Why am I shaking? What the hell is going on? Oww, my fucking arm hurts, alright alright I'll wake up.
Jo woke with a start; lights and sirens were going off around her. She was still in her cryo-tube, but they shouldn't be landing yet. She looked at the counter and there was still 22 weeks to go before they reached their destination. She looked at Riddick and he only smiled. She looked behind her and saw small pieces of rock shooting through the hull and other cryo-tubes opened up, she saw John's laying on the floor. She looked back at Riddick who was tensing himself, but still smiling at her.
"You are one creepy mother…"
She never got a chance to finish the sentence because they were thrown forward, the cryo-tube started falling face down, but Riddick pushed his body weight to one side. The front shattered and Jo fell on her side half way in the tube and half way out. She could feel shards of glass piercing through her side. What the fuck! Riddick strained his arms forward, and with what seemed to be little effort broke the chains holding him. He grabbed Jo's chains and yanked them from around his back breaking them too. He pulled her out of the wreckage of the glass, and laid her in the middle of the room covering her with his massive body. Pieces of scrap metal and debris were still shattering around the room. There was a sharp jump. Jo's head bounced off the metal floor. Let me die it would be better than this! She silently cursed to God.
Suddenly the back broke away, and Jo looked underneath Riddick's arm to see nothing but dust and never ending sand. She grunted when they finally hit ground and skidded to a stop. Jo would have been perfectly fine just laying right there until someone came and shot her for being out of her cell, but Riddick had other ideas. He grabbed her body and laid her back in the cryo-tube.
"Stay here"
"I'm not gonna go anywhere very fast"
Jo opened her eyes minimally, his goggles seemed to be staring at her before turning and running off. She laid back down and curled on her non glass covered side. Soon others in the ship were coming out of their cryo-tubes. A woman with long curly black hair leaned over her and started calling for help. Johns ran up and pushed the woman aside and grabbed Jo by her upper arms.
"Stand up!"
Jo struggled a minute then obliged the fucking persistent man. He lifted the side of her white prison shirt, and then led her over to a seat. He looked back at the cryo-tube. No Riddick. Johns stands and reached for his gun, its gone. Jo notices two pair of chained feet lower down behind his head. She shut her eyes and heard the startled gasp as Riddick caught Johns around the neck with his ankle restraints, Jo opened her eyes and saw Riddick holding on to the support beam, Johns was beating him with his baton, but was nearly out of oxygen so he leaned as far forward as he could and pulled Riddick from the support. Riddick slammed face-first into the floor and Johns brought the baton down on the back of his head.
"One chance and you blew it, Riddick. Never cease to disappoint me."
Johns turned back to Jo who was sitting wide eyed staring at the body of her only hope lying in a limp on the floor. Shit, guess feminine wiles trumps strength here. Jo turned to face Johns who was bent down looking at her sides. He pulled the big pieces of glass out and used some tweezers to get the little pieces out. He pulled her shirt off of her, since she was a stripper and actually wearing a sports bra, she could have cared less. He took the shirt and ripped it and turned it into a bandage. Once Jo was fixed he grabbed the end of the broken chain and carried it with him, as he tied Riddick to a bulkhead. He turned out of the cabin; Jo was still staring at Riddick. Johns pulled on her wrist chain and she turned toward him; but didn't fight when he pulled her with him.
"C'mon we gotta find out what happened"
Jo followed him out and they made their way to the flight deck, it seemed like no one was there, but then they heard a voice
"Hey"
Johns turned back into the cockpit, "Hey Who?"
"Hey me, over here"
Johns crawled over some dirt and found a woman buried to her neck in dirt.
"Amazing, I'm Johns"
"Caroline Fry, I'd shake hands… but"
Johns started to dig at the dirt surrounding Caroline; Jo leaned over and began pulling dirt away from the chair. Caroline was finally free, she turned and saw Jo then noticed the cuffs still on her wrists. Johns lifted up the other end of the chain and shook at Caroline.
"Don't worry I got her"
"There were two, wheres the other?"
"He's tied up in the cabin; he wasn't behaving like she is"
Jo reached out a hand toward Caroline. "Josi Parker"
Caroline hesitated but finally reached out and grasped her hand. They shook briefly then headed back into the main cabin; Caroline ran forward and started pulling debris away from one area. Finally she broke through and the dead body of one of the crew was found underneath. Caroline reached down to him when suddenly he screamed.
"Out, out, out, GET IT OUTTA ME!"
"Shit Owen!"
Caroline leaned in close to Owen and some of the other passengers gathered around, making suggestions as to what to do. The man had a large metal rod right threw his chest, and it was pretty close to his heart. Caroline put her hand around the bar and Owen began to scream again.
"Don't touch it! Don't touch that switch"
Caroline looked around at the stunned group.
"Get away everybody"
Johns herded everyone out, he grabbed one little boy by his collar and started pulling Jo and the boy along. With nothing else to do Jo looked down at the kid, he must have been around twelve. He was small though, and his cheeks weren't as defined as most boys. That's when she noticed the major point that gave the kid away. No Adams apple. Not even a hint at one, now Jo had been around plenty of Drag Queens, but she never really saw twelve year old girls that really wanted to be boys. She figured the kid had a perfectly good reason so she didn't mention it.
Johns pulled her outside with him and they passed by Riddick quickly, Jo could tell he was awake now. He probably wasn't to happy that he was tied up either, Jo put one hand behind her back and crossed her fingers hoping Riddick would remember their childhood way of saying 'she had a plan' his low growl proved he'd seen her.
Riddick had seen Jo's signal, but he couldn't wait around to see what her plan was. He needed to get out and scout the area to see what kind of trouble he was in now, or if would turn out to be his best means of escape. So as soon as everyone was out of sight Riddick saw his chance, he pushed himself up against the beam as high as he could then pulled his arms from behind him, dislocating his shoulders and pulling the chains through a broken section of the beam above him. As he popped his shoulders back in he fell forward grabbing a cutting torch hanging from above him as he went. He pulled his mouth bit out and grabbed some goggles that had fallen out of the tool box. He struck the torch against the metal to get it started then cut his wrist cuffs off. He snuck outside dropping the mouth bit in the sand a ways from the ship and then taking off over some dunes and heading in the other direction.
When they stepped out of the crash sight Jo noticed how un-godly bright it was, and then realized there were two suns. She looked around her at the other survivors. She saw the woman that had leaned over her cryo-tube; she was standing by a man, who Jo assumed was her husband. To her left were the Chrislams. There were four of them each facing a different direction since there was no way to tell which way was west or toward New Mecca. She was pulled again, and Johns jerked her behind some of the wreckage and into some shade, thank god.
Johns hooks her up to some metal pieces and squatted down next to her. He wasn't looking at her, so she tried to get his attention with some chit-chat.
"What happened?"
"Not sure, I'll find out later and let you know"
"OK"
"You know, you seem pretty calm about all this"
"I'm tired, I hurt… everywhere, I don't have enough energy to be worried"
Johns chuckled a little; he looked back up at her with a grin on his face. It was kinda cute, but he was still a merc. It made it easier though to play him when he was actually good looking, an asshole, but good looking none the less. The screaming inside the ship quieted down and Fry climbed out. Johns stood up and walked over to where a little group had formed. Jo took the time to lie down she still hurt badly and it was hard to breathe in this new atmosphere. She had been asleep for a while when the little kid that she had seen earlier walked to her and sat down in the sand right next to her. Cute kid not even scared.
"So little miss what's up"
The kid stared at her confused, "How did you know"
"Your neck, no Adams apple, I've seen a lot of cross dressers. It's easy for you to fool them…" Jo cocked her head in the direction of the group. "But me, I know who's a guy and who's a girl"
"Are you gonna tell them"
"Nope, you have your reasons you can tell them when you want"
"Why are you a prisoner? You don't seem scary"
"I killed three men"
The kid leaned back a little, Jo smiled a little…
"Don't worry kid; I did it because they raped my friend."
"They had it comin' then"
"Good Girl"
"Call me Jack"
"Jo"
They shook hands and then Johns walked back over and kicked some dirt at Jack.
"Scat kid"
Jack got up and slumped away, obviously not very apt to authority. I like that kid.
"We're losing water, so we're sending out a party to look for some. You're going with me. Ok"
Jo shrugged "Fine"
Johns un-cuffed her from the metal, and pulled the chains and cuffs off. He shook the cuffs in front of her face.
"I'm gonna leave these off. If you try to run I will shoot you. Understand?"
"Does it look like I have anywhere else I could go" She gestured to the surrounding landscape.
"Nope so you might want to stick close to me or you may die out there"
"Wow I have so many options" Jo rolled her eyes and started to follow behind Johns. Suddenly Caroline came running up to him from inside the ship.
"Johns we got a problem"
"What now?"
"Riddick's gone"
John pulled out his pistol and started running out toward a rise so he could see the land better. He grabbed Jo's hand and made her follow. He ran up to a shiny object in the ground and saw Riddick's mouth bit lying in the dirt. Johns picked it up and then threw it as far as he could.
"Like we needed another way to die"
Jo came up and stood next to Johns, also scanning the horizon. Then she saw Riddick, running into a pile of what looked like bones, she turned quickly back to Johns and hoped he hadn't notice, he didn't because he started running back to the ship. I'm gonna kill this fucker for running so much. Jo followed him back and he made everyone find any kind of weapon they could, everyone except Jo. What they didn't know was she wasn't worried about Riddick; it was the weird bone things that scared her.