A Pretty Normal, Ordinary Day
His eyes watered when he saw the brightness of the flares. His mind raced, thinking of every possibility his young mind could fathom, but none were ready at hand. They all required strength, and weapons. Two things he needed desperately but had never had. Sure he could beat up kids his own age, but...
The guns burst again, drowning out his thoughts. The flare was fading in the cool evening sky as he surveyed the oncoming horde of angry bandits, frenzied tribal people who sometimes crept down from their mountain homes to break and tear anything they could find. They ran into his mother's house, knocking him down outside. A young boy was nothing to them. He had no valuables, he was no use to them. But his sisters were, and they screamed for help that would not come in time. The Alliance cruiser parked within sight of where he lay trampled just waited, and watched until the bandits emerged into the open. By then he had struggled to his knees a,d watched as the fires reached from the ship to the fields, lighting his village on fire as they tore the entire bandit tribe to tatters. Their bodies baked in the sun as the cruiser wafted away into the stratosphere, leaving what little there was left to burn.
His mother found him and his sister after she returned with his father from hunting. Their faces when they saw the village were what mad him leave. That, and the look on their faces every time an Alliance communication came over the cortex.
For years, they pretended nothing had happened.
"JAYNE!" The man smelled.
Jayne Cobb, mercenary extraordinairre, opened his eyes.
The man was ugly, as well.
"Jayne, you better get up off your arse and get your weapon, 'cause I ain't payin ya ta sit around and drink ma whiskey till you pass out."
Jayne remembered now. Oh yeah, the guy gave him a drink on the house. He sat up hurriedly.
"Sorry, boss. Won't happen again. What's goin on?"
The boss, who happened to be the central authority in the universe on bad male wigs, hurriedly adjusted his demeanor accordingly. Where he had just been scathingly angry, now he was just bitter and depressed at his own lack of judgement in character. "Look, I've 'ad you on payroll for a week, doin nothin. Now there's finally a fight and you're not around!"
Jayne couldn't believe his ears, "A fight? When?"
The man basically gave up at this point, expecting to see the back of this mercenary on the ground in a few minutes. "There's four of them outside right now, and they have a hostage."
"You care about the hostage?" Jayne asked as he hefted his gunbelt. Now that there was imminent violence, he would do his best to act like he meant it.
"Of course," he replied, "She's me daughter, I want you to save her at all costs."
Jayne looked at him cooly, "Well, that's more complicated, then, ain't it."
"Are you backing out, you coward?" The man was furious, and Jayne had to respect that.
"I never back down from a fight, mister," Jayne replied, "Now watch close, and I'll teach you a thing or two about daring rescues."
Across the 'verse, fourteen hours out on a course for the planet Foundry, there was a ship.
On this ship, there were five people, all of whom wore the exact same look on their faces.
This was happening because these five individuals had no oxygen to breath. They were dead.
For a while, nothing happened.
Then, totally unexpected and illogically, their spacecraft collided with another, larger vessel. The larger vessel , a fantastically expensive pleasure cruiser named Magellan, was slightly put off by the whole ordeal, but that doesn't come close to the reaction of the people on board. They all went berserk, tearing at the crew and demanding to know where the liferafts were. In between explaining the cruise line's policy on emergencies and that it did not include actual vehicles that could be jettisoned, the crew found very little time to confirm or deny the actual damage. It took nearly three hours before someone could be spared to have a look, and by then the hole had been hemorrhaging air for so long it was pointless anyway.
The captain, upon hearing this, relaxed a great deal and poured himself a stiff drink. His first mate nodded as though he had somehow made everything right, and the rest of the crew ignored him completely, as was their way. He didn't mind, really. He was quite happy sitting and sipping, not having to make all kinds of decisions. His first mate, however, was not.
He called over another officer, "The captain is relaxing, so we shouldn't disturb him. Send a party to search the wreckage that just crashed into us."
The younger officer nodded sharply and exited through the main hatch. The first mate went to his console and searched the registry of ships that would have been in their area. None matched with the size and shape of the one he had seen, but he was sure it rang a distant bell in his memory.
Jayne cooled himself off with a bucket from the well outside his employer's mansion. The five thugs that had actually been outside had gone down like nothing, he hadn't even had to reload. He took 'em by surprise, his favorite tactic.
"I'm really sorry for what I said earlier," the man was still talking. He had been since the end of the fight, "Thank you very much for your assisstance."
"Just can it." That scared him, and Jayne grinned. "Where's my money?"
The purse came out and open, platinum clinking together in a most satisfactory way. The coins were heavier than he had expected. He looked up.
"No, you earned that, consider it a tip." The old man turned to his daughter, who stared at Jayne until he pulled her inside by the wrist.
"I like 'em skinny like that." He muttered it to himself, watching the backside of the young lady without a single pang of remorse. He reveled in his own crudeness, used it to hide who he was. And what he used to be.
When he returned to the hotel where he was staying, he had a surprise waiting for him. He walked in and started toward the bar before he noticed the array of weapons drawn by various men in the room. His eyes darted, counting. Four in plain view, which probably meant two or three more around back. He had to move quick, so he drew steel and ducked behind the doorframe, taking one of them out before they had a chance to attack.
Then they did, and Jayne got a look at his blood.
It wasn't that bad, just a graze through the wall, but enough to get his juices really pumping. The two first guys in the doorway came with knives. He liked knives. He took them away and killed both of them with a double thrust to each man's jugular. Then the bodies were riddled with bullets as Jayne ducked away down the hall.
His gun lit up through the front door as he crept toward it. The fourth dead goon fell onto the pavement outside. He spun, firing to keep number five in his sights. The guy was good, took his time shooting.
Jayne never noticed to sixth guy. He took a shot in the side and fell, twisting to look where the shot had come from. Across the street and on a rooftop was a man carrying the most beautiful thing Jayne had ever seen. Time slowed down, and then almost stopped.
He was in love.
The barrel was smoking slightly and the sound it had produced was still ringing in his ears. He hauled his body behind some cover, closing the interior door.
Now he was trapped between two guys, both of whom had no respect for the sanctity of his life, and he hadn't even had anything to eat yet today. He was pissed, so he limped up the stairs and over to a window, removing an item from under his jacket where noone could have spotted it. It was a cylinder, about the size of his hand. He had bought it for a large amount of money, and had saved it for just this sort of situation. Priming the grenade was simple. He threw it out the window and ducked, covering both his ears and closing his eyes as tight as they would go.
By this time the man from inside had made it to the outer door, and was looking out at his partner, who was looking in the upper windows. He saw the grenade fly out, and yelled to his partner, assuming it was an explosive weapon. But it was a different kind of grenade.
The blinding flash of light and burst of sound was enough for Jayne to have time to kill the man on the opposite roof and roll down the stairs again, where the last remaining thug was rubbing his eyes, his rifle forgotten on the ground. Jayne lifted his pistol in triumph.
It didn't fire.
Jayne freaked out, and so did the other guy, who had just spotted him through the haze that currently occupied his vision. The two yelled and attacked one another, crashing to the floor amid the two bodies of the men Jayne had stabbed. Their blood was coating both combatants, but neither showed signs of slowing.
Jayne had to give it to him, this guy was strong. But not strong enough.
Jayne hated the sound of a neck breaking. He tried to avoid it as much as he could, but this was a fight to the death, he could tell. He had been in enough to be able to classify.
He staggered into the street, and over to the corpse of the sniper that had fallen off the rooftop.
He bent down and removed the rifle from the man's grip. It felt so light and perfect that his eyes got all misty. He managed to walk to the old man's house before he passed out.
Waking up was more painful than getting shot had been. But knowing he had that rifle leaning against the wall made up for it. He had never seen something so beautiful in all his days.
"Mister, do you need some water?"
He hadn't even noticed the old man's daughter, standing over him worriedly. He looked at her, then back at the gun, and laughed. "Yeah, darlin', you kin get me anythin' yer little heart desires."
He was beginning to like this planet, and not just because he couldn't find a ride off of it.
The pleasure cruiser Magellan was experiencing electrical problems. The terminals were all lighting up with warnings, something that generally did not happen. The systems were foolproof. The backup systems for the foolproof systems were foolproof. The captain had no idea what to do in case of this kind of emergency.
So he consulted his binder.
The binder advised him to jettison all passengers and equipment on the exposed decks and barricade all entrances to the bridge until their arrival on Long Fork. They were due to arrive in less than a day, so it wouldn't harm any of the remaining passengers.
He was a man who obeyed orders.
Jayne woke suddenly to the sound of sirens. That wasn't a good thing to hear on a planet without a single speaker system.
He limped to the window, looking outside. The worst of his fears was confirmed as he saw the old man, his supposed boss, talking to an Alliance patrolman and pointing inside. Obviously he thought Jayne would make a good patsy to blame the whole affair on.
Jayne thought differently. He reached out for his guns and realized they weren't there.
"Tsiang man yao li su du wo pi gu!" He swore liberally before darting through the door into the kitchen.
He cast about, looking for anything he could use as a weapon. He decided on a large carving knife, stashing it in his belt.
He heard the Alliance coming through the door, and went out the back way. He found there a small wooden building, covered and unlocked. He went in, closing the rickety door and keeping an eye on the sliver of the house he could see clearly.
Nothing happened.
'They're probably searching the house,' he thought. Calming a bit, he looked around at his surroundings. He was in a woodcutting shed. His eyes roved among the piles of cut logs and landed on the axe handle sticking out from under a table. His eyebrows raised slightly.
Alliance patrolman Charles Wingham stalked quietly out the back door. He loved stalking, it was his favorite thing about being a soldier. But he never got the chance to do that terribly much of it, so he took the greatest pleasure whenever he did.
The house was clear, and the only possible place to hide was the woodshed out in the yard. He thought about the raise he would get for apprehending this fugitive. His computer had listed the man among the Most Wanted of the sector, although he had no idea what for. It didn't matter a great deal anyway, because he was more interested in the reward posted.
Even Alliance soldiers have families to support. Back on Ariel Charles had a wife and two beautiful daughters eagerly awaiting his return. His job lasted half the galactic standard year, and then he had leave for the other half. And in only three days, he was returning to his family for a much needed vacation.
'With this arrest, I'll be able to bring them along when I get a permanent post,' was the last thought that went through his head before Jayne buried an axe into his chest. He looked at it for a moment, then to Jayne, a huge figure now rearing his fist back.
The punch put him on his back. He turned his head to spit out a mouthful of blood. His eyes began to dim as he watched Jayne kill the old man that owned the house with a butchers knife and board his shuttle. Charles tried to laugh at the irony, but his breath was too shallow. All he managed was a slight groan as he watched the man who killed him sail off into the distance in a captured Alliance shuttle.