My Own Kind of Freedom

Chapter 11 My Own Kind of Hate

The buzzboat was now clearly audible, moving slowly, just a little ways east and about two hundred meters off the ground.

What was the Captain thinking this time?

Letting Jayne live was just crazy. And if he believed that story about not having given them away to the Locals, then he was completely off his nut.

Of course, it might be part of some larger plan; but if it was, she’d appreciate being let in on it.

Jayne, as part of the crew, was like a barely controlled element, always just a bit more likely to save them than to get them killed. Jayne, not as part of the crew, was just dangerous; any little slip and he’d turn on them both without giving it a second thought.

What was the Captain thinking?

He had betrayed members of his crew—twice. He had proved, over and over again, that he cared nothing— nothing —for anyone except himself. He had endangered the Captain, and, by now, Wash, Kaylee, and Serenity herself.

He was doing no good to anyone still walking; there was no possible reason for allowing it.

She kept under the cover of the tree, holding her weapon on Jayne, and hoping the buzzboat didn’t have infrared scanners. It was so tempting to just pull the trigger.

So very tempting.

She put her trust in the Captain and waited.

The buzzing vanished off to the east, and he saw Mal breathe a sigh of relief; Zoë didn’t seem to react.

“Safe for a while,” said Mal.

“You guys are safe,” said Jayne. “What are you—”

“Haven’t decided yet, Jayne.”

“Sun sets in a couple of hours,” said Zoë. “They’ll be back with infrared.”

Mal nodded. “With any luck, by that time we’ll be…”

“We’ll be what, sir?” asked Zoë when Mal didn’t finish the sentence.

Mal flipped on his comm link. “Wash, how are we doing?”

There was an agonizing delay—maybe two seconds—then Wash said, “Still flying, Mal.”

“Going to be able to come fetch us?”

Another pause, then, “No. Not soon. Maybe, if Kaylee… take a while.”

Mal disconnected. “We’re on our own,” he said.

Jayne thought about asking for a gun again, but decided it would be a waste of breath.

Helpless. I’m ruttin’ helpless. Locals chasing me to make a ruttin’ miner for life of me, and a gorram carbine at my back, and all I can do is sit here and wait for what happens.

“Okay,” said Mal, with the sort of finality in his voice that indicates he’d decided on a plan.

Mal had a plan.

Now I’m really humped.

Mister Sakarya’s office was full of open spaces, windows, natural woods, and padded chairs. His desk was wide and wrapped around in a gentle curve to the big window that looked out on a shallow hill leading down to a pond. A few trees flanked the pond, and a family of ducks floated in it. There was one chair facing the desk, and it was, at present, unoccupied; the heavy man in the gray uniform stood, sweating. Sakarya sat, glowering.

His voice was barely controlled as he said, “How did they do it, Rennes?”

“It was well-planned, and well-timed, Mister Sakarya. We were transferring the prisoner for transport, had just gotten him loaded, when they were there. They got the drop—”

“Well-timed,” repeated Sakarya. “You say it was well-timed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who knew when you’d be doing the transfer?”

“Sir?”

Sakarya closed his eyes and counted to eight.

“How many people knew the transfer schedule, and who were they?”

“There was no transfer schedule, sir. We finished the paperwork, then moved him—”

“Then how could it have been well-timed, you piece of ga-sa?”

Rennes wilted, sputtered, and said, “I meant—”

“You meant they got the drop on you because you weren’t expecting him to be rescued, and so you were all going through the motions without paying attention. Is that correct?”

Rennes cringed and looked down.

“Is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sakarya nodded. “All right. What are we doing about it?”

“Three buzz-boats, roadblocks, and we’ve put a detail on searching the woods east of town, since that’s… that is to say, we think they’re hiding—”

“You think?”

“We found the vehicle they hijacked, and it was empty. Backtracking along the—”

“You’ve messed this up just about every way you could, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sakarya let out a long, slow breath.

“All right,” he said at last. “Keep me informed, and try not to screw up any more.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Sakarya nodded and waved him out of the room. When he was gone, Sakarya hit a button on his desk. A voice came back at once: “Yes, Filo?”

He grimaced. “Miss Wuhan, Officer Rennes is on the way out. Have someone get him, slap him with indentures, and send him to Site Four. I don’t want to see him again.”

“All right.”

“And we’ll need someone to take over his post. Promote whoever is his second in command.”

“All right.”

Silence fell like a curtain in his office.

The whole thing had been bungled from the beginning. It wasn’t just the escape: that man, Cobb, should never have been processed anyway. And that ship should never have been permitted off the ground. Cobb should have been questioned, fined, and released. Didn’t those idiots realize that the gorram Alliance was here? And that this Cobb was, one way or another, connected with it? That everything he had could come tumbling down just because these idiots refused to think, refused to change tactics when the situation changed?

The whole thing would have to be crushed, and fast. Cobb would have to be killed. His rescuers would have to be killed. And, above all, that bloody damned, snooping, sniveling little spy for the feds would have to be found and made to vanish. And once all that was done he was going to have to find a way to lie very, very low for a while; he’d have to change his whole operation, which would cost him, well, a lot.

He turned and faced his window. He felt like ordering the ducks killed, but he knew he’d regret it later.

Finally finishing a rutting exercise in rutting futility, he disconnected his rutting comlink, which held all the rutting information he’d gathered in eight rutting months.

It was a fair question which bothered him more: the eight months wasted on the investigation; the fact that he was within a couple of weeks of having it sewn up when he was required to blow his cover; the stupid reason for blowing his cover; or the fact that if they didn’t show up to retrieve him soon, he’d probably die on this stupid rock.

It was one thing to know, in the abstract, that field work was risky; it was another thing to know that he was being hunted like an animal and could be snuffed out at any moment. And all because some pissant bureaucrat decided some pissant fugitive was more important than eight months from his life, eight months from the life of his three-man support staff back home, at least a quarter of a million credits, and, above all, the job of seeing to it that this bastard didn’t get away with what he was doing.

Not even taking into account what a successful prosecution might do to the—probably dozens, maybe scores of— bastards doing the same thing on their own little worlds.

Being hunted didn’t frighten him only because he was too busy being pissed off.

Whenever he could concentrate on the big picture, he liked what he was doing: he was making a difference, he was making lives better for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves, he was taking down the bad guys. But it was hard to keep his mind on the big picture when every detail ranged from bungling stupidity to outright evil.

The cure was better than the disease, he told himself.

But just barely.

Zoë said, “What’s the plan, sir?”

“Well, seems the three of us can’t do much against the whole passel they’re throwing at us.”

“True enough, sir.”

“Especially as we’re not keen on giving Jayne a firearm.”

Jayne said, “Can we reconsid—”

“So I figure we need reinforcements.”

“Good call, sir. Got a battalion in mind?”

“Better than that. Major reinforcements.”

“How many?”

“One.”

“Hooray, sir. We’re saved,” said Zoë.

Jayne stared at him. “You’re going to bring the gorram fed in on this.”

Mal cocked his head at the big man. “Damn, Jayne. When did you get higher order cerebral function?”

“I don’t know that math stuff.”

“Sir, you aren’t really—”

“Yes.”

“Do we have any way of reaching him?”

“Sure. We walk back to Yuva and find him.”

“Walk back to… I think it’s a bad idea, sir.”

“Maybe, but we’re doing it. Let’s head to town.”

“I think you ought to reconsider, sir.”

“Zoë, I’m not used to having my orders questioned.”

Zoë looked at him and waited.

“All right,” he said. “I am used to having my orders questioned. But we’re heading back to town.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jayne said, “Why should I go back there, if you won’t even give me a gorram gun?”

Zoë poked him in the back with her carbine.

Mal took his lack of reply for agreement.

They were still in deep woods when the sun set. They kept listening for buzzboats or horses, but they heard only the sounds of whatever wildlife had been imported to make the woods seem natural.

Every once in a while, he thought as he walked, I get tired of sounding confident when I ain’t. It’s almost like lying to them, making it seem like I know what exactly I’m doing, when all I have is an idea that’s just a bit better than any other idea. And it doesn’t help that Zoë knows damned well what I’m doing, and goes along with it anyway; almost makes it worse.

He mentally shook himself. What’s going on with me? Why am I doing this now?

“Damn this whole world,” said Zoë. “I hate being on it, I hate marching on it, I hate—”

Mal looked at her.

“Sorry, sir.”

“No, it’s just I was having those same thoughts.”

It was full dark, so they had to slow down a bit; the light from two of the moons, one of them almost full, was just barely enough to keep them from walking into trees. They stopped from time to time to check the direction, and to listen.

“I think we’re getting close,” said Zoë. Jayne, blessedly, didn’t say anything.

“Once we leave the woods, we have about a quarter of a mile to cross. We go slow and steady, like we belong. Once we hit town, we head to that warehouse, and hope the fed is still there. Keep to the shadows. I doubt they’re looking for us in town, but be careful.”

He felt Zoë nod, and heard Jayne grunt, and they moved forward. The woods ended abruptly, leaving them on rocky, broken hills that reminded him of other parts of this same world. Memories wanted to flood him; he focused on the task at hand.

Gorram this whole world.

Something rattled on the window.

He’d have turned the light out, but it was already off. He waited for a few minutes, then carefully looked out.

There were three figures standing there, out in plain sight, like they were waiting. Even in the dim light, he recognized two of them from their shape.

Well, all right then.

He armed himself, went down the hall, opened the door, and stepped out. He kept himself next to the wall. They were still there, and still silhouetted. Only one was holding a weapon, and that weapon was pointing squarely at the back of the largest of the three.

He stepped away from the wall. “Good evening,” he said.

“So far,” said Captain Reynolds. “Going to invite us in?”

“All right. Come in.”

He stuck his pistol back in his belt and led them inside, down the hall, past the office he’d taken over, and to a second office, which had the advantage of being windowless. He turned on a light, and waited while all of their eyes adjusted; then he focused on the big man.

“You were supposed to meet me in the canteen.”

“Figured,” he said.

Mal said, “Kit, meet Jayne. You already know Zoë.”

Kit nodded. “What brings you to my little sanctuary?”

“We need your help, and you need our help,” said the captain. “Seem like that gives us grounds to do some bargaining.”

Kit studied the captain, wishing he had access to a full psych workup of the man. He didn’t seem like the trickster sort; but a good confidence man never did. So: play it careful, pull out what intel he could, give away the minimum, commit to nothing.

“Let’s start with the part where I need your help,” he said. “I imagine you could explain that if you tried, so I’ll do the listening.”

“You have people coming to pull you out,” said the captain, as if he knew it for fact, which he almost certainly did not. Kit waited, giving him nothing one way or the other. Reynolds went on, “You don’t much cotton to leaving the job unfinished, on account of you were behind this one personal.”

Now that was either a daring guess, or some pretty sharp deduction. If it was deduction, it meant either this man had a way of tapping into some files there was no way he could get to, or…

“You know a lot about him.”

“Just what’s on the Cortex.”

“You start out lying now, Captain, and it’s going to put a severe strain on our relationship.”

“Mostly what’s on the Cortex. Some other stuff, too.”

“All right. I’m still doing the listening part.”

“So, we help you finish what you started, you help us get the gorram hell out of here alive. That’s the deal. You want it?”

“Get you out alive? Okay, now, last I heard, you had a ship. What’s keeping you here?”

“The ship got hit, and had to break sky. She’s hanging up there now with the best pilot in the ’verse fighting to keep her there. Can’t land on account of a big hole in her hull and too many control surfaces shot to hell.”

“What do you imagine I can do?”

“Get us to a safe place until my boat is working again. I know you got people coming.”

“You do.”

“I do.”

“All right, suppose I do. What do you mean about helping me finish the job?”

“We can take him out.”

“Take him out.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re offering to commit murder to an agent of the Anglo Sino Alliance?”

“What, that offends you?”

“There’s this thing called the law, Captain Reynolds.”

“Yeah. The Alliance enforces it; it doesn’t seem to much care about following it.”

“We will argue politics another time, Captain. For now, I’ll just say that I decline your offer. We do not commit murder.” As Reynolds started to speak, he said, “Very well, if you prefer, I do not commit murder.”

“You must have a nice set of problems with them that employ you.”

Kit shrugged.

“All right, so you don’t want to kill him. What do you want?”

“I’m afraid I can’t—”

“Evidence, right? Proof of forced indenture, child labor, safety violations. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?”

“Suppose it is.”

“Suppose we can do that?”

“How?”

“That’s our business.”

“There are a couple of problems. The first is that I’m not going to believe you can do it unless you tell me how you’re planning to go about it. The second is, I have no way to get you off this world until my people show up, and that won’t be for a couple of days. And Sakarya’s people are looking for me as hard as they’re looking for you, and, between them, I don’t see any way they aren’t going to find us both before then.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a problem. How close are they?”

“From what I’ve picked up of their code, they’re going to be starting a building by building search tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning. That’s… what?”

The one called Zoë spoke for the first time. “Six hours, sir.”

“Six hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, isn’t that just shiny.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were out of town, weren’t you?” asked Kit.

“Yes.”

“East?”

“Yes, how’d you know?”

“They found tracks. By now, the perimeter is sealed.”

“I see.”

“So you’ve humped yourself pretty good, Captain.”

“It’s a specialty. You have a tap into their line, I take it?”

He hesitated, then, “Yes.”

“And their code?”

“Most of it.”

“Impressive.”

“It’s a specialty.”

“I like yours better. Where’s your gear?”

“Next office down, but there’s a window, so no lights.”

“Can you see at all in there?”

“A bit filters in from the moons.”

“Okay. Mind if we go there?”

Kit shrugged and led the way.

When they reached the other office, he fired up the link, listened on the headphones for a bit, and said, “Nothing new.”

“Good to have, though.”

Kit nodded. “It’s how I learned about the jailbreak.”

“So, you know who we are.”

“I take it you mean, I know who you’re carrying. Yes. Simon and River Tam.”

“I see.”

Kit felt the weight of his sidearm, and wondered how long it would take the captain to draw his. Zoë had hers out, but it was still pointed at the big man.

He leaned forward to make a meaningless adjustment on the comm, and in so doing moved about two inches to his right, positioning himself so the big man was squarely between him and the sawed-off, and kept his eye on the captain.

“And what do you plan to do about that?” asked the captain.

“My only orders were to meet with your man Cobb and negotiate a deal. I’ve already reported that that fell through.”

“And so?”

“If you had a way out of here, we might have something to deal with after all.”

“What, us rescue you? That’s not what I had in mind. And if you don’t mind my saying so—”

“You’re safer with me dead.”

“Seems like.”

“Only you don’t do that.”

“I don’t?”

“Nope.”

“What, you have a psych make-up on me?” The captain almost smirked.

“For this, I don’t need one.”

Reynolds shrugged. “Maybe you’re right and I don’t much care for the idea of shooting you cold. Still don’t mean I’d cross the street to save you, even if I could, now that I know who you are.”

“I have something to bargain with.”

“What’s that?”

“Simon and River Tam.”

“I don’t—”

“I can throw them off for a while.”

He felt the intensity of Reynold’s stare. “I don’t get it,” the captain said at last. “Are you that scared?”

“No,” said Kit. “But if I live through this, I still have a chance of taking down Sakarya.”

The captain rocked back, almost as if he’d been hit. He recovered quickly, though, and said, “Okay, don’t see as it matters much; we got no means to—”

“Sir,” said Zoë.

The captain frowned and looked at her. “What is it?”

Zoë was looking out the window. “I think we have the means.”

Everyone followed her gaze. A small, close-range shuttle was settling down outside the office.

The four of them stared at it, frozen in place, until the door swung open and a small figure emerged.

Zoë was staring at the captain, as if he could produce an explanation for what she clearly considered impossible. Jayne’s mouth opened and closed.

“Na, zhan wo zai qiaokeli dang zhong, jiu song wo dao leisibian gei tamen chi ba,” said the captain.

“Let me guess,” said Kit. “I’m about to meet River Tam.”