My Own Kind of Freedom

by Steven Brust

  “What’s that indicator mean?” said Mal suddenly.

  “What indic—”

  “The one’s that flashing.”

  “Oh, that?” said Wash. “Nothing. The recall. It means that Kaylee, River, and Simon are returning to Serenity.”

  “Returning?” said Mal. “I don’t—what the gorram hell is going on?”

  “I’ll explain later,” said Wash. The house rushed up at him. “You know, this is mind-numbingly stupid,” he remarked.

  He killed the thrust, hit the airbreaks, and gave her a bit of the retros, then a lot more just as they hit the wall.

  13:43

  He had maybe two seconds of warning that something was going to happen, and none whatsoever of what it was.

  Old, old reflexes were still operating, however, and he was out of his chair and rolling on the ground almost before the sound reached him, and well before he had time to figure out just what had happened.

  A few splinters cut him here and there, but he didn’t notice.

  When the noise stopped, he raised his head, and his first thought was that someone had fired a missile at him, and it hadn’t exploded. By the time he realized what it actually was, the door of the vessel was opening. He had, by this time, slipped so far into his old battle reflexes that he found his hand was reaching for a sidearm he hadn’t carried in seven years.

  13:44

  With some detached part of his mind, he realized that what he was experiencing was a lot like trying to stay on a badly spooked horse. With another small part, he put aside whatever it was that Wash had cooked up without telling him; there was just no time to worry about it now.

  With the more important and less conscious part of his mind, he unsnapped his restraints and hit the button to open the door, and as the door swung open he saw that the fed was already past him and was out the door.

  Guy moves fast.

  He drew his weapon and followed the fed out into the shambles that had been—he hoped—Sakarya’s office, feeling Zoë and Jayne behind him. “Jayne,” he said, “cover the door.”

  One thing he hadn’t anticipated was that it would be hard to see; but there was dust—sawdust, most likely—everywhere. It stung his eyes and nose. Goggles, dammit; I should have brought goggles.

  After what seemed like a horribly long time, he focused on the tall man, just coming to his feet against the wall to his left. The man said, “Good afternoon, Sergeant Reynolds. You make quite an entry.”

  Mal swung his pistol to cover him. “Good afternoon, Colonel Bursa. You’re about to make quite an exit.”

  “Could be,” said the ex-colonel, “but I’m not sure your team is in complete agreement about that.”

  Mal took a quick glance around the room. Jayne had his pistol pointing at the door. Zoë had her carbine pointing at the fed. The fed had his pistol pointing at Mal.

  Oops, he thought.

  Chapter 16

  My Own Kind of Health

  Sakarya’s office

  HER REACTIONS had been automatic. She saw a pistol leveled at the Captain, and she’d been prepared to cut down the fed; she stopped only when she realized that he wasn’t shooting.

  She kept the weapon pointing at the fed and waited for the little twitch around his eyes that indicated he was about to pull the trigger, or for an order from the Captain; but as she did, it occurred to her with something of a shock that she very, very badly wanted to turn her carbine and put two rounds into Bursa’s chest. The desire came on so strong that, for a moment, her hands almost trembled.

  But she didn’t do it, of course. She held her position and waited for orders, because that’s what she did.

  Sakarya’s office

  With the corner of his eye, he saw Wash leave the ship, look around, and then head for the door of the office. Before he got there it swung open and two men dressed in green coveralls and holding rifles came through. Mal kept his attention and his weapon on Bursa while Jayne fired twice. When the bodies hit the floor, Wash continued, stepping around them.

  “Where are you going?” said Jayne.

  “Out for a stroll,” said Wash. “I won’t be a minute.”

  Then Jayne said, “Hey!” and swung his rifle to cover the fed.

  “Stay on the door, Jayne,” said Mal.

  “We should probably talk,” said Kit.

  “Okay. But we’re all holding guns here, and someone’s arm is going to get tired soon, and we all know what that means.”

  “I’ll talk fast. I can’t let you kill this man.”

  “You know who he is?”

  “I knew before you did.”

  “You know who he was?”

  “Your old commanding officer when you fought for the Independents.”

  “He was more than that to me.”

  “I figured. He was your hero, wasn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. But it was true. He mentored you, taught you about command, showed you—”

  “Shut up.”

  “And look at him now. He threw away his name, his rank, and his scruples. That must be feichang bu yukuai for you. It must feel like a betrayal of everything—”

  “I said shut up.”

  “All right. But you don’t get to commit murder.”

  Bursa/Sakarya stood there, hands clear of his body but not raised, and gave no indication that the conversation had anything to do with him, or even that he was listening to it.

  “I’m not convinced you can stop me,” said Mal.

  Sakarya’s office

  A somewhat elderly woman sat behind a desk, speaking into a microphone with a sense of urgency.

  “Hi there,” said Wash. “I need to borrow your processor for a moment. I promise I won’t hurt it.”

  “Who—?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m in kind of a hurry. And you’re not going to be able to reach your security people anyway. So, if you’ll just let me…ugh. Which one of these…? Okay, that’s the direct link to the Cortex, so one of these must be, ah, I see. I don’t know if I have the right connection here. Okay, this ought to—there. Yes. A guy named Mister Universe showed me how to do this. Weird name, huh? Not half as weird as the guy is. We met in flight school. Worst pilot you ever…okay, that should do it. Just give me half a second to make sure the cross-load worked. Yep. Okay. You can have your desk again. Thanks.”

  Sakarya’s office

  Kit really hoped the captain couldn’t tell how scared he was, or how bad he was at this whole pointing guns business. It’s funny, when they had tried to kill him in the canteen he hadn’t been scared at all; maybe he’d been too busy trying to work out what had happened. But now, when he had the gun, it was much worse.

  Of course, that sawed-off carbine pointing straight at his chest might be part of the reason.

  He said, “I don’t need to state the obvious, do I?”

  The captain said, “You mean, the part about I shoot him, you shoot me, Zoë shoots you, and Jayne flies off into the sunset?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Works for me,” said the mercenary without turning his head.

  “No, you don’t need to point that out.”

  “So, tell me this: what do you think will do more good? Killing this guy, or making an example of him to everyone else on the border worlds who wants to try the same thing?”

  “Couldn’t say,” said the captain. “I don’t conjure with more good and less good, just with what’s in front of me.”

  “The Independents lost the war, Captain Reynolds.”

  “Yeah, I read that somewhere.”

  “Let’s suppose the cause was right. Then what?”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “No, I don’t. But suppose I’m wrong. Then what?”

  “Then it’s a damn shame we lost.”

  “Just what I was thinking. Means some bad happened.”

  “I don’t think you’re making your point real
well, Agent Merlyn.”

  “So, how about, if some bad happened, you let us do what good we can do, to sort of make up for some of it.”

  Wash came through the door.

  “Wash!” said Jayne. “I almost put one through your gorram head!”

  Wash ignored him, and spoke to Kit. “I got it,” he said.

  “Verify it.”

  “How?”

  The captain said, “Wash—”

  “One second, Mal.”

  Kit said, “Slide the little brown button on the back the other way, then hit start.”

  Wash said, “Two green lights.”

  Okay, here we go. It happens or it doesn’t.

  Kit rotated his whole body until, weapon and all, he was facing Sakarya. He said, “Filo Bursa, alias Filo Sakarya, you are bound by law for violations of Alliance Labor Code section nineteen part three, forced indenture, and section seventeen part five, child labor, and additional charges to be determined by a duly authorized court.”

  Then he waited.

  Sakarya’s office

  He so badly wanted to pull the trigger; to watch Bursa fall to the ground twitching. To shoot him in the chest, so he’d just have enough to time to know he was dying.

  But it wasn’t that gorram simple.

  He’d never felt this way in a firefight.

  Even as a young recruit, when he didn’t know how to handle himself, he’d done as well as could be expected: keeping his head down and shooting in the general direction of the enemy. But this was different. It wasn’t clear. It wasn’t obvious. There were too many answers, and all of them had some right and some wrong.

  When the fed pointed his gun at Bursa, Zoë had immediately turned hers toward the door; now he heard the report of her carbine at the same time as Jayne’s pistol, and two more of Bursa’s security force fell in the doorway, next to their companions, one of whom was moaning and writhing, while the other wasn’t moving at all.

  “Sir,” said Zoë, without turning her head, “whatever you’re going to do, I’d suggest doing it soon.”

  “Real soon,” said Wash, from directly behind him. “Someone’s gotten past the jamming.

  Song yiqie dao ta ma de diyu.

  In a firefight, he either knew the right thing to do, or he knew something to do that, at least, wasn’t wrong. The only thing worse than having to make this sort of decision was having to make this sort of decision in a hurry.

  He looked over at the fed. “I don’t owe you a gorram thing,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “And I owe your Alliance even less.”

  “I know.”

  Mal lowered his pistol and heard himself saying, “Take him, then. He’s yours.”

  Sakarya’s office

  A tension she didn’t know she was feeling drained out of her when the Captain spoke. She held her position and kept her focus on the door while she heard a clanking sound that had to be cuffs going around Colonel Bursa’s wrists. She held her position, waiting for the order to embark.

  “Wash, how’s the shuttle?”

  “It’s going to be fun getting it turned around in here, but everything works.”

  “You can fly us out?”

  “Yes.”

  “With six of us aboard?”

  She heard the hesitation, then, “I don’t—”

  “Five,” said the fed. “Take the prisoner. I’m staying here. I’ll come to collect him later.”

  “You know they’ll kill you,” he heard the Captain saying.

  “Oddly enough, they won’t. But I’d hurry if I were you. There are two Special Deputies on the way, and you’d much rather face down Sakarya’s security force than these two. Trust me on that.”

  “All of you, move,” said the Captain. “Buttoned up and flying in thirty seconds.”

  She took a position next to Bursa, grabbed his arm, jabbed her sawed-off into his back, and guided him toward the shuttle. He seemed reluctant to move. She dropped the barrel of the weapon, prodded him again, and said, “Colonel, if you even hesitate,” she said, “I’ll blow your balls off and we’ll drag you in. And you can’t know how much I want to blow your balls off.”

  They moved toward the shuttle.

  Sakarya’s office

  Rearguard again.

  As he backed toward the shuttle, keeping his eye on the door, he saw the fed leaving, and felt a sudden temptation to put a round into him, just because he could. Then the fed was coming back through the door, faster then he’d left. After about five steps he stopped, turned, fired twice, then backed up and off to the side.

  Crap.

  Jayne moved forward and dropped to his belly, holding the Marauder with both hands.

  “Jayne!” called Mal. “What are you doing?”

  Now there was a good question. He’d just been thinking about plugging the gorram fed, just for fun, and now he was—

  A whole bushelfull of them came through the door, several of them getting in each other’s way, a couple of them tripping. Not the best trained troops I’ve ever seen, he thought. Meanwhile, the little counter in the back of his head recorded that after firing six times, he had fourteen rounds left in the magazine. The captain was firing from behind him, and the agent from off to his right somewhere, though he wasn’t consciously aware of how he knew. Another voice joined the chorus; it had to be Zoë. He hoped that ruttin’ bastard in the shuttle was well secured, but it wasn’t his job to worry about that. He also made a mental note: I should really suggest to the Captain that we pick up some grenades.

  He fired six more times, very fast, then the doorway was clear. Were they hanging back, waiting, or had they run? Only one way to find out. He stood up, then discovered he was on his stomach again.

  What the—?

  He tried to stand again, and failed.

  Then hands grabbed him by the arms; Mal’s and Zoë’s, and dragged him toward the shuttle. The fed was looking at him, holding a smoking pistol, and then he was inside, and was being strapped into a chair.

  “You can really get us out of here?” said Mal, which seemed very odd, because Jayne had never claimed to be a pilot, and he wasn’t even in the pilot’s chair.

  “Watch me,” said Wash. “How is Jayne?”

  “One in the shoulder that went straight down, one in the left calf. I’m not sure how bad. Zoë took a scratch in the hand. That’s all. Now get us out of here.”

  “I’m on it.”

  There was a shiver as the shuttle started up.

  How is Jayne? One in the shoulder? Hey, that’s my name. Was there another Jayne he didn’t know about? Be damned funny if one of those bastards he’d shot had the same name as him.

  The shuttle rose about a foot off the floor and did a neat one hundred eighty degree turn in place. Jayne wanted to ask Wash not to do that, because the motion made him queasy; but it seemed like a lot of effort to talk.

  Wash guided the shuttle neatly through the hole it had made coming in with a force that pushed Jayne into his chair. As the ship slowed for a turn, he felt himself moving forward. He reached out to hold the seat in front of him. For just a second, he felt a horrible pain in his back, then he didn’t.

  Sakarya’s office

  The Captain said, “Wash, what just happened?”

  He turned his head just enough for them to hear him over the whine of the engine and the whir of the wings deploying. “I don’t know, exactly, except that I plugged a thing into a thing and pushed a button.”

  “You made an arrangement with the fed.”

  “Yeah, Mal. An arrangement to get us out of that place alive. It worked, too. Sorry if it hurt your feelings.”

  “You knew what was going to happen.”

  Wash made a minor course adjustment and gained a lot of altitude. “Can’t say as I did, actually. But I had a pretty good idea that if you went in and killed that guy, all sorts of things were going to happen, including the bunch of us probably getting shot.”

  “How? How did t
hat—?”

  “Mal, the fed was not going to let you shoot his prisoner.”

  “Your wife was going to shoot the fed if he’d tried.”

  “Yeah, Mal. And I wasn’t really happy with that idea. And you weren’t either.”

  “So you took it on yourself—”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Who else?”

  “No one else.”

  “The fed has to have been part of it.”

  “Well, yeah, the fed. Mal, if you’re going to shoot me for it, would you please wait until I’m done flying this thing?”

  Zoë felt the Captain’s eyes on her from the seat to her right, but she kept her own eyes staring straight ahead. “Zoë,” he said. “I need to know where you stand. I can’t have—”

  “Sir.”

  A pause. “Yes?”

  “I wasn’t part of it. And I wouldn’t have gone for it. But while you’re thinking this over, there’s one thing for you to consider.”

  “And that is?”

  “They’re right.”

  “They’re right to just decide—”

  “That every once in a while you have to be saved from yourself? Yes, sir.”

  “And those Special Deputies he was talking about? Are they going to just fly away? You know they’re after the doctor and his sister, and you know they won’t stop until they find her.”

  “Yeah,” said Wash as he leveled out the shuttle. “Well, I guess I should explain that part of it.”

  “I guess you should,” said the Captain.

  Zoë closed her eyes for a moment. It was starting to look like there was a horrid, ugly choice she wasn’t going to have to make. This time.

  Serenity: Bridge