Red On Black

Chapter 13

Rehtaeh:

After Riddick disappeared, Rehtaeh gathered the cords she collected and took them out to Shazza so she could start strapping things down. Then she went to work pulling another light generator to string along the body of the machine. By the time she hauled the second light generator to the sand cat, Shazza and Jack had already set up the first one beside the dome, wrapping it in the coils. A bright blue light started to charge the cat back up and Shazza had to make a jump to the driver's seat to engage the brake. She hauled the second generator onto the back of the cat where she and Mac wrapped the lights around the hoist and its arm, as well as draping the sides of the machine in lights. It was well lit. Riddick was nowhere around and that was fine with her. The asshole could leave her the hell alone and stop toying with her.

Rehtaeh ordered Hassan & Suleiman to grab the excess cables and ropes she had gathered, just in case, coiling them into the back of the cat. Paris made lanterns out of his alcohol bottles, using thick pieces of rope as wicks and some other parts of the ship. Everything got stockpiled into the sand cat now rigged with lights and they were ready to go. They just needed to gather the people. Imam, Paris and Jack stood beside Carolyn in the entrance to the wreckage looking at Rehtaeh and the illuminated sand cat.

 "Are you certain this will work? That you can get us there?" Imam asked Fry.

"No, I can't, but they can." Fry responded. Rehtaeh looked up at her in surprise. The young captain was looking up at Riddick, who had just joined them from the interior of the ship. Rehtaeh shot him a dirty look and turned back to Mac, only keeping a half an ear out for their conversation.

"Are we really going to do this thing?" Paris asked.

"All we have to do is stick together, stay in the light and keep moving forward," Carolyn told them, and then she went in search of Johns so they could get moving. Rehtaeh figured that Johns had gone off to get high again. He was moody and erratic. 

"Mac how's your shoulder?" Rehtaeh looked at her guard. She had been a bit of a bitch to him today. She liked him as a person, he was a really great guy, and yet she had turned on him. She would have beaten the shit out of him if Riddick hadn't stepped in, regardless of the fact that both of them were injured. Then she had ditched him at the base to walk back to the crash site. She felt horrible for her behavior.

"It's good, healing, it stopped bleeding hours ago." He looked over at her. Something in her face must have given her away. "You did an excellent job wrapping it up, so stop worrying. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"I have plenty to feel guilty about, Mac." Rehtaeh scoffed, she ran her hands through her matted hair, and when she had it separated, she braided it as tightly as she could, fastening it with her headband.  "Why couldn't I have been the normal one? Why was I the one born a freak? It would make life a helluva lot easier."

"Easier, but less interesting, I bet." Mac looked at her, his eyes hard with some truth he wanted to share. "Look, I have read your file. You really have nothing to be guilty about. They owe you a new life, you have been used over and over again, they sidelined you for centuries, don't let this take you out of the game altogether. You do whatever you have to do to get off this rock."

"I don't know what I'm doing, Mac, I have been all over the map for weeks, trying to regain myself." She growled at him, her voice dropped to a whisper. "And just when I think I have it all figured out he comes along and throws me into a complete tailspin! I can barely function when he is around. Maybe if I were normal, I could have loved you instead of-."

"I like the man, but I hate to say it, Riddick has been playing with you all day. Don't you think it's time to play back? You were always the competitive one. Your brothers could never beat you, what makes him so special?" Mac told her, his words sparked something in her. He was right. Why the hell was she allowing Riddick to make up the rules of this game? He could play his, and she would play along, but it was time to start playing with her own rules. She sighed and smiled softly up at him, this man that she called a friend.