Chapter Two

[5 yrs in th past]

Parting is such sweet sorrow.....'What a crock of shit!' Jack wasn't sure if she said it out loud or not, but the day Riddick left her for good, was the day she stopped believing in a lot of things. Heroes being one of them.

The day finally came when a shuttle docked at the space station. It didn't matter where it was headed. Riddick just wanted to get moving. He had had to hunt Jack down in order to say goodbye. Jack made sure it worked out that way. She was sitting in the rec. room, public place, waiting for him when he found her there.

It had taken Riddick a while to find her. 'Smart kid. Doing this in a public place. 'Riddick told himself he wouldn't miss her. He told himself a lot of things that day. Things he wasn't quite sure he believed completely.

Jack was sitting alone at a table, staring off towards nothing. She didn't bother looking up as Riddick grabbed a chair and sat down. They both knew why he bothered to find her today. Why evade the inevitable? And why face it?

Leaning his arms on the table he tried to make a stab at goodbye. It was a bad attempt. "Look kid. We knew this was coming. I have to be moving on before someone catches up with me. It's bound to happen." His speech was met with silence.

Sighing heavily, he tried again, "I'm only going to say this once. I'm sorry I hit you Jack. It wasn't my intention to hurt you." Still nothing. "Yeah well.....I gotta go. Shuttle's waiting on me. See ya around." And that was all.

Ending it that way may have made Riddick feel bad, but you couldn't see that from where Jack was sitting. As Riddick got up, ignoring Jack's silence, and just walked out the door like that...Jack stared a hole into Riddick's back, and made a vow."You will never, ever, make me doubt myself again." Riddick was gone too fast to have heard Jack, but that really wasn't her intention. Jack could have cared less what anyone thought of her at that moment. She turned inwards, towards herself, and wrapping a shield around her that she liked to think of as resolve, she began her transformation into what she would become.

As soon as she was legally old enough to buy her own weapons, she sought out instructors. She wanted to learn how to protect herself, how to defend herself, and how to 'take care' of things when the occasion called for it. Combat training, weapons skills, mental discipline exercises. If it was available on the station, Jack learned it. She worked hard and she was looked at with a great deal of respect, if not outright trepidation.

She was no longer a child to be tolerated, or a girl pretending to be a boy in order to not call attention to herself. Now she just didn't give a shit. Nor did she have to. Her problem solving skills may have been geared towards a 'physical' resolution, but generally she was not messed with, and she didn't hide.

She let her hair grow a bit, then became impatient with having to deal with it, and so cut it again. She still looked female, but it was understated. Lower maintenance; she liked to think of it that way. She clothed herself as fit her mood. Generally this meant soft black suede pants, black leather boots (the sturdy kind), knife belt, finely tooled chainmesh tank, and black leather jacket...short so it didn't hinder movement. The chain mesh tank was a personal luxury she allowed herself. She liked the feel of cold steel against her skin.

She remained Jack, and got tough on the inside as well as the outside. But there were never any surprises. She was now exactly what she appeared to be. She'd become the one thing that Riddick hated the most. A tough, capable Merc. A fighter. The respect she gained on the station, allowed her easy access to high paying jobs. The more experience she gained, the better the pay. She'd take almost anything, as long as it paid. She even did the bodyguard thing for a while, until the lazy bitch she was babysitting got on Jack's nerves, and Jack popped her one in the jaw. Well hell, who knew that stupid cow had a glass jaw? That one had cost her. It took Jack a while to recoup her lost wages after that one.

Saving enough credits - that was the hard part. Easy enough not to spend it. Where would she go anyway? But hard to wait it out. Wait until she had enough. A good Merc will run you quite a bit of cash, so to speak. But the really good ones, that costs.

She asked herself why she wanted to hire a Merc. It was, after all, a job she could do herself. But she wasn't sure she could keep her resolve when it really counted. Life or death situations tend to bring out the strength in her, but why take the chance? So she went looking for a Merc. The best her money could buy. The interview process was...tedious. The men she talked with often thought that because they were dealing with a young woman, that they could take advantage of her. Some even thought they could 'show' her a good time. She quickly disabused these men of those ideas. Jack was sure she'd made a few enemies. She didn't really give a shit. She had a very specific target in mind for her Merc to go after. A very challenging, difficult target that Jack meant to have. And she was dead on sure that she'd hired the right man.

There would soon be a day of reckoning, of that she was damn sure. As sure as she was of herself.

As she stood at the docking bay window, watching the Merc board a hired skiff, she allowed herself a small smile. A self-satisfied quirk of her lips. Some things were worth waiting for.

© 2000, Tracy L. Roberts

End Of Chapter 2