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Patience on a Monument (Firefly, gen)
Firefly
Patience; PG; vague spoilers for "Serenity"
A while ago, Patience shot Mal. Here's how it might have happened.
Notes: Chocolate and oranges to my wonderful beta,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gabby_silang, without whom this would take place on a planet made of pudding. And the Hitchhiker's Guide reference is entirely Aurora's fault. For swmbo.
The first time I saw Whitefall my heart skipped a beat. A cliché, for certain, but also true. Something about the wildness, the barren plain, the caverns and canyons and sandstone rock. It reminded me of all the good parts of home, and none of the bad. From space it was compact and reddish-dark, without the unnaturalness so prevalent in the central planets. The clouds of the atmosphere were swirling white, intermixed with a blue like the place where ocean and endless sky collide. The shock when we broke atmo was a sudden comfort, a welcome. For the first time in years, standing with my feet on solid ground didn’t feel like a trap.
And so I had to have it.
It wasn’t quite so easy as that, of course; not just a simple matter of want, take, have. There were complications, channels, things and people and problems that had to be dealt with and moved through before I could stick my flag of declaration in the ground. But I’ve never let that stop me. I get what I want, and I keep it, because I don’t count anything as out of my reach.
Least of all a measly little planet nobody ever looked at twice.
I’ve learned the virtue of delegating, over the years, so I called my trusted few together and set the matter on the table.
“It’s time for me to retire,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair, the very picture of relaxation. I was expecting quite a stir at those words, and I got one.
I let them yammer on for a few minutes, no one listening to anyone else, before holding up my hand for silence. I’ve gotten used to this power, but when a room goes quiet from the smallest shift of my body, I still get chills of pleasure up and down my spine.
“I’ve been in this gig long enough, Mari,” I said, addressing my first mate. She looked at me as if I’d sold her first-born child -- half anger, half disbelief. “And you’ve been trailing in my shadow long enough. Think about it, girl. I’m leaving you quite a legacy.”
“Where will you go?” That was Jed, pilot and occasional lover. Him I still miss.
“Well now.” I knew I could count on Jed to move us to important matters. “I want to retire to Whitefall, but not under current management. We’ll be getting me that planet first.”
“That’s not really retirement, Captain,” murmured Weston. He’ll be Mari’s first mate now, if she has any sense.
I smiled. “Call it a second career, then, if you like. But I want Whitefall, and you’re going to get it for me. Think of it as a retirement gift.”
They grinned, laughed, and nodded agreement, already working out their plots. I’d given them a challenge, as I always did, and they thrived it. Probably they still do. Mari has a core of iron, and if I’m anything to judge by, she’ll have grown into the power by now. She was certainly trained to it. They’re fine. And if they’re not, well, I don’t plan on ever hearing about it.
-----
I got into the business the way most folks do: ran away from home. I’ve never been an especially patient sort, ironically, and once I’d learned everything Silas had to teach me, I was off that planet for good.
I haven’t been back for 30 years, but I imagine it’s still the same hard, cold, desperate rock it was when I left. Everyone on Silas struggled, simply to make the unwilling land produce enough to live on. I loved the barrenness, though, like I love the high spaces and warm emptiness of Whitefall. Like I love the black. And while my real family -- as much as I ever had one -- is what I’ve created, I never stopped referring to Silas as home.
I dropped out of school at 16, helped my mother on the ranch a few months, but soon I was bored and desperate for adventure. Never one to mind anyone but myself, I left, and signed on with a bunch of cowboys taking stock to the city. On the road I learned to shoot, and in the city I learned to thieve. The pickpocket trade didn’t especially suit me, though, until it landed me in the path of a black-market smuggler.
Ned Travellian was well known then; inner planets, rim, the whole works. He was famous for evading the law, successful piracy across the ‘verse, and the beginnings of what amounted to a trade-empire. And he took me on as a member of his crew. Lowest of the low, of course, but elite in the world of space piracy nonetheless.
I worked my way up with all the usual means: ruthlessness, careful planning, and a little well placed luck. Made a bit of a name for myself, and eventually became his second-in-command. And when he died, I took over.
I took to power like a bee to honey. I loved it. Unlike the bees, though, I wasn’t drowned. I fit power, and power fit me. Still does, even if our fame has fallen off a little since those glory days.
I meant what I said to my crew, though. I’d been in this particular gig long enough. I was ready to be on solid ground again, ride a horse again, watch the sun rise again. I was getting old, and there were certain comforts that I missed. A planet seemed like a pleasant adjustment, a fresh kind of power.
Space is so quiet, so silent, except for the artificial noises of ship and crew. I could listen to my ship for hours, but after a while the quiet overwhelmed me. And while I spent plenty of time planetside, it was always business.
I was looking forward to the noise.
-----
The problem, of course, was that Whitefall already had a governor. His name was David Jaimeson, and we’d dealt with one another before, though only briefly. He was fairly typical of his sort: tough, brawny, and the smartest of his world, which wasn’t saying much at all. He’d managed to keep Whitefall out from under Alliance radar even after Unification, which suited me and mine very well. He didn’t have a lot of scruples, but he wasn’t a bad sort, either. Arguably a better sort than me.
Still, he wasn’t about to hand over management of his planet without a fuss, and I’ve never been much for compromise.
Our best bet, my team told me in conference a few days after I presented the challenge, was to disable one of his major resources, then move ourselves in and strike a bargain. This bargain, of course, resulting in the permanent removal of Jamieson. It was a time-honored technique of conquest we could put to our advantage, they said. They were smiling as they showed me the plans.
One of Whitefall’s biggest issues is water: it’s plenty plentiful, though the majority of the planet is dry scrub brush and desert, but not safe for humans. None of our kind are native to the planet. After all, we colonized it. And there’s some combination of alien chemicals in Whitefall’s water that make it, in its natural state, disabling, dangerous, and even deadly. To solve this problem Whitefall’s water is fed through a processing plant in the planet’s southern hemisphere, where the majority of the water is. A simple attack to the processing plant, and Whitefall is essentially waterless.
Enter Patience and her team, to restore the planet’s water and dispatch the leader who’d allowed such a thing to happen in the first place.
We needed someone, though, to do the job. Someone discrete. Someone careful. Someone none too bright. And that was when I called Mal Reynolds.
-----
Mal Reynolds has a hero complex the size of Persephone. It’s gotten him into more scrapes than I can count on both hands, and he’s lucky -- more than lucky -- to have someone like Zoe to watch his back. Zoe’s a cool one, hard to read, and I’ve tried to win her over more than once. But she’s as devoted to Mal as to that foolish pilot husband of hers, and my temptations have never even penetrated. Still, it was really Mal I had to play, not Zoe, and that I knew how to do.
I told Mal that Jaimeson was allowing Whitefall’s natural chemicals to remain in the water. Plenty to kill at least a substantial portion of the community. With his subjects dead and dying, he would be free to claim all of Whitefall’s resources and revenue in a fairly ingenious get-rich-quick scheme. He didn’t care who he had to take out along the way, because as soon as he had the cash he was heading to the core and civilization.
I told Mal that disabling the planet’s water supply would cut Jaimeson’s dastardly doings short, trip him up, after which my team would movie in, fix-up, restore order, and put the planet into better, safer hands with waterworks intact. In exchange for a healthy taxation, and a planet-base for us, of course.
It was a stretch of the truth, but not all that much of one -- with the notable exception of blackening Jaimeson’s name. It was something Mal would believe, up to and including my motivations. And Jaimeson’s alleged genocide would spark Mal’s hero complex into action.
I was right, of course.
“What are you paying?” was near his only question, indication enough that he’d already decided to take the job.
I named a price and we bartered it to something mutually acceptable. Acceptable in the sense that I didn’t really intend to pay Mal at all if I didn’t have to. I like to think of parsimony as one of my virtues, and I never pay for anything if I can avoid it, just like I never count anything as impossible.
-----
Everything was ready by the time Mal and his little boat arrived. We were floating just outside the atmosphere, quietly lurking over Whitefall’s equator. Waiting.
Serenity -- and however much I may mock her, Mal has something going with that boat -- locked onto my ship, and Mal and Zoe came aboard. We exchanged as few words as possible, sticking to what was necessary. My engineers explained the equipment quickly, and then handed it over. Mal nodded, turned back to me.
“Half in advance, Patience,” he said, firmly.
I shrugged, smiled. “I don’t do that kind of deal, Mal. You do the job, then you get paid.”
He turned back to my engineer. “How much is this equipment worth?”
The engineer named a fairly high price, higher, I thought, then was strictly accurate. My people are always well trained. Mal nodded, satisfied. “The equipment is collateral then, Patience.”
“Fine.” Mal thought he needed a collateral, well, that was shiny. Too bad it didn’t make a speck of difference.
“Well.” Mal said, shouldering half the equipment as Zoe picked up the rest. “We’ll be seeing you.”
“Good luck.” I did mean it, sort of. They were working for me now, after all. Didn’t do to think badly of them. I watched them go from the bridge, watched Serenity disconnect from my ship and move around the planet and down through the atmosphere. Once they’d broke atmo they were out of my sight, and I settled down to wait until they called us, job complete.
And if Mal had collateral, well, so did I.
-----
The alarms had been sounding for mere seconds by the time I got to the bridge. The crowd of senior crew cleared a path for me instinctively, and I sat down next to Jed.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“Bastards didn’t pull the plug,” Mari said from behind me.
I shook my head, too amused to be angry. “What tripped them up?”
“Don’t know,” Jed grunted, punching numbers into the screen in front of him. “They must’ve stopped to chat or something. I’m connecting to the cameras now.”
“It’s a good thing you thought of that alarm system,” Mari remarked, sounding vaguely awed. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have known until they got back.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business,” I murmured, watching the screen, “it’s that you never trust anybody.”
Our feed came up, finally, and Jed played it back. We watched Mal and Zoe land one of Serenity’s shuttles, then break into the plant, blacking out security and deprogramming all alarms but our own along the way. They found their way to the end of the plant, where the clean water poured out through a last floodgate, and started unloading the equipment. Everything seemed to be going according to plan.
I frowned, leaning closer to the screen as Mal climbed along the top of the final floodgate wall. He was heading for a manual emergency lever on the far side of the wall, just above the waterline. It had to be disengaged manually, so that Zoe’s programming would actually close the floodgate, rather than being prevented by the emergency override.
Mal moved slowly, taking extra care not to touch the water. Though the water here was fully clean, processed, and safe, Mal, due naturally to my explanations, believed it was still highly poisonous. He made his way carefully along the wall, until he was positioned right above the lever, and then readjusted, lowering himself down with one hand bracing against the wall and the other reaching for the handle. He pulled, forcing the handle halfway down, misjudged the weight, and slipped off the wall to fall face-first into the water. Someone behind me giggled.
“Mal!” Zoe shouted as he fell, her cry echoing through the basin. She stopped what she was doing and raced up and along the wall.
Mal splashed and kicked in panic, sloshing more water than was strictly necessary, and finally resurfaced, sputtering and gasping for air. Then his face changed, almost comically, as he realized that none of his skin was burned or blistered from chemicals. That he could still see and feel his limbs. In short, that nothing whatsoever was wrong with him. He dipped his hand in the water and cupped some of it to his mouth.
“You alright, Sir?” Zoe called calmly, looking down at him from the top of the wall. She didn’t even look surprised.
“Zoe,” Mal said, wiping his mouth with a very wet sleeve. “I think we’ve been humped. This here is perfectly ordinary water.”
“Sir?” Zoe asked pointedly, as Mal showed every sign of trying to carry on a perfectly normal conversation from the middle of the river.
“What?”
“Would you like a rope?”
“Good thought.” Mal smiled up at her, looking far too pleased with himself for someone soaking wet, and in the middle of a job he’d just found out was half a lie.
Zoe tossed him a rope from her pack, and he climbed up onto the wall, then followed her back onto to the solid ground of the platform. Mal disentangled himself from the rope and stood, dripping onto the stone floor and staring at the still-operating floodgate and clean water. Watching the screen, I could almost see the wheels turning in his brain.
Zoe dug through her pack and produced a clean, fluffy towel. I blinked. Why did Zoe have a towel?
“Here, Sir,” she said, tossing it to Mal.
Mal caught it instinctively, and then noticed what it was. “Zoe,” he asked, bemused, “why do you have a towel?”
“Always be prepared, Sir.”
“Does this have something to do with your ‘don’t panic’ and ‘walk softly and carry a can o’ grade-A whoop-ass’ philosophy?” Mal asked, drying himself off.
“Yes, Sir.” I could almost hear Zoe suppress a smile.
Mal finished drying himself off and strolled over to the edge of the platform. “Why would Patience want to hoodwink us?” he remarked conversationally, looking down at the water.
Zoe shrugged. “Why would she want to shut off Whitefall’s water?”
“Or maybe, why would she want us to shut off Whitefall’s water? If there’s nothing wrong with the water, then it can’t be Jaimeson.” Mal frowned, absentmindedly wringing out his sleeve onto the stone floor.
“Don't think it’s us, Sir,” Zoe suggested, reminding me again why I wanted her on my team. She’s just too smart to be working for somebody else. “I think it’s what Patience wants.”
“We don’t have anything Patience wants, do we?” Mal mused. “She can’t want Serenity, she’s got plenty of ship power. Can’t think of a personal vendetta.”
Zoe joined him at the edge, “It’s not us, Sir.”
“Then what? Oh!” Mal exclaimed in sudden revelation. “Whitefall.”
Zoe nodded.
“We’d better get back to the ship,” Mal said quickly, suddenly moving, tightening and reshouldering his pack. “Get out of here. This is Patience’s battle.”
“She is paying us,” Zoe remarked, but she didn’t stop moving, either.
“Hasn’t paid us yet,” Mal said. “We can walk away. I don’t do politics anymore, Zoe.”
Zoe’s expression was more satisfied than anything else, reminding me again of the history those two shared. Not something I was going to try to sever. I could even admit a grudging admiration of the two of them for figuring me out, even if it was Mal’s stumble that precipitated it. I smiled, and leaned over Jed to turn off the volume on the screen.
“Bring us down to the surface, Jed,” I said, loud enough for the gathered crowd to hear. “We’re going to catch those folks before they leave. There’s a little matter of payment to resolve.”
Several of the crowd snickered, and I smiled as Jed unlocked the ship and sent us around the planet and down. I really couldn’t fault Mal Reynolds for principle, but when have principles ever mattered to me?
-----
We called Serenity moments after breaking atmo, and Mal’s blonde pilot answered us.
“Something’s gone wrong?” he asked, surprised. “Well, I don’t know. I’ll see if Zoe and the Captain are back, if you’ll hold on a minute.” His big blue eyes were honest and concerned as he paused the com screen. Looked like Mal and Zoe had only just returned. Either that, or Mal’s pilot was a better liar than either of them.
I waited by the screen, uncharacteristically patient, until the pilot returned with Mal and Zoe in tow.
“Patience.”
“Mal.” I nodded back.
He crossed his arms, claiming his ground before he starting to speak. “I’m afraid we’re unable to take the job.”
I raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“We don’t get involved in politics, Patience, which is what this is. I don’t appreciate being lied to, neither, but I’m willing to let that go.”
“Kind of you,” I remarked dryly.
Mal frowned. “I don’t play games. We’re not taking the job, and that’s all there is to say on the subject.”
“Fine.” He blinked, surprised, before recovering his composure. He must have been expecting a fuss. Good for him. “I’ll need my equipment back,” I continued calmly, “and you’d better not be expecting payment.”
“Understood.”
I got down to business. “We’ll be landing this ship within range of Serenity. If you and Zoe can manage to meet us halfway and hand over my equipment, we can get this sorry business over with.”
Mal’s eyes narrowed distrustfully, but after a moment he nodded agreement. “See you in the world,” he said, and cut the connection.
I swiveled around in my chair and smiled at my crew. “Let’s do some business.”
-----
I took five boys with me to meet Zoe and Mal, all armed and dangerous. Had to live up to my reputation, as Mal would have done well to remember. I don’t generally let go of things, money, or people. Especially people who know too much.
They met us halfway, carrying the equipment packs, and, I was amused to see, equally well armed.
“Here’s everything,” Mal said, setting his pack on the ground. Zoe threw hers down beside it.
I motioned two of the boys forward to collect and double check the equipment. “All here,” they approved, after a minute.
“Good.” I hadn’t taken my eyes off Mal yet, and I didn’t intend to. There was a moment of silence as we watched each other, warily.
Finally, he sighed. “I really hate liars, Patience.” He sounded angrier than earlier.
I shrugged. “Might be you’re in the wrong business, then.”
“Couldn’t just tell the truth, could you?”
I laughed. “Would you have done the job if I had?” It was a rhetorical question, and luckily he didn’t answer it. “I do what needs doing to get the job done, Mal. That’s all.”
“You don’t care who you hurt in the bargain, though. Jaimeson’s an innocent.” His voice had risen, and even Zoe looked a little surprised.
“And I want Whitefall. That’s how the world works, Mal. Maybe if you got that you could go somewhere, but it looks more like you’ll be scavenging the galaxy on the dinky boat for a good long while. If that. Hero-types generally get killed before they do anybody any good.”
Mal echoed my laugh, and I could hear the bitter edge. I wondered, not for the first time, what exactly had happened to him during the war. “At least I’ve got principles,” he spat out, finally.
“Well, so do I.” Then I smiled, drew my pistol, and shot him.
Zoe saw my movement a split second before Mal did, but neither of them was fast enough, and the bullet took Mal in his right shoulder. He was knocked on his back, and Zoe was at his side before I’d even slipped the gun back into its holster. That woman could move.
“For example,” I finished, still calmly, “I don’t tolerate traitors. Now get back to your ship, and get off my world.”
I watched as Zoe helped Mal up and staggered slowly back to Serenity, Mal leaning heavily, half unconsciously, against her. I waited until Serenity was in the air, flying upwards and out of my sky before turning and heading back across the plain to our ship. The sun was just starting to set behind me as I walked and I smiled, savoring the cool air and sharp light. It felt good to be back in the world; almost as good as it felt to win.
-----
That bullet wasn’t enough to kill Mal Reynolds, of course, but it made its point. As far as I know he’s alive and well, along with the rest of that little boat of his. Although these days, I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to space, except for the necessities of commerce.
Whitefall’s mine, now, and I’ve even come to think of it as home. More home, perhaps, than Silas ever really was. The people have named me mayor, which I like. And as I expected, I thrive on this new, earthier power. I’d forgotten how good it felt to have days and nights, to take long walks and swim in clean water and breathe real air. It’s a pleasant sort of retirement, and I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about the means to such an end – or even the casualties. Dwelling on the past never did anybody any good. Least of all me.
This is a good life I’m leading now, and a good life I’ve led. And no one is every going to tell me otherwise. No one has the right to stop me, to question my principles or lack of principles. No one, nothing, can every really stand in my way when there’s something I want on the other side. No matter how old, or tired, or even alone I am. Not in my world.
Patience; PG; vague spoilers for "Serenity"
A while ago, Patience shot Mal. Here's how it might have happened.
Notes: Chocolate and oranges to my wonderful beta,
gabby_silang, without whom this would take place on a planet made of pudding. And the Hitchhiker's Guide reference is entirely Aurora's fault. For swmbo. The first time I saw Whitefall my heart skipped a beat. A cliché, for certain, but also true. Something about the wildness, the barren plain, the caverns and canyons and sandstone rock. It reminded me of all the good parts of home, and none of the bad. From space it was compact and reddish-dark, without the unnaturalness so prevalent in the central planets. The clouds of the atmosphere were swirling white, intermixed with a blue like the place where ocean and endless sky collide. The shock when we broke atmo was a sudden comfort, a welcome. For the first time in years, standing with my feet on solid ground didn’t feel like a trap.
And so I had to have it.
It wasn’t quite so easy as that, of course; not just a simple matter of want, take, have. There were complications, channels, things and people and problems that had to be dealt with and moved through before I could stick my flag of declaration in the ground. But I’ve never let that stop me. I get what I want, and I keep it, because I don’t count anything as out of my reach.
Least of all a measly little planet nobody ever looked at twice.
I’ve learned the virtue of delegating, over the years, so I called my trusted few together and set the matter on the table.
“It’s time for me to retire,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair, the very picture of relaxation. I was expecting quite a stir at those words, and I got one.
I let them yammer on for a few minutes, no one listening to anyone else, before holding up my hand for silence. I’ve gotten used to this power, but when a room goes quiet from the smallest shift of my body, I still get chills of pleasure up and down my spine.
“I’ve been in this gig long enough, Mari,” I said, addressing my first mate. She looked at me as if I’d sold her first-born child -- half anger, half disbelief. “And you’ve been trailing in my shadow long enough. Think about it, girl. I’m leaving you quite a legacy.”
“Where will you go?” That was Jed, pilot and occasional lover. Him I still miss.
“Well now.” I knew I could count on Jed to move us to important matters. “I want to retire to Whitefall, but not under current management. We’ll be getting me that planet first.”
“That’s not really retirement, Captain,” murmured Weston. He’ll be Mari’s first mate now, if she has any sense.
I smiled. “Call it a second career, then, if you like. But I want Whitefall, and you’re going to get it for me. Think of it as a retirement gift.”
They grinned, laughed, and nodded agreement, already working out their plots. I’d given them a challenge, as I always did, and they thrived it. Probably they still do. Mari has a core of iron, and if I’m anything to judge by, she’ll have grown into the power by now. She was certainly trained to it. They’re fine. And if they’re not, well, I don’t plan on ever hearing about it.
-----
I got into the business the way most folks do: ran away from home. I’ve never been an especially patient sort, ironically, and once I’d learned everything Silas had to teach me, I was off that planet for good.
I haven’t been back for 30 years, but I imagine it’s still the same hard, cold, desperate rock it was when I left. Everyone on Silas struggled, simply to make the unwilling land produce enough to live on. I loved the barrenness, though, like I love the high spaces and warm emptiness of Whitefall. Like I love the black. And while my real family -- as much as I ever had one -- is what I’ve created, I never stopped referring to Silas as home.
I dropped out of school at 16, helped my mother on the ranch a few months, but soon I was bored and desperate for adventure. Never one to mind anyone but myself, I left, and signed on with a bunch of cowboys taking stock to the city. On the road I learned to shoot, and in the city I learned to thieve. The pickpocket trade didn’t especially suit me, though, until it landed me in the path of a black-market smuggler.
Ned Travellian was well known then; inner planets, rim, the whole works. He was famous for evading the law, successful piracy across the ‘verse, and the beginnings of what amounted to a trade-empire. And he took me on as a member of his crew. Lowest of the low, of course, but elite in the world of space piracy nonetheless.
I worked my way up with all the usual means: ruthlessness, careful planning, and a little well placed luck. Made a bit of a name for myself, and eventually became his second-in-command. And when he died, I took over.
I took to power like a bee to honey. I loved it. Unlike the bees, though, I wasn’t drowned. I fit power, and power fit me. Still does, even if our fame has fallen off a little since those glory days.
I meant what I said to my crew, though. I’d been in this particular gig long enough. I was ready to be on solid ground again, ride a horse again, watch the sun rise again. I was getting old, and there were certain comforts that I missed. A planet seemed like a pleasant adjustment, a fresh kind of power.
Space is so quiet, so silent, except for the artificial noises of ship and crew. I could listen to my ship for hours, but after a while the quiet overwhelmed me. And while I spent plenty of time planetside, it was always business.
I was looking forward to the noise.
-----
The problem, of course, was that Whitefall already had a governor. His name was David Jaimeson, and we’d dealt with one another before, though only briefly. He was fairly typical of his sort: tough, brawny, and the smartest of his world, which wasn’t saying much at all. He’d managed to keep Whitefall out from under Alliance radar even after Unification, which suited me and mine very well. He didn’t have a lot of scruples, but he wasn’t a bad sort, either. Arguably a better sort than me.
Still, he wasn’t about to hand over management of his planet without a fuss, and I’ve never been much for compromise.
Our best bet, my team told me in conference a few days after I presented the challenge, was to disable one of his major resources, then move ourselves in and strike a bargain. This bargain, of course, resulting in the permanent removal of Jamieson. It was a time-honored technique of conquest we could put to our advantage, they said. They were smiling as they showed me the plans.
One of Whitefall’s biggest issues is water: it’s plenty plentiful, though the majority of the planet is dry scrub brush and desert, but not safe for humans. None of our kind are native to the planet. After all, we colonized it. And there’s some combination of alien chemicals in Whitefall’s water that make it, in its natural state, disabling, dangerous, and even deadly. To solve this problem Whitefall’s water is fed through a processing plant in the planet’s southern hemisphere, where the majority of the water is. A simple attack to the processing plant, and Whitefall is essentially waterless.
Enter Patience and her team, to restore the planet’s water and dispatch the leader who’d allowed such a thing to happen in the first place.
We needed someone, though, to do the job. Someone discrete. Someone careful. Someone none too bright. And that was when I called Mal Reynolds.
-----
Mal Reynolds has a hero complex the size of Persephone. It’s gotten him into more scrapes than I can count on both hands, and he’s lucky -- more than lucky -- to have someone like Zoe to watch his back. Zoe’s a cool one, hard to read, and I’ve tried to win her over more than once. But she’s as devoted to Mal as to that foolish pilot husband of hers, and my temptations have never even penetrated. Still, it was really Mal I had to play, not Zoe, and that I knew how to do.
I told Mal that Jaimeson was allowing Whitefall’s natural chemicals to remain in the water. Plenty to kill at least a substantial portion of the community. With his subjects dead and dying, he would be free to claim all of Whitefall’s resources and revenue in a fairly ingenious get-rich-quick scheme. He didn’t care who he had to take out along the way, because as soon as he had the cash he was heading to the core and civilization.
I told Mal that disabling the planet’s water supply would cut Jaimeson’s dastardly doings short, trip him up, after which my team would movie in, fix-up, restore order, and put the planet into better, safer hands with waterworks intact. In exchange for a healthy taxation, and a planet-base for us, of course.
It was a stretch of the truth, but not all that much of one -- with the notable exception of blackening Jaimeson’s name. It was something Mal would believe, up to and including my motivations. And Jaimeson’s alleged genocide would spark Mal’s hero complex into action.
I was right, of course.
“What are you paying?” was near his only question, indication enough that he’d already decided to take the job.
I named a price and we bartered it to something mutually acceptable. Acceptable in the sense that I didn’t really intend to pay Mal at all if I didn’t have to. I like to think of parsimony as one of my virtues, and I never pay for anything if I can avoid it, just like I never count anything as impossible.
-----
Everything was ready by the time Mal and his little boat arrived. We were floating just outside the atmosphere, quietly lurking over Whitefall’s equator. Waiting.
Serenity -- and however much I may mock her, Mal has something going with that boat -- locked onto my ship, and Mal and Zoe came aboard. We exchanged as few words as possible, sticking to what was necessary. My engineers explained the equipment quickly, and then handed it over. Mal nodded, turned back to me.
“Half in advance, Patience,” he said, firmly.
I shrugged, smiled. “I don’t do that kind of deal, Mal. You do the job, then you get paid.”
He turned back to my engineer. “How much is this equipment worth?”
The engineer named a fairly high price, higher, I thought, then was strictly accurate. My people are always well trained. Mal nodded, satisfied. “The equipment is collateral then, Patience.”
“Fine.” Mal thought he needed a collateral, well, that was shiny. Too bad it didn’t make a speck of difference.
“Well.” Mal said, shouldering half the equipment as Zoe picked up the rest. “We’ll be seeing you.”
“Good luck.” I did mean it, sort of. They were working for me now, after all. Didn’t do to think badly of them. I watched them go from the bridge, watched Serenity disconnect from my ship and move around the planet and down through the atmosphere. Once they’d broke atmo they were out of my sight, and I settled down to wait until they called us, job complete.
And if Mal had collateral, well, so did I.
-----
The alarms had been sounding for mere seconds by the time I got to the bridge. The crowd of senior crew cleared a path for me instinctively, and I sat down next to Jed.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“Bastards didn’t pull the plug,” Mari said from behind me.
I shook my head, too amused to be angry. “What tripped them up?”
“Don’t know,” Jed grunted, punching numbers into the screen in front of him. “They must’ve stopped to chat or something. I’m connecting to the cameras now.”
“It’s a good thing you thought of that alarm system,” Mari remarked, sounding vaguely awed. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have known until they got back.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business,” I murmured, watching the screen, “it’s that you never trust anybody.”
Our feed came up, finally, and Jed played it back. We watched Mal and Zoe land one of Serenity’s shuttles, then break into the plant, blacking out security and deprogramming all alarms but our own along the way. They found their way to the end of the plant, where the clean water poured out through a last floodgate, and started unloading the equipment. Everything seemed to be going according to plan.
I frowned, leaning closer to the screen as Mal climbed along the top of the final floodgate wall. He was heading for a manual emergency lever on the far side of the wall, just above the waterline. It had to be disengaged manually, so that Zoe’s programming would actually close the floodgate, rather than being prevented by the emergency override.
Mal moved slowly, taking extra care not to touch the water. Though the water here was fully clean, processed, and safe, Mal, due naturally to my explanations, believed it was still highly poisonous. He made his way carefully along the wall, until he was positioned right above the lever, and then readjusted, lowering himself down with one hand bracing against the wall and the other reaching for the handle. He pulled, forcing the handle halfway down, misjudged the weight, and slipped off the wall to fall face-first into the water. Someone behind me giggled.
“Mal!” Zoe shouted as he fell, her cry echoing through the basin. She stopped what she was doing and raced up and along the wall.
Mal splashed and kicked in panic, sloshing more water than was strictly necessary, and finally resurfaced, sputtering and gasping for air. Then his face changed, almost comically, as he realized that none of his skin was burned or blistered from chemicals. That he could still see and feel his limbs. In short, that nothing whatsoever was wrong with him. He dipped his hand in the water and cupped some of it to his mouth.
“You alright, Sir?” Zoe called calmly, looking down at him from the top of the wall. She didn’t even look surprised.
“Zoe,” Mal said, wiping his mouth with a very wet sleeve. “I think we’ve been humped. This here is perfectly ordinary water.”
“Sir?” Zoe asked pointedly, as Mal showed every sign of trying to carry on a perfectly normal conversation from the middle of the river.
“What?”
“Would you like a rope?”
“Good thought.” Mal smiled up at her, looking far too pleased with himself for someone soaking wet, and in the middle of a job he’d just found out was half a lie.
Zoe tossed him a rope from her pack, and he climbed up onto the wall, then followed her back onto to the solid ground of the platform. Mal disentangled himself from the rope and stood, dripping onto the stone floor and staring at the still-operating floodgate and clean water. Watching the screen, I could almost see the wheels turning in his brain.
Zoe dug through her pack and produced a clean, fluffy towel. I blinked. Why did Zoe have a towel?
“Here, Sir,” she said, tossing it to Mal.
Mal caught it instinctively, and then noticed what it was. “Zoe,” he asked, bemused, “why do you have a towel?”
“Always be prepared, Sir.”
“Does this have something to do with your ‘don’t panic’ and ‘walk softly and carry a can o’ grade-A whoop-ass’ philosophy?” Mal asked, drying himself off.
“Yes, Sir.” I could almost hear Zoe suppress a smile.
Mal finished drying himself off and strolled over to the edge of the platform. “Why would Patience want to hoodwink us?” he remarked conversationally, looking down at the water.
Zoe shrugged. “Why would she want to shut off Whitefall’s water?”
“Or maybe, why would she want us to shut off Whitefall’s water? If there’s nothing wrong with the water, then it can’t be Jaimeson.” Mal frowned, absentmindedly wringing out his sleeve onto the stone floor.
“Don't think it’s us, Sir,” Zoe suggested, reminding me again why I wanted her on my team. She’s just too smart to be working for somebody else. “I think it’s what Patience wants.”
“We don’t have anything Patience wants, do we?” Mal mused. “She can’t want Serenity, she’s got plenty of ship power. Can’t think of a personal vendetta.”
Zoe joined him at the edge, “It’s not us, Sir.”
“Then what? Oh!” Mal exclaimed in sudden revelation. “Whitefall.”
Zoe nodded.
“We’d better get back to the ship,” Mal said quickly, suddenly moving, tightening and reshouldering his pack. “Get out of here. This is Patience’s battle.”
“She is paying us,” Zoe remarked, but she didn’t stop moving, either.
“Hasn’t paid us yet,” Mal said. “We can walk away. I don’t do politics anymore, Zoe.”
Zoe’s expression was more satisfied than anything else, reminding me again of the history those two shared. Not something I was going to try to sever. I could even admit a grudging admiration of the two of them for figuring me out, even if it was Mal’s stumble that precipitated it. I smiled, and leaned over Jed to turn off the volume on the screen.
“Bring us down to the surface, Jed,” I said, loud enough for the gathered crowd to hear. “We’re going to catch those folks before they leave. There’s a little matter of payment to resolve.”
Several of the crowd snickered, and I smiled as Jed unlocked the ship and sent us around the planet and down. I really couldn’t fault Mal Reynolds for principle, but when have principles ever mattered to me?
-----
We called Serenity moments after breaking atmo, and Mal’s blonde pilot answered us.
“Something’s gone wrong?” he asked, surprised. “Well, I don’t know. I’ll see if Zoe and the Captain are back, if you’ll hold on a minute.” His big blue eyes were honest and concerned as he paused the com screen. Looked like Mal and Zoe had only just returned. Either that, or Mal’s pilot was a better liar than either of them.
I waited by the screen, uncharacteristically patient, until the pilot returned with Mal and Zoe in tow.
“Patience.”
“Mal.” I nodded back.
He crossed his arms, claiming his ground before he starting to speak. “I’m afraid we’re unable to take the job.”
I raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“We don’t get involved in politics, Patience, which is what this is. I don’t appreciate being lied to, neither, but I’m willing to let that go.”
“Kind of you,” I remarked dryly.
Mal frowned. “I don’t play games. We’re not taking the job, and that’s all there is to say on the subject.”
“Fine.” He blinked, surprised, before recovering his composure. He must have been expecting a fuss. Good for him. “I’ll need my equipment back,” I continued calmly, “and you’d better not be expecting payment.”
“Understood.”
I got down to business. “We’ll be landing this ship within range of Serenity. If you and Zoe can manage to meet us halfway and hand over my equipment, we can get this sorry business over with.”
Mal’s eyes narrowed distrustfully, but after a moment he nodded agreement. “See you in the world,” he said, and cut the connection.
I swiveled around in my chair and smiled at my crew. “Let’s do some business.”
-----
I took five boys with me to meet Zoe and Mal, all armed and dangerous. Had to live up to my reputation, as Mal would have done well to remember. I don’t generally let go of things, money, or people. Especially people who know too much.
They met us halfway, carrying the equipment packs, and, I was amused to see, equally well armed.
“Here’s everything,” Mal said, setting his pack on the ground. Zoe threw hers down beside it.
I motioned two of the boys forward to collect and double check the equipment. “All here,” they approved, after a minute.
“Good.” I hadn’t taken my eyes off Mal yet, and I didn’t intend to. There was a moment of silence as we watched each other, warily.
Finally, he sighed. “I really hate liars, Patience.” He sounded angrier than earlier.
I shrugged. “Might be you’re in the wrong business, then.”
“Couldn’t just tell the truth, could you?”
I laughed. “Would you have done the job if I had?” It was a rhetorical question, and luckily he didn’t answer it. “I do what needs doing to get the job done, Mal. That’s all.”
“You don’t care who you hurt in the bargain, though. Jaimeson’s an innocent.” His voice had risen, and even Zoe looked a little surprised.
“And I want Whitefall. That’s how the world works, Mal. Maybe if you got that you could go somewhere, but it looks more like you’ll be scavenging the galaxy on the dinky boat for a good long while. If that. Hero-types generally get killed before they do anybody any good.”
Mal echoed my laugh, and I could hear the bitter edge. I wondered, not for the first time, what exactly had happened to him during the war. “At least I’ve got principles,” he spat out, finally.
“Well, so do I.” Then I smiled, drew my pistol, and shot him.
Zoe saw my movement a split second before Mal did, but neither of them was fast enough, and the bullet took Mal in his right shoulder. He was knocked on his back, and Zoe was at his side before I’d even slipped the gun back into its holster. That woman could move.
“For example,” I finished, still calmly, “I don’t tolerate traitors. Now get back to your ship, and get off my world.”
I watched as Zoe helped Mal up and staggered slowly back to Serenity, Mal leaning heavily, half unconsciously, against her. I waited until Serenity was in the air, flying upwards and out of my sky before turning and heading back across the plain to our ship. The sun was just starting to set behind me as I walked and I smiled, savoring the cool air and sharp light. It felt good to be back in the world; almost as good as it felt to win.
-----
That bullet wasn’t enough to kill Mal Reynolds, of course, but it made its point. As far as I know he’s alive and well, along with the rest of that little boat of his. Although these days, I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to space, except for the necessities of commerce.
Whitefall’s mine, now, and I’ve even come to think of it as home. More home, perhaps, than Silas ever really was. The people have named me mayor, which I like. And as I expected, I thrive on this new, earthier power. I’d forgotten how good it felt to have days and nights, to take long walks and swim in clean water and breathe real air. It’s a pleasant sort of retirement, and I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about the means to such an end – or even the casualties. Dwelling on the past never did anybody any good. Least of all me.
This is a good life I’m leading now, and a good life I’ve led. And no one is every going to tell me otherwise. No one has the right to stop me, to question my principles or lack of principles. No one, nothing, can every really stand in my way when there’s something I want on the other side. No matter how old, or tired, or even alone I am. Not in my world.