My Own Kind of Freedom

Chapter 12 My Own Kind of Landing

The fed grabbed a small disk and stuck it in his pocket.

“The evidence?” asked Mal.

“What there is of it. Nothing else here matters.”

“All right then,” said Zoë. “Someone probably saw the shuttle land. Maybe we should move.”

Mal nodded. “Let’s hurry; she’ll take off a bit sluggish with five on board.”

“Five, sir?” said Zoë.

“I’m taking our friend the fed up on his offer.”

“Yes, sir. Five?”

“Oh.”

Mal looked at Jayne, who stared back at him. Then he turned back to Zoë.

“Five,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said, managing to put a full hold’s worth of disapproval into the words.

Mal ignored her, and said to Jayne, “Nothing is settled.”

Jayne grunted.

River met them halfway to the shuttle.

Mal decided that any questions would wait until they were back on Serenity. Or at least in the air. Or at least buckled in.

“River, where in the gorram hell did you learn to fly a gorram shuttle?” he said.

“The operation of an LS-seven type Coreless A-drive is implied by the width to force ratio of the main thruster, the number and position of the attitude jets, and the limited number of control surfaces. Wash has a book.”

“A book?”

River beat him to the pilot’s chair without appearing to try; he decided not to argue, and slid into the co-pilot’s seat. She turned around and looked at the fed like he was a curious species of spider. Then she turned back to the controls.

“A book?” said Mal.

River fired up the shuttle like, well, like a pilot.

“He loaned it to me.”

“When did you read this book?”

He was pressed back into the seat as the nose pointed up, then she hit it and they leaped skyward.

“About an hour ago. The book had some mistakes,” she added.

“We will never speak of this again,” said Mal.

She made a few mental notes to pass on to Kaylee: the calibration of the guide-scope was off enough to make lock-on bumpy if it were followed, the spinner was off-balance, and the engine kept wanting to cough. With another part of her attention, she followed the guide-scope (making mental adjustments), bringing the shuttle closer to the lockdown point. With another part of her attention she considered what design improvements might be made on the shuttle—or, more precisely, what she’d have to study in order to make reasonable suggestions for such improvements. With another part of her attention she tried not to think about the men who were coming closer with each minute; that took a fair bit of attention: not thinking about something.

And with the rest of her attention…

It was so much better when she was busy.

When her mind and body were both occupied, the voices didn’t have time to get inside her. Everything was quiet, and she could do and she could think and she could be.

People spoke about “freedom” but they didn’t know what it was. Freedom was being able to do what you were meant to do. Just that; no more.

And most of them didn’t appreciate it, because most of them had never been without it.

Simon didn’t understand that. Wash didn’t understand that, though he’d been held captive. Even Zoë didn’t understand.

Mal, though. Mal understood.

Sometimes, when she could spare the attention, she cried for him.

She made the last adjustment and the shuttle slid home with a “click” and the voices came back.

The Captain told Jayne to stay in his quarters when they got there.

“Can I get some food?”

“Yeah. Get it, bring it back to your bunk and stay there till I come get you.”

As the shuttle door opened, Zoë was running through the locations of the firearms on the ship, and how many of them would be between the airlock and Jayne’s bunk. At least one, she decided, which was way too many.

Simon was waiting when they stepped out of the shuttle.

“River! What did you do? ”

Though River’s back was to her, Zoë could imagine the frown. “Is that a trick question?”

The doctor took his sister’s arm, and the two of them went off toward the med bay, Simon’s voice gradually climbing in both pitch and volume. Zoë shrugged and tuned them out.

She made her way directly up the stairs, past the bunks and up to the bridge, heavier by two pistols, which she set down in the co-pilot’s chair.

“Wash!”

He didn’t turn around. “Hey, baby. Come look upon the empty shell that was once your big, powerful love machine. It’s been pretty ugly up here.”

“You’re all right?”

“Depends what you mean by all right. When this is over, I’m going to sleep for three weeks.”

“But you made it? We’re in a stable orbit?”

“You’d have had a fun time docking the shuttle if we’d still been bouncing around.”

“Yeah, did you know River was going to take the shuttle?”

“Not exactly. She asked if she could look at the LS-Seven manual, and half an hour later—”

“Yeah. The Captain almost had a coronary when it landed, and she stepped out.”

“She’s scary.”

“That she is.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back.”

“With company.”

“Oh?”

“We brought a fed with us.”

“A fed? On the ship?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Where is he?”

“The Captain put him in Book’s old room, and asked him to stay there until we figure things out.”

“Oh. Are we ever going to figure things out?”

“Unlikely. How are things here?”

“Kaylee is trying to get us in shape to fly. Or at least limp to somewhere we can get fixed up. She’s outside now, working on a patch. We—”

He frowned at something, muttered, and flipped a couple of switches. For the next several seconds, she could see him fighting with the ship in a way she’d never seen before; some of the jerkiness of the movements penetrated the inertia field, and Zoë had to shift her feet to keep her balance. Then he nodded, scowled, shut things down again, and continued with what he’d been saying as if there had been no interruption. “The engine room is sealed off, so she’s trying to work in a suit. Can’t be fun. And I haven’t quite figured out why we didn’t just get away from this world when we could have.”

“It’s complicated,” said Zoë. Wash started to say something, and she had the sudden feeling that this was going to go somewhere she didn’t like; somewhere involving the Captain, and explanations, and loyalty. “Also, Jayne came back with us,” she said.

It worked. “He’s back on the crew?” he asked.

“No. At least, not yet. But he’s on the ship, anyway. Not sure where it goes from there.”

“Straight down,” said Wash.

Zoë nodded. “That much is pretty certain,” she said.

It really was hard to work in a pressure suit.

It wasn’t just the loss of manual dexterity, or mobility; it was that there was the sense that she couldn’t actually touch Serenity. It was surprising how much she learned just from contact; feeling the rhythm of her engine, the constant little adjustments of the artificial gravity, the re-balancing of the inertia guide.

And now she was without it, and Serenity was hurt; hurt worse than Kaylee had ever seen. To say, “structural damage” just didn’t express it. There was a hole in Serenity. The black was inside her, when she existed to keep the black out there. Her heart beat as smooth as ever, and life-support still worked, and, after a bit of work, she had inertial thrust.

But she wasn’t supposed to be rigged that way, like a guy trying to walk on one foot and one hand while eating through his nose. She could do it for a while, but she didn’t much like it, and pretty soon now she’d just quit.

Kaylee didn’t much care to be out here, either; surrounded by the black, Hera there huge and swirling green above her, like she was going to grab Serenity and drag her down; and below her feet Serenity with her gaping wound, only magnetic boots and a lifeline keeping her secured while Wash made his adjustments.

And she really wanted to scratch her nose.

She should come up with a way to wipe one’s brow while wearing a pressure suit. It really couldn’t be that hard to do. Then she could work on a way to scratch one’s back.

Okay, never mind, back to the job.

Kaylee laid out the welding gear, and the pieces of scrap she’d found in the hold, and eyed the big wound that was, if not her biggest problem, then at least the next one she had to fix if she was to get to the others.

She started filing away at the jagged edges. “I’m sorry, baby,” she murmured.

“Is Kit your real name?”

“Why would that matter?”

“Don’t figure it would, just asking. So, how d’you see this working?”

“You mean, getting me back into the hands of my people while you go on your way?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

“Or do you mean how am I going to bring down Sakarya now that I’m off the world and my cover’s blown.”

“I might mean that, too.”

“Or maybe how I’m going to singlehandedly end all poverty, injustice and disease in the ’verse, including among as yet undiscovered alien species.”

“That’s less likely.”

“You never know.”

“How is it going to work?”

“Get on the Cortex, I’ll give you the code, you arrange a meeting with an Alliance vessel, we make the transfer, you go on your way.”

“Okay, second idea.”

“And the problem with that is?”

“They know about us.”

“You sure about that?”

“Jayne told them he had the Tams. The Locals have connected Serenity with the Tams. All the Alliance—”

“Serenity,” he said.

“That’s the name of the boat.”

“I was there,” Kit heard himself saying.

“What?”

“Serenity Valley. I was there. Some of my first intel training—sussing out your positions, trying to figure any weak spots. They made me… it was tough.”

Mal didn’t say anything.

“You made a hell of a fight,” said Kit.

After a moment, Mal said, “All the Alliance has to do is tap into the Locals’ comm, which is about the first thing they’d do, yes?”

“Yes.”

“After that Jayne could put it all together. I’m not getting next to an Alliance ship, whatever guarantees you give me. If they need to, they’ll lie to you to get to the Tams. Won’t they?”

Kit hesitated, then nodded.

“So,” continued Reynolds, “what’s your next idea? We can set you down somewhere, either on Hera, or somewhere else, and then let them know where you are.”

“I guess that’s what we’ll do, then.”

“You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Me, too. We have protein in nine different flavors and some dried apricots. I’ll show you where the kitchen is, then I’m going to go check on my mechanic, see how she’s doing.”

Something went off in Kit’s head, then—that feeling that, all of a sudden, he had all the pieces if he just put them together. He nodded to Reynolds, and followed him to the kitchen, his mind racing.

Captain Reynolds knew; there was no other explanation.

And that put an entirely different light on things.

The captain headed down toward engineering. Kit followed him absently, but his mind wasn’t on it. He needed to think this through.

The airtight door opened, and Kaylee was standing there, still in her pressure suit, but helmet off.

“Fixed?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she said. “Still needs some work, and she isn’t going to take to being put on the solid with half the starboard extender missing, but—”

“Get some rest, Kaylee. Rest, eat something, relax.”

Kaylee leaned against the bulkhead, closed her eyes, and nodded. “Okay, Cap’n. What are you going to do?”

“Try to come up with the right questions, so I know where to put all these answers I got.”

Kaylee shook her head. “That almost made sense.”

“Yeah,” said Mal. “That’s about how I’ve been feeling for some time.”

Kaylee stepped up and kissed him on the cheek, her pressure suit bumping his collar bone. “It’ll work out, Cap’n.”

“Now we got two witches on this boat?”

She just smiled, shook her head, and thunked off toward her bunk. For one crazy moment, he wanted to follow her. Not to sex her, but just to lie down and close his eyes and be next to her for a bit.

He took a deep breath and let it out slow, then made his way to the Med Bay, the fed still with him. As expected, River and Simon were both there, River staring up at the ceiling with a glazed look; she just barely responded when he walked in.

“River, you did good today.”

“Captain,” said Simon, “she needlessly risked—”

“No needless about it, Doctor. We were humped down there. You planning to fly the shuttle to get us?”

“Wash could have—”

“Wash left the bridge a minute, and this boat’d be scattered all over the world, and you with it.”

“I don’t want her—”

“Your wants ain’t got too strong a hold on my intentions, Doctor. I’d think a bright young fellow like you would have sussed that out by now.”

The doctor stared at him for just long enough to let him know how he felt about that, then said, “River says they’re coming.”

“Who?”

“She didn’t say. She just said, ‘they’re coming.’ ”

“Well, lest she’s just spouting gibberish, I’d guess it’d be the feds, and we were figuring hard on that already. Now, if she knew when they were coming—”

“Tomorrow, early afternoon,” said River.

Mal looked at her, then at the doctor, then back at River. “Something creepifying about you,” he said.

River didn’t answer; she seemed to have fallen asleep.

Mal shrugged, turned, and made his way up toward the bridge. As he walked, he noticed that the fed was still with him, and still looking impenetrable.

“Well, any thoughts?”

Kit looked up. “Plenty. How would you feel about letting me make contact with my people?”

“Your people means the Alliance, don’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I told you about—”

“Not to arrange a pick-up. I just want to make contact.”

“Don’t seem like that would be in my best interest.”

“Doesn’t seem like it, but it would be.”

“You want me to just trust you?”

“Yes.”

“When do you need to do this?”

“Before you do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“I’ll think on it. Meantime, I’m heading toward the bridge. You can be in the dining room, or your quarters. I catch you anywhere else on my boat and I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t need to threaten me, Captain. I know where I stand.”

“Do you?”

“I told you, I was there.”

“Yeah, you did at that.”

Mal left him in the dining room and headed up to the bridge.

“Don’t mind me, you two. I’ll just stand here and wonder why there are two weapons in the co-pilot’s chair.”

Zoë and Wash broke their clinch, Wash giving Mal something of an annoyed look.

Zoë said, “Keeping them out of Jayne’s hands.”

“Ah. Good decision.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He said, “Just letting you two know that we need to be out of here by tomorrow afternoon, according to a highly reliable source I don’t trust at all.”

“Mal,” said Wash, “can you tell me why we aren’t leaving this place now?”

“No, I’m not sure I can.”

“Oh. Well. All right, then. That’s all I needed.”

“There’s some things that got to be settled on that world.”

“Why?”

“’Cause,” said Mal.

“She’s handling a little better now,” said Wash. “Kaylee did something.”

“She’ll do that,” said Mal. “Can you get us on the ground as things stand?”

“Not sure,” said Wash. “But we’re two and a half days from Tagwyn.”

“Tagwyn?”

“An orbiting repair dock, around—”

“No, on the ground here.”

Wash stared at him. “Are you serious, Mal?”

“Just want to know if you can do it.”

“Mal, I can’t keep my eyes open any more. I can’t land a handkerchief on the floor. I could maybe, if I got lucky, punch in the coordinates to Tagwyn and start us there, but without being here to monitor—”

“Go to bed, Wash. We’ll talk in the morning. Zoë and I can take shifts keeping us in the sky.”

For once, Wash had no remarks. He raised his arm, and Zoë took and hauled him to his feet, kissed him, and escorted him toward the door.

“I’ll be back to work out shifts after I’ve put my exhausted man to bed,” she said.

“Exhausted?” said Wash. “If I sleep for five years I might make it up to exhausted.”

Mal nodded and sat down in the pilot’s chair, and stared at the line of dawn on Hera through the front window—an ugly world, full of sickly greens and oppressive blues. Yuva appeared down and off to the right; in Serenity Valley, away on the other side, the sun would just be setting.

He watched Hera like a snake watches a rabbit.

Then he tapped the intercom for the dining room. “Anyone there?” No response. He tried the room he’d given Kit, the Shepherd’s old room. “Fed? You around?”

Kit’s voice came back. “I’m here.”

“Once we’re on the ground, come on up to the bridge and make your call,” he said.

“Good morning, sir.”

“You’re a good relief, Zoë.”

“Anything?”

“She’s doing a bump and grind; you have to knock off the autopilot, bring her back to the grid, then turn it on again; seems like every twenty minutes or so. It isn’t too bad.”

“All right.”

“Wash?”

“He was snoring before he was horizontal.”

“He did a good day’s work. A good week’s work.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stood and stepped out of the way so she could take the pilot’s seat, then he picked up the two pistols and held them while he sat in the co-pilot’s seat.

“I’m going to talk to Jayne,” he said.

She barely nodded, concentrating on checking the auto-pilot’s settings, and the position grid.

“Zoë, I want this guy.”

This time she made no pretense of nodding; just continued checking the board.

“Zoë?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You know why, don’t you?”

“The war’s over, sir. I seem to remember hearing you say that once or twice.”

“It’s not about the war.”

“Of course it’s about the war, sir.”

He leaned back, and stared out as Hera drifted slowly from his right to his left, until he was staring into the black.

“You don’t think it’s maybe about what’s happening on that there very piece of ground below us?”

“No, sir. I don’t.”

“So, I take it you want no part of it, Zoë?”

“I didn’t say that, sir.”

“Then—”

“I’d just feel better going into this if you knew why we were doing it. I’ll back you either way. But I’d rather you knew.”

“Ain’t no one to tell me. Maybe if the Shepherd were still here, he’d explain it.”

“You’d ignore him, sir.”

“Most like I would. So, you going to tell me?”

“I would if I could.”

“I just know I got to do this. I can’t let it alone. It’s everything. It’s the war, it’s the… it’s everything.”

“You’re bringing Jayne back on.”

“Might be.”

“And working with an Alliance agent.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you believe in any more, sir?”

“My crew.”

“And what does this do for your crew?”

“Wo zenmayang bei la dao zhege huati dang zhong?” He stared out into the black. Serenity lurched; though buffered by the artificial gravity, he could still feel it. Zoë killed the auto-pilot, re-settled Serenity on her course, and re-engaged the auto-pilot.

She turned the pilot’s chair and faced him.

“I have to put it away,” he said.

“Sir, three days ago, you didn’t even know—”

“Yes, but now I do. And it makes it all different. All of it. All the way back, and what’s happening here and now. It isn’t one thing, it’s all of it.”

“Yes, sir. But what about the fed?”

“Funny you should ask.”

“Sir?”

“He’s just been trying to figure me out.”

“Ah. I see. Well, that must have been entertaining.”

“I did figure him out.”

“Sir?”

“I figured out why he’s doing this.”

“He wants to take down Sakarya, because he likes beating bad guys?”

“That’s part of it.”

“And the rest?”

“Simon and River.”

“He wants them?”

“No, he wants them to get away.”

“I don’t—”

“He went and found out who we were, and who they were, and he figures it ain’t right for the Alliance to come down with all the law and everything for someone who decided to drop out of school.”

“But he’s Alliance.”

“Yeah, he is. Puts him in a nasty spot, doesn’t it?”

“So, he’ll help us?”

“Not directly. He can’t. He’s a believer.”

“He still believes, even though—”

“Even though.”

Zoë shook her head. That sort of conflict couldn’t happen in Zoë’s world. In Zoë’s world it was people, not ideas. For people like the fed it was both, and it was no fun when they smashed into each other. That was a feeling Mal could understand.

“Zoë?”

“Sir?”

“Thanks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d best be about my business.”

He stood up and looked at the two holstered pistols in his hands; it took him a moment to remember why they were there.

He and Mal had the place to themselves.

“Go ahead, Jayne. Sit down.”

“I’d been about to, but thanks for the invite.”

Jayne sat heavily.

“Okay,” said Mal. “Let’s talk.”

“Why are you worrying about me when you have a gorram fed ten feet away from loony girl?”

“Because the fed ain’t never been on my crew, Jayne.”

“Yeah. What you want to talk about?”

“They offered you a deal?”

“Who, the Locals? Yeah, I told you. I didn’t take it.”

“I’m still working on calculating why not.”

A few lies went through his head, but there was Mal, looking at him, and… “I didn’t like how they asked me.”

Mal nodded. “I don’t deny that you been useful to have around a time or two.”

“Well damn, Mal. Them’s the nicest words you ever sent in my direction.”

“Likely they are. But you been a lot of trouble to me and mine.”

“What did you expect? You threw me off your gorram crew. You think maybe I’d run out and buy you flowers?”

“Always have liked chrysanthemums.”

“Zoë tries to kill me, Mal, I’m gonna—”

“Zoë ain’t going to do more than I tell her to, Jayne, ’less you put your foot bad wrong.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“We’re going into something, Jayne.”

“Into what?”

“Settling some old business. Could use another gun in this. You can be back on if you want.”

“Any money in it?”

“Not a credit, not a cent.”

“Well, there’s a powerful inducement.”

“There any inducement in this, you suss it out on your own.”

“What about my ginseng?”

“You give it back. We live through this, we return it.”

“It’s in a locker in town, along with all my gear.”

“Maybe we’ll have the chance to retrieve it.”

“What about that fed?”

“What about him?”

“He in this?”

“That’s up to him. He don’t take to us killing no one, and I intend some violence to take place.”

“That’s why you want me back?”

“No, I want you back cuz someone might want violence to take place toward us.”

“What if I say no?”

“We’ll try to get you somewhere safe, out of the area. No promises.”

“Do I got some time to decide?”

“All the time you want till we start to move.”

“When will that be?”

“About a minute. You’re asking a lot of questions, Jayne.”

“Yeah, and you aren’t giving a lot of good answers.”

“That mean you’re out?”

“Naw, when have I ever been able to stay out of a fight?”

“Whenever you couldn’t get anything out of it.”

Couldn’t argue with that.

He remembered the cell, and remembered what he’d realized there: there wasn’t any point in fighting it, he just wasn’t any good on his own.

“Yeah. I’m in,” he said.

Mal set the two pistols on the table, and slid them down to him, one at a time.

After a sleep that lasted around ten hours, he felt worlds better, and as ready as he ever would be.

He played around the upper edges of atmo for a few seconds, just to test how she was responding. He wasn’t entirely happy with the result, but—

“Can you do it?” asked Mal.

“Think so,” he said. He badly wanted to add, “but I can’t think why we want to,” but he bit his tongue and concentrated on flying.

The upper atmosphere of Hera smacked Serenity back and forth hard enough to penetrate the artificial gravity; he felt her bucking and kicking and wanting to put her nose down and tumble. The first chance he got, he leaned over and dialed down the cabin temperature, because he was sweating a lot. A fan kicked in, and a cool breeze struck his face, and it felt so good he almost smiled.

The atmosphere thickened, making the resistance stronger but less variable: a Firefly was not built for aerodynamics; she ought not to be subject to updrafts, and cross-winds, and buffeting. At least not this much.

He gave her an attitude adjustment just as she bucked the wrong way, and for a horrible second, Serenity almost flipped and tumbled, internal and external inertia wanting to combine to shoot her like a watermelon seed. A plastic pterodactyl and triceratops fell from his console and hit the floor.

He brought Serenity’s nose back up, too busy for the moment to curse.

The intercom crackled with Mal’s voice. “Wash! What the gorram hell is—”

He shut it off and fought the air, the ship, the world.

Mal had said, “Try to set us down east of Yuva, if you can find a clearing in the woods.”

He had said, “Mal, if I can get us down in one piece it will be—No, I’m not looking for a clearing in the woods, I’m looking for the biggest flat empty space I can find, and then I’m praying like hell.”

Mal had, for once, just accepted it.

Why were they doing this, anyway?

Because Mal was the captain, that’s why. And because, however stupid some of Mal’s stunts had been, somehow they had always pulled through, and kept flying.

He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but, that was a clear space below them. Okay, time for the fun part. He flipped the two side thrusters into landing position and spun the engine faster, getting more thrust to fight gravity. The shake through the yoke rattled his entire body.

If I crack a tooth, I’m going to be annoyed.

He focused on a single point on the ground through the primary scope; the true-alt numbers falling much too fast. Still more thrust, still less control—and he almost forgot to lower the landing gear, which would have been an embarrassing way to wreck the ship.

Too much thrust to land; too little to fight the instability from the broken extender. At fifty meters: much too close to the ground to play, but still high enough to easily kill them all. At least the placement was good, and the angle was, had been good a second ago, was good again, but how did we get to one-fifty and, all right, she could yaw as much as she wanted to, but please don’t pitch down to seventy maybe just a bump careful careful too much and we’ll be on our belly and dead before you can say brontosaurus okay that one helped at the expense of fine, fine yaw can do what it wants until yes reduce that extra thrust so we come down to don’t roll! attitude good good just maybe if we swoop a bit we can get to the magic three meter mark and drop and just crack the landing gear which would okay stop that, nose is good again hold it hold it right there sweet baby please work with me one time one time and now nose down then up two meters? Cut cut cut! Nose up for the love of—

He clicked on the intercom.

“We’re down, fellow travelers. No sweat.”

He leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes and if Mal had been on the bridge Wash would have punched him right in the mouth.