10. Silence and Speculations

The little skiff was made to dock and lock smoothly onto the larger frigate. It was perhaps the only craft capable of speeds greater than the heavier armored 'light' vessel. Frigates were fast and maneuverable, but the message runner exchanged armor and armament for big, 'silent' engines. It was too light, however, to surpass the velocity of the giant engines that powered the Basilica and her sister ships into FTL speeds, without being torn apart. It was meant to run errands during battle, dodging rather than fighting, not cross the open galaxy on it's own.

Fortunately, Riddick's purposeful destruction did not include ruining the port connection.

They didn't use any communications that might bleed over into other channels, and other ears. Riddick hunted the ship where it hid. It led them away, at first. Zemma didn't understand why until they had moved into the orbit of a gas giant's cluttered rings: more camouflage. They would just be more debris circling in the giant's barrage of radio static.

The runner turned and darted over the top of them. There was the slightest bump felt through the hull as it made contact. Riddick set the frigate to idle and watched the gauges a moment to be sure they were staying in their orbit. When he unbelted again Zemma followed suit.

"Let's go see what kind of mess we made back there."

Zemma thought he might also have meant 'back there on the Basilica,' but didn't comment. She picked up her dropped cards and started unzipping her en-suit.

In the main areas of the ship there wasn't much of a mess to speak of. Zemma kept the kitchen clean of the remains of their rations, and there was nothing really loose to fly about from the decompression. Some heavier items, like bed covers, had made their way into the hallway but no further in the brief moments it took to blow the air out. Gravity had kept the heavier items mostly in place. Zemma thought they were lucky; they should have prepared more, it could have been disastrous.

Riddick went ahead to meet Don, or whoever had followed them from the Basilica, while Zemma kicked things back into rooms and shut those doors. She didn't really have the energy to do more; the air outside the pilot's cabin was still rather thin. She stuffed her suit into the nearest locker.

She peeked in on Jack. There appeared to be nothing wrong with her cryo tube. Zemma debated letting the girl out now, or waiting for Riddick's order.

Order?

He might want to tell us something Jack doesn't know, or shouldn't know.

But, 'order'?

Zemma mentally shrugged. Riddick hadn't ever asked her to do something she wouldn't do… if there were a reasonable explanation.

He was going to put you in cryo.

But he didn't.

The voice didn't reply. He didn't force her into cryo. The whole thing might have been a show for Jack's benefit. Or perhaps he realized he shouldn't take such personal chances with two other people dependant on him. Or maybe he was finally over treating her as if she might break. Whatever the reason, he hadn't forced her.

All the secrets he keeps, but now all the sudden you finally trust him?

He trusted me.

The derisive voice had no defense against that. He had treated her like an equal.

But he didn't really need you, did he.

Zemma wondered tiredly if everyone had a voice in their head that argued with them incessantly.

She finally caught up to Riddick. The hatch between the two ships was still unopened.

"Problem?" She asked him.

"Atmospheres aren't equalized yet. But it's Don, all right. Said they found something on the lab ship I should know about. Didn't elaborate." He looked stern rather than curious, as if anything that might possibly relate to him on the breeder ship was, by definition, repugnant.

Zemma, on the other hand, was very interested. She had debated with herself about the breeder ship many times. Should she go there; should she see what they had done to the women and children she had grown up with? Should she see the fate she had escaped? Riddick's urgency to leave had let her avoid all of that.

But what could have been found that related to Riddick? He had been left, strangled, on Earth. His mother had to have been an escapee. It was most likely even she never knew his genetic father, that she had been artificially inseminated like so many others. How she escaped was a mystery; how she escaped so far an even greater one. Doubtful either question could be answered on that sinister ship.

Zemma took a deep breath, didn't feel so much like she was suffocating, and hoped the atmospheres would equalize soon. The doors could not be forced. She waited.

…

Something woke Jack, but she knew she couldn't really be awake, not in cryo. On the other hand, how could she remember she was still in cryo? She couldn't open her eyes, or even take a deep breath, so she must still be in the tube. Conscious but not awake, still captive to the imposed trance state. She couldn't even swear.

The thought, like a command, took her back into her memories, back to the dreaming that wasn't.

Her benefactress. The Bitch.

Jack had thought, at first, that the woman who saved her was so beautiful it was painful. Later she would see those features differently. In her forced stupor, both faces hovered in the same place, both feelings occupied her simultaneously: Beauty and pain; savior and enemy. It made Jack's stomach roil with irresolution. The child who had reached out to a powerful woman still wanted to replace the mother figure in her life.

"Come, Hija." A melodious voice spoke; a soft pale hand stroked child-Jack's tear stained cheek. A perfect smile of dark skin, red lips and astoundingly white teeth. Dark, caring eyes looked upon Jack with perfect understanding.

Hypatia.

"Come, child."

Jack, who wasn't yet Jack, had been hiding in her hole for days. She had been too afraid to follow her mother's directions to get off planet. She'd run out of food… what? Two days ago?

"I'll take care of you…"

Jack had reacted to that singular idea. She could never stop reacting to it. But it would always seem to betray her; her liberator would always seem to abandon her to her fate.

Nightmares of that fate engulfed her.

…

The hatch in the ceiling finally clanged open, a ladder dropping a moment later from the port connection. Booted feet, then a familiar uniform, finally the grim face of a man Zemma wasn't sure was a friend, or a barely tolerant acquaintance.

Still, she was glad to see him. Don was at least a recognizable face in a new, unfamiliar, universe. She smiled genuinely at him. He nodded back.

"Lady Zemma," his gruff voice softened, where his face did not, at her smile.

That phrase threw her, and might always make her a little uncomfortable. Don's eyebrow shot up and a smirk crossed his lips. She hadn't covered her reaction; she had become lax with her armor. Don was never going to stop using it as long as he could make her visibly react.

The more I know him, the more he seems like Riddick as an old man.

Riddick and Don stared at each other as colleagues, nodding slightly as if both conceded the other's equality. Zemma suspected these two actually LIKED each other. But this was all the greeting they would afford, no matter howpleased they might be.

"What's so important you'd leave your crusade to get home?" Riddick's voice was dry with sardonic humor.

"What's so important you hide from Terrans?" Don countered.

Riddick laughed. "Don't you know I'm an escaped convict?"

"They send the military after criminals now?" Don was frankly disbelieving.

"Depends on the class of criminal." Riddick smirked, his basso voice amused and a little arrogant. "You hungry enough for rations?"

"No one's ever hungry enough for rations. But I could eat."

Zemma snorted in agreement and led the way to their tiny kitchen. She wanted to ask about Nor and Jaron, but felt perhaps with such important news it should wait for later.

Zemma sat with the men but didn't eat again.

Don spoke mildly of the resistance they encountered on the support ships. Mostly guards, the personnel had been willing to give up their imposed Necromonger heritage. Jaron had invited them to join the Furyans in re-settling Furya. Most seemed satisfied with that.

The lab ship had been the only exception. Both guards and scientists had put up an opposition. There were heavy casualties on both sides, and the scientists thought they were hurting the Furyans by destroying their own experiments. Most of themthe Furyans were happy to see go.

Zemma wasn't happy to hear about her people dying. "How many?"

"Less than we lost when we crashed the armada."

"What?"

"You didn't think we could do that with just computer control, did you Zemma?" Don eyed Zemma speculatively. "You knew we had to send troops to hold the bridge to make that happen?"

Zemma blinked. She should have thought of it. She knew how the Basilica worked. She just didn't want to know Furyans died the same horrible death as the Mongers. She kept her face still. "How many?"

"Doesn't matter. They were all volunteers. We had to turn away more than we needed to accomplish the job. We wont forget them."

Zemma digested that. Death meant change. Did all change mean death?

Don quit looking at her when Zemma didn't offer any outward reaction. "There was one experiment they didn't destroy, an old one. One we thought you should know about."

Riddick was still looking at Zemma as he told Don to go on.

"There was a man in stasis. He's been there a long time, since the invasion of Fury. He looks exactly like you." Don looked at Riddick. "Exactly."

"Like a genetic copy?"

Don shook his head at Zemma. "This tube has been sitting for over thirty years." Don looked back to Riddick, staring hard. "You would have to be the clone."

Riddick took the news better than Don would have expected. But Zemma, with more experience reading the man, knew he wasn't happy.

"You came all this way for nothing." Riddick told him. "Now you're stuck with us, and real problems."

Don never stopped looking bad-tempered. He didn't look surprised at Riddick's reaction, or statement either. "Doesn't sound boring," he said dryly.

"Those… Terrans," he used Don's word, making Zemma grind her teeth a little. "They either planted a viral weapon on that planet, or were sent to clean it up."

"And this relates to you how, exactly?"

"I used to be a part of the group that created it. I was once sent to destroy the delivery system. I refused that order, went AWOL, and became a hunted man."

"Why didn't you destroy it?"

"Because it was a kid."

That was met by silence.

Zemma's mind leapt ahead. Jack!

"How was it you were sent to destroy it? Didn't they have it, if they created it?"

"Another member of our group was sent to deliver it." Riddick paused. "She never arrived. Disappeared. I was sent to find her, 10 years later."

"And you did?"

"Yes."

"And she had the child with her?"

"The kid was her daughter. They didn't tell her, but they implanted her."

"How did she find out?"

"Someone tipped her off, she went AWOL too. But she told me something else." Riddick paused again, and Zemma wondered how much they weren't hearing. "She said there were two mules; one with the delivery system, the other carried the antidote… another kid."

"But if this child was dangerous, why would you leave it alive?"

"She was just a kid!" Riddick's voice raised a bit. "And the courier didn't know which one she carried. She thought she had the antidote."

"Would they send you to kill the antidote?"

"More likely to send me to do that, than to kill the delivery system."

This got raised eyebrows.

"So you think they recovered the…" Don paused as if remembering he was talking about a child. "The kid who can spread the plague?"

"Or they found another way."

…

Zemma never voiced her thought that Jack was the child Riddick refused to kill. She had to wonder though, was Jack the supposed to be the carrier of the plague? Or it's antidote? And did Riddick know which?

Did he care?

They didn't release Jack from her cocoon, but settled Don in one of the cabins. Zemma followed Riddick mutely back to the cabin they were supposed to share. She had a lot of questions but thought the look on Riddick's face meant she wouldn't get any answers. That was ok for now, she was tired from a long day of stress. She'd lost track of where she should be in personal time but decided sleep would come at any rate.