Treacherous

First thing back to ship, Riddick had made arrangements for storing Jack’s body. It would be kept until he chose to jettison it or found a proper burial spot. Bell lent her presence, but didn’t make any comment. Yeah, she would’ve considered Jack a friend at one point. She’d lived with the girl for months. But there were some things that couldn’t be forgiven. Being a sadistically twisted sociopath and trying to kill her and the man she loved was one of those things. Bell was glad the bitch was dead. What would they have done if she’d survived? Rehabilitate her? Fuck that.

On the ground and in the air, sweeper teams continued to comb Teos, looking for pockets of resistance or anyone left in hiding. Time-consuming, but necessary. Anyone still alive on Teos when they pulled out wouldn’t be for long.

Plans were being made to deal with the ‘detainees’. It would be no simple task dividing the guilty from the innocent.

By definition Teos belonged to the ‘corporation’ known as UDMC. They had no real authorization to govern anything. They’d started as a security service, high-tech and efficient, soon they’d promoted themselves to wardens of the entire Universe, employing mercs and other trained professionals to help mop up the ‘real’ criminals. The irony of that of course was they were the ones making the criminals.

But many of Teos’ people had been working class, doing what was necessary to support the planet’s demands for everything from food service to industry products. These people were not considered guilty. The citizens of Teos would be transported to locations of their choice. Those on the UDMC payroll would be transported to a holding facility to wait for the evidence to be sorted and the charges to be filed. In this case it would be ‘guilty until proven innocent’.

A team of Necromongers accompanied Bell on a special trip down to the planet. She got employment and criminal record files for the entire population of the planet. That combined with the substantial information the Necros had gathered would be enough to sort out those telling the truth from those on Militia’s payroll.

The plan was for each ‘detainee’ to pass through ‘judgment’, which just meant either her or Riddick would decide if they were telling the truth.

None of the detainees were on the Basilica Ship so Bell had to take a craft to one of the holding ships. Twice a day for at least four or five hours she was meeting detainees. A crew of Necromongers was doing the legwork, identifying and verifying the records they’d collected. But some were difficult to file, or their files were lost or purposely missing. So far Bell had met and cleared almost two thousand. That there was an estimated ten times more than that to go was very daunting.

~~~~~~

At the end of Bell’s first day ‘at the office’ she had a serious headache. Nearly one out of ten of the people brought to her were trying to pass off some lie or another. More of the peoples of Teos had been in liege with the UDMC than she’d figured. Some had just been running plants and offices for them, but others had known about their crooked nature and had hid it or helped it at some point.

A relaxing shower. Riddick was absent from their chamber and she wasn’t about to go looking for the pain in the ass. He required more energy than she was willing to expend. So she went straight from her shower to the kids, almost excited to just sit with them, play, read books, whatever they wanted.

Bell stepped into the large chamber cluttered with toys and stopped in her tracks. A large box of building blocks had been brought for the boys, and now there was a large boy sitting at the center of the scattered pile putting the finishing touches on a race car. Weis sat nearby playing with what looked like an old-fashioned bi-plane built from the same colorful blocks, while Thea was shaking a little house until the blocks inside flew out of its door.

Ramsay stood away from the spectacle on the floor, the girls were straightening other parts of the room, and Colin was sitting amongst his own pile of blocks building something shapeless and taking long surreptitious peeks at the car Riddick was building.

A grin split her face before she realized it, and she just stood there and stared. Finally Weis jumped up and brought her the plane.

“Look, J, Riddick built me a plane!” The plane was shoved in her face so she could view it properly.

She took it and examined it. Propeller, windscreen, little tires, and even matching blocks on either side to decorate the wings. It was expertly built, and she knew how hard it was to build anything reasonably serviceable with the finicky blocks.

Bell handed the plane back to Weis and moved closer to Riddick who had yet to look at her. How was she supposed to handle this?

Riddick finished the car, his large hands forcing the tiny pieces on with amazing skill. He turned it around to inspect it, spun the tires a few times and then held it out in his open palm.

Bell stared openly.

Colin looked up at Riddick, but then immediately down at the car. After just a few seconds his little hand reached out for the offering. Just as quickly Riddick was sifting through the blocks looking for more pieces.

Bell used her feet to clear a spot beside him, opposite Thea and sat leaning against the wall like he was. “What are we building?”

“Stuff.”

Bell watched the boys comparing and sharing.

Thea’s fashioned rattle had gone silent, the last block flying out of it to hit Riddick, apparently unnoticed.

“Blocks, Riddick,” she lisped in her stilted words. She stood next to him, gripped his shoulder for balance and shoved the little box in his face.

Bell reached out and took the container, flipping it over to inspect it. Thea snatched it back before Bell had even a second, startling her.

“No, J! Riddick fill. My block!”

Bell grinned, not at all upset. She watched Riddick take the prized rattle, not getting an argument from Thea. He filled it from a pile he had ready. Thea was grinning when he handed it back.

“Tanks.”

He nodded, and instead of going to work on his new project he waited, watching her until she’d stepped over the blocks around him to take a seat in a cleared spot.

Bell felt like her heart was swelling. She wanted to cry, to laugh, to kiss him. What had changed for him to be here, to have found a comfort zone, to have bothered to try to find it?

“What can you build, J?” Weis asked her. He kicked through the piles of scattered blocks to plop down on her crossed legs.

She huffed, “Uh, a house?”

Riddick’s head turned, his eyes lifting to her. She shrugged, “I’m not kidding. I’m dyslexic or something. I built a labyrinth once, but that is about as creative as I can go.”

For another hour, until the meal cart arrived, she and Riddick sat and built little things. Riddick was amazing. What aptitude did it require to build such perfect models of historic items? With planet hopping being commonplace, the vehicles he built had been outdated on most worlds, some of them centuries ago.

Riddick spoke very little, but it wasn’t necessary. His presence was all that was required. Bell felt privileged to spend time with the children and him. And seeing the quick looks that the boys gave him made her think that they were feeling something along those lines.

Bell fucked him hard that night. Devotion and gratitude and a release of a very emotionally stressful handful of days. For once she wasn’t the one that called it. Riddick never came to a point where he refused her, but after enough rinse and repeats she could see he was ready for some sleep.