Previously, in I Am the Operative:
Several months ago, Lilly Kane, registered Companion and heir to the Kane Software Empire, was found murdered in the backyard of her parents' house in the district of Neptune, Federal District 09, Londinium. General Keith Mars, head of the Londinium Federal Police, was in charge of the investigation. His investigation originally focused on Lilly's father, Jacob "Jake" Kane.
When Jake Kane's name was cleared, General Mars was reassigned to the Outer Rim Worlds in disgrace. The Kane family, wishing to put as much space between themselves and the memory of Lilly as possible, moved to Londinium's neighbor planet of Sihnon. However, the murder of Lilly Kane remained unsolved.
Wishing to bring a close to the case and thereby put the minds of the Companions' Guild at ease, the Alliance assigned one of their top investigators to the case – Parliamentary Operative Veronica Mars, who happened to be General Keith Mars' only child. Her deputies were her long-time friends and assistants, Wallace Fennel and Eli "Weevil" Navarro.
Veronica Mars identified several suspects. Her list included Lilly's brother, Duncan, who suffered from epilepsy. There was also Jake Kane himself – he had never fully approved of his daughter's path in life.
There was also famous wave actor Aaron Echolls. It had long been rumored that he was having a continuing affair with a young and highly talented Companion. Could it have been Lilly? Could Aaron have found himself jealous of her other clients, and chosen the "if I can't have her, then neither can they" course of action?
But the primary suspect was Aaron's son, Logan Echolls. He had been Lilly's boyfriend up until the day she had decided to join the Companions' Guild. He had not reacted to the news very well, and had remained jealous of her until the day she died.
The problem for Veronica there was that she and Logan had been friends for years… and had occasionally found themselves as more than just friends. They had forged a connection, a bond, after Lilly had left to become a Companion, but that connection was shaken to its very core when Lilly died.
The only person who truly knew the truth of the matter was Logan Echolls himself. He knew that his father, Aaron, had killed Lilly. However, instead of turning his father in, Logan had run. Whether he feared his father or simply refused to turn him in, nobody knew.
Veronica searched the known 'Verse for Logan, finally finding him with a crew of miscreants and cast-offs onboard a renegade freighter that had become a truly obnoxious thorn in the Alliance's side – a Firefly-class ship known as Serenity.
Named after the Battle of Serenity Valley, she was crewed by a motley group of Independents and mercenaries. How Logan had fallen in with them, Veronica was not quite sure. However, that motley crew had managed to cause massive damage to the Alliance cruiser she had commandeered, using an atmospheric burn to send it plummeting into the Nordic Ocean on Paquin.
Despite the crash of the MKV Cristóbal Colón, Veronica was still alive and well. She, along with Wallace and Weevil, had taken a Saturn-class attack shuttle and left to hunt down Serenity.
When Veronica located Serenity, she swooped quickly down on the unarmed little Firefly. It was about to lift off, but Veronica had other ideas.
"I don't think so," she muttered grimly, firing a laser volley across the nose of the freighter.
Serenity jerked to a stop, hovering in mid-air. "Yo, V, cool it with the guns," Weevil said nervously.
Veronica ignored Weevil and the irony of his request. She maneuvered the Saturn around in front of the Firefly, aiming the laser cannon at the cockpit. "Serenity, this is attack shuttle Neptune-Two," she said over the GUARD radio channel. "You will land immediately and shut down, or I will blow your asses out of the sky."
The radio was quiet for a moment. Veronica tightened her finger around the trigger, ready to give the pilot of Serenity another warning shot – when a voice came over the radio that made her heart stand still.
"Stand down, Bobcat! We've got no desire to get dead."
Veronica felt like her heart was suddenly pounding in her head. That was the unmistakable voice of Logan Echolls. A voice she knew so well. A voice which had whispered the sweetest things in her ear, and yet yelled the vilest things at her face.
She began to feel light-headed, and was about to reply when Logan spoke again. "Besides, I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that you're alive."
Veronica took a deep breath, and keyed the microphone. "Uh, copy that, Serenity. Please land… we'll talk about this more in a minute."
She released the button. "I take it we found Logan?" Wallace asked, a note of amusement in his voice.
"We did indeed," Veronica breathed, adjusting the Saturn's controls to allow it to begin lowering to the ground. A moment later, it gently thumped against the ground.
"Uh, Wallace, do me a favor and shut it down," Veronica asked her friend, and was out of the shuttle before he could even react.
She covered the distance between the two spacecraft just in time for Serenity's loading ramp to open. Not heeding her own safety, not thinking about Alliance regulations, Veronica charged into the Firefly. Ordinarily, she'd have her badge and gun out, but not now.
Right now, she was focused on one thing, and one thing only – the tall, blonde young man standing on the other side of the cargo bay from her. Veronica briskly crossed the cargo bay to him, ignoring the seven other crew of the Firefly.
She stopped right in front of Logan. He smiled down at her, but she did not return the smile. "Hi, Bobcat," he said softly.
"You JACKASS!" she spat back at him, and then slapped him across the face as hard as she could.
Logan's head jerked back, and a look of surprise appeared on his face. Then he was in for surprise number two, as Veronica wrapped her arms around him and hugged him so tightly he thought she was going to break ribs.
Logan smiled again, letting his arms embrace Veronica. He looked at the other crew – most of them appeared amused, but Kaylee just appeared mad. Mad as hell, in fact.
She shot Logan a glance of pure hatred, and then stalked off toward the engine room. "Oh, Christ," Mal groaned, following Kaylee toward the engine room.
Logan held Veronica for another minute, before she finally pulled away. "We need to talk," she said softly, looking up at him.
"Yeah," he replied, nodding solemnly. "I'd say that we do."
I knew Lilly wanted to go places. I just never knew what sort of ambitions she had.
It seems that she had caught Jake with a Companion. He was scared shitless, afraid that she would tell Celeste. That would be the end of Jake – he had signed a fairly weighty pre-nuptial agreement with Celeste.
However, far from threatening to tell Celeste about Jake's infidelity, Lilly had instead been intrigued by the life of a Companion. She had contacted the Companion's Guild. After being told that apprentices were usually brought into the Guild at 14, Lilly had reacted strongly. She set out to prove herself to the Guild.
Again, she never told me about any of this. As a matter of fact, she didn't tell me anything until the day she left for Sihnon.
I couldn't believe it. She had been my girlfriend for nearly two years, and now she was running off to go be… go be a WHORE. It nearly made me sick to my stomach.
It was after she left that I turned to you. After experiencing what felt like such betrayal from Lilly, I wanted her polar opposite. I found that in you – somebody who was calm, collected – still innocent. You were so easy to fall in love with so quickly.
But that got taken away from me, too – after Lilly died, and your dad started investigating Jake Kane. It made me physically ill to even think of the name "Mars". But the worst was yet to come.
You see, about a month after Lilly's murder, I was in the pool house at my father's estate. I stumbled across what looked like some sort of video recording system. I followed it to its source, where I found hundreds of videos of my father having sex with women – including, to my horror, at least a dozen of him with Lilly.
Most of them were dated after she had become a Companion, but two were dated from before she became a Companion – when she was still dating me. There was one, though – one where she found the camera. She ran.
I was enraged. I confronted my father. I tore him a new one. For the first time in my life, I saw fear on the face of Aaron Echolls. So intense was the confrontation that he ended up blurting out that he had "killed the little skank."
I couldn't be there any longer. I couldn't be around the place where Lilly had died. I couldn't be around my father, but I was damned if I was going to turn him over to Colonel Don Lamb and his incompetent cadre of Federal Police. There was no way they'd ever get a conviction.
And that's why I ran. I thought that if I ran to the Outer Rim, I could put that all behind me and start over. I heard about the Miranda broadwave, and then I heard that Serenity's pilot had been killed. I decided this was the best opportunity for me to have a fresh start.
For the last two months, I've been Serenity's pilot. During that time, I sort of struck up a relationship with Serenity's engineer – Kaywinnit Lee Frye. However, earlier today, after your cruiser crashed, we had something of a falling out – I thought you had been killed, and I accused her of being complicit. She, on the other hand, accused me of still being in love with you and not giving a rat's ass about her.
Her accusation wasn't entirely true. I do give a rat's ass about her. The problem is… she was right about the way I feel about you.
Veronica sighed. "Logan, I can't deal with this right now," she said quietly.
"I know," Logan replied. "But I needed you to know."
Veronica nodded wordlessly. "Alright. But we've got much bigger things to deal with. We need to get you to Londinium –"
"No."
Veronica took a deep breath. "Logan. You HAVE to go back. You HAVE to tell the Federal Police. It doesn't have to be Colonel Lamb. You can talk to my dad. You can talk to Major Sacks or Captain D'Amato, for all I care. The thing is, you HAVE to tell somebody in the Federal Police."
Logan shook his head. "I can't do that, Veronica. I told you that."
Veronica began to seethe with anger. Unfortunately, she also started to tear up in frustration. "Goddammit, Logan! Can't you stop being a total hùndàn for three seconds and just do this for me?" She stomped a foot against the floor. "If you don't, I'm going to have to arrest you! Do you want me to do that, 'cause I sure as hell don't WANT to do it!"
Logan was at a loss for words. "I – I'm sorry… Veronica, I'm sorry, I don't want to hurt you – it's just, he's my father –"
"And he killed Lilly!" Veronica shouted. "HE KILLED LILLY! Don't you want to see justice done for her?"
"Of course I do!" Logan yelled back. "But I'd also appreciate it if you'd just guǎn nǐ zìjǐ de shì for ONCE in your goddamn life!"
"I CAN'T MIND MY OWN BUSINESS, LOGAN! I'M A PARLIAMENTARY OPERATIVE!"
I seriously cannot deal with Logan Echolls sometimes. He's a psychotic, pig-headed jackass from hell. I understand – Aaron's his father. But he KILLED Lilly! He has to turn him in!
Well, no, actually, he doesn't. What he told me is more than enough for a judge to issue a warrant for Aaron Echolls' arrest. But I don't want to do that to Logan. I don't want him to hate me any more than he already does.
I don't think I could take it if he did. The fact that I already have tears running down my face, the fact that I'm screaming at him – it's all because of the way he's looking at me right now.
He's breaking my heart.
Logan instantly regretted telling Veronica to mind her own business. The way her face crumpled, the look she gave him – it was enough to pierce his soul.
"Aw, dammit," he muttered, standing and crossing the room to her. "Veronica – listen, I didn't –"
"Fuck off!" she growled, pushing him away as he tried to hug her.
"I will NOT," he replied, pulling her to him again. She didn't resist this time. "I spent the last two months running away from you. I can't do that anymore."
Logan felt Veronica sob against his chest. "Dammit, Logan," she whispered. "I can't do this. I can't take the way you play with my emotions."
Logan closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. She couldn't do this? HE couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't keep messing with her heart.
That's when Logan realized just how much he was still in love with Veronica Mars. "Okay," he whispered, without even realizing what he was saying.
She looked up at him. "Okay?"
He nodded. "I'll go."
Veronica's eyes widened, and she sighed. "Thank you, Logan," she said softly, hugging him tightly.
He smiled slightly. "But there's something I have to take care of first."
hùndàn - jackass
guǎn nǐ zìjǐ de shì - mind your own damn business