Firefly

by Tim Lebbon

  Before he could activate the rear scanners the opposite edge of the crater lit up again, a flickering illumination that probed deep into the wrecked depths of the damaged zone, sending shadows jigging and twisting.

  Wash didn’t like this one bit. Wherever you are, Zoë, get your ass here now!

  Harksen edged closer to the windows so that she could see out. Wash eyed the comms switch again, but his nose was still smarting from the impact of the gun stock, and the scanners and scope controls were on a different board. He turned them on, adjusted a few dials, peered at the screens.

  “Uh,” he said. He wished he could think of something else, something pithy or useful, but everything on the sensors looked so humped that he could only make that one noise.

  “What?” Harksen snapped.

  “Not good,” Wash said. “Observation lounge. Come on, keep your gun pointed at me if it makes you feel in control, but we need eyes on what’s happening.”

  “Why?” she asked, and something about her reaction was off. She’s already said she was expecting something to happen, he thought. He stood from his chair and headed down the steps to the gangway. He moved slowly so the private didn’t think he was trying anything tricksy. Entering the dining area and observation lounge, he saw two more troopers sitting in their comfy chairs eating food he and the crew should have been eating later that day.

  “Hey!” he said. “That’s my dinner.”

  “I’ll shoot you,” one of the troopers said. “What’s up?” he asked Harksen.

  “Going to find out,” she said.

  “What’s up is, there’s a major light glare from somewhere behind us,” Wash said. “Sensors show a spike in radiation and a heat bloom, and all of that points to us being humped. While you’re sitting in our seats eating our food—”

  The two troopers threw down the remains of their stolen food and stood.

  “We need to take off,” one of them said.

  “Now!” the other agreed, approaching Wash with a threatening air.

  “Not until we know what’s happening,” Wash said. “We take off blind, we might fly into an explosion flare, hit debris, or flip the ship into an unseen gorramn wreck.” All that was true, but in reality he had no intention of even attempting to fire up the grav drive until Zoë and the others were back on board, gun to his head or not. Wash didn’t consider himself a brave man, but he was loyal, and to him that was far more important.

  “Go,” Harksen said. “See.”

  Wash climbed onto the chairs in the observation lounge, grabbed some of the window struts, and hauled himself up so that his head was up in the dome. He looked toward the rear of Serenity, past her stern and the torn structure she was parked against… and his mouth fell open.

  “Oh, gǒu shǐ,” he said.

  “What is it?” Harksen called up to him.

  “Your destroyer’s broken.”

  Several hundred feet toward the Sun Tzu’s bow, the Alliance destroyer’s stern was slowly lifting away from the larger ship, while its mass was moving forward directly toward the crater where Serenity now sat. The movement was slow but definite, and fire pulsed and writhed around the stern as it came. Debris from the explosion was still spreading, speckling the space around the three ships in a fiery starscape, bouncing from the surface of the Sun Tzu and rolling outward in a destructive wave. He saw several fist-sized clumps of twisted metal strike Serenity and bounce away. One slid against the observation dome and set a light scratch into the reinforced glass curve.

  “Come down here,” Harksen said. “We’re going!”

  “Are you all just privates?” Wash asked. He realized it was needless provocation, but he needed a few seconds more. He thought he’d seen something.

  Or someone.

  As Harksen grabbed for his feet and tugged him down, he looked from the dome one last time. The view was quite sickeningly awesome, a graceful, ongoing scene of destruction that might well end in all three ships being smashed apart, or knocked from stable orbit and sent spinning into the unnamed planet, or skimming the planet’s rings until that circling plane of ice, stone, and metal debris tore them to pieces.

  And in all that chaos, two figures were moving closer along the Sun Tzu. Barely visible, caught beneath the daunting shadow of the burning, turning Alliance ship, Wash was sure they were wearing Serenity space suits.

  He hoped one of them was Zoë.

  Another tug brought him crashing down onto the soft seating. The breath was knocked from him, and he rolled onto his side and sat upright to find three guns pointing at his face.

  “If you shoot me, who flies the ship?” he asked.

  “Me,” Harksen said. “But I’d rather you do it, since heaps of junk like this Firefly aren’t so familiar to me.”

  Wash paused only a second to see whether she was joking. It seemed she was not. He stood and headed back for the bridge, Harksen following on behind. As he went, he heard Harksen and the other two troopers whispering behind him.

  “We can’t just go.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “What about the others?”

  “They’re down on the ship, there’s no way we can—”

  “We could transmit extraction points, swing around to a couple of the airlocks.”

  “Every second we stay here is a risk.”

  Wash climbed the stairs to the bridge, and only Harksen came with him.

  “Fly us out of here,” she said. She followed him to his seat and rested her gun on its back, not touching his skin but close enough for him to smell the oil on its barrel. He wondered how many times she’d fired it in anger, and realized that it didn’t matter.

  Beyond the window, the ragged slopes of the crater’s opposite wall were now flicking and blinking with flares from the destruction above and behind them. The destroyer was shifting and spinning, and Wash didn’t know how long it would be before its bow struck the Sun Tzu, or the conflagration in its stern spread and the whole ship exploded. If that happened they could all wave everyone and everything they knew and loved goodbye.

  “Do it,” Harksen said.

  “My friends are on that ship,” Wash said, thinking of the absent crew, and the two figures he’d seen running along the Sun Tzu toward the crater and Serenity. How long do they need? he wondered. Maybe they’re here already.

  “So are mine,” Harksen said. “Sacrificing ourselves won’t help them one bit. I’ll count down from three.”

  “No need to count,” Wash said. He ran through primaries, preparing the ship for ignition and takeoff, and he went through the whole procedure trying not to focus on that fact that none of it was going to work.

  Time. He had to buy them time.

  He settled back in his seat and hit the grav-drive initiator… and nothing happened.

  “What?” Wash said, holding up both hands. “What?”

  “Don’t mess with me.” Harksen leaned forward on the gun, shoving it so that it pressed against his skull just behind his ear.

  “I’m not messing with—”

  “Out of the seat.”

  Wash caught his breath. Had he pushed her too far? If she was simply getting him to move so she could shoot him without making a mess over the controls, now was the time he had to fight back. He tensed, and the gun pressed in even harder.

  “Easy,” Harksen said. “Nice and slow.”

  He stood and moved away from the seat.

  “Rogers!” Harksen called, and one of the other troopers clambered up the steps and appeared in the doorway. “Watch him.”

  “What’re you doing?” Rogers asked.

  She glared at Wash.

  “Fix it!”

  “But I don’t know—”

  “I’m losing my patience,” she said. “And we’re—”

  Something hit the ship so hard that it shuddered, and the view outside changed a few degrees as Serenity was shifted aside. A torn, jagged piece of metal spun away ahead of them, crossing the crater until it struck
the far wall. As it did so, a shadow fell across their whole view.

  “We’re running out of time,” Harksen said.

  We all are, Wash thought. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the ship. But I can probably figure it out.”

  “Then get figuring.”

  * * *

  With silent destruction filling the void around her, all Kaylee could hear was her own panicked breathing.

  The Alliance destroyer was describing a slow spin above and behind them, its smashed and flaming stern lifting from the force of the explosions, debris scattered, fire bursting from the damaged hull before being extinguished in the nothingness of space.

  Jayne nudged her arm and pointed down at where Serenity was docked against the near slope of the crater, nestled among wrecked and ruined superstructure. He signaled that they needed to jump down onto the ship’s back, and Kaylee knew his plan. They’d check through the observation dome to see if the coast was clear, then enter through the nearby airlock and retake the ship.

  Simple. Sure. A plan completely lacking in risk or danger.

  She indicated that Jayne could go first.

  They edged along a ledge of broken structure, then pushed themselves off toward Serenity’s back. As they drifted, Kaylee caught her breath.

  Oh my poor girl! The ship had sustained damage. It appeared cosmetic, but there was always the risk that a surface scratch or dent might hide a deeper, more damaging trauma. Kaylee should really run a complete hull pressure and stability check before the ship took off, but that was not going to happen. Once they had the ship back in their control, once they’d rescued the rest of their crew, they were going to run.

  Jayne landed just before Kaylee, and he reached back to slow her descent, fearing that the impact of their boots on the hull might alert the Alliance troopers who’d been left to guard the ship.

  The idea that they’d already murdered Wash was a thought Kaylee could not allow to take root.

  “It’s all gonna be shiny,” she whispered, words that only she could hear in a ’verse that didn’t care.

  They went to their hands and knees and slid toward the observation dome. Peeking inside, they looked down at the comfortable seating below. There was no one in sight. Kaylee climbed up onto the structure covering the gravity rotor housing, preparing to access the emergency EVA hatch just forward of it. Once inside they’d still be hidden from anyone on board the ship, until they exited into the dining room.

  She glanced at Jayne before accessing the controls beside the hatch. They both knew that the action would illuminate a light on Wash’s control panel, but unless anyone knew what they were looking for it would be just another light.

  Wash would notice, if he was still alive.

  She was inside in moments, Jayne dropping down beside her, and it took a few more seconds to reseal the hatch and ensure air pressure levels were matched and safe. Jayne had already taken off his helmet, and she followed suit.

  “So what’s the plan?” Kaylee asked.

  “Drop down into the gangway, go to the bridge, shoot anyone that ain’t Wash.” Jayne shrugged. “Maybe shoot him too.”

  “He might already have ensured no one can take off. I showed him how.”

  “Okay, good. Here.” He handed her a knife, keeping hold of his sidearm. “You know how to use that?”

  Kaylee glanced at the knife in her hand, blinking rapidly. “I’d rather not.”

  Jayne listened briefly at the ladder leading down into the gangway, then climbed down. Kaylee tucked the knife into her belt and went after him.

  She glanced back toward the stern and engine room, eager to go that way but aware that rescuing Wash was the priority.

  “Bridge,” Jayne whispered. “We’ll move slow and quiet. We got the advantage here.”

  They passed through the dining area and moved along the forward hallway, passing the closed access ladders to the crew quarters, and as they approached the steps up to the bridge, two sets of legs were coming down.

  Jayne crouched, gun raised, and Kaylee went down beside him.

  The Alliance troopers came into view, neither of them looking along the gangway. They were talking in low voices, guns slung over their shoulders, and though Kaylee saw concern in their expressions, neither of them seemed troubled by anything on board the ship.

  Jayne stood, and the movement caught their attention.

  “Hold,” he said quietly. They wouldn’t have left Wash up there on his own, and Kaylee tried looking past them to see what was going on.

  The engines whirred, coughed, stuttered to a halt. Something felt and sounded wrong. The core was wound up and spinning, ready to unleash its tremendous power and blast them out and away from the Sun Tzu, but it wasn’t working properly. She tilted her head, listening, feeling.

  Wash did something to stop it working, she thought, but that didn’t feel quite right. The core was functioning, but whatever he’d done made it feel strange.

  “We can’t take off,” she said softly. Jayne heard but didn’t acknowledge. He had bigger problems.

  “Guns down,” he whispered. The troopers had frozen, both with hands halfway to the weapons slung on straps over their shoulders. Jayne had the draw on them, and he’d drop them both within a second if they made a move.

  “Do as he says.” She drew her knife and stepped forward, making sure she kept to one side and out of his field of fire.

  “Anything?” she heard someone ask. The trooper’s comms crackled, and they glanced at each other.

  Kaylee shook her head. The air was heavy, charged, like a storm moments before thunder cracked it apart.

  “Guns… down,” she whispered, and she was almost pleading.

  “I said…” A face appeared at the top of the stairs as a woman crouched to look back and down into the gangway. Her eyes opened comically wide.

  The troopers both went for their guns.

  Jayne dropped them, the two gunshots so close that they sounded like one. Kaylee flinched back, then took a step forward as the woman crouched in the bridge doorway raised her own gun.

  Jayne fired several times, his shots ricocheting from the top step and lower doorframe.

  Kaylee was committed to going forward, knife raised, but she already knew that she’d never reach the trooper before being cut down.

  Jayne’s next shot also missed, the angle all wrong. His bullet nicked the woman’s left boot as her own weapon leveled toward Kaylee’s face.

  A shadow moved behind her and the woman tipped forward, finger squeezing on the trigger. Gunfire sprayed against the opposite wall as she fell, tumbling down the steps and rolling twice before landing on the two fallen soldiers.

  Kaylee took two steps forward, ready to kick her gun away, but the soldier had gone for a pistol hidden in her belt. In one fluid motion she rolled onto her side and pulled the weapon, aiming it at Kaylee.

  The knife thudded into the side of her neck with a sickening sound, knocking her head to one side. Kaylee dropped and rolled, but the woman was dead before her hand loosened and dropped the gun.

  “Good job I always carry two knives,” Jayne said, holding up his gun. “Outta rounds.”

  Kaylee pressed her eyes closed and took in a few deep breaths.

  “You okay?” Jayne asked. He squatted beside her, and when she saw what he was doing she coughed to cover the sound of the knife being tugged from the woman’s flesh.

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “About time,” Wash said from the top of the steps.

  “You’re welcome,” Jayne said.

  “You’re injured.”

  “I’ve been shot before, it’s only—”

  “Wash, what’s wrong with her?” Kaylee asked.

  Wash knew exactly what she meant. “I removed one of the settlement nodes.”

  “Figured. Okay, I’ve got it.” She stood, stepping over the three dead soldiers and handing Jayne his knife.

  “She weren’t going to shoot me,” Kaylee said.


  “Not now, she ain’t.”

  She pursed her lips. “Thanks,” she said. “Wash, gimme sixty seconds, then take off.” Kaylee ran back along the gangway. It was only as she reached the dining area that Wash called after her.

  “I hid it under the floor panel, third left from the core’s front mounting.”

  Kaylee nodded. “Sixty seconds, then get the old girl in the air.”

  She ran through the aft hallway to the engine room, snatching up a tool roll as she entered, retrieved the part from where Wash had hidden it, and got to work. She smiled as she did so. She was home, and despite everything that had happened and was still happening, in this place she always felt safe.

  She’d finished reattaching the settlement node within forty-four seconds.

  We have him!

  We must be careful.

  Of course, of course, but we have him, and everything we planned has worked.

  A hundred dead troopers might not be so pleased.

  They’re soldiers. They’re supposed to die. And if he’d escaped this ship, the death toll might have been far, far higher. Imagine him reaching some of the Outer Rim planets.

  Imagine him reaching the Core.

  We feel a chill at the very idea. Silas is fury, Silas is hate, and we have a very good concept of what he might do to exact his vengeance on those who made him like he is.

  He should be grateful.

  It’s not our place to question. We have our own reasons for gratitude, and deeper down, perhaps our own reasons for hate. Our greatest drive, though, is duty.

  And that we will perform to the end of our selves, and beyond.

  We close on the subject, and for a few moments he is all we can see. He requires our complete attention, because the immobilizer device one of us holds is only on a short charge. Its power output is massive—enough to disrupt his abilities and control his unnatural talents—and so it cannot last for long.

  Silas is shivering, sweating, yet even so he somehow manages to lift his head to stare at us.

  We feel that stare, and its promise of pain.

  We are experienced in pain. We increase the immobilizer output and bestow some more upon him. He screams. We open the smaller case we have brought with us and attach the necessary cords and connections to the ports on his neck and the back of his skull. He writhes. We move back and prepare for control, as he starts crying tears of blood.