Deserter: Chapter Six-James Joins In

   Johnston sat quietly at the table, his elbows resting on its smooth surface, fingertips pressed together. He eyed the stacks of files in front of him contemptuously.

  Sighing deeply, he lifted his icy glare to Allen James and spoke. “I thought this little problem was taken care of, James.”

  James shifted uncomfortably in his seat and glanced around, trying to find reassurance in the face of one of his co-workers. The other seven just stared back, some curiously, others with no expressions on their faces at all.

  “Uh-- I-- Well, what I mean to say is, yes, it was taken care of. Privately, of course, but things don’t seem to be working out just right.” Johnston was looking more annoyed than ever and James felt the need to climb down a dark, cold hole and hide.

  “What was the transmission we received then? Would you care to explain that to the rest of the board?” Johnston eyed him with open sarcasm, and more than a little hostility.

  “Yes. Yes, of course. We, I mean I, was given the assignment of hunting this deserter, Rain, down. I was told to use any means possible, and the most likely plan was to go to a merc, or bounty hunter. The best I could find was a man named Johns, but he came across an unfortunate accident a while back, and hasn’t been seen since.” James took a deep breath, Johnston’s face was still twisted in a sarcastic mask.

  He continued. “Johns, being unavailable, led me to my second choice. A man by the name Rick Critchten.”

  “Rain,” Johnston mused. “What’s the deserter’s last name?” he demanded.

  James ruffled through the file in front of him, flipping over the papers. “Uh, there is none, sir. None was ever recorded.”

  Johnston frowned, but waved him to continue.

  “As I was saying, Critchten was now the best in his field, considering Mr. Johns disappearance. I hired him immediately, and he took off after the woman.

  “Rain, the deserter, almost killed the man twice before he caught her. She seems to have a fondness for blades, which isn’t uncommon for Rangers, ex or employed. They favor it for its speed, efficiency, and the fact that it doesn’t make an annoying boom when its used.

  “She is also well trained in hand-to-hand combat and arms use. The first time she came close to taking Critchten out, she shot him in the chest, barely missing his heart. The next time she sunk some long blade into his shoulder, straight down. The blade hit his bone though and he survived, after three months in ICU.

  “As you can see, she was no easy find. But about two weeks ago, Critchten caught up with her, and he was heading here with her when the ship he was on crashed on Rhea, the moon on the other side of Saturn. He sent this transmission.”

  James slid the sheet of white paper towards Johnston, and extra copies to the others assembled. There was  a moment of silence before anyone said anything.

  Johnston skimmed over the typed words. “This is Rick Critchten. I was hired by Allen James. The ship I was using as transport to Titan had a run in with some space debris and crashed on Rhea. The entire back end of the ship was ripped off in the crash and my prisoner is gone. Name: Rain. Her number is: 1081983-DLS. Whether she survived or not is still to be determined.”

  The others began to murmur over this and James found himself shifting again, his anxiety building. He knew he’d fucked up bad, and he was going to pay for it. The Company never let anything slide.

  He gulped at the look Johnston was giving him now, and flinched when the larger man slapped the paper down hard on the black table.

  “This never should of happened,” Johnston hissed at him angrily.

  James nodded enthusiastically, then stopped himself, not wanting to look like a fool. To late, he thought to himself.

  “If given the chance, sir, I believe I can correct it,” James stammered.

  Johnston seemed to consider this before answering. “How long will it take you to fly to Rhea?” he asked quietly.

  “Ah, about, um, three days, sir,” he answered, calculating the distance between the two moons in his head.

  “Good. You have two weeks to bring prisoner 1081983-DLS in. If you don’t have her back here by then, you’ll soon find that you are expendable.”

  James cringed as Johnston drew the word out, stressing it. He knew exactly what the man meant. If he didn’t bring Rain in, and quick, he was going to share her fate.

  Thanking everyone profusely, James scooped up the stack of files on Rain’s Ranger career and her offenses, which was about a foot high, and headed for his quarters.

  Within four hours, he was ready to go.

  ~~~

  Max ran as fast as his skinny legs would carry him back towards the camp. He could make out smoke above the trees and he stumbled and fell through the brush, making a general racket, and crashing about. He ran into more than one tree, hitting one so hard he busted his nose.

  Blood ran down his face and dripped off the end of his pointy chin by the time he finally collapsed by the fire.

  The others rushed over to him, Walker fastest of all, and began bombarding him with a barrage of questions he didn’t quite know how to answer.

  “Where’s Clyde?” “What happened?” “What’d you do to yer nose?” “Why are you bleeding?” “Where’s the weapons?”

  Max’s head spun from the effort of trying to get everything straight in his mind and he finally groaned , rolled onto his stomach, and puked. His body shook as he could only dry heave, considering he’d already spilled the contents of his stomach all over the forest floor when Clyde’s body had dropped from the tree.

  Everyone stepped back immediately, their questions temporarily subdued.

  A young couple helped him to his feet and over to a rock, where he sat down heavily, his entire frame shaking uncontrollably.

  Max took a few long, gulping breaths before he started talking. “Rick said that his prisoner was worth some cash. So when Walker got attacked by her and we all realized she must have killed Rick, I got together with Clyde. We were gonna go after her ourselves.

  “Well, the sun was comin’ up and we spotted the place where she must have bedded down for the night. I turned to say something to Clyde, but he was gone. Then suddenly he fell down from this tree, and his throat was cut. It was cut so damn deep that I could see his spine. And his eyes... Oh, God, his eyes. They were just staring at me...” Max trailed off, weeping uncontrollably.

  Riddick sat a ways away from them, listening to Max’s story. So Rain had killed the other boy. To bad for him. He wondered why she’d left Max, and figured it was because she was still playing her thrill game with them.

  Rain, who was perched in a tree not far away, listened intently to Max’s rendition of the past few minutes. Little did she know that Riddick thought she was no more than a cold-blooded killer.

  He wasn’t far off though, even considering the only reason Max was alive was because he flooded Rain’s mind with so many different thoughts at a time that she’d had to leave. Even now, at this distance, it was hard not to close her eyes and grab her head.

  Everyone’s’ emotions were on hyper-drive and the feeling was overwhelming. But now that her own senses had calmed, she was able to block most of them out. Except for the strongest transmitters, she was safe from another overload.

  She allowed Riddick to be alerted to her presence and felt his curiosity. She focused on him. He kept all his emotions muted, turned down, and it was comforting.

  Max continued to blubber nonsense and Rain opened a line of communication with Riddick.

  ‘You missed it,’ she said. ‘I haven’t slit someone a smile that big since my years as a...’ she trailed off, unsure of Riddick’s reaction to the fact that she was a Ranger. Had been, she corrected herself. Had been a Ranger.

  ‘You can’t hide it. Not from me,’ he stated. The feeling transmitted with the words was condemning.

  Rain tried not to bristle at the judgment. ‘Hide what?’ she asked innocently as possible.

  ‘The fact that you were a Ranger. I was one, too. But I got out.’ The condemning tone still audible.

  ‘Don’t you dare judge me,’ she shot back at him.

  A mental sigh from Riddick. ‘At least you left. Guess you’re no worse than me.’

  She relaxed. ‘Glad we got that straight.’

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