by Tim Lebbon
“There,” Kaylee said, pointing to their left. In the opposite direction to Serenity, an Alliance combat shuttle was docked against the larger ship, magnetic stays extended. An airlock hatch was open on its side. It seemed lifeless, but the cockpit windows were dark and impossible to see through from this angle, reflecting only a speckle of stars.
Jayne heaved his gun up and aimed.
“Jayne,” Kaylee said. “I think we’re good. Surely they’d have hailed us by now?”
“Or blown us into dust.” There were weapons arrays on the shuttle’s front and top, small caliber but more than effective at this range. None of the guns tracked them. Nothing on the shuttle moved.
“Those troopers we saw were just one shuttle load,” Kaylee said.
“Wash said he saw a load of shuttles parting from the destroyer. There must be hundreds of troops on board the Sun Tzu right now. Just waitin’ to find Silas so he can kill them too.”
“We could take it,” Kaylee said. Distances were difficult to make out in space, but she reckoned it was a good few hundred steps beneath the destroyer’s hulk until they reached Serenity. The shuttle would get them there in seconds. “And those Alliance aboard Serenity would see a friendly ship approaching.”
“Better chance of taking them if they see nothing approaching at all,” Jayne said. “Besides…” He nodded up at the destroyer.
“Yeah,” Kaylee said. “Guess they’d notice one of their shuttles being stole. I just ain’t too keen on walkin’ under that thing.”
“Me neither, but it is what it is.”
They set off, making slow but steady progress. They soon passed into the shadow of the destroyer, and though having its mass floating above them was disconcerting, it blocked most of the view of deep space. Kaylee did not feel settled or at all calmed. Her senses told her that the two large vessels should crash together at any moment, yet she knew that without outside influence, they might drift in this manner for years.
Jayne walked to her left, his bad arm still held across his chest, the two backpacks now weightless and floating behind him. Fluid leaked from one of them, beading and drifting along with him. In his good hand he held his gun. Kaylee almost laughed every time she saw it, because against the might of the Alliance vessel it was nothing.
“How’s the arm?” she asked.
“That gunk is holding. If it don’t, my eyeballs’ll explode and my blood’ll boil,” he said. “Tell me if you see that happening.”
Halfway beneath the destroyer, just when Kaylee thought she could make out the edges of the damaged area on the Sun Tzu’s hull far ahead, something urged her to turn around. Perhaps she saw a shadow cast and moving somewhere ahead of her, or a reflection flickering in her visor. She planted her foot and pivoted, and Jayne copied her action.
The shuttle close to the airlock they had exited was moving. It lifted away from the Sun Tzu, magnetic stays retracted, and its nose rose slowly, so slowly, to point at the destroyer’s stern.
“Survivor?” Jayne asked.
“I don’t reckon so,” Kaylee said. “The airlock door is still open.”
“Now why would someone fly a spaceship without closing…” He drifted off, because then they both knew. They were a long way off, but not too far to see the figure push away from the shuttle and land on the Sun Tzu close to the airlock they’d exited less than fifteen minutes before. The figure grasped one of the handles around the airlock and pulled itself inside. Kaylee wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw the doors slide shut once more.
“They were wearing an Alliance space suit,” Jayne said.
“Yeah, he was,” Kaylee said, because they both knew who they had been watching.
If they had any doubts at all, what happened next convinced them.
Moments after the figure disappeared back into the Sun Tzu, the shuttle’s drive fired and it powered up and away from the old ship, accelerating into the side bulkhead housing one of the destroyer’s three main, massive boosters. The initial explosion was small, a bulb of fire within the shuttle that bloomed and split its hull as it grew, blasting pieces of the wrecked ship out and down to ricochet against the Sun Tzu. The secondary explosion, within the booster of the destroyer itself, was much larger. Flame coiled and boiled, metal split and twisted, and the whole ship above them vibrated. The silent destruction was almost surreal, but the results were terrifying. A haze of flame spread toward Kaylee and Jayne, wreckage spinning and firing in all directions as several parts of the giant booster broke away.
They turned and ran as fast as they could, ensuring that at least one of their magnetic boots retained contact with the ship at all times. Moving in space was a skill that took practice, and Kaylee had always been terrified of being set adrift like that bounty hunter Early who’d come after River, spinning and turning helplessly until her suit’s life support ran out and she suffocated, then still moving, tumbling through the ’verse forever until someone found her in a thousand years or a million, or until the end of time. If she lost her footing now—or if part of the wreckage smashed into the Sun Tzu by her feet, or struck her in the back and knocked her away from the ship—her nightmare might well become real.
Jayne was close beside her still holding his gun, and he reached for her with his wounded hand, not trusting the delicate tether that kept them connected. If one of them went, they’d both go. There was camaraderie in that, but also survival instinct and logic. Two of them sent spinning might be able to help each other.
More light flared behind them from another silent explosion, casting their own frantic, dancing shadows ahead, dark limbs flailing and waving as if they had already been cast adrift. The damaged area of the ancient ship was visible ahead of them now, and somewhere below that ragged rim was, hopefully, home.
As the destroyer above them began a slow and terrible spin up and away from the Sun Tzu, Kaylee could only hope that Serenity was still there.
* * *
Why can nothing ever be simple? Mal thought as a low rattling sound grew into something louder, more insistent, and more deadly. At first he’d thought it was small-arms fire sounding in from a distance. Now he was sure it was something much worse. Why, when we’re almost home safe and dry, is there always something that arises to ensure that we’re well and truly humped?
“That’s coming from outside,” Zoë said.
“I was thinkin’ the same,” Mal said. He glanced at River but she gave him nothing, just that expression that might have been fear, or might have been dawning delight.
The cacophony increased, and it was a deeper sound than gunfire, transmitted through the ship and into the soles of his feet, his chest, his bones. At first it sounded like something tapping on the ship’s hull, then drumming, then hammering, with no rhythm other than one of destruction and chaos.
“Something exploded,” Zoë said.
“You’re sure?”
“Something outside has come apart and is hitting the ship.”
“Maybe we’re drifting into the planet’s rings?” Mal asked. If the Sun Tzu had been moved somehow and nudged into the rings—by Silas, perhaps, or some deeper programming meant to kick in should he awake—they’d be battered and broken into pieces in minutes.
“Don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve heard something like this before.”
“And what happened?”
“I didn’t die.”
“Evidently.”
“That’s the best that can be said.”
“We’re almost home,” River said. “We need to hurry. I’ve seen him, and now I think… I think he’s seen me.”
“Seen?”
River was close to tears. “I wish I couldn’t see. I’ve done things, bad things, but nothing as bad as he’s doing right now.” She went away a little, eyes losing focus, mouth dropping open. “Right, right now.”
Beneath the impact sounds from outside came the rattle of more gunfire. It was distant, and behind them, and it ended quickly.
“He�
�s closer,” River said. “I can’t lose him. I can’t loosen him!”
“It’s okay, River,” Zoë said, and she grabbed her hand and squeezed.
They ran, Zoë leading the way, Mal bringing up the rear. River was between them, and he watched for any sign that she was going to veer off, stumble, or fall beneath the weight of fear so obviously building around her. He’d warmed to her over the time she’d been on board, but he had never grown to trust her.
He expected River to fail him now.
“He’s closer,” River said.
“Shut up and run.”
“Much closer. He’s dancing through more soldiers. He’ll kill you both… he’ll kill the whole crew without even thinking about it.”
“How do you know?” Zoë asked.
“I would if I were him.”
“River, save your breath for—” Mal snapped, but she cut him off.
“He’s calling me his little sister.”
They reached one of the retrofitted blast doors. It was closed, and Mal couldn’t tell if it was one they had passed through before. He set to work on the lock with Zoë standing guard, facing back the way they’d come with her gun drawn.
Sweating in the cumbersome suit, he worked at the controls, thought he had it, and heard and felt a heavy thud as the door double-locked. He swore under his breath and tried again, disabling the lock, hearing the mechanism slide open, and then Zoë said his name. He knew her voice and tone. This was serious.
Dropping his tools, Mal drew his gun as he turned, finger closing around the trigger and exerting half of its firing pressure.
Two Alliance troopers had turned a corner in the corridor and were running for them, flexible helmets off and slung on their backs. Zoë crouched into a shooting stance, and Mal aimed, but then he saw terror on their faces. Their eyes were wide, arms swinging by their sides. Their weapon straps were slung over their shoulders, the guns swinging loose, and if they didn’t slow or stop they’d be on Mal, Zoë, and River in moments.
Mal and Zoë swapped a nervous glance. Neither of them wanted to shoot, but they both would if they had to.
They didn’t. A brief cough of gunfire rang out and the two troopers dropped, sliding into each other. One of them twitched. The other lay still, dead.
Let it be Jayne, Mal hoped, but it was not Jayne who stood at the end of the corridor. It was Silas. He seemed taller than before, wider, altogether larger, as if in the hour since surfacing he had become more solid in the world, finding his place and inhabiting it with confidence and certainty. He held an Alliance gun in one hand and wore an Alliance military space suit. As he and Mal locked eyes he cast the weapon aside and ran at them.
Zoë’s aim never faltered.
“No!” River said, and she touched Zoë’s arm, preventing her from firing.
Even skidding to a stop before them Silas was graceful and lithe. His eyes were more alive than they’d been before, more self-aware, though Mal still saw a distant madness in them. Blood spattered his clothing and face. His hands and arms were red and sticky almost up to the elbows.
“You’re me,” Silas said, staring at River. He looked her up and down, all his attention focused on her. “I mean, you’re like me.”
Mal still gripped his gun but kept it down by his side. He’d heard the shouting and screaming, seen the bodies. He didn’t know how Silas would kill him if he lifted his gun, he only knew that he would. He considered dropping the weapon, but that would feel too much like surrender. At least like this he was ready.
He glanced sidelong at Zoë without turning his head. He saw the tension in her, the caution, the readiness. She was thinking the same.
River stood before Silas, tall and still. She had taken two steps and was now in front of Mal and Zoë, facing the man so that Mal couldn’t make out her expression. Even if he could it might not tell him much, yet he was sure that she was protecting them both. He wanted to whisper her name, remind her that she was a valuable member of their crew. He really believed that.
“I thought I sensed you earlier,” Silas said. “I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe you were a dream. I’m still having dreams.”
He looked at Mal when he said this, and the weight of his gaze was a shock. His expression was open and honest, eyes deep and striking, and Mal experienced a dizziness that he couldn’t quite explain. He didn’t feel belittled or challenged, but he did sense that he locked eyes with someone who wasn’t quite human.
“Not a dream,” he whispered, and every muscle in his body tensed.
Silas’s presence, his aura, seemed to reduce them. When he moved—when his expression changed, hardening from open and loose to determined, even furious—Mal’s stomach dropped and a dull, cool thud beat through his torso. He’d felt terror like this before.
To his right, Zoë had felt it too. She dropped to one knee and went to raise her gun, and Silas’s attention flipped to her. As he moved forward he looked from Zoë to Mal and back again, and Mal knew with sickening certainty what he was thinking.
Which one of us is he going to kill first?
He was sizing them up, assessing which of these two people posed the more immediate threat, and his mind must have been moving a hundred times faster than a normal person’s.
As Mal raised his own gun, hoping against hope that at least one of them might get in a lucky shot, River spoke.
“Brother,” she said, and Silas froze by her side, one step away and three steps from Zoë.
“Zoë, hold,” Mal whispered. He and Zoë fell motionless.
Silas turned so that he and River were face to face. He reached out and lifted her hair, examining the marks and scars on her neck, running his fingers across the back of her neck and scalp. As he did so, River did the same to him.
“I always knew I was not alone,” Silas said. “They’d never have made only me. I was the first, but they made others too.”
“Yes,” River said. “Many others, but none as… primal as you. I sensed you the moment we arrived here and it was like looking in a mirror.”
“I made sure you’d come and find me,” Silas said. “They drugged me and beat me and brought me here. Before they put me down I created a map, a lure, and made sure one of their greedy soldiers took it. And then I waited. Asleep, frozen in time while the map went out into the ’verse. I hoped it would find someone who could read their way here. I never imagined it might find someone like me. Someone like you.” He frowned as he glanced at Zoë and Mal, as if only just remembering they were still there.
“They brought me,” River said. “They’re my friends. My crew.” Mal bristled a little at her expression of ownership, but he bit his tongue. She was doing her best to save them. Pride had let his tongue get away from him on more than one occasion; this was a moment when shutting the hell up would serve him best.
“You’ve no need of them anymore,” Silas said. “You’re with me now. Now you’ve woken me, I’m going to leave this place, and you’ll come with me. Out there together we can be whatever we want to be.”
River frowned. “They’re my friends. They came with me to rescue you,” she said.
“We woke you,” Mal said. “Brought you up from your nightmares.”
“She woke me,” Silas said, nodding at River.
“Still, you need us if you want to get out of here.”
“We’re special,” Silas said to River. He seemed confused now, perhaps angry. “We don’t need them with us anymore. We have everything we need here.”
“Come with us,” River said.
“What?” Mal couldn’t hold back his surprise. “No. No way, not on my ship, haven’t you seen—?”
“Your ship?” Silas asked. “You’re part of my sister’s crew, isn’t that the case?”
“Mal,” Zoë cautioned, because she knew without looking what Mal’s reaction would be. A situation as delicate as this, and as loaded, could escalate in a heartbeat.
Mal saw the moment when Silas made his terrible decision. We w
on’t all survive this, Mal thought, and the knowledge was a sick knot in his gut, because Silas was the deadliest thing he had ever seen, and he would have marked Zoë as his first victim. Mal started squeezing his gun’s trigger as he brought it up, falling back, hoping against hope that he would be faster than Silas.
Everything about the strange man changed in an instant. He fell to his knees and clapped his hands to his head, moaning as a stream of blood erupted from his left nostril. No longer threatening, he now presented a wretched figure.
Mal’s fall ended and his gun fired, and it was only at the last moment that he shifted his aim to the side, the bullet flicking at Silas’s loose sleeve and ricocheting along the corridor.
He almost shot one of the three people standing there.
“Oh, no,” River moaned, and though she did not bleed or grasp her head, she went to her knees beside Silas.
Mal hadn’t believed that their situation could get any more precarious.
He should have known from prior history that it could always get worse.
Not knowing what had happened to Zoë and the others hurt Wash almost as much as his smashed and bloodied nose. Feeling the shudder, seeing the flash, and hearing the impact of something heavy against the ship’s hull started the clock ticking toward the potential of more pain than he had ever known.
“What was that?” Private Harksen asked. She remained at a distance from him, gun aimed at his chest, but she skirted around toward the captain’s chair so that she could see through the window. The far edge of the crater in the Sun Tzu’s surface glowed and faded again, illuminated by something originating above and behind them. “Sun emerging from behind the rings?”
“Explosion,” Wash said.
“What?”
“You’re an Alliance soldier,” Wash said. “Haven’t you ever seen things explode in space?”
“No.”
“I have.” He reached for his control panel and she tensed, her gun steady on him. “Scanners,” he said. “You want to see what’s happening?”
