After the call from Mr. Smyth, Imam and Lujjan took the next flight to New Mecca. They decided that it was time to be away from Helion 5 and rushed to the spaceport with haste, although they both felt hollow at leaving behind the three that various Company plots had snatched away. Lujjan could tell that the split, in more ways then she knew, shook Abu. All she could do was offer silent support and make sure he knew that he wasn't alone. During the flight Imam turned again to his prayer beads for comfort. This habit continued once they reached his abode in the New Mecca quarter. When he wasn't working for the church or his job in the capital the beads were in his hands. Lujjan picked up the threads of Abu's life and tried to mend the torn fabric wrought from his ordeal with tender support and unbounded love. No one was going to tear her from the man she loved.
The day after they arrived at Imam's New Mecca home the coms beeped. Carolyn Fry called and asked if she was still welcome. While Imam was away at work, Lujjan made it clear that she'd been informed that the docking pilot was family. Carolyn only heard that she should come home right away and was more than happy to comply. The Company released her on medical leave but took most of her medical pay to cover the interest on her debts. Without Abu's offer to put a roof over her head Carolyn would have ended up in the streets. Within a week she was living in one of the holy man's guestrooms and helping around the house while Imam attempted to find her another job away from the Company. His many contacts would serve him well in this endeavor, eventually landing Carolyn a good job in the private sector.
Jackie and Riddick had more difficulty making it to New Mecca. Although they made it to Helion Prime about the same time Imam and Lujjan had they didn't dare risk calling. The reason for that of course was that they had arrived on a stolen ship and crashed it. Certain agencies were looking for that ship, and Riddick had no intention of leaving behind any trails to connect it with his friend. They slowly made their winding way across the planet, sleeping in basements and atop buildings where they wouldn't be seen. Jack had taken to wearing a cap again and had added sunglasses. She also wore a fake lip ring so that she didn't look so much like the images of 'Audrey Johastein' that were still cropping up. Riddick's goggles were carefully shed in favor of very dark wrap around shades.
It took them nearly a month of foot travel to reach Imam's home due to the tortuous, twisted path that Riddick took in getting them there. The reunion was quietly happy. For a brief time at least the entire 'family' was home. Abu set the pair up in their own guestroom, but Riddick spent most of his time on the nearby rooftops or checking out ships. Jack used lemon juice and sunlight to lighten her hair and took to wearing the local clothing styles. The work around the house was tackled with glee, Jack assisted Lujjan with anything and everything that the other woman needed help with. And there was always a list of things to pick up at the local bazaar every morning for their own impending flight. Jack seemed fine by day. But at night, Riddick knew that her dreams were less then restful. He knew because he watched over her as she slept, holding her as she twitched from the ghosts of the past. They never spoke of it by the dawn but they both knew that they couldn't stay. Still every ship Riddick and Imam looked at was wrong in some way. Days turned into weeks and then into months.
Jackie never really recovered from the flight from Helion 5. The situation haunted her because there was such a messy trail left behind. The body in the hanger… The unscheduled takeoff… the unauthorized entry. She'd begged him to find another way… to keep the skiff's owner alive. It had almost worked, until the fellow attacked. She replayed the man's suicidal lunge and her instinctive reaction with her shiv. Blood was red no matter whose it was. Fresh blood on metal looked like red metallic paint. Jackie had acted without thinking… And Riddick had nodded at her, like he knew that one of them was going to kill the fellow. Her later search through the stolen ship turned up that he was a company man, on vacation… should have known there was no such thing as getting away from them that easily. What surprised Jackie was that Riddick did not scold her. Her feelings rolled in silent guilt for weeks. It was hard to deal with her actions when she was told her not to cry for the enemy. The skiff barely made the distance… The entire trip to Imam's house was one chased by phantoms. The ex-ranger had not let them rest until through the front door and even then she had trouble forgetting how easy it would be for someone determined to track them down. But then, she knew things that the trackers had not figured out yet…
She knew that there was a stolen skiff crashed in the sand dunes on the other side of the planet. She knew that Smyth's account had been locked down after she'd made a huge UD withdrawal. Money used to get supplies… She also knew that the company had spies here… Riddick had followed one of them, taken his thumb off as a warning and used it to embezzle a bank, with her help… That money, too, had bought them a ship, fuel, parts... time. So far Imam and Lujjan had no idea that things were falling apart. Yet every night at Imam's house Riddick had slipped out the window and double checked his lines… alarms set up all over the rooftops around it, as he had every night for nearly 4 months. And every day he and Imam went and looked at the ships for sale. But the final straw that made everything fall into place was the poster Riddick brought into their room one night. The Kovans had found the Kubla Khan… and the Chillingsworth clan was rather unhappy. It did not matter really that the find happened on Jackie's 16th birthday. No one was left alive that knew the exact date anyhow. But she sank into a haze of depression that sent Riddick down to the main room with a decision. He'd buy the ship that they'd looked at that day. It was the best one he'd seen, for his proposes anyhow.
Imam handled the transaction, surprised by the amount of cash that Riddick was able to give him. Quietly, behind locked doors, the ex-ranger asked Abu to purchase supplies for a specific environment… one that was cold, dark, and a challenge to survive in. Later, the slim knowledge that Riddick trusted Imam with might be something to regret, but in the large man's mind, getting Jackie off Helion Prime before the mercs moved in was a top concern. For the holy man the time frame was nearly impossible. Riddick set him with a list of simple requests, but gave him only 30 days to gather what he wanted. It was impossible to make a promise that he could not keep, but Abu said he would try to get as much as he could.
Within a day Riddick and Jackie had moved into the ship. There was too much going on with Imam's personal life for he and Jackie to stay at the house any longer. Too much for the holy man to lose by having them there, even if he was not aware of it yet. Even before the papers were signed over, the couple was making repairs. Reflecting on the past whirlwind of events as the ex-ranger sat in the small ship Imam had bought for him, listening to Jackie work with the wiring on the internal sensors, Riddick was prompted to look the inside of the ship over. Bare bones, weight stripped out as much a safely possible, this was not a ship for comfort but utility. While it was not much to look at on the outside, the ship was but fully functional on the inside. And the engines would run fast and sure for long periods of time.
Safe…. She sat in the dark with a tiny soldering tool in one hand in front of a circuit filled with broken connections. Recalling the instructions she had for reconnecting the wires she blinked aside the image in her mind. Safe… But it was not. The clock was ticking. The net was closing in. Her vision crackled again. 'Not safe.' The voices whispered at her with urgency. 'Run, now!' It echoed like a thunder. But were would she go? "I need to stay here. I need to be with him…" she whispered back to them, "I can't survive alone…" Panic gripped her. For a moment her mind was back under the mud and rock, trapped in a tiny space. She fought it off with grim determination. Safe… She was safe here. For the moment, no one knew where she was but time was short. Somehow being in the sunlight had lost its appeal. She wanted the darkness of space; the safety of being inside a tin can that no one could locate. Jackie turned her attention back to the wires and tried to ignore the arrival of the holy man. She'd not seen another person aside from Riddick for days on end and wanted to see Imam, badly. Clamping down on the urge she gritted her teeth and focused on her work.
Riddick watched Abu's silent appraisal of the ship. "It'll work, Imam," he reassured the other man, his friend. After all, he had been going over the systems for three weeks, making sure that the ship would not cut out on him when he needed it most. He knew the ship was solid in spite of its appearance. A designation was already keyed into the controls. Neither he nor the woman working below the floor had left the ship in that time, but everyday at lunchtime the holy man showed up with food and supplies. At one point there had been two different bounties up for Jackie. One had since been pulled, the smaller one by the guild, the one that implied Jackie was innocent of wrongdoing and the victim of foul play. The second one Riddick and Jackie had both kept to themselves. It took some hacking to get it, and it worried Riddick to no end. Chillingsworth's private bounty… payable on delivery to Kovan Penal. Not a nice place in any stretch. And then there were the visions and dreams Jackie kept having. From what Riddick was able to overhear as she talked in her sleep those were unpleasant too.
"Are you sure you want to do this? It's been thirteen days and I've not seen any sign of the bounty going back up since the company pulled it." Imam stood in the doorway. "I worry-"
"Look, I consider you a friend, Imam. But I can't stay. You know already why, and it's just not safe. Come inside." Imam moved in with his load and locked the hatch. "Jackie keeps having dreams of Furya. I don't know what is going on with her, but she told me that we're not safe here. I don't believe in the bullshit, you know that, but she does. And I gotta listen to her."
Imam nodded, "So you will take her with you?" The supplies settled onto the floor with a thud.
"We've been over this before."
"How will she survive there? It is a place so dim even in the daytime that she will not be able to see." Imam had not seen Jackie for over ten days although there was every sign that she was still on the ship. Riddick had been reluctant to call for her, even in days past when Imam had asked to see her. So Imam was trying a different approach. Perhaps his pleas would not fall on deaf ears if he implored to her survival. It worked.
Riddick looked at Imam. He was so tired of the bullshit. They didn't have time for this. But after ten questions, all centering on seeing Jackie, he was ready to give in. What could it hurt? "Jackie? Come up here." He waited for a moment, "Now!"
"I'm fucking busy." Jackie had been upgrading the computer code on the old ship for the last two weeks and had finally resorted to changing the hardwired circuits. Her voice pegged which of the open hatches she was hiding under. Imam looked down at her and practically fell on his ass in surprise as Jackie looked at him and shielded her eyes. "Yeah, okay… so now everyone knows…Fucking wonderful. Fine, I'll come up." As she came into the light Imam could see that her eyes were still honey colored, only they seemed to glitter in the shadows with a silver sheen deep in the pupil. Jackie blinked and put her hand up as she entered the lighted area. "Lights to point-five." She blinked until her eyes adjusted, "Increase to normal, slowly."
"Your eyes…" Imam watched Jackie as she adjusted. The sheen faded as the lights became stronger. "What happened? When?"
"I don't know, Imam. It noticed it about a week and a half ago. I dropped my hand-light and it broke. And I could still see. It seems I'm seeing a broader spectrum than normal, maybe into the ultraviolet range. I can still see color, when I'm careful to give my eyes time to adjust. But a fast move from dark to light is blinding and painful. There is no way I can stay here on Helion."
"I know that if there is one sick fuck out there looking to turn Jackie into a living stature there's got to be more after her. The eyes make it even more difficult."
"Jackie's eyes are different than your eyes, Richard." Imam followed Jackie back into the front of the ship.
"They used to be the same. Well, different color, darker brown, but the same. I picked up the goggles because I needed to be able to move fast. Then I landed at Slam City. That's where I paid the 20 Kools for the shinejob. Color vision don't matter much to me, scaring the shit outta people does."
"So your eyes have been altered."
"Exactly."
"You are Furyan?"
"Who knows." Riddick shrugged.
"It doesn't matter if Riddick is Furyan or not. What bothers me in the new double- wanted post out of Kovan. They are blaming me for Chillingsworth and Junner. The picture is a bit off, but the description is close. Punch it up, Riddick."
Riddick hit a button and pulled up the Intel. "Using 'Audrey Johastein.' Funny I thought the old bastard would want to shuttle that one." Imam moved over to the screen and looked at the picture. The hair was shorter, straight, the face thinner with a slight dimple to the chin that Jackie did not have, but could be explained away as minor. The eyes were the same shape, and the color listed as 'light.' He frowned. "It does state Jack B. Badd as an alias, though," Riddick continued.
"Well, it's out of Kovan, so it's not company. Even if Chillingsworth was a Merc, it's her family putting out the bond." Jackie looked up, "Um, yeah…. That won't take long to register."
"Will you stay until the full 30 days?" Imam asked.
"Don't know. The nearly ship is ready to go, Imam."
"A few days? Lujjan was collecting a few special things for you. Please, Just a few days." Imam had a feeling that he had hours left, not days. That Riddick and Jack would be gone by the next nightfall if they could manage it. He'd have to pack up everything else that he'd collected and make the delivery the next day.
"Fine I'll try."
Jackie watched Imam leave but turned away as he opened the hatch. "You sure it was a good thing to let him know about this new development, Riddick?" She walked over to the large muscular man and put a slim hand on his shoulder. He turned slightly and nuzzled her arm.
"No, but…. He was gonna just keep asking, Jackie."
She felt the familiar tingle race through her again. She never knew how to react when that happened. Sometimes he welcomed her responses and sometimes he pushed her away. Right now she hoped he'd pull her into his lap and go through all the re-assuring steps that they'd worked out so far in their complex, slow-moving courtship. "I got the code upgraded. I'm still not sure I trust the cryo on this boat, though." She leaned over and rubbed her cheek over his head where he'd let his hair grow out for the past couple of weeks that they'd spent in New Mecca. 'Come on, take the hint.'
"The cryo's fine. And we're gonna use it. The engines will run faster that way." Jackie sighed. No winning that one. "Put the supplies away while I finish the engine work." She moved away from him. So, he was in a push-away mood, nothing she could do about it. Her body internally protested doing something other than molding itself to his form. He had to love this deliberate protracted torment he was putting her through. She forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. The latest batch of supplies included spices, vitamins, and salt. Probably good things to have. Jackie moved the crates onto the lifter with the other stuff. She discovered a nice sewing kit, warm shoes, and high-therm fuel too. Jackie did not know where they were gonna go yet, only that it had a dim star. From the looks of the supplies, it was cold. After a number of hours she finished loading the lifter and walked back to where Riddick's feet and legs emerged from a pit in the floor. He grunted and backed out. "Done."
The computer beeped. "This is Helion Port 1, New Mecca. Mr. Smyth, your pilot's credentials show that you are certified to fly up to class 5 vessels. Your current vessel is within allowable parameters. Port 1 will grant your request to fuel your ship."
Riddick hit the comms, "Affirmative." He closed the floor panel. Jackie smiled. A private pilot's license was not an easy thing to forge, but she'd managed it. Riddick grinned at her, "That worked. So what you gonna do for your next trick?"
"Don't know yet. Make myself a new ID?" she shrugged. "I'll just lay low and hope they don't ask for a passenger list."
"I'll tell them that you were hired help and are leaving before takeoff if they ask, then buckle you into cryo so that your readings mute. Your code upgrade should keep them from reading the cryo as active, right?"
"Of course," Jackie hit his arm, "that's what you asked for." She placed a late meal in front of him, "Looks like we got bean soup, bread and butter, and coffee, today." Riddick opened the food-tray and began to eat. "Lujjan packed like 1000 pounds of mixed beans, you know that, don't you?" Riddick raised an eyebrow and chuckled between bites. "And twice as much grain. And four times as much flour…." Jackie laughed, "I'll be grateful later, won't I?" He just nodded. "Figures…."
By noon the next day the port finished the fuel-up. Imam and Carolyn arrived just before the computer beeped again. They brought a much larger 'care-package' than before. He was not alarmed but saddened to hear the pleasant voice state, "You are cleared for takeoff at 400 hours, Mr. Smyth. Have a pleasant trip to Aquila Major." He stood with a number of emotions swirling through him. Carolyn just moved forward and hugged Jack tightly. They had worked through the night to pack up everything else they wanted to give Richard and Jackie. Imam suspected that he'd never see them again.
Jackie hovered by the cargo bay door relishing the hug from the woman she thought of as her sister and watching the play of feelings across the holy man's face. He'd have a family soon, thanks to his relationship with Lujjan. She could bet that he had no idea. It would be so much safer for him and the others once she and Riddick were far away from here. Carolyn pulled away and moved over to Riddick, surprising him with a similar hug. Jack just watched, feeling detached. Lately the whispers from Furya were stronger, even coming to her in her waking hours. The deep voice saying, "Thank you, Port One. Read, takeoff at 400," sounded surreal and distant to her ears due to the echoes screeching for her to run fast and far. She shoved her hands into her pockets as she looked on the scene around her.
Riddick wrapped his arms around the tearful docking pilot briefly before turning to the holy man. He too was feeling the urge to flee. It was becoming stronger with each passing hour. It was time to go. Carolyn didn't say anything as she moved back to Imam's side. He set his face into a mask as he watched Imam look from Jackie to him and back again. "I am sad to see you go. Lujjan sent cases of dried fruit for you and extra little things that she thought you might want more of." He walked over to Jackie and took her hands, "You have become an amazing young woman. Make sure that he takes care of you." Imam kissed her forehead. He then moved over in front of Riddick; "I am honored that you have chosen me as a friend. Your path is a danger-filled one. I can only pray that the trip buys you peace."
Riddick's jaw tightened slightly, "It won't Imam. We might gain time, little more. But at least you three will be safe."
Jackie frowned at Riddick's words before attempting to direct Abu's attention on something more pleasant, "Tell Lujjan that we appreciate her efforts over the last three weeks, Imam. And…. Tell her that she's gonna need this baby blanket more than I am, because soon it'll be four of you." Jackie pressed the pink and blue bear covered blanket that she'd bought for Lujjan into Imam's hands.
"You mean?" His face lit up like he'd been given back his life at last.
"Yeah." Jackie laughed. Imam hugged her before he and Carolyn left. She then moved over to her mate and placed a hand on his arm. Part of Jackie was crushed at leaving yet she hoped that her path in life would never bring her back here, to Helion Prime. For some reason the idea of returning to this place terrified her. They stood together, in silence, each in their own world, mourning for friendships that should have never been. Saying goodbye to this light filled world hopefully forever. She looked at Riddick as the hour approached for them to leave, "Riddick? Ever feel like the future is something to run from? Like you know that you won't like it, so you keep trying to avoid--"
He looked at her. His face softened as he guided her to the back and began hooking her into the cryo. Things were gonna be all right, he knew at that moment. He had her at his side and that was all he needed. "The only future I want is the one I make for myself, Jacket." He kissed her cheek. His fingers gently caressed her skin. His eyes locked onto hers, 'He feels the same way about me that I feel about him. I know it. I'm certain, now.' Feeling the effects of the drugs, she blinked at him as the cryo took over her body functions… things faded out.