by Tim Lebbon
Silas was slumped against a bulkhead, and the doors before them remained stubbornly closed even though he’d passed his hand across the surface sensors several times. This action had opened three previous sets of doors, but not this one.
Mal went to work on the door. As he crouched to the panel, Silas stood upright. From weak and slumped to strong and tall, he resembled a broken thing rejointed, a dead thing given life once more. He shrugged River’s arm from around him, shoved Mal aside, and hovered his hand over the door control.
Mal staggered, then rested his hand on his gun. But something made him keep it holstered. Instinct, an urge to survive, he wasn’t sure what.
“Back away!” he said to Zoë. She moved away from Silas, and River had fallen motionless, as if waiting for whatever might happen next.
Silas pressed his hand flat against the control panel. Sparks sizzled and flew. Mal froze, unsure what was happening and wondering why the door was not sliding or squealing open like the others. It was only as he realized that this was something different—this was not simply Silas opening another door—that he took a step toward him.
With a loud thud that pulsed into his ears and thumped up from the metal floor, everything went dark. The lights glowing from behind missing diffusion panels snicked off, leaving a brief, temporary glow from their elements that faded within seconds. Their suit lights also blinked off, and Mal felt the main power source in his suit fall silent and empty. It was a strange sensation, like having something living and huddled up against him die. He crouched ready to defend himself. He held a hand in front of his face and could not see even a shadowy outline.
Someone shouted. He thought it was River, but it might have been Zoë. She’d been down on the floor so close to Silas when the lights went out.
“Zoë!” Mal called.
“I’m here.” In the pitch blackness, she sounded very far away.
“The door?” he asked.
“Open.”
“River.”
“Here…” River’s voice seemed to fill the entire corridor. “… and gone. I’m here, and he has gone.” She started singing a mournful song in a language Mal did not know and that he suspected was no real language at all, but rather an ebb and flow of textured sounds.
Behind her voice was silence. The background hum of the ship, and the vibrations he’d felt through his feet, had ceased, returning the Sun Tzu once again to a dead, cold place. Mal heard his own panicked breathing and that of Zoë and River, and in the distance a couple of soft, rhythmic slaps that might have been Silas’s bare feet on metal. Other than that, silence.
“What’s he done?” Mal asked.
“He’s gone,” River said again.
“I know he’s gone!” Mal snapped, and he closed his eyes— though that made not even a slight difference to what he could and could not see—and breathed deeply a few times, trying to center himself, find a balance, and see away the panic.
“Mal,” Zoë said, “your suit lights out too?”
“Dead as this ship.”
“So how are we going to move?”
“I’m thinking on it.” In truth he hadn’t been—he’d been wondering why Silas had done this, who he was, and how much more dangerous than River he might be. He’d suspected that the man had been shamming when he acted weak and disorientated, and this seemed to confirm that. He’d thought he’d heard Silas moving into the distance, perhaps because the Alliance were closing, but what if he was still there? What if he remained close to them, very close, leaning in toward Mal so that soon he would be able to smell his breath, feel his long damp hair against his cheek?
Maybe Silas could see in the dark. That could be why he had done this, to give himself an advantage.
Mal drew his gun.
“Mal?” Zoë asked. She knew the sound of steel against leather.
“Just bein’ cautious,” he said.
“But he’s just like me,” River said. “He won’t hurt you.”
“That don’t comfort me none,” Mal said. It was strange talking in such total darkness, as if mind and body were disassociated. His voice floated free, and the link between mind and mouth—a link he had been informed many times was tenuous at best—felt less certain than ever.
“Wash?” Mal said, but as he’d suspected there was no reply. Upon waking Silas had somehow started some of the ship’s systems, and he’d been able to open the corridor doors with a simple touch of his hand. He seemed to have a close affinity with the ship that had been his prison, and an ability to turn its resurrected systems to his own advantage. Now, he’d shut those networks down again, along with all other power sources. Mal’s suit systems ran comms as well as lights, and both were out of order. The ability to do that, the power it might take, was staggering and terrifying.
“River, can you guide us back to Serenity?” Zoë asked.
“I can follow Silas.”
“Is he going to Serenity?” Mal asked, a cool, solid knot of fear settling in his gut. If he gets to the ship and takes it and leaves us here…
“Not just yet,” River said. “I don’t think… not just yet. Maybe later.”
She sounded uncertain, almost dreamy. “River, if he’s just like you, maybe you know what he’s doin’. Does he mean us harm?”
“Take my hand,” River said, and that was no real answer. Mal felt cool fingertips stroke his cheek. He flinched, shocked, and his finger tightened on the trigger. He stepped back away from her touch, feeling a moment of deep desperation. How the hell were they going to move anywhere like this? The thought of being led through this dead old ship while holding on to River’s hand chilled him to the core. Putting his trust in her was something he could not do, because he rarely put his full trust in anyone. Even his crew. Even Zoë.
“Take mine,” Zoë said to the girl, and it was as if she was reading Mal’s mind. He let out a silent sigh of relief as he felt Zoë also hold on to his hand. He knew her touch, and recognized the warmth transmitted between them.
They started moving, and Mal had to fight the urge to stay still, crouch down, and hold his gun ready to lift and fire at the first sound. Deep animal instinct told him they shouldn’t be trying to walk through these spaces that were darker than the Black. Yet not only did they move, but quickly. He thought about how River knew the way to go, and how to steer them safely, and he didn’t like it one little bit. He was very aware that she was special— nothing like him, or the rest of the crew, or even her brilliant, cold brother Simon. Now if what she said was right, it seemed that she and Silas had a lot in common. Thinking that she was something more than them just spooked the hell out of him.
Something thudded through his feet. At first he thought it was the impact of Zoë’s or River’s steps just ahead of him, a vibration transmitted through the solid metal floor. Then they paused and the feeling came in again, part sensation, part sound. It was a hesitant clicking, like a motor starting, jamming, and stopping again. A light rattling noise carried on the air, and then further along the corridor a low light flashed several times—on and off, on and off.
“What’s happening?” Zoë asked.
“Dunno. Let’s keep our wits about us,” Mal said. Comms crackled, and disembodied voices croaked and whispered. He couldn’t tell who they were, or even if they were someone he knew. Mal was a rational man, but in this deep darkness on an ancient ship of the dead and gone, he couldn’t help thinking of ghosts.
With a final heavy thud the lights came on again, and though the illumination levels were the same as before they seemed blinding, surging on and flooding the corridors and walkways with bright, unfiltered light. Their suit power was reinstated like a mother’s warm embrace.
Mal swore and covered his eyes, then squinted and turned in a circle, gun aimed out ahead of him. There was just the three of them, and then empty corridors ahead and back the way they’d come. Silas truly had gone.
The bulkheads and floor shook with a heavy, short shiver, and then the hum and vi
bration of distant machinery settled down once again.
“So is that him too?” Mal asked, and his answer was a panicked voice breaking in over the comms.
“—close, and they’ve seen Serenity, there’s a shuttle closing. It’ll take a minute for Serenity’s systems to wind up again, and even if I did take off I’d lay good money on them blowing me to pieces in seconds. And I’d win the bet. And I wouldn’t be here to collect.”
“Wash, we’ve been offline for a good while.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“How close is the destroyer?”
“Close enough for me to count its guns. The answer being very close. And lots.”
“Lots?”
“Of guns.”
“Sit tight,” Mal said. He looked at Zoë, desperate and wide-eyed, but she had nothing to offer him. This is all on me, he thought. “Wash, you can’t let them take my ship.”
“My thought exactly,” Wash said, “for about three seconds. But I can’t fight them off because, well, I have no weapons, and an Alliance destroyer has approximately three thousand ways to blow me to atoms. And I can’t outrun them, probably not in a straight race, and definitely not starting from a powered-down standstill.”
“Maybe you should try to out-talk them,” Jayne said over the comm. “You’re fair good at that.”
“Oh, right,” Wash said, and he sounded distracted.
“No wise-ass comeback?” Jayne asked.
“Jayne, shut up,” Mal said. “Wash? What’s got your attention now?”
“Something that should soon get yours,” Wash said. “There are at least five shuttles heading down toward the Sun Tzu. Five that I can see, anyway.”
“Is now the time to ask how many soldiers those shuttles can carry?” Kaylee asked.
“Pack ’em in and forty to a boat,” Mal said. “I reckon they’re coming for him, not for us.” He gauged how River looked at him. He was anticipating sadness, fear, and perhaps sorrow for the confused, dangerous Silas. What he actually saw was a smile.
“What’s he doing?” Mal asked her.
“Being Silas,” River said. “Being amazing.”
“So we sneak back to the ship and hope they’ll ignore it when we take off,” Jayne said. “Sounds like a crappy plan.”
“Didn’t seem to bother you none with those bags over your shoulders,” Kaylee said.
“Enough!” Mal said. “We’re still in control here. Wash, keep comms open as long as you can. If they follow standard operating procedure, they’ll block comms while they’re boarding Serenity. But do what you can to stall them, and make sure Simon’s hidden away.”
“What about you?” Wash asked.
“We’ll have to make it back to the ship as best we can. What comes after, we’ll know once we get there.” He closed comms for a moment and looked at River. “You said you and he are alike?”
“They made him and hid him away,” she said. “Then they made me.”
“Then you better start tellin’ us what you think can be done.”
Wash didn’t like the feeling of Serenity sitting dead beneath him. The ship was a living, breathing thing, and he was used to her grumbles and hums, shakes and shivers. He sometimes viewed her as a big, dumb animal, strong and capable in her own right, but requiring him to edge and ease her where they wanted to go. He wasn’t her master so much as her handler, and the sense of her lying dormant and motionless against the hull of the Sun Tzu was disturbing. He almost felt a form of grief. Not dead, just dreaming, he thought as he rushed back along the forward hallway, passing the crew quarters and heading into the dining area and galley.
“Doc?” he called. No answer. “Doc, you need to hide!” Wash stood there for a moment listening to the unusual silence around him. Serenity was rarely this quiet.
“Doc!” Wash wanted Simon to answer if only to break the silence, but the truth was already hitting home. Not only had River escaped the ship, the Doc had gone after her. It hardly came as a surprise.
He ran through the galley to the aft hallway, then down the gangways to the infirmary. The stillness and silence persisted. He checked storage cupboards and the passenger dorms, then climbed up to the catwalk and checked the door indicators on the port and starboard shuttle docks. Closed and locked up, as they had remained since Inara’s departure.
“Doc!” he shouted one more time. If he was still on board there’d be no reason not to answer, so Wash ran back to the bridge, assuming he was alone.
He checked the proximity scanners and saw that the combat shuttle was so close he could almost reach out and touch it. He moved in front of the control console and craned his neck to look from the window, just as the shuttle passed overhead and turned neatly to face Serenity, almost nose to nose.
Difference was, the nose of the Alliance shuttle was spiky with guns.
Heart thumping, Wash backed up to the console, touched a control, and isolated a comm direct to Mal.
“Mal, Simon’s also left the ship.”
“Understood.”
“And I’m face to face with our friends.”
“Good luck, Wash. When we reach you—” The signal burst apart with a loud, squealing crunch. Wash winced and circled back around the console, dropping into his chair and covering his ears. He knew what had happened—the Alliance had taken over the ship’s comm systems—and he also knew what he was about to hear.
“Hands away from the ship’s controls! All members of your crew should disarm and prepare to be boarded. Change airlocks over to manual, or we will blow them from outside and you’ll risk catastrophic decompression.”
Wash could even see the Alliance soldier doing the talking. He was sitting in the shuttle’s second mate’s seat, a big, imposing figure who’d likely remain seated while directing his troops to do the dirty, dangerous work. He was probably ugly too.
He knew he didn’t have very long. He swayed a little in his chair, rolled his eyes up—feigning faintness in case they were using a magno-scanner and could see him better than he could see them—and dropped to the floor behind the console.
“Attention! Remain in sight! Prepare to be boarded!”
Wash crept his hand up onto the console and, without looking, switched the external airlocks in the main door and above and behind the observation window over to manual. At least then the Alliance had the option of entering without using explosives, though from previous experience he knew this didn’t necessarily guarantee that they would.
He wished Zoë were here. She was good with a gun or knife, or with her fists if it came to that. Most of all, he wanted to hug her to him, feel her warmth, know that whatever happened the two of them were in this together, and to the end. One of his greatest fears was that one of them would die without the other by their side. It was a dangerous ’verse, and their choice of employment filtered even more danger into their path and through their days and nights. If that was their fate, he selfishly hoped he’d go first. He couldn’t imagine living without her.
“Remain in sight!” the voice said again.
Wash could already hear the heaving, clomping impacts of magnetic boots across the ship’s exterior hull, and soon the soldiers would be activating the airlocks and entering Serenity. If they came in through the EVA hatch above the observation lounge, he’d have a minute at most. If they decided to blast the cargo doors for the sake of speed, and forego the comfort of an airlock, he’d die in seconds from the intense cold, or his blood would freeze in his veins, or perhaps his heart would explode from the sudden change in pressure. If he wasn’t thrown around the bridge and battered to death. Damn, he loved space. So many interesting ways to die.
What would Zoë do? he wondered, and it was as if she answered immediately. He didn’t actually hear her voice, yet her sweet and confident tones galvanized him into action. Crawling out of the bridge and through the open doors, he went down the stairs into the hallway headfirst, then stood and ran back toward the engine room. He passed quickl
y through the dining area, expecting to hear the hiss of an opening airlock at any moment, then slid down the ladder that led to the main reactor room.
This was Kaylee’s territory, a functional space with splashes of color where she hung her light lanterns and scarves, and the hammock where she sometimes slept when the ship needed attention, as if she were nursing a sickly child through the night. Kaylee’s stamp was everywhere here, but Wash knew his way around the accelerator core well enough to be able to remove a vital settlement node. He snapped up a multi-tool from one of Kaylee’s tool rolls and unscrewed and unbolted the node, careful not to nudge any of the delicate wire sensors inside. It was the size of his fist, and the reactor would not work without it.
Wash hid the node beneath a floor panel. He stood back and looked at the panel from several angles, making sure he could place where he’d hidden it.
“Gotta remember this, Hoban Washburne,” he muttered, and then he sensed rather than saw movement in the doorway behind him.
“Keep nice and still,” the voice said, “and I won’t have to blow your back out through your chest.”
Wash dropped the small multi-tool and raised his hands.
“What’re you doing back here?”
“Accelerator coolant leak,” Wash said. “Had to bypass the compression coil and check the grav dampener isn’t, er… check the filaments were in line and the catalyzer wasn’t spilling too much dense fluid otherwise—”
“Shut up and turn around! Nice and gentle. I don’t like space walks, my ass is itching and I can’t reach it in this suit, and all that makes my trigger finger twitchy.”
Keeping his hands high, Wash turned around to face the Alliance trooper. He was a short, angry-looking sergeant, and behind him was a female private who also had her gun leveled at Wash.
“Where are the crew?” she asked.
“Not here.”
“We can see they’re not here!”
“Over there.” Wash nodded to his right. “On the ship.”
The sergeant glanced to his left, but the private took another step into the engine room and shouted, “Hands high!”
