Chapter Forty: Riddick - Honeymooning

Jack watched him silently as he maneuvered the ship close to the comm satellite.

They were still three planets out from Troubadour itself, near the gas giant Harlequin. This particular comm relay should suit their needs perfectly, and should be far enough out of the Messina's scanning range to be safe.

The maneuvers were extremely delicate and Riddick was glad to see that Jack was paying close attention. He'd run her through an obstacle course out in the Oort cloud a few hours ago and her reflexes were excellent. Once he finished teaching her, she would be one of the best pilots in any System. He was thrilled that she would be staying with him well past that day.

He was in position. He locked the ship's controls so that it would stay with the satellite, the two moving in tandem. Finally he turned his attention to their comm equipment.

A quick check proved that all was not completely lost. "They didn't get all of the IDs," he told Jack. "The best news is that they didn't get the Total Eclipse or Tarsin's Chance IDs. That woulda told them all our movements for the last few weeks. But I don't want to reuse either one. Guess we're stuck with..."

Suddenly he began to chuckle. How appropriate! How beautifully appropriate.

"Hey kid, our ship is the Audrey II."

"The what?" She frowned at him. Long ago she'd told him how much she hated her legal first name. She'd been saddled with it in honor of a grandmother who'd disapproved of her son's marriage and hated her daughter-in-law fiercely. Riddick, who had only the vaguest notions of what normal family life was supposed to be like, figured she'd been cheated. Grandmothers, from his understanding, were supposed to be indulgent, fun creatures who were their grandchildren's favorite relatives.

He chuckled. "Hey, it's from a movie. But you're lucky I didn't make the owners Seymour and Audrey Mushnik. It's owned by Matthew and Jennifer Owens."

"Jennifer Owens." She smiled over at him, dazzling him anew. "I like that. So how come your ship profiles all have two owners?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, grinning. "I added in identities for you when I knew you were on your way to Seti Station, kid. Most of 'em were kinda shallow... not meant to stand up to too much scrutiny, but they should get us by as long as nobody is looking too hard at us. Hmmm... let's see how much attention we're likely to get when we land."

He locked the Audrey II electronic profile into the system and keyed in a query, accessing the newsfeeds.

"So are Matthew and Jennifer Owens married?"

"Nah," he chuckled. "Back when I created them, I figured we were gonna be a brother-sister team. Most of the identities got coded in that way as a result. The next batch won't be, though."

The news article he'd been hoping to see appeared on the terminal screen.

RIDDICK SPOTTED ON TROUBADOUR, HEADED TOWARD EARTH!

"Excellent! They bought it, Jack; they think we're on our way to the Terran System." He grinned over at her. She climbed out of the copilot seat and moved around to his side of the cockpit. The moment she was within reach he pulled her into his lap.

"Damn," Jack suddenly muttered. "Looks like I lost all my money."

"Hmm?"

She pointed at a small paragraph far down in the story, one he hadn't read yet.

"Riddick may have an accomplice or hostage with him. A woman going by the name of Angelica Porter appears to be traveling aboard his ship. Whether or not she is his prisoner is currently unknown."

Jack sighed. "Bet you my card is no good anymore."

"Hmm... probably not. Don't worry about it. I got plenty more." He kissed the back of her neck and felt her shiver. Things were going to degenerate into another mindless fucking session soon if he wasn't careful.

They'd ended up spending the entire day in his bed. He'd literally lost count of how many times they'd taken each other. After each time, one of them would comment on how they really needed to get to work now... but it kept on not happening. Only the sudden comical rumbling of both of their stomachs, reminding them that there were other bodily functions that needed attending to, had finally driven them out of bed.

He turned his attention back to the article. Jack in his lap was an enormous distraction. Two paragraphs in, the article mentioned the space battle.

Names hadn't been released yet, but the fact that Riddick had gunned down twenty-four fighter aces had been reported. The official count of his murders had risen from sixty-three to eighty-eight, when Peter Malcolm was figured in. No mention of Malcolm's own grisly activities was made.

Fuck. I did the worlds a favor by taking him out and they're making him sound like a goddamn Boy Scout, he thought angrily. A low growl escaped his throat.

"I love it when you do that," Jack sighed. She tilted her head back onto his shoulder.

"Motherfuckers are starting to piss me off," he muttered angrily. "Seems like anybody I kill is suddenly a candidate for fuckin' sainthood."

She laughed softly in his arms, turning her face toward his. "I didn't much care for it when they beautified me, either, remember? Ooh, look, Earth is on high alert." She leaned up and pressed her lips close to his ear. "You're a scary man," she whispered.

Yeah, things were definitely getting out of hand again. Amazingly enough, though, the animal within him seemed to be blissfully happy for the first time in its entire existence. Not tamed, just sated. But he could feel its hunger for her stirring again.

"Do I scare you, Jack?" he chuckled softly as he slid his hand into her shirt. She wriggled against him as he gently fondled her breast.

"Mmmm... no," she sighed contentedly. She'd closed her eyes. He could smell her arousal growing. His other hand slid into her pants and she moaned.

"You scare me a little," he murmured after a time. "Especially because all I can think about is fucking you. And--"

"And we have work to do," she finished with resignation. "Damn. We can't take a little break?"

"We just finished one fifteen minutes ago. Come on, let's wrap this up and we can take a long break before we hit the planet." He slid his hands back out of her clothing with regret.

He was amazed by how different it was with her than with any of his previous lovers. There were moments when he felt like a whole new world had opened up and he wasn't sure what to make of it. It was, he realized, the first time that he'd put his partner's pleasure ahead of his own.

Not that he'd been inattentive before now, but it had been different. Everything he'd done had been geared toward making his partners receptive to what he wanted, servicing their needs so they would service his. With Jack, however, it had all changed. Nothing seemed to get him off as strongly as watching her have an orgasm. He was astounded by how many different kinds she could have.

Some were explosive and some were subtle; he loved them all. Sometimes she thrashed beneath him, screaming his name. Other times she burst into tears as it hit her. Once she'd gone completely still, her face taking on a look of joyous comprehension as if the secrets of the universe had just been revealed to her.

"Hey you," she said abruptly, nudging his shoulder. "If you're not gonna do that work you were harping on about, I'm dragging you back into the bedroom."

He laughed and kissed her gently. "Just got distracted, thinking about you."

She snorted. "So you got distracted from me by me? Never heard of that happening to anybody before. Wonder what the psychoanalysts would say about that."

"You know they already have me pegged as a total psycho, Jack. They'd just say 'it figures.'"

She laughed and climbed out of his lap. "Get to work, dammit! I wanna fuck!"

He laughed back at her, loving how crude she could be at times. "You want something to do while I finish up here?"

"Sure."

"Okay, move your stuff into my room. We're sharing a bed from now on and yours is just too damned small."

"Finally!" she crowed, her eyes alight. She bounced off toward her room joyfully as he watched.

He chuckled and turned back to the console, forcing himself to concentrate on the programming he needed to do. He moved the ownership title of the Audrey II into Jennifer Owens' name, listing her as the ship's Captain. Hacking into the interstellar banking mainframes, he transferred funds from his hidden accounts into the Owens' coffers. Behind him, he could hear Jack moving things from one room to the other, humming to herself.

He began the tedious process of creating a few backup identities in case they ran into trouble. Jack had finished her work long before he finished his, and he heard her programming the food prep machine. He'd established three sets of backup credentials when the food was ready, and he shut down the console.

"You decide it was dinner time?" he asked, turning around.

She smiled at him wickedly. "I think we're going to need our nourishment..." Promise of a very exhausting night sparkled in her eyes.

"Let me just put in our course, and I'll be right there," he chuckled. He turned back to the navigation panel and began programming. After a few moments, he had it finished. They would appear to come in from Seti Station. The flight back to Troubadour would take sixteen hours.

As he went to sit down across from Jack, he found himself wondering how much of him would be left by then.