Bringing it down

Death My faithful reviewer! *s* Here´s your next chappie.

eryn Thankyou Eryn, I love cliffies... as most of you know by now!

venes .... you tend to get a little carries away in your reviews... is that agood or a bad thing honey? Anyway, here´s the next chapter, revealing those eyes... And no, it doesn´t end... yet... or ever.... *lol*

Lily continuing now... *s*



Chapter 15 Look where it got us!

Karyn had set the purchases on the kitchen table. Then she went around to the back of the house to cut some herbs in the garden before preparing dinner.

Vegetables, beans, products extracted from a fungus species that were excellent replacement for meat and apples… all lay displayed on the table; she planned to make an autumn stew. Karyn didn't eat meat anymore, not after feeling like she would’ve been eaten alive by those carnivorous little white worms. They could keep their meat to themselves.

When she got back into the kitchen she didn't think of locking her back door.

Karyn was humming a little of a meaningless, and actually pretty annoying, popular song she kept hearing as soon as she turned on the media system’s music channels. In the background she'd put on some soft jazzy music. She was a sucker for old fashioned music from old earth.

Standing with her back against the garden entrance she didn't see the stranger enter, and as she turned around to get some of the vegetables from the table, she screamed right out and dropped the pot on the floor, bouillon splattering all over her feet .

Still frozen in the same position, she carefully watched the hooded person standing in her doorway.

“Who the hell are you!?”, Karyn spat in a hostile tone, meanwhile reaching behind her on the bench to try to get the frying pan to use as a weapon.

“Don't be afraid, I'm here as a friend” the person said in a muffled voice.

Wasn't it… Isn't it … a woman, Karyn thought and measured the intruder in front of her. Tall, but relatively slim, if it was Riddick he sure would have lost a lot of body mass in prison, and with that hint of a female voice…

With a surprising speed considering her blessed state, Karyn suddenly flew around the table and with the frying pan lifted she threw herself at the intruder and tore off the hood to reveal whoever had the nerve to trespass on her property!

It was a girl!

Or rather, a young woman, maybe six or seven years younger than Karyn. The woman looked shocked to be attacked and having her identity revealed.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house!? Karyn interrogated sharply, her hand clutched around the hood and the other hand lifted ready to slam the frying pan in the head of the woman in front of her at any time.

“Hold it! I'm not here to hurt ya, I'm sorry I spooked ya!” the younger woman said.

“Tell me who you are or I'll let you taste my cooking!” Karyn yelled, frying pan still in mid air.

“Stop. Stop. Damn! I’m Jack, and we have a common interest…” the woman replied with her hands lifted as defense, cringing slightly under Karyn´s rage.

“Yeah? What would that be?” Karyn asked expectantly and placed her hands on her hips, impatiently awaiting the answer.

The woman, who called herself Jack, glanced nervously around, bit her lower lip and replied quietly:

“Riddick.”

Karyn lowered her “weapon” and froze in that position, all color vanishing from her face in an instant. In an unaware gesture she placed her free hand on her seven months pregnant belly and stumbled a couple of steps backwards until she could sit down in a chair by the kitchen table.

Jack also sat down by the table.

Karyn studied her intruder. She was probably around twenty years of age, had a slightly heart shaped face with big dark green eyes, fair skin and shoulder length, dark blonde, straight hair. She was pretty.

The two women stared at each other until Karyn finally broke the silence. “I'll make some tea.”

Jack nodded quickly, looking relieved.

Karyn seemed to regain her composure and started to make the preparations.

Meanwhile Jack looked around in the cozy cottage, noticing things like a bookshelf full of literature with various titles in a multiple of genres. Covering the windows were thin, white, full length curtains, turning the sharp sunshine from the outside into a comfortable dim light on the inside. On the floor, next to the bed in the other room stood old-fashioned music equipment, playing something she couldn't place. Leaning against a corner next to it was some kind of an instrument, with strings and a narrow end and a thicker end.

“What's that?” Jack asked, the curiosity getting the better of her, nodding towards the instrument.

A slight smile passed Karyn´s features, before it disappeared again. “It's called a guitar” she replied, “You use it to play music.”

Jack managed only to look confused. Karyn waved it off “Oh, it's just for some memories…”

Both women jumped when a signal suddenly sounded.

“It's the tea.” Karyn lifted both cups off the cooking unit and handed one to Jack. ´

“So, now, tell me who you are and what business you think you have with me!” Karyn said with a sigh and sat back down. “You know, I don't know Riddick, and I don't know how to get in touch with him, so if…”

“No, no, I know Riddick. From way back” Jack began.

Karyn frowned.

Sitting there by her table as the afternoon shadows grew longer and a slight chill entered the air, Jack told Karyn the long story on how she knew Riddick.

Karyn´s expressions altered between horror, fascination, sympathy, jealousy and sadness as Jack spoke about a crash on a deserted planet, a handful of survivors that one by one met their fate. About Johns, and Carolyn. About Imam and his boys and, most of all, about Riddick. Riddick had saved her and her friend from some horrible man eating creatures.

Jack, Riddick and Imam had remained friends over the years and he had been a regular visitor on this very planet, seemingly adapting more and more to a non-criminal way of life. He wasn't hunted since he was believed to have died in the crash.

A little more than half a year ago though, Jack and Imam had learned that he earned his living as a hit man and not as a trader as they had led themselves to believe.

They had been sad and not to mention worried. He was their friend no matter what and they loved him and just didn't want him to get in trouble. She and Riddick had had some nasty disagreements that evening on how he should lead his life and for the first time ever they did not part as friends.

That night mercs came to Imams house, knocking down their door, and in an awful fight, where a couple of men lay dead when it was over, they caught Riddick and had him sent back to prison.

The last thing Riddick said when he was taken away in the heaviest of chains was that he knew who had framed him.

“And his look when they took him away told me that he blames me!” Jack concluded with tears in her eyes and her voice filled with sorrow.

“I love him, he saved my life! I would never, never sell him out!”

Karyn reached out and embraced the other woman’s hands in hers. “I don't know what to say…” she whispered, deeply touched by the story. I know how you feel, she thought, He thinks I betrayed him too…

“You're in danger!” Jack suddenly burst out. “That’s why I came here, Riddick´s escaped again, they can never lock him in for long, you know.”

Fear flickered across Karyn´s face for a moment, and then she straightened herself:

“I'm not worried, why would he come here?”

“Karyn” Jack said, “I read your story on the news vid, and if he believes anything, he believes that you called for those mercs that night on the ship.” Jack bit her lower lip and hesitated slightly, “and he doesn’t let a thing like that pass…”

After Jack had left the house, Karyn felt like she'd run a marathon. Too much information in one afternoon she thought. Or evening, she added after looking out and noticing that the sun had disappeared completely, with only a narrow rim of orange caressing the horizon, and that the birds had gone silent.

For the first time in months she felt a hint of fear. What if Riddick actually was out there, perhaps right now? What would she do?

On the other hand: what could she do?

She decided that the best thing she could do right now was to go to bed. There would be no dinner tonight. She really didn't have any appetite anyway.


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In a busy port in another part of the galaxy Riddick sealed the deal that would take him once more across the universe. The man that had “sold” him the ship lay carefully hidden, they wouldn't find him until Riddick was long gone.

Once more he plotted the well known course. How ironic, he thought. This time I have two women expecting me…, Riddick laughed dryly, there will be no stowaways on this journey though.

Riddick´s thoughts lingered at Karyn and their short moments together, as much as he hated to admit it, he actually wanted to see her. Fuck, he wouldn’t take on the trouble of traveling halfway across the galaxy just for revenge. Not even he was that crazy. No, there was something more… he needed …he needed… an explanation…

But if she didn't come up with something good…

And that counted for Jack and Imam as well!


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