Firefly: Now Hiring - 8

Riddick donned his goggles for the first time in several days and curled his fingers around the cabin ladder. With most of the crew off the ship searching for supplies, it was now or never. Unwilling to try and sneak pass the medical bay where Zoë remained with her newborn, the hulking convict had decided on getting to the cargo bay by the less direct route through the control room. There was a small risk of running into River - the little psychic was still lurking about somewhere - but she had been uncommonly helpful to most of Riddick's endeavors so far. Still, he didn't plan to count on anything but her instability.

The upper corridor where the criminal emerged at the top of the ladder was deadly quiet and, as he hoped, completely empty. But it was foolish to trust his luck; just as he shut the hatchway and turned to his right, River appeared in the doorway of the cockpit. The sleeping baby was clutched in her arms, and her hollow eyes were wide and staring. "Reavers," she whispered in utter horror.

Riddick's brows furrowed in slight confusion; he wasn't sure if it was the best thing for her to be holding the infant in her current mental state. "Reverse what?"

"They're coming," the girl repeated hoarsely.

Riddick didn't react, trying to fathom what she meant.

River whirled around and stalked back into the cockpit. Peering out after her, Riddick considered trying to go past the medical unit instead after all. He hesitated: even though Zoë wasn't in the best shape of her life, he didn't feel inclined to try and sneak by her. Maybe River would let him pass through the control room untouched.

Clenching his hands into fists, Riddick went up the stairs: he found River half crouched and hiding slightly behind the dashboard panel. Outside, nothing could be seen but a thin line of pine trees and a dusty brown plain beyond.

"Shhh," the girl hissed softly, holding up her free hand to point to the copilot's chair.

Riddick's muscles tensed, and he crept forward slowly. As he reached the middle of the room, the small shape of a rusty cruiser appeared beyond the tree line, heading northwards and followed by two more small shuttles.

If he left now, he would have enough time to get clear of the firefly before it was attacked. That was his assumption, at least; River seemed to want to avoid being spotted. Just two steps into the cargo bay and a quick trot down the steps. He could leave the two women and their infant at the mercy of… whoever was running the convoy.

But why should abandoning complete strangers bother Riddick? He was a hardened criminal, and criminals didn't feel guilt. They didn't feel regret.

So why did he now?

-

Riddick sat down and clicked the buckle into place.

"Stay very… still," River whispered. "They're never still. They never sleep. They never stop moving."

Riddick watched the ships carefully: billowing clouds of smoke trailed behind them, and as sunlight glinted off them he started to spot red splashes of color and large gashes cut all over their plating. A clear glimpse through a gap between two tree branches and he could see the remains of human bodies strapped at various points on the sides and hulls of the shuttles. His eyes narrowed within the black goggles. "Who are they?" he murmured.

The young girl kept her gaze on the ships. "Reavers," she breathed hoarsely.

Riddick looked down at the controls. He wasn't sure exactly why she had made him sit here; it would be better to shift the ship into reverse from the head pilot's chair-

"Take Ziza," River suddenly exclaimed, franticly shoving the baby into Riddick's arms and grabbing hold of the main controls. "Keep her warm!"

Riddick froze as soon as the infant was in his hands, more horrified than he remembered ever being in his entire life. He couldn't even find a voice to speak until he was sure that he wouldn't drop the tiny bundle. "…are you INSANE?" he finally spluttered.

"Don't wake the baby," the young psychic snapped, strapping herself down in the main seat. The small caravan was turning east, coming for them; Serenity had been spotted.

The shuttle shot into the air. Riddick braced himself in his seat and wrapped the sleeping infant in his arms as tightly as he could without hurting or waking it, trying to remember what other people looked like when they held their babies. He was hardly conscious of being whipped around as the ship turned or dropped: suddenly all he was aware of was trying not to damage the tiny breathing creature pressed against his chest.

They were being chased: exactly where or for how long, the hard-bitten criminal couldn't tell. The ship's heavy lurches were intense, but the baby was somehow stable in his arms, hardly waking at all except to give occasional grunts of discomfort at the more dramatic changes in gravity. Riddick was frozen stiff. His face was blank and his expression was unchanged - to anybody he might have looked for all the world like he was used to pressure like this - but his breathing was heavy and he was inwardly terrified. He was terrified of letting the baby be hurt. Terrified of hurting it himself.

"RIVER," a voice screamed from the hallway behind the cockpit.

"Ziza's safe," the young psychic called without even glancing back; she seemed to have known that no mother in her right mind would put her own welfare before the safety of her child. Riddick didn't dare turn around, either to look Zoë in the face or to look away from the bundle in his arms. All he could do was bolster himself against the shuttle's jerky movements and pray to an invisible deity that River knew what she was doing. Which… he somewhat doubted. Zoë seemed to feel the same way.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" she shouted when she saw where her child was.

"Strap in," River told her as she flipped a switch and headed the Serenity into a nose dive. The ship shot downwards off a mountain and began to hurtle towards the dusty plains below. In a few seconds, they would be annihilated against the planet's surface.

Zoë managed to pull herself into the chair behind Riddick and buckle in, but that didn't keep her stern voice from echoing in the criminal's ears. "GIVE HER TO ME! GIVE HER TO ME NOW!"

The shouting made young Ziza squirm and let out an uneasy wail. River barely glanced at her before pulling back hard on the helm: the shuttle suddenly became horizontal and shot forward on a new course, carried further downwards for a moment by its old trajectory and then racing along only a few feet off the terrain. The thrusters groaned in protest at the strain she was putting on them. Riddick braced himself as they all lurched forward and downward during the change in direction, wrapping the now crying infant inside a protective shell made by his arms and chest.

The ships chasing them were not so lucky pulling out of the dive. There were three loud rumbles as the Reaver ships crashed into the rocky ground and burst into flames. River slowly relaxed from where she had been sitting stiffly in the pilot's chair and turned her head around to glance accusingly at Zoë. "You woke up the baby."

Riddick slowly uncurled himself and turned about. His heart was beating wildly and young Ziza had started fighting the blanket she was wrapped in, screaming like a tiny banshee. Her mother unbuckled herself immediately and stepped forward, taking the infant up protectively while the convict gladly surrendered the burden that had been shoved upon him. Zoë took her daughter to the other side of the cockpit and examined her carefully for fear she had been injured.

As the silence of calm slowly settled back into the room, both Riddick and Zoë turned to glare at River. She kept her eyes on the landscape as she guided the ailing Serenity back to its hiding spot, but a tiny smug smile was lurking around the edges of her mouth.

"Where's my gun?" Zoë snapped. "River, where did you put it?"

"Dangerous around babies," River murmured without turning around.

Zoë's stone expression was unchanged. "That's not funny. Where is it?"

The young psychic still maintained her level gaze on the plain, but at the remark she did smile a little more. "Safe," she mused. "Safe like Ziza. Safe like Riddick. Everybody's safe."

"River, that wasn't safe. Handing an infant to a man like-"

"Safe, Zoë" River insisted sternly, actually looking away from driving to tell her by name. "Safer than you think." She paused only to turn her strange gaze upon Riddick and grin broadly. "Never had a doubt."

-

Rage boiled up inside of Riddick at the young girl's remark. She had no right: no right to know it, no right to say it, no right to prove it. He unbuckled himself and stood up. "Stop your little joyride," he commanded, heading for the door. Zoë made no move to stop him. "I'm getting off."

Riddick stormed down into the cargo bay: he pushed over a stack of crates, threw a pile of mesh netting across the floor, and kicked various objects around several times in a fit of rage. He hated River. He hated her. He hated Zoë, he hated Ziza, he hated everybody and everything to do with this ship. They had no right. No right. No right…

The man ripped the goggles away from his eyes, as if he could somehow block out the memories of death and utter darkness that had plagued him for ages. Carolyn being yanked out if his arms and into the abyss, Jack lying limp on a marble floor with a hole in her chest…

These visions had shaped him: they were what had driven his soul to this state of lonely depravity and smoldering anger. He had been numb and unfeeling for so long: hardened, callused to the pain of others because he convinced himself it was their business alone. He had gotten used to the apathy, the easy dismissal of everything that crossed his path, the draining of human feeling from his veins.

No friendships meant no heartbreak. No pain. Just numbness.

Death had always followed him. It was his only constant in the 'Verse. He had convinced himself that it was because he was really a monster with the cursed touch. Carolyn's death was his fault, Jack's death was his fault… Destruction had haunted him, and now suddenly life had tried to penetrate the darkest recesses of his mind and he was blinded by it.

-

Zoë emerged through the doorway into the cargo bay. She had her arms wrapped around her daughter as if she were a fragile porcelain doll, clutching the baby close as she looked around and spotted the criminal leaning against the wall under the shadow of one of the braces. The sound of Ziza's soft gurgling seemed to jolt Riddick back into the present; he straightened up and turned his head to look at her. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, even without his black goggles masking everything. His eyes glowed eerily in the dim light.

Zoë remained stiff and alert, but calm. "…I do owe you an apology," she admitted begrudgingly, nodding to the now-calm baby in her arms. "There ain't a mark on her."

Riddick didn't answer for a long time. He stood seemingly lost in thought for what felt like several minutes before rumbling quietly back, "You're welcome."

Zoë nodded slowly and turned to leave, looking down at the spotless infant in her arms-

"Who were those guys?" Riddick asked suddenly. He didn't look curious or confused… just stoic and calm as always. "Alliance lapdogs?"

"Reavers," Zoë corrected him gently, cradling Ziza as she lingered in the doorway. When Riddick said nothing, she took it as an invitation to explain. "They were people once. The Alliance sent chemicals into the atmosphere of a newly-settled planet, but things went wrong."

Riddick turned to stare at the wall, but kept his mouth shut.

"Part of the population turned savage," Zoë told him. "Murderous, cannibalistic animals is what they are now. Falling prey to them is a fate worse than death."

"Hm," Riddick grunted. "Guess I ain't the scariest thing out there anymore."

Zoë didn't even blink. "Not by a long shot."

The man turned to face her directly and leaned casually against the wall. " 'Reavers,' huh?" he murmured thoughtfully. "Never heard of 'em."

"Been around for the past ten years or so."

"…yeah, I been outta the worlds about that long."

"Well, then," Zoë murmured seriously. "Welcome back."

- - -

River kept her eyes on the landscape as she guided the Serenity back to its original hiding place, steering comfortably in the pilot's chair. Now that the Reavers were gone, she had unbuckled and was sitting cross-legged in her seat. Sunshine filtered through the glass windshield and warmed her a little. Just behind her, she sensed Riddick coming up the stairs and approaching from the cargo bay. He could see that she was focused on the flying, so he planned on raising a knuckle to the doorframe to alert her to his presence-

"Jìnrù," River murmured before he could knock. "…that means enter."

The convict edged in just as she slowed the shuttle down and peered out the window at the familiar landscape. His eyebrows furrowed slightly. "This is where those Reavers spotted us."

"No," River replied matter-of-factly, bringing the ship to a halt. "Where the crew will spot us."

Riddick ignored the remark. He knew that the two locations were one and the same, but he didn't feel like arguing with a crackpot at the moment.

River prepared to lower the ship onto its three remaining landing braces, then stared out the window for a moment to scan the terrain. "This is a fertile land, and we will thrive."

Riddick started to have doubts about coming into the cockpit after all. "Riiight," he rumbled slowly.

The ship jerked hard for a moment upon impact with the earth, then came to rest. It was still sitting tilted. The criminal pulled himself up from where he had been hanging by a ceiling pipe at the shuttle's final lurch. He couldn't help but be a little impressed. "Not bad, kid," he admitted openly, trying to act like a friendly human being for once. "How old are you, sixteen?"

The girl cocked her head to one side as she picked up one of the model dinosaurs from the dashboard, staring at it intently. "Plus two," she murmured.

Riddick sat down in the copilot's chair and swiveled to look at her. "Nice flying."

River smiled faintly as she stroked the head of the plastic stegosaurus. "Love," she murmured fondly. "Love keeps 'er in the air."

The convict looked away slowly, yet again growing uneasy at her strange and fluffy answers. He decided it would be best to leave before the captain and crew got back, and he made to stand up-

"You came to thank me," River suddenly said.

Riddick paused in the middle of leaning forward with his hands on the armrests of his chair. After a moment of debating whether or not to answer, he slowly relaxed and leaned back into his seat. He didn't let his gaze leave the girl as she put down the toy reptile. "Yeah."

"Take love outa the 'Verse, ain't nothing' left," River admitted to him. For one brief moment she looked like any other normal teenager, smiling a little without any strands of hair dangling in front of her face or shadows cast over her eyes. She looked down at her hands and laughed softly as if at some secret joke, but then her smile faded. "Take love out of people, death comes in." Her eyes became hollow again. She shook a little and glanced out the window with a terrified look on her face, as if she expected to see more enemies on the horizon. "Reavers come out."

Riddick said nothing.

"Where will you go?" River continued, turning to face him.

The convict glanced out the window impatiently, apprehensive of where this conversation was leading. "Nowhere."

"Everywhere," River replied without blinking.

Riddick paused to look at her more carefully. "Maybe."

"You're safest on the move," River continued, her voice soft.

The convict felt himself start to bristle with slight suspicion at her leading suggestions. "Maybe."

"We never stop moving."

The convict paused. Normally he might have shot the offer down immediately, but for once he actually found himself considering the job. Earning honest money - admittedly from probably less-than-honest work, but that didn't bother him in the slightest. Freedom to move from planet to planet. His own cabin. The crew was already avoiding the authorities, and surely they would have plenty of action in case he started itching for a taste of blood. Riddick was actually tempted.

"It's a big risk," he growled in warning. "You expect to live a long life, you'd best look for someone else to hire; people around me too long tend to end up dead. And not always 'cuzza my enemies."

River smiled a little. "Same here."