Reunion Part 2
FEEDBACK: Stonedbutterfly@aol.com
Content/Safety Level for children: CAUTION
Fry tried to slow her shrill breathing, leaning against the cold wall of
the hall of
her ship. “Fry!” A nasal voice boomed and she jerked to attention with a
startled cry. She stared into the face of Captain Meier.
“Yes, sir?” she asked, glad her voice wasn’t a wheeze. He searched her
face, his gaze probing and unwanted, making her palm itch to smack that
beady-eyed look off his sweating features. Pig.
“Can you perform this mission?” he asked. Fry was stunned for a moment.
That
wasn’t what she had expected, but she didn’t fool herself into think that
Meier was
concerned for her mental well-being. She had checked the records and Meier
was up for promotion considering this flight went without a hitch.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to handle it, sir?” she asked with an arrogant
tilt of her
chin. She did her job, was the best in her position.
“It’s well known your past with Riddick,” Meier stated, meeting her
stare. Fry’s
gaze turned diamond hard.
“My past is just that. Past,” she said, stepping closer. Meier
faltered. Her ‘past’ as he put it, referred to her time on the godforsaken
planet that no one had bothered to name.
//They were leaning over her, dank metallic breath hot and heavy against her
cheek and Fry flinched back away from the med-techs. They were at the Space
Command Station, having been reeled in an hour earlier. After a thorough
medical check the sharks were called in for interrogation. Fry refused to
answer anything, sitting in a come-like state, eyes wide open. Jack had
mysteriously disappeared the Station was frantic trying to find her. “Fry,
tell us what happened...to Riddick?” a med tech asked.
“Dead,” was the raspy answer. “Everyone dead...” she whispered,
breaking into sobs and burying her face in her hands content to wallow in
self pity for a few moments. Feeling Torrel’s gentle hand on her back
whispering comforting words. So comforting Fry almost thought, in her
delirium, that Torrel knew *something* had happened on Hel, she knew...//
“I’ll be fine, sir,” Fry snapped out. Captain Meier leveled that wary
gaze upon
her again, then turned on his heel and stalked away. Once he had rounded the
corner she slumped against the wall again. After a few minutes she
straightened and stalked down the metallic pathways to the bridge, not daring
to glance back down the corridor that led to the cryo-bay.
On the bridge, she nodded to Torrel and the two other crew members.
Since the
flight was top-secret they were running on a skeleton crew. And it helped to
have as few people as possible knowing any details especially if you were
traveling well out of
commercial shipping lanes. She sat down and strapped into her seat, starting
to relax into her job. “Prep boosters 2 and 4, and docking clamps.” The
ship purred to life and she smiled, then almost puked as her stomach rolled.
“Adjust gravity settings,” she said irritably. “I hate that floating
feeling,” she muttered. Once she detached the tube that allowed passage from
the space station to her ship, the ‘Sweet Spot’ would literally drop, and
level out. It was the dropping that got her, no matter how many times she
did it. “Detach umbilical tube on my mark. 5...4...3...2..1--”
“Wait!” Fry’s hand froze in mid-flight to the big red button that would
detach her
ship from the space station they were docking with. She turned her head
slowly and
stared at the captain. “Sir?” she asked, her irritation full-blown.
“Last minute passengers,” he replied. Mutters from the crew, including a
particularly loud ‘what the fucking hell!’ from a young private had the crew
chuckling,
until Meier leveled a glare at them. And that only served to heighten the
laughter to
booming levels.
Three more passengers were hastily loaded on board while the high-strung
crew
waited. Carolyn closed her eyes and leaned her head back, trying not to
think of Riddick and Jack in the cryo-bay, awaiting an execution. Her part
in it wasn’t helping her conscience at all, knowing she was transporting them
there. It was like she could feel they’re accusing eyes on her back, could
feel eyes on her...
//On Saturn, her birth-planet, Fry walked around the dome-covered marketplace
that
boasted a host of stolen, alien wares being sold for ‘cheap, cheap, CHEAP!’.
Someone was watching her, she knew it, she...felt it. Turning she caught a
flash of blue in the darkness, like the color of eyes that have undergone a
‘shine’ job. A figment of her imagination...? Maybe she just missed him...
She didn’t notice the figure move gracefully from the shadows, caramel
colored skin
gleaming in the colorful rings of Saturn...//
“We’re ready, let’s go,” Meier bellowed. Fry shook her head, snapping
at various
buttons automatically. She slipped the headset on. “I swear that man likes
to hear the sound of his own voice.” Various snickers and snorts sounded
over the comm that connected the crew audibly. “Power boosters three and
four, and hold on to your asses,” she smiled, hearing the hoots in response.
“Minds out of the gutter, people.”
“But yours would be lonely all by itself, Fry” came Torrels playful
voice, pulling
laughs from them all. Fry rolled her eyes. “On my mark,
5...4...3...2...1...mark!” The ship dropped, cutting off all giggles with a
jerking crack and the butterfly feeling in Fry’s stomach increased to the
point of pain as the ship dropped, gravity pressing them. The ship leveled
and Fry grabbed the double handed joystick, pulling back hard. A loud groan
and her baby leveled. Fry took a deep breath and smile.
“How we looking back there?” she asked.
“Woozy,” came an annoyed reply. Carolyn laughed. She laid in a course
quickly, going through a check once again, her paranoia high. She was not in
the mood to crash.
“Our time of arrival will be in 3 days, two hours, ten minutes and two
seconds,”
she said, smirking into her mic.
And hour into flight Carolyn abruptly unhooked herself and stood,
stretching.
There were only so many routine checks she could perform. She left the
cockpit and
went into the main bay, pausing to smile at her crewmates before heading
towards the hatchway that led to the corridor.
“Lt. Fry! Where are you going?” Meier asked. Fry frowned nastily and
faced
him. “To take a piss, sir,” she replied, feeling bold this morning.
“Who’s flying this freighter?” he sputtered. *Freighter!* That alone
was enough
to piss her off.
“Auto-pilot,” she deadpanned and left the room, hearing quiet snickers
behind her
from her crew. Her feet, quite of their own volition, led her to the
cryo-bay, and who was she to argue with her feet? Standing in front of
Riddick’s chamber she stared at his upturned face, hating the bit between his
teeth and the chains locking his hands behind his back. Her hands lifted,
ghosting over the frosty glass before she flattened her palm against the
cold, hard surface and sighed softly. God, she had missed him...so much,
needed him so much...
//Hands ghosting over her nude body in her sleep, big hands with coarse
fingers from
holding the handles of blades and shivs. Hands pulling the sheet lower,
barely touching, feathery light over the slight bulge of her stomach.
Riddicks hands over her, pressing lightly against her stomach that harbored
their baby. Or was it a dream that she felt his hands over her...?
Then blinding pain as she screamed bloody murder and felt the little life
slipping from her...Miscarriage...NO!!//
A sound, more like a scrape, shocked her out of her memories. Someone was
coming down the corridor and she knew that if anyone saw her like this, hand
and
forehead pressed against a killers cryo-bed with tears running down her face,
that she would never fly again. She backed away and scrambled into the
opposite hatch, hiding in the shadows of the big door and waited.
Minutes later a tall figure draped completely in black robes entered
through the
opposite hatchway and headed straight for the cryo-beds that Riddick and Jack
were in. Had to be one of the extra, last-minute passengers, she thought.
The person started fiddling with buttons, gloved hands moving quickly to
accomplish whatever they were doing. A flash of red on the monitors and Fry
gasped inaudibly, and she sank...
//In the hospital, laying back on the bed with tubes in her pale, too-thin
arms, breathing raggedly. An elderly nurse telling her gently that her baby,
Riddick’s baby, was dead...No tears, only stoic silence. She was tearing
herself apart inside though, crying and screaming and spitting at the
injustice...
Stomping boots and suddenly the light from the hallway was cut off by the
huge, hulking form blocking the doorway. Military smell, military
uniform...mercenary razor-sharp smile. A dry laugh comes from her sore
throat as Carolyn stares at them. They know, or they heavily suspect, that
she was with child, and murderers child, Richard B. Riddick’s baby boy or
girl. “Billy Badass...paying me a visit,” she grumbled, her hands waving
them away irritably. They moved forward into the room and she laughed
incredulously, though it sound more like a hoarse cough.
“Who was the father of your baby, Carolyn?” was the smooth, mercenary voice
in her
ear, wanting to know secrets she wouldn’t utter to anyone save those who
already knew them.
“Riddick’s dead, you asshole. Dead on that planet. We starved him. He was
a
murderer.” The words were forced past her lips and she had to fight not to
retch all over their nice military boots...//
Fry watched the robed figure for another minute, the pulled her fusion
pistol and
stepped into the light. Her gun hand was steady, aimed directly at the
intruders back.
“Turn around!” she ordered. The person froze. “Who are you, what are you
doing down here?” she asked cautiously. Before the robed figure could
answer, alarms started blaring from the life support monitors hooked up to
Riddick and Jack. They were going into cardiac arrest!
Fry was shoved aside by Torrel when she came barreling through the hatch
towards the prisoners. The robed figure slipped away and Fry cursed, moving
away into the hatch to watch as Torrel worked frantically at the cryo-bed
controls. Fry’s heart threatened to beat out of her chest, and her lungs
started to hurt, and after a moment she realized she was holding her breath.
Captain Meier was yelling a question at her, but she wasn’t paying
attention. Her focus was on Riddick and Torrel. Something wasn’t right,
this was all to...perfect. A set-up.
Torrel was snapping out orders to release Riddick and Jack from
cryo-stasis, they were being unfrozen. Meier’s words came back to her:
‘Cryogenically frozen and perfectly harmless’. Not anymore, Fry thought
darkly.
“FRY!!” Carolyn turned to her Captain and nodded. “Was there anyone
else
down here?!” he asked, finally getting her attention. His face was red and
bloated and Fry almost laughed.
“No...” she said faintly. “No one else was down here,” she answered,
watching as they pulled Jack out of the cryo-chamber, carrying her slim body
to a med bed and pulling the restraints off. The same was done with Riddick
and she could have sworn she saw a hint of a smile around the bit in his
mouth...oh, shit! But they were still heavily sedated, right?
Carolyn pushed past the passengers and tracked the mysterious robed
passenger until she found his quarters. She disengaged the electronic locks
and pushed the door open. The robed figure turned and looked at her, just as
startled as she.
“Oh my God...,” she whispered. “It’s you...”
End Part 2
go back to Part 1
Email: slaygalx@aol.com
