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Night Vision	By : ehiltebe Category: M through R > Pitch Black Views: 1117 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Pitch Black. All I can claim is Eileen, really; all else is borrowed, and profits me not at all!

Chapter List
- 4
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- 6
Chapter Five
‘Boss’ Johns turned out to be quite an interesting person, once we met him. I could see a faint resemblance to Billy-Boy, mostly in the lines of his face. There was also an impression of a lot of time spent in cryo; he only looked a couple of years older than his son would have been.
Now that I’d seen all four members of the crew, I knew that Moss and Dahl’s equipment didn’t just look similar—they had almost certainly come from the same manufacturer before getting personalized modifications. Their captain clearly valued them enough to ensure that everyone had a specific minimum of armor, if not more.
“So.” Leaning against a door jamb, ‘Boss’ Johns crossed his arms over his chest. “Dahl tells me that the two of you have expressed an interest in joining my crew. On the other hand, you don’t appear to be mercs at all.”
“Wouldn’t want to,” Jack countered with a snort. “Most of ‘em are slobs with less moral fiber than a Terran garden slug.”
“Eh, I can’t disagree with that statement.” The man’s stance relaxed a bit, and one hand raked through his salt-and-pepper hair. “But I need more than two sets of extra hands for ordinary tasks; I need people who have skills.”
“I’m a degreed criminologist.” He raised an eyebrow when I blurted the information. “Granmoor College. I’d show you official proof, but that’s aboard our vessel, which was stolen a couple years back, so God only knows where it is now. Jack’s a commercially-licensed pilot, has been flyin’ for years.”
“Any craft you give me, I can handle.” My sister grinned and drew a small dagger, idly rolling it across the back of her hand. “Extensive hand-t’-hand combat trainin’, like I told Dahl, an’ firearms.”
“Alliance or Company-style?”
“Company Spec Ops.” A smirk spread across my face. “Our senseis trained Riddick at Strikeforce Academy.” Dropping my lover’s name immediately locked the entire crew’s attention on me.
“I’d heard that a couple of sergeants left th’ Company an’ started up a place on Icarus Station,” Moss mused. “They th’ ones?” A slow nod was all the response that question required.
“I’d like to see you spar some, and take a trip to the range, but consider yourselves hired. We can get you kitted out in the next couple of days, before we head out again.” Boss smiled slightly.
“Welcome t’ th’ team,” Dahl added with a grin. “Let’s go get your things from wherever you’ve been stayin’.” As we left the building, she winked. “Moss an’ Lockspur are prob’ly already gettin’ started on settin’ up your bunks.”
“Thanks for gettin’ him t’ give us a chance,” Jack told the other woman. “Must’ve told him somethin’ impressive.”
“You wear your weapons like they’re part of your own skin.” The blonde shrugged. “Tells people who know what t’ look for that you know ‘em well. An’ I noticed you at th’ bar th’ other night. You perked up when Moss mentioned Helion, even more when Riddick’s name came up.”
She didn’t push on the subject, and the three of us walked in companionable silence for several minutes, reaching the hostel and taking less than five minutes to throw our belongings in a knapsack. At one point on the way back, Dahl looked like she had a question on the tip of her tongue, but she looked around and seemed to squash the urge.
After having dinner with the rest of the crew, we ended up in a sort of common area, Moss and Lockspur playing dominoes on a small table, and we ‘ladies’ on a couple of couches. The other blonde kept glancing toward me, hints of desire rising in her scent. I let a fragment of a smile quirk the corners of my mouth as I shook my head.
“Sorry, Dahl. I don’t bat for that team, an’ I’m taken, besides.”
“Yup.” Jack smirked. “Heat death of th’ universe’ll come before th’ day Rick an’ Eileen split up.” The girl had really honed her snark factor while we were among the Necros; it seemed to be the only form of humor they could grasp.
But now our new teammate’s gaze had turned shrewdly speculative. I gave the nearer of Jack’s feet a light kick, glaring mildly when she turned. Suddenly realizing that she’d goofed, the brunette reddened a tiny bit. Dahl’s focus, thankfully, had apparently shifted to our feet.
“Oooh.” I hadn’t heard anything distinctly feminine from her until now. “Those look customized. Any tricks, or are they just sinfully comfortable?” With a chuckle, I slipped one boot off and tossed it to her. She spent a minute or so checking it out, finally focusing on the barely-visible slits in the edge of the sole.
I twitched my still-shod foot, and serrated blades emerged from matching openings with a faint metallic scrape. ~Getting’ t’ be time t’ lubricate ‘em again,~ I told myself. Dahl seemed delighted by the surprise weapon.
“Where? Oh, God, where did you manage t’ find ‘em?” Her voice carried a significant avaricious undertone.
“Made ‘em.” Jack briefly displayed her own set, then pushed the steel back in until the catch slipped into place with an audible click. “Eileen did th’ finicky bits ‘cause she’s better at it than I am.”
“Any chance you’d make a pair for me?”
“It’ll take time, but I can do it,” was my response. “Some odd stuff when I get t’ decidin’ the placement an’ action for th’ trigger.” The blonde practically beamed as the stray boot returned to its proper place.
~That turned into a very good distraction,~ I thought as the conversation turned toward gear that looked hot while fulfilling its utilitarian purpose. ~Very good indeed.~
~*~
Wrath purred happily, using Niklas’ thigh for a pillow. The hottest part of the day had just started, the mercifully brief period in which the blue star slowly emerged from below the horizon while the binary pair still hung low in the sky opposite it. The other rise/set wasn’t as bad.
One of the former Purifier’s hands smoothed along his companion’s spines, and the other held his long-dormant communication stone as he anxiously awaited the actual reply from the other stone-holder—not the simple alert that had arrived five weeks ago, notifying him that another stone had received his distress signal and displayed it to the user.
Having completed all the modifications to his chosen dwelling-place that he could think of and then implement, Niklas had spent more time attempting to better nail down his sense of the other members of the first Pack to have formed since the homeworld’s fall. The bonds seemed to be moving all over Creation, though, in no way consistent with any form of travel that he knew about. Could this little, heat-blasted desert planet, or the system it was part of, be interfering somehow with his links to the others?
The blond pushed that train of thought away with a sigh. He’d traveled upon it too many times already. Instead… well, Jack’s very existence posed an interesting question, since he was sure she was half Furyan. Given the dozen years’ age difference between her and Richard or Eileen, her full-blooded parent must have escaped the massacre somehow. Her body type indicated either an Alpha or atypical Beta lineage, with her behavior pointing more toward the latter.
Betas had generally tended to be brawny types, far more so than even Richard, but the occasional exception had existed. Once in a while, a ‘throwback’ would crop up who appeared, on the surface, to be closer to the human norm. Some had considered such Furyans genetic sports, but Niklas had a different opinion: Mother Nature was laughing at the people who’d fled their original homes in an effort to avoid being forced into barbarism, only to have to take that route anyway and evolve into a thriving ‘barbarian’ society.
Where and when the exceptions appeared had been hit-or-miss enough that no one had ever tried to find out if there was a pattern or tendency in any particular line. Then again, Eileen had shared with him a Pack inside joke of sorts; the member he hadn’t met yet, a Beta whose name sounded vaguely familiar, frequently called Jack ‘niece’, and she had gotten into the habit of calling him ‘Uncle Marcus’ in return. There might, just possibly, be some truth behind the amusing byplay.
A chirruping sound and vibration in his hand snapped Niklas out of his contemplations. The meaning of the glyphs glowing through the refined crystalline matrix made him chuckle. How Marcus Arganth had come across a communication stone would surely be an interesting tale, but he was on his way. Indeed, he should have been traveling for nearly a month now.
Thank Shirah, he was going to get off this damned rock
~*~
“Got a question for ya.” When Dahl poked her head into my bunk room—Jack’s as well—and made the statement, I knew the jig was at least partially up. My sister shot me a worried look as she waved in the other woman, who closed the door behind herself. I was a bit less concerned, as I had a feeling that the blonde could be trusted with sensitive information.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“Th’ way you two react anytime someone mentions Riddick.” I sighed. “You’ve got your own reasons t’ be huntin’ for him, an’ they don’t quite jive with Boss tryin’ t’ find out what happened t’ his kid.”
“We know exactly what happened t’ Billy,” Jack growled. “We were there.”
“What?!” Dahl’s shock showed clearly. “He spoke t’ all th’ survivors he could find, an’ they refused t’ say anything.”
“He missed us, obviously. An’ th’ others swore not t’ tell.” I frowned in thought. “We might not’ve been on th’ manifest, though. Jack had stowed away, an’ I got on at th’ ship’s last stop before it crashed—Icarus Station.”
“So… what did happen?”
“He was a fuckin’ hype,” my sister spat, still harboring rage at the dead man. “Didn’t give a damn for anybody but himself.”
“His last mistake was tryin’ t’ talk Rick into killin’ Jack so he could use her as chum for th’ damned land-sharks.” Dahl recoiled at the venom in my words. “He ended up feedin’ ‘em himself.”
“That’s… not th’ person Boss remembers.”
“He must not’ve seen or spoken t’ Billy after Rick missed his aorta, then.” The brunette snorted. “Bro hasn’t repeated that mistake.”
“Jesus. He got himself hooked on morphine?” I nodded as the blonde sat back, stunned and clearly trying to digest the information. “Sounds like a clusterfuck all the way around.”
“Might not’ve gotten anybody outta there without Eileen an’ th’ supplies she packed.” Jack moved so that she could lean against me slightly. “Hell, I know Zeke woulda bit it without ya, sis.” Our visitor raised an eyebrow in a silent request for clarification.
“John Ezekiel, Sharon Montgomery’s husband,” I explained. “Almost became our first non-crash fatality.” Then I chuckled, shaking my head. “Rick prob’ly wouldn’t’ve pulled him outta th’ hole if I hadn’t told him t’ play nice with th’ other children.” That drew a faint laugh from Dahl.
“Th’ two kids on his kill list, right before his capture…”
“Those were Billy’s kills, not Rick’s,” my adopted sister snapped, tense and snarling again, and I put an arm around her. “That’s how he got caught; surrendered t’ keep any more of ‘em outta th’ crosshairs.” Our teammate blanched, disturbed by the tactic.
“Oh, damn, Boss ain’t gonna be happy t’ hear that. So Riddick…”
“Rick belongs t’ me.” Now I was the one growling. “An’ I belong t’ him. Anybody tries t’ kill him, they’ll hafta do us both, or th’ survivor’ll tear ‘em limb from limb… barehanded.”
“Easy.” Dahl held up her hands. “Nobody said anything ‘bout killin’ anyone.”
“It’s been more than ten months since we got separated from Rick,” Jack explained. “She’s havin’ some issues, they haven’t been apart since they met, an’ th’ whole situation’s playin’ merry hell with th’ bond they share.”
The other blonde nodded, her expression distant as she visibly processed the information. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm back down; having my sister tucked against my side helped. Silence reigned for several minutes.
“This… bond… it’s more than just emotion an’ shared experiences connectin’ you an’ him, isn’t it?” Dahl eyed me speculatively. “Why? How?” Once again, I sighed. Even though the greatest threat had died more than two years ago, when my lover had killed then-Lord Marshal Zhylaw and avenged his mother, letting anyone know our secret was still difficult.
“Because we’re not ordinary humans,” I finally admitted. “Don’t know if you’ve heard of our subspecies: Homo sapiens Furya.” The other woman’s eyes widened in surprise. “Somethin’ our ancestors didn’t tell outsiders ‘bout is th’ phenomenon they dubbed ‘mating’, th’ psychic pair-bondin’ that succeeded an’ surpassed marriage; always spontaneous, with unique criteria for every couple.”
“Kinda like soulmates, I figure. We think I might be half Furyan.” Jack tilted her head to rest against my shoulder. “Sorta hope I’ve got a mate out there somewhere, but with most Furyans dead in th’ massacre…” She gave a half shrug.
“I remember meetin’ Furyans, a long, long time ago.” Our teammate shook her head ruefully. “Explains a hell of a lot.” Then she paused. “If we got a location, what would you do when we got there?”
“I’d be th’ first one outta th’ ship an’ immediately go lookin’ for him,” I replied honestly.
“An’ th’ longer it takes t’ find Rick, th’ less forewarnin’ she’ll be able t’ give.” My half-hearted glare didn’t phase the brunette at all. “You already go bugfuck from time t’ time. An’ th’ minute you get t’ him, well…” She grinned lasciviously.
“Brat.” The word carried no heat, only fond amusement. She was right, after all. Two months of abstinence had been bad enough, and that had been without actually being away from Rick.
“I heard a rumor once that some Furyans had ESP-like abilities. Any truth t’ that?” Dahl asked quietly.
“Yeah.” We’d already trusted her with a lot. “I inherited a foresight talent from my mother, but I don’t have much control over it.”
“She didn’t teach you?”
“She was murdered a few days after I was born. I only learned her name two years ago.” I had to swallow back incipient tears.
“Damn, I’m sorry.” Then the blonde glanced at her chrono. “I’m gonna go hit th’ rack. Won’t tell anyone about what you’ve said without your permission.”
“Thank you. But if Boss really needs to know…” I shrugged, and she nodded, then left. Jack gave me a speaking look, one eyebrow arched. “Yes, gut feeling.” She sighed and turned away to get ready for bed.
Sometimes, my untrained Sight drove me up a wall.
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Night Vision