***
The jury of six returned after no more than five minutes. The audience listened while SkyCams buzzed around and the jury stood, one by one, unanimously declaring Riddick not guilty of rape, yet guilty of second-degree murder. Fink and Tori did a poor job of hiding grins. For some reason their smugness got under his skin. Riddick tried to convince himself that their grins meant nothing. He was going to escape and never give Fink what he wanted, but all he could do was envision himself leaping into the jury pit and bashing Fink in his pompous face over and over. Why did the verdict sting so much? These people didn’t matter to him.
Maybe it bothered him so much because of how his former superiors were handling Russel’s death. They were more interested using it to get what they wanted without carrying any emotional pain from the death of a soldier. Russel had become collateral. Either that or at least Tori was doing a spectacular job of hiding his pain.
Who was the monster now?
Judge Lyman brought up a glowing file with a wave of his hand. “Before I announce the ruling, I want to bring something to light.” He shifted his overweight frame. “Richard B. Riddick, it says here you weren’t born in America, much less on Earth. What world are you from?”
“That’s classified information, Your Honor,” Fink said.
Lyman gave Fink a glare that made Fink bow his head. Interesting. Even though the judge had been bought, he still held superiority over the General in a courtroom setting. “Be that as it may,” Lyman said in a controlled voice, “Riddick’s heritage must be taken into consideration with my ruling. There’s an expressed interested in understanding what his alien kind are capable of. So far we have been led to believe that they are a sociopathic type, a type that don’t belong among the military’s ranks. Richard B. Riddick, as punishment for the murder of Corporal Kurt Russel, I hereby sentence you to life in prison. In addition, you will be studied by military scientists and biologist in the name of research for global security. If you do not cooperate and instead continue your violent streak, you will return to trial for an appropriate death sentence. Not as a Marine. Not as an American. Not as a human, but as the animal you are. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Riddick said with all the venom he could muster. Over the years, so many people had looked at and treated him like some beast or animal. He hated it. He didn’t feel like he was an animal but he must be acting like one more than he realized. He clearly didn’t fit in with the human race. Maybe he should stop trying and start giving in to the animal side everyone saw in him.
“Good. You are dismissed. Court adjourned!” Lyman pushed to his feet like some walrus rearing up and disappeared behind the podium.
The holo-screen dismantled and stowed itself as the audience rose and began gossiping in excited voices, SkyCams zooming around. One got in Riddick’s face and he wanted to bat it out of the air like a cat taking down a bird, but his chains allowed him to raise his hands no higher than his stomach. He was escorted off the disc as strangers pointed and spoke behind hands. Chase scooped up his briefcase and left without even looking at Riddick. What a coward. Couldn’t face the man he’d helped doom to a life of confinement and torture.
“Riddick!” Waters pushed her way to the partition separating the audience from the rest of the courtroom. “Riddick!” Worry was etched all over her face. Her beautiful face. She reached towards him but one soldier stepped in front of her, blocking her from view.
Maybe Riddick shouldn’t give up entirely on fitting in with the human race. He veered towards Waters but one of the soldiers escorting him more punched than pushed him back towards the door. Shrugging off the blow, Riddick clenched his teeth and held his chin high as he looked in Waters’ direction until the doorway blocked his view. Unless Fink and the others were petty enough to rob him of visitation rights, that was probably the second to last time he’d ever see Waters.
He would see her once more after he escaped. It might be days. It might be months. Maybe even a few years, but it was just a matter of time. First he’d lull his captors into complacency, and then make his move. If he could make people do what he wanted in a fight, he could exert this control elsewhere.
16.
Three nights after the trial, Riddick woke in his darkened cell. He’d been dreaming about tearing the wings off of a dove. When he realized he was strangling his pillow, he relaxed and took in his room, and the details of his dream started slipping away.
His cell was dark at this hour, like it should be, and the hallway lit along the crux of the wall and floor, as it should be. No sounds, no smells, nothing out of place. Even though he heard nothing over the hum of the central air system, he felt like someone was approaching. Maybe an adjacent prisoner had gotten up and started pacing his respective eight by eight cell.
A distortion in his vision made him do a double take of the hall and reach for the makeshift shiv he’d made out of a fragment of his bed. A curve in the hall that looked like it was being refracted in water drifted along the width of his cell, stopping when a semi-circle distortion line framed the cell door. Riddick paused with his fingers curled around the rim of his bed. Was this real or was he still dreaming?
The glowing red outline of his door turned yellow, and then the door slid open. Riddick snatched his shiv, rolled and threw off the foam slab, and crouched on his bed, weapon ready and muscles tensed. The distortion spread into the room like one giant half of a bubble, and the dome’s apex stopped just inside the door. Riddick wanted to dive at the center, shiv leading the way, but for all he knew that’s exactly what his intruder was hoping for. He caught a whiff of a familiar scent.
It couldn’t be!
The smell of beautiful. Waters.
Waters’ face, combat goggles and all, broke through the distortion field first, followed by her rifle and solid frame dressed in combat gear.
“Close your mouth and stay quiet,” she whispered. “And fix your bed so you can lie on it. I need to record a hologram feed.”
Riddick closed his mouth and did as told, but had to be told to stop staring and pretend to sleep. Heart pounding, he lay still with his eyes closed while Waters recorded a minute of footage, having him shift a couple of times to really sell it. Once she was satisfied, Riddick got up and Waters set the hologram in his place. It was weird looking at a replica of himself laying there, sleeping fitfully. Despite how long he’d been around technology, seeing himself like that added a whole new perspective. It was like looking at a reflection, but reflections were supposed to look back when looked at.
“Let’s get out of here.” Waters tugged his arm.
Riddick started to move then stopped. “Wait, why are you dong this for me?”
“I’ll explain after we’re out.”
“But you’re throwing away your career.”
“I’ll explain that, too. Now let’s go.” Rifle in hand, Waters threaded an arm in his and hugged him close as they stepped into the distortion field. He hovered protectively close, feeling a need to guard her, even though he was the one being rescued. She collected the device from the doorframe, shut the door, and guided them down the gloomy hall on silent footsteps.
They passed two guards at the end of the hall, both of them slumped in chairs with tranquilizer darts protruding from their necks. Waters and Riddick snuck by and continued down the next hall.
“Why did you tranq them?” Riddick said.
“The distortion field doesn’t mask noise. The doors make noises when opening and closing. I had no choice.”
Riddick nodded.
They wound along a circuitous path, passing sleeping guards at every checkpoint. They snuck under dozens of cameras, hopefully with no one paying careful attention to their feeds. The prison was relatively quiet, the steady hum of the central conditioning system making more noise than most guards or cleaning staff, awake or asleep.
Apparently no one was carefully monitoring the security cams. They made it to the prison entrance without any problems. W
aters whispered something into the headset built into her goggles, and Kenner’s towering frame walked past the doors, making them slide open. The only two guards Waters had been able to avoid tranquilizing paid the doors no mind as she and Riddick exited the prison.
They followed Kenner along the parking lot, under a section of pine trees, and over to an SUV parked on the side of the road. Kenner took the driver’s seat, Waters took shotgun as she turned off the distortion field, and Riddick sat alone in back.
“Lie down,” Kenner said, “just in case.”
One again, Riddick did as told, making himself comfortable with a pillow that’d been provided as Kenner pulled away from the curb and hugged the low speed limit. Riddick scrunched himself up so he could look at Waters through the gap between chairs. “So will you explain why you’re both throwing away your careers over me?”
“We’re not,” Waters said solemnly.
“Besides,” Kenner said, “we couldn’t just leave you there after hearing the truth. We didn’t let Chase and Fink suck us into their fucked up agenda.”
Riddick clenched his jaw at the memory of Chase leaving without so much as looking at him. “Did you believe the charges?” The question came out before he could stop himself. He’d been wondering what the people he liked and cared about thought of him, even if the truth hurt. He wanted to know how much of an animal he really was to them.
The question caught both squad members off guard. Waters turned in her seat, forehead creased with empathy. “The rape? Definitely not.” Kenner voiced his agreement as Waters popped a gentle smile and Riddick’s thoughts went to him kissing her on the neck that night.
That was some consolation. “And me being a killer?”
“Riddick, you’re a Marine.”
“Was a Marine,” he said bitterly.
Waters shook her head. “Like it or not, that training is with you for life. You, Kenner, and I have all been trained to kill. We’re soldiers. Kill or be killed. I’d believed the accusation was plausible, but I wanted to hear what happened exactly before jumping to any conclusions. Riddick, you’re far from the first Marine to kill a fellow soldier for one reason or another.”
“But did you think I was a cold-blooded killer?”
“Goodness no! You’re too smart and compassionate for that. You can be brash as well, but that goes for just about every man your age.”
Kenner said, “I’ve done my share of stupid things growing up. Thankfully I was never in a situation like yours with Russel, but I bet my life that I’d probably have done the same thing in your place.” They turned onto a housing street.
“Well, now you’ve helped me break out of prison,” Riddick said unhappily. “You can add that to your list of stupid things.”
“We couldn’t just leave you there,” Waters said.
“I was working on getting myself out.”
“How? You saw all the guards and checkpoints.”
Riddick flashed his homemade shiv and Waters raised her brows. “I was working on it. Was gonna wait and see all the places they were gonna take me before figuring out the easiest escape route.”
“Already armed yourself inside being incarcerated for three days. You work quickly. But anyway, I guarantee you our help is faster and easier.” She faced forward, smiling.
“I’m really grateful for your help but why didn’t you just leave me there? How is this better than throwing away your careers?”
“Don’t worry about that, Riddick. Just wait and see.”
17.
Kenner pulled into his driveway sitting adjacent to a house like Waters’ ranch. Another SUV was parked on the side of the road. Waters’ vehicle. What exactly was their plan?
The two squad members checked their surrounds before escorting Riddick inside the protection of the distortion field. The device looked like a palm-sized disco ball with spider legs that ended in pincers. He followed Waters and Kenner into a living room full of family photos and military memorabilia, and shut off the distorter. A bulging bag sat on a La-Z-Boy chair.
Kenner picked up the bag and chucked it to Riddick, who caught it. “Go get changed,” Kenner said, then grimaced. “Then comes the fun part.” He sounded like the next part was going to be anything but fun.
Riddick looked at the bag, then at the two Marines.
“It’s your flight suit. I grabbed it before Tori could.”
“We collected a bunch of your things,” Waters said. “We’re getting you off this planet with as full bags as possible. Now hurry up and change. That hologram in your cell will last about as long as the tranqs, which will be roughly three hours.”
“After that, shit’s gonna hit the fan,” Kenner said.
“I’ve never really understood that phrase.” Riddick headed for the bathroom.
“Means we’re gonna have way more problems than we’ll want to deal with. The sooner you get off-planet, the better.”
Riddick hurried into the bathroom and donned his flight suit as fast as he could, throwing it over his orange prison attire, and swapping his blue loafer slippers for combat boots. The slippers he stuffed in the bag. No sense in leaving evidence that he’d been in this house.
Riddick found Waters standing outside Kenner’s bedroom, the door wide open. She waved him over and he followed her inside the room.
Kenner sat on his bed, wearing a football t-shirt and basketball shorts, looking ready for bed. Now what?
Waters chambered a tranquilizer dart in her rifle. “Riddick, we’re eliminating any chance of them thinking Kenner helped you escape.”
Kenner got up and stood before them. “Take the XGT ship I fly.” He shoved keys in Riddick’s hand. “It’s already got a list of chartered courses to other worlds, and it’s set to take you back home.”
“Home?”
“Furya. Where you’re from.”
That’s right. That was the name. “But--”
Waters said, “You’re in this mess because we took you from your home. You were doing perfectly well without our help. The least we can do is help you get back there.”
Despite being a misfit, Earth felt like home; however, some part of him liked the idea of returning to his original home. “So is that the only place I belong?”
Waters took a deep breath and let it go. “Ultimately you decide where you belong. No one can tell you that but you.”
Riddick looked at the keys and frowned. “I don’t know where that is.” Having been gone from his home world for so long, what if his own kind rejected him, too? He really enjoyed Waters’ company, along with her squad’s and their families, but so many people had made that impossible now. How was he supposed to fit in anywhere?
“I know life here on Earth hasn’t been easy for you, Riddick,” Waters said. “I’m still not sure if bringing you here was the right thing to do.”
“It was,” he insisted, meaning it. “I don’t regret it.”
“Thank you, Riddick,” Kenner said. “I really appreciate hearing that.” He clasped Riddick’s hand as he pulled him into a one-armed hug. Riddick rarely made physical contact with others, but this hug felt good. They mutually let go. “No matter what happens, always strive to be the better man. Don’t let crap like this trial get to you. You were a great Marine. Never forget that.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Kenner nodded. “I’ll pass on your words to Pond, Spark, and Markham. They’ll be glad to hear it, too. They recorded videos of themselves saying goodbye to you. You can watch them on the ship. It was too risky to have everyone help tonight.”
Riddick nodded back. “I understand.”
“They’re gonna miss ya, as will I.” Kenner tucked himself in bed with one arm on top of his blankets.
“I’ll miss all of you, too.” Damn, he was gonna miss the entire squad. They’d all mentored him in one way or another over the past three years.
“Hold still, Kenner,” Waters said, motioning for Riddick to leave the room. He stepped into the hall and Water
s dropped to one knee just outside the door, which she pulled almost shut, then took aim with her rifle. “Kenner, I apologize in advance for how you’ll feel in the morning.”
“No need, ma’am. It’s worth it. Good bye and good luck.”
“Good bye.” She shot Kenner in the triceps.