He Didn't Come

The console emitted another alarm, but Riddick had been ready for this one. The ship tailing him was approaching. The mercs had plenty of somewhat under-the-table equipment aboard, and he knew that it would have made it exceedingly easy to maneuver away from the other ship. He didn't take advantage of it, however. He had no fears about being able to handle whoever it was. He was fairly certain that it was the third merc, who was really nothing but a walking ghost. He should have been dead already, according to the mercs whom Riddick had already killed.

He maintained his speed. His course was already charted, in any case. The ship would navigate for him if he preprogrammed the navcomm, which he had. All he needed to do was sit back and wait.

He squatted next to the airlock doors. He didn’t know how long it would take for whoever it was to hack the unlock code, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

About an hour later, he heard the sounds of the other ship attaching itself to the airlock. According to the readouts from the computer, the other ship was nothing but a family transport vessel. If he were trying to get away, the attacking ship wouldn’t stand a chance of keeping up with him. He didn’t know what was going on in the merc’s head, but he had to be exceedingly stupid.

He heard voices. More than one. He had been wrong; if it was the merc, he wasn’t alone. Riddick held one of his shivs loosely, ready to use it.

The airlock door opened. He rose silently, and watched a tall man, in restraints, being pushed into the interior of the ship.

“Get in there, farmer-boy,” one of the intruders said. Riddick gripped his shiv more tightly. He wasn’t concerned about being in any danger. He could take care of whoever it was coming aboard his ship without a problem in the slightest. It pissed him off that he had misjudged the situation, though. He couldn’t afford to get rusty.

A second individual followed the first—a pot-bellied, grizzled man. Riddick could see him clearly. There was no reason to keep the lights on if he was alone. The shine on his eyes made it pointless, and even painful. The best part was that the intruders couldn’t see him.

The second individual gripped the tall man’s elbow, stopping his motion. Hiding behind the hostage, for Riddick was sure that it was, indeed, a hostage, he called out, “Curry? Roger? Where the hell are you?”

Okay, so it definitely was the third merc. Riddick wondered briefly why he would bother with a hostage, but it didn’t really matter. He would just ghost them both. No problem.

And then a third figure entered the ship. A skinny boy, but he had always been able to recognize people that he had met even once before, and this person had been with him for two whole weeks. She—for he was convinced it was a she—held a familiar shiv with a tense hand.

Riddick slipped on his goggles and said clearly, “Lights to full,” illuminating the interior with a sudden harsh light. The girl was startled, and dropped her shiv with a gasp. He stepped in front of the trio and glared through the dark depths of his lenses. The girl gasped again. “Riddick!”

He maintained a cold deadpan as the blood drained from her face. He nodded once. Inside, he was somewhere between outright fury, overwhelming relief, and grudging admiration. The little shit had pulled it off, just like she said she would.

“Jack.” He crossed his arms, waiting for her to explain herself. The other merc—Russell, wasn’t that his name? Russell was staring at the two of them. Riddick resisted the urge to turn and yell ‘boo.’

Russell stuttered under his breath, “Riddick. Richard fucking Riddick. Oh, my God.”

Riddick rolled his eyes. “Shut up and go sit down.” He directed the merc with his shiv to one of the seats aligning the inner hull, and wasn’t surprised when he obeyed. One glance at their hostage, whoever he was, sent him scurrying after the merc.

Riddick turned his attention back to Jack. “Explain.”

She looked around at Russell and the hostage, and then back at Riddick. “Um… I… well, I told you I’d find you.”

She did. But how the hell had she hooked up with a merc? “What are you doing with these two?”

“I met Russell in a bar.”

Riddick didn’t answer. A bar? Was this kid an idiot or what?

She went on, “He said he had a ship, and I needed a way to get off-world. We thought we could help each other.”

“How?” Riddick smirked.

“He said that he wasn’t very good at going solo. I figured that once he caught up with the guys he was tailing, I could go and find you.”

“How? Steal the ship?” She shrugged maddeningly. “Jack, you don’t know how to pilot,” Riddick snapped. “Why didn’t you think?”

Her face fell. “I needed to do it.”

“Why?”

Her anger finally came through and she yelled, “Because I said I would! You think I could just let you ditch me, like everyone else ditches me? No way. I’m sick of people treating me like something they can just toss when they get sick of me.”

“Jack.” Riddick tried to be patient. “Just… go sit down.” He needed to think. A thirteen-year-old girl tailed him across free space. She hooked up with a merc, and brought that same merc right to a fugitive. “Why did you come with a merc?”

She didn’t move, and with a sullen voice muttered, “I didn’t know he was a merc. He just said he had a ship. I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to do what?” Riddick snapped. “Go sit down, Jack!” She finally slunk over to the two men and sat down next to the hostage.

Riddick stood in front of the three, who all seemed to flinch like guilty children after being caught stealing out of Mommy’s purse. The merc had a very distinctive smell—sweat and vinegar, with a tinge of alcohol. A drunk. She hooked up with a drunk. She was lucky to still be alive.

“Okay. You,” Riddick said, looking at the merc. “What the hell were you doing with this kid?”

Russell glared resentfully. “He said that he would work for me. Roger and Curry tried to have me offed. Once I got even, I thought I’d keep the boy with me as my new partner. I’d train him and we’d be fine.”

It was difficult for Riddick to remember that to the rest of the Consortium, Jack was still a boy. The merc wouldn’t have been planning to molest her. It helped dim the rage that he felt towards them both, but not much.

“Jack, still have the shiv I gave you?”

She nodded, and took it out of her pocket. Riddick winced. He needed to teach her a better way to store a blade.

The hostage hadn’t said a word yet. Riddick directed his angry glare in his direction. “What about you?” The young man, a farmer type, looked downright terrified. Riddick suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, though he knew that they wouldn’t be able to see it. It was never a good idea to break the implacable skin he wore when he was in killer-mode. “Speak,” he said with a threat in his voice.

“I was just trying to sell the ship. They wanted to see how she ran, so I took them up for a brief test drive. I was showing the kid how to work the navcomm when they took over.”

Riddick turned again to Jack. “Okay. So you’re basically telling me that you ran away from Imam, went to a bar, met an alcoholic merc, helped him hijack a ship, and tracked me down?”

“Well, I didn’t know you were on the ship,” she muttered like the teenager she was.

“What?” Riddick could hardly believe it. “So you did all that, not knowing what direction I had gone? There’s a lot of space out there, little girl. You, of all people, should know enough to be more careful than that!”

She nodded, looking miserable. “I know, I know.”

Russell shot a baleful glare in her direction around their hostage. “What? The kid’s a girl?”

Riddick nodded. It took the merc this long to pick up on that fact? Apparently so, because the look on Russell’s face was one of astonishment. “Yes, she’s a girl. Now shut up.”

“A girl,” the merc began mumbling, anger growing in his voice. “Little bitch… and she was planning on ditching me? Trying to trick me? Little bitch. I’ll kill you!” With that he sprang from the uncomfortably padded plastic seat and launched himself at the girl. She gave a slight cry of surprise, and even as Riddick raced to break them apart, he saw the merc’s hands going around her throat.

“Jack! Shit. Hey, get off her!” Riddick yelled, and he grabbed the merc’s shoulder. Russell kicked himself away from Riddick’s grip, rolling over with Jack. Riddick didn’t see the shiv in her hand until the merc grunted. He stopped trying to strangle Jack, and she shoved him off of her body. She was shaking.

The shiv was sticking out of Russell’s stomach, and snakelike blood was oozing from the wound. There was matching blood on Jack’s shirt. Her face was frozen. It was the only way Riddick could think to describe it. Her hands were trembling, and her mouth hung open, almost comically.

Russell reached a shaking hand toward her, and she gasped and scrabbled backwards on her hands and feet, much like a crab.

“Little bitch,” he grunted, looking down at his belly. “Fucking stabbed me. I’ll kill you.” The words were spoken without much conviction. Russell pulled the knife out of his stomach, and the trail of blood was renewed.

Riddick didn’t move for a moment. He was taken completely by surprise. The kid actually killed a man. Well, he wasn’t dead yet, of course, but he would be soon.

Jack was panting. “I… I.…” Her eyes rolled in her head and she kept looking at Russell, then her bloody shirt, and back again. “I….” She stopped stuttering when Riddick knelt down by the fallen man and snapped his neck in an easy gesture. The sick sound, one he was well used to, made Jack blanch. Her face was panic-stricken, pale. Her eyes were open wide and began leaking tears, seemingly without her being aware of it.

Riddick stood and stared at her. She was sitting with her arms braced behind her and her legs drawn up, staring at Russell’s body. She was shaking and panting furiously, and Riddick knew that she had to come back to this reality. She couldn’t get stuck in her current mindset. It was the worst thing she could do.

He knelt again and said, with his face near hers, “Jack.” There was no response. “Jack, look at me.” Finally he reached out a hand that was unused to gentleness and turned her head slowly, with his hand on her chin, until she was facing him. Her eyes were helpless, and the look on her face was pleading with him.

“Riddick, I….” A small sob interrupted her words, and she swallowed it and tried to go on, stuttering madly. “I, I, I… oh, Riddick!” She said his name with a helpless look on her face and seemed to stumble in his direction, pushing herself toward him with her arms and toppling over her crooked knees.

He caught her in arms clumsy from lack of experience in hugging and embracing, except through cheap, impersonal fucks. This was new territory. He let her rest against his chest, and his arms settled, wrapped around her back.

“Jack, shh. I know. It’s okay, I promise. Shh, stop crying. Come on, now. Look at me.”

She sat up a bit and wiped a shaking hand over her face, and he willed her tears away. Instead of complying, more tears spilled down like a salty waterfall. Normally he took some quiet enjoyment from people’s tears, because he usually was the cause of their fear or sorrow. This was different. Her tears actually hurt him.

Riddick continued holding her tightly, and in a moment or two she looked up at him. He wasn’t sure what to do to comfort her. He’d seen people cry. It was inevitable, in his line of work, but he’d never once been the one they turned to. He was usually the source of their tears.

“Jack,” he murmured gently, touching a hand to her face. He hoped she wouldn’t see his hands as the hands of a murderer, but as those of a friend. He felt a momentary pang as she turned away, but it was eased as she buried her face in his chest. His shirt was soon drenched with her tears and snot.

He grimaced, but chose to ignore the snot and tried to get her attention, this time a bit more firmly. “Jack. Listen to me. Stop crying. You need to look at me. We need to figure out what to do.”

She gulped down a sob and stifled the rest. With her quavering lips clamped shut into a thin and somewhat severe white line, she looked him in the eye.

Riddick sighed. Finally. “Okay. You’ve got to stay calm. If you’re going to have hysterics, now isn’t the time. You need to be able to think clearly in a situation like this. Especially in a situation like this.”

She nodded again.

Time for the tough love. “What were you planning on doing with him?” He nodded toward the nameless hostage, who flinched. He’d been trying to escape their notice and not make a sound, but Riddick had been aware of his presence the whole time. It was typical: simplistic, instinctive prey behavior. Riddick knew all about that. Riddick the man may have asserted control over Riddick the killer, but the killer was still there. The killer would always be there, an underlying danger. It had always been a part of him, and he didn’t think that a sidekick (he quirked a brief, ironic smile at that) would make it magically disappear.

The hostage paled under the killer’s intimidating gaze when it was directed at him. “What are we going to do with you?” Riddick breathed. The hostage whimpered, but didn’t say anything. “You poor idiot. You should never trust anyone.”

He turned to the girl. “What were you thinking, taking a hostage?” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. He knew how upset she was. The last thing she needed was to have him rage at her.

She shook her head. “I didn’t know you were on this ship. It was Russell’s idea.” She winced at the mention of his name, but took a deep breath and went on. “He didn’t tell me until we were on the way that he couldn’t pilot. Like I said earlier, we got Herman to take us off-planet for a test run, then I pulled out my shiv-“ at the look he gave her, she amended, “your shiv.” He nodded, satisfied. She went on, “I took your shiv and put it at his throat, and made him locate the ship and plot the course. Then Russell restrained him and we waited to catch up with you.”

Riddick waited as she paused. He wanted to hear her story in her own words, and in her own time. He wondered what the hell went on in that ship, and in her mind.

“I thought it would be a couple more mercs. I figured that I’d take Herman and his ship after we got Russell to his guys, and then I’d find you. How was I supposed to know you were already here?”

Riddick sighed. He should never have left her. “I see where you’re coming from, Jack. But here’s the situation. We have a dead man, which isn’t really a problem. I can just jettison the body like the others.” He pretended not to see the way she flinched when she realized that he had killed the other two mercs. “But now we have a live hostage. We can’t just let him go. He can pin three more murders on me, and I’m supposed to be dead.”

The obvious answer was just to kill him and be done with it. But that was Riddick the killer’s thinking, not Riddick the man’s. Herman was totally innocent, just a bystander caught in the crossfire.

None of this would have happened if he hadn’t left her.

Jack murmured, echoing a parody of his thoughts, “None of this would have happened if I’d just listened to you. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. But I needed to find you, don’t you get it?”

“Well, Jack, this is what happens with the life I lead. You want this life? Decide what comes next. Decide what to do with your hostage.” He knew he sounded harsh, but it was exactly what he intended. Jack had the audacity to hijack a ship, lie to a merc, take a hostage, and follow him for two days, heading straight for deep space. Did she have the nerve to see it through?

Riddick himself wasn’t sure what he wanted her to do. The smart thing would be to snap the farmer’s neck, and he could see that Jack knew it. However, he didn’t want to rip the child apart. She wouldn’t admit it if her life depended on it, but she was still fragile inside. There was still an adolescent girl beneath that tough-posturing foulmouthed mask, and she needed to keep that part of her intact so that she would grow up whole.
If she decided to kill Herman, the woman she could become would never emerge. She would turn cold, if guilt didn’t consume her completely. She would turn out just like him. Riddick would rather die himself than see that happen.

So they were stuck, solutionless.