Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own Firefly. I should probably add that I don't own Lynrd Skynrd, either. But I do own my brain, and I've got this weird story that's been playing around in it for a while now. Thought I'd share it with all of you in the hopes that we could pay tribute to Joss and J.K. by continuing to have fun with the worlds they've created. Sound good?
Episode One: The Endless Winter
Chapter I: Soldiers Like Us
_oo00oo_
Do you know what a soldier is, young man?
He's the chap who makes it possible
for civilized folks to despise war.
Allan Massie
_oo00oo_
Jayne Cobb was a simple man. Born the first son of Radiant Mansfield, he spent the first fifteen years of his life in the mid-latitudes of Aberdeen, rarely straying more than a hundred miles from his hometown. Summers were hot and brutal. Winters were equally unkind. He started working young to support his family and learned soon enough the things he needed to do to handle both, and handle them well.
Jayne's father was a no-good fèi xuè who racked up a dungheap full of gambling debt and skipped town to avoid the law. So was his stepfather, for that matter, Except his stepfather didn't have the decency to leave. Jane smiled wryly at the thought as he field-stripped the gun in front of him, an Oxford Model III N/G Pistol that he had taken to calling 'Lucy" some years back. She was his second favorite gun.
As the debts piled higher Eamon Cobb turned to the bottle and started coming home later and angrier. It wasn't long before Radiant Mansfield-Cobb became the focus of his ire, and the beatings followed shortly after. She took them and stayed silent about it. She once told Jayne that she didn't want to make the problem worse. She didn't want Eamon's attention to drift to her sons, she said. She took it for two years, becoming less and less like her namesake with each passing day, with each new bruise.
Two years after the beatings started, Jayne ended them. Lucy had been there with him, and was with him when he left the planet three days later, taking the surname Cobb to remind himself where he came from and why he wouldn't go back. With Jayne gone, the law didn't inquire much further into the matter. Turns out nobody missed Eamon Cobb.
Jayne took a few moments to oil Lucy's barrel and care for her trigger assembly, then started putting her back together.
Before Jayne took to the black, before he was a mercenary, Jayne had worked the oil fields of Aberdeen, and knew more than his share about how to handle the cold. St. Alban's, though, was something new to him. It was a bitterly cold planet, worse than Aberdeen by half, and that was in the summer. He didn't want to think too hard about what it would be like to live there, and was glad Mal had no intention of staying past the time they'd need to get Serenity spaceworthy again. Mal expected him to stay with the ship and keep a ready eye in case things started to turn sour. He set Lucy off to the side and picked up Lux, a small derringer he'd picked up on a border planet two years back, and began to strip her down as well. Like all of his guns, Lux had her own story, but Jayne didn't bother thinking about it too much; he had things to prepare for before they touched down on St. Alban's.
Jayne Cobb knew where he came from, and why he was here. And that simple thought was enough to keep him working.
_oo00oo_
Mal and Zoe were otherwise occupied in the dining room.
"I don't like this, sir," Zoe said. She wasn't fond of calling her captain out when others were around, but the kitchen was empty at the moment and she felt more at ease voicing her concerns. "We're going to be grounded."
She didn't need to say much more to get her point across to Mal. Being on the ground was one thing; being grounded, without the fuel to break atmo or the supplies to make the next planet, was the kind of situation any decent captain avoided like the plague. Mal silently cursed Badger and the trouble he'd heaped on them. At the very least, though, this time they'd taught him that he couldn't keep betraying them without penalty. Mal figured they'd wind up working with him again. Someday. If they had nowhere else to go, which happened more often than he'd prefer it to. A healthy dose of fear on Badger's part would make things run more smoothly all around.
"I don't care much for it neither, Zoe," he replied. "But it's done and there ain't much we can do to change things now, specially seein' as we didn't have much of a say in the matter to begin with." Zoe took this with her usual stoicism; she knew St. Alban's was the only option available to them. She couldn't be second-guessing him because, as Mal saw it, there was no second to do any guessing about.
"I understand, sir." She said. And she did understand. "But I still don't like it. Promise me we'll be off of this rock as soon as we get her spaceworthy again."
"What's got you worryin' about this, Zoe?" He asked.
"We handed Tracey's body to 'em in a crate, sir." Zoe pulled out a blade and started cutting into the apple in front of her. It was one of the few good things they managed to take off of Persephone this time around, before they'd been chased off. Fruit was a rare luxury this far out in the verse. So were safe-havens.
"Not our fault." Mal said. "He made his choices, we made ours. Things went sour."
"Don't matter much to the family of a dead soldier, sir." She replied. "Can't see 'em havin' much goodwill left for us and ours. And you know Hill's going to want answers."
Mal treasured Zoe for a fair number of reasons, not least of which was that, if it came down to it, she was good enough to take him down with that little pig-sticker she was using to slice her apple. Of particular value to him, though, was that she was the kind of level headed person who could look at a situation and see all the possible ways the verse could use it to leave a man swinging from the gallows. Mal was a cynic, too, but often he lacked the foresight Zoe brought to the table. They formed a good pair, with her figuring out all the ways something couldn't happen and him figuring out how to make it happen anyway. She brought focus and logic. He brought the will to keep moving and the devil's own luck. More often than not, that was enough. There was a reason they were the only two of their platoon to walk away from Serenity Valley.
There was a metallic clicking sound and Wash's voice came over the comm-link. "Approaching St. Alban's, captain." It said. "ETA is less than five."
Mal turned back to Zoe. "I'll take care of Hill when we're on the ground." He told her. "I just need you to see to it that we find ourselves a means of getting' out of here with enough coin and fuel to make New Melbourne." He thought about that for a moment. "Doc oughta be good for some of that," he decided. "Kaylee, too."
"They're not going to appreciate the distraction." Zoe smiled.
"Ship comes first." He said, his voice a bit more clipped than it had been a moment before. Everyone on Serenity knew Mal considered Kaylee in the same way he might consider a younger sister, or even a daughter. They also knew that didn't bode well for Simon's chances of ever getting in his good graces.
"They can get all googly-eyed over each other later." He finished.
"Eyes, sir?" Zoe teased. Mal grimaced.
"Or loins." Mal's grimace deepened. He looked like he'd just been asked to swallow something unpleasant. In a way, Zoe supposed he had. "Googly-loined." He said. With some effort he managed to shove aside most of his irritation at the thought of his mechanic getting sexed up by his ship's doctor. Most of it. "Don't much matter. They can do it later."
The comm clicked on again. "Hold on to your butts!" Wash announced. "We're about to hit atmo." There was a brief pause as the pilot on the other end of the comm considered something. "Zoe, get up here so you can hold on to mine for me." He said.
Zoe laughed and Mal just let his face slump forward into his palm. At least he wasn't thinking about Kaylee and her new stud anymore. "Remind me why you married him again?" Mal asked.
"He has a nice butt, sir." Zoe said, grabbing her apple and making her way towards the bridge.
"Ahh. Well..." Mal said, then paused for a second. "It's not nicer'n mine, is it?" He called out just as she was exiting the mess hall.
"Qù tā mā de zìjǐ, sir." Zoe said as she left.
_oo00oo_
St. Alban's was the type of backwater planet that most of the 'verse contented itself with leaving untouched. It was terraformed in 2290 but at the time the Alliance had its attention focused on two nearby planets which looked much more promising; Greenleaf and Anson's world. The bulk of the atmospheric recycling platforms that should have gone to St. Alban's were co-opted to make the other two planets habitable ahead of schedule, and as a result St. Alban's was left deficient in the greenhouse gases which would have made it a temperate planet. That, coupled with its distance from Zhu Que, the red sun, left it as a winter planet. There was a narrow temperate band around the equator where plants and civilization could grow properly, and the bulk of St. Alban's thirty million inhabitants lived there. Everything poleward of the two tropics was nothing but perpetual winter. Everything north of the arctic circle and south of the antarctic circle was completely uninhabitable.
It was a great irony, then, when Alliance science vessels discovered that St. Alban's was mineral rich and could have, if it had been terraformed properly the first time around, served as one of the most important mining and manufacturing hubs of the entire verse. Since the generation responsible for the failed terraforming had mostly passed, the Alliance didn't even have the luxury of assigning proper blame to somebody. They sought bids for mining the planet, but prior to the formation of the Corone Mining Consortium in 2499 no company had the technology, the manpower, or the inclination to brave the bitter cold for the resources that were likely to be there. Corone had plans for expansion into the planet, but they were slated for later in the century, when the Alliance was scheduled to return and complete the terraforming process.
In the meantime the stories of valuable minerals on the fringes of the planet were enough to coax a segment of the population out of the tropics and into the harsh winter. It was a gold rush all over again, enough so that the names Dorado and New Alaska had been assigned to the two continents in the southern hemisphere which served as the focal point of the prospecting efforts.
A prospector's life was harsh and lonely, but Mal understood the draw. A man who struck a decent vein of ore could, with the help of the planet's transport services, make a comfortable living for himself. A man who struck the right vein could bank on himself and his family being catapulted in to the ranks of nobility when the Consortium came through to mine it properly. As a rule of thumb Mal didn't care much for companies that large, but they did right by prospectors since it made good business sense for them. Often times buying out a prospector's claim was cheaper and more efficient than the efforts of prospecting on their own, so the Consortium considered it better to let the little man do the exploring and then offer him a fair price for his work if they paid off. Sometimes a fair price ran into the hundreds of millions of credits. The Consortium didn't mind since the return on a good vein could be a hundred times that.
In the meantime, the prospectors still needed community, so across the southern hemisphere small mining towns had popped up, serving as social and commercial hubs that the miners would either visit or base themselves out of. Portage was one of those towns, situated in a valley far enough away from the mountains of New Alaska that the frequent avalanches didn't pose a threat to it but close enough that most prospectors could afford to travel to and fro as they needed. The shipyard was small but ore freighters dropped by often enough, looking to stock up on the prospectors' findings and sell at a profit on nearby worlds such as Greenleaf.
Mal had no intention of docking in the shipyards. Too public. And if his conversation with Father Joseph was anything to go by, there had been a recent increase in Alliance activity over the area. Rumor was that they had a base somewhere out in the mountains and Mal didn't want to take the risk that checking into the docks would send up a red flag somewhere in one of their databases. There was a network of caves about twenty miles south of Portage which people of Mal's persuasion occasionally used to dock. The mountains there were kind enough that they weren't likely to get snowed in and private enough that they wouldn't draw notice. Father Joseph had agreed to meet them there.
_oo00oo_
"Cave!" River chirped.
"Hmm?" Simon was occupied with other things. He was one of the group traveling to Portage and he and Jayne had taken it upon themselves to unload a few crates of medical supplies. Simon already had a good idea of the sort of medical conditions he'd be working with here; frostbite, pneumonia, winter madness. The third wasn't in the range of things he'd been trained to deal with but he knew enough about it to know that the vials of Cortisol he had sequestered in the medical bay would be good for providing some temporary relief. With some luck he might be able to co-ordinate with some of the locals to set up a supply line to the St. Albans equatorial zone so they could get it in regularly. It was the best solution he had at hand. He was also acutely aware of the risks of opening such a supply line; Cortisol suppressed the immune system, and in a climate like this that could be dangerous for someone who came to rely on it too much. Absently he prayed that there was somebody among the fifteen hundred or so residents of Portage who he could trust to handle a possibility like that, or the help he provided here could very well wind up getting somebody killed.
"She shines her light." River informed him. "But she's hidden by the Earth."
Simon looked around them. The cave was massive, more than enough to hold Serenity and possibly another two ships like her, but small enough that it took some tricky maneuvering on Wash's part to set her down properly. Wash's skills still amazed him. River was mesmerized by the sight of the light from the drive core as it washed over the cave walls. Simon knew her better than anybody aboard Serenity, or at least he thought he did. In too many ways, though, River was still a mystery to him. Simon's mind was all logic and focus, River's was intuitive and diffuse. It made communication between them difficult, sometimes. But she had grown peaceful over the last year, since Miranda, and they had been able to connect in a way he hadn't thought possible before now. It made him even more grateful for her.
"Àirén?" Simon felt Kaylee's arm slide around his waist. His heart started thundering in his chest. It took him more than a moment to bring it back down to a reasonable level. He looked down at the woman who'd become so important to him, so fast, and reached out to brush a stray hair out of her face. In a different world he never would have met her, and his life would have been all the cheaper for it.
"River's so much happier now." He told her.
"I know." Kaylee said, softly. Almost everything about her was soft and delicate; her voice, the feel of her arm around his waist. Everything except the calluses on her hands and the bright, almost violent force of her spirit.
Of course, that didn't mean that everything they got up to was soft and delicate. He'd tried that at first. It didn't work out so well. His jaw still occasionally clicked when he moved it the wrong way.
"Ever since Miranda it's like she's been made new. Ain't it?" She said.
"Well… yes." Simon said. He still didn't like the implications of that. He'd grown used to River depending on him. It was hard for him to let go.
"I think we all got made new since then, Simon."
She was right. Even Kaylee had changed. The horrors they saw on Miranda, the cataclysmic battle, the Alliance and the Operative and the Reavers .She'd aged on the inside, and Simon had noticed that she was more quiet and prone to introspection than she had been before. But even if her soul had grown a bit older it hadn't cheapened her. Somehow it made her sweeter, more complex, more layered. She'd seasoned like a fine strawberry wine. He still couldn't help but get drunk off of her presence.
"I know." He smiled. "Still, she's my sister."
"An' you're havin' trouble lettin' her be more than the little girl you saved so long ago. Sound right?" she asked. Simon had learned that she was surprisingly insightful, as well, at least as far as he was concerned. Maybe because she knew him about as well as one of her engines by now.
"…yeah." He said. It was about all he could say. Way to show of the good ol' IQ, Simon. Kaylee giggled and Simon just smiled wryly. He glanced at her again and then noticed that she was giving him a look. He was familiar with the look. Good things usually followed it. She was insatiable that way. Simon was fairly sure that if he wasn't as madly in love with her as she was with him, she might have frightened him off by now.
"Y'know," she said, idly running a finger up his chest, "I can reckon' up a couple things we might get up to. You know, purely so we can give your sister some… um… space." She smiled. He smiled. Absolutely insatiable. Simon leaned in and kissed her. He'd passed the stage where her kiss made him see fireworks, but not by much. After a moment a thought occurred to him. He pulled away slightly and glanced at River, who was busy twirling around in circles, dancing along with the light from the drive core as it played off the walls.
"Have you ever gotten the impression that River might, um, be able to hear us?" He asked.
Kaylee watched River for a second, too, then looked back at Simon and gave him a wicked smile. She gave him a shrug that suggested she didn't care much one way or the other.
"Look lively, now!" Mal exclaimed and Simon nearly jumped out of his skin. He had the decency to look ashamed for a second. Or at least he thought it was decency. Kaylee didn't seem to care much one way or the other. Mal sized the two up and concluded that he was glad that he interrupted whatever they were up to. "Father Joseph ought to be here soon," he informed them. "I just got done with him over the comm."
"So where we goin, then, cap'n?" Kaylee asked, removing her hands from Simon and smoothing out her shirt, which had somehow gotten ruffled.
"Skiff'll be takin' five of us to Portage. It's the main settlement in these parts. Wash, Jayne, an' River are stayin' with the ship."
"River's staying?" Simon asked. He was about to object for a moment before he realized that he no longer needed to; River could take care of herself just fine. That didn't mean he liked being away from her, though, although part of him was happy at the thought that she probably couldn't hear him and Kaylee from twenty miles away.
Across the cavern, under the glow of the lights, River smiled. She could. She didn't pay much attention as a courtesy to her brother, but she loved how awkward he managed to get over it.
"Not gonna be a problem with that, is there?" Mal asked. His posture suggested that he expected Simon to give a very specific answer to that question. Simon shook his head.
"I need you two there with me." Mal continued. "You're the only ones on this boat got skills we can trade for coin. We need you to scrounge up what you can by way of food, fuel, parts. Whatever you can get." A gust of cold wind blew in through the opening of the cave, briefly overpowering the heat from the engines, and Mal adjusted his coat to brace himself against the sudden drop in temperature. "People out here are miners," he told them. "Simple folk. Might not take too kindly to your sister if she goes all hazy on us."
"She hasn't had an episode in over six months." Simon drawled.
"Doesn't need to." Mal stated. "And I didn't say she would, now did I?"
Mal was right about that. River had different flavors of crazy; there was a distinct difference between dancy twirly River and choppy stabby River. She hadn't crossed over into the second for a long while but she pretty much pitched her tent in the first.
"We're walkin' a tight line here already and I don't want to make waves." Mal continued. "On, off, with enough fuel and stock to make New Melbourne. Dǒng ma?"
Simon and Kaylee both nodded. The cave was suddenly overpowered by the rattling sound of a poorly maintained engine as a miner's skiff pulled into the cavern's entrance. Kaylee cringed; rattling machinery was a sin to her and Simon was willing to place credits on her tearing it open and fixing it as soon as she could the next morning.
Jayne stopped next to them with another crate of supplies out of Serenity's cargo bay as the mining skiff's hatch opened and a man emerged. Father Joseph W. Hill was a heavyset, middle aged man with wisps of thin red hair poking out from under his cap. He had a grim look about him as Mal approached, though Simon couldn't tell if that was because of their arrival on the planet or if it was just the natural state of his face.
"Don't look happy to see us." Jayne opined.
"I guess not." Simon agreed as Mal shook the man's hand. He grabbed the handles of the dolly he was using and started rolling his crate over to the back of the skiff.
"Father Joseph," Mal said, shaking the man's hand. "You've done us a kindness."
Hill smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. Simon got the sense that something was amiss. "You're a friend to us, Mal." Hill reassured Mal. "And you were a friend to Tracey as well. We're happy to harbor you for a while."
Simon was now certain that Mal was going to have some explaining to do. From the looks of it, Mal had caught on as well. In spite of that, neither of them sensed any hostility from Hill, but the young man in the pilot's seat of the skiff was another story altogether.
"That there's Harmon Smith." Hill said when he noticed Mal looking over at the driver. "Younger brother to Tracy. His family took it hard."
"I 'spect they did." Mal said. "So did we."
It took a moment before Hill finally decided to break the tension. "Our conversation over the cortex a week ago led me to believe you might be of some help to us, as well." He said. "Is that right?" He sized up Simon, obviously the doctor of the crew, and his attention moved on to Kaylee, likely wondering who she was and what she was doing there.
Mal smiled and put on his showboatin' voice. "Indeedy!" he exclaimed. "This here is Simon, crew medic and the best damn doctor this side of the verse." Simon shook Hill's hand and exchanged pleasantries with the man. Mal gestured to Kaylee. "And I believe you've met Kaylee already."
And then Father Joseph smiled. A real smile. It happened slowly, like the shifting of the earth, but he smiled, and Kaylee grinned right back at him. How she had that effect on people, Simon had no idea.
"I have. We've spoken over the cortex, too." He said to Mal. Then he approached Kaylee and shook her hand. "You know," he told her, "I can think of four mechanics right off the top of my head who'd give up a kidney to meet you."
Kaylee beamed.
"I don't think I've ever seen Prentiss happier than when you told him how to rig up a plasma jack out of a skiff stabilizer and a compression coil. Damn near blew up his shop tryin' to get it to work." He said. Kaylee primped a little under the praise, teasing him for his generosity.
"Well shucks, then," she said. "I 'spect it just wouldn't be polite of me now to hide all by my lonesome out here on my ship, then, now would it?"
"No, ma'am." Hill said, offering her his arm. She took it happily and walked with him towards the skiff.
"It's my boat." Mal grumped.
"Aww. C'mon, captain. Don't get your johns all in a bunch over it." Kaylee quipped. Simon heard a sound and it took a moment for him to realize that Father Joseph had just laughed. "You know I didn't mean anythin' by it, anyway." She told Mal.
And just like that, they stopped being strangers and became guests of St. Alban's.
_oo00oo_
River watched as Mal, Book and the others boarded the miner's skiff. Like most of the vehicles in this part of the planet the skiff was designed to hover over the snow instead of riding on it directly. Snow fell year round in this part of St. Alban's and in valleys such as the one Portage was located in it piled up in massive dunes of loose, dry powder that were too dangerous to walk on. Machines that counted on the snow to support their weight didn't fare much better; a few hardy souls had tried to ride the dunes with snowmobiles, and most of them made it back, but as a rule of thumb the prospectors opted to go with hover-skiffs since those were the only things capable of bearing the loads of ore they brought to town for sale. The skiff stirred up a cloud of snow as it left, Mal and the others inside, their cargo securely tied on the back. The fading light reflected off of the powder, bathing the cave mouth in series of sparkles for a brief and evanescent moment.
River bundled up in her coat and walked back into the cargo bay of Serenity. Wash saw her arrive over the cameras and closed the bay doors behind her. They'd be here for a week or two, if Mal's estimations were correct. They had enough rations to last the three of them for that long, but just barely. Not that it bothered her too much; she was more than capable of going without food for a spell, and Mal had plans to come back in a few days anyway to bring the first round of supplies and an update on their progress.
River's main concern wasn't being left in the cave. It was being on the planet in the first place. Ever since they had landed a strange sense of calm had fallen over her senses. Normally her waking day and her dreams blurred together, but ever since her conversation with Book the other night and the dream before it she'd had no trouble keeping the two separate.
She enjoyed the feeling as much as she was afraid of it. Things were too normal. Things weren't right. And underneath it all she could still hear that keening, scraping sound, only now she was distinctly aware that it was coming from a few hundred miles to the south. Nothing good had ever come of that noise, and she was worried that it would intrude further and disturb their plans here. Worse, still, was that she might not have any control over it, and what would happen then, if it got to her?
She didn't know. For now the best she could do was lock herself in her room to put up an additional wall between her and the noise. So she did.
_oo00oo_
"So, if you don't mind my asking, what brings you out here?"
Mal looked at Zoe. Hill's question was innocent enough, but Mal had gotten the impression that a great deal of their stay's pleasantness hinged on his willingness to be straight with Joseph, and he wasn't about to ruin that. Zoe nodded and answered in Mal's stead.
"We were running a deal back in the White Sun system, off of Persephone. It went sour; the client decided that he liked his money more than he liked our services, figured he'd turn us in to the Feds so he didn't have to pay."
Mal snorted. "He paid, alright," he said.
"He did," Zoe smirked, "But we didn't get more out of it'n the satisfaction of seein' him piss himself. Had to leave atmo with next to nothing by way of supplies. Low on fuel, low on food, boat fallin' apart. This was the only place in range where we could find folk might be willin' to help us regain our bearings."
"I heard what came of the Sanchez brothers." Hill said. Mal and Zoe exchanged a significant glance. "Can't say I'm particularly torn up that we haven't harbored you before now." Hill finished.
"Didn't want to impose if we didn't need to." Mal's voice was clipped. "Still don't." he added.
"Well, you're welcome here," Hill told them. "So long as you don't bring trouble with you we'll be fine. And we've got enough fuel and rations to spare to get you off world if your trade is worth it."
"Thank you kindly." Mal said.
"Where to after here, then?" Hill asked. More questions Mal didn't feel comfortable answering; the more people who knew where he was going, the more people who could point the way to somebody trying to chase him down. And there were more than enough of those these days.
"New Melbourne," Mal said. "Our pilot has a contact out that way might be able to set us up with some work."
They wouldn't be spending long at New Melbourne, if Mal had anything to say about it. And since he was the Captain that meant they'd be on and off that planet within the space of a day. Mal got the feeling that Hill was trustworthy. Hell, he'd known the man long before he'd known (or shot) his nephew Tracey. But he didn't care much for casually dropping information like where he'd be in two weeks time. The Alliance had a way of taking trustworthy people and getting whatever they wanted from them.
"We have an inn in town." Hill told them, scratching his beard. "It's mostly used by those prospectors comin' to visit from the fringe claims. You can set up there. Price is fair."
Harmon grunted in the driver's seat. It sounded odd coming from him; kid couldn't be a day over sixteen. His voice should still be cracking.
"We can loan you a skiff as well, long as you can pay for fuel." He continued. "Doc and Kaylee can ply their trades, and we might have some work for the two of you as well." He said to Mal and Zoe, then turned to Book. "And there's always folks need prayin' for, too."
"You don't do that?" Book asked. Father Joseph shook his head.
"I'm not a man of the cloth anymore." He answered. "But I was a chaplain in the war. When it ended I took up mining but the title stayed."
Book nodded. They were coming in to Portage now. Huge mounds of snow lined the streets where the ploughs had gone through, trying to make enough of a level surface for people to walk on. Book was willing to bet that keeping the town livable was an uphill battle every day, since the snow in this area never really ended. It just moved around a bit.
Book grabbed the bag containing his few possessions (a Bible, a deck of cards and a box of cigars) as they pulled up to a stop. Before they left the skiff, Hill turned to Mal again.
"I have a couple things I need to cover with you before you settle in. Mind meeting me in my office before you hit your bunk?" he asked.
Mal nodded. "You got a place a fella like me can grab a drink and some food first?"
"Sure." Hill said. "Taggart's is about a block south of here. Man's as liable to burn your food as he is to serve it to you raw, but it should leave you full enough." Book was about to offer to go with but Zoe stopped him with a look.
"Zoe," Mal asked. "Can I trust you to cover everything here while I'm handling things?" Book nearly missed the subtle emphasis on the word cover.
"Yessir," Zoe answered, and shouldered her bag as she walked into the inn, following after Simon and Kaylee. Book followed, deciding that maybe a cigar and a few passages from the gospel were in order.
_oo00oo_
"Dreamer, this is Ghost. Do you copy?" Harry said. The receiver in his collar picked up his voice and transmitted it to… well, Harry couldn't be sure at this point. All he knew is that Nemo was somewhere above him. Damn man was tough to predict. After a moment without a response he tried again. "Dreamer, do you copy?"
"Copy, Ghost." The voice came back. Harry smiled and looked back to the panel of the communications relay in front of him. He pulled out a laser pen and started cutting away at the panel which would give him access to the panel's interface.
Seriously, a real honest-to-god laser pen. One with a laser that burned things instead of just shining on them. He doubted that he'd ever get tired of the things he'd seen on this side of the veil. It was almost like magic.
In another world he would have cast an alohomora to open a panel like this. Never mind that the surge of quantum energy would fry the circuitry and render his entire mission moot. But he'd lost his wand somewhere in between worlds and was now forced to do things the normal way. He didn't mind at all; his magic had gone dormant shortly after his arrival in the verse and, while he missed the things he could do with it, he wasn't particularly torn up about it. Too many reminders of the world he'd come from and the things he'd left behind, and he didn't need that now. After a moment of cutting away at the panel he pulled back and rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth. St. Alban's was cold to a degree that he'd previously thought impossible, and even though he was dressed for warmth there was only so much padding he could put on his hands before he lost his ability to use them for the task at hand. He turned back to it and pulled out the mini-laser again, burning through the last of the locking mechanism and exposing the panel interface.
"I'm in the process of making the drop." Harry said as he pulled out his data-pad and linked it to the interface. "Have the charges been deployed?"
"They have. Everything's waiting on you, Ghost." He and Nemo were speaking on a secure channel, but then again, they were trying to hack into the information system of a very secure, very secret Alliance base. No way of knowing exactly what the Alliance was monitoring, so they went with code names. That way if the Alliance was alerted they would at least be able to keep some degree of anonymity. And, as Harry had quickly discovered, Nemo was all about anonymity. He wasn't even sure if that was the man's real name.
Harry was thankful that these communications interfaces were standard issue. If they'd been customized for the base then it was very possible that the simple act of breaking the lock on one of them would have triggered an alert that would have brought an entire Alliance troop down on his head. But evidently the Alliance was depending on secrecy to be their primary defense.
"Copy that, Dreamer. I've almost finished here." Harry said. His data-pad had linked up with the communications relay and immediately sent a flood of programs into it that locked it down and prevented the relay from notifying the base that it had been accessed.
"I've linked the detonation key to your data-pad, Ghost. You get to carry out the final phase of the upload since you've got visual on the relay." Nemo said.
"So I get to push the red button, then?" Harry asked.
"…" There was silence on the other end. Harry could almost picture Nemo's look of exasperation.
"You copy, Dreamer?"
"Yes, Ghost. You get to push the red button." Nemo responded.
Their plan was simple enough, at least to somebody who had the tech knowhow to infiltrate an Alliance base with S9 level clearance. The communications relay was only the first step. Harry and Nemo had a very simple, very secure package of data that they needed to upload to the base's mainframe. The communications relays were the ticket, but any anomalous uploads were easily tracked and would cause the entire base to go on lockdown.
St. Albans, though, was known for its rugged and mountainous terrain, and not every communications relay could be placed on the top of a mountain (too visible from the ground) or in a secluded valley (too visible from the air). Some of them had to be placed on a mountainside, and those were vulnerable to avalanches. The relays had been designed such that in the event that they detected an avalanche through their seismic sensors they would upload all of their data to the mainframe in one burst, to preserve any communications updates. It was a failsafe to keep the base operating even in the event that one or more of their relays went down. The updated information could be routed to surviving relays and they could cover for the function of the destroyed towers.
"Wicked. Data's been uploaded into the comm relay tower, along with the delayed masking protocol." Harry informed Nemo. "ET to detonation is five minutes, right after I get free of the critical zone."
Hitch-hiking a data package on one of the emergency uploads was, in theory, simple. Except that he had to cause an avalanche in order to do so. Harry was fond of chaos and had no problem bringing down the Wrath of God on a poor, unsuspecting relay, but he wasn't fond of being near one when it happened.
He left the panel open and returned to his skiff. No reason to cover his tracks; the avalanche would do that for him, and by the time the Alliance excavated it from under the snow and figured out that it had been hacked the data package would be gone. His hover-skiff was large enough for one man and was currently braced against a snowdrift. It didn't have an interior compartment, so Harry was completely exposed to the elements except for a thick plastic shield which kept the wind from hitting his face and hands. Getting out here had, for the most part, been miserable.
He fired up the skiff and rode gravity down the side of the mountain, tilting towards the mountain on his left side every so often to keep from gaining too much speed. When he was about two hundred feet from the valley below he changed tactics, turning so he was facing straight down the mountain and gunning the skiff engines, picking up as much acceleration as he could as he rocketed towards the valley. He must have shot into it at a speed in excess of 200 kilos per hour, and he let out a whoop as he barreled across the empty, snowy plain. Nemo had once commented that he'd never seen someone with such a natural talent for operating vehicles. Unfortunately it only extended to the small ones; anything larger than a two-seater and he was no more skilled than the next guy, though he suspected he could learn fast enough to put most to shame.
His momentum carried him across the valley and up the mountain on the other side. He'd scouted a likely path and determined where he wanted his vantage point to be when he detonated the charges. It took him a while longer to climb up the mountainside, but eventually he reached it. He left his skiff running and stayed mounted on it, pulling out his data-pad and opening up the interface.
He was greeted by the sight of a red button. He laughed. "You know me too well, Dreamer." He said. "Here goes!"
Harry pushed the red button. There was a spray of powder from the adjacent mountaintop and then a slow, low rumbling sound as snow started sliding. It roared down the mountainside, slowly at first, but picking up speed and size as it carried more snow with it until it had transformed into an unholy tidal wave of powder and ice, ripping down the mountain towards the comm relay below.
Now came the tricky part. The masking mechanism they had uploaded with the data was designed to keep it from being recognized by the comm relay, but it also prevented the relay from sending it on in the event of a data upload. If he sent the signal to remove it too soon the relay would treat it as foreign data and purge it. Too late, though, and they would have accomplished nothing. Harry needed to wait for the sensors to pick up the seismic waves of the avalanche; at that point the security protocol would be overridden as the upload started. That didn't happen until right before the avalanche hit, though.
He'd picked his vantage point so that he could get the best possible view of the communications tower. He watched intently through a set of high powered binoculars he'd brought along for the mission and his focus changed, shifted until it was almost as focused as the laser he'd used to cut open the relay in the first place.
Wait for it…
Everything else in the world stopped existing except for the tower and the thundering snow.
Wait for it….
Everything else stopped existing except for the one moment. The right moment.
Wait for it…
There it was! He pressed the button that released the masking program just as the avalanche overtook the tower. The signal tore across the valley at the speed of light and dropped the mask just as the security protocol lifted. He laughed and the world came back to him quickly, including the voice of Nemo, coming through the transmitter in his ear.
"..st! Get out of there!"
Huh? Another sound came to him. A heavy rumbling, much closer than that coming from across the valley.
Harry turned around and looked up the mountain he was on, only to see another avalanche, which had been started by the sheer volume of sound made by the first, barreling down towards him.
"Bloody hell!" he cursed and took off on his skiff. He didn't bother with taking it slow this time, angling his skiff so it pointed straight towards the valley and launching off at full speed, kicking up powder in his wake. The sound of the snow behind him spurred him on and he hit the valley below, acutely aware of the fact that he now had two mountains of snow bearing down on him from either side and very little chance of making the valley's end before they crushed him between them.
He tried anyway, gunning the engines of the skiff to provide as much extra velocity as they would allow him, he banked to the left and started shooting straight through the snow perpendicular to the oncoming avalanches, trying to escape their rage. His heart was pounding in his chest and the focus slowly came back to him. It was a small enough valley, about a kilometer across, but he had well over a thousand meters to go still and wasn't sure he'd make it. His world narrowed again until there was only the skiff and the edge of the valley in front of him.
Nine hundred meters. He pulled closer to the mountain at his left, the one he'd just been on. The oncoming snow wasn't quite as far down and it would buy him a precious few extra seconds.
Seven hundred meters. He throttled the engines, pouring as much speed as he could into them. Completely unknown to him, his magic reached out around the skiff, not damaging it, but rolling like a wheel to either side, adding velocity. Anyone watching him would have seen an extra two tracks along the snow, four feet to either side of the skiff, made by pure willpower as Harry tried to force his way to the edge of the valley.
Four hundred met… "Oh, shit!" Harry exclaimed. The pure white of the valley had completely obscured the rapid drop in the snowbank ahead of him. He shot off of it and lost control of the skiff, plummeting to the ground below, the twin avalanches roaring in his ears. The last thing he saw was white.
_oo00oo_
Mal reclined in Father Joseph's office. It was surprisingly cozy for a prospector, though Mal imagined that by this point Father Joseph was doing less prospecting and had shifted his focus to managing Portage. He looked to be better off for it, if the plush chair Mal was sitting in was any indication. Hill regarded him from behind his desk.
"I'm glad you're not avoiding this, Mal." Hill said.
"I 'spect this is a conversation needs to be had." Mal told him honestly. And it did. They were imposing enough and Hill deserved some answers to his questions. Not that Mal intended to provide honest answers; those could get him and his crew shot.
"Drink?" Hill asked. He'd taken an old bottle of scotch out from under his desk and was in the process of pouring himself a glass. Mal was happy to take him up on his offer, especially since Hill poured both from the same bottle. Of course, that didn't necessarily rule out poison on the rim of the tumbler full of scotch Mal was now holding, but poison didn't seem much like Father Joseph's style and as long as he wasn't sending up any major red flags with his actions Mal felt he was safe.
"'Bout two years ago you an' your crew deliver my nephew's body to me/" Hill said, taking a sip of his scotch. He leaned back in his seat, looking out the window to his left. "At the time we didn't ask too many questions. The pain was too fresh, right? So I was inclined to take the story you gave us and just bury my nephew and grieve like a good uncle should. Organ smuggling, pissed off the wrong people. Sound right so far?" he asked.
"'Bout so." Mal answered honestly.
"So, Alliance boards your ship, things go south. Some words are exchanged, maybe some bullets, too? You were a bit spare on the details." Hill took another drink of his scotch. Mal followed suit.
"Here's the thing, Mal." Hill said. "Before I was out here I was a soldier. I know the Alliance. I know their guns. High velocity, right? Them bullets can punch clean through a man. Small hole in front, nasty exit wound. You must have seen enough of that in the war yourself, right?"
Mal nodded and drank more of his scotch. He didn't like where this was going and planned to be liquored up properly for when the shit hit the fan.
"I've been shot a couple times myself. Medics told me it was the grace of God that it was an Alliance rifle did the damage. If the velocity had been lower, if the bullet had stuck in me, well, I wouldn't be prospectin' right now."
"Don't sell yourself short." Mal quipped. "You're a pretty hardy fellow."
"Tracey didn't have an exit wound, Mal." Hill said. His face had long since gone back to being grim. Mal's drink shifted almost unnoticeably to his left hand while his right moved slowly down to the holster at his side. "Tells me it wasn't Alliance. Bullet wound in his back doesn't speak good things, either, Mal."
A soft and unmistakable click came from under Father Joseph's desk and Mal's hand froze at his side.
"I think it was your guns that did him in, Mal. Maybe the one you're reachin' for right now. Might want to move your hand away from that, though."
Mal set his jaw and finished off his scotch. Father Joseph did the same. At least Mal had him pegged properly; Hill wasn't a poisonin' type of guy. He was a shotgun type of guy.
"Y'know, Mal, at this range, this level, I expect ol' Bessie here would tear your gut wide open. You'd bleed out quick, but it'd be a mite painful, don't you think?" Hill asked, setting his glass down on the table.
"So why ain't I lyin' in a puddle of my own innards right now?" Mal said. All the friendly airs had been dropped at this point, and Mal looked about ready to draw on Hill and try his luck.
"You're a good man, Mal." Hill said. That caught Mal off guard. Normally people didn't point shotguns at the folk they liked.
"See, I know you, Mal. And I know what kind of man Tracey was. You care for your crew, and Tracey, well, he was a lot of things, but I'd never have accused him of bein' bright." Hill smiled. A bit forced, but it got his point across. He reached for the bottle of scotch and poured another two glasses, sliding the second towards Mal. "I want to know what happened, Mal. And I want you to be honest with me. Turns out you murdered him, the way I fear, then we'll let the law handle it properly, follow?"
Mal nodded and grabbed the drink. His original plan of lying had suddenly become much more dangerous. And he was fairly sure that when Hill talked about the law, he was really referring to Ol' Bessie under the desk in front of him. "Sounds fair to me." Mal said.
"You lie to me, though," Hill said, "especially now, when you got good reason not to, then I'm gonna have to assume you're a threat to me an' mine, and none of you will leave this rock. Understand?"
Mal nodded. His jaw was still working furiously; he hated being cornered, especially by folk he trusted. But he knew where Joseph was coming from; he'd have done the same thing had the spots been reversed. Well, maybe not the same thing; there'd have been less listening and more bullets. So he figured it was distinctly possible that Joseph was a better man than him. He leaned back in his chair and downed the rest of his scotch, then placed the glass on the desk in front of him.
"More?" Mal asked. He'd need as much courage as he could get for this. He was going to be honest with the man in front of him, and there was a good chance it could cost him his life. Hill nodded and poured the two of them one more round.
"Me an' Zoe agreed to take him on, see what we could do to bail him out of his trouble, then see him on his way," Mal said, grabbing the glass. "On account of Du-Khang, follow?"
Hill nodded. "Go on," he said.
"Alliance stopped our ship. Demanded to board or they'd shoot us out of the sky. Tracey wasn't havin' none of it. Told us to hide him, to keep the Alliance from boarding. To do anything, really, 'cept by then he wasn't thinkin' too clear." Mal looked down at his glass. "One of our crew, the Shepherd, found somethin' to suggest that the Alliance officer in charge might not be so clean. Might not have stumbled across us by accident, dong ma?"
Joseph nodded again. The two of them had locked gazes and neither of them were willing to look away.
"So we decide to take a gambit." Mal continued. "Let the Alliance board, use the information as leverage. Convince the officer it might be in his best interest to let us go our own way. But Tracey overhears, thinks we're turnin' on him. Things come to a head in the cargo bay. Tracey has more'n a few unkind words for us, 'bout how easy we were to take advantage of. He shoots my pilot, Zoe's husband, and she shoots him back. Gets him in the chest. Then he grabs Kaylee and takes her hostage." There; a small flicker in Joseph's gaze. Mal knew the man was about as fond of Kaylee as he was. She had that effect on people. This might not turn out as bad as he thought. "Another of our crew tries to sneak up behind him. When he turns, Kaylee breaks away and I put a second round in him."
There was a moment of tense silence between the two of them as Joseph considered what to do with that information. Finally, Mal heard the click of the shotgun again as Joseph disengaged it. He breathed a sigh of relief and took another drink. Damn, but it burned on the way down. How had he not noticed that earlier?
"One more question, Mal." Joseph said. He sounded… tired. Old. Disappointed. "Plenty of room in space to hide a body. Especially when you knew it might stir up trouble here. Why'd you send it back, Mal?" he asked.
"It was what he asked us to do." Mal said. He was exhausted, too. "He was still with us at Du Khang."
And in the end, that's all that really mattered. Both Joseph and Mal were soldiers. Maybe it wasn't enough of an explanation for somebody else, but it was all the two of them needed to know. Joseph finished off the last of his drink and stared down at the empty glass.
"His family doesn't know about this, Mal." He said. "Couldn't piece it together, and I wasn't inclined to tell them my suspicions when I didn't have the full story. Keep it that way, right?"
Mal nodded. "What about Harmon?" he asked.
"Harmon's too much like his brother. One of these days it'll be his body comes back to us." Joseph sighed. "He doesn't know, though. All he knows is you were there when his brother died. Blames you for not saving him."
"He's not far off." Mal said.
"No. He's not." Hill agreed. He nodded his head and Mal turned to leave, breathing a sigh of relief.
Mal opened the door and stepped outside into the frigid cold. He looked off to the hillside to the west and there was a small glint of light from the top of it.
"We're clear, Zoe. Thanks for the cover." Mal said. The miniature radio under his collar picked it up. Her message came back through the transmitter bud in his ear.
"That was a bit too close for comfort, Sir." Zoe said. Up on the hilltop she began to disassemble her rifle and pack it back into her bag.
"Can't blame a man for lookin' out for what's his." Mal's voice came back through her own transmitter.
"Yes you can, sir." She stated. "But I understand if you don't want to this time."
"Fair enough." Mal responded. After a moment he added another thought. "Thanks for stoppin' the Shepherd from coming to Taggart's. Not sure how we would've worked around that one."
"Couldn't let 'em think we were usin' him to pass messages, Sir. Wouldn't have ended well for him." She said as she finished packing her bag and started down the hill. "Think he's figured it out by now?"
"I'm sure he has." Mal answered. "What side you think he served on?"
"I'm sure that's none of my business, sir." She replied. "Not sure I'd like the answer, anyway."
_oo00oo_
Back inside the cabin, Father Joseph reached under his desk again and pulled out the radio that had been mounted next to Ol' Bessie. "Isaac, Abe. You copy?"
"Yessir" a voice crackled from the other end.
"Our conversation match what you're getting' from the Shepherd and the Doctor?"
"Yeah, Joseph. Their stories line up."
"Let 'em go, then." Joseph said. "No need to shed blood over this."
_oo00oo_
Translation Notes
Fèi xuè – Waste of blood. Term used primarily in some of the seedier areas of the Kalidasa system. Implies that the blood flowin' through a particular man's veins could be put to better use than sustaining him (like transplants, or decorating walls).
Qù tā mā de zìji – Go f*ck yourself
Àirén – Lover. Can also be used to mean "husband," "wife," or "precious."
Dong ma? – Understand?
_oo00oo_
World Notes
For those of you who've watched the series, and specifically the episode "The Message," the character of Joseph Hill is based off of Joss Whedon's cameo in the episode. Joss' full name is Joseph Hill Whedon. My character is Joseph W. Hill. If you watch the funeral at the end and spot Joss you'll have a good idea of what Hill looks like.
My information regarding planets such as St. Alban's is based on information provided in the Firefly RPG book and internet works such as The Verse in Numbers. Frequently, though, to further flesh out the history of the planets and places I have to add or create details of my own. Hence the continents of New Alaska, Dorado, and the town of Portage are all of my own creation. (Portage is the name of a glacier in Alaska. I used to be a resident so I decided to draw in that small piece of my life and use it to flesh out the story.)
The 'winter madness' Simon refers to is something of a cross between cabin fever and depression with mood-congruent delusions. I thought it up and to my knowledge it doesn't really exist. Cortisol does exist; it's an actual hormone which the body mobilizes to produce the fight/flight response. The theory as far as this story is concerned is that a shot of cortisol will agitate the body enough to provide a very temporary relief for the winter madness, but as I have no medical experience you may not want to take that at face value. Cortisol does, however, suppress the immune system, and is part of the reason why long-term, sustained stress has negative effects of a person's health.
Zhu Que is the name of the Red Sun, situated at the center of (surprise!) the Red Sun system, where St. Alban's is located. For those of you who are interested in learning more about the general layout of the Firefly universe, I recommend doing a Google search for three separate resources; The first is the Serenity RPG core book, the second is a fan document floating around the web called "The Verse in Numbers." The final one is a map of the verse. I was lucky enough to track down an interactive flash version on the web, but have been unable to find it a second time.