“That kind of logic doesn’t apply here,” Inara retorted. “It’s Mal we’re talking about. Our captain. Our friend. Our…”
She tried to think of a word to encapsulate how she personally felt about him. She didn’t know if there was one. What was going on between her and Mal was too complicated for a single descriptor. It was a tangled knot of inhibitions and unspoken emotions which they themselves might never get around to unraveling.
“I know,” said Zoë. “I’ve followed that man into hell. More than once. And I’d follow him again, he just gave the word. But this time hell’s following us, and he wouldn’t want us to get burned any more than we want to.”
Inara recoiled at the idea of leaving Mal behind, and moreover of quitting the planet without even knowing where he’d gotten to. It wasn’t the first time she had feared that she’d seen the last of him. Mal had come through every scrape, landing on his feet like a cat. But even cats eventually ran out of lives.
Zoë limped over to the shipwide intercom and clicked it on. Only Wash and Kaylee weren’t with her in the cargo bay, but she made the announcement as if addressing everyone.
“This is Zoë. I’m the acting captain. Captain Reynolds is… not here, and the Alliance is bearing down on us. We have cargo aboard that can’t wait, so we’re taking off in two minutes.”
Her shoulders slumped. Saying what she’d just said must have taken every ounce of her energy.
Inara offered Zoë an arm to help her up the short flight of stairs to the infirmary, but the acting captain, for all that she moved stiffly and in obvious pain, appeared determined to make the climb under her own steam.
Leaving Zoë in Simon’s care, Inara headed for the bridge, accompanied by Book.
“We are one hundred percent hot and ready to trot,” Wash said from the command chair, his hands on the yoke. “Time to go.”
He tapped buttons, and Serenity’s engines roared, straining. The vessel shuddered as it broke gravity.
“Wĕi! Look out, hún dàn!” Wash shouted at the ass-end of the deep-space liner slowly descending above them.
The other craft’s landing lights blazed in their faces, flooding the flight deck. Violent vibration from combined conflicting gale-force rocket exhausts rippled through the superstructure and the buffeting sent Wash’s dinosaurs flying off the console.
“Tā mā de,” he yelped, putting the ship into a sickening lurch and barely avoiding a midair collision.
The buffeting immediately ceased and Serenity continued to climb.
“Piece of cake,” Wash said, staring down at his shaking hands in disbelief.
Inara watched the windshield as the curvature of Persephone shrank from view and they lifted into the Black. The preacher found her hand and held it.
“The captain is a very resourceful man,” Book said.
She nodded.
“And we’re resourceful, too,” the Shepherd continued. “We’ll find him. We just need to get organized. Let’s all powwow with Zoë in the infirmary and discuss our next move.”
“I should stay here, in case there’s a need for evasive action,” Wash said. “Autopilot won’t cut it. Our alarm system will alert us to any vessel in our proximity, but this is the Alliance we’re talking about. No do-overs.”
“Agreed,” Book said.
Wash got on the horn. “All crew who aren’t me please convene in the infirmary,” he said. “In the infirmary now, please.”
Inara and the preacher left the flight deck and met up with Kaylee, who was just leaving the engine room. She was not looking best pleased.
“We took off without Mal?” she said glumly.
“We had to, mèi mèi,” Inara gentled her. “There’s a bulletin out for Simon and River, and Badger told Zoë that the Alliance is coming after us. We can’t stay.”
“But where is he? Inara, he could be in trouble. I mean, he is in trouble. If he wasn’t, he’d have let us know by now what’s going on. He’d have found some way to.”
Inara nodded. “What I’m hoping is we’ve misconstrued the situation and Mal has gone after whoever it was who stole the shuttle. That’s why he’s incommunicado. He can’t break radio silence for fear of giving himself away.”
Kaylee shook her head. “This is bad. Really, really bad. We don’t leave our folk behind! That’s not us.”
“We’ll find him, Kaylee.” Inara wiped a blotch of engine oil off the end of the engineer’s nose with a fingertip. “It’s going to be all right, I promise.”
Kaylee saw the oil on Inara’s finger. She took out a handkerchief and started rubbing at her face. “He’s just reckless sometimes. No, not reckless. More like daring.”
Reckless is the better word, Inara thought.
She put her arm around Kaylee’s shoulders and they headed for the infirmary.
Zoë sat on the examination table with one boot off and her pants leg rolled up. Spread across her shin was a bulbous fresh bruise, roughly crescent-shaped and purple as a plum. Kaylee made a face.
“No wonder you’re limping,” she said. She looked at Simon. “Is her leg broke?”
“Hairline fracture of the tibia.” He said to Zoë, “It’s minor, even though it might not feel that way, but you need to ice the affected area and stay off the leg for a couple of days.”
Kaylee visibly drooped. Zoë ticked her gaze at the engineer and said, “It’s nothing to worry about, Kaylee. I can still do what needs doing.”
Kaylee nodded and managed a weak smile. She said, “I know.” But she didn’t look reassured. She was twisting her fingers together. “We’re going to look for him soon as we can, right?”
“We need to have a plan,” Shepherd Book said. He inclined his head in Zoë’s direction. “If you’re up to it.”
“She’s gotta be up to it.” Kaylee frowned. “You are up to it, right, Zoë?”
Zoë nodded, wincing as Simon applied ointment to her scratches. “First, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Inara listened intently as Zoë described in full the events of the evening, including the bar fight, her encounter with Harlow, and her trip to Badger’s. While she was doing so, Jayne appeared in the doorway and listened in.
“Don’t know what any of the stuff about ‘betrayal’ and an ‘overdue price’ Covington said might mean,” she said, “but it’s got to mean something. Same goes for the graffiti on the gate of the place where he handed Mal over to the kidnappers.”
“Yeah, about that,” said Jayne. “I’ve got wind of an interestin’—”
“And you’re quite sure that Badger isn’t involved with the captain’s disappearance?” Book said. He either hadn’t heard Jayne or felt that the big man didn’t have anything of value to contribute to the discussion. The latter was more likely, since it was usually the case. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he is.”
“I doubt it,” said Zoë. “Badger wants his cargo delivered, so why would he hold us up?”
“As I was saying, I heard something might be relevant,” Jayne tried again. “Seems there’s—”
“What if it’s been Alliance all along?” Simon suggested. “What if Mal’s disappearance and the Alliance bulletin are part and parcel of the same thing? This Hunter Covington fellow could be an Alliance informant, perhaps, or a stooge. Right now Mal could be a prisoner in a cell aboard a Tohoku-class cruiser, being pumped him for information.”
“Not a nice thought,” said Kaylee. “Why would you say such a thing, Simon?”
He shrugged. “We’re brainstorming. The idea just occurred to me. I felt it needed to be said. I’m sorry.”