My Own Kind of Freedom Read online

  He got up from his desk, stretched, put on his jacket, and made his leisurely way to the men’s room. That was just the sort of thing he would notice if someone else did it: Why is that man putting on his coat to use the men’s room? But it wasn’t likely any of his co-workers would twig to it; they didn’t have his training.

  He closed the stall door, and removed his C-box from the coat pocket. He fired it up, selected a reasonable mask, and made the connection.

  After his identity was established and confirmed, they didn’t waste any time.

  New instructions. Top priority, abort current operation if necessary. There is a man you have to meet….

  Five minutes later, he was out the door, leaving everything undone behind him and trying not to think about the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Serenity: Cargo bay

  Only the smell of fresh-cut wood was left in the empty hold.

  “Still going smooth, sir,” said Zoë.

  “We haven’t been paid yet.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “So let’s go do it now.” He looked up. Wash was there, leaning on the rail. “You’re in charge,” he called up. “Supervise.”

  Wash nodded, but didn’t make any remarks.

  Kaylee’s voice came through the intercom. “Can I go out, Cap’n? I want to see if there’s a junkyard here with a monolock for the gravboot.”

  “Okay. Don’t take too long. If we manage to get paid, I want to be off the world in a couple of hours.”

  Zoë fell into step beside him as they made their way out of the boat and onto the road into Yuva.

  “Sir, any idea just what he wants all the wood for?”

  “Couldn’t say. There’s enough for a good-sized house, but not for a whole new mansion.”

  They made it to the office, and looked at the sign on the door.

  He clicked on his comm link. “Wash, can you find out what local time is?”

  The voice came back in his ear, “Just a second, Mal…it’s about thirteen hundred.”

  “Okay, Zoë. We have an hour to kill.”

  “I could stand a beer, sir. There’s a place on North street, just a step from their office.”

  “Good plan.”

  It was a low building, made out of the same sort of crumbling brick as most everything else in Yuva, and distinguished only by a neatly stenciled sign that said, “Canteen.”

  It was dark inside, surprisingly clean, and mostly empty.

  Mostly.

  Mal looked at Jayne, sitting in the back corner, then looked away. He led Zoë to a table on the far side.

  The bartender called, “If you want something, you’ll have to get it from me. No table service ’till evening.”

  “I’ll get it,” said Mal.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  As he approached, the bartender said, “Welcome to Yuva. You with chatty over there?”

  “No,” said Mal, not turning around. “What sort of beer do you drink, when you drink beer?”

  “My own. I make it in back. We have a winter ale that came out pretty good.”

  “Two.”

  The bartender was of medium height, had a shaved head, and seemed to be about Simon’s age. Young. Too young to have fought in the war. Mal still pegged people that way: could they have fought? And if the answer was yes, which side? “Two it is.”

  Mal took the bottles. “They’re cold. I’m impressed.”

  The bartender smiled. “We serve the staff here, so nothing but the best.”

  “Staff?”

  “Office workers, and such.”

  “That all that comes here?”

  “Both offices, and the security people.”

  “Both offices?”

  “General office, and the ones who work in Mister Sakarya’s house. The important ones work there. They sit on that side of the room.”

  “There are rules for what side of the room you sit on?”

  “No rules. It just works itself out that way.”

  “What does everyone else do?”

  “Everyone else?”

  “In town. The ones who aren’t security, or one office or t’other.”

  “I work in a bar. This bar, in fact. See, this is me, working. In the bar.”

  “Good job. Own it, too?”

  The other laughed a little. “In effect. Not technically. Only one man owns things. I’m just grateful not to be digging bauxite.”

  “One man. That would be Sakarya.”

  He nodded. “Mister Sakarya owns pretty much everything on the subcontinent, and quite a bit on the rest of the world.”

  “I’m sure he finds that very fulfilling.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And not so good for the rest of you?”

  The bartender made a non-committal grunt. “I do okay. Call me Mark, by the way.”

  “Mal. That’s Zoë.”

  “Pleasure.”

  Mal nodded, paid, and brought the beers back to the table.

  “What was that about, sir?”

  “Beer, and the after-affects of being on the losing side.”

  “Oh?”

  “I sort of asked him what things were like here.”

  “And?”

  “He gave me the kind of answer you give when you don’t want to give an answer.”

  “It’d be a familiar story, sir.”

  “Seems I might’ve heard it once or twice before.”

  She cleared her throat. “I see that Jayne—”

  “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “Yes, sir. What do you think of those two?”

  Other than Jayne, the only other customers were two large, rather shabbily dressed men at a table against the wall.

  “The thugs? The red haired one has a piece strapped to his right ankle.”

  “And something behind his back; look how he’s sitting.”

  “I’m guessing a knife. The other one—”

  “With the pistol under his right arm.”

  “—Yes. He’s trying not to look like he’s waiting for someone.”

  “Good catch, sir; I hadn’t noticed.

  “I was the first one in the door. He twitched, then relaxed when he saw it wasn’t whoever he was waiting for.”

  “Nice they aren’t waiting for us, anyway.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.”

  “The curly-haired one is more experienced; he isn’t nervous. He’s done this before.”

  “So has Red, but not as often. He’s either scared, or having a few qualms of conscience.”

  Zoë nodded. “Well, if they aren’t waiting for us, then it isn’t any of our business.”

  “That’s my conclusion.”

  “So, when some poor slob comes in here to be robbed, or beaten up, or murdered—”

  “Murdered, I think, looking at those two. They’ll probably pick a fight with him.”

  “Yes. So, when that happens, we just ignore it.”

  “Right.”

  “Not our problem.”

  “Exactly. We keep right on drinking.”

  “In fact, sir, I think that when he comes in, we should leave.”

  “Good then. That’s what we’ll do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You take the redhead.”

  “Right. Tell me again why we’re doing this, sir?”

  “We like being heroes.”

  “What if we’re about to save the bad guy, sir?”

  “Look at those two and tell me they’re the good guys.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jayne went to the bar and got another drink, carefully not looking at them.

  About five minutes later the door opened.

  “That’s him.”

  “Yes, sir. He certainly looks harmless.”

  He was of average height, with something of a belly, and appeared fairly young in spite of streaks of gray running through his hair and his beard.

  “Now,” said Mal, “is when Red gets up and w
alks to the bar, accidentally bumping into him.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Red stood up and did a credible imitation of a drunk by swaying a bit and using the chair to steady himself. It would have been more believable if there had been a few empties on his table. He bumped into the newcomer on his way to the bar, and proceeded to start cussing him out.

  Mal and Zoë stood up at the same time.

  Mal gave the curly-haired one at the table a big smile, walked over, and sat down. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Just a friendly stranger with a gun in your ribs.”

  The other stared at him. There was a voice raised with insults, most of them in Chinese, but that was Zoë’s end of things, so Mal continued watching Curly, who said, “You have no idea what you’re getting involved in.”

  “I generally don’t. But here we are, so let’s just stay friendly.”

  Mal didn’t turn his head when he heard the thump; the other did, then turned back to Mal. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Probably true.”

  Zoë called, “Secured, sir,” which meant that Mark wasn’t doing anything either.

  Mal stood up, and permitted himself a quick glance. Zoë’s weapon was out, and Red was prone on the floor. The well-dressed stranger was looking back at Mal. Mark was standing very still, both of his hands on the bar. There was a comm unit on the wall next to the cash box, and the bartender was staying well away from it. The stranger hadn’t moved.

  “Escort him out, Zoë.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When he heard the door, he nodded once to Curly, gave him a friendly smile, and backed away from the table. He felt the door behind him, opened it, and stepped through, holstering his sidearm.

  “Well,” he said. “That was almost too easy to be any fun.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing, sir.”

  They started walking back to the boat, the stranger between them, Zoë mostly walking backwards, keeping an eye on the canteen.

  “Who sent you?” asked the stranger.

  “No one sent us,” said Mal. “We just happened to be in there having a drink.”

  “Uh huh.” He smiled as if sharing a joke with them. “Pretty remarkable timing, then.”

  “Timing is one of our specialties. I’m Malcolm Reynolds, and this is Zoë Washburne.”

  “A pleasure. And of course, you know my name.”

  “Uh, not so much.”

  “We’re clear, sir,” said Zoë. “No one following us.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “You don’t know my name? What did they tell you?”

  “Who?”

  He stopped. Mal and Zoë continued a couple of steps, then they stopped too, and turned to look at him.

  “Uh, I thank you both for your help, but I need to get back to work.”

  “Right. What was your name again?”

  “Kit. Kit Merlyn.”

  Mal nodded. “Well, see you around, then.”

  “Probably,” said Kit.

  He turned and started walking back to town.

  “Well,” said Zoë. “For the victim of a murder attempt, he took it awfully calm.”

  “I was thinking the same thing my own self.”

  “On the other hand, he wasn’t armed.”

  “No.”

  “Think we’ll find out what his story is?”

  “I’m afraid we might.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s get back to the boat. We’ll see about getting paid in a couple of hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Serenity: Common room

  Kaylee was drinking tea when Mal and Zoë came in.

  Mal punched the intercom button. “Wash?”

  “Yes, Mal?” came the crackly voice.

  “Keep an ear on the emergency channels for a while.”

  “What am I listening for?”

  “Alliance.”

  “How long a while?”

  “Till we leave.” He released the button. He looked tired.

  “How did it go?” asked Kaylee.

  “Hard to say.”

  “Did we get paid?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh.”

  Mal frowned at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just want to get off this world. I don’t like it.”

  “That’s three of us,” said Zoë, taking a chair opposite her. The Captain went into the kitchen and started poking around. “What’s your problem with it?” he asked. “No junkyard?”

  “The whole place is a junkyard.”

  “Hmmm. Looked clean enough to me.”

  “That’s the area for the office workers. The miners live on the other side of the hill.”

  “Oh. Ugly?”

  Kaylee nodded.

  “It’s an ugly ’verse,” said Mal. “Especially on Independent worlds. You’ve seen it before.”

  “Not like this.”

  “We’ll be gone soon,” said Zoë. “We just need to get paid—”

  “And they’re all afraid of him. That’s what really got to me.”

  “Afraid of who?” said Mal.

  “Sakarya. He has everyone afraid. They were afraid to talk to me. There was one little girl, she looked right at me and…” She shook her head. “It was creepy,” she finished.

  “I expect it was,” said Mal. “So, you didn’t get that part?”

  “No.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, it just means we’ll twitch a little and our ears will pop when the gravity normalizes.”

  “All right, we can live with that. Kaylee….”

  “Yes, Cap’n?”

  “We’ll be out of here soon. Don’t let it prey on you.”

  She nodded, stood up, and took her tea back to the engine room, where everything was simpler.

  Serenity: Bridge

  Wonderful. “Until we leave,” he’d said. Like he had nothing to do except sit here and listen to a dead comm channel in case something came on.

  Well, in fact, he didn’t have anything else to do. He could always do shadow puppets, but it wasn’t as much fun without Zoë to entertain.

  “Until we leave.”

  Why weren’t we leaving? What was there to stay here for? Obviously, they hadn’t managed to get the money yet. Probably gotten into trouble, gone off and rescued someone the Alliance wanted, and now they were all going to be humped. And he was stuck sitting here listening to a dead channel like a quanmian ta ma de baichi.

  There came the sound of his favorite combat boots.

  “Hi, honey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  “Well, other than being stuck here listening to a dead channel in case something happens, I’m just fine. What did you do down there?”

  “Nothing. Well, something. But I think he wants you to listen because of Jayne. I can take it for a while, if you want.”

  “Sweetie, having you here instead of me sort of defeats the purpose of—wait. What did Jayne do?”

  “Nothing as far as I know. But I think the Captain is afraid Jayne is going to tell the feds about Simon and River.”

  “Oh. I see. So, if we’re lucky, we’ll hear about it soon enough to get off this planet without getting paid.”

  Zoë exhaled. “Wash, what do you want?”

  “Well, a vacation would be nice.”

  “Wash….”

  “And it would be even nicer not to have this feeling that everything is about to fall apart on us.”

  “Wash.”

  He sighed. “All right.”

  “Want something to eat?”

  “That would be—Hey!”

  “What?”

  As the chatter came from his headphones, he adjusted the gain and dropped the filtering. With his other hand he slapped the “record” button, then switched on the intercom. “Mal, I’m getting something.”

  Chapter 3

  My Own Kind of Past

&
nbsp; Nine years previous

  BURSA LEANED forward. “You’d keep your present rank,” he said.

  “That’s not that big an inducement,” said Mal.

  “Ah. Then I suppose it wouldn’t help that you’d be in line for promotion.”

  “No.”

  “Even if you get a nice fancy office like this?”

  Mal looked around at the paper-thin walls of the cubby-hole. “Huh,” he said.

  The Colonel’s face was long, bony, and pale. His nose had been broken at least once, and there was a long white scar running from his right ear to just below his chin. He wore brown, with the Independents’ lieutenant colonel insignia on his shoulders—wide shoulders for his frame, giving him a sort of scarecrow appearance. His feet stuck out from under the little desk.

  Mal felt himself being studied. “Okay,” said the Colonel. “Well, the point remains. The nature of the war has changed. Units like yours were useful when they were all we had. The war was sprung on us like, um, like something that springs on you. Little detachments kept them slowed down until we could—”

  “I know the—”

  “Don’t interrupt, Sergeant.”

  Mal’s jaw clenched.

  Bursa continued, “Until we could organize, recruit, and prepare. Now, every time one of your little bands is rampaging through an area the army is in, it interferes with the operations of the army. You’re doing more harm than good now, Sergeant.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I say.” The Colonel frowned. “What’s the problem, anyway?”

  Mal stared at a spot over the Colonel’s shoulder. “If I had wanted to take orders from everyone who likes giving orders, I wouldn’t be fighting the Alliance in the first place, would I?”

  Bursa let out a breath. “Okay. I can see that. I can even respect it. But the fight is on. You want to win?”

  “I’d been planning on it.”

  “Me, too. We want to defeat the Alliance. We need regular, organized forces. Bands like yours are harming us. Those who won’t join us will have to be suppressed.”

  “Suppressed.”

  “Would you prefer I used a more graphic term? You know what I mean.”

  “I surely do.”

  “So, tomorrow morning, you and yours swear in to the regular army.”