Shazza looked over the ship’s railing down at the spear tips as they floated over the grass below. They glowed and sparked when they touched a green blade and added to the hum of the ship itself.
With her arms crossed, elbows against the rail, Jack looked like a smaller, balder version of Shazza. “How do we get them up here?” Her voice was softer than normal without the sarcastic edge. They stood close enough that their elbows touched on the rail as they looked over the side.
Everyone on the ship was quiet and tense as night fell. Riddick stood up at the bow, his own elbows at rest against the rail too. He hadn’t said a word to Shazza or anyone else for that matter, in hours. The tension made Shazza so uneasy that she needed to get out, to walk, to move. Anything but stay on the bridge and pretend he wasn’t angry with her.
Shazza looked at Jack out of the corner of her eye and suppressed a grin; they stood in exactly the same way. “There has to be a way to do it, Jack, or they wouldn’t have been made that way. You’ll figure it out.” Shazza had no doubt that, given time. There was nothing Jack couldn’t discover.
Jack turned her head and smiled at her; a cocky sort of grin that made Shazza grin back. “Let’s take another look at those shafts and the crate they came in, Shazza. Maybe something will come to us.” Shazza took a last look at Riddick as they left the deck; it was an imperceptible movement but she knew that Riddick had listened to everything that had been said. Even though he couldn’t talk to her yet, he didn’t want to be apart from her.
She took a moment to watch him before she followed Jack back into the bridge. The tension weighed heavily on him, all the muscles of his back bunched. Even in the falling dark she could tell. “Let’s hurry, Jack.” Shazza knew that Riddick didn’t want to talk about it but she wasn’t about to let him walk away from it; she knew it wasn’t what he wanted.
Jack crouched down beside the crate and muttered under her breath, something about instructions. She turned and grinned at Shazza when she came up behind her. “You and Rid, you gonna be okay?”
‘Smart kid.’ Not that Shazza ever had any doubt. She trailed her hand over Jack’s shaved head, so much like Riddick’s, before she spoke. “We’ll get this done and I’ll go talk to him, Jack. Let’s just see what we’ve got.”
They had handled the spear tips with gloves before. Shazza thought about the power the spear tips kicked off now, and hoped it would be enough. “Better let me take them this time.” Jack didn’t look too sure about it but she helped Shazza get the gloves on anyway and they made their way back out onto the deck.
Riddick held the door open when they reached the deck and the hard look on his face was enough to make even Jack pause. Shazza was another matter; she was determined and she brushed close enough to touch him as she stepped out onto the deck. Jack followed a step behind with the shafts for the spears, which Riddick took from her hands. He didn’t ask.
As much as Riddick glared at Jack, she didn’t leave. She just snorted and stood beside Shazza and spoke defiantly. “You going to give me dirty looks all night too or are we going to get this done?”
Riddick glared at Jack again but remained silent; his eyes quickly back on Shazza again as though nothing else existed. Jack froze as she watched them. She had watched that look pass between them before and it made everything in her clench up every time she had seen it, not with fear, but something else. Jack knew that she wasn’t even there right now, it was just them.
Jack coughed to get their attention; she had to do it twice before Riddick turned to look at her. He sighed and picked up one of the shafts, moved over to the rail. “Okay, Jack, where do we take it from here.”
“With the gloves, pull that chain up…” She gave a few more instructions and tried not to look at Riddick’s face, lined in hard strain, as he held the shaft.
Shazza pulled the chain up, surprised at how light the spear tips were. They had been heavier when they had gone over the side. The tips glowed a pale blue when her gloves touched them and she could feel the power in them, even through the gloves. It felt like the deepest breath she had ever taken, like her lungs would burst with it. Wonderful and terrible all at the same time.
The spear tip held out, Riddick attached it easily to the shaft; it was as though the two parts when close were drawn to each other. There was no sound as they connected and Riddick looked at where the spear tip met the shaft. Saw no break, the two pieces had become one. The rest were quickly completed and Riddick helped her carry them up to the bow where the spears were secured. They continued to glow blue even though they no longer hovered over the grass.
Jack looked at the two of them together and knew that even if she were to scream at the top of her lungs that neither of them would hear her. So she eased back away down the deck and onto the bridge where she relieved Theo at the wheel.
Riddick and Shazza worked silently, close enough to touch but they didn’t touch. It was deliberate. She tried to pull the gloves off but it was difficult to do it herself, the thick material was stiff and unwieldy. Riddick watched her quietly before he snorted in frustration and finally reached out for her to help her pull them off.
Even that contact was too much and he pulled back a little once the gloves were tossed at the very front of the ship. He didn’t leave but leaned against one side of the vee that made up the bow of the ship, his arms crossed, and glared.
Shazza took the opposite side of the vee and while she didn’t glare back at him there was no give in her features either. “You’ve been pissed off with me for hours now, are you going to tell me what’s wrong, Riddick?”
“I’m not…” Riddick blurted out before his crossed arms tightened and the blank emotionless mask slammed back down. He couldn’t keep that up as long as he looked at her so he turned in place and rested his elbows on the rail, the position he had stood in for hours when he wouldn’t speak to her.
Shazza thought that he was about to continue that silenc, but she’d had enough of it already. “Bloody hell, Riddick, talk to me!” She yelled in her frustration. She had always hated the silent treatment.
Riddick’s head dropped between his shoulders and she watched powerful fingers move over his skull to rub at his neck, at the tension there. He stiffened when she came up behind him and rested her hand against the tight muscles in his back. His voice was barely a whisper when he spoke again. “I’m not pissed at you.”
He still wouldn’t look at her. Shazza, her hand still against his back, moved up to stand beside him at the rail. He didn’t move but stared over the side at what she knew was the forest beside them even though it was too dark to see it now. “Take your goggles off for me.”
He growled, a low sound of resignation rather than anger and finally turned to look at her. It was easy enough to hide from her when he didn’t have to look at her but he knew that he couldn’t hide forever. He couldn’t deny what he felt even if he didn’t want to feel it.
She watched the hard angles in his face as he lifted the goggles to leave them on his forehead. He still tried to avoid her and made to look back out over the grass but she stepped closer to him, her chest against his, her voice as hard as his. “Don’t.”
She would be easy enough to avoid, all he had to do was turn and walk away from her. She couldn’t make him stay. But that’s exactly what she did with just a look.
Riddick pulled in his bottom lip to bite at it, to fight the flutter in his belly that he felt every time he looked at her lately. It had been like that almost from the beginning. Johns had laughed about it back on the hammerhead planet, said that he had gone soft over a woman. But that wasn’t exactly true because Shazza wasn’t soft either; there was nothing soft about her.
He knew that he had touched her only when he saw his own hand cup the stern, unforgiving line of her jaw, his thumb caressed over the corner of her lip and back up over her cheekbone. A gesture a lot deeper than it looked. Her hand over his kept his hand there before he could pull it away. He sighed, unable, unwilling, to remain expressionless any longer.
She stood close enough to hear his whisper. “Not pissed.” The tip of a tongue flicked back over his lip again and she heard his nervousness pound through his chest. Eyeshine glittered in the strange light thrown off by the spears; flashed through a strange fathomless black to silver and back again. He had tried to avoid her earlier but that was no longer possible. An audible sigh and he let go of the rail and circled her waist, a hand still at her jaw to pull her closer to him. “Not pissed, but I don’t want to lose you, Shazza. I don’t want you hurt.”
The tension in him hadn’t left as he spoke and she felt him tighten his hold on her as though she would jump from the ship if he didn’t. “Not going anywhere, Riddick, are you?” The words they chose they chose on purpose, light-hearted on the surface and anything but underneath.
Shazza knew that he could never say in words what his eyes spoke to her but she knew what he felt. She didn’t need the words, it was so plain every time he looked at her. An answer wasn’t expected but she waited anyway for the imperceptible headshake. Her hand took the longest path possible over his chest to listen to his heart pound, up along the powerful lines of his neck to rest against his cheek like his did with her. “You’re not going to lose me, I’m not going anywhere. Talk to me…”
Strain lined his face when he looked down into her eyes as he fought with what he wanted to say. “…Can’t.” Riddick pulled her hard against his chest and buried his nose in her hair; if he looked in her eyes for any longer he would say fuck it to everything, tell Jack to turn the ship around and run for all he was worth.
And never be free again. If he did this, if he fought them here and now, he could have everything, his freedom, a place for Jack to be safe. And Shazza most of all. He murmured into her hair, “When this is all over, I’ll talk then.” Lips pressed against her hair, eyes closed, Riddick held her close to him. Shazza wrapped both arms around his neck and they stood like that on the deck for a while, her face nuzzled into the warmth of his neck.
He caressed her back before he finally let her go again, a brief passionate kiss shared and she turned in his arms to stare out over the rail into the darkness beyond. He felt Jack rather than heard her as she crossed the deck to stand near them. He grinned at the smug, completely satisfied look she had on her face as she watched them stand together, Shazza’s back pressed into his chest. Jack eyed them both happily before she spoke. “Theo says we’re almost where we need to be, where he thinks that ship is likely to come down…”
The heat of his kiss took Shazza off guard and she gasped into his mouth, overwhelmed; everything he couldn’t say earlier said in one kiss. Their lips were bruised and wet when they parted. “I…” It was all Riddick could get out before his breath huffed and he slipped his goggles back down even though he didn’t need them, and followed Jack back down the deck towards the sails.
Shazza waited until he was well out of earshot and turned towards the bow of the ship, the spears at hand’s reach and nothing more needed but a Company ship to arrive. “I love you too, Riddick.”
Jack replaced Theo on the bridge. Theo and Johns helped Duncan cross the deck towards the sail mechanism. He still walked stiffly and grimaced when his leg bumped against Johns but he managed to get into position. Theo stepped back and took Johns with him. It wasn’t easy, Johns didn’t want to be separated from Duncan, and he would have put up a bigger fight if Theo didn’t quickly explain. “Riddick and I have worked those sails, neither of you have, so we each take a sail, come on.”
Theo left no room for complaint but half pulled a reluctant Johns across the deck to the other side to man the other sail. Weapons had been left close by earlier, when they had prepared for this very moment. Duncan shifted his weight again, to rest his good thigh against the rail, the warm wood of the sail mechanism in his hands as he tested the feel. “You’ve done this before.”
Riddick moved into position beside Duncan; he didn’t really want to listen to him, all he could see was Shazza up ahead. He let out a sigh and leaned his weight against the post, before he leaned down and picked up three of the rifles and a few extra clips from where they were stashed. He handed one to Duncan, who stayed quiet and slung it across his chest while Riddick did the same. Riddick didn’t need to see Theo to know that they were making preparations on their side of the ship as well.
Riddick looked up ahead again at Shazza, her hair pulled back by the wind, as he answered Duncan. “Yeah, done it before. It’s harder than it looks.” His eyes closed behind the dark of his goggles and he pictured Shazza thrown clear across the bridge when she had gotten hurt.
The last time that he had been pissed at her. Not her. Not pissed.
Shazza didn’t turn around but she didn’t need to for Duncan to see the look that she and Riddick shared. He stayed quiet next to Riddick, looked out ahead, and waited.
Riddick looked across the deck towards Theo’s side, towards the forest, and raised his goggles. No one else could see in the darkness so they couldn’t know. A shape flitted between the trees and another, and another. No risk to the Moorglade at all, if it was he would have said something before now.
He looked over his own side of the ship, out at the expanse of dark grassland that swept off into the distance. They had stayed back from the ship, those that moved across the grassland, but they had drawn closer as they all neared their destination. An army scattered at first but pulling together into a force as they were all drawn to the same place.
A pulse of electricity across his skin, inside him, that pulled him as surely as it pulled the ship itself. Towards something up ahead. Something.
All of them dropped into a crouch at the same time, even Duncan although it hurt him to do it, at the double explosion of a ship breaking the sound barrier somewhere far up ahead. It had begun.
Copyright © January 2007 xxxevilgrinxxx