Apprentice

Ardath Rekha


 


Chapter Forty-Seven: Jack - Itinerary

Riddick was singing.

Jack was aware of it as she awoke, hearing the deep, velvety sound of his voice over the steady patter of water in the shower. She hadn't heard this sound in years. God, she'd missed it so much, too...

He'd been humming; now he added in words.

"Deep down in Seti Station, close to Troubadour
Between the Cygnus Systems and New Ecuador
Fleecin' all the tourists, posin' as a lad--"

Oh god, she thought, knowing what was coming. She couldn't help the soft laugh that escaped her as she listened in.

"--Lived a crazy little chick called Jackie B. Badd
Whose luck was always jumpin' 'til one day she fell
On board the Hunter-Gratzner when it landed in hell!
Go, go! Go, Jackie, go! Go..."

At least she knew he was in a good mood. She threw off the blanket covering her and padded out of the bedroom, over to the bathroom. She could see Riddick through the pebbled glass of the shower stall, scrubbing his body to the rhythm of the chorus.

"...Jackie B. Badd!"

She giggled again. Yeah, he'd cured her of using that name with his little song parody. Funny how it no longer embarrassed the heck out of her.

"She used to carry her pajamas in a little bag,
She'd written on the side of it 'Serial Hag...'"

Damn, she'd forgotten about that bag. She hadn't seen it since the night she'd been shot. The thing had probably gotten all gory and the Special Forces docs had thrown it out or something, while she was still recovering. These were new lines, she suddenly realized. Riddick was rewriting his lyrics.

She'd better call a halt to the thing before he got pornographic about it...

Jack knocked on the shower stall. "Hang on while I get my recorder and my blackmail kit, huh?"

"Hah!" Riddick shouted back. The door to the stall abruptly opened. "How about you just get your pretty little ass in here?" The grin on his face was as lascivious as ever.

Laughing, Jack stepped into the stall and joined him. He drew her under the spray, turning up the hot water a little just for her. She relaxed and let him soap her down, enjoying the way his hands moved over her body. He washed her hair, too, and rinsed her down thoroughly before he finally lifted her up into his arms and pressed her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he slid inside her.

Those profiles weren't kidding, she thought, gasping.

"Been wanting to do this for a while, now," he whispered. "Since that first shower we took together."

"Really?" Of course, she'd been in no condition for any of that back then. She could barely remember parts of the shower; she'd been so tired and weak and pain-ridden at the time. Not to mention the fact that her sex drive hadn't begun to wake up yet.

"Oh yeah," he sighed. "It took practically all of my self-control to behave myself. 'Specially when you turned around and hugged me."

"Oh God!" she laughed a little, feeling a bit of appalled guilt. "I'm so sorry, Riddick, I never even thought of what that would do to you."

"'Sokay. It was kinda nice, you know, knowing how much you trusted me, and knowing that I really could be trusted that much. And it's not like we haven't made it up to each other since." He chuckled and lowered his mouth to hers.

They didn't leave the shower until the hot water ran out.

Jack pulled on a simple pair of sweats while Riddick started the food-prep unit. He ducked into the bedroom and emerged, similarly dressed and carrying her star charts. She grimaced.

"So, which one of those is completely wrong?"

He smirked. "Neither one. This--" He shook one of the charts. "--happens to be the textbook course plotting. You got it perfectly. And this..." He shook the other chart. "This one is the real prize. I checked every single calculation, and it really _is_ a viable route that's a full day faster than the textbook route. You discovered a new shipping lane, Darlin'."

Jack gaped at him in astonishment. "You're shitting me."

"Nope. Once we get you a good set of identities, you can register it and collect the finder's fee. We'll have time to give it a test run while I'm getting those set up for you."

"So we're going to the Corsair System?"

"Yeah. I've arranged for our cargo. We'll be loading up and taking off in a few days. I definitely want to be out of here before anyone realizes we're not on our way to Earth. And that's where your Uncle Boris lives these days, on Corsair 3."

She felt a chill pass through her. "You're planning on killing him."

"Damn right." The food prep machine chimed and Riddick began ferrying plates to the table. Jack collected a pitcher of juice and two glasses. They set the table together; Riddick didn't speak again until they had sat down. "I told you I was gonna kill him... eventually."

"Eventually?" Jack could barely taste the food she was eating.

"How many times did you say he raped you? Six?" His voice was calm, as if he'd asked her how many loads of laundry she'd done.

"Seven. Twice the first night and five times the second." Fuck. She really didn't want to think about this now.

"Well, that's how many days I plan to keep him alive. One day for each time he hurt you."

She shivered. "I don't think he'll learn anything from that. He'll just be dead."

"That's the point." Riddick watched her calmly. "I'm not punishing him. I'm destroying him. Don't get the two confused."

"Then why...?"

"Why keep him alive that long? You wondering why I don't just stick a knife in him and be done with it? We both know it's not that simple. I need him to die slowly." He was talking about the other side of him, she realized. The side they both had trouble, at times, facing. It was the side that reveled in the kill, and would especially delight in the destruction of someone who had harmed her.

She swallowed. "I don't know..."

His eyes bored into hers. "Sure you do. If you found yourself face to face with him, Babe, what would you do? Be honest."

She thought about it, hard. Suddenly she could feel the buried, poisonous emotions welling up within her. She gritted her teeth, struggling against the blind rage she abruptly felt.

Riddick's hand on her wrist drew her back to reality. Looking down, she saw that she was holding her butter knife like a shiv, her knuckles white from clutching it.

"Still don't want me to kill him?" His voice was gentle.

She sighed. "No. You're right. If he was here, I'd probably gut him myself."

He nodded, looking a bit regretful. "I know you hate having to think about that side of me. I'm sorry I brought it up."

She shrugged and took a deep breath. "It's okay. So... I guess that means we'll be on Corsair 3 for more than a week?"

"Yeah. A day to drop off cargo, probably eight days to deal with your Uncle, and then we'll test out your new course by flying over to the Achilles Mining Station. After that we can start doing some serious traveling."

"Out to the frontiers?" Jack perked up at that. Years ago, before she had died, Shazza had offered to take Jack with her to the frontiers. She'd wanted so much to go, too. Shazza had been the only one of the crash survivors that she'd actually told her secret to...

"Yeah, those can be fun... what?" Riddick gave her a quizzical look.

She grinned. "I was just wondering... how was it that you figured out I was a girl in the first place? I never told you, and I know Shazza didn't."

Riddick chuckled softly. "No, she didn't. I didn't realize she knew."

"Oh yeah. I told her. But how did you know?"

He reached across the table and touched her throat. "Sign number one: no Adam's apple. You ever want to spot female impersonators, take a good look at their necks. Sign number two: it was boiling out and you were wearing two shirts. The second I saw that I knew you were hiding something. And finally, I could smell you menstruating."

"Really? 'Cause I didn't even start until a few hours before the eclipse."

He chuckled again. "A woman's scent changes before her flow even begins, Babe. And I know those scents well. Especially when you consider how much easier it is to catch people's odors in that kind of heat."

"So you knew right away?" She was impressed in spite of herself.

"Yeah. Remember when you stopped near me, back when Owens was still dying? I could smell the fact that someone female was close by. And when you showed up while Fry was questioning me, that's when I figured out for sure."

Jack grinned and went back to eating, her appetite strong again. It was neat to realize that Riddick had always known, and had been keeping her secret for her the entire time, until he had no choice but to reveal it. No wonder he'd made a point of saying "check your cuts" near her. He'd been warning her that her secret wasn't going to keep for much longer.

"Okay... so... our agenda is what?" She looked over at him, surprising his admiring stare.

He shrugged, not embarrassed in the least about being caught. "Well, gonna do some more combat training later today. Teach you some little tricks that'll come in handy. We're fueled and all the maintenance is done, so there's not much to do besides that. Maybe a little bit of sightseeing before we head out; that's always fun. Then we'll take off and head for the Corsair System, but I want to make a quick stop in the Belt before we hit the planet, so we can do some more maneuvering training. Get you up to snuff on the ship's guns. Then we'll stay on Corsair 3 for about ten days before we head over to Achilles, using your new route. After that, who knows? Sound good?"

"Excellent. And we'll definitely avoid going through the Quagmire or past Scylla," she added.

Riddick chuckled. "Definitely."

"Why does that name sound so familiar, anyway? Scylla, I mean."

"You're probably thinking of the Scylla Project. They're connected, anyway, y'know." Riddick chuckled again and rose, clearing their plates from the table.

It took Jack a moment but then she remembered. "Hey, yeah. The whole scandal over it broke about half a year before you were born, didn't it?"

He looked over at her, surprised and impressed. "How'd you know that?"

"When I was looking you up in the press clippings, back at the library, I noticed you didn't make the front page. Usually an abandoned baby is front page news, especially on Earth. So I looked to see what was. They were still going on and on about what to do with the Scylla Children."

He snorted, sitting back down. "Like they ever had any effect on the outcome of that."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh come on. You think the transport craft they were in crashed by accident? The military decided to terminate them. What would you do with a bunch of kids who killed two hundred soldiers?"

"Me, personally? Run like hell." She smiled at his snort of laugher. "What was their connection to the Scylla System, though?"

He shook his head. "These schools today... didn't they teach you anything?"

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm a graduate of the best correctional facility for wayward girls in eight Known Systems," she retorted, laughing.

"And you're more wayward than ever, Darlin'. Not that I don't love every minute of it..." He chuckled for a moment, his eyes roaming over her body. "Anyway, you remember I told you about the Scylla Spore, right?"

"It was just last night, asshole, of course I remember. I'm not that dumb."

"Hush now." He pointed a finger at her sternly. "Anyway, the first settlers on Scylla 4 were a whole bunch of pioneer types, of course, and they were there for about a year before they suddenly lost contact with the outside worlds. As I recall, the scientists think it took the Spore several months to infiltrate their bodies at first. It's an adaptive little fucker. So, anyway, suddenly there was radio silence where there had been a thriving colony. A relief ship was sent to see what had happened. When they arrived onsite, they discovered everybody was dead. Looked like they'd slaughtered each other."

"Eeeeew. But how did a spore do that?"

"Well, nobody realized it was anything except craziness for a while, of course. Didn't I tell you that dementia is one of the symptoms of the illness?"

"Yeah."

"The spore didn't show up at first in the autopsies, either. It's virus-sized and it's a wily little shit. The relief crew had no idea it was involved until they started to get sick. The Tribunal put them in quarantine while they tried to determine what was wrong. Within a year, the whole relief crew was dead... but one of them had been pregnant at the time, and she carried her baby to term before she died. That baby not only lived, she was perfectly healthy."

"How the hell did that happen?"

He laughed. "Beats the shit out of me, kid. They spent five years trying to figure it out, themselves. Whatever they learned never was made public, but at the end of that time they'd determined she didn't need to be kept in quarantine. Some of the rumors say that the Spore was still in her, though. Dunno. The sensible thing would be to leave it alone, right? That's not what they did. Fuckin' idiots. You'd think that nobody had ever read Frankenstein, the way they acted."

"What did they do?"

"They started the Scylla Project. The end result was a body count of two hundred and sixty people. And all of those were on Earth itself. Two hundred soldiers who had the misfortune to be stationed at the Homestead Barracks when the shit came down, the thirty Scylla Children themselves, and thirty young women, although you can't technically blame the military for them since they were already brain-dead."

"Wait... they brought the Scylla Spore to Earth? What the fuck were they thinking?"

"They weren't; that's the point. Coulda been two hundred and sixty million deaths, at least, if that thing had gotten loose. Instead, the kids they'd infected with it did. They went crazy and slaughtered every human being in the Homestead Barracks. Took the military eight months to dig them out, put 'em on a transport plane, and crash it into the Blue Ridge mountains."

"What about the first one? What happened to her?"

"She killed herself when she was fourteen. They never figured out why. She didn't leave a suicide note or anything but it was pretty obvious that her death was no accident. That was about five years before the Scylla Children went ballistic."

Jack chuckled and shook her head. And after all that, bringing the Spore to Earth, for God's sake, the military had the nerve to quarantine people who flew too close to the Scylla System? Shit, who'd want to land on Scylla 4 anyway? And who could stomach ordering the deaths of children?

"God, are they all like that?" Jack asked. "I mean, would Jarvis do something like that? Just... order a killing?"

An odd look crossed Riddick's face for a moment. "Good old Uncle Reggie? Sure he would. He cut the orders for my death, y'know. That's why I broke out of Nereid when I did."

Jack stared at Riddick for a long moment, studying the subtle nuances of his face. She didn't know much of the story between Riddick and Jarvis, but she knew that there was a lot of hidden, buried pain involved for him.

"He ordered your death?" she asked softly. He nodded curtly, his eyes focused on something outside of the moment. "Why?" When he shrugged a little, she pressed on. "How did you find out?"

He let out a soft gust of humorless laughter. "By that time I practically owned Nereid, kid. I'd gotten into every computer system and could do practically anything I wanted. I had this whole elaborate escape planned, too. Another few months and it woulda been complete. Nobody woulda died; they wouldn't even have been sure I was gone for a few weeks. I'd set up identities and bank accounts to use once I was loose. Almost everything was ready, until I found out I didn't have nearly as long as I'd counted on."

He frowned, still looking into that far-away time. "Found a file in the computer, a draft for a press release. Talked about a prison riot that hadn't even happened yet... according to the release, it was a month off. And guess who was scheduled to die in the riot?" He glanced over at Jack.

"You?"

"Give the lady a prize. They'd started up the psych evaluations again a month or two earlier, and Jarvis himself had come and interviewed me just a week before I found that file. Guess they decided it was time to X me out. I was off that rock on the next transport that pulled in. Had to kill several guards to do it, too. None of 'em were bad guys, either. I felt bad about doin' 'em, but better them than me."

Jack left her seat and climbed onto Riddick's lap, putting her arms around his shoulders. After a moment his arms came around her as well.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered quietly.

He stroked her hair with one hand, as if he was comforting her. "Eventually I'm gonna find out what his precious Charybdis Project is," he murmured after a moment. "I don't care how good his security is. I'll find out. And then I'm gonna burn it down around his head."

His eyes looked like the hardest, coldest steel on any world. Jack found herself almost pitying Jarvis for a moment.

Funny now there was no pity within her for her own treacherous uncle.

 

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