Steven Brust - My Own Kind of Freedom

Oops, he thought.

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.

Of course, that sawed-off carbine pointing straight at his chest might be part of the reason.

He said, “I don’t need to state the obvious, do I?”

The captain said, “You mean, the part about I shoot him, you shoot me, Zoë shoots you, and Jayne flies off into the sunset?”

“Something like that.”

“Works for me,” said the mercenary without turning his head.

“No, you don’t need to point that out.”

“So, tell me this: what do you think will do more good? Killing this guy, or making an example of him to everyone else on the border worlds who wants to try the same thing?”

“Couldn’t say,” said the captain. “I don’t conjure with more good and less good, just with what’s in front of me.”

“The Independents lost the war, Captain Reynolds.”

“Yeah, I read that somewhere.”

“Let’s suppose the cause was right. Then what?”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No, I don’t. But suppose I’m wrong. Then what?”

“Then it’s a damn shame we lost.”

“Just what I was thinking. Means some bad happened.”

“I don’t think you’re making your point real well, Agent Merlyn.”

“So, how about, if some bad happened, you let us do what good we can do, to sort of make up for some of it.”

Wash came through the door.

“Wash!” said Jayne. “I almost put one through your gorram head!”

Wash ignored him, and spoke to Kit. “I got it,” he said.

“Verify it.”

“How?”

The captain said, “Wash—”

“One second, Mal.”

Kit said, “Slide the little brown button on the back the other way, then hit start.”

Wash said, “Two green lights.”

Okay, here we go. It happens or it doesn’t.

Kit rotated his whole body until, weapon and all, he was facing Sakarya. He said, “Filo Bursa, alias Filo Sakarya, you are bound by law for violations of Alliance Labor Code section nineteen part three, forced indenture, and section seventeen part five, child labor, and additional charges to be determined by a duly authorized court.”

Then he waited.

He so badly wanted to pull the trigger; to watch Bursa fall to the ground twitching. To shoot him in the chest, so he’d just have enough to time to know he was dying.

But it wasn’t that gorram simple.

He’d never felt this way in a firefight.

Even as a young recruit, when he didn’t know how to handle himself, he’d done as well as could be expected: keeping his head down and shooting in the general direction of the enemy. But this was different. It wasn’t clear. It wasn’t obvious. There were too many answers, and all of them had some right and some wrong.

When the fed pointed his gun at Bursa, Zoë had immediately turned hers toward the door; now he heard the report of her carbine at the same time as Jayne’s pistol, and two more of Bursa’s security force fell in the doorway, next to their companions, one of whom was moaning and writhing, while the other wasn’t moving at all.

“Sir,” said Zoë, without turning her head, “whatever you’re going to do, I’d suggest doing it soon.”

“Real soon,” said Wash, from directly behind him. “Someone’s gotten past the jamming.

Song yiqie dao ta ma de diyu.

In a firefight, he either knew the right thing to do, or he knew something to do that, at least, wasn’t wrong. The only thing worse than having to make this sort of decision was having to make this sort of decision in a hurry.

He looked over at the fed. “I don’t owe you a gorram thing,” he said.

“I know.”

“And I owe your Alliance even less.”

“I know.”

Mal lowered his pistol and heard himself saying, “Take him, then. He’s yours.”

A tension she didn’t know she was feeling drained out of her when the Captain spoke. She held her position and kept her focus on the door while she heard a clanking sound that had to be cuffs going around Colonel Bursa’s wrists. She held her position, waiting for the order to embark.