Big Damn Hero

12

Inara hard-banked the bulldozer-yellow MF-813 Mule to avoid a mob of Alliance Day revelers who had staggered into the middle of the street. Dressed in a shimmering gown and her jeweled golden snood, she allowed everyone to see that a Companion moved among them. An armed Companion; in the folds of her gown, a gray buckskin shoulder holster cradled her Ruger Mark II, 22 caliber pistol, with flash suppressor. The hovercraft had no windscreen or overhead canopy for the pilot, just low tubular railings along the sides. Although it could carry four passengers — two seated, two standing — its primary function was cargo transport.

The street was packed with Alliance Day partygoers on their annual celebratory whoop-de-doop. With no way to avoid them, Inara advanced the hovercraft at a crawl. The crowd cheered and bowed, drunk yet impressed. Rug and jewelry stands lined both sides of the avenue. Hookah bars, outdoor grills, noodle shops spewed forth a riot of smoky and spicy aromas.

At the designated rendezvous point, she spied Zoë, who stepped out from the shadows, pushed through the crowd, and approached the Mule as it decelerated and touched down. To Inara she looked tired and frazzled. She grimaced in pain as she climbed on board and then dropped heavily into one of the passenger seats.

“Are you badly hurt?” Inara asked with concern.

“I’m fine,” Zoë said.

“Where’s Jayne?”

“Don’t know. We split up.”

“Hey!” a deep voice bellowed from close by.

The sound of heavy footfalls followed. On instinct, Zoë reached for her Mare’s Leg, relaxing as she saw Jayne jogging over towards the Mule.

“Good thing I ran into you guys,” he said. “I was gettin’ tired of walking.” He clambered aboard.

There was no room to turn the Mule around, what with all the pedestrians and the shopping stalls spilling over the curbs. Reversing course was out of the question because of the traffic that had backed up behind them. Inara steered the Mule forward and at the first available side street turned right, wending her way back to the docks by a circuitous route.

As they floated above the potholed roadway, Zoë’s face took on a placid, masklike expression. Outwardly, she looked completely calm, but attuned to people’s moods as Inara was from her years of Companion training, she knew that Zoë often affected this expression when the gŏu shĭ was flying in the direction of the fan and the ship and crew were in real trouble. She bit back her questions about what had happened, and where Mal was. She herself knew a thing or two about self-control, and about patience.

At the docks, Inara drove across the airfield along designated pathways fringed by painted hazard stripes. On all sides, lit by kliegs on widely spaced stanchions, rows of parked spacecraft sat. Clusters of transporters loaded and offloaded their cargos. Here and there was a crater in the ground where a vessel had crashed. The Mule passed a line of passengers in shiny silk print robes with belongings in hand and balanced on top of their heads, queueing for an incoming passenger liner. The docks never slept.

When they reached Serenity, Inara drove up the illuminated gangplank and into the hold. She parked gingerly, but with precision, beside the crates of HTX-20. Simon and Shepherd Book came down the stairway as she killed the engine. Jayne vaulted out of the Mule. With difficulty, Zoë climbed to the deck and took a hesitant, limping step. She stiffened and froze, in obvious pain.

Simon hurried over to her and, bending down on one knee, examined her ankle and shin.

“Mmmf,” Zoë said, pulling away from his touch.

“We have to get you to the infirmary, see what’s going on with your leg,” Simon told her, straightening up and looking her in the eye. “Shepherd, we’ll need the gurney and—”

“I can walk there,” Zoë insisted. To Book she said, “Any news on the captain?”

Shepherd Book shook his head. “Not yet, I’m afraid. But since there’s no Alliance in sight, perhaps we can afford to wait a few more minutes to see if he might arrive before Wash lifts us off.”

“We don’t have much more than that,” Zoë said. “And I don’t think he’ll be arriving at all.”

Briefly she outlined her theory that Mal had been abducted. She mentioned the stolen shuttle and expressed her hope that Mal was aboard it, if not of his own volition.

“Who?” Inara said. Her throat felt tight. “Who would do that?”

“Number of enemies Mal’s made in his life, take your pick,” said Jayne. “Could be he ain’t just been kidnapped; he’s dead already. What?” Dagger looks were coming at him from all directions. “I’m only saying what we’re all thinking.”

“None of us is thinking that, Jayne,” said Inara.

“None of you’s tryin’ to, is what you mean,” Jayne said.

“I hate to say it,” said Zoë, “but we’re going to have to take off without him.”

“No!” Inara cried.

“You know it’s the only way, Inara. We’ve got a time-sensitive cargo and we’ve got the feds snapping at our heels. The captain’d be the first to agree with me. We can’t afford to hang around. It’ll be all of our necks if we do.”

“Yeah,” said Jayne. “As a wise man once said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

“That kind of logic doesn’t apply here,” Inara retorted. “It’s Mal we’re talking about. Our captain. Our friend. Our…”

She tried to think of a word to encapsulate how she personally felt about him. She didn’t know if there was one. What was going on between her and Mal was too complicated for a single descriptor. It was a tangled knot of inhibitions and unspoken emotions which they themselves might never get around to unraveling.

“I know,” said Zoë. “I’ve followed that man into hell. More than once. And I’d follow him again, he just gave the word. But this time hell’s following us, and he wouldn’t want us to get burned any more than we want to.”

Inara recoiled at the idea of leaving Mal behind, and moreover of quitting the planet without even knowing where he’d gotten to. It wasn’t the first time she had feared that she’d seen the last of him. Mal had come through every scrape, landing on his feet like a cat. But even cats eventually ran out of lives.

Zoë limped over to the shipwide intercom and clicked it on. Only Wash and Kaylee weren’t with her in the cargo bay, but she made the announcement as if addressing everyone.

“This is Zoë. I’m the acting captain. Captain Reynolds is… not here, and the Alliance is bearing down on us. We have cargo aboard that can’t wait, so we’re taking off in two minutes.”

Her shoulders slumped. Saying what she’d just said must have taken every ounce of her energy.

Inara offered Zoë an arm to help her up the short flight of stairs to the infirmary, but the acting captain, for all that she moved stiffly and in obvious pain, appeared determined to make the climb under her own steam.

Leaving Zoë in Simon’s care, Inara headed for the bridge, accompanied by Book.

“We are one hundred percent hot and ready to trot,” Wash said from the command chair, his hands on the yoke. “Time to go.”

He tapped buttons, and Serenity’s engines roared, straining. The vessel shuddered as it broke gravity.

“Wĕi! Look out, hún dàn!” Wash shouted at the ass-end of the deep-space liner slowly descending above them.

The other craft’s landing lights blazed in their faces, flooding the flight deck. Violent vibration from combined conflicting gale-force rocket exhausts rippled through the superstructure and the buffeting sent Wash’s dinosaurs flying off the console.

“Tā mā de,” he yelped, putting the ship into a sickening lurch and barely avoiding a midair collision.

The buffeting immediately ceased and Serenity continued to climb.

“Piece of cake,” Wash said, staring down at his shaking hands in disbelief.

Inara watched the windshield as the curvature of Persephone shrank from view and they lifted into the Black. The preacher found her hand and held it.

“The captain is a very resourceful man,” Book said.

She nodded.

“And we’re resourceful, too,” the Shepherd continued. “We’ll find him. We just need to get organized. Let’s all powwow with Zoë in the infirmary and discuss our next move.”

“I should stay here, in case there’s a need for evasive action,” Wash said. “Autopilot won’t cut it. Our alarm system will alert us to any vessel in our proximity, but this is the Alliance we’re talking about. No do-overs.”

“Agreed,” Book said.

Wash got on the horn. “All crew who aren’t me please convene in the infirmary,” he said. “In the infirmary now, please.”

Inara and the preacher left the flight deck and met up with Kaylee, who was just leaving the engine room. She was not looking best pleased.

“We took off without Mal?” she said glumly.

“We had to, mèi mèi,” Inara gentled her. “There’s a bulletin out for Simon and River, and Badger told Zoë that the Alliance is coming after us. We can’t stay.”

“But where is he? Inara, he could be in trouble. I mean, he is in trouble. If he wasn’t, he’d have let us know by now what’s going on. He’d have found some way to.”

Inara nodded. “What I’m hoping is we’ve misconstrued the situation and Mal has gone after whoever it was who stole the shuttle. That’s why he’s incommunicado. He can’t break radio silence for fear of giving himself away.”

Kaylee shook her head. “This is bad. Really, really bad. We don’t leave our folk behind! That’s not us.”

“We’ll find him, Kaylee.” Inara wiped a blotch of engine oil off the end of the engineer’s nose with a fingertip. “It’s going to be all right, I promise.”

Kaylee saw the oil on Inara’s finger. She took out a handkerchief and started rubbing at her face. “He’s just reckless sometimes. No, not reckless. More like daring.”

Reckless is the better word, Inara thought.

She put her arm around Kaylee’s shoulders and they headed for the infirmary.

Zoë sat on the examination table with one boot off and her pants leg rolled up. Spread across her shin was a bulbous fresh bruise, roughly crescent-shaped and purple as a plum. Kaylee made a face.

“No wonder you’re limping,” she said. She looked at Simon. “Is her leg broke?”

“Hairline fracture of the tibia.” He said to Zoë, “It’s minor, even though it might not feel that way, but you need to ice the affected area and stay off the leg for a couple of days.”

Kaylee visibly drooped. Zoë ticked her gaze at the engineer and said, “It’s nothing to worry about, Kaylee. I can still do what needs doing.”

Kaylee nodded and managed a weak smile. She said, “I know.” But she didn’t look reassured. She was twisting her fingers together. “We’re going to look for him soon as we can, right?”

“We need to have a plan,” Shepherd Book said. He inclined his head in Zoë’s direction. “If you’re up to it.”

“She’s gotta be up to it.” Kaylee frowned. “You are up to it, right, Zoë?”

Zoë nodded, wincing as Simon applied ointment to her scratches. “First, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Inara listened intently as Zoë described in full the events of the evening, including the bar fight, her encounter with Harlow, and her trip to Badger’s. While she was doing so, Jayne appeared in the doorway and listened in.

“Don’t know what any of the stuff about ‘betrayal’ and an ‘overdue price’ Covington said might mean,” she said, “but it’s got to mean something. Same goes for the graffiti on the gate of the place where he handed Mal over to the kidnappers.”

“Yeah, about that,” said Jayne. “I’ve got wind of an interestin’—”

“And you’re quite sure that Badger isn’t involved with the captain’s disappearance?” Book said. He either hadn’t heard Jayne or felt that the big man didn’t have anything of value to contribute to the discussion. The latter was more likely, since it was usually the case. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he is.”

“I doubt it,” said Zoë. “Badger wants his cargo delivered, so why would he hold us up?”

“As I was saying, I heard something might be relevant,” Jayne tried again. “Seems there’s—”

“What if it’s been Alliance all along?” Simon suggested. “What if Mal’s disappearance and the Alliance bulletin are part and parcel of the same thing? This Hunter Covington fellow could be an Alliance informant, perhaps, or a stooge. Right now Mal could be a prisoner in a cell aboard a Tohoku-class cruiser, being pumped him for information.”

“Not a nice thought,” said Kaylee. “Why would you say such a thing, Simon?”

He shrugged. “We’re brainstorming. The idea just occurred to me. I felt it needed to be said. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Kaylee scolded.

“Vigilantes!” Jayne thundered.

Everyone turned and looked at him.

“What?” said Zoë.

“Now you’re all listenin’ to me,” Jayne said. “I was wondering what a man had to do to get his voice heard around here.”

“Vigilantes?” said Book.

“The kid,” Jayne said, “the one Zoë and I rescued at Taggart’s, Allister — he and his mom told me there’s this group of vigilantes on Persephone who’ve taken a strong dislike to Browncoats.”

“And you’re telling us this only now?” said Zoë.

“I’ve been trying to get a word in edgeways. ’Sides, it ain’t a dead cert. Could be it’s got nothing to do with any of this whatsoever. But still, Allister overheard some guy claimin’ there’s folks eager to take revenge on Browncoats for all the wrong they done during the war.”

“Browncoats did not do wrong,” Kaylee cut in. “Did they, Zoë?”

“What was the name of the group?” Zoë asked Jayne. “Did he say?”

“No.”

“Vigilantes,” Book said. “Targeting Browncoats. You know, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard tell of such a thing.”

“Care to elaborate, Shepherd?” Inara said.

“After the war,” Book said, “there were a number of extremist Independent factions who felt that certain aspects of the peace were inadequate. Their thinking was that members of the Browncoat leadership had surrendered too easily and conceded too much to the Alliance, and that these people were in effect wrongdoers who had escaped punishment. Secret societies formed in order to mete out justice.”

“Is this true?” said Kaylee.

“Even in the cloistered confines of Southdown Abbey, rumors to that effect reached us,” Book replied. “The vigilantes were known to sneak into houses at night and kidnap people out of their beds while they slept. Their victims were never seen again. Anyone who got in their way was taken care of, too. Seems a gang of such ruthless individuals might well be operating on Persephone.”

“So if someone is saying Mal is a traitor,” Zoë said, “it isn’t too much of a stretch to assume vigilantes — the kind you’re talking about, the sour-grapes-about-the-war kind — have taken him.”

“Oh, no!” Kaylee cried. “What would they want with the captain? He never did nothing wrong!”

“Maybe he did, and you just don’t know it,” Jayne said with a fierce grin.

The room went quiet again. Everyone stared at Jayne in disbelief. Even though they knew his loyalty was always in doubt, to accuse the captain of betraying the Browncoats seemed a step too far. As mysterious as Mal was, as protective of his past, Inara knew that he had given his all in the fight for independence, and that he would do it over again even if he knew the result would be the same.

Jayne was unrepentant, and defiant in the face of unified opposition. “Just sayin’, people done all kinds of things in the war they ain’t proud of.”

“No,” Kaylee said. “I know the captain. I mean, I don’t know everything about him, but I know that isn’t him.”

“But you don’t,” Jayne argued. “You just know what you want to know.”

“Mal laid his life on the line more than a hundred times during the fighting,” Zoë said, her teeth clenching as she struggled to maintain her composure. “I saw it with my own two eyes. I was there.”

“Maybe you saw what he let you see?” Jayne said smugly. He thought he was on a roll.

“Jayne, you don’t want to be here right now,” Zoë said, beginning to rise.

“Zoë, please, hold still,” Simon said. “You’re going to waste my doctoring efforts.”

Kaylee said, “What if some vigilantes only think Mal did something wrong? What if they took him captive and…” Her eyes grew so huge Inara could see the whites all around her irises.

“That would be one hóu zi de pì gŭ of a mistake,” Zoë said.

Shepherd nodded. “The sad truth is, there were plenty of Browncoats who were responsible for atrocities during the war. It wasn’t just the Alliance who conducted massacres and refused to observe the conventions on the fair treatment of military prisoners. There were horrors on both sides. Sinners on both sides, too.”

Jayne narrowed his eyes, maintaining a safe distance from Zoë. “How come you know so much about that, preacher?”

Inara wanted to know the answer, too. The Shepherd’s past was cloaked in mystery, but on several occasions the Alliance had extended deferential treatment to him — life-saving medical assistance, for example — and he had proven a fierce fighter on many occasions, including the assault on Niska’s space station to rescue Mal. Where did a man of God learn advanced martial arts techniques?

“Our abbey provided refuge for any and all affected by the war, no matter which side,” Book said. “It’s often said that confession is good for the soul. Many of those who came to us, Browncoat and Alliance soldier alike, unburdened themselves of their past sins. It was not our place to judge, but to listen. Everyone wants a chance to be heard.” He paused to look at each person in the infirmary in turn. “At the abbey, we have sworn a vow to respect the privacy of those who have entrusted us with the secrets of their souls.” Holding up a finger, he added, “Unless by not speaking up, we become complicit in wrongdoing.”

Jayne said, “Huh?”

“Jayne, why are you still here?” Zoë demanded.

“Hey, I care about Mal,” Jayne said. “I never said he was a traitor.”

Inara realized that somewhere deep in his avaricious heart, all appearances to the contrary, Jayne actually believed that.

“Kinda did,” Kaylee said. “What the Shepherd means is that if someone confessed that he was going to do something really bad, the monks would tell on him.”

“Yes. We would tell on him,” Book agreed. “Or her.”

“Now at least we have another potential lead,” Zoë said, “although I don’t know how much good it does us.”

“I’m prepared to volunteer to go back down to Persephone,” Book said. “In light of what I’ve just learned, I can think of someone who may be of assistance.”

At that moment, Wash’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Guys? I just got a wave from Guilder’s. They really want their loaner back and they’re saying that if we haven’t contacted the police about our shuttle, they’re going to make us sign a statement saying that we release them from all liability.”

Zoë looked even more tired.

Inara said, “We don’t really need the other shuttle. I haven’t scheduled any clients for the next couple of weeks. Book can use mine if he wants.”

“Who is he?” Zoë asked him. “This ‘someone?’”

“An old acquaintance,” Book replied. “An Alliance officer by the name of Mika Wong, who headed up the team tasked with gathering intel on vigilante groups. He used to talk about retiring on Persephone, and I believe he now has.”

“A retired purplebelly?” Kaylee said, aghast. “We don’t have time for this. If a bunch of no-good hún dàn scumbags have kidnapped the captain, we gotta go after ’em.”

“But if we don’t know who they are, or where they’re headed, we’re just chasing our tails,” Simon put in.

“There’s gotta be somebody on Persephone who saw the whole thing or who knows about it,” Kaylee persisted. “Zoë, we should put back down and—”

“We can’t go back,” Zoë reminded her. “We have unstable cargo and the Alliance is looking for us.”

“Yes,” Simon murmured, “there is that.”

“And anyway, I’ve already tried beating the bushes looking for Mal,” Zoë went on. “Didn’t get hardly anywhere.”

“We can’t leave Mal behind like this and just go on with business as usual,” Kaylee implored. “Especially if there’s fanatics involved. We have to do something.”

“So send this Wong guy a wave, Book,” said Zoë.

“No,” Book said. Everyone looked at him. “We didn’t part on the best of terms, he and I, and I’m not positive we can trust him.”

“But you just said—” Kaylee began.

“I said I’m willing to return to Persephone and stay planetside, making investigations of my own. Those may or may not feature Mika Wong, depending on how desperate I get. Either way, the rest of you can continue on to the delivery point, and somebody will still be doing something productive about Mal.”

“Sounds shiny,” Kaylee said. “Don’t it?” She looked around at the group. “Don’t it, Zoë?”

“Yes,” Zoë said. To the group she said, “We can spare the Shepherd.” To Book she said, “Make sure your comm link works.”

“I most certainly will,” Shepherd Book said. “I’ll head back down immediately, and I’ll take Guilder’s shuttle rather than Inara’s. I can return it to them and get them off our backs. Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Maybe someone should go with you,” Simon said. “As backup.”

“Yeah,” said Kaylee. “How about Jayne? He can watch your back.”

Jayne huffed. “’Nother gorramn babysitting job,” he grumbled.

“With all due respect to Jayne,” said Book, “I think I’ll manage better on my own. People tend to lower their guard when they’re around a Shepherd, more so than they might if I’m in the company of a hulking great bruiser of a man with a scraggly, mean-looking beard. No offense, Jayne.”

“None taken.” Jayne seemed to think Book’s description of him was more than fair.

“Then couldn’t Zoë go?” Kaylee said. “I just don’t like the idea of you down there alone, Shepherd. And two can cover more ground than one.”

“Zoë’s needed here,” Book replied. “Wouldn’t you agree, Zoë? This ship needs a captain, and in Mal’s absence, that responsibility falls to you.”

Zoë acknowledged it with a nod.

“Besides, that leg of yours will be a serious hindrance. You may not be letting on how much it hurts, but I can tell. It’d be better if you rest it up.” Book smiled kindly at Kaylee. “I promise you, Kaylee, I will do everything in my power to track down Mal and bring him back safe and sound. Just remember, I may be just a man all on his lonesome, but”—he pointed a finger heavenward—“I have someone mighty riding shotgun with me at all times.”

Inara linked arms with Kaylee. “If anyone can find him, dear, Book can.”

Book nodded to her, appreciative of the vote of confidence.

“It — it can’t be that somebody took Mal to punish him,” Kaylee said, sniffling. “He never did anything wrong in the war.”

“Except fight in it,” Jayne said.

Zoë glowered at him, then hit the intercom. “Wash, slow us down for shuttle launch.”

“I’ll just go to my bunk and grab a couple things to throw in my satchel,” Book said.

Inara wondered what he would take along. Coin? Weapons? Body armor? Secrets? Probably some of each.

As Book stepped out of the infirmary, Serenity began to slow, her engine note lessening in pitch and intensity.

“Oh God…” Kaylee said, a tremor in her voice.

“It’s going to be all right,” Inara said, but the comforting words rang hollow even to her.

“You don’t know that,” Kaylee shot back. She looked from face to face. “Everyone understands that this is a big deal, right? Just because Mal usually comes back okay from whatever tight corner he gets into, it don’t mean he always will. This might be the one time he doesn’t.”

That was exactly what Inara thought, too. Her mind raced as she fought down panic. Though she was skilled in dozens of relaxation techniques, at that moment she couldn’t remember any of them.

“Book will find him,” Zoë vowed. “We can trust him to do his best, and his best is better than most people’s.”

“But will Mal be all right?” said Kaylee. “Will he even be alive?”

“He hasn’t been gone that long,” Zoë said. “And if you could have seen Mal in the war, you wouldn’t ask that. I saw him get out of all manner of tough scrapes that would have done in anyone else. He’d dust himself off and live to fight another day, usually laughing about how close the call was.”

Inara could tell Zoë believed that. Deep down, she herself believed it too.

“There, you see?” she said to Kaylee. “It’s going to be okay. Why don’t you come have tea with me in my shuttle? We can center ourselves and be prepared in case we’re needed.”