Chapter 5

Jayne stood beside Mal in the cockpit. His gaze moved constantly as he tried to follow the action above them. As the action was hundreds of kilometers away and defined entirely by explosions, it was a difficult pursuit.

"Wow. Them Alliance guys got some mighty impressive guns."

Mal had tried as best he could to keep watch on the place he thought the town was. Something had entered atmo a bit earlier, but it seemed too bright to have been a ship. A working ship, anyway. "Yeah. Very shiny and green. Looks like the Reavers are giving them a good workin' over, tho'."

"So... we're just sittin' here 'til everyone's done shootin'?"

"Yep."

"Then we're leavin'."

"After we get the Shepherd, yeah."

Jayne gave up on the conflict outside. He looked hard at Mal for several seconds. Mal was aware of it, but chose not to respond until Jayne spoke. "If Reavers go down there, we don't want to pick up whatever they leave behind. Anyone knows that."

"Still gotta check."

Jayne looked away from him, his lips compressed in anger. This bizarre lack of pragmatism in someone he generally considered reasonably good at crime was deeply and frequently troubling. It lowered profits and raised extra risks, both of which he avoided whenever possible. Still, Mal had managed to swing a ship of his own with this strange approach to life, so Jayne allowed that he might have some kind of insight lacking in himself. This allowance stretched very thin indeed where Reavers were involved.

He had another look at the distant battle. Three red streaks appeared on the face of the planet, running parallel, then curving toward a point of convergence, not far into nightside. He pointed, nudging Mal as he did so. "There. No point goin' back 'less we're looking for tips on cookin' priests."

Amber seemed to not have noticed the passage of the fireball. As Book's eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make her out on the stairs, head hanging. The bottle was still in her left hand. He took a careful step toward her, nothing more than changing his balance. He was pretty sure he could talk her around, but wanted to close the distance somewhat in case swift action were called for.

"Sometimes I think Hell is just like here," Amber said. Book wasn't sure if she'd looked up or not.

"Hell is like... life?"

"No. Like Ebenezer." She definitely looked up, now. "I ain't got any real learnin', father, but I ain't dumb. I hear about life out in The Core, and I see some of the folk that get sent here by the govmint, and I do some thinking. Something I got plenty of time for, here.

"I think about the future. About what I'm goin' to do with the rest of my life. You know what I 'spect I'm going to do with the rest of my life?"

"I can't imagine." He shifted his weight again, tilting himself slightly in her direction. Just being an attentive listener.

"The same thing I done since I was ten. Chores. Cookin'. Cleanin'. Makin' clothes. That's all there is here. Maybe if there was a school, there might be some chance, but that's all there is. For anyone."

Book's head tilted slightly. "And that's why you're thinking of taking this... drastic measure?"

"I can't get it out of my head, Father. I keep thinking, there's only two differences between people and cows on Ebenezer: cows don't know what 'boring' means, and eventually the cobbler needs some leather so they don't have to wait so long to finish up. I didn't choose this way, and I sure don't mean to force it on anyone."

He turned his body to face her more directly, only coincidentally inching closer. "Have you ever heard of the Buddhist notion that a child's spirit chooses it's parents?"

Her response was lost in an almighty roar. Dust sifted down from the ceiling, and Book felt a tiny clump of roots fall on his head. How long, he wondered, has this burrow been here, unmaintained? He stepped closer to the wall. He had spent enough time in ports to recognise the noise of something big moving faster than sound. This one was far too low, and that was never good. He looked out the window again. There were two... no, three contrails looping under the moonlight. The visitors had arrived.

Impregnable has stopped shaking, and the damage control Chief reported that there was nothing in any real danger of coming loose. "Only about forty dead in the affected compartments," he'd said, and Han had to remind himself that that man, another lifer, had also seen combat previously. 'Only' about forty of his crew, smashed to vapour or blasted out into the void by suddenly traitorous air pressure, watching the ship grow distant in the moments before the fluid in their eyes boiled....

At least the guns had stopped the other rocks. He allowed himself a shudder at the thought of the damage three or four such impacts might have done. He looked at Black, whose left hand was pressed over his eye-- a reminder that there were more injured than dead aboard his ship. Black had thus far denied any corpsman's attentions, dismissing the gouge in his forehead from suddenly striking the console as a mere scratch. "Warrant Black, update time estimate."

"We can launch missiles in three minutes, guns in range in four-thirty."

"Very good. Cut all the fighters loose. Ask Major Hopper to get his troopers loaded up and ready for drop in ten minutes." The troops would go straight to the Facility, of course. They'd run the intruders off the planet, hunt them down as thoroughly as possible here in space, but only to make sure the Facility was safe. The locals would have to fend for themselves until the sweep teams passed through town.