He rummaged through the fridge and found a beer, opening it on the edge of the counter.
"I was asking for a little more than a weather report, Tums. Did you find a place for us to crash for a bit?" She turned back and kept cooking, figuring it wasn't too hard to screw up stew.
"Depends what you wanna pay and depends on where you want it. But I got a few places scouted out. Jack, in all seriousness, that doesn't even look remotely edible." He motioned with the top of his beer bottle to the pot Jack had been poking out with a spoon and adding spices every few minutes. She looked at it for a few minutes before glancing back at him.
"Get out the instant food?" She asked and chuckling, he pushed himself off the counter and went to the cabinets. Jack happily got rid of the questionable stew she had been making and took a noodle-bowl from Toombs.
They ate in near silence, both hungry. Jack finished hers first, as always. Toombs swore to himself it wasn't human the way she could put away food and alcohol and not even gain an ounce of weight. She was sipping at his beer when he finished, shivering every few seconds.
"I'm going to find out why the hell the heater isn't going on." She put down the bottle and left the kitchen, leaving Toombs slightly confused.
Between her tripping up earlier with the belt and her not so sociable mood now, he figured it out she was feeling the tension, too. But he hadn't been too smooth either, his voice had been completely caught in his throat when she did her best to sprint outta the main room. Damn, what a girl he could be, but the tension was killing him. Now it was up to one of them to break it. He hoped for once the luck was with him and she would do it.
He closed his eyes in the darkness, letting the ship float aimlessly in space. As he rested, his mind connected the past drop-offs, verified locations and news clips about Toombs and Caliber. After that last prisoner drop, they seemed to just hang for a bit then he lost track of them. He couldn't trace any pattern of them searching for their next bounty and he was having trouble figuring out where they went.
Clearly they were taking a rest. A holiday break, seeing how it was only a few weeks before Christmas. Riddick shook his head at that. Jack was behind that, there was no merc who stopped for Christmas, unless their next bounty was getting smashed on the Eve punch.
Almost no pictures had been taken of Caliber, he could only find ones of her in the distance, usually under the cover of shadow, or a hood. They hadn't been taking chances, both knew that they were a hefty piece of cred. He wondered what she would look like now, whether or not she had grown out her hair, if she had stayed in prime fighting condition. If she were traveling with Toombs, he highly doubted her language got any better – if anything it became worse and the two probably made the hardest of men wince with the language that came out of their mouths.
The next part of the puzzle was if they were just resting in space and then landing for a few days or had they already landed somewhere, looking for a nondescript area to stay safe and out of the media's eye.
Jack had been very good at that, she had told him all about the newest tricks of the media to get any sort of decent news. She must've talked a mile per minute on that small skiff, just wanting to talk. He had barely replied but that had never seemed to matter to her. At that point she had probably thought he was taking her with him and had no idea she was going to be left behind. But it took him by surprise just how fast she had gotten up and took off from Imam's home.
Why was he doing this again?
"Shit, we need to replace the heater wires that connect to the-" Jack was cut off by Toombs, who was already wearing extra layers.
"I don't give a fuck about the technical shit, just get what it needs and fix it." He wasn't enjoying the freezer-like quality his ship had taken on at all. While he didn't mind the cold, the frigid metal wasn't nearly close to being pleasant.
"Don't you dare snap at me!" Jack lashed back, nearly an ice cube herself after spending an hour or so under the control panel in the frosty dark. "Besides," she rubbed her bare arms, "I doubt any shops that could even replace this part are open at this time of night." She blew hot air into her hands, trying to gain some heat and wished for a fur blanket, one that would keep her eternally warm.
"So what are you going to do?" He asked, hoping there would be an answer. A positive one. In truth, he was expecting her to yell at him for being so self-centered about the whole problem.
"I can't do anything about this tonight." She was too tired to fight and just wanted to sleep the whole mess away. Jack glanced up at his still-expectant face and shook her head. "I mean it, Toombs, I can't do a thing about this right now. Not until I have that replacement part. Anyway," she moved past him, shivering. "If you're worried about your damn helkin freezing, you can stop because alcohol of that pure content won't freeze."
She kept walking, back into the bedroom, where she hoped to find something that would keep her warm. He followed her and leaned in the open door as she pulled on a long-sleeved shirt.
"No sweater?" He asked when she sat on the bed, rubbing her arms through the thin material.
"If it's this cold in here, it's colder outside and if I get too warm here and get used to it, when I go outside I'll freeze my ass off. So no, no sweater," she yawned. "Hey, I'm turning in, it's too cold to really do much of anything."
Toombs knew she was far from warm, her bluish fingertips giving him more than just a clue. He kicked off his boots, letting them fall next to Jack's orderly pair, and climbed into bed. Jack was undoing her hair, the rich smell close to intoxicating his senses. As she lay down, Toombs guided her so her back was facing him and she made no noise of protest when he pulled her flat against him. His arm lay over her waist and she reached for his hand, interlocking her fingers with his.
"G'night," she spoke to the darkness softly, squeezing his hand just a bit. He buried his face in her hair, mumbling his goodnight as he tightened his complete hold on her.
Toombs woke up to an empty bed, but he could still smell Jack all over the sheets and pillows. That and her body heat hadn't vanished completely from the small area she had been occupying. He sat up, groaning at his cramped muscles.
"Fucking freezer of a ship." He kicked the wall, his foot too numb to feel any immediate damage.
"We gotta get out of here and find that replacement part, that's for sure," Jack's voice startled him and he looked up, a small grin breaking when he took in her appearance. Hair still down, her clothes completely disheveled and her boots not even buckled.
"Damn fucking right we do," he reached for his boots, making room for her to sit next to him on the bed.
"Hey, made you coffee," she held a steaming partially open thermos of coffee in front of his face as he was bent over. He couldn't resist and quickly abandoned in the boots in favor of the scalding caffeine.
"Hm, thanks Jackie." He said after a few sips, noticing hers was empty. She leaned on his shoulder, a yawn being her reply to his gratitude.
"It's gonna be an icy world of piss-freezing cold out there." She finally stated, making Toombs nearly snort in his coffee. "How about I give you a piece of paper that has the name of the part, you get it and I stay here and try not to turn into an icicle?"
"You wish. Get your ass up, we gotta get some winter clothes too and I ain't picking out something for you." He drained the last of his coffee.
"You need to get me a Christmas present, so this could be good practice," Jack quickly replied, not entertaining the idea of being outside at all.
"And you need to get me one, too, so you need to get outside." She was fast, but he was faster.
"Fuck you, Tums." She hissed, standing and going through her small drawer of clothes, pulling out a sweater and vest. She rolled her eyes when he laughed at her and just put on her clothes, wanting to get this over with as fast as humanly possible.
Riddick tensed for a second when the landing legs bounced as they hit the ground, but relaxed when the ship eased into the weight and gravity.
He needed to refuel and get some food, so he had stopped a small residence port. The landing coordinator had been kind enough to tell them that they were experiencing heavy winter storms at the moment and there could be delays in taking off. That and to stay warm and out of the snow as much as possible. Riddick had resisted from replying: "Well, gee, thanks Mom."
Zipping up the heat-trapping vest and swinging a heavy hide-lined coat over his shoulders, Riddick did a double-check on his shivs before keying in the exit ramp code. He pulled the coat completely on before the burst of frosty wind hit him in the face.
Carefully pulling his goggles up, he surveyed the open hangar doors before closing the ramp behind him. He listened to it lock and then started his trek to the snowy outdoors. Food would definitely be first on the list.
As they exited the store, Jack flexed her fingers in her new gloves, her nails and a little more showing at the top. Kept her hands warm but the bulkiness wouldn't prevent her from using weapons…or working. Toombs followed behind, his previously gloved hands stuck deep within the pockets of the black duster. He watched Jack's form move easily in the snow, the leather ground-reaching coat flapping around with the wind. A memory, that coat. He mentally shuddered as the image of the bloody cuffs snapped into his mind.
"Hey, you wanna eat or go get that replacement part?" Her voice broke his thoughts and out of habit, he glanced around them. Nothing threatening.
"Whatever you want, sugar." He grinned and she raised an eyebrow, her arms crossed in front of her chest.
"Well, it's do you want to have the ship heated or do you want to let it get even colder and eat somewhere?" She could easily tell the answer. "So, replacement part is first."
They walked next to each other, passing a street of somewhat empty restaurants. A pub was on the corner and Jack inhaled the smell of beer and good, greasy food. But they kept walking, Toombs determined to get his ship as toaster-like as possible.
"Shame, though." Jack commented, not having to shout as the wind died down a bit.
"Shame? 'Bout what?" He scanned the street for the store. He narrowed his eyes as he couldn't find it at first – if that computer had lied to him he would have its hard drive torched.
"There was this pub back there, looked like it had great food." She replied, walking past a few doors and stopping at one. "It's right here."
"Saw it the entire time," he closed the distance between them and sent her a sidelong glare. "So get in and buy the damn thing already!" He gestured towards the shop and with a grin, Jack opened the door and without a sound, stepped in. Toombs waited for a second, feeling something was off. But the wind died down even lower and he lost it, so he followed Jack in.
Riddick looked up at the sign swinging in the wind. Looked like a pub. With beer. And hot food. Somehow able to walk in the snow without crunching it beneath his boots, he pushed open the door and was satisfied with the smoke-filled, shady pub.
He found a small booth in the back corner and slid across the torn and worn red leather, making sure he could survey the entirety of the small establishment. In a few minutes a waitress came over, slapped down a menu and waited for him to decide which took a total of ten seconds. After scribbling down his order she walked off, her heels clicking on the floor.
It would be good to stop and take a break from tracking Jack and her merc companion. His determination wasn't as strong as it would be tracking someone to kill. Riddick knew that he had screwed up royally when it came to leaving Jack back on Helion Prime with the holy man. That wasn't her world at all and the only thing she had wanted was his companionship. But he had been thinking in the extremes and decided it wasn't safe. Truly, he kept clear of mercs and police forces at least eighty percent of the time. She would have been safe with him and he could've trained her, taught her and kept her out of corruption's way. Of course he had assumed something would happen and she would be landed in a slam and be convict…he didn't even want to consider it.
He nodded in thanks for a drink that was set down in front of him and only heard the heels click away again, the swinging door whooshing back and forth after being bumped open by a hip. Riddick drank half of the pint and waited for his food, passing the time away by profiling the people in the pub. Most of them looked like they had been in some crime at one point or another, and no women except for well-dressed whores that followed a man about like a lapdog.
"Here ya go, mister." The waitress put down the plates of food he had ordered with a little wondering stare. She had seen men down food, but never a man with such good physique.
"Thank you," he replied gruffly.
"Welcome," she shrugged and walked away, slightly surprised that he had even thanked her. No one was that kind in this sort of place.
Riddick easily put away all the food and sat back, finishing his pint. There was some sort of information trade going on in the booth that was the second one from the corner. Staring into the liquid that he knew was amber-coloured, he listened.
"So, who landed here today?" One voice asked, sounding semi-interested.
"Private or public?" Another replied, his voice drawling and bored.
"Private, really I don't give a flying shit about public transports." Riddick could hear the clinking of a heavy watch against cuffs. This was a high-payer.
"A few family owned transports, none of them company people, just private. One police transport, came in with those new upgraded weapons. Must be some sort of underground thing, cause this is about as residential and non-crime as it gets." He didn't need to strain his ears to hear a few 'hm's as a finger went down a paper list of arrivals.
"This sounds pretty boring, I better be paying for something decent in the next few seconds." A clink of a glass and rattling of ice accompanied the statement.
"Ah, here is something." A squeak of chair legs being pushed forward in anticipation. "Merc ship landed, holding two mercs. And from the looks of this, these are mercs that aren't to be messed with. A background check is done on any merc who lands here and these are quite…famous. Heard of Toombs? Caliber?"
Riddick tensed.
"Heard of? They've wiped clean half my crew for over-system deals!" He exclaimed. "Alright, you've done your job. Take your creds and go."
"Same time next week?" Boot steps.
"Don't be late," the payer replied and one pair of footsteps departed while the other stayed unmoving. "We got ourselves an early Christmas present. Start setting up surveillance teams, I'll be back soon." Cell phone snapped shut.
Riddick waited until the man left before paying his own bill and putting on his coat. So the tracking was done, the two were on this port. This planet. A small grin just cracked his mouth. He was going to be doing some surveillance of his own.
Whew! Build-up chapter! No choices this time around but next chapter will be exciting. Thanks for everyone who has reviewed, you guys have been great.
-Sham