Killer Instincts

[the full disclaimer can be found on the first chapter, but just to be safe... I don't own Riddick, or any of the other Pitch Black/Chronicles characters, if I did I'd be the happiest lil' kitty this side of the sun... nope, instead I only own Cat and the other original characters which I tend to use as filler... or was that fodder... eh, whatever, enjoy]

Chapter 2: Crash Lives Up to His Name

She longed to be impressed. So far, she had been nothing but utterly disappointed, though she was not in the least bit surprised by what she currently found on offer before her. This ship(a generous label to be sure) hardly looked as though it possessed the ability travel the length of it’s berth, let alone as far as she would require it to. It was small, a family vessel at some point. Just big enough to accommodate a half dozen or so, a budget transport. The paint was chipped, peeling off in strips along the hull, and the windows were in dire need of a good cleansing. The thick film covering them made looking inside impossible, though that could have been a blessing in disguise. If the outside was any indication of what awaited her on the inside, she could wait. No, she wasn’t surprised. After all, she had met Crash. He took no care, no pride in his own appearance, why should he give a damn about the presentation of his ship? “This bastard better fly,” she muttered under her breath, stalking along behind the escaped convict at a distance. His wafting stench was torture on her enhanced sense of smell. She felt queasy simply being near him, yet focussed on the prize. It was all about the prize now. The ship. He had it, she wanted it, end of story. She could tolerate his personally vile nature for a short time longer.

He pulled open a control panel on the outer hull with a harsh yank, punched a button and sealed it again. That grin adorned by only a few decaying teeth shown dimly at her, and he made as chivalrous a gesture as he was able, motioning her inside. “Come on, baby, this is gonna be a night you never forget.”

“Neither will you,” she promised, hesitantly stepping up onto the ramp which had lowered to grant them access to the vessel. It was sticky with the mud and tracked in filth of a dozen planets or more, not a pleasant suggestion of what lay ahead. This ship would require a thorough cleansing before it left the anchorage, no way would she suffer with these unhygienic conditions for the next several weeks. The next several minutes would prove challenging enough.

Her eyes rolled back toward him, the only part of her body to notably acknowledge the sound of a weapon being slowly unsheathed, the scrape of metal against leather unmistakable to keen ears. It went seemingly undetected, just as it’s master was intended to believe. Fatal error on his behalf, being so very naive. So, that was his game, was it? Crash had certainly chosen a poor playmate, nobody was better at this particular game than she was. If there WAS someone better, they had yet to be introduced. It wasn’t egotistical, wasn’t posturing or blowing her own horn, as the saying went. A fact was a fact, no matter how it was presented or how it sounded to others.

His decision to play or not, he wasn’t very good at this game, making his abrupt, certainly premature and poorly planned lunge at the woman in front of him. Knife her, take what he wanted, ditch the body, that was the plan. It lacked finesse. It lacked intelligence. Crash’s eyes bulged unattractively in their sockets when the woman wheeled around with swift feline grace, one arm snaking out to allow her hand to grasp the wrist he gripped his blade in. He watched her head tilt to the left, her brow furrow, and she made a gentle, berating clicking sound with her tongue as she began to shake her head slowly. “Wha...?”

“Now that isn’t very nice. Poor hospitality is such a black mark in polite society.” She grinned at him, shrugged, and with one fluid motion twisted his arm harshly, forcing Crash to turn away from her. She pinned the captive arm to his back, hearing the knife he had held drop to the metal gangway with a harsh clanging sound. “I think you owe me an apology.”

“Fuck you!” he spat, quite literally. Droplets of spittle flew from his frothing mouth in his rage. How had she known? No way she could have heard him, nobody ever heard him when he was on a kill.

“Oh, I don’t think so. You lack a certain quality I look for in a playmate. It’s called personal grooming, you might want to look into it. Does wonders for your social life. Now, what’s the flight code, Crash?”

“How did...?”

“When I ask you a question, you give me the answer, I’m not interested in anything else that could possibly come out of your mouth, do you understand?” He didn’t answer, and she sighed heavily. Why did they always have to do this? Be silent? All it brought was pain. He knew it, she could see it, and she didn’t disappoint. Jerking up on his elbow, she arched an eyebrow and smiled thoughtfully when Crash bellowed loud and long, cursing her very existence, ruing the day she was born. “Answer me properly and I won’t have to snap your arm off like an insect’s wing.”

He was a stubborn one, refused to utter a single sound that wasn’t an oath to revisit each and every twinge of pain flashing through his body back upon her tenfold. She might have admired that had she not so thoroughly detested him. As she did, it served only to cause her lip to twitch for the second time in under an hour. This planetoid was poison, wretched for her disposition, she determined. Sooner she could leave the better. Yes, leave them to their misery, the days and nights of drunken debauchery and tainted dreams. It was nothing to her. Less than the dirt encrusting the floor of the ship.

Any notions of playful banter she may have harboured in the bar were gone now, replaced with revulsion and irritation. She wanted off this rock, wanted the comfort of her pack. The thought of her peers sent a flash of fiery rage through her system, and she released her captive. He was deceived into believing this to be a good thing, that this may be a stroke of good fortune, but the instant he felt her booted foot on his backside, pushing him down the ramp in a manner which ensured she would not have to lay her hand on him again so soon, proved to convince him that this was most assuredly not the case. It was the low lives like Crash who had made the Hunters necessary, vermin in need of exterminators. Well, her dander was up, and she felt the urge to fulfill her purpose. It was his own fault for not co-operating. His own damned fault.

Self denial was a beautiful thing.

Coping with her own emotions, her high strung nature, had become her weak point of late. So often her mind was dragged to her pack, others like herself, others who would understand, but this was always a mistake. Lamentable. The more she dwelled on her lost companions, the more her self control waned. It was a weakness she could ill afford, yet could not relinquish, a double edged sword she wielded with honour and pride. They were HERS and she wanted them back. Crash stood between her and what she desired, and for Crash that was a very bad thing indeed. “What’s the flight code, Crash?” she asked, repeating her earlier question. What was it with the men around here? Why did they need everything said twice? Once was usually more than enough for her, for anybody with the good manners to have listened the first time.

He made his fatal mistake. Heart racing, caught in his throat for good measure, Crash staggered down the ramp under the propulsion of her foot, righted himself at the bottom and ran. It was a lumbering sort of lope, unimpressive and lacking in any real competition for her. She could catch him in a half dozen strides, break his neck and be done with it, but that wouldn’t get her the flight code she required to bring the ship online, nor would it prove beneficial should she end up needing to collect the bounty on his head after all.

Eyelids slowly lowering and rising again with bored annoyance, her mouth twisted in a grimace. They always thought they could outrun her. They were always wrong. “You’re wasting my time!” she called after the fleeing man, noting how he pretended not to hear. The twitch of his head, the slight stumble in his stride, they told a different story. He heard her, recognised her tone, and he was afraid. He should be.

That fear got the better of him, and Crash turned his head to keep track of her progress, to see if she was coming after him. Unfortunately, this also meant he was no longer paying attention to the direction which he had chosen for his flight path.

Those bored, lazy lids snapped up like a shutter released too fast when she evaluated the situation. He was headed straight for an empty berth, the human fool! “Stop!” she cried out, her arm stretching forward, palm out and fingers splayed in an age old sign of stunned surprise. She recoiled when he went straight over the edge, squeezing her eyes tight shut until she heard the unmistakable ‘thud’ of his flesh and bones on the unyielding bottom of the solid steel berth’s floor.

Well now. That had certainly not gone to plan. This could prove problematic at best, and problematic was something she had neither the time nor the patience for.

“Disappointing,” a steady, fluid voice intoned from nearby on her right.

“Utterly,” she agreed, folding her arms over her crushed velvet covered corset. Leaning her weight on her right leg, she tapped the ramp irritably with her left foot. “I don’t suppose you know how to jack one of these things?”

“Maybe.” His tone said he did. He was playing his game, dragging her into it. Males. Always with the games. “Gonna cost ya.”

“How much?”

“Not how much. What.”

“Alright then, what?”

“Two things. First, I jack the ship, I’m on it when it leaves dry dock.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her brows lowered, running parallel to the topline of her dark glasses. She didn’t appreciate this. It was one thing to find him appealing in a bar, to be enticed by his rare breeding and attention to personal care, both so uncommon amongst convicts, but it was quite another when he turned it all around, imposed himself on her. She didn’t appreciate it, but could see no other alternative. The ship needed to be jacked, now that she couldn’t obtain the flight codes, and she couldn’t do it. She’d always been more than able to worm what she required from the one who possessed it, it had been a poor judgement call on her part, giving Crash more credit than he was due, letting him run. Born a blind fool, died a blind idiot. Running her options through the inner processors of her mind, she realised they all came back to the same thing. She needed his help. Refusing to commit herself to an answer, she finally asked, “And your second demand?”

He didn’t take offense at her choice of words. Had their positions been reversed, he might have used the same arrangement himself. “Your name.”

“Excuse me?” She was finally taken aback, caught off guard.

He loved it. She was undeniably beautiful even in anger, but now, surprised and off her game... she was breathtaking. Smirking, the curl of his lip flashing a hint of the clean white teeth beneath, he repeated, “Your name. I could just call you Hunter, if that’s what you think you are, but you know, something tells me you just might find that offensive.”

“That ‘something’ would be right. I’m not a Hunter, I’m a prototype Hunter. There’s a difference.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Pulling her collected calm back in around herself like a protective blanket, it was her turn to smirk. “They’re dead. I’m not.” Turning her back on him, she let her arms fall to her sides, swinging almost playfully as she moved up the ramp, those hips swinging again, deliberately teasing this time. Let him soak it up, she thought, as soon as he was finished jacking the ship she’d be rid of him anyway. She might not have been a merc, but she certainly knew where to find one or two on this rock. She may not have needed any pocket money, but she needed him along for the ride even less. Standing tall, she pushed back her shoulders, tilting her chin skyward. It always came back to posturing. Claim your position in the pack, or be mangled by it. “Cat,” she finally announced.

“Cat?” He snorted. “You bringing a pet along?”

“Cat. It’s my name.” She was put out. He should have possessed far more respect for her, for what she was. What she could do to him in a heartbeat. Arrogant Furyan. She liked her name, a family name. All she had left of them. He had no right to poke fun, to say it with such obvious sarcasm. Anybody named Richard (how terribly mundane!) had no right at all. Just another reason to get rid of him as soon as it became convenient. This one was still attempting to play at being top dog, ridiculing her authority. Utterly unacceptable. Turning on her heels, she moved into the vessel again, refusing to grace the convict with even the slightest of glances.

“Of course it is,” he smirked, swayed his well muscled body into action, and followed after her into the confines of the squalid ship. She was high strung, that was painfully clear, didn’t want to give him an inch. That was okay. For now. She was certainly going to make for interesting company. The long journey was shaping up to be anything but boring.

*~*

“Why isn’t it working?” Cat demanded, a lovely pout flitting over her features.

Her arms folded over her chest again, something she seemed to do with a notable regularity when she was either angry or smug. Riddick couldn’t resist the brief curiosity, couldn’t help but wonder what it might take to obtain a more pleasing response from her. She may have been pouting, a spoiled little girl accustomed to getting her own way, yet still he felt oddly drawn, had to glance frequently at those delicate features. Strange when she was anything but delicate. He tried to shrug it off. An involuntary male reaction. That was all. Every time those arms crossed over that corseted chest, it never failed to further upraise her already lifted breasts, teasing with the notion they could suddenly break free from their confines. Part of him was certain she did it on purpose. The other part didn’t care about the how or why, only that it occurred. That was good enough. “No juice,” he answered, tapping a gauge on the control panel. “No wonder he was still on this asshole of a rock.”

“Well, isn’t this fucking marvellous.” She hissed through gritted teeth, words short and clipped. “Get a ship, got no code, jack the ship, got no fuel, got no convict to trade FOR fuel.” She realised what she said just after the words actually left her mouth, her tirade providing the one simple solution to all of her currently most pressing predicaments. Her head twisted on her neck, taking him in, eyeing him up as a starved dog eyes a choice side of beef, the lamb to the slaughter. “Then again, you’d buy a LOT of fuel.” Her face went suddenly cold, calculating options. She removed her dark glasses, laying them down on the panel for safekeeping. Those white eyes stared, as frozen as her heart now. They bored into him, finalising a course of action, perhaps already implementing it.

The lights were low enough for Riddick to remove his goggles without discomfort, and he made a show of doing so for her benefit. Every movement told her he would not go down without a fight, said he refused to be cheated like this. “You think you got the stomach, let’s go,” he said, head tilting, arms spreading wide in an open invitation, taunting as it may have been. “I’m on this ship when it leaves, with out without you, Kitty Cat.” He made no attempt to hide the thoughts behind those shining, silvery eyes (an animal mesmerised by the lights, that was what they reminded her of) as they roamed over her slender yet tantalisingly curved body. “I can bet it’d be more fun with you, though.”

“Dream on, Payday,” Cat growled, hands clenching and releasing tight fists in anticipation of both his first move and her own. Her heart slammed against her rib cage, excitement rising with each expired moment. She felt almost giddy, ready for anything. She wanted to see what he was made of, needed to see if the Furyans were all they had accredited as. The animal inside demanded the confrontation and the woman’s desire, Beauty guiding the Beast, was this time more than willing to allow it a measure of satisfaction. “Crash had a better chance of getting in my pants than you do.”

While he considered her words, finding the absolute absurdity in them, she attacked, slamming the heel of her hand into his nose with the force of a freight ship. He reeled backward, rocking onto his left leg, caught off guard only the once, and ever so briefly. In a heartbeat he had regained his balance and focus, ready for whatever she had to throw at him. Riddick may not have believed she was a Hunter, a prototype, or whatever it was she was claiming to be, but one thing he did believe was that she was not to be underestimated. Cat was strong, fierce, and ready to claw his eyes out.

It was this thought which brought his attention to her raised fist, once again tensing and releasing, gauging his potential retaliation blow. Claws. The woman didn’t have fingernails, she had claws. That was the nearest description he currently had available to him at any rate. Oh, they looked enough like well manicured fingernails to fool most people, but there was a solid, sharp texture only a keen eye would detect by chance. An easily overlooked detail if not deliberately being sought out. What the fuck was she? Not human, therefore no pushover.

Unwilling to allow her to use those claws, Riddick’s arm snaked out. Grasping her wrist in his massive paw, he grinned at her, smug and satisfied. Her other hand flew at his face, fingers bent, ridged. She would take his face off, given half the chance. Cat’s other wrist joined the first in Riddick’s hands. “That’s not very friendly,” Riddick chided. “Doubt you’d be as much fun if I had to tie you up for the whole trip. Then again, I could just leave you here.”

“Drop dead,” Cat hissed, tensing up. Yanking her arms toward her body, she dragged him along with the momentum. Leaning her upper body back as he came forward, she suddenly shot toward him, catching him full in the forehead with her own. He released her instantly, stumbling away and clutching at his head.

“You bitch!” he howled.

Shaking off the pain in her own skull, Cat grinned. On the offensive, she waited for him to still just enough for her aim to be true. Spinning, she gathered speed and threw her leg out, connecting with the back of the convict’s head. He dropped to the dirty floor, but he wasn’t out for the count. Not yet. He had stamina, Cat liked that in a man, too bad this one was now earmarked as a trade for her fuel. “I have to find my pack, Riddick, this isn’t anything personal. I’ve been gone too long already. When you escape, look me up, we can start round two.”

“Why wait?” he growled, lunging for her. Muscles rippled under bronzed skin. His eyes were angry slits, brow lowered and mouth contorted with rage.

“I don’t have time for this.” Raising one hand toward him, she sighed.

His eyes widened then, he found himself hurled back against the inner hull wall. How had that happened? She hadn’t even touched him! He’d make her regret that. He WOULD leave her on this filthy fucking rock, let her manipulate her way onto another ship. Riddick had suffered just about as much of Cat’s company as he believed he could stand. She wasn’t so attractive when she was kicking his ass. It was at that particular moment, straining against invisible bonds, that the escaped convict realised he could not move. A wall, unyielding and unseen, prevented it entirely. His upper lip barely managed a twitch against the pressure, his eyes once again becoming deadly, fixed points of reflected light. This wasn’t right. What had she done to him?

“I’m an elemental,” she told him, then waved off the rising fury in his silver gaze. “No, not one of THE Elementals. I’m Venutian, originally. Venutia 21, born and partially raised.” Perfect control of the air around them allowed Cat to manipulate Riddicks body enough to secure his wrists and ankles with heavy cabling from under the console. She allowed him to regain his mobility, such as it now was, once she had him trussed.
“How you gonna fly it now?” he smirked at her, raising his bound wrists in front of her face.
“I’m not. I’ve been thinking. The money I’ll get for you, I can get a better ship, one I don’t have to jack. I can get a clean ship, no dirt, none of this filth. How any human being could live like this, I honestly can’t understand.”

“People like Crash, they don’t live. They fear. That’s what gets them killed.”

“Case in point,” Cat agreed, glancing briefly in the direction where Crash very likely still lay at the bottom of an empty berth. She couldn’t see it from inside the ship, but the action was significant none the less.

“You don’t have to turn me in,” Riddick told her. He wasn’t begging for his freedom, wasn’t his style. No, he preferred to get it with reason. People like Cat, they appreciated logic. She knew it, too. It was written all over her face. “I could get us any ship in the Anchorage.”

“And have you try to slit my throat while I sleep as payback? Don’t think so. I know everything that is available to know about you, Mister Riddick. Everything that’s on file, every word ever written about you, every interview transcript ever turned in by your quote, therapists... unquote. Every murder, every sentence, every move you made in each and every Slam. I’m not looking to be another name on your impressive list. I just want to go home.”

He frowned. It wasn’t her words, though he found it both chilling and unnerving that she could know as much as she claimed. No, it was her face. She just wanted to go home, and she meant it. For a split second she was that little girl again, only this time, she wasn’t pitching a tantrum. This time that ‘little girl’ was terribly alone, and she didn’t want to be anymore. It could work to his advantage, if he played his cards right. If he didn’t, he was soon to find himself stuck in the belly of yet another merc ship, headed for yet another hell hole Slam. Not the most appealing of options.