Steven Brust - My Own Kind of Freedom

“When will that be?”

“About a minute. You’re asking a lot of questions, Jayne.”

“Yeah, and you aren’t giving a lot of good answers.”

“That mean you’re out?”

“Naw, when have I ever been able to stay out of a fight?”

“Whenever you couldn’t get anything out of it.”

Couldn’t argue with that.

He remembered the cell, and remembered what he’d realized there: there wasn’t any point in fighting it, he just wasn’t any good on his own.

“Yeah. I’m in,” he said.

Mal set the two pistols on the table, and slid them down to him, one at a time.

After a sleep that lasted around ten hours, he felt worlds better, and as ready as he ever would be.

He played around the upper edges of atmo for a few seconds, just to test how she was responding. He wasn’t entirely happy with the result, but—

“Can you do it?” asked Mal.

“Think so,” he said. He badly wanted to add, “but I can’t think why we want to,” but he bit his tongue and concentrated on flying.

The upper atmosphere of Hera smacked Serenity back and forth hard enough to penetrate the artificial gravity; he felt her bucking and kicking and wanting to put her nose down and tumble. The first chance he got, he leaned over and dialed down the cabin temperature, because he was sweating a lot. A fan kicked in, and a cool breeze struck his face, and it felt so good he almost smiled.

The atmosphere thickened, making the resistance stronger but less variable: a Firefly was not built for aerodynamics; she ought not to be subject to updrafts, and cross-winds, and buffeting. At least not this much.

He gave her an attitude adjustment just as she bucked the wrong way, and for a horrible second, Serenity almost flipped and tumbled, internal and external inertia wanting to combine to shoot her like a watermelon seed. A plastic pterodactyl and triceratops fell from his console and hit the floor.

He brought Serenity’s nose back up, too busy for the moment to curse.

The intercom crackled with Mal’s voice. “Wash! What the gorram hell is—”

He shut it off and fought the air, the ship, the world.

Mal had said, “Try to set us down east of Yuva, if you can find a clearing in the woods.”

He had said, “Mal, if I can get us down in one piece it will be—No, I’m not looking for a clearing in the woods, I’m looking for the biggest flat empty space I can find, and then I’m praying like hell.”

Mal had, for once, just accepted it.

Why were they doing this, anyway?

Because Mal was the captain, that’s why. And because, however stupid some of Mal’s stunts had been, somehow they had always pulled through, and kept flying.

He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but, that was a clear space below them. Okay, time for the fun part. He flipped the two side thrusters into landing position and spun the engine faster, getting more thrust to fight gravity. The shake through the yoke rattled his entire body.

If I crack a tooth, I’m going to be annoyed.

He focused on a single point on the ground through the primary scope; the true-alt numbers falling much too fast. Still more thrust, still less control—and he almost forgot to lower the landing gear, which would have been an embarrassing way to wreck the ship.

Too much thrust to land; too little to fight the instability from the broken extender. At fifty meters: much too close to the ground to play, but still high enough to easily kill them all. At least the placement was good, and the angle was, had been good a second ago, was good again, but how did we get to one-fifty and, all right, she could yaw as much as she wanted to, but please don’t pitch down to seventy maybe just a bump careful careful too much and we’ll be on our belly and dead before you can say brontosaurus okay that one helped at the expense of fine, fine yaw can do what it wants until yes reduce that extra thrust so we come down to don’t roll! attitude good good just maybe if we swoop a bit we can get to the magic three meter mark and drop and just crack the landing gear which would okay stop that, nose is good again hold it hold it right there sweet baby please work with me one time one time and now nose down then up two meters? Cut cut cut! Nose up for the love of—

He clicked on the intercom.

“We’re down, fellow travelers. No sweat.”

He leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes and if Mal had been on the bridge Wash would have punched him right in the mouth.

He walked with the captain, passing the glazed, exhausted, nearly stumbling pilot on their way to the bridge. The captain stopped as they passed. The pilot and the captain exchanged a few words, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were. Kit continued on to the bridge, where the captain joined him a moment later.

The captain gestured toward the comm gear and said, “I take it you know how to use this stuff?”

Kit bit back a sarcastic answer and just nodded.

“The Alliance gave you all the training,” observed Reynolds.

Kit nodded and waited for twhatever point was coming.

“And so,” continued the captain, “I guess that’s a good reason for you to sell your soul to them.”

“Are you looking for an argument, captain?”

“More curious about why you’d do something like that.”

“Would it mean anything to you if I said job satisfaction?”

“Might. But I have to wonder what sort of job satisfaction there is in—”

“Shutting down people like Sakarya?”

The captain shrugged and fell silent.

Kit set the right channel on the comm, set up what little masking signal was available on this gear. It took a couple of minutes to pick up the WHORU; he sent back the IM and appropriate codes. It took another couple of minutes to get full access, then he settled in to ask his questions. The captain sat next to him, saying not a word, making not a motion.

Kit made the first request, and waited. Into the silence he said, “There is one thing I’ve learned about Sakarya, and that’s that he’s good at what he does.”

“How long you been on this?”

“Eight months.”

“Don’t seem like so much.”

“I also got enough facts and figures to indict.”

“Well then—”

“Not enough to convict, though. Not reliably.”

“My way is easier.”

“Your way can be turned on you. Any time you piss off someone with the Alliance, we use your way, you could just be shot down. You like that idea?”

The captain didn’t answer.

“You got some indictments against you,” Kit continued, “but no convictions. You going to complain that we insist on evidence?”

The captain shrugged.

“But you missed the point about Sakarya being good at what he does,” said Kit.

“Tell me.”

“Part of being good at it is keeping careful records.”

“The sort that could convict him?”

“Yep.”

“So, how do you get them?”

“I’m working on that now.”

As Kit worked, the captain said, “What I’m not sure of, is why you care.”

“It’s what I do, go after the bad guys.”

“Some might say we’re bad guys.”

“You got no convictions on your record.”

“No. But there’s talk we’re harbor—”

“You trying to talk me into arresting you, Captain Reynolds?”

“You wanted to do that, you would. I’m just satisfying some curiosity is all.”

“So am I.”

“About what?”

Kit checked the signal strength and started the next cross-load.