Chapter 10; Meetings of the forsaken.
One week and mourning had consumed all those related. Wolf 2 was nowhere to be seen.
Two weeks and the soft threads of "normal" life begun to pick up their regular pace. Prologis still played cold, avoiding meeting her mother, avoiding running into her father, even on missions.
Three weeks and pain begun to burst over the entire city ship of Zion..........
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-"FUCK IT! Jack, get us the fuck outta here."
Her slim body carefully stripped down into the pilot chair, jumpers nagging at the hull and the mission team running for the skiff, hoping to get there before they'd have a fight on their hands.
A fight with those little nastiess, cuz now was no time to reveal their latest discovery on how to use those little fuckers against their creators. The little start off was going too "well" for them to do that.
-"Roger. I'm gettin' ready, just get your ass over here."
A chuckle of some sort passed through the comm, and it warmed Jack's heart. Warmed it...not in any sexual way, nope, that sensation belonged to the body. Heartfelt, heart warming, magnificent in every way and painful as fuck.
Riddick chuckling made her heart want to race. Ever since he'd cornered
her and made her speak, things had been on the move, or perhaps he'd been
the only one to make the moves, or had she?
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Dark moves slipping between the shadows, a cent catching her attention, very familiar and stirred rather unpleasant memories, and others, more of the....pleasant kind. God, it'd been a long time since she'd felt that way. So long!
And she dared to feel that way about man who played a part in the whole thing. The theatre of her life, where her enemy was the man she'd cared so deeply about years ago.
A shame she hadn't realized it sooner. Terrible, but pride and anger, kept her away from him, kept her cold around him, like a statue of ice, burning from the inside.
Silly, stupid and ignorant, all in a different way. She was angry with him for not being there when she actually needed him, when the baby was taken away, when the memories started to come back, one by one. That first time, when she'd tried to kill herself had turned out to be only one of many. Jack Menski was a damaged woman.
But cruelly enough, the only man who's physical touch she could stand, had turned against her. The beast had decided to take a run on her and became shiv happy on her flesh.
Oh, and angry she was, for Prologis being so seriously hurt, for the nature the girl contained, for the fury that lived within that small creature she called her own. All that and more she could blame Riddick for, but on the bottom of it all, hadn't it been her that had driven him to destroy her?
She didn't have to stay with him, but, well, she'd been stubborn, very stubborn and wanted to stay with her idol, the mass murderer and manipulator.
All that....didn't bother her as she wished it should, at times she found herself wanting to smile when he was near, her heart almost racing. Her soul and mind weren't on good terms. One was starting to slip again, the other lived in the pain of the past. So much of her seemed to be gone, the Jack that had gotten drugged up and fucked up had died so many years ago through hard training and death wishes that turned out to be quite nice when it came to her career.
But Riddick, just him being there, made her want to live. And at that moment, she felt like living.
-"I know you're there."
Her voice almost passing off as irritated, but something, a small trace within her pretty voice spoke of something quite different, perhaps tiredness, perhaps familiarity and maybe something else.
His form stepping out, looking so familiar to the way he'd looked on T2, the first time she'd seen him. And thirteen years of being a fucking Popsicle in cryo sleep surely didn't harm when it came to his looks.
-"Just walking 'round, never liked the light."
Not a touch of lies was in his mellow voice, then again, in order to follow her unnoticed he'd have to walk around in the dark. But on the other hand, she did know that Riddick often took walks around the ship when lights were at the lowest, when the artificial night passed.
-"Sure."
Her voice that of disbelief, naturally, since she hadn't survived on the
Zion through trust.
Nah, even if trust was the main key in the community, trust and secrecy
to the outer world, no one was stupid enough to trust a newbie. And despite
Riddick's experience and position he was still an newbie.
Just....he always knew what he was doing. That bothered her, like it did to most of her team members. Riddick was incredible in the job and so far, no one had been killed or seriously injured in the team, which was, a new record. But he was just too unpredictable, he played the same game as they used on him, the game of not telling. More often than once had he sent them into an old desolated merchant ship, packed with potential goods, and not give them a way description first, wouldn't even let them access the data base!
Perhaps he was pissy for no one telling him Prologis was his kid. Maybe it was just the fact that he was never informed of important facts until after they'd ended up conflicting with something that was and wasn't.
But as she saw his silver eyes her soul justified reality by telling herself that it was for the best, that Prologis didn't know and that Riddick hadn't known. Shit, anyone knew that Prologis wouldn't take it nicely, by pure accident the girl had found out that it was her father's fault that her mommy looked like a god damned quilt.
Casually his hand suddenly touched her face, brushing away a lock of brown hair, his thumb running by the scar.
-"If I'd been chasing yah, you wouldn't have noticed me."
She didn't shake. Not a nerve in her body trembled.
Perhaps Riddick now had his answer.
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A few unnatural screams blasted through the doors as the remains of the mission team entered the skiff with a bang. All bloody and neatly fucked up.
-"Gees, what did yah do? Enter a hatching station?"
With intensity Gambler nodded his head, as he continued to shoot jumpers off. The engines of the skiff slowly coming to life as Jack's hands worked hastily over the control panel.
The perfect calamity in her head could have been creepy, if not for the fact that she'd been doing this for years. None of the mission team had died so far, perhaps because they were the tops of the cream. Sure, there were others, referred only to as the "team".
People like Greenie, people who she usually never learned their names, often they died within two years.
But such were the ways of psychopaths and the mentally ill. Odd to think that amongst the insane she'd found some peace at last.
Some months ago a stone had been thrown into the calm pond her heart had developed into despite the turbulence around her. Rippled her world and brought a new wave of emotions, or perhaps, just old and ancient emotions.
Now the stone he was had sunk to the deep bottom of Jack's soul and taken, as it seemed, a permanent residence. And her heart celebrated that while her mind cursed. And her soul now denied her mind of the luxury of removing Riddick from her train of daily thought.
Kinda hard to ignore him since everything about him was unusual, even the shine job, which most residents had in common, if only that. His old-fashioned shine job that he refused to have altered to a more sophisticated state.
The ship roared, threatening to break loose from the metal that held it, the ferocity in Jack's eyes spoke of complete victory and as soon as quiet space echoed within the ship she turned around, looking at her fellow mercenaries, if so to speak.
Bloody, wounded and tired, much like usually, too bad that she wasn't in the fun this time.
-"Who'd yah do?"
In Riddick's hand gleamed a little shiny circle shaped object, it sent a broad smile over Jack's face. From with under the black mini disk another appeared as an instant surprise.
-"I think we can afford a pay raise."
-"How much?"
His smile, something she'd actually missed, something that hurt him beyond understanding.
-"20 mills sound nice."
Stunned, Wolf snickered wickedly as her eyes gleamed playfully at Jack, that happened rarely for that boss of hers, unless she were really, really happy and that usually included a mass murder of some sort.
-That's not the best of it Jack, we have information worth millions on one of those disks, we're talking big cash, and vital information for us.
In though Jack's eyes narrowed intensely.
-"Like what?"
-"We have a map now Jack, we know where their base is, we know how to get them, for good this time."
Immerse joy flooded Jack, finally this hit would all be over, or hopefully it would. Those pirates had been pestering them for years, invading their territory, kidnapping children.
But of course, it was vice versa. Who ever said there was justice in the universe?
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Banging on the doors, desperately pleading.
-"C'mon, Wolfie, come out."
Not even a choked tearful muffle came from Wolf 2's room. For days now the girl hadn't dared to enter the real world, heart broken over the kill of her friend.
-"You can't stay in there always, I need to talk with yah."
Prologis' begging voice did not seem to have any effect on the self-loathing creature who sat at the other side of the metal doors.
If only she could convince Wolf 2 that it wasn't her fault, but how could
she when it was?
The girl had forgotten to take her medication that morning, usually it wouldn't
be that bad with HER, but at times of emotional extremes things could get
out of hand.
They'd gotten out of hand, and it was everybody's fault, mainly hers. Mainly hers because she was suppose to watch out for the others, instead she'd gotten very drunk. She was suppose to ask "taken your meds?" suppose to say "You really shouldn't do that", instead she'd said "get a room".
What a leader! What a suicidal maniac! What an asshole.
-"Please Wolfie, it's my fault as well."
At those magic words the doors slid open to Prologis' eyes. A world of complete destruction, the bed dirty, just like her dearest friend.
Sitting in the pool of dried blood, the rotting scent foul and bore witness to something... horrible. A breath being gasped in mid air at the back of Prologis' mind.
-"I do not know what is taking place, I keep bleeding, everywhere...everywhere..."
Prologis' reaction trained and formal, she had immediately switched between being a friend and being the boss. A part she needed to play at all times now. The leader, the one with sanity, even if she almost had none at all.
-"Computer, open link with med lab."
A bleep of the obscure sort affirmed Prologis' command, a hint of fear sank down into Prologis.
-"Wolf here."
What would the boss do, the real boss?
-"It's Wolf 2, and a fuck load of blood, and the smell ain't nice either."
The connection broke immediately, since all procedures were tightly grasped in everyone's mind. Just wait and do what she could do for sure, which was to comfort her friend, she had no idea just what was going on with Wolf 2, but she knew that what ever it was it didn't look that good.
She just preyed her friend hadn't picked up self-inflicted injury.
Hoped.
Later she'd find out just what was wrong.