Session Twenty Six: Action This Day
"Wash and Faye have got'em locked up," Jet grunted, studying the sensors feeding them information from the battle ahead and the computer feeding him information from Ed's bugs inside the Alliance system.
"She maskin' us?" Mal demanded, hands firmly on the shuttle controls.
"Best as she can," Jet said. "But we're the expendable ones here. If we don't get Inara's shuttle in there..."
"That's the way it should be," Mal said. "She...they need to stay safe."
"Ain't no ruttin' way to be makin' a plan," Jayne muttered. "I don't wanna be expendable."
"This was your idea, Jayne!" Zoe said.
"I wanted to do somethin'," Jayne grunted. "Didn't say I wanted to get killed for it." He jerked his head towards Book. "Ain't helpin' that we got a Shepherd with us. What are you here for, anyways?" Give us the rites?"
Book's lips quirked, though he couldn't quite smile with the knot of doubt and guilt gnawing at his stomach. "Man like you might need to confess if you're gonna have any chance of avoding Hell, Mr. Cobb."
"Gave up on that a long time ago, Shepherd," Jayne said.
Ha, well. So had Book, long before he ever wore a Shepherd's robes. All the good he might do didn't erase the bad. You couldn't erase the bad; those sins were set in the past, far firmer than stone. All you did was help to make this 'verse a slightly better place to live, so that in the end you hopefully did enough that your worst needs didn't leave the world a worse place than when you entered it.
And Book had sins aplenty to make up for.
"We go in first," Mal said. "Make sure they're as confused inside as they are outside. Only way we get through this."
"If we get through this," Jayne muttered.
"Odds are against us, sir," Zoe said.
"Well when the hell ain't they?" Mal demanded.
"Perhaps there is something we can do about that," Book said.
The others in the shuttle all turned to stare at him. Book's eyes were fixed on the swelling, spinning wheel of the Clairvoyance.
"Mr. Black," he said. "I believe it's time I do what I have to do."
"I know," Jet said. "Already had Ed set up the connection."
"What connection?" Mal asked. "Just what the hell's going on, Shepherd?"
"Captain," Book said. "You'd be doing me a great personal favor if you let Mr. Black fly the shuttle for a moment while the rest of you left me on my own."
"The hell?" Mal demanded. "This ain't really a time to be switchin' off, Shepherd."
"Force of habit, Captain," Book said. "Always have to compromise myself a little."
A moment of selfishness even in his attempt to atone. But Book was only human. Just like the men and women arrayed against them.
Mal studied Book for a long time. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Trust him," Jet said.
Mal glanced at Jet, then back at Book. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay." He stood up, and Jet took his seat.
"Hang on a gorram minute-" Jayne started, but Mal grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the back of the shuttle. Zoe stopped long enough to give Book a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, then followed her captain.
Of course Zoe sympathized. She was so gifted at violence because she fully understood the consequences of her actions. She chose the path of war, but she chose it with a terrible empathy. He'd always thought she would have made a fine Operative.
Fact was, an Operative was so dangerous because they fully understood the realities of the Alliance, and acted in support of it nonetheless. An Operative was not a Believer: an Operative was a fanatic, fully aware of the flaws and foibles of the beautiful thing they'd devoted their life to serving, sacrificing so much not in spite of those flaws but because of them.
And that was why Book nursed this wild hope. Because while many of the soldiers ahead of them might believe in the Alliance cause, they certainly weren't Operatives. Just men like Book had once been, looking for their purpose.
Book took up the mic.
"This is Commander Derrial Book," he said, and knew his voice was being transmitted through the corridors of Clairvoyance and to every Alliance ship nearby. "I'll assume you know that name. I'll assume you've heard of the Cortez Disaster. Of the destruction of the Alexander."
Of course they did. One of the greatest Alliance disasters in history, in terms of life and materiel lost.
"What you may not know is that the Cortez Disaster was not an unfortunate accident," Book said. "It was not an act of ignorance but one of sabotage and malice. Those men died because of me. Their blood is on my hands. I did it for a cause I believed it, but that does not absolve me."
He paused to let his words hang in the air, and also because it hurt to say these things, to give voice to the gnawing sins that he had so long kept hidden from others. Jet's eyes remained mercifully fixed forward.
"Just like it does not absolve you," he said.
"I know you," he continued. "I served with men just like you, men still in the service today, defending a cause they believed in. I know how difficult it is to see your ideals make contact with the necessities of reality. I know the sacrifices and compromises you have had to make, the justifications and deep questions you've wrestled with long after the lights are off and you should be asleep. I know that you are not empty followers obeying your commanders because you lack the will to think for yourselves but men of conscience and conviction. You follow orders because you know what happens when you don't. You know the lives of your comrades rest on your discipline."
"But you also know you're lying to yourself."
God, how many years had Book spent lying to himself? Pretending that he had survived by some inner virtue, some strength that others lacked? Pretending that the things he did to Independents just like him had been justified by the damage he would one day inflict on the Alliance they all hated? Pretending that the deaths of all those men aboard the Alexander had been permissible in the name of liberty? Pretending that killing the man who had been Derrial Book before Book had stolen that name was justified in the name of a righteous cause?
All sins, every one. Credit where credit was due to the Captain; he might sin, but he always knew it and he always shouldered that burden. Book suspected that was why Zoe followed him so faithfully.
"You didn't ask for this duty," he said. "You wanted to be out there, protecting the people, or having adventures in the Rim as part of something bigger than yourself. You didn't want to be standing guard in this secret place. Hearing what they do to these stolen children. Seeing it first-hand."
He'd heard enough from River to know that fact for sure. No one with any shred of a conscience could believe that the torment inflicted on these children was worth what it might one day buy. Just another illusion, sold by the Alliance.
"You tell yourself that their sacrifice is building a better world," Book continued. "You tell yourself that there's nothing ever achieved without cost. You tell yourself that if you refused to do your duty, someone else would simply take your place, and all you would have achieved was adding your pain to theirs."
"But these are justifications. You know this is wrong. And every moment you stand idle, you become more and more complicit in their torment."
He closed his eyes. All the faces of the people he'd hurt and killed cascaded through the darkness behind his eyelids.
"We often know when something is wrong," Book said. "Though we deny it and justify it to ourselves, we can sense the wrongness. That is why we reach so desperately for rationalizations. But the right thing can be much harder to do. That is why I'm giving you this chance."
He leaned forwards. "We are going to save these children," he said. "We are going to stop what has been done here. We are going to do all this, whatever the cost, because by such actions we will make this world a better place."
His voiced softened. "You don't have to join us," he said. "You don't have to turn your weapons against the people you trust and care about. But if you harbor doubts—if you ever, even for a moment, questioned what was being done—you will never see a better chance than this. Stand aside. For once, let your inaction serve a noble cause. For once, stay your hand, and let evil reap what it has sown."
He paused for a moment, weighed other words, other sermons he might give. But he had said his piece. Now the only thing left to do was wait.
He lowered the mic and stepped back from the console. Jet said nothing. He didn't need to. They both knew exactly why it had to be done. If their roles had been reversed...
What a laughable thought. Say what you would about Mr. Black, but he had no such sins to his name. He would rather lose his arm than betray his principles.
"Can we come in now?" Jayne demanded.
"Not yet!" Jet shouted back.
Book gave him a quizzical look. "Not yet?" he repeated under his breath.
Jet gave him a broad grin. "Never hurts to keep a guy like that waiting."
The corners of Book's lips quirked. They waited together for several seconds. Book found he wasn't thinking of all his sins anymore. He was just enjoying this moment of quiet.
"You can come back now," Book said. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne walked back into the cockpit.
"What was that about, Shepherd?" Mal asked.
"Oh, you know we preachers," Book said. "Just have to say our piece, even when no one wants to listen."
"Well," Mal said. "Thanks for talkin' their ears off instead of ours."
"Ready to dock," Jet announced. "It's not gonna be easy."
"Ed can't just hack us through?" Mal asked.
"Hard enough to keep us off their sensors," Jet said. "If we were docking automatically..."
"They'd be able to see us," Mal sighed. "Yeah, I got it."
"Okay," Jet said. "So what's the best..." He trailed off and tapped his ear. "Come again, Ed?"
"What's she sayin'?" Jayne asked.
Jet frowned. "Says docking authority sent us a request. Wants permission to get our trajectory and prepare docking procedures."
"Yeah..." Mal grunted. "I'm thinkin' no."
But Book's mind was on the words he'd spoken, on the plea he'd made. "Hold on," Book said.
"You think it's worth the risk?" Jet asked.
Book hesitated for a moment, his eyes flashing to the prosthetic Jet had earned for the sin of trusting his partner. If there was any man who had reason to fear betrayal, it was Jet Black.
And Book could see the doubt in his eyes, the quick reflexive twitch of his organic arm to his prosthetic which he hastily passed off as a scratch behind the ear. Well, Book wouldn't begrudge him that. Not after he'd had the people he cared for most in the Verse leave the room so he wouldn't have to air his shame in front of them. If Jet didn't want to show his doubts, Book would pretend he hadn't noticed.
"What the hell," Jet breathed. "Gotta have faith in people some time. Ed, make sure you're ready if they try anything funny."
"You serious right now?" Jayne growled.
"Well, Mr. Cobb," Book said, smiling a little. "If a man like you can join a crusade, why can't they?"
Jayne grumbled, but seemed unable to come up with anything to say. Mal, however, gave Book a peculiar look that somehow made Book feel exposed and vulnerable in a way he'd long denied himself. In a way he'd long feared being, even when he was alone.
"What the hell did you say, preacher?" he asked.
"Something worth hearing," Zoe said, before Book could think of an answer.
Mal cocked his head. "You were listenin'?"
"Didn't need to listen," Zoe said. "I know the man."
Book felt something warm unfolding in his chest, filling his throat and chest and making his fingers and toes tingle. God, he was not alone. For the first time in his life, he was truly not alone among these people.
The shuttle rattled. Book tensed. Everyone else in the shuttle did the same, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop. For their brief defiance to come to an end in an explosion, a miniature Alexander to make them all suffer for Book's sins.
No explosion followed. A moment later, Jet nodded. "We're docked and locked," he said. "We can...we can go in whenever."
"Have to admit," Mal said. "Didn't think it would be this easy." He stepped to the airlock and started to open it. A moment later, a bullet whined its way towards them and bounced off the hull with an audible clunk. Mal yelped and ducked for cover. The other people in the shuttle followed suit, Book's old instincts taking over before he quite knew what he was doing, his heart racing and a flat taste of adrenaline in his mouth.
"It's a trap!" Jayne shouted.
"If it was a trap, they'd have just blown us up," Mal scowled. "Why're they wasting time with guns?"
Because there are men who believe in what the Alliance is doing, and will pay any cost to see it achieve the greatness they believe in. Because there are other men who have harbored their quiet doubts, and wanted to see those doubts laid to rest. Because there are men out there standing for what they believe in, letting their avowed enemies in to put an end to evil and still others defending that evil in the name of righteousness. And who was to say the end wouldn't justify the means? Who was to say there wasn't paradise waiting for them?
But paradise or no, Book wouldn't let them keep hurting these children. He wouldn't let them commit sins on this scale.
"There won't be too many of them," Book said, grabbing a rifle. "Let's go."
"How the hell do you know that, preacher?" Mal asked.
"Because he made an effective case," Jet said.
"About what?" Mal asked.
"About fighting for what you believe in," Book said, staring into Mal's eyes.
Mal's mouth twisted sharply to one side, and something—Anger? Regret? Relief?—flared in his eyes. He nodded slowly, and drew his pistol from his side.
"You sure you're up for this, Shepherd?" Zoe asked him.
Book smiled sadly. "I have to practice what I preach."
All men believe in something. One way or another, the men of Clairvoyance were standing for their beliefs. Book would never be able to live with himself if he didn't do the same. And if that meant bloodying hands, well, it would a drop in the ocean compared to all the men and women who'd died because of him.
Besides, if there were any cause worth killing for, it was in the defense of children. Maybe it was just another empty justification, but if it was, it was the best he'd ever had.
"Let's go," Mal said, and together they burst forwards, opening fire. Jet, Jayne, and Zoe were only a step behind him. Book took just a moment alone to himself.
God. Please help me to do the right thing.
Then he followed after.
Amen.