HELLO BEAUTIFUL

The mercs walked in awkward silence along the riverside, in much the same way that they had walked out from the ship. Duncan in point with the tech beside him, mercs swept the grass to the side, and Bishop behind, with more mercs behind him. The tension was palpable between all of them; they had been touched in some way as they had crossed the electromagnetic field and were in no way ready to put voice to that yet. There was no way to know how it would be taken by the others.
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“We’re not alone it seems.” Bishop, like the others, had been frozen still by the sight of the fishing net, and what it meant to their search. He turned to watch Duncan stride over to the foreshore and examine the net for himself.
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Bishop stepped out into the half light of the forest. He would never admit to himself, never mind anyone else, the relief that he felt to be free of the ship. It wasn’t death that bothered him; he had killed enough people over his span of years for any squeamishness to have long since passed. It was the randomness of it all that bothered him. Fate was not a thought he would tolerate; it destroyed his sense of order, his belief in his own control. That it could have so easily have been him dead on the floor of the ship was not a thought he wanted to toy with. Would Duncan have shot him, given the circumstances? That he wasn’t entirely sure disturbed him as well.
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The emergency lights flickered on and off as Bishop, Duncan and the tech made their way down the corridor to the main body of the ship. What little light they managed to emit sporadically only managed to make the dark that much deeper. Duncan shut out the disorienting effect as best he could and trailed his hand down the wall of the corridor instead; it was easier to rely on touch in the darkness. He didn’t stop or turn as he knew the tech was right behind him. “The emergency lights are on a battery system….”
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Ch 24

Bishop tried to control his breath as the ship hit the trees. He hated to land at the best of times; hated to put his life completely in the hands of another. His eyes bored holes into the tech officer and if there was a way to kill the man right now he would do it. There would be time enough when he got on the ground, provided they lived through this at all.
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Ch 23

The tech officer, bored with his job, swept the area again. It was hard to track for certain attributes in Trieste system’s nebula; it threw everything off, sometimes only by a little, and sometimes by a lot. On his fourth cup of coffee he blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes and scanned the list of planets and tried to discern what attributes could be gleaned from them on the console in front of him. Usually he would just let the computer do this mindless chore, but nothing worked quite right here.
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Ch 22

Duncan set the last of Theopoulis’ boxes on the chair and carefully unpacked its contents. Over the past few days he had done so with all of the boxes he had brought with him. Their contents were spread all over the desk in his quarters, and pinned and tacked to any available surface. Bishop had come in several times, to bring tea, to tell him about their progress. Duncan believed that the real reason that Bishop dropped in on him was to try to figure out how he did what he did, how he tracked men so well. Duncan looked back over his shoulder to the door of his quarters and looked down at his watch; he expected Bishop any minute. Over the past few years he had begun to grow predictable; Duncan never pointed it out as a dangerous habit.
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Ch 21

Shazza kept her eyes on the ground as they made their way back across the grassland towards where they had found the Moorglade the day before. Much of the grass was still flattened from their previous trip, and she didn’t really need to watch, probably. But she did anyway. Her conversation with Riddick as she lay curled up with Jack had left her quiet. It had felt so good to hold Jack as the girl had cuddled up to her in the night. Shazza looked ahead at Riddick and understood how he could be so taken with her.
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Ch 20

Shazza was awake too, and Riddick watched her silently as she held Jack. The young girl had stayed with them the whole night and now her back was curled against Shazza’s chest. She had held her like that for much of the night, and he kept his arms around both of them. Jack didn’t sleep well at first but she slept soundly now, safe with them. He had lain in bed too long already, and it was difficult when he wanted Shazza so much. He whispered ‘coffee’ and brushed a strand of her hair away from her face in place of a kiss. It was the first time he had actually stayed in bed until she awoke, he thought, and here he was with Jack in between them.
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Ch 19

“Come outside with me Shazza.” Riddick’s shined eyes glittered with a lustful inner light as he gazed at her in the dim light of the bridge. His fingertips traced patterns on the bare skin of her arms and she shuddered at the touch; all night he had touched her like that. His hip would brush against hers as they made something to eat. His hand had sent a blaze of heat through her body when he touched her bare waist on the way back out of the galley.
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