Firefly--Life Signs

by James Lovegrove

  The Firefly was still too far out to be distinguishable with the naked eye, a dot among the stars. Constant Vigilance’s external cameras zeroed in and increased magnification, bringing an image of it onto Levine’s viewscreen, shaky and blurry at first, then fixed and focused.

  She tutted. Shabby-looking hunk of junk. Streaks of rust and dents all over the hull. Barely seemed spaceworthy.

  “I repeat, Firefly-class vessel, please identify yourself.”

  Still nothing. Commander Levine scowled. Lost its way? Or was there something else going on here? Whatever the Firefly’s reason for straying into Atata’s proximity, she could not afford to give it the benefit of the doubt. This wasn’t some agrarian commune she was watching over. The planet was home to thirty-five thousand deviants, degenerates and desperados. Keeping them there, and protecting the rest of the ’verse from them, was her sworn duty.

  “One last time, Firefly-class vessel. Identify yourself, or I shall be obliged to open fire.”

  “Uh, yeah, hi there,” came the reply over the speakers. “This is Captain… Malcolm. Captain Ray Malcolm.”

  “Please switch to visual communication.” Levine liked to see whom she was talking with. Liked to look in a person’s eyes and get the measure of them that way.

  A moment later, a face appeared on his videoscreen. Handsome fellow, floppy fringe, glint in his eye. Looked cocksure.

  Levine did not like cocksure.

  “Captain Malcolm.”

  “Howdy, Commander… Levine, was it? How’s life in the Alliance navy treatin’ you?”

  Levine had no patience with small talk. “I have asked for identification. Kindly oblige.”

  “Sure thing,” said Malcolm. “My ship is Tranquility. We’re on a resupply run, bound for Correctional Unit #23.”

  Quickly Levine pulled up the schedule for deliveries. She ran an eye down the list.

  “Captain Malcolm, I don’t have any record of you and your vessel in my database.”

  She motioned to her weapons officer subtly, in a way that could not be seen on-camera. The weapons officer immediately engaged Constant Vigilance’s underslung cannons, training all four of them on the ever-looming Firefly.

  “For that reason,” she continued, “I am inviting you to turn about. This is a one-time-only request. If you do not comply, I am obliged by Alliance statutes to deploy lethal force.”

  “You want to try refreshing that database and checking again?” Captain Malcolm offered a slightly exasperated smile, as if to say that technology was not infallible and neither were people. “Can’t believe we’re not on it.”

  Commander Levine did not think she had made a mistake. That was not like her. Nonetheless, with a grimace of displeasure, she consulted the schedule again.

  There it was. How could she have missed it the first time? Tranquility. Captain: one Raymond Malcolm. Due to arrive today, almost to the hour.

  “Very well, Captain,” she said, without a note of apology. Commander Victoria Levine did not know the meaning of the word sorry. “We have you down, after all. Transmit your authorization codes.”

  “Transmitting.”

  A bright, loud ping from Levine’s console indicated that the codes had been acknowledged by her own ship’s computer and, moreover, were valid.

  She punched keys to open the file containing Tranquility’s manifest. The ship was carrying protein bars, cleaning products, kitchenware and blankets. Sure enough, these were destined for Correctional Unit #23.

  An annotation at the top of the manifest caught her eye. “You’re a L’Amour Lines vessel,” she said.

  “That’s us,” Captain Malcolm said. “Flying the L’Amour flag with pride.”

  “I don’t mean any disrespect, but usually L’Amour ships are a little…”

  “Cleaner? Smarter? Slicker?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “We get that a lot. Stanislaw L’Amour’s been buying up a load of subsidiaries lately, bringing them in under the L’Amour Lines umbrella. We’re independent contractors who’ve suddenly found ourselves working for the big boys. It’s a hell of a step up, and we’re doing our best not to disappoint. Speakin’ of which, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d be grateful if you gave us the go-ahead so’s we can be on our way and get these goods on-planet. Time is money, and all that.”

  Levine hesitated. Everything about Tranquility checked out, and L’Amour Lines was one of the transportation firms the Alliance regularly employed. The company’s name commanded respect.

  All the same, something—some inner voice, some instinct— was telling her to beware. The situation was not quite kosher. This Captain Malcolm seemed wily.

  Finally she said, “Your paperwork seems to be in order. You are cleared to proceed.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you, Commander Levine.”

  “I’m beaming over your landing co-ordinates.”

  Malcolm glanced down at something on his own console. “Received.”

  “I’ll institute a remote lockdown at Correctional Unit #23, effective immediately. None of the inmates will be able to leave the main building for the next sixty minutes. The supply depot is always locked but will be opened immediately when the sixty minutes is up so that the inmates can gain access. That’s your window to land, offload and take off again. I advise you not to exceed it. Correctional Unit #23 is home to some five hundred high-risk criminals, and the safety of you and your ship cannot be guaranteed if you linger.”

  “Understood.”

  “Take care down there,” Levine said, “and don’t catch frostbite.”

  It was her traditional little quip to all delivery crews. Inevitably they gave a polite chuckle in response, and the captain of Tranquility was no exception.

  “Noted, Commander,” Malcolm said, and fired her a jaunty salute. “You have a nice day.” His face vanished from the videoscreen, to be replaced by an image of the AngloSino flag.

  The sight of the flag’s stars and bars rarely failed to instill a tingle of pride in Commander Levine. The good old red, gold and blue.

  Not this time, however. This time, she was too preoccupied. As the Firefly angled itself for planetary entry, its rear-mounted engine nacelle pulsing brightly, she sat back in her chair pensively.

  “Weps, stand down cannons,” she said.

  “Aye-aye, sir,” acknowledged the weapons officer.

  “XO?”

  “Sir?” said the lieutenant commander who was Levine’s executive officer.

  “I want a dedicated surveillance lock on that Firefly. Full visual observation all the way.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  Levine steepled her fingers and pressed their tips to her upper lip.

  Yes. There was definitely something off-base here.

  10

  As Tranquility—a.k.a. Serenity—completed her entry burn and the glow from her superheated ablative hull plates faded, the landscape of Atata came into view from the bridge’s forward ports.

  Everything was white, interspersed here and there with smatterings of black and dark green—rocks and forest.

  Wash guided the ship down through the planet’s stratosphere, battling the powerful high-altitude air currents that buffeted her. Zoë was by his side, one hand on his shoulder. Mal stood next to her, leaning on the control console. At the rear of the bridge, Jayne, Simon and River clustered together. Each was grabbing onto a bulkhead or a wall fixture for support as Serenity slewed and yawed. Kaylee was the only crewmember absent. She remained in the engine room, making sure the ship’s temperamental, sometimes downright cranky trace compression block engine behaved itself.

  “Whoa mama!” Wash cried as a particularly heavy gust caught Serenity sidelong, sending her veering violently to starboard. “By which I mean,” he added, trying to sound calmer, “that was a totally expected and in no way alarming incident of turbulence, which I handled in my usual cool, unflustered manner.”

  “Yeah, you did, honey,” Zoë said, ruffling his hair. �
�I don’t think anyone even noticed.”

  Another air current swept Serenity upward, then dropped her down abruptly with gut-churning speed.

  Jayne’s jaw was clenched, and the knuckles of the hand he was gripping the bulkhead with were white. When he caught River looking at him inquisitively, however, he put on a show of nonchalance. He even feigned a huge yawn, as if he’d never known anything as dull as this flight. River nodded and playfully pretended to yawn too. Jayne’s subsequent scowl spoke volumes: he didn’t understand how this strange girl’s mind worked, and he didn’t think he ever would.

  “Should be smoothing out soon,” Wash said, with an eye on the altimeter reading. “It’s always better down in the troposphere, and where we’re headed there’s an area of prevailing high pressure. Clear skies and windless.” Serenity jerked, juddered. “Just a couple more minutes of this, and it’ll be plain sailing.”

  His prediction was borne out. All at once the descent became a silky glide. Wash’s hands slackened their tight hold on the steering yoke. Everyone in the bridge visibly relaxed.

  “Nice work,” Mal said to his pilot. “Wasn’t worried for a moment.”

  “Me either,” said Wash, almost convincingly. “Just like I wasn’t worried that corvette was going to blow a hole in us.”

  “Gotta admit, I was a mite anxious myself,” Zoë said. “L’Amour told us delivery records can take a while to filter through the system, and ‘Tranquility’ was very much a last-minute addition to Commander Levine’s database.”

  “Yes,” said Simon, “and if it had been too last-minute, we wouldn’t be around to have this conversation.”

  “But we are,” said Mal, “and that’s that. Wash, how long till we reach our landing point?”

  “Should be another ten minutes. How’s it going to work when we get there?”

  “Accordin’ to L’Amour, every correctional unit has a dedicated supply depot located within half a mile of the main building. Cargo gets dropped there while the main building is in lockdown. Then, after the resupply ship has taken off, the inmates can go and bring the stuff in.”

  “There really are no wardens?” Simon said. “The prisoners run things themselves?”

  “That’s the system,” Mal said. “Atata’s privately owned. Company in charge is—surprise, surprise—the Blue Sun Corporation. They’ve figured they can save money on employees by, well, not employin’ any. All’s they have to do is the bare minimum: keep the convicts fed, warm and alive. Everything else is up to the convicts themselves.”

  “Isn’t that a little inhumane?”

  “It ain’t kindly and compassionate, Doc, that’s for sure. And it don’t make for too happy an experience for most of those who get interned here.”

  “I’ll bet it doesn’t,” Zoë said. “Your ordinary prison’s bad enough, but one where the inmates make the rules?” She mimed a shudder. Partly mimed it, in point of fact.

  “The life expectancy for the average Atata inmate isn’t high,” Mal said. “All manner of ways in which you can come to a sticky end. Don’t get your fair share of the food and slowly starve. Cross one of the other inmates who’s bigger and meaner then you and maybe has a taste for murderin’. Die of hypothermia, because the heating in the correctional units is only adequate at best.”

  “So it’s a death sentence, getting sent to Atata,” Simon said.

  “Quite often, yeah.”

  “Seems like it’d be more merciful just to execute people.”

  “Price of a bullet, it’d be cheaper to as well,” Jayne said.

  “Hey, the Alliance doesn’t want anybody to think it’s completely gorramn heartless,” Mal said with a wry twist of his mouth. “This here’s compassion in action.” He gestured at the wintry terrain below, which was growing ever closer. “And, as a bonus, they’ve put to use a planet no one’s going to live on otherwise. Waste not, want not.”

  “Is everyone on Atata a lifer?” Wash asked.

  “Not all,” said Zoë. “When your time’s up, you get returned to your homeworld. L’Amour told us that the correctional unit is put in lockdown, just like during a supply drop-off, with only sentence-served inmates allowed out. One of the Alliance corvettes swoops in. You and the other released prisoners assemble in the supply depot, and once you’ve passed the ID checks, you’re lifted off-planet and transferred to a transport vessel in space.”

  “This is assuming you’re still alive by that point.”

  “That’s the deal. Make it to the end of your prison term, and you get to re-join society.”

  “I never realized the judicial system could be so brutal,” Simon said.

  “Why would you, growing up all lah-di-dah on Osiris?” said Jayne. “I’m amazed you’ve even heard of Atata. Guy like you, your background, if you ever got put in jail it’d be one of those cushy places, like a country club with a fence around it. And that’d be even if you’d beaten your own mother to death with a meat tenderizer. Atata’s for the folk most folk would like to forget about.”

  “Still can’t get my head around the idea of this Dr. Weng fella doing time here,” said Wash. “Jayne’s right. Weng doesn’t seem the sort who’d rightfully belong on Atata. If his only crime was not following certain medical guidelines, why isn’t he in a regular penitentiary? There’s something hinky going on, if you ask me.”

  “I agree,” said Mal, “but that’s not our primary concern. The objective is retrieving Weng.” He glanced outside. Jagged, snow-shrouded mountains paraded along the horizon. Directly ahead of Serenity was an expanse of dense coniferous forest. Everything else was sparkling white tundra. “How much further, Wash?”

  Wash checked co-ordinates and airspeed and made a swift mental calculation. “Another fifty klicks. Five minutes, give or take.”

  “Then it’s time our landing party got ready.”

  11

  The depot was an enclosed compound, high walls crowned with razor wire surrounding a square some hundred yards across. Serenity descended, the downdraft from her thrusters sending snow flurrying up around her in thin, spiraling clouds that floated back to earth even as she settled on her landing gear. The depot’s dimensions did not leave a great deal of wiggle room for a ship that was 269 feet long from bow to stern and had a 170-foot beam, but Wash slotted her in as neatly as a teacup into a saucer.

  Serenity’s engine powered down, and shortly after that her cargo ramp opened. The ramp formed a horizontal bridge to a loading dock that was sheltered by an angled awning, its floor virtually snow-free.

  Wash, River and Kaylee began hauling out several dozen crates from the ship’s interior, using the ship’s newish Mule bike, a replacement for the one that got turned into a torpedo-on-wheels a few months back. They were able to lug the lighter crates off the Mule bike’s trailer themselves. For the heavier ones, which numbered four, they took advantage of an electric chain hoist that stood on the loading dock.

  The three crewmembers worked fast, exchanging few words and trying to get the job done as quickly as possible. They were clad in thermal gear—fleece-lined parkas with fur-trimmed hoods, matching pants, mittens—but still the air was viciously cold. Even through the fabric masks that covered the lower half of their faces, each intake of breath burned in their nostrils. Frost gathered on their eyebrows, making them look like old men, and the small strip of their foreheads that was exposed to the elements went numb.

  With the last of the cargo deposited on the dock, Wash parked the Mule bike back aboard Serenity. He joined River and Kaylee at the cargo bay entrance, and together they looked out at the carefully stacked crates. The four large crates were separate from the rest, each sitting on its own.

  “Don’t seem right, just leavin’ ’em there,” Kaylee said.

  “It’s the plan,” said Wash. “Mal knows what he’s doing.”

  “Said no one about Malcolm Reynolds ever. They’re walking into a prison! There’s who knows how many crazies in that place. What if they don’t make it back out?�
��

  “They will. They have to.”

  “And it may all be for nothing, unless they find this Dr. Weng.”

  “Kaylee, it’ll be okay.”

  “You know that for sure, Wash? ’Cause I gorramn well don’t. If all this wasn’t for Inara’s sake…” Her lip quivered. “I can’t believe she’s dying. It ain’t right.”

  River took her hand. “Don’t cry.”

  “Too late.” Tears spilled from Kaylee’s eyes, freezing almost instantly to form tiny pearls on her lashes.

  River stroked the back of Kaylee’s neck while she sobbed silently, her chest shuddering. “I hate it when people cry,” River murmured. “It’s like they’re bleeding see-through blood.”

  A siren sounded—a series of short, sharp blasts.

  Then an automated announcement echoed forth from a loudspeaker mounted on the depot wall.

  “ALERT. THREE MINUTES UNTIL END OF LOCKDOWN. ALERT. THREE MINUTES UNTIL END OF LOCKDOWN.”

  “That’s our cue to go, ladies,” Wash said. “Don’t want to be around when the inmates turn up to collect their goodies.”

  He hit the switch to close the cargo ramp.

  Within a minute, Serenity’s engine was running through its startup cycle. Within two, the ship was aloft, kicking up more snow flurries as she arose.

  “ALERT. SIXTY SECONDS UNTIL END OF LOCKDOWN. ALERT. SIXTY SECONDS UNTIL END OF LOCKDOWN.”

  Up into the bright blue firmament Serenity roared.

  “ALERT. LOCKDOWN ENDING IN TEN SECONDS. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE.”

  There was an enormous clank as the bolts securing the depot’s entrance retracted.

  “LOCKDOWN TERMINATED.”

  12

  The rumble of Serenity’s engine faded and silence settled over the supply depot. Minutes passed, and then one of the four heavy crates on the loading dock opened a crack. A pair of eyes peeked out.

  Warily, Mal looked around the depot. The coast seemed clear.

  Still, this was the dicey part. Mal was gambling on IAV Constant Vigilance being less attentive than its name implied. If he was wrong about that… Well, he probably wouldn’t even hear the missiles that would come rocketing down from space, not until the very last second. There’d be a brief, shrill howl, an impact like God stamping His foot, and after that, oblivion.