XVIII.

1/3

It was a silent crowd standing in front of George's ship bidding Hope good bye. George's ship was the only one available at the moment and Hope didn't look forward to climb into a cryo tube but since Riddick refused to talk to her she had no clue when he would be back and she was not up to wait for an indefinite time, she wanted to look for Taylor now.

She had scanned the ship, each centimeter of it and had found a locator beacon she intended to destroy on her way; she wanted who ever was monitoring it to think that George had left Furya. And she had found that long range com system George had mentioned. George had been a good engineer, that much she had to give him. What a pity that he had hid it from them and had used his skills to betray them.

Hope hugged everybody a last time; Rita, Tyr, Carlos and all the others, she had a few words for each of them. They'd had a debriefing the evening before, they would proceed without any problems until she or Riddick came back.

Aereon held Hope at arm's length "Hope, I'm worried. You have to find out why he didn't take your call. You know what's at stake; for you and the universe, you are the Furyan alpha female, you have to fulfill your obligations."

Hope raised a brow and flashed an angry glance at Kerry who had the decency to turn red. "I'm sorry, Hope, but you know how they are. Laney and she teamed up against me and they kept asking and drilling me and then I accidentally slipped a remark."

Hope wasn't really angry with Kerry; she knew sooner or later they'd find out. She focused her attention back to Aereon which still hadn't released her.

"Hope, I've warned you; you'll die if you don't rejoin Riddick."

Hope had enough; it wasn't her fault that he refused to talk to her. She wriggled out of Aereon's grip. "Fuck you, Elemental. I've never asked for that job, all I ever wanted was Riddick so stop blackmailing me. And stop rattling my people with stupid prophecies; maybe it is the best for all of us when you leave Furya. And this is not a suggestion."

She turned to Laney and was instantly sorry for her. "Laney, no need to cry. I won't die, I'll be fine; don't let yourself get worried by that drama queen. And I'll bring Taylor home. They need you as long as I'm away; you have to hold them together. I'm counting on you."

Laney had problems speaking but after a few deep breaths she even managed to put a smile on her face. "Hope, all our love is with you. Promise me you'll take care of you."

By now Hope was a bit teary herself "I promise, Laney. You take care of yourself and Furya, yes?"

Kerry accompanied her to the hatch; Hope had decided that she wouldn't take Kerry with her, they needed her on Furya and she didn't expect any problems with her brother she wouldn't be able to solve on her own.

"Hope, I want to give you something; it's from my grandma." Kerry held a necklace with a small silvery stone dangling down in the middle in her open palm. "It's important to have some good juju with you."

Hope shook her head. "Et tu, Kerry? I don't have any death cooties on me, I'd know that." she tried to lighten the mood. "That's really sweet of you, but not necessary. I don't believe in those prophecies."

Kerry thrust the necklace into Hope's hand. "Just humor me and take it, OK? You won't leave until it's around your neck. And you will not remove it."

Hope could see the true concern and worry in Kerry's eyes and didn't reject her gift any longer. "I'll bring it back to you."

After a last hug she quickly closed the hatch before Pooh could sneak in again; as much as she would have liked to take him with her a small space ship was no place for a hound.

The course was quickly set and the autopilot took over after leaving the Furyan system. She considered to hail Riddick again, to try it a last time but then she decided against it; it would be like rubbing salt in an open wound if he would refuse to talk to her again.

She didn't like cryo sleep any more than Riddick did, in fact each of them hated it; might be a Furyan thing. As soon as she came back she would start building a second ship like the Defiant; they really were in need of a second ship with a few more skills than those they currently had.

So she had decided to stay awake for a good part of the journey; she had enough rations with her and the ship's environmental systems wouldn't have any problems with a single passenger. She had brought some work with her and the first weeks passed by with working on the blueprints for shields that would protect the ship better than the polarized hull plating.

To her surprise she had more difficulties to cope with the silence than she would have thought. She had heard those stories about space travelers gone crazy after weeks of isolation and silence in space; she knew what that could do to someone's mind. She had the computer programmed to play all her favorite music and she had started to sing along but that didn't help. She didn't sleep well, was constantly exhausted and lost weight. When she started to look over her shoulder she decided that time had come for cryo sleep. The next morning she would clean up and make sure everything was working as it should, hail Furya a last time and then good night until Borean.

It was in that last night before cryo sleep when she had that dream of Riddick; not that she wouldn't constantly think or dream about him but that dream had been that real … she could still feel his hands on her. Unable to go back to sleep she recalled her dream; they once had been in a similar situation...

… They had barely started their search and everything was still so new for both of them. They had left Furya a few weeks ago and after an exhausting workout he had decided that she would need some more field training.

"You are still not aware of your surroundings and we have to change that. The workout here is good for strength, to learn moves and performance but you can't practice any other skills in here. You have to exercise what I've shown you on Furya."

"And you think a walk through the jungle would make me aware?" Hope was anything but thrilled about that idea. She could think of a lot of pleasurable things he had shown her on Furya but field training was none of it. 'Damn, Hope, get your head out of the gutter!'

"Babe!"

'Oh, fine, he is amused.' How she hated that smug smile of his. Why did he just always have to know what she was thinking?

"Babe, it's written all over your face! Apart from that you know that I can smell it."

'Cripes!' She really would have to work on that.

Riddick's smile broadened. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer "I wouldn't want to have it any other way." His kiss … as always … let her forget her anger about him for the moment.

And so they landed on that jungle planet. She didn't like what she found out about it: It never got colonized because of the unnatural fast growing of the plants; as soon as they had cleared an area it got overgrown again in no time and after a year of futile efforts the terraformers had abandoned the planet.

Riddick handed her a map of the area they would traverse, marks on the landing place and their destination.

"From here to there it's about 20 klicks, you can do that easily. Now, the rules of the game: you have to reach that lake and you have to find me without getting found by me."

"And what if a scary animal finds me?" She still didn't like the idea a bit.

"I assure you that I'm the scariest animal that will find you, so don't worry." And after a feral grin he added "or maybe you should just because … who knows?"

Hope was too grumpy to comment on that. "You know that nobody is able to find you when you are hiding." she whined.

"You ain't nobody; at least try!"

"I hate you, you know that?"

"Yeah, you've shown me last night. How often? I stopped counting at …"

Hope hit his chest and glared at him, her face beet red in embarrassment. "You are such a jerk! Maybe you should think about doing it yourself because I definitely… " Shit, big mistake! Completely forgotten about rule #2 'Don't tempt Riddick'.

Riddick just grinned "If that's one of your phantasies then I'll be happy to oblige, babe."

Maybe if she tried really hard she could hate him at least a bit.

"I will not eat bugs and caterpillars! I'll take those rations with me and don't you dare and try to take them away from me."

"You can take them. And now stop pouting, babe, I'll make it worth your while." He gave her a smoldering kiss and before she got rid of her dizziness he was gone.

'Shit, he really meant it.' He was out there with only his shivs and nothing else, absolutely confident that he wouldn't need anything else and she was absolutely positive that he was enjoying himself immensely.

He had made her leave her tricorder (*) and her PADD behind and that made her feel half naked. The only thing except of the field rations, the water and her shivs he had allowed her to use was that compass he had given her. 'Who in hell and at all still uses a compass?'

'It would be cheating to use your PADD' he had told her.

'Yeah! Just because of that little scanner. Cheating, my ass.' As if she would be an equal opponent for him.

She had a last longing glance at the ship and then turned to get herself going … and stopped amidst her step. Just a moment … the ship … he hadn't explicitly said she had to WALK through the jungle, she just had to REACH the lake; maybe she could … and then … Deep in thought chewing her bottom lip she hadn't heard him approach.

"Don't even think about it, Hope." Riddick's voice whispered in her ear. He laughed out loud when she shrieked and gasped for air.

"Damnit, Riddick, make some noise, will you! Some day you'll kill me with your sneaking up at me! "

"Babe, you need all the exercise you can get, don't you ever fool yourself thinking otherwise." He turned her around until she faced the jungle and with a pat on her butt he gave her a gentle shove. "Get moving."

After a step Hope stopped again. "I didn't say I wouldn't need it, all I said was I do not want... " she turned around … he had done it again … she was speaking to an empty place "… to. Jerk."


TBC in 2/3

(*) Tricorder … sophisticated handheld device … portable sensing, data analysis, data communications device with many specialized abilities