“What if you had reinforcements? I’m thinking we could kill two birds with one stone here.”
“Tell me more.”
“I’ll contact Inara on her shuttle first, bring her up to speed, then patch you through to her and you can take it from there. Wait one.”
There was comms silence for two or three minutes. Book drummed his fingers agitatedly on the thin vinyl padding of the rickshaw seat. Patience was one of his strong suits, but even so, he had the unavoidable sense that every minute of delay was a minute Mal got further away and less easy to rescue. The fact that an Alliance patrol cruiser was even now bearing down on Serenity was yet another blow to his inner calm. Sometimes life seemed like just one setback after another.
“Shepherd Book,” said Inara.
“Go ahead, Inara.”
“As you know, I have the Tams on board.”
“Shouldn’t we be somewhat more circumspect in this conversation?”
“A Companion’s shuttle has special multiphase communications enciphering programs that are impenetrable to practically every known decryption software. It enables me to conduct my business with absolute guaranteed discretion, a boon to my clientele.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I’d be surprised if a man of your calling did,” Inara said. “Our status is this. We’ve managed to pull away from Serenity without Stormfront detecting us. I know that because it hasn’t rerouted. It’s still on an intercept course with Serenity, less than ten minutes away from docking distance. We started out by staying in Serenity’s shadow. Then, as chance would have it, we passed an asteroid field. We’ve diverted towards the edge of the field and are laying low here. The asteroids are providing enough scanner disruption that Stormfront’s instruments are unlikely to spot us. It should pass us right by.”
“Serenity’s the bigger target anyway.”
“And the bigger prize. They’re likely to be focusing on her to the exclusion of all else. What this means is that, assuming our luck holds and we remain undetected, we’ll be out of range of Stormfront’s scopes in about a half-hour.”
“And you could then head down to Persephone.”
“Correct.”
“At full burn, that’d get you here by”—Book glanced at his watch, then performed a swift mental calculation—“oh-six-hundred hours local time.”
“I know we’re not the true cavalry,” Inara said. “I know you’d be better off with Zoë and Jayne backing you up. But, in a pinch, we’ll have to do.”
Book had to admit to himself that he would have preferred it if the former Browncoat corporal and the gruff mercenary were joining him on the raid on Covington’s house, rather than a Companion, a doctor and whatever River was. A very damaged girl? A human timebomb? An escaped lab rat? All of these and more.
Yes, he was looking at having three civilians backing him up when there was every likelihood he would need the two crewmembers with the most combat experience. On balance, that did not seem like a winning prospect. Instead of Serenity’s big guns, he was making do with firecrackers.
Book knew, however, that God provided. It might not always seem as though He did. Indeed, to the untrained eye it sometimes looked as though the Lord’s methods were just plain berserk. But in the end, all said and done, He always came through. It was a cornerstone of Book’s belief, the rock he had rebuilt his life upon.
“You three will be more than enough,” he told Inara. “I’m certain of it.”
And he was.
Almost.
The main vid screen flickered, an Alliance logo appeared, and a faceless, nameless baritone voice told Serenity to prepare for immediate docking and boarding of an authorized government inspection crew.
Zoë could see Wash was not pleased at the prospect, but when he pushed his comm button to reply he sounded downright bubbly. “Great to see you guys. Sorry about all the trouble with transmissions earlier. We got circuits so old and cranky on this boat, they keep telling me to get off their lawn and turn my music down. But you’re here now, and that’s just super. Protecting our way of life. Go, Alliance!”
Serenity shuddered as the larger ship made contact. Once the airlocks had been lined up, the seals were secured.
Wash turned to his wife. “Okay, Zoë, it’s your play. What do you have in mind?”
“Question. How sexy am I?”
Wash blinked. His eyes darted around apprehensively. “Is this a trick?”
“Just answer. Scale of one to ten, how sexy am I?”
“Twenty. Easy. Except when you’re mad at someone. Then it’s a fifteen. Mad at me, a twelve. But mostly twenty.”
She leaned over and kissed him, a full-on smacker that, as soon as he had got over his bafflement, he reciprocated.
“Whoa,” he said. “What was that all about?”
“A woman doesn’t always need a reason to kiss her man.” Zoë then undid a couple of buttons on her shirt and opened it out to expose more cleavage than normal.
“You’re going to… seduce the feds?” Wash said.
“Not seduce, and not all of them. Just the senior officer. Bamboozle him. Throw him off his game if I can. Get him to drop his guard. That’s assuming he’s male and straight, which given the Alliance’s gender equality policy is a fair assumption.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Zoë, but that doesn’t really seem in your wheelhouse. Inara’s, yes, but yours?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way?” his wife said, stiffening. “How am I meant to take it? You’re saying Inara is more attractive than I am?”
“No! I’m not saying anything of the sort, don’t be mad, it came out wrong, I take it back.” Wash’s voice rose in pitch until it was virtually a bat squeak.
“I’m just messing with you.”
“Phew.”
“You’re right, I don’t have Inara’s skills. But never underestimate the power of a hair toss, a pair of big eyes and showing off a little skin.” Zoë pouted her lips and shimmied her shoulders. “Worked on you, after all, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I’m easy.”
“Oh, Wash.” She stroked his cheek. “All men are.”
As she exited the bridge, he called out after her, “Good luck! Or, er, not too much good luck. Maybe no luck. I don’t know. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, young lady. And be home by ten.”
Zoë chuckled. “Okay, Dad.”
Jayne joined her on the catwalk, descending into the cargo bay with her.
“You tidied up Simon’s and River’s bunks, like I asked?” Zoë said.
“Clean as a nun’s panties. Bedding and personal effects all stowed away. You wouldn’t know anyone’d been there.”
“Good.”
Kaylee met them at the foot of the stairs. “I just checked the crates,” she said, talking in low, urgent tones. “Something River said got me rattled. Ran a full-spectrum diagnostic—temperature, vibration, electromagnetic frequency, radiation, seal integrity. River was right, Lord knows how. Something’s changed in those boxes. The contents are heating up.” She made a face. “Kaboom.”
“What’s our solution?” Zoë asked briskly.
Kaylee had a quick answer for that. “Maybe we can cool down the cargo to slow down the reaction. Make it as cold as we can.”
“Seal off the hold and open the bay,” Jayne said with a gleam in his eye. “Don’t get much colder than space.”
“Great idea,” Zoë said.
“Yeah?” Jayne sounded a little surprised. Zoë could only assume this was because it wasn’t often his ideas were classified as great. Or even listened to.
“Yes. But it’s going to have to wait. We got company.”
She hit the switch to operate the cargo-bay ramp. It had barely opened before a dozen-strong Alliance team, in full body armor and helmets, marched into the cargo bay in lockstep. They fanned out, most with weapons drawn and aimed towards Zoë, Jayne and Kaylee. A few carried compact, ruggedized flight cases.
&nbs
p; Zoë, Kaylee, and most reluctantly Jayne raised their hands in surrender.
“Do not touch your weapons,” the Alliance officer at the front of the pack said. “We will disarm you ourselves.”
As the other Alliance officers were seeing to that, their leader asked, “Who’s in charge here?”
“That’d be me,” Zoë said. “Zoë Washburne, acting captain of this here vessel.”
“And I’m Major Bernard of the I.A.V. Stormfront.” He looked all three of them up and down, then said, “Is this your entire crew?”
“No, sir,” Zoë said. “Our pilot is still up in the bridge.”
“Get him or her down here on the double.”
After Zoë relayed the order to Wash over the intercom, Major Bernard flashed his credentials at her so fast she couldn’t read them. Not that she needed to. The patrol cruiser parked alongside Serenity was credentials aplenty.
“By authority of the Union of Allied Planets,” Bernard said in a monotone, “I’ll need access to all crew documentation and bills of lading on cargo presently carried aboard this ship. Also vessel registration forms and tax licenses. Any attempt to conceal information or cargo will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Are you carrying any passengers who are not crew?”
“No, sir,” Zoë said. “This is not a passenger ship.”
He looked around at the largely bare cargo bay. “Did you just offload a consignment or is this the state of your business?”
“It comes and goes, sir,” Zoë replied. Usually goes, she added inwardly.
“While I’m checking the paperwork, my team will run a routine search of the entire ship.”
“A search for what?” Kaylee said, all wide-eyed innocence.
“Contraband or undocumented individuals,” Bernard said. Then his eyes narrowed, and he addressed all three of them. “This can’t be your first rodeo. You know exactly what we do.”
“Don’t want anyone touching Vera with their dirty paws,” Jayne growled under his breath. “She don’t like it.”
“Vera?” said Bernard. “There’s a fifth person on board?”
“Nope. She’s a gun. Got the license for her and everything, before you ask.”
Major Bernard did a double take. “You name your—? Never mind.”
“All the paperwork you want is stowed in the galley,” Zoë said. Then, flicking a lock of her hair behind her ear and lowering her voice suggestively, she said, “You’d be most comfortable working in there, Major. You can spread everything out on the dining table. I can even make you some tea if you’d like.”
The change in her tone and attitude was not lost on Bernard. A small smile broke his blunt, coarse features. “That’s most accommodating of you, Acting Captain Washburne,” he said.
As he and Zoë made for the dining area, Bernard’s subordinates began opening their flight cases and taking out multiple-reading scanners. Whose infrared setting, Zoë knew, could pick up the body heat of a fruit fly through ten feet of vanadium steel.
Bernard sat himself down at the dining table and Zoë spread out the documents in front of him.
“Hmmm,” he said. “According to the registration this ship has two shuttles, but on approach we saw both bays are currently empty. Where are your shuttles, Acting Captain Washburne?”
“Please, call me Zoë.”
“Very well.” Again, that small smile, accompanied by a tiny, avid glint in the eye. Major Bernard was not a handsome man but he was, it seemed, vain enough to think that a woman like Zoë might be attracted to him. She noted the wedding band on his left hand. She noted, too, that he was making some effort to hide it from her. “I’ll repeat the question, Zoë. Where are you shuttles?”
“We’ve had bad luck with shuttles lately,” she told him. “Had to leave ’em both on Whitefall. They’re awaiting spare parts for necessary refitting.”
“Kind of risky going into the Black without one, don’t you think?”
“Risk is built into the price for our services,” she said.
Wash appeared in the dining-room doorway. His strawberry-blond hair was sticking up every which way like he had just rolled out of bed. But then it always looked like that. “I was told someone needed to see me,” he said. “Went down to the cargo bay but got sent up here.”
Major Bernard stared grimly at Wash’s eye-searingly colorful Hawaiian shirt and the toy dinosaur poking a toothy head out of his breast pocket.
“Who might you be?” Bernard said.
“Hoban Washburne, pilot, husband.” Then, remembering Zoë’s plan, Wash said, “But not husband to this lady. No, sir.”
Bernard frowned. “But you have the same surname.”
“Brother and sister,” Wash said.
Zoë shot him a scowl over Bernard’s head.
“Adopted brother and sister,” Wash amended. “It’s funny, though. People often tell us how much we look alike.”
“They do?” said Bernard, peering from Wash to Zoë and back again.
“Act alike, at any rate. Similar mannerisms. Similar gestures.” Wash attempted to mimic a typical Zoë-esque posture, cocking a hip and resting his thumbs in his belt. He also widened his eyes in emulation of her naturally large eyes, although whereas on her it looked captivating, on him it looked just plain demented. “Like twins, some say.”
“Hoban,” said Zoë, deliberately using his given name rather than his nickname, as a sister might, “Major Bernard doesn’t need to know any of that. Major Bernard is a busy man. Isn’t that so, Major?”
“Aubrey,” said Bernard.
“Huh?”
“I call you Zoë, you call me Aubrey.”
“Sure thing, Aubrey.” Zoë bit back a laugh. Aubrey? “So, Hoban, why don’t you just hurry on back to the bridge?” She made a waggling wave with her fingers. “Assuming Aubrey doesn’t need to discuss anything with you, that is.”
“I have just one question,” Bernard said to Wash. “What was your course prior to boarding?”
Wash told him the truth. He had no choice. It was all down in black and white on the manifest they got from Badger, which Bernard now held.
“That would be for delivery of five crates of mining chemicals?” Bernard scanned over the bill of lading. “On Aberdeen?”
Wash nodded.
“Very well,” said Bernard. “That’s all I need to know. You’re dismissed, Mr. Washburne.”
“Okay. Bye for now, uh, sis,” Wash said to Zoë. “See you later.”
He sauntered off, doing his best impersonation of Zoë’s confident, take-no-prisoners gait.
“Strange fellow,” Bernard remarked. “Hard to believe the two of you are related.”
“Well, we’re not, are we?” Zoë said. “Not by blood. My parents took him in after his own parents rejected him.”
“I can see why they might have. His parents, I mean. Yours, not so much.”
“Growing up, he was always a doofus. Hasn’t changed a great deal. But never mind him, Aubrey. You keep examining that paperwork. I think you’ll find it’s all in order, but it never hurts to have someone cast an expert eye over it.”
She braced both arms on the table, leaning close to the Alliance officer—so close that a stray strand of her hair brushed his cheek.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, in a not-sorry voice.
“No problem, Zoë.” Bernard gave every appearance of concentrating on the documents but she could tell his mind wasn’t fully on the task. Every once in a while he darted a quick sideways glance at her, taking in her arm, the curve of her bosom, the profile of her face. Finally, he pronounced himself satisfied. “Registration code numbers on the engine manifolds are correct. Documentation all checks out. Guess I’d better have a look at the labels and seals on those crates of chemicals, just to be completely sure.”
They left the dining room, Zoë leading the way. She was conscious of Bernard’s gaze on her backside and walked with a little extra wiggle for his benefit. Her injured leg accentuated the mot
ion.
Jayne and Kaylee were still where she had left them, down in the cargo bay. Wash was there too. Jayne looked ill-tempered as always but was trying to rein in his disgruntlement. Kaylee, by contrast, was an open book. She wrung her hands and gnawed her lower lip. As for Wash, he could put on a poker face when he needed to.
“HTX-20,” Major Bernard said, walking around the crates but giving them a wide berth. “Satan’s Snowflakes, they call it. That’s some seriously hazardous cargo you’ve got there.”
“It’s what we do, Aubrey,” Zoë said. “There’s a premium on hazardous.”
Bernard waved his subordinates over. “See if you can’t shift them out of the way,” he said. “I want to know what’s under them.”
Zoë and Kaylee traded glances. Kaylee said, “Sir, these crates should not be moved. The contents are highly volatile.”
Bernard wheeled around, one eyebrow raised. “If they’re that dangerous, then why are they sitting in your hold without proper protection?”
“They didn’t used to be so volatile.”
“Move them,” Bernard ordered.
The Alliance officers tried, but they couldn’t lift the crates and they couldn’t slide them across the deck, either. They were just too heavy to budge. With every grunting abortive attempt, the four crewmembers flinched.
Bernard turned to Zoë. He pointed at a forklift parked along the wall. “Does that thing work?”
Kaylee made a little involuntary squeak.
“What do you think’s under there?” Jayne said, clearly on the verge of losing his couth and his cool. “How dumb do you think we are?”
“I don’t know how dumb you, personally, are,” Bernard said. “By the looks of it, pretty dumb.”
Jayne’s lips curled back from his teeth.
“Zoë, on the other hand,” Bernard continued, “strikes me as an intelligent and discerning woman, which is why I’m asking myself how she could just let these crates sit here if their contents are really so unstable. Which in turn leads me to wonder whether they mightn’t be hiding something, and someone’s hoping we won’t dare move them.”
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