...after promising to sign over my first born child...the techs decided to fix my notebook.

They saved someones life...

Oh, yeah...and I know there are bound to be errors in here...but its 4 AM...so, ah...screw it.

:)


Jack hated the rain. She had hated it six years ago when she'd been running for her life through it, and she hated it now as she trudged through the litter ridden streets of downtown Talios.

The leather overcoat she'd smuggled out of Davis's closet kept her back dry for the most part, but the wind still whipped droplets under the hood, making her cheeks sting.

She hoisted her pack higher onto her shoulder, making sure that her coat stayed closed. If anyone was thinking about fucking with her she wanted the gauge she held against her chest to be a surprise.

Talios was not the safest place for a woman. Hell, Talios wasn't really safe for anyone who wasn't packing heat. Trelios was a shithole of a planet and Talios was its capital city. Whoever ruled the black market, ruled these streets and if they gave a shit about the families trying to make it here it'd surprise the hell out of her.

Looking down to her right she smiled at the little girl, bundled up in Jack's clothes, who scurried along next to her. Jack slowed her steps, and the girl lifted her face to give her a small grateful smile.

As they approached the steps of the hotel, the girl shot a questioning glance towards Jack who smirked and nodded. The girl took off like a rocket, splashing through the puddles and thundering up the rickety stairs before coming to a stop outside of Jacks room – their room.

An hour later the girl laid curled up next to Jack, snoring softly, dead to the world.

Jack sighed wistfully – must be nice – and hooked and arm around the frail little body and drew her near. She thought it was strange, the inexplicable protectiveness she felt for this girl. She wondered if it was the connection Riddick had felt towards her. Her chest burned at the thought of him.

Maybe I just need someone to hold onto, she thought brushing the hair out of the girls face. Something deep inside told her differently.

A week ago she'd been returning to her room, hands full of liquor and snacks, when she'd witnessed a girl – ten, maybe eleven by the looks of her – being pulled kicking and screaming into an alley by a man more than twice her size.

No one even fucking stopped. The rain kept belting down, and the people kept walking quickly by. Jack had found herself standing in the middle of the street, staring towards the alley mouth, listening to the girl scream.

She almost kept walking.

I don't need this shit. I can't play hero.

She would've returned back to her shabby hotel room, gorged herself on snacks, gotten shit-faced drunk and passed out trying to wipe the memory of the little girls face from her mind.

She had turned, preparing to leave the girl to her fate, when an anguished pleading cry came from the alley.



"Momma!"

Jack was halfway to the alley before her soggy grocery bags hit the ground. Thirty minutes later she seemed to wake from a daze, naked and laying in her hotel shower. The little girl sat perched on the toilet, wide cobalt eyes staring straight through her soul. Her clothes on the floor were soaked with blood.

She didn't even remember how she made it back. The girl never told her, she never spoke at all. She never tried to leave, and when Jack had asked her if she had any family the girl had started to cry hysterically. Jack took that as a no. So she kept her.

Jack called her Cobi, for her eyes. The girl seemed to like it, she responded to it. So, Cobi it was. After the day or so, they fell into a routine. Jack would wake, rehydrate something for breakfast, watch cartoons on the vidscreen – the kid got a real kick out of them – and then the Cobi was to lock herself in the room while Jack went out and – unsuccessfully – looked for work.

Jack's dreams were still filled with dreams of Riddick – the feel of his lips against hers, his eyes telling her something that she now would never get to hear, his blood soaking through her shirt – so she didn't sleep much. Just laid there and enjoyed the quiet snuffles of her girl next to her. She was a good kid. Jack knew why she had run into the alley that night.

She'd been that scared little girl once, screaming for her mother. Only her mother was dead…she had a feeling Cobi's was too. But more importantly…she'd been the little girl trying to escape from a monster, while a tentative savior watched reluctantly from afar. The irony didn't escape her. But besides that, she was at a complete loss as to what she was going to do with the kid, she was running out of credits fast, and work was nowhere to be found for a woman mechanic in Talios.

Whoring wasn't her thing, she figured she'd done a lifetimes worth of that laying underneath Davis . Stripping?

Maybe, she thought, if worst comes to worst. Can't be that bad.Tips…whatever.

She chuckled humorlessly at that last thought.

Two years ago, if someone told her she'd end up a stripper, she would've decked them.

Yeah, well two months ago if someone told you Riddick could die you would've laughed in their face.

Damn. That thought hit her like a piles of bricks. How stupid she had been, how naïve. What had she really thought was going to happen? Had she really thought she could blast off into the universe, find Riddick, make him fall in love with her, and live happily ever after?

Not fucking likely.



She shook her head, disgusted with herself. How Riddick had ever put up with her she would never know. It'd been only one year ago since she sat in her comfortable little bedroom back in New Mecca, coming up with a plan to find him.

In that year she'd managed to fuck up spectacularly. Killing people and whoring herself to Davis – god, she was glad he was gone – aside…she'd gotten Riddick killed. Damn, she'd really outdone herself.

In the darkest part of the night, she was obliged to wallow in her own self-loathing.

Be careful what you wish for, Jack.

Shit, she wished she would've listened to him then.

Now she was sitting here in a fleabag hotel, with a shrinking credit account, a mute kid, two bottles of whiskey and a bag full of dead man clothes.

"Congradu – fucking – lations, "she muttered darkly, "you've just been inducted into the 'Asshole Hall of Fame'."

Outside the rain beat down, cold and relentless. The sound of metal sheeting being pelted with hail began to clatter through the room; Cobi rolled over and snuggled closer to Jack. Wind howled and whistled through the crack under the door; Jack just held the girl tighter, buried her face into the girls mint scented hair, and tried to take some solace in the fact that she had, for once, done something right.


A cold smile, devoid of any warmth or humor slowly eased its way onto Davis's face as he finished reading the new message on his comm. The bitch actually thought she could pull it off? Stupid.

Carolyn Frye, Imam Abu al- Walid, Jack B. Badd. All registered travelers on the Hunter-Gratzner. The pilot, confirmed dead. The holy man, alive and well…currently the guardian of one Jacqueline– or Jack – al-Walid. Coincidence? Not fucking likely.

None of it mattered to Davis. All of that tasty info paled in comparison to the one shining fact. Riddick. Richard B. Riddick, had been on that ship. It'd been reported, by the holy man no less, that he died on the planet.

Davis snorted derisively. Mercs – at least the ones who knew their ass from a hole in the ground – had known it was a crock of shit all along.

It all fell into place. Davis could've shot himself for being so damn blind.

Of course the little cunt had known him. She'd been on the Hunter- Gratzner with him. She escaped that planet with him. Jack B. Badd. Stupid name. Frye, my ass. She'd brought Riddick himself onto this ship. She knew he was alive the whole time. She'd never told the Counsel…she was his…accomplice.

And she was right here, on Trelios. She'd bailed out on him, but she hadn't skipped planet. He was sure of that.



He shook his head and began to laugh in earnest, "Oh, Jackie girl, you little bitch. Am I gonna have some fun with you."


On the other side of the Trelios docking station, a burned out, run down, over driven skiff was being towed into port. On the underbelly, barely legible – and insignificant, since the ID's had been changed – was Ramses.


yay! riddick to the rescue! I love it!...but maybe I'm biased. Hey, to everyone who emailed/messaged/reviewed over the past three days...THANKS! You guys have been more than awesome! Opening my inbox and seeing all those nice notes made my day... I was smiling like an idiot. :)

-A.P.