My Own Kind of Freedom

Chapter 5 My Own Kind of Questions

He was just about to knock on the door when he heard a crunch behind him. He turned quickly, reaching for his pistol, then stopped with it half out of the holster.

“Zoë!”

“Yes, sir?”

“What the xuexing de ta ma de diyu are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Had you expected me to wait on Serenity while you spoke to the fed by yourself?”

“Well, seeing as how I gave that order, I sort of figured on it, yes. What about the rest of them?”

“I took the other shuttle. They’re still up in close orbit, geostationary.”

“All right. Well, as long as we’re here—”

“Our friend isn’t.”

“Hmmm?”

“The fed—assuming that’s what he is—left half an hour ago.”

“Oh. You’ve been waiting here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t suppose you know where he went?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You do?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“Follow me, sir.”

It was fully dark by this time. They walked through the darkened back streets of Yuva for about fifteen minutes, until they stopped in front of what seemed, in the little ambient light there was, to be a large, black object of indeterminate shape. “Here, sir,” whispered Zoë.

Mal whispered back. “What is it?”

“In the light, it seemed to be a warehouse for the landing field.”

“How big?”

“Not terribly.”

“Okay.”

He dug around in his coat pocket for a minute, then whispered, “Got some light?”

Zoë kept the light dim, but they were able to spot the door. Mal positioned himself on the side with the latch, Zoë took the other. They both drew their weapons.

Mal found the latch with his left hand, turned it. The “click” seemed very loud. The door was also loud when it opened. He waited to see if anything would happen.

When the floodlights came on, he let himself fall backward, staying near the wall, then rolled, coming to rest on his stomach, pistol pointing toward the door. Zoë was clearly visible, on one knee, pistol and head swinging back and forth.

A voice emerged from the doorway.

“I’m not going to shoot at you. I’d appreciate it if you’d be equally reserved.”

“Who’s there?” called Mal.

“It’s me. Kit. I didn’t know who you were when I hit the lights.”

Mal lowered his pistol, pointing it at the ground next to his foot. Zoë pointed hers at a spot on the ground midway between her and the door.

He came out, showing empty hands, though there was a pistol tucked into his belt. “I take it you were looking for me?”

“That we were.”

“And I assume you didn’t save my life six hours ago in order to kill me now, so, would you like to come in?”

Mal glanced at Zoë, who stood up, holstered her gun, and shrugged. Mal stood up and holstered his own. “Well then,” he said.

They followed him inside, Zoë closing the door behind them. Kit flicked a heavy switch just inside the door, presumably turning off the floodlights. They followed him down a badly lit hall to a small office, with comm equipment, monitors, and keyboard set about here and there.

“Get comfortable,” he said.

Zoë rolled her eyes. “Is it all of Hera, or just Yuva where no one believes in chairs?”

“I get the chair,” said Kit, “because I got here first.”

Zoë leaned against the wall, Mal took a corner of the desk. “Is this a hideout you’ve used before, or was it spur of the moment?”

“I’ve had it in mind, just in case.”

Mal felt Zoë looking at him. “Best to have a bolt hole, in your line of work.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Just what is your line of work?”

Now it was Kit studying him. “I’m a dentist,” he said at last.

Mal shrugged. “Look, you don’t have a cover any more; all you can do is wait to be retrieved, and hope that happens before they find you and take another shot. What harm is there in telling us?”

“I’m wondering if you’re the ones who blew my cover.”

“And then saved your life?”

Kit shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what your angle is. Feel like telling me?”

“You’d never believe it,” said Zoë, staring at a spot over Kit’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to tell us anything,” said Mal. “We’re not going to threaten an Alliance officer. And we are surely not going to try to beat it out of you. But we came into the middle of this. We want the rest of the story. If you feel like telling us.”

Kit leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “What brought you to Yuva, anyway? I’ve learned who you are, but that only starts the questions. You aren’t miners, and I haven’t seen you around the office. I’d say security, but you aren’t wearing—”

“I captain a transport ship. We were hired to pick up some lumber for Mister Sakarya.”

“Yeah, that matches what I learned. But is it true?”

“Sure,” said the captain. “Why not?”

“Okay. You picked up some lumber. And then?”

Mal shrugged. “We were waiting to get paid, saw those two in the canteen, decided to interfere with their fun.”

“Mister Sakarya,” repeated Kit.

“Yes.”

“What do you know of Mister Sakarya?”

“Well, I gather he’s not burdened by excessive kindness toward his employees.”

“You could say that.”

“He seems like a thousand others I’ve seen. Big king in a little kingdom. Probably enjoys it too much.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Well what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing you can tell us about him?”

“Sorry.”

“Or about what you’re doing?”

“Sorry.”

“Aren’t you curious about how we blew your cover?”

“Did you?”

“Not on purpose.”

Kit shrugged.

Mal said, “But then, someone tries to knock you on the head the day we show up here, and it hasn’t happened before, or you’d have been armed and expecting it. Bit hard to call it coincidence, isn’t it?”

“What’s your point?”

“That you might be curious about how it happened.”

“Maybe I am.”

“And if you tell us what you know, and we tell you what we know, we might both learn something.”

“Sorry. Can’t do it.”

“I suppose you couldn’t justify revealing anything to anyone without clearance for it.”

“Close enough.”

“A shame about that.”

“I suppose it is.”

“Do you have to tell them?”

“Yes.”

“But you are curious, aren’t you, Kit?”

“I’ll admit to that. But I’m afraid, well, you know. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Captain Reynolds.”

Mal pushed himself away from the wall, nodded to Kit, and headed out. Zoë fell into step next to him.

“I have a question, sir.”

“What is it?”

“Did we learn anything?”

“Well, we have a lot more questions than we did before, but, yeah, we learned some things. We confirmed that he’s a fed. And he was on sort of mission here that had something to do with Sakarya, and something about our arrival here messed up his mission and almost got him killed.”

“I see. Something about our arrival.”

“Right.”

“Then I have another question.”

“What’s that?”

“Any objection if I hunt down Jayne and blow his head off?”

“He’s off the crew.”

“So?”

“Can’t blame a snake for slithering, Zoë.”

“No, sir. But if you blow its head off, you’ll slow it down some.”

He sat in the canteen, nursing his beer, and tried to work it out. Having decided to stick around and go for the gold, he really had to know what was going on.

Okay, what exactly were the events, in order?

First, he’d made contact with the Alliance, and been told that an agent would be meeting him in the Canteen. This was the only canteen in town. The other place, down the hill, was just called, “The bar.” So, he was in the right place.

Second, he’d come here, and waited about half an hour in a place that was completely empty except for the bartender. If the bartender was a fed, which didn’t seem likely to begin with, why hadn’t he said something?

Third, two guys had come in. They could have been feds—they were armed, and certainly looked like they were there for business. But why two of them? He hadn’t been told there would be two of them. That’s why he’d put his hand on his pistol the second they’d come in. But they’d ignored him completely, instead watching the door.

Fourth, Mal and Zoë had come in. He’d damn near opened fire when they’d walked through the door, figuring they’d found out what he was up to and wanted to stop him. But they’d pretended he wasn’t even there.

Fifth, the other guy came in, the one in the fancy clothes. He could have been a fed. But then those two other guys made their move, like they were going to kill him, and Mal and Zoë had saved him. No way Mal and Zoë were going to rescue a fed.

It didn’t make sense.

None of it made sense.

But he had to figure it out, because he couldn’t go into a high-risk operation like this without any idea of who was on which side, or even what the sides were.

Well, okay. Let’s just think this through.

Could Mal showing up there be coincidence? Well, sure; if they were stuck waiting for something, like payment for the job, how many other places were there? But what about that guy they saved? Mal and Zoë saved him, so no way he was a fed; that much he could count on.

So, if he wasn’t a fed, who was he? And who wanted to kill him, and why?

Why hadn’t the fed shown up, anyway? Whatever their attitude toward him, Jayne, he knew they wanted the doctor and his sister; they wanted them bad. So why didn’t they show?

He leaned back in his chair and sipped his beer, nursing it.

They were nearly back to the shuttle Mal had flown.

“Okay, sir, now we know.”

“Yeah.”

“At least, we might know some of it.”

“Right.”

“So, do we do anything about it?”

“Yeah. We’ve been paid, so I fly you back to Shuttle One, we get back to Serenity and get off this world.”

“Good plan, sir.”

“Glad you approve.”

“Only one problem with it. Do you really intend to do it?”

The shuttle was there, and appeared undisturbed.

“Yeah,” he said. “This is none of our concern.”

“That’s what you said before, sir.”

“And I was right, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mal punched the combination and the door opened. They went in. Mal sat down in the pilot’s chair, flipped on the comm, and found the channel for Serenity.

“Wash?”

“Right here, Mal.”

“We got paid, and we’re on the way home.”

“Uh…”

Zoë looked at Mal, who said, “Wash? Is there a problem?”

“Not a problem, exactly.”

“Talk to me, Wash.”

“Well, for one thing, Zoë went down after you.”

“I know. She’s with me now.”

“Oh, good. All right then.”

“What else?”

“Else?”

“You said for one thing.”

“Oh. Right. Well, that’s a little hard to explain.”

“Wash.”

“Sir,” said Zoë. “We might want to hold off on this.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I just caught a glimpse of something metallic out there.”

“Wash, I’ll call you back.”

He disconnected and drew his weapon; hers was already in her hand, though she had no memory of pulling it.

“You only saw one?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. One glint. Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“Yes, unless there’s a weapon trained on the door, waiting for us to go over there and close it.”

“You want to find out?”

“Not especially.”

“Should we just stand here forever?”

“Not such a good idea either.”

“We should have closed the door when we came in, sir.”

“Good thinking.”

Zoë shrugged and knelt down by the side of the door. Mal stood behind her.

“Ready, sir? I’ll get it.”

“I’ll get it.”

“No, sir. I can—”

Mal lunged across the threshold, rolling and coming up on the other side of the door.

With a small part of her brain that wasn’t otherwise occupied, she thought, You never get used to the way bullets kick into things around you so much sooner than you hear the report.

There was no need to speak. There were at least three of them, the weapons were semi-auto, and they were firing at three different levels. No way were they going out there.

The door swung closed.

“You good, sir?”

“Didn’t even feel a breeze.”

“Good, then.”

“I’ll fire it up,” said Mal.

“Let me, sir.”

“All right.”

She slid herself into the pilot’s seat. Bullets continued striking the side of the shuttle. She disengaged the guidance lock, engaged the power, and armed the controls. It wasn’t as smooth as Wash would have done it, but it didn’t take a lot longer.

She put her hand on the throttle, kicked in the grav boot, and said, “Well, now what?”

“Uh, now we get out of here?”

“Not going to happen, sir.”

“Uh…”

Zoë got up and briefly inspected the area opposite the hatch, nodded, and sat back down. “One of those shots that came in through the hatch knocked out the g-line. We’re not going anywhere, sir.”

“Ah. Well. And just when I thought everything was perfect.”

An occasional bullet hit the hull, with a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil through a pillow.

Mal frowned. “I wonder how long we can stay in here and just let them shoot at us.”

“Until they realize that we’re just going to sit here, and go and get explosives.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Or, depending on who they are, they could just bring up artillery.”

“You’re full of good cheer.”

“Well, they aren’t asking us to surrender, so we don’t have to worry about whether they’re going to trick us.”

“Now that’s a good cheery way to look at things, Zoë.”

She squinted through the window. Was that… ? “I think they’re getting reinforced.”

“Oh, that’s good. I’d hate to think we weren’t outnumbered.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we.”

“If we knew where they were coming from, and who they were,” said Mal, “we might be able to guess how soon they’ll be able to get explosives.”

“Yes sir. And something else bothers me.”

“You mean, who it is trying to kill us?”

“Yes, sir. If it was Sakarya, he wouldn’t have paid us.”

“Yep.”

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“We could use a new plan.”

“We could at that,” he said.

The conversation with the captain and his first mate ought to have given him a lot more information than it did. He stared at the comm gear.

What was it about that ship that had gotten Asher House so excited? There were no active warrants on the captain, just a string of dropped charges; so what else did they have? Or who else?

Could it be a who? There had been the instructions to meet with someone and negotiate a price for information. The captain didn’t have the information, so someone else on the ship did. Someone who would what, sell out that captain? But the same problem kept returning, in new forms: what could the House want so badly that they’d blow an eight-month operation for it, just at the point it was about to pay off? And how could he have never heard a whisper of something that big?

He turned back to his gear and pondered.

One eye on the beacon, one eye on the glide plane, he slid through the increasingly thick atmo. It was just as well that this sort of flying required almost no thought, because his mind was on everything else.

What was going on with Zoë?

He knew that tone Mal had used—that too-too-calm sign-off. There was something going on.

His hand twitched toward the comm, then back.

Gorram it, he would not break into whatever they were in the middle of, just because he was worried. He would not. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been in tight scrapes before. And it wasn’t as if there were anything he could do that he wasn’t doing—that is, getting back there as fast as he could.

As fast as he could would be a good ten minutes. A lot could happen in ten minutes.

What was going on with Zoë?

He heard a footstep behind him, and almost lost his groove. He spared a glance over his shoulder.

“River! Uh, hello there.”

“You should.”

He looked at the yoke, the I-set, the gravlock, the attitude controls, and realized suddenly how little pressure it would take on any one of how many things to send them crashing onto the world. “Maybe this isn’t the place you should be right now.”

“You should call,” said River.

He spared her another look. Her eyes were slightly wide, her hands were in fists at her sides, and she wasn’t moving at all.

“I should… you mean, I should get hold of Zoë and Mal? I’m still ten minutes away, there’s nothing I can do yet. And if I interrupt them in the middle of something—”

“You don’t fix faith; it fixes you,” she said, and turned around and left the bridge.

He let out his breath, not having been aware of holding it, and checked his glide path again. All was well.

You don’t fix faith…

Now what did that mean?