My Own Kind of Freedom, Steven Brust [android based ebook reader TXT] 📗

Chapter 12

My Own Kind of Landing

Yuva: Warehouse

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.

_Above Hera _

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.

Serenity: Near shuttle bay

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.

Serenity: Engine room

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.

Serenity: Near shuttle bay

“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,