It was easier than it ought to have been.
The wind was pretty mild, and, as he began the final approach, almost directly in his teeth; and no one was shooting at him; and all the landmarks were clear and easy to follow. It was an awfully straightforward piece of flying for how scary it was.
He swung the shuttle around, nice and easy, holding at about three hundred feet, and got a visual on the house.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said to no one in particular.
“What surprises me is that it was your idea,” said Mal.
“Rub it in,” muttered Wash.
The house, and then the spot on the wall; in his mind, he superimposed a big X on it, and aimed right for that spot. It was coming up on them fast.
“What’s that indicator mean?” said Mal suddenly.
“What indic—”
“The one’s that flashing.”
“Oh, that?” said Wash. “Nothing. The recall. It means that Kaylee, River, and Simon are returning to Serenity.”
“Returning?” said Mal. “I don’t—what the gorram hell is going on?”
“I’ll explain later,” said Wash. The house rushed up at him. “You know, this is mind-numbingly stupid,” he remarked.
He killed the thrust, hit the airbreaks, and gave her a bit of the retros, then a lot more just as they hit the wall.
He had maybe two seconds of warning that something was going to happen, and none whatsoever of what it was.
Old, old reflexes were still operating, however, and he was out of his chair and rolling on the ground almost before the sound reached him, and well before he had time to figure out just what had happened.
A few splinters cut him here and there, but he didn’t notice.
When the noise stopped, he raised his head, and his first thought was that someone had fired a missile at him, and it hadn’t exploded. By the time he realized what it actually was, the door of the vessel was opening. He had, by this time, slipped so far into his old battle reflexes that he found his hand was reaching for a sidearm he hadn’t carried in seven years.
With some detached part of his mind, he realized that what he was experiencing was a lot like trying to stay on a badly spooked horse. With another small part, he put aside whatever it was that Wash had cooked up without telling him; there was just no time to worry about it now.
With the more important and less conscious part of his mind, he unsnapped his restraints and hit the button to open the door, and as the door swung open he saw that the fed was already past him and was out the door.
Guy moves fast.
He drew his weapon and followed the fed out into the shambles that had been—he hoped—Sakarya’s office, feeling Zoë and Jayne behind him. “Jayne,” he said, “cover the door.”
One thing he hadn’t anticipated was that it would be hard to see; but there was dust—sawdust, most likely—everywhere. It stung his eyes and nose. Goggles, dammit; I should have brought goggles.
After what seemed like a horribly long time, he focused on the tall man, just coming to his feet against the wall to his left. The man said, “Good afternoon, Sergeant Reynolds. You make quite an entry.”
Mal swung his pistol to cover him. “Good afternoon, Colonel Bursa. You’re about to make quite an exit.”
“Could be,” said the ex-colonel, “but I’m not sure your team is in complete agreement about that.”
Mal took a quick glance around the room. Jayne had his pistol pointing at the door. Zoë had her carbine pointing at the fed. The fed had his pistol pointing at Mal.
Oops, he thought.
Chapter 16
My Own Kind of Health
Her reactions had been automatic. She saw a pistol leveled at the Captain, and she’d been prepared to cut down the fed; she stopped only when she realized that he wasn’t shooting.
She kept the weapon pointing at the fed and waited for the little twitch around his eyes that indicated he was about to pull the trigger, or for an order from the Captain; but as she did, it occurred to her with something of a shock that she very, very badly wanted to turn her carbine and put two rounds into Bursa’s chest. The desire came on so strong that, for a moment, her hands almost trembled.
But she didn’t do it, of course. She held her position and waited for orders, because that’s what she did.
With the corner of his eye, he saw Wash leave the ship, look around, and then head for the door of the office. Before he got there it swung open and two men dressed in green coveralls and holding rifles came through. Mal kept his attention and his weapon on Bursa while Jayne fired twice. When the bodies hit the floor, Wash continued, stepping around them.
“Where are you going?” said Jayne.
“Out for a stroll,” said Wash. “I won’t be a minute.”
Then Jayne said, “Hey!” and swung his rifle to cover the fed.
“Stay on the door, Jayne,” said Mal.
“We should probably talk,” said Kit.
“Okay. But we’re all holding guns here, and someone’s arm is going to get tired soon, and we all know what that means.”
“I’ll talk fast. I can’t let you kill this man.”
“You know who he is?”
“I knew before you did.”
“You know who he was?”
“Your old commanding officer when you fought for the Independents.”
“He was more than that to me.”
“I figured. He was your hero, wasn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. But it was true. He mentored you, taught you about command, showed you—”
“Shut up.”
“And look at him now. He threw away his name, his rank, and his scruples. That must be feichang bu yukuai for you. It must feel like a betrayal of everything—”
“I said shut up.”
“All right. But you don’t get to commit murder.”
Bursa/Sakarya stood there, hands clear of his body but not raised, and gave no indication that the conversation had anything to do with him, or even that he was listening to it.
“I’m not convinced you can stop me,” said Mal.
A somewhat elderly woman sat behind a desk, speaking into a microphone with a sense of urgency.
“Hi there,” said Wash. “I need to borrow your processor for a moment. I promise I won’t hurt it.”
“Who—?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I’m in kind of a hurry. And you’re not going to be able to reach your security people anyway. So, if you’ll just let me… ugh. Which one of these… ? Okay, that’s the direct link to the Cortex, so one of these must be, ah, I see. I don’t know if I have the right connection here. Okay, this ought to—there. Yes. A guy named Mister Universe showed me how to do this. Weird name, huh? Not half as weird as the guy is. We met in flight school. Worst pilot you ever… okay, that should do it. Just give me half a second to make sure the cross-load worked. Yep. Okay. You can have your desk again. Thanks.”
Kit really hoped the captain couldn’t tell how scared he was, or how bad he was at this whole pointing guns business. It’s funny, when they had tried to kill him in the canteen he hadn’t been scared at all; maybe he’d been too busy trying to work out what had happened. But now, when he had the gun, it was much worse.