The Devil Mocks Their Every Step
Six or so years ago…
Hypatia followed the Hunter-Gratzner from a safe distance. She wasn't thrilled about its flight plan. The Taurus system was very back-roads: a shortcut, to be sure, but a dangerous one. With only one shipping lane and beacons placed few and far between, any incident this far off the beaten path would likely see you flash frozen before you could be rescued. Freezing solid and confined spaces were the only things Hypatia feared, though few lived long enough to discover such things about her.
Jack knew she didn't like small spaces. Most buildings sturdy enough to resist her punching right through the walls were strictly off-limits to Hypatia. The little sloop was only comfortable because it was plugged right into her. Nanos from Hypatia's blood also flowed through the nervous system of the experimental ship. It was her and she was it.
And so was Jack.
Without the nanos also flowing through Jack's veins, Hypatia would not be able to track her so easily. Cryo-sleep made it more difficult, but the pull was there still, faint, silent and inescapable. Jack didn't know that part. Jack thought it was some kind of magic. That suited Hypatia. 'Let her think I am omniscient,' she smiled to herself, 'as well as all-powerful.'
Hypatia delighted in being a god to Jack. God and the Devil all rolled into one perfect package. Hypatia decided who lived and who died, she alone had power over Jack… and Jack's potential.
The other one, the twin, wasn't nearly as interesting. Catherine was her name but Hypatia didn't bother with it. Jack had never met her sister, and again, Hypatia delighted in those little uses of power when it came to Jack. She kept the sister safe, educated, nearly as pampered as the two might have been had they been delivered to their proper owner. Still, she was a prisoner in the little asteroid Hypatia might have called home if she felt such things. One day, when the time came, when it would be a complete shock to Jack, Hypatia might introduce them to each other. But maybe not. Maybe she would never tell either of them that she owned them both.
Jack knew there was a sister. She often ran away to find her. Hypatia let her, enjoying the game. Once Hypatia had cured Jack of a terrible wound with her own nano-infested blood, Jack was hers forever. Then she'd killed the man who had dared cut her precious little girl. Never mind Hypatia had used Jack as bait to snare the child molester in the first place. It was immaterial she had planned to kill him all along. She cut him slowly to ribbons as Jack watched, wide eyed and shocky from both the wound and the cure.
"I'll always take care of you," Hypatia had cooed to the crying girl. "Don't worry. I'll always protect you." Jack, still Audrey then, had nodded and Hypatia hugged the girl to her blood soaked chest. "I'll teach you everything you need to know. I love you; you know that, don't you? You're mine."
Mine.
Hypatia saw disaster looming. A rogue comet, or perhaps just a larger piece of the debris field that occupied the system of M-344/G that had been torn loose and torn apart, was heading for the freighter that carried her beloved child. Agony, one of the few emotions she could truly feel, pierced her brain. Hypatia maneuvered to avoid the same fate. She watched anxiously as the ship cascaded down to one of the planets. It took much too long to get reoriented and make for landing on it. All the while the planet itself shielded Jack from Hypatia's extraordinary senses.
Hours later, Hypatia flew into what could be described as total darkness. To her, of course, it was not pitch black, but merely dim. What obscured her instruments were the several different pieces of the freighter that crashed far from each other. What obscured her vision was the mass of flying creatures that seemed to be swarming the planet's surface. Hours more passed as Hypatia checked each site for warm bodies that didn't have wings.
The final site offered not just shipwreck but apparently also some kind of settlement. Hypatia flew in low and fast, cutting power and gliding in close, landing roughly along the ridge of one sand dune. She opted not to take lasers; even her reflexes could not take back a lethal beam of light if Jack surprised her. Armed with blades of sufficient length to handle the annoying raptors, and a syringe of nanos in case Jack was wounded, Hypatia set out across the landscape.
She was not warm enough to attract the attention of the birds, though perhaps, she mused, they were simply too engaged in eating each other to bother with a terrestrial body. Strange blood fell like rain as the larger birds ate the smaller ones and fought each other over the medium sized ones. It amused Hypatia to watch. Humankind was rather like that, and as equally oblivious to her presence… the superior predator in their midst.
A human scream drew her attention like a whiplash. It had sounded young and female, though it was impossible to tell if it was Jack through the noise of the creatures swarming not 30 meters overhead. One large beast was attacking another, a body fell. Hypatia sprinted through the sand. Several smaller animals had to be cut down as they swarmed the still warm body.
"Jack!" Hypatia shouted as engines roared to life somewhere ahead of her. She turned the body over, revealing a massive chest wound and small elfin face topped with blonde hair.
"Damnit!" Hypatia stood and kicked the barely breathing body, then cut down a few more birds that had come too close, just because it pleased her to kill something.
"Jack," the woman at her feet whispered hoarsely.
That got Hypatia's attention. She knelt back down again as a few larger beasties scattered the smaller ones that hoped to make a meal off the soon to be corpse at her feet.
"Where's Jack?" Hypatia shouted into the dying woman's face.
"Riddick…" the word was slightly less than a whisper, but it rang loudly in Hypatia's ears. It was a klaxon of alarm going off in her head. Riddick! The Family? Here?
"Where are they?" She shouted and had to pause long enough to kill a large raptor that had mistakenly taken her for prey.
"Kill me, please…"
Overhead, a tiny ship, most likely a shuttle, blazed into the starry sky. Who? Who was in there?
"Who is in that?"
"Please," a final dying plea, "kill me."
"Oh, Hell no." Hypatia plunged the long needle into the heart of the broken human. It would keep her alive long enough to be interrogated.
The walk back to her ship took longer with the body in tow. Several dozen more birds had to be shown who was true monster in the darkness.
Once on the ship the female regained consciousness long enough to start her insipid begging for death again. Spine broken and internal organs irreparably damaged, Hypatia only had to ignore her to let her wish come true. But she needed answers, and before she left the surface of the planet. It would do her no good to come face to face with some ship directed by the Family. The shuttle simply could not be trying to escape on its own.
Another syringe of nanos stabilized the pathetic creature, but couldn't heal it enough to save it, let along torture it. Hypatia had to take more drastic measures, a steady stream of nanos, for one. She looked into the bloody hole of the woman and went to work. It would never walk again, it could never be disconnected from the life support of the ship, but it would talk… for as long as Hypatia willed it.