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.
Z
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“Yeah, Mal. And I wasn’t really happy with that idea. And you weren’t either.”
“So you took it on yourself—”
“Yes, I did.”
“Who else?”
“No one else.”
“The fed has to have been part of it.”
“Well, yeah, the fed. Mal, if you’re going to shoot me for it, would you please wait until I’m done flying this thing?”
Zoë felt the Captain’s eyes on her from the seat to her right, but she kept her own eyes staring straight ahead. “Zoë,” he said. “I need to know where you stand. I can’t have—”
“Sir.”
A pause. “Yes?”
“I wasn’t part of it. And I wouldn’t have gone for it. But while you’re thinking this over, there’s one thing for you to consider.”
“And that is?”
“They’re right.”
“They’re right to just decide—”
“That every once in a while you have to be saved from yourself? Yes, sir.”
“And those Special Deputies he was talking about? Are they going to just fly away? You know they’re after the doctor and his sister, and you know they won’t stop until they find her.”
“Yeah,” said Wash as he leveled out the shuttle. “Well, I guess I should explain that part of it.”
“I guess you should,” said the Captain.
Zoë closed her eyes for a moment. It was starting to look like there was a horrid, ugly choice she wasn’t going to have to make. This time.
Serenity: Bridge
Wash’s voice came over the comm. “Kaylee, you there?”
“I’m here, Wash. How … how are you?”
“Mal is looking for someone to kill, and Jayne took a bad one, but everything is fine other than that. Have the doctor standing by. We’re coming in. Locking in three … two … one… locked.”
She wanted to know if the Captain knew about her involvement, but she couldn’t think of any way to ask the question. She thought about getting up and going to meet them as they left the shuttle; she thought about going back to the engine room and waiting there. In the end, she just notified Simon that he had a patient, then sat in Wash’s chair and waited.
Sakarya’s office
The security forces had vanished, no doubt down the stairs. He felt rather like patting himself on the back; four of them had held off more than thirty, and even made them run. But in all conscience he couldn’t, because he knew they had the superior position, and he knew just who joined those security forces and what sort of training they had never received, and because now he had to deal with Miss Wuhan.
Miss Wuhan was staring at him. “You!” she finally managed. “He trusted you, and you betrayed—”
“Miss Wuhan, you have three choices. You can be bound by law, you can force me to shoot you, or you can walk out of here right now. I’d prefer you didn’t take the second option; I don’t much care about the other two.”
“You’re a federal agent.”
“That’s right.”
“What you did was illegal.”
“In fact it wasn’t. I got the evidence to convict, and I can show probable cause. Of course, if I’d failed to get the evidence, you might say I’d have been breathing metaphorical vacuum. But I got it, so all is well and happy. Now, do you want to go down with him, or go down for good, or go away?”
“The security forces will be back soon. They’ll kill you before you can—”
“Not before I shoot you if you’re still here when they arrive. I’m not big on shooting little old ladies, but I will. Trust me.”
The little old lady hesitated, then without another word headed out the door.
He sat in the chair and waited.
Security forces? She had no idea what the real danger was. To hell with the gorram security forces, there wouldn’t be more than thirty of them. But there were two Special Deputies coming; that was the real problem.
He heard a faint scuffling and raised voices coming from some distance away, no doubt down the stairs. He leaned back in the chair, and took a couple of deep breaths. He kept his pistol in his hand, out of sight beneath the desk.
There were two of them, as expected; except for odd, skin-tight blue gloves, they were dressed simply, much like he was; they could have worked in the office with him and would have fit in nicely.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said, before they could speak. “I’m Kit Merlyn, Anglo Sino Alliance Security, Investigations Department, Identification number six three dash four one seven, reporting to Commissioner Gerald White. I’m not expecting you to identify yourselves; I know who you are and why you’re here.”
He felt himself come under intent scrutiny. The other, shorter one, spoke in a pleasant, almost melodic voice: “Agent Merlyn, why do you have a weapon concealed under that desk?”
He’d been expecting that question. “Because I know how you gentlemen work, and I have no intention of letting you kill me if I can prevent it. I have a man to prosecute, and—”
“You think we’d kill one of our own with no reason?”
“No, you’d need a reason, but I have no idea what you might decide is a reason, so I’m playing it safe.”
“Very well,” said the thinner one. “Then where are they?”
“Simon and River Tam left the world twenty-four hours ago in a Firefly class transport. They made a rendezvous in close orbit with an as yet unidentified Seagull-class transport, transferred to her, and left the world. The Firefly, Serenity, landed back here. I temporarily commandeered and searched her in order to complete my own mission. I’ll be filing a full report—”
“Did you speak with the Tams?”
“I had no contact with them at any time, only with a crew member of Serenity who intended to give them up.”
“That would be a Mister Jayne Cobb?” said the other.
“That is correct, yes.”
“And where is he?”
“To the best of my knowledge and belief, he is a fugitive somewhere in the world, having escaped the local lockup.”
“How did he escape?” said the shorter of the two.
“He had help. I don’t know more that that; it doesn’t fall within the purview of my investigation.”
They looked at each other. “We aren’t going to kill you,” said the thinner one.
“Then I’ll be equally polite,” said Kit.
“Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“The Seagull was on a heading for New Hall. They have a day’s start, but they aren’t fast.”
“You could have reported that yesterday.”
“Not my job,” said Kit.
The thinner one nodded. “When you make your final report, see to it a copy comes to Special Operations. Mark it ‘Attention Headwater.’”
“All right.”
The two of them nodded and walked out of the room, and Kit started breathing again. However, he didn’t move for a good five minutes, just in case. But they were well and truly gone; the only thing left would be carnage downstairs. He wished there were a way to walk past it without seeing it. For one thing, he didn’t relish deciding if he were obligated to put it in his report.
He used the comm equipment at the desk to arrange for transport.
Serenity: Med bay
“Sit over there,” he told Zoë. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”
“I’m fine,” she said, but he barely heard her; he was already concentrating on Jayne, who lay on the table, face down and sleeping; the bleeding had stopped for the moment.
Simon prepared his tools, then made his first examination. Pulse all right, blood pressure good—and there it was: he could see the exit wound in the trapezius. He studied the entry point, looked at the angle, and decided the bullet hadn’t done any bouncing around, which was good.
“I think he’ll be fine,” he said aloud.
“You going to fix him, doctor?” asked Mal.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Simon might have replied, but he was too busy, and the question was too stupid to deserve an answer anyway.
My Own Kind of Truth
Serenity: Med Bay
In a moment of relative lucidity, he realized he’d been shot again. That he was back in Serenity’s med bay again. He tried to put together the events of the last few hours, days, but he couldn’t make things fit, and it was too much effort to try. Shortly after that, things went fuzzy again.
Some indeterminate time later, he saw the doctor’s face peering at him. He tried to ask if he was going to live, but he couldn’t make his mouth work right. “You’re back on Serenity,” said the doctor, as if that had been his question.
“Where else would I be,” he tried to say, but it wouldn’t come out right. Not that it mattered.
Serenity: Engine Room
Zoë‘s voice came through the speaker. “Captain wants everyone in the dining room.”
Kaylee, leaning against the port battery casing, stared at the box. It was a technology that hadn’t changed in hundreds of years: a thin membrane set to vibrating by the motion of electrons through insulated wires. Power requirements: almost nil. Control. It was all about control, about fine tuning, about precision. It was the same sort of precision control, in a different way, that let Wash do what he did. And the Captain do what he did.
Big things, turned into small things, then moved and turned back into big things.
She stared at the speaker.
“Kaylee?”
“I’ll be there,” she said. Her voice sounded odd in her ears.
The speaker went dead. “I have to be there,” she told the empty engine room. “It’s my job to keep Serenity running.”
Serenity: River’s Room
Sometimes it seemed it was just a matter of keeping her balance. Too far in one direction and she would see anything; would just sit there for the rest of her life like the cat-tails in a still-life. Too far in another direction, and it would all rush in on her at once so that she would burst and become nother. Too far in another direction, and she would become nonexistent. Too far in another direction, and they would find her and take her back. Too far in another direction … .
The problem was there were too many directions, and you had to stay balanced among all of them. It was like dance; if you could find the balance point, you could do anything.
That was the beauty of flying. She would have to ask Wash he how did it, how he made it like a dance. The way Kaylee made Serenity dance. The way Simon danced with his hands, when he was operating. The way Mal danced between disaster and triumph. The way Zoe danced around between Mal’s orders and Mal’s wishes. The way Jayne…
Jayne.
Jayne was the only one who didn’t dance.
He had no balance. That’s why he did all of those things, he couldn’t find his balance point.
She got up, then, and walked to the Med Bay. Simon looked up and said, “What is it, River?” but she ignored him. She went over to Jayne, who had was
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