My Own Kind of Freedom by Steven Brust (top novels to read TXT) 📕
Except that the Captain just wasn't himself these days, and that was cause for worry.
The "town" of Yuva began abruptly as the road split into two main streets, which ran parallel for about a mile before the southernmost ("South Street," said a sign) left you at the top of a hill leading down to where the miners lived in what was effectively a different, larger, and much filthier town. North Street was half a mile longer, ending in the company security office. On South Street, a bright, clean-looking store stood on the right beneath a sign saying, "Company Store," opposite a small park-like area, with a pond and a few scrubby trees.
Sakarya's mansion (white, square, and imposing) was perched on a sort of hillock (artificial, and artificially green) just south of the store.
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This was what he did; this was what he was good at. Collect the pieces, make sense of them, look for the fact that didn’t fit in, then follow it wherever it led. That his target was now his own people was no longer even a consideration; the work was everything, it had become its own goal.
Names and figures and data-points of history flashed before him, the search becoming wider and wider, then sometimes narrowing into a tight beam until possibility became negative, and the search widened again.
The goal had vanished long ago; the process was now all there was, and he reveled in it.
Serenity: Cargo bay
Kaylee was waiting when they came in, both of them out of breath.
“Cap’n! You’re bleeding!”
“Not too bad,” he said. “We need some work on shuttle two.”
“Okay. But you’re dripping on the floor.”
The Captain glanced down at his upper thigh and shifted his weight. He squished audibly. “First we have to get it back aboard. And I’d like to recover the other shuttle first.”
“I can do that, sir,” said Zoë. “Go get fixed up.”
Wash came rattling down the stairs and wrapped his arms around Zoë.
“Good job, Wash,” said the Captain.
Simon appeared next, looked them over, and said, “All right, Captain, let’s get you to the infirmary.”
“I don’t think we … . ” he paused in mid-sentence, wavered on his feet, and said, “All right.” Simon put an arm under the Captain’s shoulder and led him off.
“I’ll be right back,” said Zoë.
“You’ll be what?” said Wash.
“I need to get the shuttle.”
“Honey-pooch, you just got back in, and there are people out there who want to shoot at you. Why don’t I bring Serenity to the shuttles?”
“The fuel cost.”
“Gan zhe xie ranliao fei.”
“The Captain said—”
“Ba yi ge ranliao dianchi lai cao chuanzhang . We can just—”
“Okay, compromise. Give me an exact location on the one we’re almost on top of, I’ll go get it, and meet you next to the other one.”
Wash exhaled slowly. “All right,” he said.
Kaylee tried not to smile. Wash was so adorable when he was being protective. “I’ll get my tools,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, she entered shuttle two, nodding to Zoë.
“Did they shoot at you any more?”
“No sign of them.”
“Good.”
“Ohhhh.”
“What is it?”
“One of the bullets knocked a piece of the bulkhead through the hydraulics. We’ve got fluid all over the place. How did you get the gravboot to work?”
“We didn’t.”
“Oh. Okay. It’ll need to be welded. And I hope we have more fluid somewhere.”
“Need any help?”
“No, thanks.” She grinned. “Unless you want to help with the cleanup.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
She pulled out the welder and goggles, setting them next to the bullet hole. Almost without thinking about it, she moved back to the engine to close the valve, then up to the controls to make sure that everything was powered off.
The drill was in her hand, bolt puller inserted, and then the panel was off, exposing the damaged line, fluid still dripping from it. She sighed and rubbed her hand along the bulkhead. “Poor li’l guy,” she said.
Serenity: Med bay
“You’ve been wounded here before,” he said, his probe hovering over the injury.
“Shrapnel,” said the Captain. “Dhu-Kang. Is it the same spot?”
“Near enough.”
“That a problem?”
“I don’t know, yet. Can you not—?”
“Sorry.”
The Captain visibly relaxed against the exam table and stared up at the ceiling.
Simon opened the wound and studied it. “Interesting,” he said.
He felt the Captain looking at him.
“Oh, sorry. Clean entry and exit, but, it’s odd.”
“Doctor, there are certain sorts of pain your anesthetic isn’t dealing with.”
“Yes. Your previous injury, or, rather, the scar from your previous injury, pushed your artery a quarter of an inch to the left. Otherwise you might have bled to death before you got here.”
“So then, that means I’m not going to bleed to death, right? I just ask on account of I’m interested.”
“You’ll be fine. I’m going to clean it out, sew you up, and you’ll be ready to have more holes put in you.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to that.”
“Please try not to move your leg. It didn’t miss the artery by all that much.”
“Son, do you enjoy this?”
“Patching up bullet holes?”
“Well not that as much as, well, yes.”
“Do you enjoy getting them put in you?”
“Not so much.”
“There’s a satisfaction when someone comes in—”
“I don’t mean the afterward. I mean while you’re doing it.”
“Oh. Um, ask me another time. I’m sort of busy right now.”
“That’s what I thought.”
My Own Kind of Love
Serenity: Bridge
She took herself up to the bridge, sat herself in the co-pilot’s chair, and waited. She knew what was coming, and trying to avoid it would just make it worse. Her husband stared through the front window. Serenity was doing what Wash called “sleeping”—as close to a full shutdown as she could get without requiring hours to warm up. The comm was still up, though the keyboards and setting were locked, and if you concentrated, you could just feel the gentlest of vibrations. Everything was very quiet; the co-pilot’s chair gave a squeak as she leaned back.
Eventually, he said, “I know you have to take risks.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
“But can’t Mal manage to keep the risks down to what’s necessary, instead of—”
“That’s just what he does. I’ve never known the Captain to take an unnecessary risk.”
“Now that’s just not true.”
“Well, okay. I’ve never known him to take risks he didn’t think were justified.”
“Like sending you out to get that shuttle when the woods were full of—”
“They were disorganized and confused, thanks to you. The best time to retrieve the shuttles was right then, before the enemy could regroup.”
“Regroup. That’s one of those army words, isn’t it?”
“Sweetie, sarcasm is not one of your more endearing traits.”
Wash muttered under his breath. Then he said, “Look, I think I’ve been very patient—”
“With what? With me being what I was when we met?”
He stared out at the trees and the sky for the space of several breaths. “You’re right,” he said.
She nodded.
“But I don’t like it.”
She nodded again.
“Is there ever going to be a time when we stop?”
“And do what?” she said. “Think you could be happy if you weren’t flying?”
“No.”
“Neither could I.”
“Think you could be happy if you weren’t almost getting killed quite so often?”
“How do you plan to arrange that? We work the border worlds, because that’s where we can get jobs, and stay off the Alliance’s radar. And that’s how things are out here. We work for people looking for an edge, and that means sometimes they try to kill us for it.”
“I know.”
“I hate it when you look so glum.”
“We’ve been paid, haven’t we?”
She nodded.
“How long until we leave this rock?”
“That’s up to the Captain.”
“Any idea what the delay is?”
“I think he has to make a decision.”
“What decision?”
“I’m not exactly sure.” She wondered how much to say, then decided that the truth was probably the safest. “Something’s bothering him, and I can’t begin to figure out what it is.”
He nodded.
She stood up from the co-pilot’s chair, leaned over and kissed the back of his neck. He looked at her and his eyes were smiling. It did something to her when his eyes smiled like that.
“Want to head to the dining room?” he asked.
“Hungry?”
“I was thinking we could stop at the kitchen, pick up a snack, circle the dining room table to pick up some speed, then slant back to our bunk.”
Her pulse quickened just a little. “My man, the navigator.”
Serenity: Dining room
Simon nodded to Wash and Zoë as they entered the dining room and rummaged around briefly in the kitchen. They each gave him a quick smile, and maybe a bigger one to his sister, then they were gone, Wash walking around the table once, very somberly. From Zoë‘s expression and the wink she gave River, it was some sort of private joke between them.
With the exception of Jayne, who, it seemed, was no longer part of the crew, no one appeared to resent River. Everyone liked her. Sometimes, it seemed even the Captain liked her; at least, as much as he could like anyone.
At the moment, she was staring down at a plate of protein and soy and artificial pork flavoring, making designs in it with her chopsticks. Just like a four-year-old child, except that the designs were anything but random doodling: the movement of the chopsticks was deft, precise, and deliberate, using both of them like an artist using two brushes at once.
“What is that?” he asked her.
She stopped what she was doing and stared at it for a moment, frowning. She tilted her head, and the frown deepened. Then she picked up the plate and hurled it at the wall.
She stared at the place on the table where the plate had been.
“The distinction between abstract and representational art is arbitrary to the point of meaninglessness. Only then why was the distinction ever made?”
Simon went into the kitchen and got a bucket and a sponge. He picked up the plate and started cleaning the wall, glad no one else had heard the noise and come to investigate. He felt his sister’s eyes on his back.
“I’m sorry, Simon,” she said.
He dropped the sponge in the bucket, sat down next to her, and put his arm around her. “It’s all right, mei-mei.” She leaned into his shoulder.
He said softly, “Can you tell me what it was you were drawing?”
“A map,” she said.
“A map of what?”
She spoke into his chest. “How you get from a Colonel to a monster and back. But what good is a map when you aren’t going anywhere?”
“We’ll be leaving here soon, River.”
“No, we won’t.”
“River—”
“But it’s all right. You’ll protect me. You always protect me.”
There was a lump in Simon’s throat.
He got up, went back to the bucket, and continued cleaning the wall. River found another sponge and knelt down to help him.
“Art,” she said as they wiped it away.
Simon looked at her.
“It’s the second person present singular form of the verb ‘to be,’” she said.
“I knew that,” he told her.
Serenity: Catwalk
The Captain was standing above the cargo bay, staring at nothing. “Hey, Cap’n,” she said. “The shuttle is fixed, but I used the last of the fluid to refill her lines. We’re going to have to get more.”
He nodded, his eyes still fixed off in the distance.
She almost asked him what was wrong, but didn’t. She continued back to the engine room, and, just because it made her nervous to be low on fluid, she checked all the hydraulics.
“Well, if that isn’t … .”
She shook her head in disgust. All that checking on the a-grav, and it was nothing more than low fluid in the control line. You’d think Wash would have noticed the control was sluggish. No, that wasn’t fair; it was her job to keep up on these things.
And now they were out of fluid.
She rubbed the bulkhead. “I’m sorry, honey,” she whispered. “Sometimes I’m just stupid.”
She tossed her hair back over her shoulder. She could apologize to Serenity later; now she had to come up with a solution.
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