No more “Mal”. And a distinct note of menace in the voice.
Tension crackled in the air. Mal’s gaze flicked to the eyes of each of the four men one after another. Covington’s three underlings were, in turn, darting quick glances towards their boss. Looking for instruction. Waiting to be given the go-ahead.
Covington’s eyes narrowed. The eyes of the other three followed suit. So did Mal’s.
Fingers twitched. Shoulders squared. Jaws clenched.
Any moment now, someone was going to make a move.
Then there was a fizzle and snap from the holographic front window of Taggart’s Bar. The illusory glass dissolved and a man came flying through the opening, head first. A massed roar from inside the bar trailed him like rocket exhaust, blasting into the street as he skid-rolled across the sidewalk, ending up face down and unmoving in the gutter.
It was as if this was the cue the three goons had been waiting for. That, or they were so jumpy, so wired, that any sudden, unexpected movement would have provoked a reaction from them.
The one with the widow’s peak sprang first.
Mal, just as startled as they were by sight of a man being hurled forcibly out of Taggart’s, reacted a fraction of a second too slow. His hand snapped around the butt of his Liberty Hammer and he drew, but not fast enough. Widow’s Peak managed to grab him by the wrist and pin the gun in its leg sheath. Mal let his right hip go soft, twisting in the direction of the incoming force, and used the extra momentum to supercharge a short left punch to the side of his attacker’s head. It felt like he’d hit a brick. Widow’s Peak groaned and tumbled forward past him, onto his hands and knees.
With three more attackers bearing down fast, Mal took advantage of the unguarded moment to snap kick Widow’s Peak in the face, a blow that rolled the man moaning over onto his back, clutching his face in both hands.
Continuing the spin to his right, Mal cleared leather. As he swung around to confront his remaining opponents, he brought up his weapon. The quarters were so close, they were practically standing toe to toe. The other three had drawn their guns but for some reason didn’t open fire.
Mal had no such qualms, but before he could touch off a shot, the man with the complexion like rawhide darted in, grabbed hold of his hand and the pistol and shoved the barrel towards the sky.
The gun went off with a sharp, ear-stabbing crack! that echoed off the ruined buildings and rolled away down the street.
Rawhide Complexion clutched the Liberty Hammer in a death grip. Mal had the choice of letting the gun go and taking his chances bare-knuckled, or fighting for it. No way was he going to give up the weapon. He kicked Rawhide Complexion in the kneecap, feeling something break loose under the sole of his boot. The man screamed and dropped to the pavement, releasing the gun to grab his leg.
In the same instant the pistol came free, Mal sensed a rush of movement behind him on the left. He fired wildly as he turned away from that threat, trying to hit the man on his right, the one with the walrus mustache. Bullets sparked and ricocheted off the building opposite.
“Zoë! Jayne!” he yelled into his comm link. “Help!” Remembering the code word, he added, “Strawberries! Strawberries!”
Hunter Covington loomed on his left. Mal glimpsed the cane in his hand. He thought he was about to be struck, but instead Covington thrust the silver cobra-head knob up close to Mal’s face. The snake’s jaws snapped wide open, much as though it was baring its fangs. Inside, a small tube was revealed, from which came the short hiss of gas being released under pressure.
Mal smelled an acrid odor that he didn’t recognize. Something— some instinct — told him not to breathe, but by then it was already too late. Whatever the gaseous substance that had emerged from the cane was, Mal had inhaled some of it. Enough of it that his brain suddenly seemed to be whirling round and round within his skull like a child’s spinning top, gathering speed; and just when he thought it couldn’t turn any faster, not without gyrating clean out of his cranium, everything went black.
5
The man called Mitch couldn’t have seen the punch coming. Jayne Cobb might be big but he was fast too, when he needed to be.
It was a solid sock to the jaw, and Mitch went flying backwards, arms windmilling. He was caught by a couple of members of the crowd, who thrust him back towards Jayne, encouraging him to retaliate. Unfortunately for Mitch, he was too dazed to muster any kind of response. Glassy-eyed, he swayed in front of Jayne, who polished him off with a tidy right hook that dropped him to the floor like a felled tree.
Mitch’s buddy Earl now weighed in, swinging for Jayne. Jayne blocked the blow with a forearm and drove his fist into Earl’s paunchy midriff. The air whooshed out of Earl. His eyes and cheeks bulged like something out of a cartoon. Jayne followed up the gut-punch with an uppercut which fair lifted Earl off his feet. Earl flew bodily onto a table where four men were playing Tall Card. The table collapsed, sending cards, coins and drinks hurtling in all directions.
The card players were not exactly best pleased about this. As one, they lunged for Jayne, on whose face was plastered a big, sloppy grin.
It was at this point, with Jayne considerably outnumbered, that Zoë felt obliged to join in. She would much rather have sat out the fight, and she’d have been happy to watch Jayne get the tar beaten out of him. It would have been something of a bonus, in fact.
However, he was, all said and done, her crewmate and he had come to her aid more than once when they’d gotten into a scrape. More importantly, she needed to end the fracas before it escalated further. Brawls in a bar like this had a tendency to spread fast. A room full of unruly, very drunk people was like tinder: it only took a small spark to set the whole place on fire.
She decked the first of the card players with a simple, straight-fingered jab to the windpipe. He went down choking and spluttering, out of action for the foreseeable future.
One of his fellow card players, seeing this, made a grab for Zoë. She batted his outstretched hands aside, then pivoted on one leg, shoving the man past her. His face collided with the edge of her and Jayne’s table with a sickening crunch. Blood gushed from his nose, which was crushed flat by the impact. He slumped to the floor with a deep groan.
Jayne, meanwhile, grappled with his two opponents, who were raining punches on him. He managed to land a left-hand roundhouse on one of them but it was a flailing shot with little bodyweight behind it. The guy shrugged it off and walloped Jayne hard enough to make his eyes spin.
Zoë took the man out with a kick to the back of the knee chased up with a downward elbow jab to the top of his skull. He fell into an ungainly sitting position, legs splayed out in front of him, before keeling over sideways, out cold.
Being freed from one of his attackers enabled Jayne to give the other his full attention. He seized the man by the shirtfront and wrenched him close, before delivering a ferocious head butt to his face. Stunned, the man drooped in Jayne’s clutches.
“You look kinda peaky there, ol’ buddy,” Jayne remarked. “Maybe you need some air. Zoë? Wanna help?”
Zoë took one arm and leg, Jayne took the other, and together they swung the man back and forth, once, twice, before tossing him through the holographic window.
Zoë brushed her palms together. She assumed that was it. The fight was over and done with. Just a brief little taproom scuffle, no big deal.
One look around the bar told her she was sorely mistaken.
As she watched, someone in the drunken throng took umbrage because someone else had shoved in front of him to get a better view of the fight. The first guy — a farmer, to judge by his ruddy face and the smears of dried dung adhering to his clothes — picked up a near-full glass and broke it over the other guy’s head. Beer and blood sprayed.