Firefly - Generations E-Book

Tim Lebbon

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 375

Beschreibung

Winner of the 2021 Dragon Award for Best Media Tie-in NovelA new era of Firefly canon in the fourth original novel tie-in of the much-missed Firefly series from creator Joss WhedonA mysterious star mapOn an Outer Rim moon, Captain Malcolm Reynolds ends a card game the lucky winner of an old map covered in mysterious symbols. The former owner insists it's worthless; back on Serenity, River Tam is able to interpret it.An ancient legendRiver claims the map points the way to one of the Arks: legendary generation ships that brought humans from Earth- That-Was to the 'Verse. The salvage potential alone is staggering.A drifting relicAs the crew approach the aged floating ship, they find it isn't quite as dead as it first seemed. The closer they get, the more agitated River becomes. She claims something is waiting on board, something powerful, and very angry...

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a review

Copyright

Silas

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Acknowledgements

About the Author

GENERATIONS

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove (original concept by Nancy Holder)

The Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove

The Ghost Machine by James Lovegrove

LEAVE US A REVIEW

We hope you enjoy this book – if you did we would really appreciate it if you can write a short review. Your ratings really make a difference for the authors, helping the books you love reach more people.

You can rate this book, or leave a short review here:

Amazon.com,

Amazon.co.uk,

Goodreads,

Barnes & Noble,

Waterstones,

or your preferred retailer.

Firefly: Generations

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781785658327

E-book edition ISBN: 9781785658334

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0UP.

First edition: October 2020

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Firefly TM & © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Did you enjoy this book?

We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Reader Feedback at the above address.

To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website

TITANBOOKS.COM

THIS ONE’S FOR THE NEWTS

Even asleep, he is more awake than most people. His body is suppressed, but his mind is extraordinary and can never be controlled. While he is held in suspended animation between one moment and the next, his mind still ranges beyond the confines of his prison. He plans and schemes, and every moment brings freedom that much closer. He has arranged for it to be this way. Once captured, and knowing that he would be put into suspension, he always intended to be found.

Set free.

The map leading back to him is out there, though Silas has some trouble trying to remember how long it has been since he sent it. His moments sometimes feel like seconds, sometimes years. He experiences a certain frustration, because he has so many things to do.

Once free he will better himself. He will bring his fury to bear upon those who sought to open his skull and stir his mind. He was their first subject—their lab-rat—and he is sure that more came after him. Maybe they were more perfect, but he thinks not. He is the original, and though changed for the better, still he wants his revenge for what they did.

Only someone like him—one of those who came after—will be able to read the map and lead others here. Then he will awaken.

A thin, hungry spider at the center of its web, Silas waits for the darkness and stillness to end. Once freed, he will wreak havoc.

With his precious future held close to his heart, Private Heng Choi watched from a viewing port of the Alliance destroyer Peacebringer as doom closed in on them. Sirens wailed. Warnings echoed through gangways, ward rooms, and battle stations, and into escape pods there was no time to use. Service personnel ran back and forth, most carrying out their emergency duties as they had been trained, but in a barrack room across the wide hallway he saw several people crawling beneath bunks and curling themselves into the fetal position.

Heng laughed. They were following imminent crash protocol, as if hiding under a mesh bed would protect them from explosive decompression, the frozen draw of deep space, fire, crushing, crashing, pressure-blast, or one of the hundred other ways in which they were about to die. Put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye, he thought, but gallows humor turned to sadness when he pressed his hand to his chest.

He felt it there, just inside his jacket, folded and vacuum-sealed within an airtight bag. He’d always known it was precious. He feared that so close to the end of his time, its knowledge and potential would never be fulfilled.

The terrorist ship, spewing atmosphere and beautiful, dancing fire from several holes in its hull, rolled toward them. A few optimistic cannon operators were pouring fire at its bulk, but the small explosions did little to halt its inexorable, terrifying advance. Heng couldn’t help but feel a grudging respect for the terrorist ship’s pilot, committing his vessel to a collision course as his final courageous act of defiance.

He closed his eyes, only opening them when the impact countdown broadcast to the Peacebringer’s crew reached ten seconds. He wanted to witness his final moments.

The impact sent him crashing against the viewing port, falling to the floor, then bouncing from wall to wall as the Peacebringer shuddered, ruptured, and broke. He expelled all the air from his lungs, yet the feared decompression did not come. His senses were in chaos. There were explosions and crunches, the screech of tearing metal and the screams of the dying. He smelled rancid air as the ship’s treatment and recycling plant was shattered. Heng was knocked over again as several crew members were thrown against him by a nearby explosion. Their bodies shielded him from much of the blast, but he felt the warm kiss of blood spatter across his exposed face and arms.

He heard the repeating message to abandon ship, but he guessed that anyone who did go for the escape pods would be torn to pieces as soon as they launched. Outside, his whole field of view was filled with parts of the broken ships, blooming flowers of flame spewing from rents in the hull, and spinning, wretched corpses.

Heng stood again and hauled himself against the viewing port, one hand still pressed against the package in his uniform’s inner pocket. Is this all about me? he wondered, and the idea struck him with the force of a disabled ship on collision course. He had been handed the map by a dangerous prisoner on his first ever posting as an Alliance soldier. It was his one and only journey beyond the Outer Rim, as part of a unit accompanying two unnerving blue-gloved Alliance science-types onto a strange, abandoned ship. The prisoner had caused a distraction, manufactured a chance encounter. It’s precious, he’d whispered into Heng’s ear, pressing the folded paper into his hand. Young, impressionable, afraid, Heng had not had any reason to doubt those words. He’d always kept it close, and realized now that it likely had a meaning and value way beyond money.

He heard more screams, more rending metal, and he realized that the Peacebringer had been knocked into a rapidly decaying orbit around the small planet they had been orbiting for several days. Their mission had been to broker a peace between warring clans on the planet, but what if that was simply a cover?

“What have I done?” he asked, but there was no one to offer a response. His heart beat faster, as if giving life to the strange map that he had never been able to decode. He had always kept it secret, hoping to profit from it one day. Perhaps that secrecy had been a mistake.

The ship began to spin.

The view from the port alternated between deep space, planet, and debris fields that spread and burned before his eyes.

Whatever questions he had left, he would die without knowing the answers.

* * *

Kathryn and her family watched the blazing ship spinning down through the scant atmosphere, shedding parts of itself that streaked away at differing angles, spewing flames and smoke as it roared its final, deafening scream of rage at whatever had brought it down.

“There’ll be dozens seeing this,” her father said. “We need to get there first.”

Kathryn nodded and her brother did the same, but they all knew that the likelihood of them striking lucky was small. They never did. If there was an abandoned ship ripe for salvage, they’d arrive in time to pick over the dregs that were left. If there was a gas strike down in one of the deep ravines, they would get there in time to fill a few bottles of weak, crude stuff before the well ran dry. They roamed the surface of the planet looking for luck, but luck always remained one step ahead.

“It’ll take too long to go home for the overlander,” Kathryn said.

“We’d better run, then,” her brother said, and to begin with they did. In the thin air, it didn’t take long for them to slow, gasping and panting, to a fast walk.

The blazing ship had left a widening trail of smoke in the dark sky. It blotted out stars like a fresh brushstroke reimagining that part of the heavens. As they slowed from their optimistic run they heard the impact as the ship crashed into the distant Meadon mountain range. The horizon lit up with fire, casting a muted yellow glow across the mountainsides.

“Might not be much left,” Kathryn said.

“There’s always something,” her father said. “Things we can trade or use ourselves.”

“But the mountain gangs will reach the crash site long before us!”

“Then we’d better start running again!” They did as her father said, and although the thin air made their lungs strain, and her vision swam and became fluid, they ran through the pain toward what might be a source of much-needed salvage.

By the time they reached the crash site the fires had died down, the smoking wreck was all but silent, and the Meadon mountain gangs had indeed been and gone, taking with them anything worth salvaging from the remains of the Alliance ship. The debris field was crisscrossed with footprints, and laid out in a neat line away from the ship were the corpses of almost fifty Alliance crew. The survivors had been pulled from the wreckage and then executed.

She stared at the bodies. Some of them showed signs of terrible trauma from the crash—broken bones, severed limbs, bloodied wounds and burns—but every single one had holes in their upper torso from where they had been cut down by gunfire.

Her brother was the first to approach. He went to his knees and started rifling through the first corpse’s clothing.

“No!” Kathryn said. “You can’t! That’s—”

“She won’t care,” her father said. He nodded toward the next corpse. “Neither will he. They might have money, ID tech, guns, even food. We leave it here to rot into the ground, or perhaps it benefits us for the next few weeks. It’s really no choice at all.”

“Even the mountain gangs don’t steal from the dead.”

“They made them dead!” her father said. “Only reason they don’t take from them is they think the Alliance are unclean scum. Me… I just don’t like them all that much.”

Kathryn watched her father and brother searching the dead for ten minutes before joining in. Hunger had a way of winnowing through her morals.

The fourth body she searched was a middle-aged man, battered and broken from the crash and with three bullet holes in his chest. He had his right hand tucked inside his uniform, and as she pulled it out a vacuum-wrapped package came with it, clasped tight between his thumb and fingers.

She glanced around at her father and brother. They were immersed in their own searches, neither of them watching what she was doing. They think I never find anything useful. She started unwrapping the packet and it opened with a soft sigh.

Something inside sparked, just for a moment. It startled her. On first glance she thought it was folded paper, a last letter to his loved ones perhaps, but it seemed to contain tech. Maybe it would be worth something. She peeled the clear cover open and extracted the item, sitting in the mud and unfolding it across her knees. More sparks sizzled across its surface before dying down, and then it was just a piece of thick, waxy paper. The etched and inked designs were strange and difficult to make out.

“What you got?” her brother called.

“Nothing,” she said. “Old drawing.”

“Look for stuff worth something!” he said, before going back to searching another corpse.

Kathryn waved a hand his way without looking, frowning as she tried to make sense of what she had found. There was no obvious power source to the limp sheet—it must have been static from the crash—and the markings across both surfaces meant nothing to her.

She shoved the packet into her back pocket, then closed the dead man’s eyes before moving on. His story was over. She wondered who he was.

* * *

Three days later Kathryn traded the packet for a pair of leather boots. They were far from new, but they were solid and fit her well. The weird old map had been worth nothing. She decided she’d made a good trade, and she felt smug when she told her father and brother so.

The man she’d traded with was called Martynn, and seventeen days later he was dead. He never heard the shot that killed him. The woman who pulled the trigger, Marcine Rume, had done so because she was paid to kill, and Martynn was the latest in a long line of men, women, and children—some of them bad people, some unfortunate innocents—who had died at her hand.

On the dead man’s body she found three gold rings on his fingers, one silver tooth in his head, and a leather satchel containing a folded sheet of yellowed paper. Useless. She discarded the satchel and paper, and turned and walked back toward her ship. His body would rot into the land, and she had business elsewhere.

A few steps away from the body she paused, frowning. Just because she couldn’t read what was written on the thick paper didn’t mean it would not be valuable to someone else. Some people who’d never left the surface of a planet collected old rubbish like that.

She went back to collect it. The man’s body was already attracting vermin, and high above circled three carrion birds.

* * *

Marcine Rume spent the next week at a brothel on one of the small moons of Bellerophon. She had money to spend, so the whores gave her plenty of time. They plied her with drink too, and when she fell into a drunken coma they went through her belongings. They were very careful about what they touched and stole. It was never wise to take money, because if they kept the woman happy she would give it to them soon enough. Personal effects would be missed. It was the small items that seemed to hold no importance that they looked for.

The whore who found and took the map was called Gemma. It was stolen from her a week later by a miner who worked the asteroid fields. He lost it in a fight with a fellow miner, and it dropped out of sight between two loose floorboards in a tavern.

Three weeks later a child found it, one of several who sometimes lived beneath the tavern scavenging for food and drink and gathering the few coins and notes that fell through the gaps. The child liked the map, and in his uncorrupted view its strange markings and symbols were quite beautiful, not befuddling. He didn’t understand what it showed—in truth, he didn’t realize that it was a map at all—but he appreciated the smooth silky feel of it, the old stale smell, and he was young and open-minded enough to see that though it meant little to him, to someone else this might mean the world.

Seven weeks after finding the map and hiding it away in a place only he knew, the child used it to buy food from a traveler passing through the town. His name was Deacon, an old man who had taken to wandering to preach his lessons of kindness. He showed this child kindness by giving him food of far greater value than the tattered, unreadable shred of paper he used to buy it.

Later that same day, camping just outside town and examining his new acquisition by the revealing light of a campfire, Deacon began to change his opinion.

In one of his distant past lives he had been a mercenary.

He knew a star map when he saw one.

“Why is it always me who gets to scrub the gorramn floors?” Jayne asked.

“Because you’re best at it,” Mal replied.

“Best? At scrubbin’ floors?”

“It’s those muscles you’re building up from you and the Shepherd liftin’ weights.”

“Huh. Right. I guess that’s a joke.”

“I’m having no part of this,” Book said.

“No joke, Jayne.” Mal leaned on the walkway handrail and looked down into the depressingly empty cargo bay.

“So why can’t Book do it? He’s got the same muscles.”

“Book’s busy.”

“Doin’ what?”

Mal sighed.

“I’m busy filling my time with study and contemplation,” Book said. In truth he was going through a case of books they’d ended up with after their last real job, moving a rich family from one moon to another. Mal had communicated with them following the job to say that a crate had somehow been left behind, but the reply had been as he’d expected—“fifty million miles is a long way to go for some books.” The Shepherd had been delighted, and ever since he’d spent an hour or so each day going through the case. He claimed he was looking for volumes worth money to collectors. Mal was pretty certain he was just reading them all, leaning back against the crate with a contented smile on his face. He didn’t mind. Anything that kept a member of his crew busy in this painfully slack period was fine by him.

Which brought him back to Jayne, and the floor.

“Well then, why can’t Kaylee be floor scrubber this time?” Jayne asked, just as Kaylee entered the bay from the rear of Serenity. She was wearing overalls and carrying a small object that sprouted snipped wires and cables. Her face was smeared with oil, her hair tied in a bun, and she appeared unaware of anything apart from the strange item in her hands. It seemed to Mal as if it belonged inside some creature.

“Because Kaylee keeps us flying,” Mal said. “The ship’s her baby and she looks after it. Learn to service the grav drive, then maybe we can talk.”

Jayne dropped his brush into a bucket of water and stood, and Mal groaned. He knew it would come to this eventually. They were all aware that they were just filling time—even Kaylee, who by her own admission was servicing parts that didn’t really need the attention—but so far the underlying tension in the ship had been vented in good-natured banter with only an occasional barbed comment.

If trouble was going to come from anywhere, it would be from Jayne.

“What about Wash?” Jayne asked.

“Wash flies the ship.”

“The ship flies itself.”

“Even when the ship is flying itself, Wash is making sure it’s going the right way.”

“Inara.”

“You really wanna ask a Companion to scrub your floor?”

“Zoë, then. Or the Doc. Or the girl. Why do I gotta do it?” Jayne looked around, as he always did when River was mentioned. He’d been wary of her since the incident with the carving knife, and even though she seemed to be much more levelheaded nowadays after their visit to Ariel, he was always nervous in her presence. In truth, Jayne’s nervousness meant that Mal was often on edge around River too. He might be antagonistic and arrogant, but Jayne was one of the hardest people he knew.

“Because I told you to,” Mal said. “You polish your guns anymore and you’ll wear ’em away.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll just jump ship and you’ll have to scrub the gorramn floors yourself!”

Mal tried to come up with a response, and failed. Jayne was right. None of them had been paid in some time, and with the ship’s supplies of food and booze rapidly dwindling, he had to expect cussing and moaning from the crew. Jayne weren’t no surprise, but he’d come across Zoë and Wash whispering with each other just the day before. Not an unusual occurrence in itself, but their sudden change in demeanor and tone upon his arrival had made it obvious they were talking about him. Simon and River kept pretty much to themselves, as usual, and Book seemed content with his old tomes. Inara, he knew, was getting itchy feet, and it wouldn’t surprise him if she left for another appointment sooner rather than later. Even Kaylee wasn’t her usual sunny self. She’d mentioned a couple of times lately about wanting them to spend some time in a decently equipped port, or a space dock where she could perform a more thorough overhaul of Serenity. Usually she was happy just spending time on the ship.

“You missed a bit,” Kaylee said, glancing down from the walkway at the cargo-bay floor. Jayne pulled a face and aimed a rude gesture her way.

“I ain’t jokin’.” She pointed past Jayne. He frowned, turned to look, and Kaylee laughed.

Jayne plucked the brush from his bucket and lobbed it at her. She ducked just in time, grinning.

“Let’s eat,” Mal said. “All of us together. I think it’s time for some honest talk.”

“Honest, like when do we get our back pay?” Jayne asked.

“Back pay?” Kaylee asked, looking at Mal.

“In the mess,” Mal said. “Now!”

It was time to come up with a plan to find some work. It wasn’t all about the money, it was about staying purposeful. It was about keeping his crew sane, and safe. Mal was their captain, they looked to him to provide, and there were only so many times Jayne would agree to get on his knees and polish the gorramn deck.

* * *

“Maybe Inara has the right idea,” Jayne said. He scooped a third spoonful of energy supplement onto his plate, glancing at Mal as he did so. They’d agreed that they were all on rations of two spoons per meal until they resupplied somewhere. Mal blinked at him but said nothing. The fact that he was having to pick his battles, even with Jayne, meant that this had gone on for too long.

“Inara has every right to come and go as she pleases,” Mal said.

“Good time to leave when we’ve become a bunch of nohopers,” Jayne said.

“I have an appointment,” Inara said. “I take advantage of good opportunities the same as the rest of you.”

“Good rich opportunities, I’ll bet,” Mal said.

“I prefer to think of them as people of means,” she said, smiling at Mal. Her smile always did something to him he wasn’t used to. It confused him. And the last person in the crew he’d want to pick up on that always seemed to be the one who did.

“I doubt she’d have you even if you could afford to pay,” Jayne said. River giggled at that, causing a moment of shocked silence around the table. The girl didn’t usually laugh at anything, or if she did it was something none of them understood.

“It was bad luck we had to dump the pods,” Zoë said, and Mal wished she’d changed the topic to something else.

“Bad luck on the Spider Slugs inside,” Inara said.

“We had an Alliance cruiser closin’ in,” Mal said. “If they’d boarded us—”

“Still don’t know how anyone can eat those gorramn things,” Jayne said, spooning a mass of paste into his mouth. “I mean, they’re slugs. As big as my arm!” He shivered. “Euch.”

“They’re a delicacy on Londinium,” Book said. “One goodsized slug costs fifty credits.”

“You’re speakin’ as if you’ve tried them,” Kaylee said.

Book shrugged. “Once or twice. Actually… once. They taste as bad as they look.”

Jayne was looking back and forth between Book and Kaylee. “But fifty credits each?”

“Why do you think I was so ready to smuggle them?” Mal said.

“And we dumped ’em in deep space?” Jayne shook his head. “We could have hidden the pods. This ship’s got more hiding places than… than somethin’ with lots of hiding places.”

“They didn’t come on board,” River said. “They were sailing, that’s all, sailing on by.”

“We weren’t to know they weren’t aimin’ to board us,” Mal protested.

“You never asked.” River stirred her food but didn’t eat any. She stared down at the patterns it made on her plate, and Mal wondered what she might be seeing. Something other than energy paste and rehydrated potato, that was for sure.

“I appreciate everyone’s patience,” Mal said. “We’ve been here before, lookin’ for work and missin’ out on commissions by a few days.”

“Or a few million miles,” Zoë said.

“But we’ll pull through if we hold together. One big score and we’ll forget about this.”

“A familiar refrain,” Book said.

Jayne scooped up more paste to add to the remnants of his meal. “Take me a long time to forget about this.” It didn’t taste of much, but it provided essential vitamins and calories. Simon had recommended supplementing their meals with it ten days before, and since then it had become a constant.

“I hear you on that one,” Mal said.

“Evening,” Wash said. He sat beside Zoë and started spooning food onto his plate. “Oh, yum. Potatoes and goo for dinner again.”

“We were just discussing its culinary merits,” Zoë said.

“Merits?” Wash looked around at them all, one eyebrow raised. “What’d I miss?”

“Mal telling us how much those Spider Slugs were worth,” Jayne said. “And where our next score is comin’ from.”

“Yeah, about that,” Wash said. “I might have an idea.” He forked food into his mouth and succeeded in chewing without pulling a face. Mal admired him for that.

“So share!” Kaylee said.

“Golden’s Bane.” Wash smiled, green paste between his teeth.

“That another type of gǒu shǐ food?” Jayne asked.

“It’s a place,” Wash said, looking around the table. “Don’t tell me none of you have heard of it?”

“Rings a bell,” Mal said, tapping his fork on the table. “So where and what is it?”

“It’s a mining town on Zeus’s fifth moon,” Wash said. “Or rather, it’s a valley on that moon, and there are buildings scattered either side of the valley’s river for a mile or so. Wouldn’t really call it a town.”

“Why not?” River asked. She seemed suddenly interested. Mal still found it mystifying what might grab the girl’s attention. Simon didn’t appear to know either, much as he pretended to understand her. Must have been tough, losing your sister like that, then getting her back different.

“It’s just… a rough place. Buildings appeared when they found gold in the hills, then when the gold was all mined out the place remained. Prospectors who went there with no money and found nothing couldn’t afford to leave. Over the years it’s built something of a reputation as a way station for criminals and miscreants. I went there once, years ago, when I was piloting a small transport ship for a mining facility on Aberdeen. They traded with the town for a while, buying a lot of the old mining equipment in return for farming gear, seeds, water filtration plants, that sort of goings on. Not somewhere I’d even hoped to visit again.”

“Not to your usual standard of civility?” Zoë asked.

“Could say that, sweetheart. The place was a dump. No law and order, no real system of rule other than local gang lords warring back and forth through the place. I was there four days and there were three murders, one in the tavern I was drinking in. I realized it was the butthole of the ’verse and left the next day.”

“I’m liking the place more and more,” Jayne said, grinning.

“Mal?” Zoë asked. He’d been thinking, and her saying his name jogged a memory he wasn’t too pleased to recall.

“Lassen Pride,” he said.

Zoë looked up, surprised, or maybe shocked.

“What the hell is Lassen Pride?” Jayne asked.

“Who, not what,” Zoë said. “Mal and I fought with him. He was…”

“Not a good man,” Mal said. “The killin’ suited him, and after the war stopped, he didn’t.”

“So what’s he got to do with Golden’s Bane?” Wash asked.

“It’s where he went when he retired,” Zoë said.

“From killin’?” Jayne asked.

“So it’s purported,” Mal said. “But it’s also said he got into the smugglin’ business. If we’re close, and Wash knows the lie of the land as well’s he claims, maybe he’ll be a useful contact.”

“You were friends?” Book asked.

Mal gave a forced grin.

“Friendly enough,” Zoë said.

“Yeah. He didn’t try to kill either of you,” Jayne said, and he chuckled.

There was silence around the table. When Mal caught Zoë’s eye he saw a glimmer of uncertainty there, and suspected it was reflected in his own. He couldn’t afford that. A captain shouldn’t be uncertain. He pressed his hands to the table and stood.

“Let’s pay a visit,” he said. “Pride might find us some work.”

“By ‘work,’ I assume you mean questionable employment that might eventually require my expertise?” Simon asked.

“We always start out hoping not,” Mal said. “How things turn out is rarely of our making.”

“If I may,” Book said, “I believe I’ll be sitting this one out.”

“Sitting it out?” Mal asked. He caught a glance between Inara and Book and he sat back down, slapping his hand on the table. “Spill.”

“Nothing to spill,” Book said. “I’ve asked Inara if I can accompany her to her appointment. She’s going to a space station in orbit around Ghost, and there’s a fine book trader there who I believe will pay handsomely for three of the old Bibles I found in the crate.”

“How handsome?” Jayne asked.

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

“You know that crate belongs to Serenity,” Mal said.

Book held out his hands. “And I’d be more than happy to donate any proceeds to her. I could even use them to pick up the supplies we’re in need of.”

“So we go to Golden’s Bane and mix it up with this Pride character, and you go to a library,” Jayne said.

“And if I make some money, and you still find no work, Inara and I return with food,” Book said. He glanced at Kaylee. “And spare parts.”

“And booze,” Jayne said.

“Goes without saying.”

“I’m not fond of my crew being split,” Mal said.

“Split the crew, double the chance we make a score,” Book said. “And these books, Mal… they’re rather precious.”

“You mean more’n money,” Mal said.

Book nodded once.

“They’re just books!” Jayne said. “Maybe we can burn ’em, keep warm.”

“Not being a book lover, I’m not sure a gentleman like you would understand,” Book said.

“So educate me.”

“We’ve tried,” Mal said.

Jayne looked around the table at them all, then snorted.

“So when do you leave?” Mal asked, looking at Book but directing his question at Inara. Whenever she left Serenity on an appointment he felt a cool sense of loss. Part of it was seeing her leave, part knowing what she was going to do. One day maybe he’d tell her, but sometimes he felt they’d been doing the dance for so long that might never happen.

“Right after dinner,” Inara said.

Jayne slammed down his spoon with a clatter. “You call this dinner?”

* * *

Kaylee didn’t like the sound of Golden’s Bane, at least not how Wash had described it, and she knew him to be solid and dependable and not someone prone to exaggeration or embellishment. She didn’t like the sound of Lassen Pride. She didn’t like Jayne’s increasing agitation, pacing the ship like a caged wolf, snapping at anyone who even looked at him the wrong way, nor that Inara and Book had flown away, leaving the ship lighter two crew, one shuttle, and a whole lot of character. Most of all, she didn’t like not having the gear she needed to tend to the ship. Serenity was flying sweet and clean, but only because she’d had plenty of opportunity to service, tweak, and fine-tune the systems. She could do with a new gravity drop tube, and two of the lateral stabilizer foils were starting to chatter and shake, especially when they were flying into or out of an atmo. But these were new buys and refits, not repairs, and as usual there was no money.

At least they now had a destination in mind. She loved Serenity, more than the rest of the crew combined—more even than Mal, and she thought Mal knew that too. But she also sometimes craved time on solid ground, with rock or dust beneath her feet and air to breathe that didn’t carry the faint taint of carbon filters and yesterday’s memories.

And then there was Simon. Being in such a confined space increased the pressure between them. Serenity was not a large ship, and the whole crew was likely to bump into each other whenever they went wandering from their private rooms. She wished she could just be brave and kiss him, but even after so long she was worried that she had read the situation wrong. She had no doubt that Simon was attracted to her. He made that clear, though not as clear as she’d like.

Her worry that she’d read things wrong was all about River. Simon was committed to his sister. He’d given up a promising career for her, rescuing her from the Alliance butchers who’d done whatever nasty stuff they’d done to her, and now he was looking after her as best he could. At least he’d begun practicing medicine again, but Kaylee doubted treating gunshots or knife wounds was the type of medicine he’d really trained for. On Ariel he’d found some of the answers he’d been seeking, and his treatment of River had eased her unpredictability some.

She thought she knew Simon, but perhaps all she knew for sure was Serenity.

“Maybe it’s just you and me forever,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Mal!” Kaylee jumped and spun around. She’d thought she was alone in the engine room. She often became so embroiled in Serenity that she didn’t hear when people approached, or didn’t allow her senses to notice them. Maybe that was what it was like being in love.

“Didn’t intend startlin’ you. Thinking on Golden’s Bane?”

“Yes, just that. Sounds like a charmin’ place, full of sweet folk and no peril whatsoever.”

“It’s necessary,” Mal said. “We need a job, and we all need a break from each other too. Few days’ shore leave—”

“Need me to stay with the ship?” Kaylee asked.

“You don’t have to.”

She shrugged. In truth, she hadn’t really thought about what she’d do when they landed.

“Just to let you know we’re approaching, best to buckle in. You know how the old girl rocks and rolls when we’re in atmosphere.”

“Sure, Mal. And talking of which…”

“Lateral stabilizer foils, for sure. First thing on my list once we bring in some credits.”

“Thanks.”

Mal left, and Kaylee unhinged the buckled seat against the bulkhead wall. Before sitting down she tapped the engine casing and said, “Be a good girl and set us down in one piece.”

The vibrations started, and the stabilizer foils began to whistle and whine.

* * *

“You weren’t wrong,” Kaylee said. “What a dump.”

“I like it,” Jayne said.

“Yeah, it’s lovely,” Zoë said. “Maybe they’ve got a Jayne statue somewhere.”

“My reputation goes before me.”

“I sincerely hope not,” Wash said. He’d brought them down on a level escarpment above the river and the town straddling it. The valley was deep, its sides steep, and to land any lower would have been dangerous. Setting down close to the town might also have stirred up dust and mud, and the last thing they wanted to do was annoy the townsfolk. They were here to try to get work, after all.

“So who was Golden?” Simon asked.

“Huh?” Wash grunted.

“If this place was his bane,” Simon continued, “who was he, and what went wrong for him?”

“Erm… must admit, I don’t rightly know.”

“Nothing to worry about here,” River interrupted, “as long as you stay away from the orange.”

“The orange?” Mal asked. River stared down into the valley.

With Serenity clicking and cooling behind them, the crew stood enjoying solid ground beneath their feet, and the gentle breeze on their skin. The air smelled dusty but fresh, with no signs of any heavy industries close by tainting it. There were a few smoking chimneys scattered among the random buildings, but there were also lots of trees and plenty of green further up the hillside.

“Looks like whoever designed this place dropped the buildings from a height and anchored them where they fell,” Kaylee said.

“It’s not too pleasing on the eye,” Zoë said, “but I smell cooking meat. Or is that just me?”

“Not just you,” Mal said.

“Smells like pork,” Jayne said, and started walking downhill.

Kaylee closed her eyes and breathed in, and suddenly the idea of staying with Serenity didn’t seem so appealing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten fresh barbecue.

When she opened her eyes again, Simon was standing right in front of her. He smiled.

“Can I buy you dinner?”

“If dinner is half a roast pig in a loaf of bread, you surely can!”

Wash closed up the ship, and as the seven of them headed down the rocky slope toward town, Kaylee glanced back. It wasn’t often she saw Serenity from the outside, and she constantly surprised her with her beauty. Some thought she was an ugly ship, but Kaylee saw sweeping lines, delicate curves, and a restrained power that only she really knew how to let loose. Serenity’s grav drive was part of her own beating heart. See you soon, she thought.

River walked ahead of her and Simon. The girl was on her own, looking around with interest at the trees and shrubs, the rocks, the familiar and unfamiliar birds and small animals scampering through the canopy and along lower branches.

“What do you think she means about the orange?” Kaylee asked.

“Often it only becomes clear after the event.” Simon shrugged.

“Which is in itself useless. I wish she’d give us sense instead of riddles.”

“I wish lots of things.”

Unseen by the others, Simon took her hand.

Kaylee squeezed back. “Maybe Golden’s Bane is where wishes come true.”

Close to the edge of town they found the source of the mouthwatering smell. Two men and two women were tending several halved metal barrels filled with charcoal, turning slabs of meat laid over griddles and mesh. Coals sizzled and spat, and the jumping flames ignited dripping oil and fat.

“We’ve landed in dust and found our way to heaven,” Jayne said. His mouth was watering, every sense set on fire. He already had his hand in his pocket, fingering the few coins he’d brought with him from the ship. He wasn’t as poor as he let on—back in his cabin he had several stashes of rare metals and stones stored away in various hidey-holes—but he had enough with him for a good meal, several bottles of whatever their poison was here, and a night with a couple of whores.

Tomorrow could look after itself.

“My ears are open to the sounds of cookin’ pork.” Jayne nodded to the barbecuers and pointed at several chunks of meat. “That one and that one between two bread loaves, and a chunk of that cheese too,” he said.

“Just arrived?” the woman asked. She was maybe sixty, short and thin, wiry and strong. Her gray hair was cut close to her scalp, and several of her teeth were missing. She might have lived on any of the frontier planets or moons.

“Within the hour,” Jayne said.

“You’re from that ship we saw land up on the north barrens.”

“That’s us,” Jayne said. “Traveled a while, walked downhill. Been hungry for a long time.”

“Mighty sorry to hear that,” the woman said, smiling. She piled his food on a slab of slate and handed it over. “Try some of my nuclear sauce,” she said, tapping a bowl and spoon.

“Nuclear?”

She laughed. “It’ll burn your balls off, space cowboy.”

Jayne liked being called a space cowboy. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. He’d already clocked that most people here carried weapons, and he was sporting one of his favorite guns, a six-shooter modeled on an original design from Earth-That-Was. Maybe if they pulled in some business here he’d buy himself another hat.

He scooped a spoonful of sauce and dribbled it onto his meat. When he saw a couple of the other cooks watching, he took a second, slower spoonful.

Mal chatted with the cooks while the rest of the crew ate. Jayne dug into his second bowl. The captain was a fighter, no doubt about it, but soft as hell. Gabbing away with the old folk when he could be listening to Jayne. It weren’t even like Mal was some bigwig general in the war, all full of fighting knowledge. He’d just been a sergeant. Ain’t nothing about being a Browncoat that helped anyone. Just took food out of their mouths, what with the xi niu Alliance always seeming on their tail. Jayne had stepped in more than once to fix the captain’s problems.

“Find us anything?” he asked through a mouthful of succulent barbecued meat.

Mal sat beside him with his own plate of food. “Maybe,” he said through his food. They were all enjoying the meal, even that loopy River. She stared at the water flowing by as she chewed, and Jayne chuckled to himself as he considered throwing River in.

She still spooked the hell out of him, and it wasn’t anything to do with the scar across his chest. Her confused mumblings often coalesced into warnings, only some of them came too late.

However long they spent in this place, he’d look out for anything that might be “the orange.”

“So?” Jayne asked.

“Oh, you’ll like it,” Mal said. “You’ll all like it.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got us work before we even hit the town,” Zoë said.

“We ain’t transportin’ cattle again,” Jayne said. “My boots ain’t smelled the same since.”

River giggled. It was a sound that seemed to match the tinkling flow of the water.

“I ain’t that quick,” Mal said. “But those fine cooks did tell me the best place in town to find the sort of work we might be lookin’ for.”

“Smuggling,” Wash said. “Dodging the authorities. Occurrences with fists and guns.”

“Not necessarily. They don’t know of Lassen Pride, but the place they described is the sorta place he’d frequent.”

“Tell me it’s the saloon,” Jayne said.

“It is indeed the saloon. Which is also the local brothel.”

Jayne sighed in satisfaction and looked up to the sky. It was sunny, clear of clouds, and it was good to be breathing clean air again. “Then let’s not keep the whiskey and the ladies waiting,” he said.

* * *

“Well, that took longer than usual,” Zoë said.

“You think he does it on purpose?” Wash asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mal said. “I think it’s just his face.”

“To be fair, I do on occasion want to punch it.” Zoë drained her glass, slammed it on the table, and picked up the bottle to pour them another shot.