Bring it up, send it off, knock it down, check the signal for listeners or intruders, move on to the next: order and process, logic and vision, waiting for the slap of epiphany if it chose to come, but keep poking and prying and figuring until then.
This was what he did; this was what he was good at. Collect the pieces, make sense of them, look for the fact that didn’t fit in, then follow it wherever it led. That his target was now his own people was no longer even a consideration; the work was everything, it had become its own goal.
Names and figures and data-points of history flashed before him, the search becoming wider and wider, then sometimes narrowing into a tight beam until possibility became negative, and the search widened again.
The goal had vanished long ago; the process was now all there was, and he reveled in it.
Kaylee was waiting when they came in, both of them out of breath.
“Cap’n! You’re bleeding!”
“Not too bad,” he said. “We need some work on shuttle two.”
“Okay. But you’re dripping on the floor.”
The Captain glanced down at his upper thigh and shifted his weight. He squished audibly. “First we have to get it back aboard. And I’d like to recover the other shuttle first.”
“I can do that, sir,” said Zoë. “Go get fixed up.”
Wash came rattling down the stairs and wrapped his arms around Zoë.
“Good job, Wash,” said the Captain.
Simon appeared next, looked them over, and said, “All right, Captain, let’s get you to the infirmary.”
“I don’t think we… ” he paused in mid-sentence, wavered on his feet, and said, “All right.” Simon put an arm under the Captain’s shoulder and led him off.
“I’ll be right back,” said Zoë.
“You’ll be what?” said Wash.
“I need to get the shuttle.”
“Honey-pooch, you just got back in, and there are people out there who want to shoot at you. Why don’t I bring Serenity to the shuttles?”
“The fuel cost.”
“Gan zhe xie ranliao fei.”
“The Captain said—”
“Ba yi ge ranliao dianchi lai cao chuanzhang. We can just—”
“Okay, compromise. Give me an exact location on the one we’re almost on top of, I’ll go get it, and meet you next to the other one.”
Wash exhaled slowly. “All right,” he said.
Kaylee tried not to smile. Wash was so adorable when he was being protective. “I’ll get my tools,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, she entered shuttle two, nodding to Zoë.
“Did they shoot at you any more?”
“No sign of them.”
“Good.”
“Ohhhh.”
“What is it?”
“One of the bullets knocked a piece of the bulkhead through the hydraulics. We’ve got fluid all over the place. How did you get the grav-boot to work?”
“We didn’t.”
“Oh. Okay. It’ll need to be welded. And I hope we have more fluid somewhere.”
“Need any help?”
“No, thanks.” She grinned. “Unless you want to help with the cleanup.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
She pulled out the welder and goggles, setting them next to the bullet hole. Almost without thinking about it, she moved back to the engine to close the valve, then up to the controls to make sure that everything was powered off.
The drill was in her hand, bolt puller inserted, and then the panel was off, exposing the damaged line, fluid still dripping from it. She sighed and rubbed her hand along the bulkhead. “Poor li’l guy,” she said.
“You’ve been wounded here before,” he said, his probe hovering over the injury.
“Shrapnel,” said the Captain. “Dhu-Kang. Is it the same spot?”
“Near enough.”
“That a problem?”
“I don’t know, yet. Can you not—?”
“Sorry.”
The Captain visibly relaxed against the exam table and stared up at the ceiling.
Simon opened the wound and studied it. “Interesting,” he said.
He felt the Captain looking at him.
“Oh, sorry. Clean entry and exit, but, it’s odd.”
“Doctor, there are certain sorts of pain your anesthetic isn’t dealing with.”
“Yes. Your previous injury, or, rather, the scar from your previous injury, pushed your artery a quarter of an inch to the left. Otherwise you might have bled to death before you got here.”
“So then, that means I’m not going to bleed to death, right? I just ask on account of I’m interested.”
“You’ll be fine. I’m going to clean it out, sew you up, and you’ll be ready to have more holes put in you.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to that.”
“Please try not to move your leg. It didn’t miss the artery by all that much.”
“Son, do you enjoy this?”
“Patching up bullet holes?”
“Well not that as much as, well, yes.”
“Do you enjoy getting them put in you?”
“Not so much.”
“There’s a satisfaction when someone comes in—”
“I don’t mean the afterward. I mean while you’re doing it.”
“Oh. Um, ask me another time. I’m sort of busy right now.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Chapter 7
My Own Kind of Love
She took herself up to the bridge, sat herself in the co-pilot’s chair, and waited. She knew what was coming, and trying to avoid it would just make it worse. Her husband stared through the front window. Serenity was doing what Wash called “sleeping”—as close to a full shutdown as she could get without requiring hours to warm up. The comm was still up, though the keyboards and setting were locked, and if you concentrated, you could just feel the gentlest of vibrations. Everything was very quiet; the co-pilot’s chair gave a squeak as she leaned back.
Eventually, he said, “I know you have to take risks.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
“But can’t Mal manage to keep the risks down to what’s necessary, instead of—”
“That’s just what he does. I’ve never known the Captain to take an unnecessary risk.”
“Now that’s just not true.”
“Well, okay. I’ve never known him to take risks he didn’t think were justified.”
“Like sending you out to get that shuttle when the woods were full of—”
“They were disorganized and confused, thanks to you. The best time to retrieve the shuttles was right then, before the enemy could regroup.”
“Regroup. That’s one of those army words, isn’t it?”
“Sweetie, sarcasm is not one of your more endearing traits.”
Wash muttered under his breath. Then he said, “Look, I think I’ve been very patient—”
“With what? With me being what I was when we met?”
He stared out at the trees and the sky for the space of several breaths. “You’re right,” he said.
She nodded.
“But I don’t like it.”
She nodded again.
“Is there ever going to be a time when we stop?”
“And do what?” she said. “Think you could be happy if you weren’t flying?”
“No.”
“Neither could I.”
“Think you could be happy if you weren’t almost getting killed quite so often?”
“How do you plan to arrange that? We work the border worlds, because that’s where we can get jobs, and stay off the Alliance’s radar. And that’s how things are out here. We work for people looking for an edge, and that means sometimes they try to kill us for it.”